CROMWELL, Thomas (1594-1654)

Cromwell’s father sold his estate in England in 1605 and moved his family to county Down, in Ireland. Cromwell himself was only 13 when his father died in 1607. His wardship was purchased for the nominal sum of £1 (Irish) by his mother, who also obtained his appointment as commander of the garrison of Lecale, in succession to his father, the funding for which formed the family’s principal source of income.21 CPR Ire. Jas I, 123. Sir Arthur Chichester, Ireland’s lord deputy, described the young Cromwell as ‘very towardly and of good hope’.22 SP63/222/147.

It was a condition of his wardship that Cromwell should study at Trinity College, Dublin. Although the matriculation registers do not survive, Cromwell clearly attended, as he gave a piece of plate to the college in October 1610. In December 1611 Cromwell was granted a licence to travel and, soon after, was admitted to the Angers riding academy, in western France, where he may have met George Villiers^*, subsequently 1st duke of Buckingham.23 R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 112. By September 1614 he was travelling in Italy, together with Sir William Cavendish^* (subsequently 2nd earl of Devonshire), where he certainly met the English ambassador to the republic, Sir Dudley Carleton^* (subsequently Viscount Dorchester), who described Cromwell as ‘a very civil and ingenious nobleman’.24 HMC Downshire, v. 120-1.

Cromwell returned to Ireland but, in November 1617, crossed over to England to kiss the king’s hand, accompanied by a letter of recommendation from the new lord deputy, Sir Oliver St John^* (subsequently Lord Tregoz), who described him as ‘very noble, and himself apt and likely to live to be a worthy servant to your Majesty’.25 Letters and State Pprs. During the Reign of King James the Sixth ed. J. Maidment, 310-11. This, and other assessments of Cromwell’s character already mentioned, appear to have been somewhat wide of the mark, as Arthur Wilson, secretary to Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, described Cromwell as ‘a heavy man’ with ‘a constitution that he could not settle his stomach till he had enough [drink] to overlay his head’.26 Desiderata Curiosa (1735) ed. F. Peck, ii. bk. 12, p. 13. Cromwell’s alcoholism explains why the mother of George Berkeley^*, 8th Lord Berkeley, was once urged to plead with her son to avoid Cromwell’s company for fear of being drawn into debt and ‘intemperancy’.27 L. Stone, Fam. and Fortune, 259-60. Excessive inebriation was not Cromwell’s only vice, however. Essex’s chaplain, Thomas Pestell, while describing Cromwell, in verses dedicated to him, as ‘right English, true hearted and good to my thinking’, also referred to ‘some talk of wenches’.28 Poems of Thomas Pestell ed. H. Buchan, 25. Cromwell himself, in letters to Edward Conway^*, 2nd Viscount Conway, written in the 1630s, described his sexual adventures with the women he found in the shops of Dublin.29 SP16/275/23; SP63/255/5.

In December 1617 John Chamberlain mistakenly predicted that Cromwell, who ‘hath never a foot of land in England’, would marry the widow of the Cornish gentleman Sir William Lower^‡.30 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 122. The following April Cromwell was employed to greet ambassadors from Russia but probably returned to Ireland soon after, being appointed to the Irish Privy Council in July 1618.31 Finetti Philoxenis (1656), 54. He returned to England in time to attend Anne of Denmark’s funeral the following May.32 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 601; J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, iii. 538. It was probably soon thereafter that Cromwell married the sole daughter and heiress of Robert Meverell of Throwley, a significant Staffordshire landowner who also owned property in Cheshire, Derbyshire and Wiltshire.33 SP23/178, pp. 121-3. The date of the wedding is unknown, but it had presumably taken place by February 1620, when Cromwell was added to the Staffordshire bench, and almost certainly by July of that year, by which date he had taken up residence at Throwley.

In 1620 Cromwell began to integrate himself into English aristocratic society in the north Midlands. On 12 Apr. he wrote to Sir George Manners^† (subsequently 7th earl of Rutland) from Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire, the seat of Robert Bertie^*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey), boasting of his success in winning a cup awarded by Willoughby for horseracing, and predicting that he would be taking the cup back to Staffordshire the following year.34 HMC Rutland, i. 456. His principal friend and ally in the nobility was the lord lieutenant of Staffordshire, the earl of Essex. Cromwell’s father had participated in the ill-fated rising of Essex’s father, Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, and in July 1620 it had been rumoured that Cromwell was planning to join the 3rd earl in the expeditionary force sent to defend the Palatinate. Essex had probably appointed Cromwell as one of his deputy lieutenants by September 1620, when the latter wrote to Walter Bagot^‡, who was certainly a deputy lieutenant, on militia business.35 Dalton, i. 332; FSL, L.a.402. Cromwell definitely held this position by 1623.

