cellent match.

6. THE LADY FRANCES: _aetat. 19_. This, the youngest of
Cromwell's children, was also unmarried at the beginning of the
Second Protectorate. The fond dream of the wealthy old
Gloucestershire squire, Mr. John Dutton, that his nephew and
Cromwell's ward, Mr. William Dutton, Andrew Marvell's pupil at Eton
with the Oxenbridges, might become the husband of the Lady Frances,
as had been arranged between him and Cromwell (vol. IV. pp.
616-619), had not been fulfilled; and, the old squire himself being
now dead, young Dutton was left to find another wife for himself in
due time.[1] For the Lady Frances, his Highness's youngest
daughter, there might well be greater destinies. There had been
vague whispers, indeed, of a suggestion in certain quarters that
Charles II. himself should propose for her and negotiate for a
restoration, or a succession to Cromwell, accordingly; but for more
than a year there had been more authentic talk of her marriage with
Mr. ROBERT RICH, the only son of Lord Rich, and grandson and (after
his father) heir-apparent of the Earl of Warwick. That this great
and popular old Parliamentarian and Presbyterian Earl had been won
round at last to the Protectorate, and that he had graced the late
Installation conspicuonsly by his presence, were no unimportant
facts; and the projected family-alliance was by no means
indifferent to Cromwell. There were difficulties, not on the part
of the young people; but at length, Nov. 11, 1657, just a week
before the marriage of the elder sister to Lord Falconbridge, Lady
Frances did become the wife of Mr. Rich. In the fourth month of the
marriage, however. Feb. 16, 1657-8, the husband died, leaving the
Lady Frances, not yet twenty years of age, a widow. She married
again, and did not die till Jan. 1720-1.

[Footnote 1: The will of John Dutton, Esq., of Sherborne,
Gloucestershire, was proved June 30, 1657, just four days after the
beginning of the Second Protectorate; and young Mr. William Dutton
married a widow eventually--"Mary, daughter of John, Viscount
Scudamore, and relict of Thomas Russell of Worcestershire, Esq."
(Noble's Cromwell, I, pp 153-154).]

OTHER RELATIVES

Worth noting among the Relatives of Cromwell alive in the Second
Protectorate, were the following;--(1) The Protector's eldest
surviving sister, ELIZABETH CROMWELL, _aetat. 64_, living at Ely,
unmarried, and receiving occasional pr