CROMWELL (Oliver, 1599-1658, from 1653 Lord Protector)

Part Document signed 'Oliver P', "given under our Privie seal", with transcription, being the left half portion, ordering a payment out of the first moneys received "by vertue of a certaine Act made in the Parliament beg[inning the seventeenth daye of September] past in the year one thousand Six hundred fiftie & si[x entitled An Act for the preventing of the Multiplicity of Buildings] in and about the Suburbs of London and within tenn mil[es thereof ... to our] welbeloved Sr. John Wollaston Knight and Alderman ... fyve thousand pounds to our ... Generalls at Sea" and "foure thousand pounds to William Smithyer", vellum, 1 side 9½" x 5¾", no place, circa lacking seal and right hand half of each line but with a fine signature

The Act, which was passed on 26th June 1657, was a barely concealed device to raise money. A Commission was to collect, starting with one half on 29th September 1657, 1 year's rent of the "full improved value" of all properties of less than 4 acres built since 1620, with many interesting exceptions, such as for the Hospitals and for the developments in Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields. It also provided that all new building should be in brick or stone, without "butting or jettying out into the street". See e.g. the copy in the BL at G.5195(12*). For a different warrant in the same clerk hand as the present, dated 31st May 1658, see BL MSS A63788B.
Sir John Wollaston (d. 1658) was chief Treasurer-at-War and had been Lord Mayor, 1644-1645.
With a 19th c. woodcut of Cromwell, mounted with a note that the document "was sent to me by Rev. Hy Thos Scott M.D. Oxford, England. He obtained it from the famous collection of John Walker, London. Vide Certificate [not present] J B Westley".
Especially interesting as the Records of the Privy Council under the Commonwealth have not survived.

Item Date:  1657

Stock No:  50893