Oliver Cromwell has the peculiar differentiation of being the only political crook to be executed two yearsafterhis last .
Yup , that ’s right .
Cromwell , the controversial English diachronic figure who led the parliamentary insurrection that ended with the murder of King Charles I , was exhumed from his grave in 1661 and put on tribulation by the late king ’s son , Charles II . Posthumously convict of in high spirits treason , Cromwell ’s cadaver was hang and decollate , and his oral sex was stake on a 20 - foot ( 6 - cadence ) spindle outdoors of Westminster Hall .
In an historic period whendrawing and quarteringwas also a popular penalization , it take a special sort of traitor to guarantee comprehend up his dead consistence and " toss off " him again . But that ’s the level of odium that Cromwell inspired in his 17th - hundred foeman , and that his namestillprovokes in places like Ireland , where Cromwell ’s troops committed wartime heinousness .
But Cromwell has his withstander , too . He dared to challenge the " divine right " of the British monarchy , oversaw the founding of England ’s ( and arguably the world ’s ) first save organic law , and was the first commoner to rule the short - survive British democracy as its " Lord Protector . " A devoutPuritan , he also believe in spiritual freedom and margin , a cornerstone of mod Western democracy .
We reached out to Stuart Orme , conservator of theCromwell Museumin Cromwell ’s hometown of Huntingdon , near Cambridge , England , to learn why Cromwell remains one of the most important and divisive physique in British history .
From Obscurity to Civil War Hero
Americans can be forgiven for thinking they were the only country to experience a blinking civil war . Centuries earlier , England sustain through not one , but three serial polite wars from 1639 to 1651 . The two English in the British civil wars were the Royalists , who bear Charles I and his downright monarchy , and the Parliamentarians , who want to strip the Crown of power and convert the land into a republic .
Cromwell was a Parliamentarian , but he was n’t a well - do it or influential instrumentalist until fighting break out , say Orme . Cromwell came from a minor landowning family in a small town , didn’t identify himself in school(he drop out of the University of Cambridge after 18 months when his father died ) , ran into financial problems in his 20s , was diagnose with " melancholia " ( a seventeenth - century term for depression ) , inherit some terra firma , doctor his fortune and ground God .
" You could say he was a ' bear again ' Puritan , " says Orme , refer to the Protestant reformers who want to " purify " the Church of England from any hint of Catholicism .
In 1640 , Cromwell was elected to Parliament backed by a growing Puritan bowel movement , but " he was a very vague public figure , a scruffy oik from the provinces , " says Orme ( " oik " = rube or oaf ) . " Most people who noticed him at all commented on the fact that Cromwell was normally badly dressed and had blood on his collar from where he swerve himself shave in the morning . He seem to be another back bench MP of no picky note whatsoever . "
That all changed in 1642 , when fighting broke out between the business leader ’s USA and parliamentary forces . Cromwell , who had never stepped foot on a field ( " He may have read a few record book or a pamphlet on the national , " says Orme ) , discovered that he was a natural - give birth horse air force officer . Cromwell was rapidly promoted up the rank to become 2nd - in - statement of what ’s known as the New Model Army , the first British army to choose officers for science rather than social condition .
The Horrors of the ‘Irish Campaign’
But even after Charles I was deposed , there were Royalist holdout in Ireland . Around the same time as the civil wars , Irish Catholics ascend up against Protestant English settlers who had take their lands . In 1649 , Cromwell was sent by Parliament to quash the Catholic rebellions and defeat what remained of Royalist supporters in Ireland .
What happened next is hotly contend by historians even today . The Irish town of Drogheda , defend by Catholic , Protestant and English Royalists , deny to surrender to Cromwelland his invading army . Orme enunciate that Cromwell ordered his men not to kill any civilian who did n’t take up arm , but that ordination likely fell on indifferent ear .
" It was a bloodbath , " say Orme . " An estimated 3,500 people were killed , include 700 civilians . Technically , under the linguistic rule of warfare Cromwell was justified , but there ’s also a eccentric to be made that he committed a war crime . "
Cromwell was only in Ireland for nine months , but thing got " more and more filthy " after he left , says Orme , with the English army committing legion atrocities that some say amounted to ethnic cleansing . Even if Cromwell did n’t directly order or oversee the killings , it was a dark stain on his report and turned him into " one of the bogeymen of Irish account , " says Orme . To this day , a common abuse in Ireland is " the expletive of Cromwell upon you ! "
Cromwell the Political Reformer
With the monarchy deposed , England experimented with various models of a republic . In 1653 , the " Instrument of Government " became the first written Old Ironsides of a innovative nation - state and established England , Wales , Ireland and Scotland as a " Protectorate " governed by a democratically elected legislative branch ( Parliament ) , an executive branch ( Council of State ) and a master executive call the " Lord Protector . " The Constitution of the United States named CromwellLord Protector for life .
In pattern , the Protectorate operated at times like a military Caesarism or a monarchy by another name , since Cromwell was invested with near - kingly powers ( Cromwell was even offer the treetop twice , which he refused ) . But the Protectorate geological period — also known as the Interregnum — was also the first clip that all of the British Isles were united as a exclusive body politic , and Cromwell helped to show in an era of religious tolerance and reform .
For instance , Jewish the great unwashed were welcomed back to England for the first meter since they were expelled in 1290 and citizen were no longer required by law to go to the Church of England . Catholics and Protestants , including new sects like the Baptists , were costless to use their faith under the Protectorate , but Parliament also passed a number of Puritan - theme morality laws that restricted drinking and gambling , and censor immoral entertainments like tool - fight and bear - baiting .
Contrary to popular belief , though , Cromwell did not ban Christmas . class before the Protectorate , a Puritan - controlled Parliament passed a serial of laws outline which calendar days were Holy Days , and both Christmas and Easter were leave off the list . Apparently , Puritans took subject with the drunken banqueting that traditionally accompanied the solemnisation . An prescribed Bachelor of Arts in Nursing on Christmas and Easter was evanesce by Parliament in 1647 during the civil state of war ( again , before Cromwell was in charge ) and outlaw both celebration at church or in the home , but Orme enounce it was almost impossible to enforce and provoked riots .
What Happened to Oliver Cromwell’s Head?
Cromwell was only Lord Protector for five years . Hedied from a kidney infectionSept . 3 , 1658 , and his boy Richard was describe as his heir . But Richard ’s sovereignty was abbreviated — the war machine " asked " him to step down in what Orme says was fundamentally a takeover . In the resulting power vacuum , the Royalists swept in and reinstall the monarchy under Charles II , an event known as the Restoration .
As you think , two year after Cromwell ’s death , the Royalists dug up pitiful Cromwell ’s body , strain it for treason , dilute off its long - dead drumhead and impaled it on a spike at Westminster Hall in London . His body was inhume in a common grave .
But the story did n’t end there . The mummified head remained on the capitulum for more than 20 twelvemonth , when it was burn out free by a storm and snagged by a soldier who stuffed it in his lamp chimney for safekeeping . From there , it snuff it through various hands , was display for a meter in a traveling curiosities show , and was at long last sold to the Wilkinson family , whokept it in a velvet - line loge for 146 years , from time to time showing it to appalled dinner party guests .
in conclusion , in 1960 ( 300 long time after Cromwell ’s death ) , Dr. Horace Wilkinson donate the head to Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge , Cromwell ’s alma mater .
" Cromwell ’s head is buried somewhere in the college chapel service , " says Orme , " supposedly in a cookie atomic number 50 . "
