From causes insufficiently explained, the revenue of Sir Oliver dwindled; and, being under the necessity of alienating part of his hereditary estates, he sold Hinchinbrook to Sir Sidney Montagu, of Barnwell, knight--the ancestor of the present Earl of Sandwich--in whose family it has since remained. Thus, the heir apparent, afterwards the Protector, instead of inheriting a large patrimony, had but a poor prospect; his father, to augment his income, became a brewer, dwelling in a comparatively “meane house within the towne;”[33] and it is matter for curious speculation how far the visits of James I. to Sir Oliver impaired the fortunes of the house, and the consequent impoverishment may have biassed the character of his nephew; who, possibly, if he had been heir to the enormous estates acquired by his grandfather, might have been contented with his destiny, and have never drawn a sword which continued out of the scabbard until a monarch had perished on a scaffold.[34] In Huntingdon, Oliver Cromwell was born, on the 25th April, 1599, “by birth,”--as he described himself in Parliament fifty-five years afterwards,--“a gentleman, to live neither at any considerable height nor yet in obscurity;” and in the church which adjoined his father’s house, the church of St. John, long ago removed, he was christened, four days afterwards, as appears by the entry (of which we made a fac-simile copy) in the books, now preserved in the church of All-Saints. [Illustration] Above this entry some loyalist had written, “England’s plague for five years,” which the pen of some Parliamentarian had afterwards struck through. The hand-writing of this pithy sentence seems, to judge from the characters and the ink, nearly as old as the registry itself. Fortunately there is one object associated with the early life of “Oliver, Lord Protector,” which the rude hand of a modern Vandal has not been able to desecrate or even touch. The Grammar School remains uninjured even by time; it stands [Illustration] in the centre of the Town, opposite to All-Saints Church;[35] and in its interior as well as exterior seems to have undergone very little change since Oliver’s master, Dr. Beard, flogged him there--as tradition saith he did--for dreaming that “he saw a gigantic figure come to his bedside, and tell him he should be greater than a King;” and where, not long afterwards--it is said, on the same authority--while acting the part of “Tactus” in the play of “Lingua,” it was his business to “stumble at a crown and regalia,” and to repeat the lines commencing-- “Was ever man so fortunate as I, To break his shins at such a stumbling-block.”