The Life and Entertaining Adventures of Mr. Cleveland, Natural
Son of Oliver Cromwell
SYNOPSIS OF THE PREVOST NOVEL
By
John Arnett
[Vikki's Note: Once again I thank John for his contributions in this
Cromwell matter. If you are something of a romantic as I am, with a
vivid imagination, it will be easy for you to get caught up in this
narrative as if it is truly a historical account of one of our ancestors. So
we must keep in mind that the Prevost book is a work of fiction, albeit historical fiction. Neverthless,
as John pointed out to us previously, scrutiny of this book is important to Cleveland
researchers simply because it had such a profound influence on our
forebears and their philosophies.]
The Life and Entertaining Adventures of Mr. Cromwell, Natural Son of Oliver
Cromwell, Written by Himself. Giving a particular Account of his Unhappiness in
Love, Marriage, Friendship, etc., and his great Sufferings in Europe and America.
Intermixed with Reflections, describing the heart of Man in all its Variety of Passions and
Disguises; also some curious Particulars of Oliver's History and Amours, never before
made publick. London: Printed for T. Astley, at the Rose in St. Paul's Church-Yard,
1735.
[This book, written by Abbe (Antoine) Prevost (1697-1763), contains some 380,000
words--about the size of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and three times the
length of Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). In the book all the s?s are
spelled with an f, but in the quotes I cite, I'll use s.]
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE
"The study of history is so advantageous, and at the same time so delightful, that 'tis no
wonder it has been cultivated by the finest spirits in all ages. The history of kingdoms and
empires, raises our admiration, by the solemnity, if I may so call it, of the images, and
furnishes one of the noblest entertainments. But at the same time that it is so well suited
to delight the imagination, it yet is not so apt to touch and affect as the history of private
men; the reason of which seems to be that the personages in the former, are so far above
the common level, that we consider ourselves, in some measure, as aliens to them;
whereas those who act in a lower sphere, are looked upon by us as a kind of relatives,
from the similitude of conditions; whence we are more intimately mov'd with whatever
concerns them....
"If any man had a perfect knowledge of the world 'tis our author. Brought up, like
another Lemuel [Gulliver], under a mother's eye, whose vast love for him, made
her extremely solicitous to form his mind, and whose large experience, capacity and
understanding, enabled her to do it without any foreign assistance; the depravity of his
fellow-creatures was strongly inculcated to him, at an age when others amuse themselves
with trifles. The solitude he was brought up in; the excellent moral authors which his
fond parent put into his hands; and the judicious comment she made upon them, gave a
peculiar bent to Mr. Cleveland's mind; so that when he came to enter upon the Stage of
the world, which he did with the utmost reluctance, it appear'd to him in a quite different
light, from what it does to the rest of men....
"The Reader will very possibly be desirous of knowing how these Papers came into my
Hands. To satisfy his curiosity, I am to inform him, that they were given to me by Mr.
Cleveland, the author's son, a person advanced in years, who spent the greatest part of his
life in foreign countries and lives now in Kingstreet, Westminster. I first got acquainted
with him about three years ago at Montpelier.... After some stay in this city we return'd
to Paris where we lodg'd in the same house. There he first shew'd me his father's
papers.... He told me, that the only objection he had to my proposal [to publish them],
was, the confus'd method in which they were writ...we methodiz'd it in the manner in
which it is now publish'd, without altering a single circumstance in the whole work...he
consented readily to its publication.
"Some surprising incidents which we meet with the following sheets,
may perhaps incline some readers to doubt the truth of them. But how
many famous authors have been accus'd of writing untruths, which
afterwards have been found to be matters of fact?...
