East Anglia and the Great Civil War. The rising of Cromwell's Ironsides in the associated Counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Lincoln, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Hertford. With appendices and illustrations

Preface

. IN the following pages I have endeavoured to show, not so much what was the part of each individual member of the Eastern Counties Association in the Civil War, as what was their general contribution to the War, and what were the temper and the experience of the people of these Eastern Counties. To have told the story of each of the seven counties separately would have required as many volumes, and, besides, would have been inconsistent with the unity of this famous area of East Anglia, which, stirred by one common impulse, and having sufficient in common in situation and surroundings, assumed a distinctive character of its own, such as no individual county and no other part of the country could show. Nor will the reader find any attempt to compile a history of families and places concerned in the Civil War within the Eastern Counties.

Frequent references of this character there will be, but my aim has been rather to present, in as interesting a form as a regard for historical accuracy of detail will allow, the main features of the remarkable story of that East Anglian unity which gave so sturdy an account of itself in the great Puritan Revolution under Cromwell. If, as I believe to be the case, something of that unity still survives in the feeling which prompts Preface. IV old East Anglians, wherever they may be, to cherish, like 'brither Scots,' the traditions of their clan, then perhaps this chapter in their past history, which is here placed on record for the first time, may have an interest both for present inhabitants of, and for those who may be otherwise connected with, these counties which played so famous a part in a great crisis of our history.

Whether there may be the like interest in the book for those not so connected with these Associated Counties, will depend upon the degree of success which has attended the author's efforts. Nothing short of failure on his part in telling the story can limit its interest to the counties which gave it birth, for Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides and East Anglia with its Puritan protest are vital and inseparable parts of the history of England. The materials for this book are derived almost exclusively from contemporary sources. Among the chief authorities consulted have been the State Papers in the Public Record Office ; various manuscript collections and the famous collection of King's Pamphlets, and Civil War Tracts, in the British Museum Library ; manuscript and other collections in the University Library, Cambridge, the Bodleian, Oxford, and other Libraries ; the Historical MSS.

Commission Reports, the Journals of Parliament, and numerous contemporary authorities referred to in the text. For courteous assistance and facilities for research amongst College papers, and for valuable suggestions, my thanks are especially due to members of the University and the principal Colleges of Cambridge — to Mr. W. Aldis Wright (Vice-Master) and the Rev. Dr. Sinker (Librarian), of Trinity ; to Mr. J. Bass Mullinger (Librarian), Mr. Scott (Bursar), and to the Library Committee of St. John's ; to Mr. Oscar Browning and Mr. W. H. Macaulay (Bursar), of King's ; to Dr. Courtney Kenny, of Downing ; and to Mr. Jenkinson Preface. V and staff at the University Library. To Mr. W. M. Palmer I am especially indebted for much valuable assistance in connection with Puritanism in Cambridgeshire, as well as for the list of ejected Royalist clergy in that county, the result of much labour and research, which appears as Appendix IV.

My thanks are also due to Mr. Hamon le Strange, of Hunstanton Hall, Norfolk ; to Mr. Alexander Peckover, Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire; to the Rev. Canon Raven, of Fressingfield, Suffolk ; to the Rev. C. H. Evelyn White, Editor of East Anglian Notes and Queries ; the Rev. W. D. Sweeting, Editor of Fenland Notes and Queries ; to the Ven. Archdeacon Vesey, of Huntingdon ; the Rev. W. M. Noble, Rector of Wistow, Hunts ; to Mr. W. B. Redfern, Mr. Robert Bowes, and Mr. T. D. Atkinson, of Cambridge ; to Mr. Joseph Phillips, of Stamford ; Dr. Perry, President of the Spalding Gentlemen's Society ; Mr. C. P. Tebbutt, of Bluntisham, St. Ives ; and other correspondents whose kind interest is none the less valued though not individually mentioned. While I am conscious that so much good-will deserved a better return than that which is here presented, I venture to hope that the result, such as it is, may not be altogether without interest for the general reader, or some small claim upon the indulgence of those who best know the nature of my task. ALFRED KINGSTON. Royston, Herts. September, i8gf. CONTENTS. CHAPTER. PAGE I. —

