Note 111 — Chapter X

Signor Horatio Pallavicini quitted his native country and settled in the Netherlands, where he married a woman of low extraction. On her death, he crossed over into England, and was appointed by Queen Mary collector of the papal taxes gathered in the kingdom. At Mary’s decease he happened to have thus a large sum of money in his possession, and accordingly turned Protestant. His talents and knowledge of continental languages rendered him very useful to Queen Elizabeth, who conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. In the following year he fitted out and commanded a ship against the Spanish Armada, and his portrait was placed among those of the patriots who distinguished themselves on that occasion in the tapestry that hung in the old House of Lords. He died in 1600, leaving his second wife, daughter of Egidius Hooftman of Antwerp, in possession of immense wealth. In the following year she married Sir Oliver Cromwell, uncle and godfather of the Protector. Two sons and a daughter by her former husband, Sir Horatio Pallavicini, married two daughters and a son of her second husband by his former wife. It does not appear that Lady Cromwell ever visited Genoa at all. Her son Oliver may have done so, as he was certainly a student at Padua. He was killed by the fall of some buildings at Rome. There is no mention of any other member of the family going to Italy. See the Rev. Mark Noble’s “Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell.”