No one had any real enthusiasm for the harmless, helpless man, “the phantom king of half a year”; and it was just as old Mr. Maijor was dying that Richard was requested by the “Rump” to resign, and return to Hampton Court, with the promise of a pension and of payment of the debts incurred by his father. While packing for his departure, he sat down on a box containing all the complimentary addresses made to him, and said, “Between my legs lie the lives and fortunes of all the good folk in England!” He then returned to Hursley, where he found himself pursued by those debts of his father which the Long Parliament had engaged to pay, and which swallowed up more than his patrimony, though the manor of Merdon, having been settled upon his wife, could not be touched. He was sufficiently alarmed, however, to make him retreat to the continent and change his name to Clarke. In 1675 Mrs. Richard Cromwell died, leaving out of a numerous family only one son and two daughters. The son, Oliver, inherited the estates, and seems to have been on good terms with his father, who, in 1700, came to live at Cheshunt under his name of Clarke, and made some visits to Hursley. Richard married under this assumed name, and left some children. When Oliver died without heirs in 1706, his father Richard, according to the original settlement, succeeded to the property, but his two daughters set up their claim, and the case was brought into court. It is said that the judge was Cowper, but this has been denied. At any rate the judge seems to have been shocked at the undutiful litigation, and treated the old man with much respect. The case was decided in his favour, and he lived between Hursley and Cheshunt till his death in 1712 in his 86th year. As Mr. Palgrave writes:— Him count we wise, Him also, though the chorus of the throng Be silent, though no pillar rise In slavish adulation of the strong, But here, from blame of tongues and fame aloof, ’Neath a low chancel roof, The peace of God He sleeps; unconscious hero! Lowly grave By village footsteps daily trod; Unconscious! or while silence holds the nave, And the bold robin comes, when day is dim, And pipes his heedless hymn. [Picture: Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector] These are a poet’s meditations on him, more graceful than the inscription on the monument erected to him by his two undutiful daughters, ere, in 1718, they sold the estate. It was a large tablet of marble, surmounted by death’s heads. It is of gray or veined marble, in the Doric style of architecture, and is in height thirteen feet, and in breadth nearly nine. The inscription upon it is as follows:—