"The things about which Mr. Cleveland writes, did not happen so many
years ago but that there are persons now living who remember them. That
the lord Axminster suffer'd under great misfortunes, is well known: Not
to mention that our author agrees in a great many particulars with the
most authentic historians; a circumstance which adds no little weight to his
testimony in general. The cave of Rumney-Hole is well known to be of
a prodigious extent...." [There is a town in Devonshire called Axminster
which is near the caves described, but I haven't been able to find any
information about a Lord Axminster--JWA]
"If, notwithstanding what has been said, the reader should still suspect the truth
of some particulars, I yet am persuaded he will not think the time spent in the
perusal of this work lost; since, besides the agreeable turn of the
incidents; the many solid and masterly reflections which are scatter'd up and down
the work, afford amost useful instruction to all who are desirous of it. Telemachus
is well known to be a fictitious piece, but what book was ever more
entertaining, or abounds with finer precepts for the conduct of life?
"As I have been absent some years from my native country [France], possibly
the expression may not, in some few places, be altogether so correct as
it ought to have been, for which I must desire the judicious reader's
indulgence. In a little time I shall publish two volumes more, which will conclude the work.
"The Editor [Prevost]"
VOLUME I, BOOK I
Mr. Cleveland [we are never given his first name] begins his tale, "My Father's Name [Oliver
Cromwell] is so well known in the World, that I need not expatiate upon
my Extraction," and the book continues on to give a first-person account
of his adventures. Then he states, "My Mother's Name was Elizabeth Cleveland [all proper names in
the book are italicized] she was a daughter to one of the chief officers that superintended
the palace of Hampton court. Her beauty was so engaging, that Charles I,
no sooner saw her but he was smit." Elizabeth Cleveland, tired of being Charles I's
mistress and enduring his "fickelness," happened to make friends among the opposition
and, because of this, had her pension cut off by Charles and was disowned by her father
who had remained a staunch royalist. Through her new friends she got to know Oliver
Cromwell and "did not think it beneath her to become the Mistress of a Man of my
father's character, tho' she had been dear to a king." But then "my father [Cromwell]
himself no longer valued her, after she had indulged all his desires...and treated her as a
common mistress."
Elizabeth got disgusted with Cromwell and, pregnant, withdrew to Hammersmith
[just west of London] to pursue a life of independent study of literature, philosophy, Latin,
etc. [There is no date recorded of Mr. Cleveland's birth but based on later information is
estimated to have been about 1641. Oliver had married Elizabeth Bourchier in 1620.]
[Vikki's Note: Some researchers use these dates to discredit the Cromwell rumor, for
our ancestor would have had to be born about the time that Oliver was marrying, a
difference in dates of nearly a generation.] While [Elizabeth Cleveland was] rearing Mr.
Cleveland and teaching him herself, Cromwell became "the head of an army of furious
malcontents," which eventually ended in the "villainous" act of the "murder of
Charles the first, our lawful sovereign." Because of ambiguous feelings for
Cromwell and, hopeful that he would provide for her son, Mr. Cleveland [the name she
gave him], as he had for her, she decided she should meet Oliver again and introduce her
son to him. Oliver greeted her and his son and offered to set them up in a fine estate in
Jamaica. Secretly, though, he planned to have them killed, but the plot was foiled by the
intervention of a friend, Mrs. Riding, who let them live in a labyrinth of caverns called
Rumney-Hole on her estate in Devonshire.
Mrs. Riding told them of the fate of another of Oliver's mistresses, a Molly Bridge, who
was mentally tortured by him and driven to suicide leaving an orphan boy named Mr.
Bridge whom she had lost track of after he was imprisoned. While in Rumney-Hole, Mr.
Cleveland chanced to meet a Lord Axminster who was also living in the caverns to escape
the wrath of Cromwell whom Lord Axminster had challenged after his wife had been
raped and stabbed by Cromwell's lieutenants. Mr. Cleveland and Lord Axminster struck
up a strong friendship, and Cleveland fell in love with Axminster's daughter, Frances
[called Fanny through the rest of the book]. After the death of Cleveland's mother and
Axminster's wife, the three of them plus Mrs. Riding made plans to leave England for
France and escape Cromwell.
