The reason was a cogent one. The embalming process to which the body had been subjected on the day after death, also according to custom, had evidently gone wrong. In his subsequent account Dr Bate gave a clear description of the autopsy performed on Cromwell’s body with its suppurating spleen. The organs were otherwise in good condition, only the lungs a little congested and the vessels of the brain a little “overcharged”. The corpse was therefore embalmed, hopefully filled with aromatic odours, and wrapped in two coffins of wood and lead. In spite of all these precautions however, the stench of the body from the rotting spleen could not be eliminated: “yet the filth broke through them all”. So, wrote Bate in May 1660, “it was prudent to bury him immediately which was done in as private a manner as possible”. James Heath repeated this: they were forced to bury him out of hand. The Venetian Ambassador, describing the official funeral at the end of November, referred also to “his actual body have been buried privately many weeks ago”. Since Bate had no particular motive to lie on this point of the hasty interment, the cause of which hardly resounded to his own medical credit, his evidence is to be preferred over the accounts that the body was buried secretly at 7.00 a.m. on 10 November, marking the end of one stage of the lying-in-state.8 The one group of people who did have a motive to gloss over the swift private burial which had been found necessary were after all those in charge of the magnificent obsequies, worthy of a King indeed, which were now planned to commemorate Oliver’s passing. It is therefore not surprising that no official record was made of it.
The lying-in-state at Somerset House, to which the public were admitted from 18 October to 10 November was to make up in a blaze of candle-lit glory for any conceivable note of summary despatch which was discernible in this hasty interment. Plans not only for this deliberate exhibition of the Protectoral power, but also for the State funeral itself were the subject of anxious care and scrutiny. The actual model used, and comparisons between the two ceremonies show it to have been extremely closely consulted, was that of the last Stuart King dead in his bed, James I, for whose catafalque thirty-three years ago the designs of Inigo Jones had been used. That was ironic enough. But if Ludlow is to be trusted, Mr Kinnersley, the master of the wardrobe had even contemplated perpetrating a further piece of historical paradox by consulting at one point, being himself a secret Papist, the funeral arrangements for that great Catholic sovereign Philip II of Spain!9 As it was, the crowning of Oliver Cromwell, so long delayed, was now at last performed with the utmost deliberation after his decease.
For the main feature of the great panorama of death at Somerset House, now solemnly prepared for the awe of the public, was a lifesize wax effigy of the former Lord Protector. This effigy in itself marked the continuation of a royal custom: the Kings and Queens of England having always had from time immemorial their funerals marked by these effigies at State funerals. Cromwell’s effigy was not only intended to represent his dead majesty, but was also a lifelike representation of his appearance, probably founded on a death-mask,* ( * Many casts of this death-mask exist, notably in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the National Portrait Gallery. See David Piper The Contemporary Portrait of Oliver Cromwell. But he is ‘unable to reconcile’ the death-mask in the British Museum with Oliver’s appearance, believing it to be an authentic death-mask of the period, but of someone else. There remains the question of the so-called “life-mask”, on which David Piper again casts doubt, for although these were becoming popular, he thinks it unlikely the Protector would have submitted to the process. He suggests it may be a study for the bust by Edward Pierce, or otherwise based on the State effigy.) and made by Thomas Simon, his last great public work for the Protector. Within Somerset House itself, in the four great rooms laid aside for this august display, great shrouds of black velvet set off by liberal use of gold gave an impression at once melancholy and magnificent. There was black velvet on the walls, black velvet hangings – adorned with golden fringes and tassels – on the great catafalque or bed of state in the fourth room, and black velvet even on the railings placed round it to hold back a gaping public. The public would pass through the first three rooms, with the cloth and chairs of state at the head of the upper end of the first, and the walls thick with escutcheons and arms, the whole guarded as once the Protector had been guarded in life, till they reached the final impressive sight of the fourth room where the effigy itself lay in state.
“The waxen picture” as it was described, was initially to be found lying on its back.10 Like a huge monstrous doll, it wore an exact replica of the Protector’s most imperial clothes, a rich suit of black velvet, another robe of purple decorated with gold lace, ermine to adorn the kirtle (or coat) and finally an outer robe of purple velvet, once laced with gold and befurred with ermine. Round the waist of the kirtle was clasped an embroidered belt to which was fastened an impressively gilded and engraved sword. In the right hand of the effigy was clasped a sceptre, in the left “a globe”. The effigy’s head was covered with a purple velvet cap once more trimmed with ermine, beneath which the Protector’s waxen cheeks were painted, but the eyelids over the glass eyes were closed to simulate death. Behind the head was placed a gold-encrusted chair and on top of that, and placed high up “so the people could see it”, most remarkable of all, “an Imperial Crown”. To light this sombre yet august sight, eight silver candle-sticks were placed round the bed of state, five foot high, bearing white tapers a further three foot in height. And at each corner stood an upright pillar with carved lions and dragons holding streamers in their paws, while on both sides of the bed in sockets, stood the four great standards of the Protector’s arms with Banners and Bannerols of War painted on taffeta. Outside the magic circle, men with their heads bared, mourned.
