This Elizabeth Steward, who had now become Mrs. Robert Cromwell, was, say the genealogists, indubitably descended from the Royal Stewart Family of Scotland;' and could still count kindred with them. From one Walter Steward, who had accompanied Prince James of Scotland,' when our inhospitable politic Henry IV. detained the poor Prince, driven in by stress of weather to him here. Walter did not return with the Prince to Scotland; having fought tournaments,'-having made an advantageous marriage-settlement here. One of his descendants, Robert Steward, happened to be Prior of Ely when Henry VIII. dissolved the monasteries; and, proving pliant on that occasion, Robert Steward, last Popish Prior, became the first Protestant Dean of Ely, and—'was remarkably attentive to his family,' says Noble. The profitable Farming of the Tithes at Ely, above mentioned; this, and other settlements, and good dotations of Church lands among his Nephews, were the fruits of Robert Steward's pliancy on that occasion. The genealogists say, there is no doubt of this pedigree ;-and explain in intricate tables, how Elizabeth Steward, Mother of Oliver Cromwell, was indubitably either the ninth, or the tenth, or some other fractional part of half a cousin to Charles Stuart King of England. 1. First child (seemingly), Joan, baptized 24th September, 1592; she died in 1600 (Noble, i., 88). 2. Elizabeth, 14th October, 1593; died unmarried, thinks Noble, in 1672, at Ely. 3. Henry, 31st August, 1595; died young, 'before 1617.' 4. Catherine, 7th February, 1596-7; married to Whitstone, a Parliamentary Officer; then to Colonel Jones. 5. OLIVER, born 25th April, 1599. 6. Margaret, 22d February, 1600-1; she became Mrs. Wauton, or Walton, Huntingdonshire; her son was killed at Marston Moor,-as we shall see. 7. Anna, 2d January, 1602-3; Mrs. Sewster, Huntingdonshire; died 1st November, 1646 :-her Brother Oliver had just ended the first Civil War' then. 8. Jane, 19th January, 1605-6; Mrs. Disbrowe, Cambridgeshire; died, seemingly, in 1656. 9. Robert, 18th January, 1608-9; died same April. 10. Robina, so named for the above Robert: uncertain date: became Mrs. Dr. French: then Mrs. Bishop Wilkins: her daughter by French, her one child, was married to Archbishop Tillotson. Howsoever related to Charles Stuart or to other parties, Robert Cromwell, younger son of the Knight of Hinchinbrook, brought her home, we see, as his Wife, to Huntingdon, about 1591; and settled with her there, on such portion, with such prospects as a cadet of the House of Hinchinbrook might have. Portion consisting of certain lands and messuages round and in that Town of Huntingdon,-where, in the current name 'Cromwell's Acre,' if not in other names applied to lands and messuages there, some feeble echo of him and his possessions still survives, or seems to survive. These lands he himself farmed; the income in all is guessed or computed to have been about 300Z. a year; a tolerable fortune in those times; perhaps something like 10007. now. Robert Cromwell's Father, as we said, and then his elder Brother, dwelt successively in good style at Hinchinbrook near by. It was the Father Sir Henry Cromwell, who from his sumptuosity was called the Golden Knight,' that built, or that enlarged, remodelled and as good as built, the Mansion of Hinchinbrook, which had been a Nunnery, while Nunneries still were: it was the son, Sir Oliver, likewise an expensive man, that sold it to the Montagues, since Earls of Sandwich, whose seat it still is. A stately pleasant House, among its shady lawns and expanses, on the left bank of the Ouse river, a short half mile west of Huntingdon ;--still stands pretty much as Oliver Cromwell's Grandfather left it; rather kept good and defended from the inroads of Time and Accident, than substantially altered. Several Portraits of the Cromwells, and other interesting portraits and memorials of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries, are still there. The Cromwell blazonry on the great bay window,' which Noble makes so much of, is now gone; has given place to Montague blazonry; and no dull man can bore us with that any more. Huntingdon itself lies pleasantly along the left bank of the Ouse; sloping pleasantly upwards from Ouse Bridge, which connects it with the old village of Godmanchester; the Town itself consisting mainly of one fair street, which towards the north end of it opens into a kind of irregular market-place, and then contracting again soon terminates. The two churches of All-Saints, and St. John's, as you walk up northward from the Bridge, ap pear successively on your left; the churchyards flanked with shops or other houses. The Ouse, which is of very circular course in this quarter, 'winding as if reluctant to enter the Fencountry,' says one Topographer, has still a respectable drabcolor, gathered from the clays of Bedfordshire; has not yet the Stygian black which in a few miles farther it assumes for good. Huntingdon, as it were, looks over into the Fens; Godmanchester, just across the river, already stands on black bog. The country to the East is all Fen (mostly unreclaimed in Oliver's time, and still of a very dropsical character); to the West it is hard green ground, agreeably broken into little heights, duly fringed with wood, and bearing marks of comfortable long-continued cultivation. Here on the edge of the firm green land, and looking over into the black marshes with their alder-trees and willow-trees, did Oliver Cromwell pass his young years. Drunken Barnabee, who travelled, and drank, and made Latin rhymes, in that country about 1635, through whose glistening satyr-eyes one can still discern this and the other feature of the Past, represents to us, on the height behind Godmanchester, as you approach the scene from Cambridge and the south, a big Oak Tree, which has now disappeared, leaving no notable successor. Veni Godmanchester, ubi And he adds in a Note, Quercus anilis erat, tamen eminus oppida spectat ; Or in his own English version, An aged Oak takes of this Town survey, Finds birds their nests, tells passengers their way.