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 510 CRONSTADT headed July 28, suffering cruelly at the hands of an unskilful executioner. Government had the baseness to place in his mouth a dying speech that he never made, but which has passed into history, so that he was represented to have died in the faith of that church which he had done so much to overthrow in England. There are few great men of whom so little is accurately known as Thomas Cromwell. He played for eight years the highest part in Eng- land, and in one of the most fruitful of revolu- tions. He stamped his mind on the English constitution in church and state. That he was guilty of many acts of injustice and cruelty is indisputable, but his memory is entitled to the plea that he was placed in a position where no man could have preserved his virtue. Tbe best account of Cromwell is to be found in Froude's " History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth." Crom- well was married to a lady of the name of Williams, by whom he had one son, Gregory, who was made Baron Cromwell of Okeham, at the same time that his father was created earl of Essex. This son was married to Eliza- beth Seymour, a sister of Henry VIII. 's third queen. The posterity of this couple long en- joyed the titles of Lord Cromwell and earl of Ardglass (1624), the last earl dying in 1687. CRONSTADT, or Kron- stadt, the most impor- tant seaport and naval fortress of Russia, the seat of the admiralty, and the station of the Baltic fleet, situated in the S. E. part of a small, arid, and rocky island, called Kotlinoi Ostrov (Kettle island), at the E. extremity of the gulf of Finland, opposite the mouth of the Neva, in the government and 13 m. W. of the city of St. Petersburg; pop. in 1867, 45,155. The town was built by Peter the Great in 1710, the island having been conquered from the Swedes in 1703 by Menshikoff, while Charles XII. was engaged in his Polish campaign; it received its name in 1721, was fortified during the same reign, and subsequently under Eliza- beth, Catharine II., Paul, Alexander I., and Nicholas, being destined from its foundation to become the great bulwark of the new Rus- sian capital, and a chief naval stronghold of the Baltic. The southern channel, which separates the island from the mainland, is nar- row and commanded by a small fortified islet, and allows single vessels only to pass ; the op- posite channel, the broader, but from its sand banks still less practicable entrance to the shallow eastern bay, called the bay of Cron- stadt, is commanded by the batteries of the rock of Risbank, and the citadel of Kronslot, situated on two small islands, each mounting more than 200 guns. Numerous forts and batteries defend all other parts of the island, which forms an irregular triangle, having its base toward St. Petersburg. Near its N. W. point is a lighthouse. The town is regularly built, has fine and well paved streets and squares, three gates, and Greek, Anglican, Lu- theran, and Roman Catholic churches. Other remarkable buildings are the exchange, custom house, arsenal, admiralty house, cannon foun- dery, barracks, and magazines ; the marine hos- pital, with 3,000 beds; a house of Peter the Great, now the country residence of the mili- tary governor, whose garden still contains a few oaks planted by the hands of that czar ; and a palace in the Italian style, erected by Menshikoff, and now used as a .naval school. Cronstadt. The last of these buildings is situated between the canals of St. Peter and Catharine, which intersect the town. The former canal is con- structed of granite, and is 2,160 ft. long by 90 ft. wide; it is in the form of a cross, and communicates by one of its arms with a vast dock, where 10 ships of the line can be repaired at once. The Catharine canal, 2-|- m. long, communicates with the mer- chant harbor, thus enabling the merchant- men to take their stores and provisions di- rectly from the warehouses of the town. The quays, constructed by the emperor Nicholas, are all of granite, and on a grand scale. Except the government buildings, about 200 in number, all the older houses of the town are low, and most- ly of wood. The harbor of Cronstadt, S. of the town, consists of three sections : the military, outer harbor, capable of containing 35 ships of the line, besides smaller vessels ; the middle har- bor, for the fitting out and repairing of vessels,