Oliver Cromwell's head was severed from his body in 1661, three years after his death and burial. The head was placed on a pole and displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall until at least 1684. Cromwell's body had been removed from Westminster Abbey, where it had been buried since he had died on 3 September 1658 of natural causes. Cromwell had been Lord Protector, the ruler of the Commonwealth of England, after the defeat and the beheading of King Charles I after the Second English Civil War. On his death, Cromwell was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey as elaborate as those of the monarchs who had ruled before him. His position passed to his son Richard, but Richard was overthrown shortly thereafter, leading to the re-establishment of the monarchy under King Charles II, who had been living in exile in continental Europe.
In January 1661, after Charles II's reinstatement, his new parliament ordered the disinterment of Cromwell's body, as well as those of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, for posthumous execution at Tyburn. The three bodies were left hanging at Tyburn "from morning till four in the afternoon" before being cut down and beheaded, with Cromwell's head being impaled at Westminster Hall, which had been the location of the trial of Charles I.
Although the head's whereabouts from 1684 to 1710 is uncertain, tradition says that on a stormy night in the late 1680s, it was blown from the top of Westminster Hall, thrown to the ground, and picked up by a sentry who carried it home. After its disappearance from Westminster, it was in the hands of various private collectors and museums until 25 March 1960, when it was buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, Cromwell's alma mater.
The symbolic value of the head changed over time. Originally, it was displayed as an act of revenge by Charles II, and a warning to all who saw it, but by the 18th century it had become a historical curiosity and a relic. The head has variously been admired, reviled and dismissed as a fake. Thomas Carlyle dismissed it as "fraudulent moonshine", and scientific and archaeological analysis was carried out to test the identity after the emergence of a rival claimant to be the true head of Oliver Cromwell. Inconclusive tests culminated in a detailed scientific study by Karl Pearson and Geoffrey Morant, which concluded that there was a "moral certainty" that the head was Oliver Cromwell's, based on a study of the head and other evidence.
Background
Oliver Cromwell, born on 25 April 1599, led the Parliamentarian army in the English Civil War. Upon his army's victory, he oversaw the conversion of England into a republic, abolishing the monarchy and the House of Lords after the execution of King Charles I in January 1649. Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector (beginning in December 1653) was not dissimilar to the Personal Rule of his royal predecessor. He maintained sole, unrestricted power, and lived in the many royal palaces. In 1657 he was formally offered the title of King, but after an "agony of mind and conscience" turned it down. Throughout 1658, Cromwell suffered illness and family tragedy, and he died on the afternoon of 3 September 1658 (Old Style).
His death and funeral were treated with the same respect afforded to English monarchs before him. On 20 September, his body was moved to Somerset House to lie in state, which was opened to the public on 18 October. The body had been embalmed, shrouded and sealed in a lead coffin, which in turn was placed in a wooden decorated coffin, placed next to a life-like effigy. The effigy was decorated with the royal symbols, including: "a rich Suit of uncut Velvet ... laced with a rich gold lace, and furr'd with Ermins; upon the Kirtle is the Royal large Robe of the like Purple Velvet laced, and fur'd with Ermins, with rich strings, and tassels of gold ... upon his head, the Cap of Regality of Purple Velvet, furr'd with Ermins ... upon the Cushion of the Chair stands the Imperial Crown set with stones." The elaborate funeral procession, delayed twice by hesitant preparations, made its way through London on 23 November 1658. The body itself had already been buried at Westminster Abbey two weeks earlier due to its fast decay (by the time of the funeral procession, he had been dead over two months). A catafalque had been erected to receive his coffin which was similar to that of King James I, only "much more stately and expensive".
Cromwell's body lay undisturbed at Westminster until the restoration of the Stuart monarchy under Charles's son, King Charles II, in 1660. After their trial, conviction and sentencing, twelve surviving regicides (those who had participated in the trial and execution of Charles I) were hanged, drawn and quartered—that is, dragged through the streets on an unwheeled sledge or hurdle, hanged by the neck and cut down live, disembowelled while alive, beheaded and dismembered (cut into four quarters). In addition, the recalled parliament ordered the posthumous execution of the deceased regicides Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. The laws of treason placed a traitor's remains at the king's disposal.
