Lot Details
Lot 91
CROMWELL, OLIVER Autograph letter signed to Richard Major regarding his son.
[N.p.:] 28 June 1651. Three-page autograph letter signed "OCromwell" on a watermarked bifolium, approximately 600 words, the letter addressed "Dearest Brother" but to Richard Major, his son's father-in-law. 11 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches (30 x 20 cm); housed in a folding cloth case. The two sheets of the letter nearly detached, a few small tissue repair at ends of folds, toned areas, old staining obscures some text particularly at extremities and at the center of the third page and some words gone over in ink, bookplate of John Gribbel, St. Austell Hall to the folding case.
A long autograph letter from Oliver Cromwell to Richard Major concerning the extravagance and debts of his son Richard: "But indeed I cannot thinke I doe well to feede a voluptuous humor in my Sonn if he should make pleasures the business of his life, in a time when some precious saints are bleeding and breathing out their last for the good and safety of the rest..." Richard Cromwell was married to Major's daughter Dorothy Major and would assume the role of first Lord Protector upon the death of his father in 1658. This letter belonged to the American collector John Gribbel, known for donating the Glenriddell Manuscripts of Robert Burns to Scotland, and was sold in his sale at Parke-Bernet, 22-24 January 1941, lot 257 ("A fine and lengthy specimen").
C The Julius and Theodore Cohn Library
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