ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on another of Cromwell's kin and the other leading New Model officer alongside Fleetwood in the late 1650s, John Disbrowe. Disbrowe was an officer with a different kinship link with Cromwell than Ireton or Fleetwood. Disbrowe was kin to Cromwell through his 1636 marriage to Cromwell's sister, Jane, well before the outbreak of the civil war and Cromwell's rise to national prominence. Disbrowe's more apparent independent position from Cromwell in the 1650s, compared to Fleetwood, thus appears not only rooted in Disbrowe's stronger character but also, perhaps, a more established and different relationship with Cromwell as kin. This chapter surveys Disbrowe's career in 1657 and relations with Cromwell before mirroring the consideration of Fleetwood by examining Disbrowe's part in the failure to prevent the Restoration in the context of the printed representations of him in the years 1658 to 1663. The print representations of Fleetwood and Disbrowe therefore sit alongside the earlier consideration of the portrayals of Cromwell, Ireton, and John Ireton. The chapter finishes by looking at the fate of Disbrowe and his family after the Restoration and his continuing links with Fleetwood and other radicals from the English Revolution such as Berry and Owen.