BOOK II
Mr. Cleveland's grandfather, hoping to keep him in Europe near him, managed to have a
fake marriage certificate produced which purported to show that Mr. Cleveland was
already engaged to marry an attractive widow they?d met at Roan named Mrs. Lallin.
Mrs. Lallin played along, and Fanny, disillusioned with Cleveland, left for America with
her father and Mrs. Riding. King Charles got mad at the younger Mr. Cleveland for
alleged duplicity and had him held under house arrest in Mrs. Lallin's home. Lallin and
Cleveland became friends; she told him how he was duped by his grandfather; pitied him
and arranged for them to escape to England where they booked passage on a ship bound
for the West Indies. The Captain of the ship, Mr. Wills, gained the confidence of
Cleveland who then told his story [one of many times in the book] including his escape
from his father, Cromwell. Wills, an undercover Cromwell supporter, then shackled
Cleveland and handed him over as a prisoner to another ship headed toward England and
kept Mrs. Lallin for his own amusement on his way westward.
But in one of many unexpected turns of fate, it turned out that the captain of the ship
which received Mr. Cleveland was none other than his half-brother, Mr. Bridge [no first
name either]. Mr. Bridge then related to Mr. Cleveland how he was rescued from England
by a Mrs. Elliott who was looking for honorable young men to populate a religious colony
located neat St. Helena Island which had been started by Protestant emigrants from La
Rochelle when it had been besieged by the Catholics and Cardinal Richelieu. [La Rochelle
surrendered in 1628.] Something in the soil or other environmental factors had created a
situation where only girls were born to the inhabitants. Most of Book III is taken up with
the account of Mr. Bridge's adventures on the island. Although the elders of the
community had determined spouses by lot, Bridge fell in love with Mrs. Elliott's daughter,
Angelica, whom he secretly married. The young men, including an impetuous man named
Gelin who remained unmarried, had to flee when their ideas of free choice ran counter to
the dictates of the elders of the colony. Bridge, Gelin, and one named Johnson had been
trying for several months since they were banished from the island to find it again and
rescue Angelica and Johnson's wife. They were in the midst of trying to find the island
again when they came upon Captain Wills' ship and took the "prisoner" Mr.
Cleveland.
VOLUME III, BOOK IV
Mr. Cleveland persuaded Mr. Bridge and his companions to take him to the West Indies
so he could try to find Lord Anxminster, Fanny, Mrs. Riding, and Mrs. Lallin. They finally
agreed and set ashore at Martinico where he learned that Axminster and company had
been just a few days prior before going up to Florida and Virginia. Mr. Cleveland
arranged for passage to Virginia and with the company of a West Indian guide named Iglu,
arrived in Powhatan town and then Jamestown where he learned they had been. He then
followed them westward toward the Appalachians and eventually found them in the
Carolinas. He was happily reunited with Fanny, Lord Axminster, and Mrs. Riding and
explained how his grandfather had tricked them in France. The group then moved to an
area of the country inhabited by a tribe of Abaquis. [Prevost's sense of geography gets
somewhat confused here as he supposes that Florida is immediately south of Carolina and
that the area is part of the West Indies.]
Mr. Cleveland and Fanny are "officially" married in a rope ceremony according to the
Abaquis tradition, and Mr. Cleveland sets about to establish a utopian government among
the Abaquis tribe. Much of Book IV is given over to the institution of his government and
provision of defense from a hostile neighboring tribe, the Rouintons. It's of interest that
he gave women nearly an equal say in the running of the government though men still did
the soldiering. He also showed them his brand of Natural religion which was devoid of
many of the traditions he had seen practiced elsewhere. [For all his reading there is
curiously no mention of the Bible.] Cleveland, of course, was the authority figure, and
hoped by this means to gain the ability to slip away to join Lord Axminster whom he had
sent out to explore the continent further for King Charles.
