Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/57

 wise of any moment, are all false; and should be mentioned here, if still here, for the last time. The family was of the rank of substantial gentry, and duly connected with such in the counties round, for three generations back. Of the numerous and now mostly forgettable cousinry we specify farther only the Mashams of Otes in Essex, as like to be of some cursory interest to us by and by.

There is no doubt at all but Oliver the Protector’s family was related to that of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the Putney ‘Blacksmith’s’ or Iron-master’s son, transiently mentioned above; the Malleus Monachorum, or, as old Fuller renders it, ‘Mauler of Monasteries,’ in Henry Eighth’s time. The same old Fuller, a perfectly veracious and most intelligent person, does indeed report as of ‘his own knowledge,’ that Oliver Protector, once upon a time when Bishop Goodman came dedicating to him some unreadable semi-popish jargon about the ‘mystery of the Holy Trinity’, and some adulation about ‘his Lordship’s relationship to the former great Purifier of the Church,’ and Mauler of Monasteries,—answered impatiently, ‘My family has no relation to his!’ This old Fuller reports, as of his own knowledge. I have consulted the unreadable semi-popish jargon, for the sake of that Dedication; I find that Oliver’s relationship to Thomas Cromwell is in any case stated wrong there, not right: I reflect farther that Bishop Goodman, oftener called ‘Bishop Badman’ in those times, went over to Popery; had become a miserable impoverished old piece of confusion, and at this time could appear only in the character of begging bore,—when, at any rate, for it was in the year 1653, Oliver himself, having just turned out the Long Parliament, was busy enough! I infer