[1][3] Cromwell spent some time at Jesus College, Cambridge, as the pupil of Richard Bancroft, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, but did not matriculate.

[4] In 1591 he acted as a colonel in the English army under Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, sent to aid Henry IV of France in Normandy, and on his father's death in 1592 succeeded to his peerage.

"[7] Cromwell's wife "made humble suit to the council on behalf of her Lord that is a prisoner in the Tower, in regard that he is corpulent and sickly he may take the air."

Sir Charles Danvers, a key figure among the Essex intimates during the planning and execution of the rebellion, did not include Cromwell among "the names of such that manifested themselves in the action" that he gave to the Privy Council.

[1][3] Having fallen into royal disfavour, faced with mounting debts, and troubled by lawsuits, Cromwell was having to sell off part of his lands.

The king "was daily troubled with the poor Lord Cromwell's begging leave to sell the last pieces of his land, who had valiantly served the State in the wars.

Sir Arthur Chichester, when writing of his death to the council, on 29 September 1607, expressed regret at his loss, "both for his majesty's service and for the poor estate wherein he left his wife and children."

He was succeeded by his son, Thomas, as 4th Baron Cromwell, later 1st Viscount Lecale who was created Earl of Ardglass in the Irish peerage on 15 April 1645.