Back رأس أوليفر كرومويل Arabic Cabeza d'Oliver Cromwell AST Cabeza de Oliver Cromwell Spanish Tête d'Oliver Cromwell French Testa di Oliver Cromwell Italian クロムウェルの首 Japanese Cabeça de Oliver Cromwell Portuguese Голова Оливера Кромвеля Russian

Oliver Cromwell's head

Oliver Cromwell's head
A drawing of Oliver Cromwell's head on a spike from the late 18th century
Present locationSidney Sussex College

Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector and ruler of the English Commonwealth after the defeat and beheading of King Charles I during the English Civil War, died on 3 September 1658 of natural causes. He was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey equal to those of the monarchs who came before him. His position passed to his son Richard, who was overthrown shortly afterwards, leading to the re-establishment of the monarchy.

When King Charles II was recalled from exile, his new parliament, in January 1661, ordered the disinterment of the elder Cromwell's body from Westminster Abbey, as well as those of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, for a posthumous execution at Tyburn. The three bodies were left hanging "from morning till four in the afternoon"[1] before being cut down and beheaded. The heads were then placed on 20-foot (6.1 m) poles and displayed on the roof of Westminster Hall[2] (the location of the trial of Charles I).

Cromwell's head remained there until at least 1684.[3] Although no firm evidence has been established for the head's whereabouts from 1684 to 1710,[4] tradition says that on a stormy night in the late 1680s, it was blown off from the top of Westminster Hall, thrown to the ground, and picked up by a sentry who carried it home.[4][5][a] 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 on a pole as an act of revenge by the monarchy 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 long been admired, reviled and dismissed as a fake. Thomas Carlyle dismissed it as "fraudulent moonshine",[6] 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"[7] that the head was Oliver Cromwell's, based on a study of the head and other evidence.

  1. ^ Pearson & Morant 1934, p. 26.
  2. ^ Fitzgibbons 2008, p. 31.
  3. ^ Pearson & Morant 1934, pp. 54–59.
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference LAT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Pearson & Morant 1934, pp. 14, 20.
  6. ^ Fitzgibbons 2008, pp. 78–79, quoted on these cited pages.
  7. ^ Pearson & Morant 1934, p. 109.


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