Cromwell’s letter to Bagot was not entirely devoted to the militia, as much of it dealt with the grievances of the ‘country’, which he thought was ‘much oppressed’. Cromwell protested that ‘it is a grief to hear the cry of the poor, not a week is there, that some payments are not made, and what becomes of the money the Lord knows’. He singled out for particular criticism a new levy for the repair of bridges. Highly critical of the governance of his new home, Cromwell opined that ‘no shire suffers more in every kind than ours, and so far is it out of quiet government that if a stranger’s eye were to view the passages, I protest much censure should we incur’. These ‘country’ sentiments did not mean, of course, that Cromwell shared Essex’s alienation from the court where, in August 1620, he participated in a ‘show or play of twelve parts’, in which he played ‘a merryman (alias a fool)’. Other performers included George Villiers, by now the king’s favourite and marquess of Buckingham, Philip Herbert^*, earl of Montgomery (subsequently 4th earl of Pembroke) and Essex’s cousin, Sir Henry Rich^* (subsequently 1st earl of Holland).36 SP84/97, ff. 9v-10.

The late Jacobean parliaments and Mansfeld’s army, 1621-5

Cromwell appears to have regularly attended Parliament in 1621. Before the Easter recess he was listed as present at 37 sittings, 84 per cent of the total. However, his attendance fell between Easter and the summer adjournment, as he was excused on 24 May, despite being recorded as attending that day, and thereafter missed eight sittings. He was nevertheless listed as present 70 per cent of the time. After the session resumed in November he attended 18 times, three quarters of all the sittings, but was excused only once, on 1 December.37 LJ, iii. 130a, 177a. Despite his fairly regular attendance, Cromwell made no recorded speeches.

Cromwell was named to nine of the 28 committees appointed by the upper House before Easter, six of them legislative. Their subjects included a measure intended to compel members of the militia to provide themselves with adequate arms, which would have been of interest to him if, by then, he was a deputy lieutenant. On 5 Mar. he was also named to the subcommittee to consider Buckingham’s proposal to found an academy for the education of the sons of the nobility and gentry.38 Ibid. 10b, 13a, 17a; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/1, p. 8. In February he signed the extra-parliamentary petition of the English nobility complaining of the precedence given to Englishmen who had purchased Irish or Scottish titles.39 A. Wilson, Hist. of Great Britain (1653), 187. This petition angered the king, but there is no evidence that Cromwell himself fell into disfavour. On the contrary, in March he accompanied Essex’s cousin, Robert Rich^*, 2nd earl of Warwick, when the latter was sent to greet the newly arrived Polish ambassador.40 Finetti Philoxenis (1656), 76.

Cromwell was named to ten of the 46 or 47 committees established by the Lords between Easter and the summer recess. Among the measures he was instructed to consider was one to allow a property exchange for Prince Charles (Stuart^*, prince of Wales). On 30 Apr. Cromwell was among those peers sent to the lord chancellor, Francis Bacon^*, Viscount St Alban, to confirm Bacon’s confession to the charges of corruption levelled against him. That same day he was also sent to the king to request Bacon’s dismissal. On 24 May he was instructed, possibly in his absence, to attend a conference with the Commons about the bills concerning enforcement of the Sabbath and the prevention of abuses of writs of certiorari. The conference committee consisted of those lords who had been appointed to consider these same bills before Easter, of whom Cromwell had been one.41 LJ, iii. 101a, 126b, 130b In addition to these parliamentary appointments, Cromwell and the other Irish councillors in London were instructed by the king, on 28 May, to consider the grievances of Ireland following complaints in the Commons. Cromwell signed the report that he and his colleagues drew up on 16 June.42 CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 330; APC, 1621-3, p. 25.

On 24 Apr., while Cromwell was absent, Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton, and like Cromwell’s father a participant in the 1601 Essex rising, moved for privilege for a servant of Cromwell’s. A writ was issued for bringing the servant before the House, but as it was not executed Southampton secured a second writ on 12 May. The servant was brought before the Lords a fortnight later, when he was released.43 LJ, iii. 97a, 119b, 133b; PA, HO/PO/JO/5/1/1, p. 113. After the summer recess Cromwell was named to just two committees, both legislative, one concerning female felons and the other licences of alienation.44 LJ, iii. 174b, 182b.

