Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

“I was by birth a gentleman living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity,” said the Protector to one of his Parliaments. Cromwell’s family was one of the many English families which rose to wealth and importance at the time of the Reformation. It owed its name and its fortune to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the minister of Henry VIII., and the destroyer of the monasteries. In 1494, Thomas Cromwell’s sister Katherine had married Morgan Williams, a wealthy brewer of Putney, whose family sprang from Glamorganshire. Her eldest son Richard took the surname of Cromwell, entered the service of Henry VIII., and assisted his uncle in his dealings with refractory Churchmen. Grants of land flowed in upon the 2lucky kinsman of the King’s vicegerent.