37 



THURLOE, JOHN. 



TIIURLOE, JOHN. 



M 



the genera Harpalus, Lygcvus, Pyralis, and Tinea have specific names 

 after Thunberg. 



Thunberg was an amiable kind man, and highly esteemed by his 

 friends and pupils. The great additions that he has made to our 

 knowledge of the plants of the world, as well as their uses to man, 

 place him amongst the most distinguished botanists of the last and 

 present century. He was not great as a vegetable physiologist, nor 

 did he attempt anything more in systematic botany than a slight emen- 

 dation of the system of Linnaeus. As a traveller, Thunberg is remark- 

 able for the accuracy of his observations on the manners, habits, and 

 domestic economy of the people that he visited. 



THURLOE, JOHN, who held the office of secretary of state during 

 the Commonwealth, was born in 1616, at Abbots Roding, in Essex, of 

 which place his father, the Rev. Thomas Thurloe, was rector. He was 

 designed for the profession of the law. Through the interest of Oliver 

 St. John, who was his patron through life, he was appointed, in 1645, 

 one of the secretaries to the parliament commissioners for conducting 

 the treaty of Uxb ridge. He was called to the bar after this, in 1647, 

 by tbe society of Lincoln's Inn; and in March 1648 he received the 

 appointment of receiver or clerk of the cursitor's fines, "worth at 

 least 350Z. per annum," says Whitelocke ; " and in this place was Mr. 

 Thurloe servant to Mr. Solicitor St. John." (' Memorials,' p. 296.) 



Thurloe has left behind him a distinct denial of knowledge of or 

 participation in King Charles's death, which took place, as is well 

 known, in January 1649. Writing to Sir Harbottle Grimston for the 

 purpose of contradicting reports that St. John had been Cromwell's 

 counsellor on that and on other occasions, and "that I was the medium 

 or hand between them by which their counsels were communicated to 

 each other," he says, " I was altogether a stranger to that fact and to 

 all the counsels about it, having not had the least communication with 

 any person whatsoever therein." (Thurloe's ' State Papers,' vol. vii., 

 p. 914.) It was very unlikely that a person in Thurloe's subordinate 

 position at that time should have been consulted ; and if it were a 

 question of any importance whether he approved of the king's death 

 or not, his subsequent continual identification with the authors of that 

 event is more than sufficient to fix him with responsibility. 



On the llth of February 1650 Thurloe was appointed one of the 

 officers of the treasury of the company of undertakers for draining 

 Bedford Level, a new effort to drain this tract of country having been 

 set on foot the year before. In a letter from St. John to Thurloe, 

 dated April 13, 1652 (' State Papers,' vol. i , p. 205), which is interest- 

 ing as showing the terms on which Thurloe and St. John were, we find 

 that Thurloo was then on an official tour of inspection : " Now you 

 are upon the place, it would be well to see all the works on the north 

 of Bedford river to be begun. Pray by the next let me know whether 

 Bedford river be finished as to the bottoming." In the eame letter 

 are directions from St. John, now lord-chief-justice, for the purchase 

 of a place for him in the neighbourhood of London, from which it 

 would appear that Thurloo was in the habit of managing St. John's 

 private affairs for him. The same letter contains St. John's congratu- 

 lations to Thurloe on his appointment as secretary to the council of 

 state, which appointment had just taken place : " I hear from Sir 

 Hen. Vayne, and otherwise, of your election into Mr. Frost's place, 

 with the circumstances. God forbid I should in the least repine at 

 any of his works of Providence, much more at those relating to your 

 own good, and the good of many. No, I bless him. As soon as I 

 heard the news, in what concerned you, I rejoiced in it upon those 

 grounds. No, go on and prosper : let not your hands faint : wait 

 upon Him in his ways, and He that hath called you will cause his 

 presence and blessing to go along with you." In the course of the 

 previous year, 1651, Thurloe had been to the Hague, as secretary 

 to St. John and Strickland, ambassadors to the states of the United 

 Provinces. 



When Cromwell assumed the Protectorship, in December 1653, 

 Thurloe was appointed his secretary of state. In consequence of his 

 attaining to this distinction, he was, in the February succeeding, 

 elected a bencher of the society of Lincoln's Inn. Thurloe was 

 elected member for the Isle of Ely in Cromwell's second parliament, 

 called in June 1654, and framed on the model prescribed by the 

 Instrument of Government. He was re-elected for the Isle of Ely in 

 the next parliament, called in September 1656. Cromwell obtained 

 from this parliament an act settling the office of post of letters, both 

 inland and foreign, in the state for e'/er, aud granting power to the 

 Protector to let it for eleven years at such rent as he should juHge 

 reasonable; and it was let by him to Thurloe, at a rent of 4000/. 

 a year, as we learn from a memorandum drawn up by him when the 

 Rump Parliament had cancelled the grant. (' State Paper*,' vol. vii., 

 p. 788.) It is to be inferred that he made much profit by this fanning 

 of the postage. The salary of his secretaryship of state was 8001. 

 a year. He is described in a 'Narrative of the Late Parliament,' 

 reprinted in the 'Harleian Miscellany' (vol. iii., p. 453), as "secretary 

 of state and chief postmaster of England, places of a vast income." 