Introduction

— CROMWELL AND HIS NEIGHBOURS AT HUNT- INGDON, ST. IVES, AND ELY I H.— SHIP-MONEY RIOTS— STRANGE SCENES IN THE CHURCHES— PETITIONS AND PROTESTATIONS 1 8 III. — THE KING DEPARTING FROM HIS PARLIAMENT — RIVAL PROCLAMATIONS 33 IV.— CROMWELL AND THE COLLEGE PLATE — RAISING THE KING'S STANDARD — TUMULTS IN EAST ANGLIA — THE BATTLE OF EDGEHILL 55 V. — A GREAT HISTORIC UNITY — THE EAST ANGLIAN COMPACT — CROMWELL AND THE ROYALISTS— THE FORTIFICATION OF CAMBRIDGE 76 VI.— THE FIRST SIEGE OF CROWLAND— THE BATTLE OF THE PARSONS— CROMWELL AND THE FENMEN . . . IOI VII. — A PURITAN COMMANDER — HOW THE ESSEX MEN CAME IN — THE SIEGE OF KING'S LYNN 123 VIII.— THROUGH LINCOLNSHIRE TO MARSTON MOOR . . . 140 IX. — QUARREL OF MANCHESTER AND CROMWELL — CROWLAND AND NEWPORT — SIR HUDIBRAS AND SIR ROGER . . 166 X. — CROMWELL AND THE NEW MODEL ARMY — RECRUITING FOR NASEBY— THE HOUR AND THE MAN .... l88 XI. — THE LAST RALLY OF THE KING — THE FIGHT AT HUNTING- DON — THE KING'S FLIGHT THROUGH THE FENS IN DISGUISE 2IO XII. — THE ARMY, THE PARLIAMENT, AND THE KING . . . 233 XIII. — THE SECOND CIVIL WAR — RISINGS ALL OVER EAST ANGLIA — FIGHTING AT NORWICH, BURY ST. EDMUNDS, STAMFORD, CAMBRIDGE, LINTON, AND ST. NEOTS— THE SIEGE OF COLCHESTER — THE EXECUTION OF THE KING Contents.

VIII CHAPTER. PAGE XIV.— TAXING THE ROYALISTS — THE FORTUNES OF COM- POUNDERS — SEQUESTRATORS AND THEIR WAYS . . 290 XV. — A RELIGIOUS REVOLT — THE PURITANS AND THE CLERGY — UNHAPPY RURAL ENGLAND 312 XVI. — CROMVVELLIANA AND BIOGRAPHY — EVOLUTION OF THE IRONSIDES— CONCLUSION . 333 APPENDICES. I. — SOCIAL AND PUBLIC LIFE DURING THE CIVIL WAR . . 363 II.— PAYING AND FEEDING THE ARMY 373 III. — THE EASTERN ASSOCIATION COMMITTEES .... 382 IV.— DEPRIVED ROYALIST CLERGY IN CAMBRIDGESHIRE . . 390 V. — THE " FIRST CENTURY OF MALIGNANT PRIESTS " . . . 396 ILLUSTRATIONS. I.— CROMWELL'S HOUSE AT ELY .12 II. — PART OF THE KING'S PALACE AT ROYSTON .... 35 III.— CROMWELL ARRESTING THE SHERIFF AT ST. ALBANS . . 86 IV. — RUINS OF CROWLAND ABBEY 108 V. — FACSIMILE TITLE-PAGE OF THE "SOULDIERS POCKET BIBLE" I27 VI. — PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF COLCHESTER 280 VII. — "NORBOROUGH HOUSE, THE SEAT OF THE CLAYPOOLES " . 337 VIII. — BRIDGET (IRETON) FLEETWOOD GREAT CIVIL WAR.

Chapter I. Introduction

—CROMWELL AND HIS NEIGHBOURS AT HUNTINGDON, ST. IVES, AND ELY. BEHIND the pageant of history, in which fame has too often been restricted to placing its seal upon great issues which have ended in signal triumph or defeat, there have been fruitful causes and arduous pioneer work which have not always had their due. Marston Moor, Naseby, Dunbar, and Worcester, historic names which have cast a glamour over the turmoil of the Puritan revolution, are often but the convenient labels which get tacked on to the name of Oliver Cromwell as a means of remembering his place in history, with too little regard for the toilsome and thorny pathway, and the intensely human trials and difficulties, which the hero of the Commonwealth had to travel and to face before he reached those giddy heights which have caught the light of history.

