Cromwell's Head

‘Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people too.’

Oliver Cromwell’s generous sentiments were to be sorely tested by vengeful royalists after his death. Exhumed from hi vault in Westminster Abbey, the former Lord Protector was hung with other dead regicides on Tyburn’s ‘Triple Tree’ before being decapitated—launching his head upon three centuries of extraordinary adventures. From a traitor’s pole outside Westminster Hall to the serious study of ‘cranial detectives’—not to mention drunken actors and French revolutionaries along the way—the macabre talisman fascinated all those who encountered it.

Cromwell’s Head tells the story of the head’s remarkable journey, blending gruesome humor with a compelling portrait of the great parliamentarian in life. It explores his many talents and intriguing contradictions—country gentleman and farmer, brilliant military commander and cavalry leader, loving father and stern Puritan—and pays tribute to the passionate politician who sought to be remembered ‘warts and all’ by those he came to serve.

The extraordinary and mysterious journey of Oliver Cromwell's head from a tomb in Westminster Abbey to its final resting place over three centuries later

Jonathan Fitzgibbons studied Modern History as an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, obtaining a First Class degree. He has published articles on the Cromwellian Protectorate and was winner of the Cromwell Association Essay Prize in 2005. He is currently writing a doctoral thesis on Cromwell and the final years of the Protectorate, from his refusal of the Crown and lavish state funeral to the manipulation of his image and reputation after death.