By the beginning of 1622 Cromwell was experiencing severe financial difficulties. Ever since he had been in England, his pay as an officer in the Irish army had been suspended. Consequently, in March 1622, Cromwell secured an order from the English Privy Council for payment of his arrears, together with a letter from Buckingham instructing the lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield^*, Lord Cranfield (later 1st earl of Middlesex) to recommend Cromwell to a London financier who could advance him £800.45 APC, 1621-3, p. 165; Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/Hi35. Despite his poverty, Cromwell remained part of Essex’s social circle, and in the autumn of 1622 (or possibly 1623) he accompanied the earl on a visit to Essex’s brother-in-law, William Seymour^*, 2nd earl of Hertford.46 Desiderata Curiosa, ii. bk. 12, pp. 13-14. He also continued to be active at court; in the summer of 1623 he acted as one of the sewers for the feast held to celebrate the swearing of the articles for the Spanish Match, which Essex strongly opposed.47 Nichols, iii. 884.

Cromwell attended 74 of the 93 sittings of the 1624 Parliament, 80 per cent of the total, plus two prorogation meetings, held before the session started on 12 and 16 February. During the Parliament he acquired copies from the clerk of one of the king’s speeches and ‘the justification of the duke’: the defence of Buckingham presented by the Lords and Commons to James I on 21 Mar., rebutting the accusations of the Spanish ambassadors that Villiers had dishonoured the king of Spain.48 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 60v.

Cromwell was named to only 16 of the 105 committees appointed by the Lords and made just two recorded speeches during the Parliament. On 2 Mar. the Lords debated the negotiations which James I had been conducting with Spain in order to secure a Spanish bride for Prince Charles and to recover the Palatinate for his son-in-law, Frederick V. In 1623 Buckingham and Charles had gone to Spain to try to conclude the marriage negotiations, only to return disillusioned, and while in Madrid they had clashed with the English ambassador, John Digby^*, 1st earl of Bristol. During the 2 Mar. debate Cromwell accused Bristol, who had been prevented from taking his seat, of having uttered ‘harsh speech to the Pr[ince] that his motions [to conclude the Match] were precipitate’.49 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 19.

Although Cromwell’s criticism of Bristol suggests he supported the anti-Spanish policies of Charles and Buckingham, which his friend Essex had long advocated, he was actually sympathetic to Cranfield, by now earl of Middlesex, who was opposed to a breach with Spain. In a letter to Middlesex, dated only ‘Monday’, Cromwell assured the lord treasurer that ‘the good of you’ was the ‘end of my labour’ and that he would ‘choose a fair opportunity to speak’, presumably on Middlesex’s behalf. From this it seems likely that Cromwell was assuring Middlesex that he opposed the impeachment proceedings brought against the lord treasurer in the 1624 Parliament. It would also appear, from his offer to speak, and by the fact that a postscript indicates that Middlesex was still lord treasurer, that Cromwell was writing before these proceedings had been brought to a successful conclusion.50 Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/OE202A.

Cromwell’s promise to speak out in support for Middlesex ran the risk of bringing him into conflict with Buckingham and Essex. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, there is no evidence that he ever made good this promise. The only part he appears to have played in the formal proceedings against Middlesex was on 11 May, when he was a member of a committee sent to ascertain whether the lord treasurer’s claims of poor health were genuine. After Middlesex was found guilty, Cromwell was also among those instructed, on 20 May, to assess the damages the earl was to pay to the victims of his crimes.51 LJ, iii. 371b, 396a.

On 19 Mar. Cromwell was appointed to the committee for the bill to regulate brewing in and around London. According to the scribbled book, but not the assistant clerk’s manuscript minutes, he was the first named baron.52 Ibid. 269a; Add. 40087, f. 97; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 44v Three days later Cromwell moved for the wardens of the London Brewers’ Company and representatives from the suburban brewers to be given notice to attend the following morning, when the committee had agreed to meet.53 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 39; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/2, f. 17. During the Parliament the upper House twice granted privilege to servants of Cromwell’s who had been arrested.54 LJ, iii. 286a, 421b.

