February 21, 2007
Oliver Cromwell's Head Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 11:00 AM EST Mr. Gordon poses the following question: “To be sure, Oliver Cromwell’s corpse was dug up so that he could be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but since he’d been dead more than two years, I doubt that he suffered much. (I believe his head is in the possession of one of the colleges at Cambridge; I wonder what on earth they do with it. Perhaps Mr. Zeitz can report.)” To the best of my knowledge, in 1960 the fellows of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, accepted the bequest of Oliver Cromwell’s head, which they buried on college grounds, somewhere in the vicinity of the chapel. They have very wisely declined to mark the spot where his head is interred, for fear that someone might attempt to exhume it.
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