BOOK V
Finally Cleveland persuaded the Abaquis to head south with him in search of Lord
Axminster. When they came into Florida, nearly the whole Abaquis force was destroyed
by disease, and then they were attacked by the cannibalistic Rouintons. Mrs. Riding and
Fanny's first child, a daughter, were taken away, burned, and eaten. Eventually, Mr.
Cleveland and Fanny escaped and arrived at Pensacola. There they saw Lord Axminster,
who had been captured and forced to travel with Indians. He had just been deposited at
Pensacola a few days before they arrived and was gravely ill.
Lord Axminster died a few days after, and Mr. Cleveland and Fanny had him taken with
them to Havana, Cuba, where he was buried. In Cuba they fell under the care of Don
Pedro, the governor, who was the father of Lord Axminster's deceased wife. In Cuba
Fanny gave birth to two sons, William [called Billy] and Tommy [born about 1663].
While in Cuba, Mr. Cleveland visited other islands including Seranna, where he argued
with one of Cromwell's former dissenter adversaries, Lambert, who had been exiled. Mr.
Bridge, Gelin, and Johnson arrived then with tales of how they found their lost island [it
was actually the interior plain of St. Helena, an island known two centuries later as the
exile home of Napoleon] and Bridge was reunited with Angelica [who is referred to in the
rest of the book as Cleveland's sister-in-law or sister]. To the Bridges was born a daugher
named Bezy.
Mr. Cleveland then left for Virginia again in search of Mrs. Lallin, whom he found and
brought back to Cuba. While he was away, however, Gelin took a fancy to Fanny and
plotted to seduce her. Mrs. Lallin's arrival planted some doubt in Fanny's mind about
Cleveland's love for her, since it seemed that he preferred conversation with Mrs. Lallin
rather than her and chided her for disturbing his reading of philosophy. When the entire
group decided to go to St. Helena in order to pick up Angelica, Gelin ran off with Fanny,
leaving Mr. Cleveland in St. Helena bemoaning his misfortune [something he does a lot in
the book].
Mr. Cleveland and the Bridges then traveled to Corunna, Spain, where, amazingly, they
ran into Gelin again. Unbeknownst to Cleveland, Fanny had run away from him toward
France. A sword fight ensued between Gelin and Mr. Bridge and both were wounded, but
Mr. Bridge died and Gelin escaped. Grieved at his losses, Mr. Cleveland decided to go
back to France with his two sons, Mrs. Lallin, and his sister-in-law.
VOLUME IV, BOOK VI
In 1667 [the first date cited in the book] Mr. Cleveland and his entourage traveled to
Nantz [?Nantes] and then settled in Saumur, France. There Cleveland got reacquainted
with Lord Clarendon, one of Charles' trusted ministers, and also engaged in some heavy
introspection. Not surprisingly he became depressed at the inability of his philosophy to
save him from the wiles of passion and fortune. He contemplated suicide, even thinking at
one point of taking his sons' lives with him to spare them the cruelties of the world. His
sons heard him muttering these thoughts and fled from his presence, thus jolting him back
to reality.
Mrs. Lallin arranged for counseling with a Protestant minister first and then with a
Catholic, Father Le Bane. He engaged in spirited discussions with the ministers about the
advantages and disadvantages of the various religions. He was then summoned to Angers,
France, by the Bishop who would have ordered his children to Catholic schools and his
niece, Bezy, to a convent, had not the Duchess of Orleans [Henrietta Anne or "Minette,"
sister of Charles II] intervened. Through Clarendon, he had developed an acquaintance
with the Duchess, and his friendship with Lord Axminster had endeared him to Charles II.
Mr. Cleveland told his sad tale to the Duchess, and she surprised him with the news she
had seen Fanny in the convent of Challiot nearby. However, the news did not hearten Mr.
Cleveland, who still blamed her for deserting him and running off with Gelin.
At the suggestion of the Duchess, Mr. Cleveland and his extended family moved to St.
