Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599. He was the second son of Robert Cromwell (d.1617) and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Steward of Ely. After attending Sidney Sussex College Cambridge he married in 1620 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier. They had nine children: James and Robert died young, Oliver died of fever in 1644, Richard (1626-1712) succeeded his father as Protector, Henry (1628-74) was in the Parliamentary army, Bridget (1624-62) married Henry Ireton and secondly Charles Fleetwood, Elizabeth (1629-58) married John Claypole, Mary (1637-1713) married Thomas Belasyse, Viscount Fauconberg and Frances (1638-1721) married Robert Rich and secondly John Russell. Oliver was a country squire and Member of Parliament for Huntingdon and then for Cambridge. He became a Puritan and came to prominence while serving in the Parliamentary army fighting against the Royalists. Notable victories were won at Marston Moor, Naseby and Dunbar. In 1649 Charles I was beheaded and after the battle of Worcester Charles II fled to the continent. The Commonwealth was formed and on 16 December 1653 Cromwell became Lord Protector. For his second investiture as Protector in 1657 the 14th century Coronation Chair was taken from the Abbey to Westminster Hall and he sat in this arrayed in royal robes. After his death his son Richard, who had little interest in politics, gave up the government and lived abroad. This paved the way for the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660.

Cromwell died at Whitehall on 3 September 1658. A lifelike effigy of him was placed on a magnificent hearse for the lying-in-state at Somerset House, as though he had been a king. Later this effigy was erected to a standing position. He was buried privately in a vault at the east end of Henry VII's chapel on 10 November. This accorded with his religious principles that burial was to be without ceremony. The hearse with the effigy was taken in an elaborate procession to the Abbey on 23 November for the state funeral service. It remained until May 1659. However he was not destined to lie in the Abbey for very long. When Charles II was restored to the throne the House of Commons voted on 4 December 1660 that the coffins of regicides Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw should be dug up from the Abbey, drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn and the bodies hung up on the gallows there. So on 26 January 1661 Cromwell and Ireton were removed and taken to the Red Lion Inn at Holborn, where they were joined a few days later by Bradshaw's coffin (the delay was caused by the fact that Bradshaw's body had not been embalmed like the others and smelt badly). On 30th January, the anniversary of the execution of Charles I, the hangings took place and then the heads were cut off and stuck on spikes outside Westminster Hall. The bodies were buried under Tyburn gallows (near the modern Marble Arch). Cromwell’s head is believed to be buried at Sidney Sussex College.

By Royal Warrant of 9 September 1661 the bodies of Oliver's mother, who had died on 18 November 1654, and his sister Jane (wife of Major General John Desborough), who died in 1656, together with other regicides who had been interred in the Abbey since 1641, were also removed but this time the bodies were thrown in a pit in the churchyard of St Margaret's Westminster. A modern tablet records their names near the west entrance of that Church. Only Oliver's favourite daughter Elizabeth Claypole, who died on 6 August 1658, still lies in the Abbey, as her vault was in a different part of the chapel and was not found at the time. A small modern stone marks her grave to the north of Henry VII's monument.

The site of the burials of the exhumed regicides was marked by a stone, inserted in the 19th century, in what is now the Royal Air Force chapel. At the entrance to this chapel a stone also records the brief burial of Oliver: "THE BURIAL PLACE OF OLIVER CROMWELL 1658-1661".

A photograph of the Cromwell stone can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.

Further Information

The Cromwell Museum, Huntingdon

Further Reading

"Oliver Cromwell. King in all but name" by Roy Sherwood (1997).
Journal of the Huntingdonshire Local History Society vol.3, no.7 (1999). "Constructing Cromwell" by Laura Knoppers (2000).