Oliver Cromwell Posthumously Executed

the burden of evidence

I was watching a documentary on the English Civil War last night and it mentioned that Oliver Cromwell was posthumously executed following the restoration period. Is this true, because if it is, it is by far the sickest thing I've ever heard?

eire4

My understanding is that Cromwell did have his body exhumed and was posthumously hung drawn and quartered. While certainly not a pleasant thought how this can qualify as the sickest thing is beyond me. Cromwell himself was responsible for carrying out some very sick atrocities himself during his life.

the burden of evidence

sure he must of been dead a good while, how the hell did they hang him? would his body not of just fallen apart straight away?

tac foley

Not only was he executed post mortem, his head was publicly displayed for years afterwards.

'Following the death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September 1658, he was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey, equal to those of monarchs before him. After defeating and executing King Charles I after the English Civil War, Cromwell had become Lord Protector and ruler of the English Commonwealth. His legacy passed to his son Richard, who was overthrown by the army in 1659, after which monarchy was re-established and King Charles II, who was living in exile, was recalled. Charles' new parliament ordered the disinterment of Cromwell's body from Westminster Abbey and the disinterment of other regicides John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, for a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After hanging "from morning till four in the afternoon", the bodies were cut down and the heads placed on a 20-foot (6.1 m) spike above Westminster Hall. In 1685 a storm broke the pole upon which it stood, throwing the head to the ground, after which it belonged to private collectors and museum owners until 25 March 1960, when it was buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge.'

tac

R.Dub.Fusilier

eire4 wrote: »

My understanding is that Cromwell did have his body exhumed and was posthumously hung drawn and quartered. While certainly not a pleasant thought how this can qualify as the sickest thing is beyond me. Cromwell himself was responsible for carrying out some very sick atrocities himself during his life.

I agree with you 100%. Why shouild anyone care what happens to the bones of a man who was the cause of the deaths of many innicent non combatants in both Ireland and Britain.

Snickers Man

This is one of the stories that has always endeared me to the English people.

They know a c-word when they see one!

It's not that they disagreed fundamentally with Cromwell's main achievement: the primacy of elected parliament over hereditary monarchy. It's all that went along with it: the misery, the intolerance, the austerity, the impossible righteousness at the expense of personal freedom, the division of society.

Good enough for him.

Wait till you see the dancing in the streets when La Thatcher finally pops her clogs. It's not that they have reopened any mines or restored such wonderful state owned industries as British Leyland and British Steel. But she was such an objectionable old harridan, and allied to some of the most repulsive characters in British life that the legacy of bitterness she has bequeathed to the nation will endure for a long time.

As the comic Frankie Boyle said on TV, instead of paying for a state funeral they should spend an equivalent amount of money buying everybody in Scotland a shovel which they could use to "Dig a hole so deep we could deliver her to Satan personally."

Manach

The objectives of Cromwell were the aims of a fanatic who wished to overthrow traditional and relatively benign social order of kingship and replace it with a fanatical elite who savagely crushed internal dissent and sought to become involved in European politics for aims which were not directly related to British interests, contrary to the Stuart foreign policy.

dmcronin

On a more positive note, it was completely painless.