Cromwell's body, hidden in the wall of the middle aisle of Henry VII Lady Chapel, took effort to exhume because the wood and cloth were difficult to shift. On 28 January 1661, the bodies of Cromwell and Ireton were taken to the Red Lion Inn in Holborn, joined the following day by the body of John Bradshaw, before being taken to Tyburn for execution. On the morning of 30 January 1661, the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I, the shrouded bodies in open coffins were dragged on a sledge through the streets of London to the gallows, where each body was hanged in full public view until around four o'clock that afternoon. After being taken down, Cromwell's head was severed with eight blows, placed on a metal spike on a oak pole, and raised above Westminster Hall. Various conspiracy theories exist as to what happened to the body, including a rumour that Cromwell's daughter Mary had it rescued from the pit and interred at her husband's home at Newburgh Priory. A sealed stone vault was claimed to contain the remains of the headless Cromwell, but generations of the family have refused requests, including one from King Edward VII, to open it. Biographer John Morrill stated that it was more likely that Cromwell's body was thrown into the pit at Tyburn, where it remained.
Journey
Westminster Hall to Du Puy Cromwell's head remained on a spike above Westminster Hall until at least 1684, not counting a temporary removal for roof maintenance in 1681. Although no firm evidence has been established for the whereabouts of the head from 1684 to 1710, the circumstances in which Cromwell's head came into private ownership are rumoured to be tied with a great storm towards the end of James II's reign (1685–1688), which broke the pole bearing the head, throwing it to the ground. A sentinel guarding the Exchequer's Office came across it, after which he hid it under his cloak and stored it, hidden, in the chimney of his house. The loss of the head was still significant in London at the time, and many searched for it, hoping to claim the "considerable reward" being offered for its safe return. The guard, after seeing "the placards which ordered any one possessing it to take it to a certain office ... was afraid to divulge the secret". The first firm sighting of the head since its disappearance from Westminster Hall was recorded in 1710, when it was in the possession of Claudius Du Puy, a Swiss-French collector of curiosities, who displayed it in his private museum in London. According to Fitzgibbons, Du Puy's museum was internationally famous and ranked among the top attractions in London at the time, attracting visitors such as the traveller Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who was not impressed by what he saw. After hearing Du Puy's boast that he could sell the head for as much as 60 guineas (£63, or the equivalent of about £5000 in today's British money), Uffenbach exclaimed his surprise that "this monstrous head could still be so dear and worthy to the English".
Russell and Cox By Du Puy's death in 1738, the head had shifted in importance and status. When it was atop Westminster Hall high above the London skyline, it gave a sinister and potent warning to spectators. By the 18th century, it had become a curiosity and an attraction, and it had lost its original sinister message. The head fell out of prominence until the late 18th century, when it was in the possession of a failed comic actor and drunkard named Samuel Russell, who was rumoured to be a relative of Cromwell. This is plausible: the Cromwells intermarried with the Russells. It is also possible that the head was sold to the Russell family after Du Puy's death as an easy target for a sale. Russell possibly had some connections with Sidney Sussex College, as he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the head to the Master of the College in or before 1775. Some time around 1780, it was spotted by the prominent goldsmith, clockmaker and toyman James Cox, who was "convinced by all the circumstances that it was the identical head of Oliver Cromwell". Cox offered £100 (the 2023 equivalent of £15,181), but "poor as he was, and considerably in debt, Russell refused to part with it, so dear to him was that which he knew to be the sacred relic of his great ancestor." Russell did not take the correct care with the head; in drunken gatherings, he passed the head around, leading to "irreparable erosion of its features". Cox connived to get the head using a different approach. He offered Russell small sums of money, gradually reaching the total of just over £100, and Russell could not pay when the loan was recalled. Thus his only option was to give up the head. In April 1787 it was legally transferred from Russell to Cox. As Fitzgibbons, Pearson, and Morant argued, Cox's pursuit of the head appears to be for retail investment. By the time of his acquisition, he was a rich jeweller and no longer owned his museum, so display was not his intention.
Cox sold the head in 1799 to a trio of speculators, the Hughes brothers, for £230 (about £30,000 in 2020). Interested in starting their own display in Bond Street, the brothers acquired the head as part of other Cromwell-related items. Thousands of posters were produced for the event, but the exhibit was marred by doubtful provenance. The Hughes brothers and their publicist, John Cranch, wrote to Cox to ask about the gaps in the journey, but Cox was evasive, leading to concerns that he had sold them a fake. Indeed, Cranch could not come up with a documentary history of how the head came into their hands, so he improvised a story that Cromwell's head was "the only instance of a head cut off and spiked that had before been embalmed; which is precisely the case with respect to the head in question". Although Henry Ireton had also been embalmed before being beheaded, the story stuck, but it was in vain. The exhibition was a failure. The entrance fee was high (two shillings and sixpence, about the equivalent of £5) and rumours that the head was a fake were prevalent.
19th and 20th centuries