CROMWELL, Henry (1628-74), of the Cockpit, Whitehall.

Henry Cromwell, the younger son of the future lord protector, Oliver Cromwell, was born in Huntingdon in January 1628, two and a half years after the birth of his namesake and kinsman Henry Cromwell alias Williams*. Little is known of his early life, although he no doubt went with the family on its moves from Huntingdon to St Ives and then to Ely in Cambridgeshire, and it is possible he joined his elder brothers at Felsted School in Essex.20Henry Cromwell Corresp. 10. In Easter 1644 he was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge.21Al. Cant. In the summer of 1647 Cromwell, at the age of 19, was commissioned as captain of horse in the regiment of Thomas Harrison I, and his troop went on to play an important part in the Preston campaign in the summer of 1648.22HMC Portland, i. 488; Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 82, 93; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 10. In December of the same year Cromwell accompanied his father to the army council at Whitehall, and was promoted to major of horse in the new year of 1649.23Clarke Ppprs. ii. 272; Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 93, 106. On 19 November 1649 the council of state ordered that Cromwell take command of a new horse regiment to be formed from troops from the regiments of Harrison, John Okey* and Francis Hacker*, to be sent to reinforce the expeditionary force in Ireland.24CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 544. Cromwell’s regiment crossed to Ireland in March 1650, and was immediately deployed in the southern province of Munster, where he fought alongside John Reynolds* and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) – both of whom would have a great influence over his later political career. Cromwell was in Ireland for less than two years, as he probably returned to England for Henry Ireton’s* funeral in February 1652.25Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. ii. 590. In the following April he was staying at his father’s lodgings in the Cockpit, Whitehall.26CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 209. Despite the brevity of his service, by 1653 he had acquired a reputation for expertise in Irish affairs. In May 1653, for example, he was approached by Viscount Conway, who hoped he might influence Oliver Cromwell in salvaging his Irish estates from sequestration.27CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 309, 324, 420. Conway’s view was shared by the council of state, and in June 1653 Cromwell was chosen as one of the six MPs to represent Ireland in the Nominated Assembly.

In the House, Irish affairs dominated Henry Cromwell’s activities. He was twice named to the committee of Irish affairs (on 9 and 20 July), and on 3 September reported the committee’s advice that customs duties should be removed to encourage further plantation under the adventurers’ act.28CJ vii. 283b, 286b, 313a. Five days later he joined another Irish MP, Sir Robert King, as teller in favour of lifting customs on exports to Ireland for three years – a vote won by a comfortable margin.29CJ vii. 315b. Cromwell also protected the adventurers against claims which would reduce the amount of land available for compensation. On 22 September he again joined King as teller against allowing the city of Gloucester £10,000 in Irish land as compensation for their suffering in the first civil war; and on 24 September he was teller with Colonel John Clerke II against making the adventurers pay for the resettlement of Irish refugees.30CJ vii. 323a-b. In November 1653 Cromwell’s focus shifted from Parliament to the council of state. On 1 November he was appointed teller for the election of the new council, and on the same day he was himself chosen to sit, with 60 votes.31CJ vii. 344a-b. He took the oath on 3 November, and on 8 November was appointed (with his father) to be a member (and chairman) of the Irish and Scottish committee.32CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 230, 237. In this position Cromwell was able to intervene in the Commons with greater authority, indicating the council’s reservations about the Galway articles of the previous year, and supporting the petition for compensation delivered by another Irish officer, Sir Theophilus Jones*.33CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 254; CJ vii. 359a. By this time, Cromwell’s reputation as ‘a good friend’ to Ireland had spread across the Irish Sea, and there were hopes in Old Protestant circles that he would advance individual suits as well as matters of common concern.34HMC Egmont, i. 527, 534. With the foundation of the protectorate in December, Cromwell lost his position as councillor, and his direct influence over Irish affairs, but this was more than offset by his importance as son of the new lord protector.