There remains, therefore, the opportunity of exploring the humbler but not less interesting field in which arose some of the peculiar difficulties and the remarkable successes of his work, and of tracing those fruitful streams which fed the irresistible torrent of Cromwell's genius. In the Great Civil War between Charles I and his Parlia ment the Eastern Counties of England earned the distinction of presenting the one great historic unity, which enabled these counties to hold their own, and, whether for good or ill, to practically determine the fate of the rest of the kingdom in the struggle. Here the essential elements of the Puritan revolution — the revolt against abuse of human authority in religion and of Royal prerogative in the State — came into sharpest conflict. In these counties arose the one man whose acts were destined to colour all our subsequent history ; and here arose, too, the ever-victorious Ironsides, who with the ' Soldier's Pocket Bible ' in their knapsacks, went forth with sturdy purpose and resistless valour, to roll back the tide of war from their own borders, and to carry the Parliamentary cause to victory at Marston Moor and Naseby.

It would, therefore, be no undue straining of comparisons to assign an almost unique position in the Civil War to the counties and people of East Anglia — to that famous Eastern Counties' Association which, with its headquarters at Cambridge, became, under the controlling power of the one man Oliver Cromwell, the great Parliamentary recruiting-ground ground whose forces were destined to turn the scale in favour of the popular cause at more than one critical point in the War. The issue between King and Parliament, as it presented itself in the first instance to the men of the Fens, was one upon which there was little room for mere chauvinism. These men of the Fenlands, while they were loyal to the principle of kingship, were prepared to judge the King, or rather his ministers, by principles of government ; and, as those principles were thought to be subversive of the true Protestant religion, in which and in the God of Heaven they did verily believe, it is not surprising to find that the bulk of the people in these Eastern Counties were emphatically against the King and the Bishops.

In East Anglia there were two dominant factors which seem to suggest a possible explanation for the prominence which the Eastern Counties assumed as the great recruiting ground for Parliament, and the sturdy yeomen's service which its inhabitants gave to the cause for which Parliament took up arms. One of these factors was the comparatively limited number, within part of that region, of courtly or titled families likely to have attachments to the King's person and his Court ; the other and more potent factor was the sharp contrast which the dominant Puritan faith of this region presented to the ecclesiastical tendency of the times in high places. Yet in no case in those momentous months for the counties of England, can it be said that the people, even with such a pronounced Puritanism as that which prevailed in East Anglia, ever thought of directing their protestations against the King as the personal head of the nation, but simply against the principles which those in high places were urging the King to adopt.

This is a distinction which it is always necessary to bear clearly in mind in order to understand how it was that the voice of the people was so overwhelmingly against the King when the quarrel began, and yet that some of these same people were found fighting for the King when the quarrel had reached the stage of actual war. But with this kind of secession from the logical effect of their protestations, of which the county of Hertford and other counties with numerous courtly families presented some notable examples, the Fenmen, and for the most part Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, were but little troubled after the first tug was over. With the exception of the part of the Fens bordering upon the sphere of the Earl of Newcastle's Army, these counties also felt less of the misery of civil war than fell upon the homes of the inhabitants in many quarters elsewhere.

If, as I believe to be the case, this peculiar experience was due less to their geographical position than to the sturdy united purpose with which they kept their own borders clear of the immediate horrors of war, and contributed in a memorable degree to its prosecution in other fields, then some record, however imperfect, of their share in an eventful time should not be without interest. Here, if anywhere, was to be found in a pre-eminent degree that ' depository of the sacred fire of liberty ' which history has justly credited to the old Puritan stock, and it would have been strange indeed if in the great struggle between King and Parliament this region had not played a conspicuous part. With the old pamphleteers, and with some even of the more dignified historians of the time whose example has not been entirely lost upon modern writers, it was the fashion to paint the chief men among the Puritans and the Ironsides as men of mean origin, of little education, and a disregard for all the gentler courtesies of life— a set of men united only by one fanatical purpose of usurping all authority in religion and morals.

There may have been such men attracted to the Parliamentary cause, as events unfolded ; but it is not necessary to follow these men and approve of everything that was done in the name of Parliament when, at a later period of the struggle, the Army became the dominant factor in the nation, to recognize that in that sturdy ' No ! ' which came thundering up from the counties of England, and from nowhere more sturdily than from the Eastern Counties, against the abuse of Royal prerogative when the struggle began, the men by whom the cause of Parliament was being first set in motion, were, for the most part, men who stood for all that was best in the character of the nation. Then, if not later, the Parliamentary cause was the popular cause — The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision and the old men's dream.