Cloud. There Mr. Cleveland was visited by a Jesuit who sought to teach him how to find
peace by reading a book of catechism, other books, and visiting the community.
Cleveland had little use for the books the Jesuit provided, and when he visited a Mr.
Ringsby, a Protestant, he fell in love with his daughter, Cecilia. [At the time he had
considered Fanny lost to him.] After a series of amorous discussions and adventures [no
steamy sex scenes in the book] and the admission that he had been married but that his
wife had left him, arrangements were made for him to get a divorce and marry Cecilia.
Because the Catholics in France were persecuting the Protestants at this time [The Edict
of Nantes was eventually revoked formally by Louis XIV in 1685], the plans were being
developed for the entire group [Cleveland, Riding, Bridge, Ringsby, and servants] to flee
to England.
BOOK VII
In order to secure the divorce, Mr. Ringsby traveled to Challiot convent to have Fanny
sign a paper stating that she had been unfaithful. Fanny, who had almost immediately
realized she'd made a mistake in allowing Gelin to take her away and had resisted his
advances as he and others were later to disclose, agreed, nevertheless, to sign the papers.
Out of her shame and love for Mr. Cleveland and the mistaken assumption that Mr.
Ringsby meant Mrs. Lallin was the intended, she uttered these words to Ringsby which
were repeated to Cleveland, "Tell therefore Mr. Cleveland, that I wish he may live more
happily with her, than he has done with me: Tell him, that I shall beg this earnestly of
heaven. And since my consent only is wanting to make him happy, assure him that he has
it; and only remind him, that I never in my life oppos?d his happiness." Mr. Cleveland
was moved by the comments but still believed that Fanny had wronged him.
Mrs. Lallin took the two boys and Mrs. Bridge to the convent and there was great joy
mixed with sorrow when they met her through the chapel gate. Subsequently the chaplain
and others corroborated the story of Fanny?s abduction and her innocence. Then Gelin
disguised as a priest entered the story again and confronted Mr. Cleveland, challenging
him to a sword fight. Gelin detailed also how Fanny had refused his advances, and her
faithfulness to Cleveland made him despise Cleveland all the more. Gelin wounded
Cleveland and was captured.
Cleveland recovered from his wounds, and Gelin was spared death by "converting to
Catholick." Cleveland was still confused by having to choose between Fanny and Cecilia
when fate intervened again.
VOLUME V, BOOK VIII
The Duchess of Orleans, Mr. Cleveland's protector against the wiles of the French
Catholics and the Jesuit particularly, died in 1670, and there was suspicion she was
poisoned. With this news the Jesuit who had been instructing Cleveland moved in with his
men to capture Cecilia and take her to a convent. Mr. RIngsby rode after them and was
killed.
By this time Mr. Cleveland had been sufficiently reassured of his wife's fidelity, and he and
Fanny were then joyously reunited and went to live near Lord Clarendon in Roan [Rouen?
or Roanne?]. After Lord Clarendon's death in 1674, Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland, their two
sons, sister [Angelica] Bridge and niece Bezy, and Mrs. Lallin left for England. The trip
was not uneventful as they were attacked by pirates, and Mrs. Lallin and the Bridges were
carried away. Later they were rescued off the Barbary Coast and Mrs. Lallin reunited
miraculously with her brothers who hadn't seen her since she had left for America with
Mr. Cleveland in Book III. Mrs. Bridge and her daughter were also freed.
BOOK IX
Mr. Cleveland and Fanny settled into life in England, and he participated in the life of the
court of Charles II. [Many names are mentioned which would be of interest to those
knowledgeable of this period of English history, but these contacts will not be mentioned
here.] Mr. Cleveland helped to foil an insurrection attempt led in part by a Father Giffard
who, it turned out, was the sinister Jesuit of France who abducted Cecilia and killed her
father. He confessed to Cleveland that he didn't intend to take her to a convent but to
make her his mistress. He tried to rape her, and when she refused, he stabbed her and left
her for dead. Father Giffard was subsequently imprisoned and executed by poison.
