To begin therefore with mine own beginning, I was born in the year
of our Lord 1639, about the beginning of the eighth month, so far as
I have been able to inform myself, for the parish register, which
relates to the time not of birth but of baptism, as they call it, is
not to be relied on.
The place of my birth was a little country town called Crowell,
situate in the upper side of Oxfordshire, three miles eastward from
Thame, the nearest market town.
My father's name was Walter Ellwood, and my mother's maiden name was
Elizabeth Potman, both well descended, but of declining families.
So that what my father possessed (which was a pretty estate in
lands, and more as I have heard in moneys) he received, as he had
done his name Walter, from his grandfather Walter Gray, whose
daughter and only child was his mother.
In my very infancy, when I was but about two years old, I was
carried to London; for the civil war between King and Parliament
breaking then forth, my father, who favoured the Parliament side,
though he took not arms, not holding himself safe at his country
habitation, which lay too near some garrisons of the King's, betook
himself to London, that city then holding for the Parliament.
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