Head and tales
Sir: A few years ago I preceded Rick Jones (24 March) in re-hashing the story of Oliver Cromwell's head (and his body) for the voluntary helpers and marshals who answer visitors' questions in Westminster Abbey. There, a memorial stone reading `The burial place of Oliver Cromwell 1658- 1661' confuses visitors who know only a little of our history.
I wonder what evidence Rick Jones has for the head being blown down in the great storm of 1703? Forty-two years seems extraordinary long for it to survive on its spike. Lady Antonia Fraser (in 'Cromwell, Our Chief of Men') quotes towards the end of James II's reign for its fall, and Sidney Sussex College (in the history of the college chapel) goes for nearly 22 years, which would mean late in 1682. Such a fall at some time seems well attested, but still puzzles me. I cannot recall any reference to the skull being cracked even, but if blown from the top of Westminster Hall would it not have been smashed?
Oliver Cromwell, after some three hun- dred and fifty years, still excites strong feelings. I have seen a visitor to Westmins- ter Abbey stamp angrily on the stone I mentioned above, and many seem to be- lieve in a composite bogeyman made up of the Protector and his great-great-uncle Thomas Cromwell, an imaginary wholesale destroyer of churches, shrines and works of art.
Stephen Whitwell
Jervis Cottage, Aston Tirrold, Oxfordshire
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