In the summer of 1624, after Parliament was prorogued, Cromwell tried to reconcile Buckingham to Middlesex in order to mitigate the fine Parliament had imposed on the former lord treasurer. He told Buckingham that ‘those that severed you from my lord of Middlesex …meant as well to break your neck’, there having been a conspiracy ‘to make you two fly out in bitter terms, one on the other, and so to have received comfort by both your falls’. He also assured Buckingham that Middlesex could provide proof of the existence of this conspiracy. Buckingham replied that, if this was so, he would be willing to meet Middlesex.55 R. Davies, Greatest House at Chelsey, 100-3. However, when Cromwell suggested to Buckingham that Middlesex should offer up his house at Chelsea as a peace offering he was rebuffed by the duke, who was interested only in any information that Middlesex could produce about ‘the treacheries, and practices of wicked men’. Indeed, if the earl could ‘discover the plots that have been to sever us, and prejudice me in my own particular, he shall find none shall be readier to do him good than myself’.56 Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/OE202B, Cromwell to Middlesex, 26 Aug. 1624.

Cromwell eventually persuaded Middlesex to write to Buckingham, who insisted on receiving such a letter before he would agree to meet the earl. Cromwell himself delivered this letter in September, but Buckingham, though he liked the language employed by the former lord treasurer, declined to meet for fear that a future Parliament might suspect he had encouraged Middlesex to blame the 1624 Parliament for his downfall, ‘which may lose him [Buckingham] much love in the world’. Nevertheless, Buckingham still wanted to know from Middlesex ‘what it is you will discover’ that would redound to his benefit. Cromwell thereupon told Middlesex that if he could ‘satisfy his [Buckingham’s] expectation … you will find you never put yourself into the hands of nobler minded creature’.57 Ibid. Cromwell to Middlesex, ‘Tuesday morning’; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 335. However, Middlesex was unable to provide Buckingham with the promised evidence of a conspiracy, with the result that the duke was unwilling to intervene to reduce Middlesex’s fine, payment of which obliged the earl to surrender to the crown his farm of the sugar duties and his house at Chelsea (which was then promptly given to Buckingham).58 R.H. Tawney, Business and Pols, under James I, 273.

Cromwell’s contact with Buckingham while acting as an intermediary between Middlesex and the duke may have enabled him to lobby the favourite for his own preferment. On 9 Oct., John Chamberlain reported that he was to be appointed to command one of the regiments in the army being raised to liberate the Palatinate under the command of Count Mansfeld. Moreover, the following month, Cromwell was made a viscount in the Irish peerage (though he made little use of his new title, continuing to sign himself ‘Tho[mas] Cromwell’ until he was made an earl in 1645).59 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 582. Nevertheless, despite employing the most deferential language towards the duke, Cromwell may have had few illusions about his patron. On 18 Nov. he felt it necessary to ask Buckingham to confirm his appointments of senior officers in his regiment and for permission to install more junior ones, suggesting that he feared that Buckingham might otherwise assume the right of appointment himself.60 SP14/174/82.

Cromwell was soon disenchanted with his new charge. Writing to the council of war on 6 Jan. 1625 from Dover, where the army was assembled, he complained about the lack of drums, surgeons and swords. He lamented that he had been forced to train his soldiers, who were pressed men, with cudgels, which they used to beat their officers.61 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 439. At the end of the month the army was shipped to the Netherlands, where it was quartered at Gertruidenberg, not far from Breda, which was then being besieged by the Spanish. From there Cromwell complained, on 26 Feb., to the secretary of state, Sir Edward Conway^* (later 1st Viscount Conway), of the lack of victuals and the high mortality rate: ‘the soldiers and officers die like dogs all the day long’. As a result the army’s effective strength had already fallen from 10,000 to 9,000. Cromwell was also dismayed at the secret instructions that he and his fellow commanders had been given before leaving England. James I was adamantly opposed to any military operations against the Spanish. Consequently, if Mansfeld tried to assist the Dutch by relieving Breda, Cromwell and his colleagues were ordered to march instead to Germany. Cromwell considered the prospect of disobeying his general utterly dishonourable, and complained that relations between Mansfeld and his officers had been harmed because the latter had been obliged to inform their general of their secret orders after Mansfeld attempted to give orders for aiding the Dutch. He therefore requested fresh instructions, which he wanted to be sent to Mansfeld alone, ‘that we may only make profession to obey him’. However, he also realized that the question was fast becoming academic as ‘we are now not able to march to any purpose for infinite numbers of our men are dead’ and they still lacked swords.62 SP84/122, ff. 178-80v.

By early March, matters were desperate. Cromwell complained that ‘we die like dogs’, and bemoaned the fact that ‘we live with a great deal of dishonour to our nation, for we come out like rogues’. He was particularly concerned at the king’s lack of support for the army. ‘Our actions [are] not avowed by our prince’, he protested. ‘Such a precedent never was, for so many men to be pressed out of their country, not for the king’s service as he dare think, but to serve in a war by him not owned’. He predicted that in the ‘next Parliament you will hear [this] debated’.63 SP84/126, f. 3.

