Posted on 01/30/2024 4:22:36 PM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this anniversary date of King Charles I’s beheading, the two-years-dead corpse of the late Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was hung in chains at Tyburn and then beheaded, along with the bodies of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton.
The great-great-grandnephew of ruthless Tudor pol Thomas Cromwell rose higher than any English commoner, high enough to be offered the very crown he had struck off at Whitehall. Oliver Cromwell declined it in sweeping Puritan rhetoric just as if he hadn’t spent weeks agonizing over whether to take it.
“I would not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again.”
The House of Stuart never could rebuild its Jericho while the Lord Protector ran the realm* — thirteen years, writes Macaulay, “during which England was, under various names and forms, really governed by the sword. Never, before that time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to military dictation.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Oct 21, 2018 - He’s the man who killed a king.Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan turned military dictator, is today most famous for signing the death warrant that led to Charles I’s bloody execution in 1649.
Over a hundred years before the American and French Revolutions shook the globe, this smalltime farmer from the British sticks proved with steel that the divine right of kings was not so holy after all.
The only thing I ever learned about him before was from this Monty Python song
https://youtu.be/dBPf6P332uM?si=BWjw_NfGAHY5sRwh
Bkmk
“Perfidious Albion”, aka “Why The Brits Have Always Been Cowardly Punks”
Mmm Hmm
Last gasp of the Papists, pyhrric as well.
Long Live Lord Protector Cromwell, and his Instrument of Government, which was really the prototype of our Constitution, the first one that England had, and now seems to have forgotten. Maybe too unpleasant for all those Papal Restorationists...
Found out my ancestors had a run-in with Cromwell. He took out the family castle:
“Nunney Castle continued to be owned by the Roman Catholic Prater family into the 17th century.[25] In 1642 the English Civil War broke out between the rival factions of Parliament and the king; like many Catholics, Colonel Richard Prater supported Charles I.[25] As the war progressed the Royalist situation deteriorated, however, and the south-west became one of the few remaining Royalist strongholds; Nunney Castle was garrisoned in anticipation of Parliamentary attack and took in a number of refugees, including many Catholics.[25][26] In September 1645 a Parliamentary army under the command of Lord Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell advanced into Somerset, taking Sherborne, Cary and Shepton Mallet before turning to Nunney”. Colonel Prater was great….great…?…?…Uncle.
More reading here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunney_Castle
1640’s was also the decade another Prater stowed away on a ship to Elizabeth Citee (Newport News), Va and got 5 years of indentured servitude to the captain for his trouble.
Stupid publicity stunt.........
If you read about the trial of Charles I, you’ll see similarities with the organization and proceedings of the January 6th Committee.
Interesting history! I’m fascinated by that period of recusancy among such a significant segment of the English population in the 16th and 17th centuries. To some extent only the landed gentry such as your relatives not only could afford to pay to the fines associated with not conforming to the CoE but also had the space in their castles for private chapels, secret priest accommodations. It was families such as yours that literally inspired the hymn “Faith of Our Fathers.”
I never really thought about that. Thanks for the perspective.
Very interesting, if creepy. I never knew this before!
Ask the Irish how many ancestors they lost because of him. He is alsmost solely responsible for the Irish slave trade.
....”...On this anniversary date of King Charles I’s beheading, the two-years-dead corpse of the late Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was hung in chains at Tyburn and then beheaded....”
gad....that must have stunk to high heaven...! I’m a bit surprised that there was enough of him left to hang and then behead.....
That’s how you kills them twice.
The story of what happened to Cromwell’s head afterward is also pretty interesting. It was displayed on a stake outside Westminster Abbey for 24 years, later was an attraction in a freak show, passed through several more hands, and wasn’t finally buried until 1960.
An ancestor of mine, Sir Henry (Vaughan)Halford, managed to keep part of the 4th vertebra of King Charles after the autopsy in 1813.
Some stories say he used it to serve salt at dinner parties.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600044/
I heard about that. Apparently Queen Victoria was not amused and made him return it to the rest of King Charles’s remains.
“Found out my ancestors had a run-in with Cromwell. He took out the family castle”
Mine too. Not a castle though. They were “landed Irish gentry” and thieving Cromwell seized their estates.
I suspect that they left for the Colonies at that time. I can find my rare family name on land deeds for Eastern Shore Maryland in colonial days.
Richard Harris did a good job portraying him in a flick.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.