FLEETWOOD, CHARLES, was descended from a private family iu Lancashire, from which several distinguished persona had sprung. From a trooper in the earl of Essex's forces he rose to be colonel of infantry, and was made governor of Bristol. In October 1615, he was returned to Parliament for Buckinghamshire, and in 1647 was one of the commissioners named to treat with the king. At the battle of Worcester, Fleetwood distinguished himself so much that he gained great favour both with Oliver Cromwell and the army in general : indeed afterwards, when the king was executed, and the parliamentary army became more powerful, he was inferior to few in the influence that he possessed among the soldiery. Fleetwood bad married Frances, the daughter of Thomas Smith of Winston, Norfolk, by whom he had three children, but this lady being dead, he was fixed upon by Crom well, from political motives, to marry Bridget, his eldest daughter, the widow of Ireton. Soon after he became his son-in-law the Protector nominated him commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, where ho was also invested with a commissionership for the civil department. Cromwell however feeling that his interests were not perfectly secure iu the hands of Fleetwood, who was a thorough republican, and strenuously opposed to the Protector being made king, sent his son Henry Cromwell to watch over his conduct Some enmity was thus produced, and with the view of putting an end to it, Cromwell created Fleetwood one of the new lards, and made him the chief of the fourteen major-generals to whom the government of the nation was arbitrarily committed and who were deputed to search for such royalists as had borne arms under Charles I., or were disaffected to
the present governmeut, with power to imprison them, and to deci mate their estates. When Richard Cromwell became Protector, Fleetwood strove to obtain his title, and to supplant him in his authority; but while he was caballing against him, the nation, wearied with tumult and discord, recalled the exiled king.
At the immediate time of the Restoration it was supposed that Fleetwood would be executed as a rebel his life was with difficulty saved, and he retired to Stoke Newington, where he was allowed to spend the remainder of his life in obscurity. He died in 1692. Iu character he was cunning, but irresolute, and of shallow capacity ; his influence in Cromwell's army is perhaps mainly attributable to the excess of his fanaticism.