The manor of Merdon had always
belonged to the See of Winchester, it is said, since 636, when it was
granted to the Bishop by King Kinegils. It remained with the Bishopric
until the Reformation, when it was granted to Sir Philip Hoby to be
restored to the Church by Queen Mary, and then again regranted to the
Hoby family about 1559. The manor had passed, however, by 1638 to
Richard Major, a miser and a tyrant, who "usurped authority over his
tentant" and more especially, for he was a fanatic Roundhead, "when
King Charles was put to death and Oliver Cromwell was Protector of
England and Richard Major of his Privy Council, and Noll's eldest son,
Richard, was married to Mr Major's Doll." Thus Merdon came into the
Cromwell family, another piece of Church property upon which that very
typical sixteenth-century family had already grown exceedingly wealthy.
Richard Cromwell (as he called himself) lived at Merdon a good deal,
till he succeeded his father in the usurped governance of England. But
when he was turned out in 1660 he found it safer to return to Merdon,
but only for a little while, France offering him, as he wisely thought,
a more secure asylum, not only from a charge of High Treason, but from
his creditors.
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