The leaders of the hard-handed men of the Fens will very well bear looking at for a moment as we find them in their daily duties when the times were calling them to exchange the homely occupation of husbandry for the sterner business of war. Of chivalry such as was shown to the King in a losing cause, and devotion to old institutions without regard to their uses, it may be we shall find little among these sturdy Puritan folk of East Anglia ; but of the true chivalry of a band of men united for the assertion of great principles, we shall see a fine spirit of comradeship, in striking contrast with that morose and hypocritical view of life which historical caricature has too often fixed, rather indiscriminately, upon the Puritans. Indeed, one of the most interesting and remarkable things about the attitude of these Eastern Counties, out of which was to arise a sort of Pride's Purge of the Royal mismanagement of the nation's affairs, was the way in which a number of comparatively young men of character and position, united by ties of family life or neighbourhood, and animated by firm religious conviction, banded themselves together to resist the abuses which had spoilt for them the meaning of Church and State ; or, failing this, to make their home in a freer country beyond the seas, as so many earnest men had already done.

A few of these individuals stand out with sufficient clearness, during the years before the War began, to be worthy of notice, and by public acts as well as position, Oliver Cromwell was already at the head of the group. For the purpose of fixing his local connection with persons and places in Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire, rather than as a matter of general history, it is necessary to state very briefly what that position was. When Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrook, whose splendid and sumptuous style of living had earned for him the name of the ' Golden Knight,' passed away in 1603, his son Oliver (not the Oliver, but his uncle) entertained King James at Hinchinbrook on the occasion of that magnificent royal progress of the King from Scotland to the English throne. This Oliver Cromwell, the King's host, was then knighted ; but in 1627 there was a change at Hinchinbrook, which Sir Oliver sold to the Montagues (in later times the Earls of Sandwich), and Hinchinbrook passed out of the Cromwell family.

While the above was being enacted a much more interesting event was happening in the same family in a quieter way. Robert Cromwell, brother of this Sir Oliver, had married Elizabeth, the young widow of William Lynne, of Bassingbourn, Cambs. Elizabeth Lynne had lost her husband and one child within a year of her marriage. ' Her maiden name was Steward, and she was a daughter of William Steward, farmer of the tithes at Ely. About the year 1591 Robert Cromwell and his wife settled down in the town of Huntingdon to farm his portion of the family estate left to 1 William Lynne and their infant child, apparently by the wish of Mrs. Lynne, were buried in Ely Cathedral. This William Lynne came of a family of note, as the monumental brasses formerly in Bassingbourn Church testified—" Pray for the soule of Richard Lynne, Esq., and Alice his wife, wch Richard was vie. chamberlayne to the excellent Princess Margaret (moiher to the redoubted King Henry the Seventh), Countess of Richmond and Derby.

Wch Richard deceased 3 Jan. 1509, 8 sonnes and 3 daughters. "— Cule MSS. Brit. Mus. him, and in a substantial house, between the market-place and the river Ouse. Whether Robert Cromwell brewed beer from the brook, or only made malt from the produce of his lands, is of little consequence ; brewing of beer was not in those days so much of a trade as it is now. But in this house Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25, 1599, the fifth child of a family of ten. The idea sometimes expressed attributing a mean origin to Oliver Cromwell loses its force when it is remembered that at this time nearly half the gentry of Huntingdonshire bore the name of Cromwell. Young Oliver, therefore, had a large number of influential relations in the county — Uncle Sir Oliver, of Ramsey ; Uncle Henry, of Upwood, near Ramsey mere ; Uncle Sir Richard, who had been member for Huntingdon in Queen Elizabeth's reign ; and Uncle Sir Philip, of Biggin House ; to say nothing of multiplied relation ships of the degree of cousins, in which degree through his aunt Elizabeth he became related to Cousin Hampden of Ship-money fame.