Shortly thereafter Cromwell fell seriously ill; indeed, he later wrote that ‘the physicians gave me over’. Nevertheless, he had recovered by 7 April. In the intervening period James had died and Cromwell, correctly believing that the new king, Charles I, would remove the restrictions on Mansfeld assisting the Dutch, predicted that ‘we shall easily relieve Breda’,64 Ibid. f. 154; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. v. 323. which fell on 26 May, whereupon Mansfeld’s army was moved to Nijmegen, near the German border. Writing from there on 7 June, Cromwell complained that four days had passed before they had received any bread, and ‘money we have none’. By now he had turned on Mansfeld, who ‘studies his own profit, and how to ruin us’. He nevertheless declared that if there was any hope of reinforcements, and ‘if the king will justify us’, then he would never leave the army. However, ‘to command a regiment starved, now not 220 men, I scorn it’.65 SP84/127, ff. 192-3.

By 17 June the English contingent in Mansfeld’s army had been reduced to 600 men, thanks to a diet of ‘dead horses and cats’. These remnants were placed under the unified command of one of the lieutenant colonels, Ralph Hopton^† (subsequently Lord Hopton), leaving Cromwell to return to The Hague at a loose end. From there he begged Secretary Conway for ‘some employment either by land or sea’. Economic necessity was undoubtedly behind his request for, his ‘fortune being poor’, he could not afford to stay in the Netherlands, where he could only ‘learn to drink, which already I have known too well’. He added that ‘to come from hence is all my desire’. What he was seeking was a command in the proposed naval expedition against Spain. On 12 July he ‘beseech[ed]’ Conway ‘to give me some employment by sea or land [in] this new action; for there is no hopes of my general prosperity [otherwise]’. He had attempted to get Buckingham to respond to his pleas for employment, but ‘I despair of an answer’.66 SP84/128, f. 33.

The first two Caroline parliaments and the Cadiz expedition, 1625-6

Cromwell had returned to England by 29 July, by which time he had missed the start of the first Caroline Parliament, which had convened on 18 June and adjourned to Oxford on 11 July due to the plague.67 HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 232. At the call of the House on 23 June, it was recorded that Cromwell intended to send a proxy, but there is no record that he did. On 9 July Richard Culpepper, who had successfully claimed parliamentary privilege as Cromwell’s servant in 1624, petitioned the Lords, having again been imprisoned. The petition was referred to the subcommittee for privileges, but the matter was doubtful, for given Cromwell’s absence Culpepper’s arrest could not be construed as obstructing his master’s attendance. The session resumed at Oxford on 1 Aug., but Cromwell did not attend until the 5th, when he received his only committee appointment of the Parliament, concerning a proposed collection for the victims of the plague in London. He subsequently attended on three further occasions, the last of which was on 12 Aug., when Culpepper again petitioned the Lords for privilege. As the dissolution of the Parliament was imminent the upper House referred the case to the lord keeper, who ordered Culpepper’s release five days later.68 Procs. 1625, pp. 45, 11-12, 139-41, 183.

Cromwell succeeded in securing the position of vice admiral to the rear admiral’s squadron in the new expedition, but was increasingly alarmed at Buckingham’s direction of political and military affairs. Consequently, on 9 Sept., while preparing to go to the fleet at Plymouth, he drafted a letter to the duke. Careful to describe himself as Buckingham’s ‘creature’, one who would ‘love, honour, and serve’ the duke’, he claimed that he was merely ‘letting you know the talk of the wicked world’ rather than expressing his own opinions. However, his fear that he might lose the duke’s favour for his frankness suggests this was no more than a polite fiction. His principal complaint concerned the concentration of power in Buckingham’s hands and the duke’s unwillingness to take advice. ‘They say it is a very great burden your grace takes upon you, since none know anything but you’, he observed. The ‘best lords of the Council’ had, until recently, known nothing of the expedition. The only ‘grave man … known to have your ear’ was Conway. He also repeated the widespread criticism that Buckingham himself did not intend to lead the forthcoming expedition, despite being lord admiral.69 Cabala (1691) i. 377-8.

