Bridget (Cromwell) Fleetwood (1624 - bef. 1662)

Born 4 Aug 1624 in Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, England

Ancestors

Wife of Henry Ireton — married 15 Jun 1646 in Holton, Oxfordshire, England

Descendants

Died before 1 Jul 1662 before age 37 in London, England [uncertain]

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Biography

Bridget Cromwell, eldest daughter of Oliver Cromwell^[1] and Elizabeth (Bouchier) Cromwell, was baptized at St. John's Church, Huntingdon, on 5 August 1624.^[2]

At age 22, after a long courtship, ^[3] Bridget married first Parliamentary General Henry Ireton,^[4] on 15 June 1646 at Holton St. Bartholomew (near Oxford). "15 June 1646. Henry Ireton, Commissary General to Sir Thomas Fairfax, and Bridget, daughter to Oliver Cromwell Lieutenant-General of the Horse to the said Sir Thomas Fairfax, were married by Mr. Dell in the Lady Whorwood's house in Holton. Alban Eales, rector."^{[2] [5]} Their children were one son,Henry (married Katharine Powle), and four daughters: Elizabeth (married Thomas Polhill), Jane (married Richard Lloyd), Bridget (married Thomas Bendysh) and (?).^[2] Bridget Ireton resided for some time with her husband in Ireland, where he had been appointed Deputy-Lieutenant, but had apparently returned to London before Ireton's death at Limerick on 27 November 1651. ^[5]

The widow Bridget Ireton married secondly on 8 June 1652 to another of her father's generals: Charles Fleetwood.^[6] They had a son Cromwell Fleetwood, (married Elizabeth Nevill, no issue), Ann (Nancy) Fleetwood, who died young, and Mary Fleetwood (married Nathaniel Carter, no surviving issue).^[2]

Bridget Fleetwood did not long survive the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, when the bodies of her father and first husband Ireton were exhumed from their graves in Westminster Abbey and subject to public mutilation. Her young daughter Anne, who had also been buried in Westminster Abbey, was also exhumed. ^[7] The location of her death is uncertain, but "her burial is recorded at St. Ann, Blackfriars, July 1, 1662,"^[2] where Charles Fleetwood's first wife Frances had been interred. ^[8]

Her portrait by Cornelius Johnson is now in Chequers Court. ^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ Oliver Cromwell, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} The House of Cromwell: A Genealogical History of the Family and Descendants of the Protector, by James Waylen, (1897)
3. ↑ Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell p. 177. New York: Grove Press, 1973
4. ↑ Henry Ireton, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Anderson, James. Memorable Women of the Puritan Times, pp. 352 ff. 1862. Mrs Fleetwood
6. ↑ Charles Fleetwood, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
7. ↑ Chester, Joseph Lemuel. The marriage, baptismal, and burial registers of the collegiate church or abbey of St. Peter, Westminster pp. 521-522. London: 1876. pp. 521-522 & Note #2.
8. ↑ Built on the site of a former Dominican monastery, St. Ann's Blackfriars became a Puritan stronghold under minister William Gouge (died 1653). St. Ann was destroyed four years after Bridget was buried there, in the Great London Fire of 1666.The graveyard is now a public park. It is situated in the heart of London, between Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral. St. Ann Blackfriars, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License]
9. ↑ ArkUK Cornelius Johnson

• Peter Gaunt, ‘Fleetwood , Bridget, Lady Fleetwood under the protectorate (bap. 1624, d. 1662)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 9 Oct 2017