Henry Cromwell Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ⁴²

   Ancestral File Number: FK7G-WW.

  General Notes:

Henry, like his brothers, received such brief education as the stormy times would permit, at Felsted. He joined his father in arms about the time of the remodelling of the army, being then only sixteen years of age; and three years afterwards he held either a captaincy in Harrison's regiment of in Sir Thomas Fairfax's Life-Guards. In the summer of 1648 he served under his father in the North of England. Advanced to a colonelcy in February, 1650, he accompanied his father in the short but decisive Irish campaign, being present at the death-bed on his brother-in-law, Henry Ireton, who died at Limerick in 1651. At the age of twenty-five Henry sat in the Barebones Parliament in 1653 as a representative of Ireland. On May 19, 1653, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Frances Russell of Chippenham, Bart., and on February 22 in the year following entered at Gray's Inn.

His subsequent career as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland brought to light all those faculties which proved him the worthy son of such as father. He remained at his post during the two Protectorates, having throughout a sore fight to maintain with fanatics of every class, but harasses principally by the difficulty of getting the soldiers' pay from England. Rapin's observation, made after the event, has been accepted by most subsequent historians, namely, that if Henry had succeeded to the Protectorate instead of Richard, the Republican officers would have met their match. ¹²⁴

Henry married Lady Elizabeth Russell, daughter of Sir Francis Russell and Unknown, on 1653 May 10.¹¹⁵ (Lady Elizabeth Russell was born ca 1635 ¹¹⁶ and died on 1687 Apr 7 ¹¹⁶.)