generation: but on all hypotheses of its meaning, the consanguinity of Oliver Protector of England and Thomas Mauler of Monasteries is not henceforth to be doubted.
Another indubitable thing is, That this Richard, your Nephew most bounden, has signed himself in various Law-deeds and Notarial papers still extant, ‘Richard Cromwell alias Williams’; also that his sons and grandsons continued to sign Cromwell alias Williams; and even that our Oliver himself in his youth has been known to sign so. And then a third indubitable thing on this matter is, That Leland, an exact man, sent out by Authority in those years to take cognisance, and make report, of certain points connected with the Church Establishments in England, and whose well-known Itinerary is the fruit of that survey, has written in that Work these words; under the head, ‘Commotes[1] in Glamorganshire’:
‘Kibworth lieth’, extendeth, ‘from the mouth of Remny up to an Hill in the same Commote, called Kevenon, a six miles from the mouth of Remny. This Hill goeth as a wall over-thwart betwixt the Rivers of Thave and Remny. A two miles from this Hill by the south, and a two miles from Cardiff, be vestigia of a Pile or Manor Place decayed, at Egglis Newith in the parish of Llandaff.[2] On the south side of this Hill was born Richard Williams alias Cromwell, in the Parish of Llanilsen.’[3]
That Richard Cromwell, then, was of kindred to Thomas
- ↑ Commote is the Welsh word Cwmwd, now obsolete as an official division, equivalent to cantred, hundred. Kibworth Commote is now Kibbor Hundred.
- ↑ ‘Egglis Newith’ is Eglwys Newydd, New Church, as the Welsh peasants still name it, though officially it is now called White Church. River ‘Thave’ means Taff. The description of the wall-like Hill between the two streams, Taff and Remny, is recognisably correct: Kevenon, spelt Cevn-on, ‘Ash-tree ridge,’ is still the name of the Hill.
- ↑ Noble, i. 238, collated with Leland (Oxford, 1769), iv. fol. 56, pp. 37, 38 Leland gathered his records ‘in six years,’ between 1533 and 1540; he died, endeavouring to assort them, in 1552. They were long afterwards published by Hearne.