Halfway through the lying-in-state the mood of the exhibition was changed. The effigy was stood up, its glass eyes were opened, and the Imperial Crown, taken from the golden chair, was placed on its head. This piece of symbolism, which was deliberately copied from the similar procedure accorded to King James i, was intended to represent the passage of the soul from Purgatory to the brightness of Heaven. Spectators who remembered Cromwell’s early attitude to “popish innovations” within the English Church might have been pardoned for some surprise that his body should be subjected to such a routine: the doctrine of Purgatory was one he himself as a member of the already saved Elect would scarcely have approved, and Calvin had called it “a damnable invention of Satan”. As for the catafalque or bed, this “magnificent contrivance”, in Aubrey’s words, had differing but equally grand origins: Aubrey derived the word from the pyres of the former Roman Emperors, when zfalconi or eagle would be released at the exact moment when the flames consumed the body.11
While the official corpse at least had thus reached a sort of halfway resting place between Whitehall and the Abbey, arrangements for the ultimate procession were still being planned. Already the last rites had been delayed beyond the original intention of the Government, possibly because of the illness of Thurloe. At last the tickets were ready, and on 23 November the procession was designed to wind its way through the streets of London in a last display of solemnity. Much care was taken in advance that matters should pass off smoothly. John Pell, for example, who had newly arrived from Switzerland, was told by the Council that he must send in the names of his servants beforehand to the Herald’s Office, and in any case they would not be admitted to the procession unless dressed in mourning. No coaches were to be allowed in the streets between Somerset House and Westminster throughout the day to mar the impact of the sorrowing marchers.12 Nevertheless human failure still managed to intrude upon the dignity of the occasion. At the start of the procession a fierce argument broke out between various Ambassadors concerning precedence, resulting in further delays. The cortege itself was led by the Marshal and his Deputy, and thirteen more men to clear the way. Then came the poor men of Westminster, two by two, in special mourning gowns. Then the servants, those of the people of quality who were att
ending the funeral, followed by the Protector’s own servants, down to his Bargemen and his Watermen. Last of all came the “grandees” in heavy mourning. The wax effigy itself rode in an open chariot, draped in still more black velvet.
The journey took seven hours, the soldiers lining the streets, their brilliant red coats now faced in black, with black buttons, and their Ensigns wrapped in “Cypress”. Their role, a necessary one in such displays, was to “keep the spectators from crowding the actors”. It was a procession indeed of which men saw what they wanted to see. Oliver’s favourite musicians followed him, John Kingston, David Mell the violinist and those two boy singers who had been wont to sing Oliver’s favourite Latin motets, as well as half a dozen other prominent musicians, a suitable and touching tribute to a lifelong passion. One note of colour in the procession was provided by the presence of the “Horse of Honour” (no wax effigy this) led by the Master of the Horse, as at the funeral of King James, gaily attired in crimson velvet trappings, with plumes of yellow, red and white. But John Evelyn, an unswerving Anglican and therefore never reconciled to the usurper, called it “thejoyfullest funeral that I ever saw; for there was none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went”.13
The very extravagance of the display also brought affront to some tender spirits, as the cost annoyed others. The stupendous figure of .Ł100,000, predicted by the Venetian Ambassador, was certainly not reached, and Heath’s Ł60,000 also much exaggerated; a more likely figure was that of Ł28,000 given in the Clarke papers (although the funeral of James I was said to have cost over Ł50,000). But that was in itself a heavy outlay to a nation in the throes of economic difficulties and over Ł19,000 of it was still owing by the following August. The Quakers meanwhile were outrightly shocked by the adornment of it all, and even a man like the poet Abraham Cowley exclaimed over the procession in disgust: “I found there had been much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or even death itself could deserve. There was a mighty train of black assistants,” he wrote, “the hearse was magnificent, the idol crowned. Briefly, a great show, and yet, after all this, an ill sight.”14
By the time the great show was arrived at the Abbey, the gathering darkness of a late November afternoon had brought gloom to the church, and a severe chill to its interior. There had been no arrangements for candles or heating. So the elaborate hearse – which was known to have cost Ł4,000 – was merely installed in the Henry vn chapel without further ado, no rites, sermons or other orations. There the effigy continued to gaze impassively down on the throng of spectators which came to inspect it thereafter, as had in former times the effigies of the Kings and Queens of England. Three days later Sir Francis Throckmorton, the young Roman Catholic baronet up from the country, could not resist paying 2s. 6d. for a visit to this new sight in the ancient Abbey.15 Hearse and effigy remained in place for many months as an outward symbol of erstwhile splendour. Meanwhile below in Oliver’s Vault, the Lord Protector had been laid to his eternal rest. Or so it seemed at the time.