Educated at the Huntingdon Grammar School under Dr. Beard, young Oliver came over to Cambridge in 1616 and entered at Sidney Sussex College. Here he remained only for a year, and then went up to London for a time, it is supposed to study law, returning, after his marriage to a daughter of Sir James Bourchier, an Essex magistrate, to live at Huntingdon the life of an ordinary country gentleman. In 1628 he was returned as a Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, and sat there amidst the stormy scenes when Speaker Finch was held down in the chair while the Remon strance was being passed ; and, when Parliament was dissolved, to be summoned no more for eleven years, he returned to Huntingdon, but lived there for only a short time. In May, 1631, Oliver Cromwell sold the estates at Huntingdon and at Hartford close by, and left his old home and the place of his birth,1 which he had represented in At Huntingdon the site of the house in the High Street in which Cromwell was born, is still identified by the house which stands upon it—" Cromwell House " — the residence until recent years of Captain Bernard, and now of Mrs. Bernard, his widow.

Parliament. Why he left the county town, in which the gentry of those times liked to have their town-house, as wealthy men do in London to-day, and selected the neighbouring town of St. Ives, and what he did there, have been left in a great deal of obscurity. Yet the solution is probably not far to seek. At this time Cromwell had come under the influence of profound religious conviction, and nothing could be more natural than that he should turn to kindred spirits in seeking advice in his worldly affairs. At St. Ives the Slepe Hall estate had come by inheritance to Henry Lawrence, eldest son of Sir John Lawrence of St. Ives, who had taken his M. A. degree at the Puritan College of Emmanuel in Cambridge, and had recently married Amy, daughter of Sir Edward Peyton, of Isleham, Cambs, a Puritan like her father and a woman remarkable for her piety.

To this friend and relative Cromwell seems to have turned, and the two sturdy Puritans, Cromwell being then thirty-two years of age and Lawrence thirty, who were destined to come together again so strangely in exalted stations, of which neither of them could have dreamed, took up the relationship of landlord and tenant by Cromwell's hiring part of the Slepe Hall estate.1 To these lands Cromwell, with his wife and five young children, came, and stocked them with the £1,800 realized from the sale of the Huntingdon estates. Here, in the character of grazing-land farmer, on the flat, moist meadows saturated by the Ouse and its overflowings, Cromwell made his home for five years — 1631-1636. Here in the ancient cattle market of St. Ives, on the cobble-stone paving now called the Broadway, Oliver Cromwell mingled with the yeomen of the Fens and bought and sold cattle.

In the old sheep market in the High Street, his ewes, tups, and wethers were known by the letters " O. C." marked in reddle on their backs ; letters which were so soon to convey a very different meaning to other folk than farmers and yeomen. Every Sunday, down the old Market Place from Slepe Hall one sees, through the medium of other eyes — Noble's, the old parish clerk's, and certain ' vague old persons ' who remembered 1 See Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1815, in which appears a lucid account of the Lawrences and their relation to St. Ives and to Cromwell. him — Oliver Cromwell, ' wearing a piece of red flannel round his throat owing to inflammation from which he suffered,' passing along to the Parish Church, a fine building on the banks of the Ouse, still pretty much as Cromwell saw and worshipped in it, excepting the fine modern spire.

Under the very wall of the churchyard, with tombstones built into it, flow the dark waters of the Ouse. Here Oliver Cromwell passed moodily along with his neighbours as the bell ' tolled in' for service, and looked out across the great stretch of waters at flood-time. J Here, ' with thoughts bounded by the Ouse river and thoughts that go beyond eternity,' Cromwell listened to Mr. Downhall, the minister, who was ejected when the troubles came over the land. In the daily affairs of his neighbours Cromwell took an active interest, and attended parish meetings, even for so small a business as the appoint ment of road surveyors, as the St. Ives parish books still testify. In January, 1636, his uncle, Sir Thomas Steward, died at Ely and left Cromwell his estates there ; the Slepe Hall lands were given up, and Oliver left St. Ives and went to live at Ely, though not without leaving behind him evidence of his attachment to Puritan institutions, in the letter addressed from St. Ives 'to my very loving friend, Mr. Storie, at the sign of the Dog, Royal Exchange, London,' and appealing for his continued support of the Weekly Lecture at St. Ives or Huntingdon.

