Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 07.djvu/46

24 siring to wait upon Providence in this Business, I rest, Sir, your affectionate friend and servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.

I desire my service may be presented to your Lady and Daughters.

This is the last of the Marriage-treaty. Mr. Barton, whom 'no Counsel in England' could back, was of course disowned in his over-zeal; the match was concluded; solemnised 1st May 1649.

Richard died 12th July 1712, at Cheshunt, age 86; his Wife died 5th January 1675-6, at Hursley, and is buried there,—where, even after Richard's Deposition, and while he travelled on the Continent, she had continued to reside. In pulling down the old Hursley House, above a century since, when the Estate had passed into other hands, there was found in some crevice of the old walls a rusty lump of metal, evidently an antiquity; which was carried to the new Proprietor at Winchester; who sold it as 'a Roman weight,' for what it would bring. When scoured, it turned out,—or is said by vague Noble, quoting vague 'Vertue,' 'Hughes's Letters,' and ' ''Ant. Soc.'' ' (Antiquarian Society), to have turned out,—to be the Great Seal of the Commonwealth. If the Antiquaries still have it, let them be chary of it.

While Miss Dorothy Mayor is choosing her wedding-dresses, and Richard Cromwell is looking forward to a life of Arcadian felicity now near at hand, there has turned up for Richard's Father and other parties interested, on the public