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I’ve been rather interested in the English Civil War and the political and religious drama that surrounded King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell. I find both these men to be rather fascinating and interesting to study. A quick disclaimer, I do not believe in taking sides whilst studying history as to have an unbiased outlook on the events of the past.
A little background on this story.
Oliver Cromwell was an important figure during the English Civil Wars and was a Lieutenant-General in the New Model Army that was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians. The English Civil War started in August of 1642 when King Charles I raised an army against the wishes of Parliament. At the center of the cause were disagreements about religion, and discontent over the king’s use of power and his economic policies.
Cromwell was also pivotal in the fall of Charles I and was the third signer on the King’s death warrant. The King was executed on January 30th, 1649 and Parliament took control of England.
In 1653 Cromwell found out that Parliament was attempting to stay in session after they had agreed to dissolve and at this point had failed to come up with a working constitution. On April 20th, Cromwell attended a Parliament meeting and stood, giving a speech before calling in a troop of soldiers to disband the Parliament, and thus was the end of the Rump Parliament. His speech was not recorded, however it was paraphrased in the Book of Days*: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
After this event, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England, Ireland, and Scotland, a King in every right though he would not allow himself to be called a King. You can read about his time as Lord Protector here as it is not the focus of this post.
Oliver Cromwell passed away September 3rd, 1658 and was laid to rest in a quiet ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
Sadly, his rest was to be short lived. Charles II reclaimed the throne in 1660* and in the autumn of that same year Parliament had ordered the exhumation and posthumous execution of several men involved with the execution of Charles I. In January of the following year, Westminster Abby was search for the remains of Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw, and Henry Breton. These three corpses were taken to Tyburn where they were hanged and decapitated in January 30th, 1661. Ironically this was the 12th anniversary of King Charles I’s execution. The heads of these three men were put on poles and displayed above Westminster Hall. The bodies we dumped in an unmarked pit below Tyburn gallows.
Dates vary, but Oliver Cromwell’s head was either removed or blew down in a storm as early as 1672 or as late as 1703. But whatever the year, during the eighteenth century it became quite the morbid collector’s item. Cromwell’s head passed from person to person, sometimes even being put on public display.
In 1799 the Hughes brothers bought the head for £230 which in 2020 would be around £30,000. They wanted to start a display and acquired many Cromwell-related items and had thousands of posters produced for the event. The exhibit failed as the entrance fee was too high and there were rumors going around that the head was a fake.
a Hughes daughter sold the head to Josiah Henry Wilkinson in 1815, 157 years after Cromwell’s death, and passed down in the Wilkinson family until 1957 when Horace Wilkinson decided it was time for Oliver’s head to be laid to rest once more. At the school he attended in his youth, Cromwell’s head was buried at the Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, March 25, 1960, 302 years after he passed away. This thus concluded the interesting life and death of Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
Sources:
*Center cause of the English Civil War Source
*Charles II reclaiming the throne
*Source on what happened to Oliver Cromwell’s body and head
*Another Source about his head
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