* If Oliver Cromwell climbed that Oak-tree, in quest of bird-nests or boy-adventures, the Tree, or this poor ghost of it, may still have a kind of claim to memory. • Barnabæ Itinerarium (London, 1818), p. 96. The House where Robert Cromwell dwelt, where his son Oliver and all his family were born, is still familiar to every inhabitant of Huntingdon: but it has been twice rebuilt since that date, and now bears no memorial whatever which even tradition can connect with him. It stands at the upper or northern extremity of the town,-beyond the Market-place we spoke of; on the left or riverward side of the street. It is at present a solid yellow brick house, with a walled court-yard; occupied by some townsman of the wealthier sort. The little Brook of Hinchin, making its way to the Ouse which is not far off, still flows through the courtyard of the place, offering a convenience for malting or brewing, among other things. Some vague but confident tradition as to Brewing attaches itself to this locality; and traces of evidence, I understand, exist that before Robert Cromwell's time, it had been employed as a Brewery: but of this or even of Robert Cromwell's own brewing, there is, at such a distance, in such an element of distracted calumny, exaggeration and confusion, little or no certainty to be had. Tradition, the Rev. Dr. Lort's Manuscripts,' Carrion Heath, and such testimonies, are extremely insecure as guides! Thomas Harrison, for example, is always called 'the son of a Butcher;' which means only that his Father, as farmer or owner, had grazing-lands, down in Staffordshire, where from naturally enough proceeded cattle, fat cattle as the case might be,-well fatted, I hope. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex in Henry Eighth's time, is in like manner called always the son of a Blacksmith at Putney ;' and whoever figures to himself a man in black apron and hammer in hand, and tries to rhyme this with the rest of Thomas Cromwell's history, will find that here too he has got into an insolubility. The splenetic credulity and incredulity, the calumnious opacity, the exaggerative ill-nature, and general flunkeyism and stupidity of mankind,' says my author, are ever to be largely allowed for in such circumstances.' We will leave Robert Cromwell's brewing in a very unilluminated state. Uncontradicted Tradition and old printed Royalist Lampoons do call him a Brewer; the Brook of Hinchin, running through his premises, offered clear convenience for malting or brewing;—in regard to which, and also to his Wife's assiduous management of The essen the same, one is very willing to believe Tradition. tial trade of Robert Cromwell was that of managing those lands of his in the vicinity of Huntingdon the grain of them would have to be duly harvested, thrashed, brought to market; whether it was as corn or as malt it came to market, can remain indifferent to us. For the rest, as documents still testify, this Robert Cromwell did Burgh and Quarter-Session duties; was not slack but moderately active as a country-gentleman; sat once in Parliament in his younger years;* is found with his elder or other Brothers on various Public Commissions for Draining the Fens of that region, or more properly for inquiring into the possibility of such an operation; a thing much noised of then; which Robert Cromwell, among others, reported to be very feasible, very promising, but did not live to see accomplished, or even attempted. His social rank is sufficiently indicated;-and much flunkeyism, falsity, and other carrion ought to be buried! Better than all social rank, he is understood to have been a wise, devout, steadfast and worthy man, and to have lived a modest and manful life in his station there. 6 Besides the Knight of Hinchinbrook, he had other Brothers settled prosperously in the Fen regions, where this Cromwell Family had extensive possessions. One Brother Henry was seated at Upwood,' a fenny district near Ramsey Mere; one of his daughters came to be the wife, second wife, of Oliver St. John, the Shipmoney Lawyer, the political dark-lantern,' as men used to name him; of whom we shall hear farther. Another Brother 'was seated' at Biggin House between Ramsey and Upwood; a moated mansion, with ditch and painted paling round it. A third Brother was seated at-my informant knows not where ! In fact I had better, as before, subjoin the little smelted Note which has already done its duty, and let the reader make of that what he can. Of our Oliver's Aunts one was Mrs. Hampden of Great **35to Eliz.: Feb.-April, 1593 (Noble, i., 83; from Willis). OLIVER'S UNCLES. 1. Sir Oliver of Hinchinbrook: his eldest son John, born in 1589 (ten years older than our Oliver), went into the army, regiment in the Dutch service: this is the Colonel Colonel of an English |