Cromwell was well aware that what he had to say would be unpalatable to Buckingham. ‘If I must lose your favour’, he remarked, ‘I had rather lose it for striving to do you good … than for anything else’. Moreover, he took the precaution of sending the letter unsealed to Conway, who was asked not to deliver it unless he thought fit. Underlying his anxieties appears to have been the fear that the attacks on Buckingham, mounted at the end of the 1625 Parliament, would multiply in a future assembly, a point he reiterated on writing to Middlesex the following day, when he also stated that the cost of the war meant that another Parliament would have to be assembled soon.70 Ibid.; CSP Dom. Addenda, 1625-49, pp. 50-1; HMC 4th Rep. 289. Whether Conway ever delivered Cromwell’s letter to Buckingham is unclear, but Cromwell certainly spoke with the duke before the fleet sailed and evidently expressed sufficient criticism to cause offence. On 3 Nov. Sir George Blundell, then serving on Cromwell’s flagship, wrote to Buckingham that Cromwell ‘hath been so cast down ever since [their conversation] that until he hears some comfortable lines or words from you he will never look up’.71 Dalton, ii. 206-7.

Cromwell’s major contribution to the expedition, which ended in a failed assault on Cadiz, was to provoke a dispute over precedence among his fellow officers. After the fleet had set sail the commander, Sir Edward Cecil^* (subsequently Viscount Wimbledon), had nominated Henry West^*, 4th Lord De La Warr, to the post of vice admiral of the admiral’s squadron, which had fallen vacant. However, Cromwell argued that his friend, Henry Power, 1st Viscount Valentia [I], vice admiral of the vice admiral’s squadron, should be promoted instead as he was a viscount, albeit an Irish one. Moreover, Cromwell claimed that, because he himself held a lower ranking Irish viscountcy, he should have Valentia’s place, and De La Warr his. Interestingly, Cromwell’s assertion that Irish viscounts outranked English barons contradicted the 1621 petition of the English nobility, which he had signed in 1621. However, he stood to gain Valentia’s post whichever way the matter was resolved. As the lawyer John Glanville^‡, then serving as Cecil’s secretary, observed, if English barons took precedence over Irish viscounts then Cromwell had a better claim to the position of vice admiral of the vice admiral’s squadron than Valentia, who had no English peerage at all. Somewhat surprisingly, during the ensuing proceedings Cromwell, Valentia and De La Warr ‘showed no unkindness one to another ... but rather conversed lovingly together as if they more desired a true judgement touching the right in general than victor to any of themselves in particular’. However, Cecil was unable to make his mind up, so the issue was left unresolved.72 J. Glanville, Voyage to Cadiz ed. A.B. Grosart (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxxii), 83-8.

Returning from the failed attack on Cadiz, Cromwell was forced by lack of provisions and sickness to take shelter at Crookhaven in Ireland, from where he crossed to Plymouth, arriving on 17 December.73 CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 67; Add. 64886, f. 19r-v. Although he had come to court by 9 Jan., he was absent when Charles I was crowned on 2 Feb. and also missed the first two days of the 1626 Parliament, taking his seat on the 9th of that month.74 Add. 70499, f. 72; SP16/20/8. In all, he was recorded as attending 70 of the Parliament’s 81 sittings, 86 per cent of the total, and was named to 23 out of 49 committees. In addition, on four occasions he assisted in the introduction of new barons, starting with Henry Ley^*, Lord Ley (subsequently 2nd earl of Marlborough) on 2 March.75 Procs. 1626, i. 92, 216, 240, 540.

On 13 Mar. the committee to which Cromwell had been appointed on 24 May 1624 to compensate those who had suffered damages as a result of the earl of Middlesex’s misdemeanours was revived and their report read. Five days later Sir Thomas Monson^‡ petitioned the Lords, claiming that he had not received the compensation awarded. Cromwell hastened to notify Middlesex accordingly, informing him that the petition would be heard by the committee on the 21st, and seeking directions how to answer it. The committee subsequently agreed to recommend Monson’s suit to the lord keeper, Sir Thomas Coventry^* (later 1st Lord Coventry).76 Ibid. 143, 179-81, 207; Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., U269/1/CP16/2, Arthur Brett to Middlesex, 16 Mar. 1626.