In February 1654 Henry Cromwell was sent back to Ireland as his father’s agent, to examine the state of the country and to test the allegiance of the army under the newly-installed lord deputy (and Cromwell’s brother-in-law) Charles Fleetwood*.35CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 579; Ludlow, Mems. i. 380; Clarke Pprs. v. 157. On 8 March Cromwell sent a detailed report to Secretary John Thurloe*, revealing the strength of the Baptists within the army, and their opposition to the protectoral regime: ‘if they had been inclinable to have made disturbance, they had sufficient encouragement from those in chief places here, who have managed business of late with much peevishness and frowardness’. To eliminate any doubt as to his meaning, Cromwell went on to blame the parliamentary commissioners, and Edmund Ludlowe II* and John Jones* in particular.36TSP ii. 149. In place of the Baptists, Cromwell urged Thurloe to settle the government and promote ‘sober men’ – including the Old Protestants discouraged by the current regime. Another of Thurloe’s correspondents described the warmth of Cromwell’s reception among the civilians in Dublin, pleased at signs ‘that religion, ministry, laws, men’s proprieties, are owned and protected’.37TSP ii. 149, 163. The hopes of the Old Protestants had been raised by rumours that Cromwell would stay in Ireland and take over the government from Fleetwood.

The departure of ‘the gentleman from whom so much was expected’ in early April was a great disappointment.38HMC Egmont, i. 539. But from the English government’s point of view, Cromwell’s mission was a success, not only because it encouraged Old Protestant demonstrations of loyalty, but also because it prompted the majority of the army officers to sign a petition swearing their ‘approbation of the present government, that thereby the scandal which lay on some regiments, as they were unsatisfied, might be taken off’.39Mercurius Politicus no. 203 (27 Apr.-4 May 1654), p. 3454. From a personal point of view, the Irish visit had helped Cromwell to increase his own standing as a leading figure in Irish affairs. During June and July 1654 he was courted by a number of Old Protestants in England, including Arthur Annesley*, Sir John Clotworthy* and John Percivalle. Cromwell refused to become involved in private petitions, however, and confided only in his old comrade, Lord Broghill.40HMC Egmont, i. 543, 545-6, 550-1. The reason soon became plain. As John Percivalle put it ‘the great reason was because all that time there were intentions of inviting the Lord Harry to accept of the command of the forces in Ireland’.41HMC Egmont, i. 553. Such machinations bore fruit in late August, when Cromwell was appointed major-general of the Irish army and a member of the Irish council.42CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 313, 321, 328.

In the elections for the first protectorate Parliament, which took place in July 1654, Henry Cromwell was returned for Cambridge University. He probably owed his seat to a combination of factors: his father’s high office, his family’s long-standing connection with the town and university, and the local connections which came with his marriage, the year before, to Elizabeth, daughter of the influential Cambridgeshire landowner, Sir Francis Russell.43Hunts. RO, MS 731/29A-B. In Parliament, Cromwell was once again appointed to the committee for Irish affairs, and supported moves to allow former Irish royalists to vote in elections, but the bulk of his work was in support of his father’s regime.44CJ vii. 371b, 390b. In September he was named to committees on the administration of justice, the ejection of scandalous ministers, and to consider the size of the armed forces.45CJ vii. 368a, 370a, 370b. In the debates on the Government Bill he was named to committees to settle the revenue and regulate the army, and was appointed commissioner for Westminster, but in mid-January 1655 he voted against measures which seemed to encroach on the protector’s powers (acting as teller with Broghill against a motion to give Parliament the right to decide the way in which bills were to be presented to the protector) and he opposed attempts to extend the franchise.46CJ vii. 406b, 415b, 420a, 420b. In this Parliament Cromwell’s freedom to manoeuvre may have been restricted by his position as the protector’s son, and by the activities of those in Ireland who saw him as a replacement for the unpopular Fleetwood as lord deputy. In October 1654 Broghill and ‘other Irish gentlemen’ attended the English council to lobby for Cromwell’s speedy dispatch as major-general; in November 1654 Fleetwood complained that policy matters, such as the reform of the legal system, and the re-introduction of tithes were being decided behind his back, in England; and in December there were moves among the Old Protestants in Ulster and Munster to call for Fleetwood’s replacement.47CSP Dom. 1654, p. 382; TSP ii. 733; iii. 29, 70; Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 17 Feb. 1655. Matters came to a head in January, with the publication of Vincent Gookin’s* The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed, which attacked the religious radicals and the army, and was seen as a direct assault on Fleetwood.48[V. Gookin], The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed (1655, E.234.6). There was little doubt who the Old Protestants would prefer to be in charge of Ireland.

