OLIVER CROMWELL'S HEAD.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2025, 1 July 1875, Page 2

OLIVER CROMWELL'S HEAD.

A- correspondent draws, our attention to a strong corroboration of the main incidents of the story' lately.,told in these columns respecting the head of the Lord Protector Cromwell, to be found in,the " Fifty Years' Recollections, Literary and Personal,"- of the lat« Mr Cyrus Redding, and resting on the authority of' Horace Smith, one of ,the authors of " Kejected Addresses," Sec, Bedding writes under date about 1821 or 1822:—" Horace Smith was acquainted with a medical gentleman who had in: his possession, the head of Oliver Cromwell, and in order to gratify my curiosity he gare me a not© (of introduction) to,-him. There accompanied the head a memorandum relating to its ; - history — It had been torn from the'"- tomb with the heads of Irefcon and Bradshaw .after the accession of Charles 11,, under a feeling of impotent vengeance. All threo were fixed over-the entrance of Westminster Hall, the other bones of those three distinguished men being interred at Tyburn under the gibbet—an act well befitting the Stuart character. During a stormy night/ *he adds, " the head in the centre, that of Cromwell, fell to the ground. The sentry on guard beneath, having a natural respect for an heroic soldier, no matter of what party, took up the head, and placed it under - his cloak until he went off .-duty. . He then carried it to the Ruisells, who were the nearest relations of Cromwell's family, and disposed of it to them. It belonged to a lady, a descendent of the Cromwell's, who did not like to keep <it in her house. There was a written minute extant' along with, it. The disappearance of the head (off West- _ minster Hall) is mentioned in some of the publications: of the time. It had been carefully embalmed, as Cromwell's body is known to hare been two years, before its disinterment. The nostrils were filled with a substance like cotton. ' The brain had bcea extracted by dividing the scalp. •The membranes within were perfect, ;but dried up like parchment. The decapitation had evidently been performed after death, as the state of the flesh over the Vertebra of the neck plainly showed; It was hacked, and the severance had .evidently T)een done by a hand not used to the work, for. there were .several other cuts bf sides, that which, actually stpa* rated the head from the* body.: ■'. The beard, of a chestnut colour, seontod to have grown since death. An ashen pole, -pointed with iron, had received, the AeasL.^ clumsily, impaled'upon its. point, which^ came out- an inch or so above .the^ißrpjrt^ rusty and time-worn. I wrote to Horace Smith that I had seen the head, aid deemed it genuine. Smith replied, 'I am gratified you were pleasod with Cromwell's head, as I was when I saw it, being fully persuaded of its identity."/ It remains, then, on record thattwojpersons, both men of the world and of large experience, and yefe so different from- each other in character as Horace Smith and Cyrus Eedding, were satisfied with the. evidence brought before them to prove - its being genuine nearly fifty years ago. —London Times, January 23rd.