1059.] OLIVER CROMWELL. 211 



perfectly correct. Our Annals have divulged certain 

 facts hitherto unknown, or forgotten, by which it is 

 apparent that the Protector, at any rate, inherited from 

 his uncle all the attributes of a Turfite.* His family 

 seat at Hinchingbrooke, at the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century, was as much associated with the turf in 

 those days as Goodwood Park is in these. The visits 

 of James I. to Hinchingbrooke were of frequent 

 occurrence. Bred, born, and reared at Hinchingbrooke, 

 Olivier Cromwell must have been imbued with the 

 infatuation, if not actually initiated in, the mysteries 

 of the national sport during the seventeen years of 

 his residence there prior to his arrival at Cambridge 

 University in 161 6. While at Cambridge it is related 

 he exhibited, in a marked degree, many of the venatic 

 predilections of his family ; and several writers inform 

 us that he spent most of his time there at foot-ball, 

 hunting, hawking, " and other robust exercises for skill 

 and expertness, in which he was famous." His father 

 dying about two years after Oliver had been at college, 

 he returned home ; " when the irregularity of his 

 conduct so disturbed his mother, that by the advice 

 of friends she sent him to London, and placed him 

 in Lincoln's- Inn. But here, instead of applying 

 himself to the study of the law, he gave himself up 

 to wine, women, and play, so that he quickly dissipated 

 what his father had left him." Now, is it possible that 

 any seventeenth-century young gentleman could have 

 better training for a successful career on the turf, or 

 higher qualifications to become a patron saint of the 



* See vol. i., pp. 96, 97. 