The Old Protestants did not have long to wait. In February 1655 the council granted Henry Cromwell £500 for his expenses in moving to Ireland to take up his post as major-general, and after abortive attempts in April and May, he eventually took ship for Dublin in July 1655.49CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 57, 456, 486, 506. His reception in Dublin was ecstatic, with 500 horsemen and the Dublin aldermen in their ‘formalities’ greeting him at Ringsend, and ‘loud music upon the walls’ as he entered the city itself.50Mercurius Politicus no. 262 (14-21 July 1655), 5419-20; no. 267 (19-26 July 1655), 5485-6. A month later he was entertained with similar ceremony at Dublin University, on becoming its chancellor.51Seymour, Puritans in Ire. 115. Fleetwood returned to England shortly afterwards, but, in a typically Cromwellian fudge, he was allowed to keep his position as lord deputy.52TSP iii. 572. Although relations between the two men appeared cordial on the surface, they soon disagreed over policy issues, with Fleetwood using his position as lord deputy, his influence on the council’s Irish committee and his contacts with malcontents within the Irish army (including John Hewson* and Jerome Sankey*) to make life difficult for his brother-in-law. This was more than merely a clash of personality. As expected, Henry Cromwell brought in very different policies from those advocated by Fleetwood. He was intent on the reduction of the army, in influence as well as size, and the suppression of the Baptists and other religious radicals, who had been encouraged by Fleetwood. Instead, there were efforts to make the government more inclusive – rehabilitating former royalists (including the 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*), Viscount Conway, and even the marchioness of Ormond), re-establishing old forms in the law courts and the administration, and allowing Presbyterian ministers to enjoy the same rights as their Independent counterparts.53Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, passim; Oxford DNB.

Henry Cromwell’s policy of ‘settlement’ was very similar to the moderate, civilian policies advocated by Lord Broghill as president of Scotland from the autumn of 1655, and it is likely that the two men were co-ordinating their efforts, perhaps with the ultimate aim of changing policy, and power-structures, in England.54P. Little, Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ire. and Scot. (Woodbridge, 2004), 121-3. There are signs of informal co-operation between them. In particular, Cromwell remained in close contact with Broghill’s brother, the earl of Cork. Cork’s diary reveals the friendship which continued to flourish between the two families: in August 1655 Cork was told ‘by my Lord Harry’ that ‘Broghill had particularly recommended me to his care’ and that ‘I should find him my real friend upon all occasions’; and a year later Cromwell gave him ‘a faithful promise not to give credit to any information against me until he had first acquainted me with it and heard me’.55Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 6, 10 Aug., 28-9 Sept. 1655, 23-5 Sept. 1656. The other important figure in helping to coordinate Irish and Scottish policy was Secretary Thurloe, who kept in close contact with both Cromwell and Broghill, and passed messages from one to the other. The success of their parallel policies provoked similar reactions at Whitehall, where Fleetwood’s opposition to Irish reform was matched by the obtuseness of his friend, John Lambert*, when faced with policy changes in Scotland. The factional element became particularly difficult for Cromwell during 1656. Faced by the slanders of Hewson and his friends in London, in January 1656 Cromwell sent John Reynolds to intercede with the protector, and followed up this initiative with embassies by Anthony Morgan* and Dr Thomas Harrison.56TSP iv. 276, 343; Add. 43724, ff. 7, 13; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 105, 177. An appeal to the protector was met with the unhelpful advice ‘to take heed of being over-jealous’, and Cromwell’s agents were obstructed by the council at Whitehall, with Fleetwood and Lambert apparently being the chief culprits.57Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 146; J. Halcomb and P. Little, ‘Letters from Oliver Cromwell to Henry Cromwell’, Cromwelliana, ser. 3, iii. 67-9, 74; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 177, 179. Faced with yet more ‘false, scandalous reproaches’, in July 1656 Cromwell threatened to resign, complaining to Thurloe that men like Sankey were ‘more privy to your secret management of affairs than myself’.58TSP v. 65, 177, 273.