The Clevelands lived near the Rumney-Hole area of Devonshire, England, and two
daughters were born to them. Tragedy again struck when their oldest son, Billy, was
stabbed to death by an assassin who escaped and whose identity was initially
unknown.
BOOK X
Mr. Cleveland continued to occupy himself with more affairs of Charles II's court. Mrs.
Lallin, Mrs. [Angelica] Bridge, and daughter Bezy reached England after their kidnapping
adventure and related their adventures and rescue. Mr. Cleveland's only remaining son,
Tommy, and Mrs. Bridge's daughter, Bezy, renewed their love which had begun in
France, and they were married.
One day while walking in the woods, Mr. Cleveland was shot, and the attempted assassin
said to be a Jesuit named Blood was arrested. When Cleveland met him, he discovered
that Blood was his old enemy Gelin. Gelin stated that it was he who had killed Billy and
would continue to make Mr. Cleveland's life miserable. Gelin was taken away and
presumably executed. In order not to upset Fanny, Mr. Cleveland never told her it was
Gelin who had murdered her son.
BOOK XI
In 1684 Fanny became ill and died several days after comforting Mr. Cleveland, "I am so
oppressed with sickness, that alas! I have no hopes of recovery; and I even believe my
end is very nigh. Remember, my dear spouse, the strength of mind with which I was
endured, when I was told the cruel end of our darling son. I earnestly implore heaven to
indulge you the same support, when it shall think fit to separate us. Live happy with my
survivors, and be assured that your submission to the Divine Will will prove the greatest
comfort to you. We shall meet again in the mansions of Glory, and there enjoy each other
to all eternity. To thee, my God, I give my soul! Save me by the merits of my blessed
Savior!"
Encoouraged by his children, Mr. Cleveland put his grief behind him: "Your observation
was very just, dear daughter, when you told me that ?twas envying my dear wife's felicity,
to wish her again in this frail, sublunary world. Let us firmly resolve to submit our selves
on all occasions to the will of Providence; for I am persuaded that the more we resign our
selves, our tranquility will be greater.... Formerly, I should have called philosophy to my
aid, but on this occasion I had recourse to the Gospel."
Shortly after Fanny's death, Mr. Cleveland received a lengthy letter from Cecilia who
expressed her condolences at Fanny's death and told how she had escaped from the Jesuit
and then had happily married a Count in Germany. In the next year, 1685, Mr. Cleveland
related the death of Charles II, and noted that after a few years of James, he was pleased
to report that William of Orange had acceded to the throne and ushered in a new era more
benevolent to the Protestants.
THE END
There is no Epilogue to the book and we aren't told, even in the preface, when Mr.
Cleveland died except it was before the date of publication, 1734. Presumably the son
who gave the manuscript to Prevost according to the fictitious preface would have been
Tommy, but there is no further mention of him after his marriage to Bezy except that he
served in the army under William of Orange. Lord Axminster had, before he died, made
Mr. Cleveland the inheritor of his estate, and this no doubt devolved to Tommy. No
mention of the fate of his two daughters is mentioned in the book.
As to why Prevost chose the name of Cleveland to be that of his protagonist, we have no
word. Charles I was beheaded in 1649, and in his book on Charles II, Hutton mentions
that in 1650 at Worcester, "Lord Wentworth's father, the aged Earl of Cleveland, led a
desperate charge to hold the enemy [the Parliamentarian Roundheads and Cromwell's
Model Army] while the King [Charles II] escaped [to Normandy]." The aged Earl of
Cleveland lived several more years after the battle. There is also the account of Barbara
Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (1641-1709), a mistress of Charles II, of whom Prevost
may have had knowledge. Neither she nor the Earl of Cleveland were mentioned in
Prevost's novel.
John Arnett, January 1996
c1996 by Cleveland Family Chronicles
All rights reserved.
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