ABOUT TWO SKULLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7446, 22 May 1911, Page 8

ABOUT TWO SKULLS

WHICH IS CROMWELL’S? FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT LONDON, April 7. The members of the Royal Archaeological Society held a somewhat "creepy" eoam-oo in London this week. They met to discuss the question as to. which of two skulls, each of which has been brought forward at various times as that of Oliver Cromwell, was the genuine article. For the sake of convenience the skulls, which were produced at the meeting and handed round for inspection, may be described as No. 1 and No. 2. Skull No. 1 forms part of tho Aehmolean Museum collection and was for many years believed to be authentic. To-day, however, tho opinion generally held ■by men of science coincides with that of Professor Rolleston, one of the curators of the museum, whose ■ verdict on tho skull was humorously and sarcastically summed up thus: "If this is Cromwell’s skull it must have been when he was a young man." Skull No. 2 is the' pride of the private collection of the Rev. H. B. Wilkinson, and upon ft the interest of the meeting centred. Mr Wilkinson read a paper in which was summarised all the fact® known con coming: the skull which came into the possession of his great grandfather more than a hundred years ago. The great Protector died in 1658, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. On the first anniversary of King Charles’s execution after the Restoration, Cromwell’s body and those of his'son-in-law, Lreton, and of Bradshaw, who presided at the King’s trial, were taken from their resting places and drawn cn sledges to Tyburn, where they were hung on the "triple tree" after which their bodies, except the heads, were buried at the foot of the gallows, the heads being stuck on pikes and set up or, or in Westminster Hall. Popys, who was seldom far oil when anything of interest was goino on, says: ‘‘l went to Westminster Ball, where I saw the heads of Cromwell. Bradshaw, and Ircton set up at the further end of the hall.” As to what became of Cromwell’s head afterwards we know nothing save by tradition. More than a hundred years later a man named Russell, an obscure actor, who claimed to be related to the Cromwell family, exhibited . in Clare Market the skull now in the possession of Mr Wilkinson. Tho story he told was that one night the head was blown down and fell at the feet of a sentry, who picked it up;, put it under his cloak, and took it home with him. He said nothing of his find, which he hid, but on his deathbed he told the members of tbe family all about it,' and they sold it to an ancestor ol Bussell. After it bad been exhibited it was purchased by James Cox, who exhibited it in Mead Court, Bond street, in 1793. The next possessor was o niece of the museum keeper, who sold it to Mr Wilkinson’s great grandfather. The hair-covered head is transfixed by a spike on the broken end of a pole, and there is a quantity of hair on the face. The spike protrudes about half an inch from the top of the cranium. The wood of the pole is certainly very old and, worm-eaten. The head is undoubtedly that of a body that had been subjected to a costly embalming process; embalming was a very rare process in England in the seventeenth century, and we know to-day for a fact that Cromwell’s body was embalmed. These facts give support to the theory that Mr Wilkinson's head is the "Simon Pure," and tho eminent scientists who were present at the meeting came to the conclusion that it was "extremely probable" that the head was that of the famous Protector. 1