Cromwell made only one recorded speech in the 1626 Parliament. As he had predicted, a new Parliament produced a further attack on Buckingham, for in May the Commons presented articles of impeachment. William Laud^*, then bishop of St Davids and later archbishop of Canterbury, included Cromwell among the uncommitted peers in his annotated list of the upper House.77 SP16/20/36. Cromwell was omitted from the extract of this document printed in E. Cope, ‘Groups in the House of Lords, May 1626’, PH, xii. 168-170. This did not, however, mean that he remained silent. After Robert Spencer^*, 1st Lord Spencer argued, on 1 May, that the charges against Buckingham amounted to only a ridiculous mouse, Cromwell confronted Spencer’s son, Richard Spencer^‡, one of the duke’s fiercest critics in the Commons, about the contradiction between Richard’s views and those of his father. (The reporter who relayed this story observed that Cromwell had ‘a jig in his head’, suggesting that he thought that Cromwell was not being entirely serious).78 Procs. 1626, iv. 287. Cromwell was also among those peers who, on 15 May, protested ‘on his honour and salvation’ that Sir Dudley Digges, who had been arrested for making an inflammatory speech on the presentation of the Commons’ impeachment articles, had said nothing to dishonour the king.79 Procs. 1626, i. 482.

Nevertheless, the aftermath of the Cadiz expedition probably confirmed the concerns which Cromwell already harboured about Buckingham’s leadership. During the 1626 Parliament he and many of the senior officers of the army and fleet attacked Cecil, by now Viscount Wimbledon, blaming him for the failure of the voyage. Indeed, according to Wimbledon, Cromwell had drawn up a journal of the expedition critical of the viscount and presented it to the king. Wimbledon pointed out that Cromwell had only served in the fleet, and claimed that ‘of the seamen you saw the least, for tobacco or sack were ever your companions’. It is likely that Cromwell thought that, having declined to lead the voyage in person, Buckingham bore some responsibility for Wimbledon’s failings. He was probably further alienated from Buckingham by the duke’s failure to support Wimbledon’s critics.80 Dalton, ii. 251; Nottingham UL, NeC15406, p. 417.

On 22 May Cromwell was appointed to examine the king’s charges against Buckingham’s enemy, Bristol. Cromwell had criticized Bristol in the 1624 Parliament, but he may now have felt more sympathy for the former ambassador to Madrid. On 9 and 14 June he signed statements from witnesses taken by the committee.81 Procs. 1626, i. 597, 599, 631. During the Parliament the matter of the privilege granted to Cromwell’s servant, Richard Culpepper, the previous year resurfaced. On 6 May the marshal of King’s Bench complained that he was being sued by William Galthropp for ordering Culpepper’s release, and, on 6 June, the matter was referred to the committee for petitions, of which Cromwell was a member. However, instead of defending the marshal, the committee found that he had made a false return to a writ of habeas corpus issued by the lord keeper the previous year, whereupon Galthropp was given permission to seek remedy at law.82 Ibid. 357, 375, 609. 611, 626.

Return to Ireland, 1627-54

Cromwell initially failed to pay the Forced Loan, which Charles I imposed after the 1626 Parliament failed to vote subsidies. He evidently appealed to the Privy Council, but his suit was denied, probably in May 1627, and as a result he was purged from the bench in June. The loss of royal favour clearly alarmed him, for on 18 Aug. he finally paid his assessment.83 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 199; E401/1387, rot. 81. Shortly thereafter he returned to Ireland, though not before kissing the king’s hands (which he had been refused permission to do before he paid the Loan). Before leaving he tried to explain away his late payment of the Loan, claiming that he had only just received his rents. There may have been some truth in this, for although his father-in-law had died the previous February, Cromwell did not gain possession of the Meverell estate until 1629, when his mother-in-law died. On the other hand, the lands which Cromwell’s father had acquired in Ulster improved significantly in the early seventeenth century, rising to give an income of nearly £2,000 a year by the eve of the Irish rebellion. On balance, therefore, Cromwell’s initial failure to pay the Loan was probably the result, not of poverty, but of the example set by his friend Essex, a prominent opponent of the Loan. However, fear of disfavour, and of returning to Ireland without the king’s countenance, eventually caused him to break ranks with Essex and other refusers. He would certainly have found it difficult to lobby the crown from Ireland, should the need arise, as a Loan refuser.84 SP63/245/794; C142/432/126; 43rd DKR, 133; SP23/178, p. 123.

In November 1627 it was reported that Cromwell had been captured by the French during Buckingham’s unsuccessful expedition to the Île de Ré, but the report is implausible, as there is no evidence that he took part in the campaign.85 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 287. Cromwell was still in Ireland in February 1628 and was, consequently, recorded as being abroad at the start of the third Caroline Parliament the following month. He granted his proxy to Essex and in return Cromwell kept an eye on Essex’s affairs in Ireland.86 Longleat, Devereux Pprs. i. ff. 333, 337; Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 26, 87. Back in England in time to attend the 1629 session, he was recorded as being present at 13 of the 23 sittings, 57 per cent of the total, and was appointed to five of the 19 committees established by the upper House that session. On 27 Jan. he was named to help present the fast petition to the king, although he was not recorded as attending. Of his other appointments, two related to the revived question of the precedence of Englishmen with Scottish and Irish titles.87 LJ, iv.14a, 25b, 27b.

