GRIM HEIRLOOM

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 August 1929, Page 2

GRIM HEIRLOOM

OLIVER CROMWELL’S HEAD

The head of Oliver Cromwell—or what is reputed to be the head of England’s Lord Protector—is lying in a- century-old oaken chest in a secret drawer of a Suffolk rector’s study. Its owner is the Rev. Horace Ricardo Wilkinson, rector of Woodbridge, a picturesque old-world town ten miles from Ipswich, writes a special correspondent in the London “Daily Express.” When the correspondent called at Mr Wilkinson’s house, the old man readily assented to show him the head of the Protector, and while he planed a piece of timber he related the romantic way in which it came into the possession of his great-grandfather, Dr. Wilkinson, more than 100 years ago. He described how, after the Restoration, the head was impaled on Westminster Ha.ll for 25 years. One windy night it blew down, and‘was picked up by a sentry. It passed through various hands until Dr. Wilkinson received. it from a patient. Here the rector broke off his narrative in order to produce the grim heirloom. Going into his study, he opened a door of a large' cabinet, unlocked a secret drawer in a chest and drew out a heavy oak -box. He unlocked this box with another key and removed a large black cloth. Then he carefully drew aside the red silk covering, and there was the head of the great Cromwell, most romantic figure in England’s history. The rector picked up the head as tenderly as if it had been the head of one of his own ancestors. He pointed to the iron-tipped spike driven through the top of the skull, and showed the hole over the eye where Cromwell’s famous wart had been.

“I have the documents to prove my claim and how it came into my greatgrandfather’s possession,” Mr Wilkinson said. “It will never go out of the possession of my family.”