The tension between Dublin and London became all the more obvious with the calling of the second protectorate Parliament in July 1656. The Irish elections, held during August, were surprisingly orderly. Despite Cromwell’s initial reports of ‘much belabouring by some here to get into the next Parliament’, in general his opponents within the army seem to have stayed away.59TSP v. 278. Fleetwood made sure Hewson and Sankey were elected for English constituencies, and only two radical officers were returned across the 30 Irish seats.60Daniel Abbott and Thomas Sadleir. An element of management can be seen in the remaining 28, with Cromwell supporting existing patrons – notably Sir Charles Coote* in Connaught, the Boyles in Munster and Sir Hardress Waller* in Limerick. The result was a virtual monopoly by MPs favourable to the Cromwellian regime, with the return of a number of MPs who would act as Cromwell’s agents in the commons: William Aston, John Bridges, Anthony Morgan, Henry Owen and Sir John Reynolds. The smoothness of the elections was balanced by the furious haggling which followed them. On 9 September, it was announced that the protector had decided to keep certain senior officers in Ireland for security reasons, and (presumably on the council’s advice) ‘he named in particular Colonel [Thomas] Cooper and Sir John Reynolds’ – both of whom were favourable to Henry Cromwell.61TSP v. 398-9. In early October Cromwell learned with incredulity that three Old Protestants, John Bysse, Richard Tighe and Tristram Beresford, had been excluded by the protectoral council.62TSP v. 477. In all five cases, Cromwell managed to have the decision reversed, but the process delayed the attendance of these Members at Westminster. A sixth case, that of Sir Paul Davies* (returned in a by-election in early 1657), was never resolved, despite Cromwell’s direct intervention on his behalf, and there were rumours in London that ‘he shall be hurt to wound you’.63Henry Cromwell Corresp. 238. The return of Members underlined the strength of Cromwell’s position in Ireland and also his weakness in the face of concerted opposition to his policies at Whitehall.

Henry Cromwell’s absence from the 1656-8 Parliament did not prevent him from becoming involved in politics at Westminster. His regular correspondents throughout the first sitting (Sept. 1656-June 1657) included Sir John Reynolds, John Bridges, Anthony Morgan and the co. Cork MP, William Jephson.64Henry Cromwell Corresp. 186-7, 203-7. Reynolds seems to have been the main manager of Irish domestic legislation, working in conjunction with William Aston, and after his departure for France in April, Morgan was in charge of pushing through Irish bills, including those for the union of Ireland with England and for the attainder of Irish rebels.65Henry Cromwell Corresp. 206-7, 289. Morgan also shepherded through the controversial grant of 6,000 acres in Connaught to Cromwell, which was passed in June 1657.66Burton’s Diary, i. 259-60; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 258-9, 280-1; CJ vii. 476a. By this stage, domestic business had been severely disrupted by the great political disputes which arose during this Parliament – including the row over the new constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice. Cromwell was intimately concerned with the proposed constitutional changes, partly because the establishment of settled, civilian government across the three nations would strengthen his position in Ireland, but also because of the personal promotion which he might expect at the crowning of his father. Henry’s father-in-law, the excitable Sir Francis Russell, revealed his hopes in a letter of 27 April, addressed to ‘your lordship’ for the last time ‘for my next is likely to be to the duke of York’.67Henry Cromwell Corresp. 264. In the face of such enthusiasm, Cromwell was content to be guided by more sober politicians, especially Secretary Thurloe and Lord Broghill. In December 1656 he asked Thurloe to send him a new cipher ‘so that I may the better know how to do my part here in the main work’; and in the spring of 1657 he promised to follow Broghill’s lead: ‘my lord, I must and will steer your course’.68TSP v. 710; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 275. He also met the earl of Cork in Dublin, who ‘had with him much discourse in private about Lord Broghill’.69Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 11, 15 Nov., 2 Dec. 1656; 16 Apr. 1657.

