-Caveat Lector-
-Oliver Cromwell's Head-
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of Britain from 1653 to 1658
was given one of the most lavish funerals in English history
and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After the monarchy was
reinstated about two years later, Cromwell's body was dragged
to Tyburn on a sledge and hung until sundown. Cromwell was
then "executed." Bending Cromwell's nose in the process, the
executioner threw the Lord Protector onto the block and had
to swing eight times before his head was cut off. The body
was flung into a pit, and his head was impaled on a 25 foot
wooden poll tipped with an iron spike. Tied to the roof of
Westminster Hall, Cromwell's head remained for 24 years
until in 1685, a violent storm blew it off. A captain of the
guard carried the head off and hid it in his chimney and
the whole city of London searched for the fellow who took
it. On his deathbed, the captain left the head to his only
daughter, and by 1710 it was valued at 60 guineas and could
be seen in a travelling freak show. Actor Samuel Russell
owned the head in 1775, and he offered it to Sydney Sussex
College, where Cromwell had studied, but they refused it.
In 1787, Russell sold it for 118 pounds to a jeweller named
James Fox, who later sold it for 230 pounds to 3 fellows
who exhibited it on London's Bond Street. In 1814, after
the 3 had died, a surviving daughter who didn't want the
head "about the house" sold it to a Dr. Wilkinson. In 1960,
the Wilkinson family again offered it to Sydney Sussex
College, which accepted it and buried it secretly somewhere
on the grounds of the college. (Summarized from "The Book of
Lists - 1978 Bantam Books.)
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)
http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/cromwell.html
Cromwell 400
http://www.cromwell.argonet.co.uk/
Monarchs of England
http://www.wickham.newbury.sch.uk/topics/monarchs.html
Oliver Cromwell
http://rvl4.ecn.purdue.edu/~cromwell/oliver.html
Oliver Cromwell
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/history/Cromwel
l.html
Oliver Cromwell: Lord Protector of England (1599-1658)
http://www.forerunner.com/champion/X0004_3._Oliver_Cromwell.html
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.sonic.net/~ric * ICQ# 19633976 *
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