CROMWELL, HENRY (1628-1674), fourth son of Oliver Cromwell, was born at Huntingdon on Jan. 20, 1628, and served under his father in the latter part of the Civil War. In 1650 he took some troops to assist Oliver in Ireland and was one of the Irish representatives in the Little, or Nominated, Parliament of 1653. In 1655 he was appointed major-general of the forces in Ireland and a member of the Irish council of state. On the departure for England of the lord-deputy, Charles Fleetwood, in Sept. 1655, Henry was left for practical purposes the ruler of Ireland. He diverged from Fleetwood's policy, in protecting the interests of the English settlers and in holding the scales evenly between the different Protestant sects; and his undoubted popu larity in Ireland is attested by Clarendon. In Nov. 1657 Henry was made lord-deputy ; but on the succession of Richard Crom well to the office of protector, at his father's death, although Henry was now appointed lieutenant and governor-general of Ireland, it was only with great reluctance that he remained in that country. Having rejected proposals to assist in the restoration of Charles II., Henry was recalled to England in June 1659 just after his brother's fall. He resigned office at once, and although he lost some property at the Restoration, he was allowed to keep the estate he had bought in Ireland. His last years were passed at Spinney Abbey in Cambridgeshire, where he was unmolested by the Government and where he died on March 23, 1674. In 1653 he married Elizabeth (d. 1687), daughter of Sir Francis Russell, and left five sons and two daughters.
See J. Waylen, The House of Cromwell (new ed. 1897).