Yet, although Thurloe and Broghill were united in their support for the Humble Petition, their attitude to the offer of the crown differed considerably. For Broghill, the crowning of King Oliver was essential, as only this would make ‘settlement’ permanent, and establish a constitutional system based on strong precedents. Thurloe, by contrast, was prepared to accept a strengthened protectorate without the royal title. Henry Cromwell’s own attitude to the kingship debates can be gleaned from his correspondence with both men. He told Thurloe that his main concern, having perused the detail of the Humble Petition, was the clause requiring the protector to accept the whole package at once, rather than piecemeal, for it was necessary to find a way ‘to preserve the whole structure, in case some pin of it should happen to be removed’. Division over ‘a title, a very word’ would destroy the whole programme, and leave ‘the opposite party … much more exalted than before’.70TSP vi. 183. This attitude influenced Cromwell’s response to the protector’s rejection of the crown in May 1657. He did not share the sense of despair which overcame Broghill, and in his letters reiterated that it was far more important to pass the main heads of the Humble Petition than to insist on the title of king, for ‘remember that tis not names or words that govern the world, but things’.71Henry Cromwell Corresp. 266-7, 275. Cromwell’s hope of increased personal power did not turn his head; instead he insisted that the rejection of the crown was a minor set-back. As he told Thurloe on 3 June, ‘I confess, I like gradual proceedings best, and this the better, because it seems such … I am contented that the furnishing of our settlement be … deferred, till a competent trial hath been made of the present way’ and then ‘at last return to that very form, which was of old’.72TSP vi. 330. In his acceptance of the revised constitution, but his continued hope for an eventual return to the ‘old’ monarchical form, Cromwell seems to have taken a position between those of his closest advisers, Thurloe and Broghill.

Henry Cromwell’s patience was sorely tried over the months following the adjournment of June 1657. There were certain important gains – most importantly, Lambert was dismissed from the council and stripped of his commands – but the protector proved remarkably reluctant to weed out the army interest from the council. Fleetwood and his side-kick John Disbrowe* were as much in evidence as ever; and they were able to deploy their delaying tactics once again.73Henry Cromwell Corresp. 298. In September Fleetwood promised that key areas – increased money (to allow for a new reduction of the army), new councillors, and the appointment of Cromwell to succeed him as lord deputy – were being dealt with, but there was little real progress.74Henry Cromwell Corresp. 319, 331-2; TSP vi. 526. In early October Cromwell told Thurloe of his concern that the ‘model both of the reducement and also the establishment’ was far from ‘what I always thought both cheapest and safest’.75Henry Cromwell Corresp. 324. But when he ventured to complain to the protector about the actions of his ‘enemies’, he earned a stinging rebuke: ‘I am persuaded if you think your Brother Fleetwood to be so, you are mistaken. It were dangerous for you to think so and he not be so’.76Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iv. 646; Halcomb and Little, ‘Letters from Oliver Cromwell to Henry Cromwell’, 71, 76-7. The protector seems to have softened his stance by the beginning of November, and in mid-November Cromwell was finally established as chief governor of Ireland.77TSP vi. 599, 600, 622.

Having secured the deputyship, Henry Cromwell was still hampered by a number of factors, including the growing disillusion of Broghill, the periodic illnesses of Thurloe, and the death of Sir John Reynolds, who drowned in the English Channel in November 1657. Worse still, there was continued interference with Irish policy at Whitehall, and the desperately-needed money was still not forthcoming: as Cromwell told Broghill on 1 December ‘my commission is a shadow without money’.78TSP vi. 661 A week later he complained ‘your lordship sees how they begin to play their after-game, by putting me to reduce [the army] in an absurd and dangerous way, and withal to do it without money’.79TSP vi. 665. In the short-lived parliamentary sitting of January and February 1658, the Irish MPs were encouraged to return in force, and Cromwell relied on Morgan and Thomas Cooper II as his agents in the Commons, and liaised with the earl of Cork in Dublin ‘about Broghill and the proceedings of the House of Commons’; but no progress was made, and the protector soon brought the turbulent assembly to a premature end.80TSP v. 730, 734; Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 19, 26, 31 Jan. 1658. In the spring and summer of 1658 Cromwell found himself increasingly isolated at court, as Fleetwood and Disbrowe consolidated their position, and Broghill repeatedly threatened to resign. On 10 March Cromwell was worried at reports of a renewed ‘intimacy’ between Fleetwood, Disbrowe and the disgraced Lambert; and in May he was convinced that the delay in calling a new Parliament was caused by ‘the unripeness of the design of Disbrowe and Fleetwood’.81TSP vi. 857; vii. 146. Such developments, and the final collapse of his efforts to make peace between the religious groups in Ireland, undermined Cromwell’s achievements in other areas.

