Henry CROMWELL (d. 1604)

Document Signed (“Harry Cromwell”), an acquittance for three thousand eight hundred pounds for the purchase of the “messuages, lands . . .and hereditaments . . .” in St. Neots, also signed by the witnesses. The original seal, which would have been under Cromwell’s signature, has been neatly cut away.
1 page folio, sympathetically framed in a simple black and gold frame, n.p., 20 June 1600.
“Receaved by me Henrie Williams al[ia]s Cromwell . . . in the Countie of Huntinton Esquire of S[ir] Edmund Anderson Knight Lord She[r]ife Ofice of her Ma[jes]ties Co[u]rt of Comon Pleas the Some of Three Thousand and eighte hundred pounndes of Currannt Englishe money . . . in full payment & satisfaccon . . . w[hi]ch the saide S[ir] Edmund Anderson . . . was to paie unto me the saide Henrie for the purchase of all those manors, messuages, lands . . . and hereditaments conteyned in the paire of Indentures made between the saide S[ir] Edmund Anderson . . . and me the saide Henrie Williams al[ia]s Cromwell . . .”
A note on the verso of the frame informs us that the document is docketed “. . . for ye purchase of St Neots”.
The use of the term “Henrie Williams alias Cromwell” is interesting. Henry’s grandfather, Morgan Williams, had left Wales to settle in Putney, where he met and married Thomas Cromwell’s elder sister Katherine. Thomas Cromwell’s subsequent rise to power brought many benefits to Morgan Williams, and to his son Richard, who took an active part in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and acquired several wealthy properties in Huntingdonshire. The change in the family name from Williams to Cromwell was in part due to the link with the now-powerful Thomas, but also in part due to laws enacted under Henry VIII which changed Welsh surnames from the patronymic, i.e., ap Owen, etc., to fixed surnames. It would therefore have made sense for the family to adopt the name of Henry’s grandmother, Cromwell.
Henry Cromwell was well thought of by Elizabeth I (during whose reign this document was issued), who knighted him, and also by the people of Huntingdonshire, by whom he was said to be “universally esteemed”. He appears to have been a generous man, as well as a wealthy one.
As well as being the great-nephew of Thomas Cromwell, Henry was also grandfather to Oliver Cromwell, through his second son, Robert.
An attractive document, with remarkable associations.

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