hands, and the tenacity to maintain it. As Monck said, ‘he forsook himself ’ (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 628), but it was probably the best thing he could do. In his private character, although accused by zealots of irreligion, he was a man of strict morals and strong religious feeling. Maidstone terms him ‘a very worthy person, of an engaging nature and religious disposition, giving great respect to the best of persons, both ministers and others’ (Thurloe, i. 766). ‘Gentle and virtuous, but became not greatness,' is the judgment of Mrs. Hutchinson (Life of Colonel Hutchinson, ed. 1885, ii. 203).
[Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, ed, 1787; Oliver Cromwell, Life of O. Cromwell and his sons Richard and Henry, 1820; Waylen's House of Cromwell, 1880; Guizot's Richard Cromwell and the Restoration of the Stuarts, translated by Scoble, 1856; Carlyle's Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; Calendar of the Domestic State Papers; Thurloe State Papers, 7 vols. 1742; Clarendon State Papers, 3 vols. 1767-86; Hist. MSS. Comm. 1st Rep.; Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. 1751; Heath’s Chronicle, ed. 1663; Somers Tracts, vol. vi.]
CROMWELL, THOMAS, Earl of Essex (1485?–1540), statesman, was the son of Walter Cromwell, also called Walter Smyth, who seems to have been known to his contemporaries, not only as a blacksmith, but also as a fuller and shearer of cloth at Putney, where he, besides, kept a hostelry and brewhouse. This curious combination of employments may be partly accounted for by the fact that the lease or possession of a fulling-mill had been in the family ever since 1452, when it was granted by Archbishop Kempe to one William Cromwell, who came from Norwell in Nottinghamshire, and of whom Walter seems to have been a grandson. Thomas Cromwell is commonly said to have been born about 1490; but Mr. John Phillips of Putney, who has made a careful study of evidences respecting the family from the manor rolls of Wimbledon, is inclined to put the date at least 'five years earlier. He had two sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth, the former of whom married a Welshman named Morgan Williams, and the latter one William Wellyfed; but we hear nothing of any brother. As a young man, by all accounts, he was very ill-conducted, and according to Foxe he used himself in later life to declare to Archbishop Cranmer ‘what a ruffian he was in his young days.’ For this Foxe, who obtained much of his information from Cranmer’s secretary, is a very good authority; but in other matters, which he states at secondhand, his account of Cromwell’s youth is vitiated by a strange confusion of dates, and has cast discredit upon facts which are perfectly consistent when read in the original authorities. A brief account of his career, which Foxe could not have seen, was given by Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, in a despatch to Granvelle in 1535. There it is said that he behaved ill as a young man, incurred imprisonment for some misdemeanor, and afterwards found it necessary to leave the country; that he went to Flanders, Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, and married, after his return home, the daughter of a shearman. These facts were no doubt ascertained by careful inquiry, and they are corroborated and amplified by other evidences. According to the Italian novelist Bandello, his going abroad was occasioned by a quarrel with his father, and he betook himself to Italy, where he became a soldier in the French service. This, as regards the family quarrel, is, in the opinion of Mr. Phillips, corroborated by an entry in the court rolls of Wimbledon manor, and Cardinal Pole confirms the statement that he was a common soldier in his early days. But according to Bandello, his military career came to an end at the battle of Garigliano, where the French were defeated in 1503 (and we may remark in passing that he could scarcely have been then only a boy of thirteen, as the ordinary date of his birth would make him). He escaped to Florence, where, being driven to ask alms in his poverty, he was relieved and befriended by the banker, Francis Frescobaldi, who had extensive dealings with England. Bandello’s information about Cromwell is accurate in the main, and, though perhaps a little coloured for effect, is likely to be right as to the Italian part of his career. We hope it is right also as to the way in which Cromwell, in the days of his greatness, repaid the debt with superabundant interest, when his old benefactor had experienced a change of fortune. In fact, Frescobaldi appears to have visited England in 1533, and on his return wrote to him from Marseilles, calling him ‘mio padrone’ (Cal. of Henry VIII. vol. vi. No. 1215). His name also occurs among Cromwell's memoranda of business to be attended to about that time (ib. vii. 348).
But here it must be observed that the court rolls of Wimbledon manor, according to Mr. Phillips, give evidence quite at variance with the statement that Cromwell was at the battle of Garigliano. It was early in 1504 that the family rupture seems to have occurred, and he could not have gone abroad before that year. His name appears upon the court rolls as Thomas Smyth, just as his father, Walter Cromwell, is called in many of the entries Walter Smyth, and his grand