The death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658 was a political, as well as a personal, disaster for his younger son. As Henry told Thurloe on receiving the news, ‘if no settlement be made in his lifetime, can we be secure from the lust of ambitious men?’82TSP vii. 376. At first it seemed that his fears were exaggerated. His elder brother, Richard, was proclaimed protector without dispute, and was accepted with apparent enthusiasm in Ireland. One of Richard’s first tasks was to promote Henry to the rank of lord lieutenant: the senior title last enjoyed by their father before 1652. Yet, once again, trouble soon erupted in England. In late October 1658 Cromwell received reports that the officers had met in London, and that ‘dirt was thrown upon his late highness at that great meeting’. Furious, he immediately wrote to Fleetwood, and, in a departure from the usual civil exchanges between the two men, lectured him on loyalty: ‘It doth not become the magistrate to descend into parties, but can the things you do tend to this end? … truly brother you must pardon me if I say God and man may require this duty at your hand, and lay all miscarriages in the army in point of discipline at your door’.83TSP vii. 454-5. Such open divisions added further urgency to the management of the elections for the third protectorate Parliament, due to meet in January 1659. The ranks of the Irish MPs had already been thinned by a number of factors: Sir John Reynolds, William Jephson and Sir Robert King had all died in 1657-8; and Broghill was now a member of the Other House, which awaited recognition by the Commons before it could take part in legislation. In response to such problems, Cromwell worked with George Monck* in Scotland, in an attempt to find seats for friends of the government, and Monck’s brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges*, wrote to Cromwell with suggestions for ‘five or six good argumentative speakers’ for Irish seats.84TSP vii. 553, 572. All this energy created tensions of its own. Unlike 1656, when there was very little dispute, in 1659 there was confusion, and disagreement within the Old Protestant community. In co. Cork, Broghill was angered by Vincent Gookin’s attempt to intrude his own candidates into a traditional Boyle area, using Cromwell’s name to gain credence from the locals; and in Connaught, Thomas Waller* was returned only through pressure from Broghill and Sir John King.85T.C. Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork elections of 1659’, EHR lxxxviii. 359-65; TSP vii. 593.

The management of the elections, and the ensuing disputes, kept Henry Cromwell in Ireland when his instinct was to attempt to use his influence to settle matters in London. In October 1658 Sir Francis Russell lobbied for Cromwell’s return, and reported that Richard was keen (‘the sooner you came into England it would be the better’) and even Fleetwood admitted that his presence might help to heal the ‘jealousies’ between them. There were, however, those on the council – and Russell singled out Disbrowe – who were ‘against your coming over’.86Henry Cromwell Corresp. 413-4. With the onset of elections, the situation changed, without factional intervention; and his plans to travel to England were indefinitely postponed.87HMC Egmont, i. 600-1; Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 21 Nov. 1658. When Parliament opened on 27 January 1659, Cromwell was absent, as was Broghill, who had been kept in Ireland by his own electoral problems and by one of his regular attacks of gout. Even Cromwell’s correspondents in Parliament were less reliable than in 1656. Apart from Morgan and Francis Aungier, Cromwell’s main sources of intelligence were the two-faced Jerome Sankey and the closet-royalist, Arthur Annesley* – both of whom were preparing to abandon the protectorate.88Henry Cromwell Corresp. 452-5, 458-9, 469-72. Annesley showed his true face in the debates of late March, when he opposed the right of Irish MPs to sit despite their importance as supporters of the government.89P. Little, ‘The First Unionists? Irish Protestant attitudes to Union with England, 1653-1659’, Irish Hist. Studies xxxii. 54-7. There were also direct attacks on Henry Cromwell’s rule in Ireland. In March the case of Lill, a court-martialled officer, was used to question Cromwell’s role in the administration of justice.90Henry Cromwell Corresp. 482-3. In April Sankey dropped his pretence and launched an attack on the surveyor-general, Dr William Petty*, and the handling of the land settlement, with the intention of damaging Cromwell politically.91TSP vii. 635-6, 639; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 484-5. With the establishment of a committee of Irish affairs on 1 April, there were some moves to draft Irish bills, and Dudley Loftus, working with Cromwell, drew up legislation to confirm tithes, reform of the probate laws, and introduce another Irish union bill.92Henry Cromwell Corresp. 502. All these measures were destroyed by the dissolution of Parliament, in the face of military hostility, on 22 April.

