An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday 10th January 2018. The President was in the chair. He introduced the speaker Dr David Saunders who spoke to the title “The Death of Oliver Cromwell”. Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon in 1599. Very little is known about his early life. He was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and after that he became the MP for Huntingdon. In 1630 he had a religious conversion into extreme protestantism. In 1649 he was a signatory to the sentence of death of CharlesI. In 1651 when Charles II, with the support of a Scottish army, marched south Cromwell caught up with him at Worcester and defeated him. Cromwell was then offered the crown by parliament but he refused it. There followed a number of different “parliaments” which Cromwell finally dissolved by force and in 1653 Cromwell was made Lord Protector of England for life. He died in 1658. He had had a series of fevers for some years and then died unexpectedly. There are three theories. The first was malaria. Plasmodium malaria was endemic from Norfolk to Portsmouth though this form is rarely fatal. The second was septicaemia from infected kidney stones and the third poisoning. An autopsy was performed but with no diagnosis resulting. He had been prescribed mercury with antimony and Dr Saunders considered that the symptoms were those of heavy metal poisoning. The body was meant to have been embalmed but exploded and so for his lying in state an effigy was used. He was said to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. Following his death Cromwell’s son became Lord Protector but dies after 274 days resulting in a power struggle and this is only resolved when General Monck invited CharlesII to return to England. One of the conditions was that the king should offer a general pardon to those involved in his father’s death but he excluded those involved in his sentence. However the main three were dead and so orders were given that their bodies be exhumed and executed at Tyburn. However only the bodies of Cromwell and Lord Chief Justice Brabham could be found. They were beheaded and the heads stuck on poles attached to Westminster Hall where they remained until blown off during a storm in the reign of JamesII. A guard picked up Cromwell’s head and took it home and stuffed it up his chimney. On his death his son sold it and it disappears until 1710 when it was an exhibit in a museum of curiosities. In 1787 it was sold to a Mr Hughes for £230 and exhibited again at 2/6p a visit but no-one paid to see it. It was eventually sold to a Mr Wilkinson in whose family it remained until 1949. In 1934 they had it studied and compared with portraits and death masks and it was accepted as the head of Oliver Cromwell. In 1960 the head was buried in the antechapel of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge though the exact location is a secret.
Following questions the President thanked the speaker for his interesting talk and closed the meeting at 09.50pm.