There is the following entry in Whitelocke's ' Memorials,' under 

 the date of April 9, 1657 : " A plot discovered by tbe vigilancy of 

 Thurloe, of an intended insurrection by Major-General Harrison and 

 many of the Fifth-Monarchy Men" (p. 655). Thurloe afterwards, by 

 Cromwell's desire, reported on the subject of this plot to the parlia- 

 ment, and received in his place the thanks of the house, through the 



speaker, for his detection of the plot, and " for tbe great services dona 

 by him. to the commonwealth and to the parliament, both in tbu and 

 many other particulars." On the 13th of July 1657 he wu sworn one 

 of the privy council to the Protector, appointed in accordance with 

 the ' Humble Petition and Advice.' Honours now came thick upon 

 him. In the year 1658 he was elected one of the governors of the 

 Charter-House and chancellor of the University of Glasgow. 



In September 1658 Cromwell died, and his son Richard was pro- 

 claimed in his stead. In the parliament that was called in December, 

 Thurloe was solicited to sit for Tewksbury, in a letter which ia worth 

 extracting, as showing his estimation and position at this time, and the 

 spirit of constituencies : " Noble Sir, We undoi utand that you are 

 pleased so much to honour this poor corporation as to accept of our 

 free and unanimous electing you one of our burgesses in the next 

 parliament, and to sit a member for this place. Sir, we are so sensible 

 of the greatness of the obligation, that we know not by what expres- 

 sions sufficiently to demonstrate our acknowledgements ; only at 

 present we beseech you to accept of this for an earnest, that whom- 

 soever you shall think worthy to be your partner shall have the 

 second election; and our zeal and hearty affections to serve and 

 honour you whilst we are, as we shall ever strive to be, Sir, your 

 most humble and obliged servants," &c. : signed by the bailiffs and 

 justices of Tewksbury. (' State Papers,' vol. vii., p. 572.) He was 

 not after all chosen for Tewksbury. He was elected for Wisbech, 

 Huntingdon, and the University of Cambridge. His election for the 

 last was communicati d to him in a letter from the celebrated Dr. 

 Cudworth, who wrote to him. in this strain : " We being all very glad 

 that there was a person of so mnch worth and so good a friend to the 

 university and learning as yourself, whom we might betrust with the 

 care of our privileges and concernments." (' State Papers,' vol. vii., 

 p. 587-) Thurloe made his election to sit for the University of 

 Cambridge. 



The meeting of this parliament was the beginning of discontents 

 and of Richard Cromwell's fall. We find Thurloe, in a letter to 

 Henry Cromwell, viewing the complaints of the army and of tho 

 opposition in parliament as pointed principally against himself, and 

 stating that he had asked the Protector's permission to retire from his 

 office. " I trust," he adds, " other honest men will have their oppor- 

 tunity, and may do the same thing with myself with better acceptance, 

 having not been engaged in many particulars, as I have, in your father's 

 lifetime, which must be the true reason of these stirrings ; for they 

 were all set on foot before his now highness had done or refused one 

 single thing, or had received any advice from any one person whatso- 

 ever." Thurloe remained however secretary of stato. It was one of 

 the objects set before themselves by the royalists hi this parliament, 

 who, by uniting with the republican party, formed a most troublesome 

 opposition to Richard Cromwell's government, to impeach Thurloe ; 

 but this object was yet undeveloped when the parliament was dissolved. 

 Thurloe appears to have given strong counsel against the dissolution, 

 though it is generally stated otherwise, on the authority of the follow- 

 ing passage in Whitelocke: "Richard advised with the Lord Broghill, 

 Fiennes, Thurloe, Wolsey, myself, and some others, whether it were 

 not fit to dissolve the present parliament : most of them were for it ; 

 I doubted the success of it " (p. 677). Those mentioned are very few 

 of the council, and, even if there had been no others, it would be 

 quite consistent with the words of this passage that Thurloe should 

 have sided with Whitelocke. That Thurloe strenuously opposed tho 

 dissolution is distinctly stated, and with circumstantial mention of the 

 authority, in Calarny's Life of Howe, prefixed to Howe's Works, p. 9, 

 ed. 1724, fol. We know further that the dissolution was urged on 

 Richard Cromwell by the republican and royalist parties, which were 

 united against Thurloe. Whitelocke says, a little afterwards, of the 

 dissolution, that it "caused much trouble in the minds of many honest 

 men; the cavaliers and republicans rejoiced at it." One of the "many 

 honest men " was doubtless Thurloe. (See also Clarendon's ' State 

 Papers,' vol. iii., pp. 420-60.) The immediate consequence of the 

 dissolution was the summoning, by Fleetwood and the council of 

 officers, of the Rump of tho Long Parliament, and Richard Cromwell's 

 deposition. 



The letters written during Richard Cromwell's short Protectorate, 

 in the third volume of Clarendon's ' State Papers,' arc full of acknow- 

 ledgments of Thurloe's influence with Richard Cromwell, and of the 

 importance attached to him by the intriguing Royalists. Thus, 

 Cooper, one of Hyde's spies, writes to him, February 13, 1659, "Crom- 

 well is governed by Thurloe, whether for fear or love I know not ; but 

 sure it is, he hath power to dispose him against the sense of right, 

 or indeed his own interests, Thurloe's malice, I doubt, will never 

 suffer him to do us good" (p. 425). Again Hyde writes to another of 

 his agents, Brodrick, " There is nothing we have thought of more 

 importance, or have given moro in charge to our friends since tbe 

 beginning of the parliament, than that they should advance all charges 

 and accusations against Thurloe aud St. John, who will never think of 

 serving the king; and if they two were thoroughly prosecuted, and 

 some of the members of the High Court of Justice, Cromwell's spirits 

 would fall apace " (p. 428). " It is strange," Hyde writes a month 

 after, March 10, 1659, "they have not in all this time fell upon Thurloe 

 and those other persons who advanced Cromwell's tyranny" (p. 436). 

 Then overtures to Thurloe to aid the king are thought of. " I do 



