The Head of Cromwell.

Bruce Herald, Volume XI, Issue 1017, 11 June 1878, Page 3

The Head of Cromwell.

~ "" _I » ■ — Under the title " Westminster Hall," ia " Walks in London,", we find the following interesting extract relating to the head of Cr6mwell[:— lreton's head was in the middle and Cromwell's and Bradshaw's on either aide. Cromwell's head, being embalmed, remained exposed to the atmosphere for twentyfive years, and then one stormy night it was blown down and picked up by the sentry, who,, hiding it under his cloak, took'it^ home and secreted it in the chimney -corner, and, as inquiries were constantly beiag made about it by the Government, it .was only on his deathbed that he revealed where he had hidden it. His family sold the head to one of the Cambridgeshire Russells, and, in the same box in which it still is, it descended to a certain Samuel Russell, who being a needy and careless man, exhibited it in a place near Clare Market. There it was .seen by James I Cox, who then ownei a famous museum. He tried in vain to buy the head from Russell ; for, poor as he was, .nothing would-~at first tempt him to part with the relic, but after a time Cox assisted him with money, and eventually, to clear himself from debt, he made the head over to Cox. When Cox at last parted with his museum, he sold the head of Cromwell for £230 to three men, who bought it about the time of the French Revolution to exhibit in Mead Court, Bond Street, at*half-a-crown a head. Curiously enough, it happened that each of these three gentlemen died a sudden death,' and the head came into the possession of the three~nieces of the last man "who died. Thesa young ladies, nervous at keeping it in the house, asked Mr Wilkinson, their medical man, to take care of it for them, and they subsequently sold it to him. For the next fifteen or twonty years Mr Wilkinson was in the habit of showing it to all the distinguished men of that day, and the head, much treasured, remains in the family. The circumstantial evidence is very curious. It is the only head in hißtory which is known to have been embalmed and afterwards beheaded On the back of the neclr above the vertebrae is | the mark of tbe cut of an axe, while" the ex--1 ecutioner, having, perhaps, no proper block, had struck too high, and laying the head in its soft embalmed state on the block, flattenedj the nose on one side, makiiig it ' adhere to the face. The hair grows promiscuously about the face, and the beard. Btained to exactly the same colour by the embalming liquor, ia tucked up under the ♦ chin with the oaken staff of the sgear with which the head was stuck upon Westminster i Hall, which staff is perforated by a worm that never attacks oak until it has been for many year* exposed to the weather. The iron spear-head, where it protrudes above the skull, is rusted away by the action of the k atmosphere. The jagged way in which .the top of the skull is removed throws us back to a time when surgery was in its infancy, while the embalming is so beautifully done that the cellular process, of the gums and the me.flbrane of the tongue are still to be seen.