Following the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell was seen as the Lord Protector and the most
powerful figure in the land.
It was he who was the driving force behind Parliament’s victory over the Royalists,
and also he was the leading person behind the execution of the King Charles I. Charles
I at the time was seen as a tyrant by those across the country, but Cromwell would defeat
him using his skill on the Battle Field and his New Model Army, who blended military discipline
with their fierce training and fighting skills.
But on a cold morning in late January 1649, Charles I made his way out of the Banqueting
House in London through a window onto a scaffold that had been created for him.
Charles I was executed in front of a large crowd who gasped when the King’s head was
cut off, but it was exactly what Cromwell wanted.
It wasn’t a popular decision with everyone, but it began Cromwell’s time of power, preceding
over the country’s affairs.
Cromwell across Britain is still seen as incredibly divisive, as in Ireland for example he’s
seen as the Curse of Ireland after he was responsible for huge massacres.
But Cromwell for some faced a rather sadistic form of justice years after his death, in
which hid remains were dug up, and were then spectacularly posthumously executed in front
of a huge crowd.
But what is the story behind the shocking execution of Oliver Cromwell’s Dead Body?
Join us today to find out, and make sure to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
From December 1653, Oliver Cromwell would become the Lord Protector and he stayed in
this position until 5 years later when he passed away.
He was offered the chance to take the crown and to become the King, and Parliament even
backed this.
However he believed for him to take the crown would have been hypocritical, and he liked
to consider himself as a watchman, or a protector of the commonwealth, and of Parliament.
He considered and wrestled with the idea of becoming the monarch for 6 weeks before finally
rejecting the crown and he then became the Lord Protector, in a huge ceremony which was
virtually a coronation of a monarch.
Inside this spectacular ceremony, Cromwell’s powers were outlined in legislation and he
stayed in this powerful position until 1658.
In that year, he suffered from a number of bouts of poor health, and was even struck
down with malarial fever, and he was also afflicted with problems in his kidneys.
In August 1658, his daughter passed away, and this may have affected his mood.
But on the 3rd September 158, Cromwell died at Whitehall at the age of 59, with his cause
of death believed to have been blood poisoning caused from a urine infection.
Cromwell’s funeral was one fit for a man virtually ruling as a monarch, and it was
based on King James I’s.
He was treated in death like a King, and was interred inside the Henry VII Chapel inside
Westminster Abbey that had been made.
Cromwell’s body was left here and undisturbed for only a short time, but following the restoration
of the monarchy and the crowning of Charles II, things would change massive.
King Charles II was the son of the executed monarch Charles I, and he sought revenge and
punishment on those men who were responsible for the death of his father.
He believed that his father had been disgraced and executed in brutal fashion, and he wanted
those key aggressors and members of the government who signed his death warrant to pay for the
act of executing his father the King.
This was known as the Regicides, and many of those who were involved in Charles I’s
execution fled to Europe following the King’s coronation, as they knew what would happen
next.
59 Commissioners or judges who signed the death warrant were hunted down, and were sought
for punishment.
But as a few years had passed and some of them were considered elderly, a number had
died.
Following the trial of the regicides, the 12 survivors who could be located and found
were sentenced to death for treason.
They died a typical traitors death, being hanged, drawn and quartered in bloody and
brutal scenes in front of large crowds.
For those royalists, this was seen as a great move by the new King.
But there were 3 in particular figures who were pursued for punishment, but the 3 had
died, with the most infamous and senior being Oliver Cromwell.
As Cromwell had already died, King Charles II would spare nothing, and instead would
order the posthumous execution of the former Lord Protector of the commonwealth, the great
enemy of his deceased father.
At the time, the treason laws across England denoted that the remains of a traitor were
at the disposal of the King, and it was up to the King what he wished to do with the
remains.
Because of this, remains were usually sent to different quarters of the Kingdom, and
heads were placed on pikes above key monuments such as London Bridge or the Palace of Westminster
to act as a stark warning to all of those passers by.
The power of execution was to bring the population into line, and with the regicides, Charles
II immediately sought to put the public right that his father’s execution was an act of
tyranny and brutality that should never have occurred.
Cromwell’s remains were the key target of the regicides, and despite his body being
buried inside of Westminster Abbey a prestigious and incredibly important site of religious
worship, his remains were dug up.
Efforts were made inside of the chapel to disinter Cromwell, and it was found hidden
in the wall of the middle aisle.
There was a significant amount of wood and cloth close to the body which made the remains
more difficult to excavate and retrieve, making the process take a bit longer.
But when the job was completed, the body of Oliver Cromwell along with other regicides
John Bradshaw and Henry IReton were all collected together for a posthumous execution.
They were gathered and on the 28th January 1661, Cromwell and Iretons’ bodies were
taken to the Red Lion Inn at Holborn, before Bradshaw’s also arrived there.
Two days later on the morning of the 30th January 1661, on the anniversary of the execution
of Charles I, Cromwell’s remains which had been wrapped in a shroud inside of an open
coffin were dragged through London’s cobbled streets on a sledge.
The spectators knew what was happening, with the sight of Cromwell, Bradshaw and Ireton’s
corpses being dragged through the streets, their decaying remains must have been disturbing
to have seen.
The three corpses were drawn to Tybuirn and the Tyburn three, where a spectacular triangular
gallows historically stood that took the lives of thousands over the centuries.
Each of the bodies including Cromwell’s was hanged initially in chains and displayed
to the huge crowds that were there.
They were hanged in that manner as traitors until 4 in the afternoon, the man Cromwell
regarded by some as a hero was now being publicly shamed after his death.
His body was then brought down from the chains, and it was then beheaded by an axeman who
struggled greatly to separate his decaying head from his body.
It took allegedly 8 blows of the axe to sever the head from the body, and after this it
was held up to the crowd.
The executioner cried out the infamous words, ‘Here is the head of a traitor,’ and Cromwell’s
skull was then placed on a 20 foot wooden spike, placed high up above Westminster Hall,
in the heart of the capital.
Cromwell’s Head over the centuries went on a rather crazy and shocking journey being
passed through many different hands over the years.
It was even owned by people wanting to display it in a form of circus exhibition, but what
happened to his body is a more significant mystery.
A rumour emerged that after his posthumous execution, Mary his daughter retrieved his
body from the pit where it was thrown at Tyburn and then brought it to her husbands home at
Newburgh Priory.
A sealed stone vault was alleged to have contained the remains of the headless Cromwell, but
still to this day centuries on, the family who own the priory refused to have the vault
opened.
Even the Crown at times has tried to get this information to see if Cromwell’s remains
are in the vault, but requests continue to be denied.
Despite being regarded as a controversial figure still today in Britain, despite being
dead over 300 years, Oliver Cromwell’s posthumous execution would have been an incredibly shocking
event to have seen.
Imagine if you were stood inside of London on that day, seeing the decaying remains of
the former Lord Protector, who virtually preceded over the country as a King, being dragged
through the streets before they were hacked to pieces by an executioner.
It would have been brutal to have witnessed, but it showed the will of the new King Charles
II, who wished to condemn those who had executed a King, a King many believed had been sent
by god to rule.
Despite Charles II being known as the Merry Monarch, Charles showed his brutal side and
also showed his need to instil his justice onto the people of England, and those who
supported his enemy during the English Civil War.
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