The letter to Mr. Storie, the entries of Cromwell's name in the parish book, one of which has been cut out, and that dim little vision of a piece of red flannel round his neck as he walked to church on Sundays, are all that remain of local colour respecting Cromwell's life at St. Ives ; though when Noble wrote his book on the House of Cromwell, he spoke of "a great number of swords which have the initials of Oliver upon them" being dispersed in the town, and that "the farmer who now rents the estate he occupied, marks his sheep with the identical marking-irons which Oliver Here at a later date another great man looked over the wall into the dark waters and gave us this little word-picture : " The Ouse flows here, fringed with gross, reedy herbage and bushes, and is of the blackness of Acheron, streaked with foul metallic ghtterings and plays of colour."- Carlyle, "Letters and Speeches of Cromwell," i, 67. used, and which have ' O. C upon them."

The lands which Cromwell farmed, seem to be identified with reasonable certainty as lying somewhere between the present new Cattle Market, the Railway Station, and the River Ouse ; lands to which the old Slepe Hall would have a not unpleasant outlook. The house in which Cromwell lived had, in Noble's time, disappeared ; and Mr. Atkins, an attorney, had built 'a handsome one' upon the site. It was this house of Mr. Atkins, the attorney, which Carlyle saw in use as a boarding-school ; and this has now disappeared, and a new ' Slepe Hall ' has been set up for the school, at some distance from the town, to further confuse the future historian perchance. The site of the Slepe Hall of Cromwell's time is now marked by modern houses standing behind the new Cattle Market, known as "Cromwell Terrace" and "Cromwell Place."

The only structural relic remaining in St. Ives directly associated with the name of Cromwell, is the rather notable ruin of what is known as Cromwell's Barn ; standing on the right of the road leading from the High Street towards the river. One end, a side, and part of the other end of the massive walls of this once spacious ' barn ' now form boundaries of a garden to a modern house.1 Noble says Cromwell ' built ' this barn, but under what ancient Agri cultural Holdings Act any sane man with only i.i,Soo to stock his farm with, would have found it possible to erect such a very massive structure for a tenancy which could be determined as this was, I do not know. It was probably in existence long before Cromwell came to St. Ives ; may very well have been used by him as a convenience for the land upon or near to which it was situated, and so obtained the name of Cromwell's Barn.

The ruins have rather an ecclesiastical appearance, and it is sometimes called the Priory Barn. Leaving St. Ives, Cromwell took up his abode in Ely, taking with him his wife and children and his widowed mother from Huntingdon. At Ely he succeeded to the office of 1 Now occupied by Mr. Warren. farmer of the tithes, vacant by the death of his uncle Sir Thomas Steward, and lived in the Glebe House set apart for the person who held the office of tithe-farmer. During those quiet years at St. Ives and the first years of his residence at Ely, Cromwell was no idle spectator of the stirring events in the life of the nation, or of life in the Fens. The writ for Ship-money had come out while he was at St. Ives ; and upon the very day he was writing that letter to Mr. Storie in support of the Puritan lecture, his cousin John Hampden was standing up at the head of his neighbours in the parish church of Great Kimble, in Buckinghamshire, and refusing to pay Ship-money.

Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton had had their ears cut off in Palace Yard, and Jennie Geddes had hurled her stool at the Dean's head in Edinburgh ' about the Bishops. Then there came the excitement all over England about the Ship-money trial, which lasted three weeks, and made Mr. Hampden 'the most famous man in England.' Cromwell himself had continued his public activity in Ely, had become one of the trustees of Parson's Charity ; and had gained notoriety over the great work of draining the Fens, not so much against its actual accomplishment as against injustice to his neighbours over the manner of doing it. The scheme was 'extremely unpopular,' and 'particularly amongst the commonalty, who had a custom of commoning and fishing in dry times'; and Cromwell at a great meeting at Hunting don had so actively opposed it, that it was dropped for a time.

His action gained him ' great accession of friends,' and procured for him the title of ' Lord of the Fens.' 4 To this period of his residence in Ely belongs the most direct connecting link between Oliver Cromwell's life in the Fens and the present time which now exists. Taking it altogether, with its associations and its present suggestive condition, there is, perhaps, no more interesting house in England than the modest structure still known as Cromwell's house in Ely. Overshadowed almost by the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace hard by, this plain, substantial house 1 Noble, i, 187-8. became the rooftree of the man whose indomitable spirit dared to assert, against all ' innovations ' to the contrary, the principle that cathedrals and bishops are only of value in proportion as they help to build up the spiritual life of the people : ' they that build up spiritual temples, they are the men truly charitable, truly pious,' were the words with which Cromwell had taken farewell of St. Ives.