In 1633 Cromwell returned to Ireland with Essex.88 Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1) ed. A.B. Grosart, iii. 202. He was back in England by March 1634, but his ambitions seem increasingly to have focussed on the western kingdom. On 12 Mar. he wrote to the lord deputy, Thomas Wentworth^*, Viscount Wentworth (subsequently earl of Strafford) seeking to achieve a long-held ambition, that of securing the post of marshal of the army in Ireland. However, he wanted ‘some addition of title’, meaning he wished to become ‘lord marshal of the kingdom’, and to have precedence after the lord treasurer of Ireland. However, he hastened to say he also wanted there to be no additional charge to the crown. He stated his qualifications: ‘I have been bred amongst men in the Low Countries, with Mansfeld, and the Cadiz voyage, [and consequently] my trade I know in some measure’. He added that he had secured the support of Jerome Weston^*, subsequently 2nd earl of Portland, the son of the lord treasurer of England. He flattered Wentworth that ‘some friends of mine near the king’ had told him that Charles was so happy with the lord deputy’s performance that within a year or two he would be called home to high office in England.89 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP14/324; SP84/127, f. 240v.

Wentworth dismissed Cromwell’s proposal to be appointed marshal of Ireland out of hand, stating that it would encroach on his authority. He nevertheless informed Sir John Coke^‡, secretary of state, that Cromwell wanted the post of marshal of the army, but he was not unduly disappointed when this was rejected by the king, telling Coke, in May 1634, that he had not intended or promised ‘to go further than to let you know what he [Cromwell] desired’.90 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP8, pp. 100-1; Strafforde Letters ed. W. Knowler (1739), i. 248. Cromwell, however, did not give up on Wentworth. He lobbied Laud, by now archbishop of Canterbury, whom he had heard had influence with the lord deputy, to write to Wentworth on his behalf. To secure the archbishop’s favour he agreed to surrender certain impropriations in Ireland to the bishop of Down, although he wanted compensation from the proposed plantation in Connaught.91 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP14/273; Works of Abp. Laud ed. J. Bliss, vii. 188-9.

Cromwell returned to Ireland in June 1635 with his family. However, his further efforts to become marshal met with failure, probably because Charles had ‘no opinion of the man’, a view shared by Laud and probably Wentworth.92 SO3/11, unfol. (June 1635); Strafforde Letters, i. 518; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 247. By 1637 it was reported that he was selling part of his estates.93 CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 162. In March 1639 he was alarmed to receive Charles’s summons to attend at York the following month, fearing to ‘be called away to a place of great expense for the narrowness of my fortune’. He hastened to inform Coke that he was needed in Ireland, but he remained anxious to assure the king of his loyalty and, on 8 Apr., wrote again to the secretary of state requesting Coke to use ‘some of your powerful language and let the king know I live no longer then I am his loyal and dutiful subject’. He also took the opportunity to lobby so as to be included in a projected plantation in the north of county Tipperary.94 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP18/186; Add. 64919, f. 27; H.F. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. 242.

Cromwell returned to England in the summer of 1641 but, while he was away, rebellion broke out in Ulster. He wrote to the king in December stating that ‘where my estate is, the fury of this business hath most fallen’. The rebels ‘had depopulated and ruined all within four miles of my house’.95 SP63/260/48. A royalist during the Civil War, for which he was rewarded by an Irish earldom, Cromwell surrendered to the Parliamentarians at the fall of Bristol in 1645. He was initially fined £800 for his royalism but this was subsequently reduced, with the help of his distant kinsman, Oliver Cromwell^‡, although how much was actually paid is unclear.96 CCC, 950-1. He made his will on 26 Mar. 1653 and died, according to Sir William Dugdale, in February the following year. He requested burial beside his father in the Cathedral of Downpatrick, but Dugdale states that he was actually buried at Tickencote in Rutland, where his sister lived. There is an entry to that effect in the Tickencote parish register, but it is an interpolation without a specific date. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Wingfield^†.97 PRONI, T1023/2; Dugdale, iii. 375; Blore, 74; Soc. Gen. microfiche, RU/REG/59020/1.