The news of the closure of the Parliament, and of moves to end the protectorate, reached Cromwell in early May, with the return to Ireland of Broghill, Sir Henry Ingoldsby* and Sir Charles Coote.93Ludlow, Mems. ii. 71. There was a period of uncertainty, when the possibility of resistance was considered, but this was soon replaced by a mood of reluctant acquiescence.94CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 346-7. Cromwell’s attitude to events is hard to gauge. Before the crisis of April and May, he had told Thurloe ‘that any extreme is more tolerable than returning to Charles Stuart. Other disasters are temporary, and may be mended’; and his actions suggest that this remained his opinion in later months.95TSP vii. 635 On 23 May he wrote to Richard asking for further instructions; and in early June he sent Petty to Fleetwood ‘to know more particularly what you would have me do’.96TSP vii. 674, 684-5. By this time, the restored Rump Parliament and the new council of state had already discussed Cromwell’s fate, and on 7 June he was formally dismissed, and the government of Ireland put into the hands of parliamentary commissioners.97CJ vii. 663b, 674a. On 15 June Cromwell replied to the Speaker, agreeing to resign his offices and to return to England.98TSP vii. 683-4. He arrived at Chester on 29 June, and attended Parliament on 4 July, when he was given liberty ‘to retire himself into the country, whither he shall think fit, upon his own occasions’.99CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 26; CJ vii. 705a.

Henry Cromwell took no part in the politics of the Restoration period, but his family background automatically made him a controversial figure. In fact, he was let off lightly. This was partly through the good offices of friends. He was told in early June 1660 that ‘the highest of the opposites stand amazed and profess they cannot hear on their strictest enquiry anything suggested by any person against you’; that Broghill, Sir Paul Davies, Arthur Hill* and other Old Protestants were still his friends; and even the duke of Ormond was sympathetic (although ‘it is thought better that his lady should break the ice to the king’).100Hunts. RO, MS 731/145. This leniency reflects not only Cromwell’s innocence of the regicide and other revolutionary acts, but also the risk that prosecution would implicate his former associates, who were now keen to re-invent themselves as closet royalists. Cromwell was thus treated with polite caution by former friends. On 9 June 1660, when George Monck wrote to him at the Russell family home at Chippenham, he managed only a curt note advising that ‘as to your coming up [to London] I think it will not be yet convenient, but when it is seasonable I shall acquaint you with it’.101Hunts. RO, MS 731/75. Cromwell’s letter to Broghill, probably written in the same period, reveals that their once close relationship was now strained. In it, he denied charges that he had spread rumours that ‘your lordship dissuaded me from declaring for his majesty’ in the months before the Restoration, but his insistence on their shared culpability in remaining inactive during the army coup in May 1659 was too true to be comfortable for Broghill – who had spent the weeks since the Restoration protesting his loyalty to the crown.102Hunts. RO, MS 731/77.

Political delicacy may also explain Cromwell’s inclusion in the Irish land settlement, which confirmed many of the nefarious land gains of the 1650s. Cromwell’s petition for the confirmation of his lands was presented to the king in February 1661.103CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 519. Far from refusing his request, in October 1662 the king decreed that he should be treated no differently from any other soldier claiming his arrears; and in April 1662 he was confirmed in his lands in Meath and Connaught, possibly through the influence of Ormond.104CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 72; Hunts. RO, MS 731/150; Cromwellian Settlement of Ire. ed. J.P. Prendergast (1865), 56-7. The Welsh lands were returned to the marquess of Worcester, but Cromwell retained family estates at Spinney Abbey and Wicken in Cambridgeshire. At first, he was confined to his estates, but gradually he was allowed to move further afield. He went to London in February 1665, and in October of the same year he was licensed to go to Newmarket and Chippenham to visit his relatives.105Hunts. RO, MS 731/151-2. When he came to make his will in September 1673, Cromwell was still living in retirement. On his death in 1674, at the age of 46, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Oliver Cromwell.106Hunts. RO, MS 731/36.