A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER I. OLIVER CROMWELL AND HIS ELEVATION TO THE PROTECTORATE. ON a certain day in May 1540, the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleve was celebrated by a grand tournament. The main object in this marriage was to bring the King of England into the closest connexion with the German Protestants. The man who had mainly brought about the formal separation between England and Rome, and had put himself at the head of the extreme movements for the reformation, the Keeper of the Great Seal, Thomas Cromwell, then Earl of Essex, hoped, among the animosities of a hostile party, to receive from the new Queen, whose marriage had been his own doing, support and assistance. At the tournament held in Westminster to celebrate these eminently Protestant espousals, no one more brilliantly distinguished himself than Richard Williams, a native of Wales, who had adopted the name of Cromwell, on account of a family alliance with the powerful statesman l. On this occasion he was created a knight; the King gave him as a token of his approval, a diamond ring. This Richard Cromwell was the great grandfather of Oliver the Protector. In the forcible confiscation of the church-lands two rich Benedictine abbeys, Hinchinbrook near Huntingdon, and Ramsey in the same county, fell to his share. But the results of Henry's marriage with Anne were very different from those which were looked for. So farA.d. 1653. 1 The origin of R. Williams is known from a notice in his contemporary Leland; his relationship to Thomas Cromwell from one of his own letters. Noble, Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell i. 308. Carlyle's Letters and Speeches i. 24. from strengthening his position, it led, through the opposition of the Catholic and aristocratic party, to the downfall of Thomas Cromwell and his execution. Richard Williams Cro...