* * *
In death, however, as in life, the history of Oliver Cromwell was destined to confound expectations. The reign of Protector Richard – poor Tumbledown Dick – was brief indeed. The Council of the Army, the warring ambitious officers, the strident Commons of the new Parliament called in January 1659, these voices had only been quelled, never stilled by his great father. Meanwhile of Dick’s own qualities the very words of Milton in his attack on hereditary monarchy of 1649, Eikonoklastes, might have been written: “Indeed, if the race of kings were eminently the best of men, as the breed of Tutbury is of horses, it would in reason then be their part only to command, ours alway to obey. But Kings by generation no way excelling others…” It was the vigorous actions of General Monk urging back the young King in 1660 which recalled the ability of Oliver to mount the horse of opportunity and ride it to the successful conclusion of the race. Barbara Slingsby, daughter of the dead Royalist, told her brother that the night Monk declared for “a free Parliament” (the return of the Long Parliament) “there was the most universal joy throughout the town I ever saw; ‘twas all the night as light as day with multiplicity of bonfires”. In the end Richard did choose to throw in his lot with the Army leaders, rather than with the recalled Long Parliament; but once again it was a gamble – unlike his father’s ploys with the aid of soldiers – which did not succeed. And his reported words that he would not have a drop of blood spilt to preserve his greatness “which is a burden to me”, were a further proof, if any were needed, of how far the father’s own blood had thinned down in its passage through the son’s veins.16
Richard’s last months in England were marked by an uncomfortable piece of bathos; it was the nightmare of debt which continued to plague him. Here there was an unfair lack of distinction between the debts of the Protectorate and his own. Although the Army finally got the former established as public responsibility, in July 1659 Parliament was obliged to grant Richard officially six months’ immunity from arrest. They also attempted to win from the Long Parliament some settlement for himself and his dependants. But even Richard’s departure from the palace of Whitehall at the moment of his retirement was ludicrously postponed by his reluctance to fall into the hands of his creditors in the harsh outside world. In April 1660 he told Monk that he had to lurk in secret hidingplaces to avoid arrest. His pleas for help were made with his usual humility: “As I cannot but think myself unworthy of great things, so you will not think me worthy of utter destruction.”17 Some time that summer he was finally able to get abroad, to live there quietly under a number of assumed names including that of John Clarke (which he was to use exclusively on his eventual return to England). His melancholy touching figure was not there to spoil all the mad rejoicings of the capital when the rising sun of the Stuarts shone once more in England and on 29 May, 1660, his thirtieth birthday, King Charles II returned to his country at the invitation of General Monk. It was a true symbol of the times that the ship which brought him was actually the famous Naseby but it was swiftly rechristened the Royal Charles.
On the Continent Richard passed his time reading and “drawing landscapes”. He bore his fate with dignity, although he was haunted by the possibility of assassination at the hands of some zealous Royalist. Debts continued to be a problem, and when English subjects resident in France were ordered home in 1666 at the time of the war, Dorothy Cromwell had to plead for his exception, since his creditors were still waiting to seize the former Protector. So it was left to Dorothy to raise her young family alone at Hursley at least, as a contemporary poet put it, “freed from the incessant torments of the throne”. In about 1680, and after Dorothy’s death, Richard was able to return to England, and live, still under the name of Clarke at Cheshunt in Buckinghamshire. Here he was described as “a little and very neat old man with a most placid countenance”. But life still had one more humiliation in store for him in the shape of the quarrels of his three daughters with him over their mother’s property, there being apparently no Cordelia for this sad King Lear. However the judge in his cause was said to have treated him graciously, and to have been cornmended by Queen Anne for doing so – for had not the poor solitary old gentleman once been titular head of all England? As he wrote himself in 1690, for thirty years his strength and safety had been to be merely retired, quiet and silent.18 Richard died in 1712, over half a century since he had tumbled down from the great position to which he had been so ill-suited.
The treatment of the Cromwell family as a whole, like the entire Restoration settlement, was in its broad principles extremely humane. The Lady Protectress might have proved a vulnerable target, particularly in view of the fact that in the early days after Oliver’s death, like many another widow, she seems to have found it difficult to adapt to her altered circumstances. She moved into St James’s Palace in December, but in January the new Parliament were querying the authority by which she had been granted Ł20,
000 a year for life, and had had extensive renovations done to her new apartments. She had never had a good press from the Royalists, lacking the glamorous greatness of her husband which always commanded their respect as well as their hatred. Her virtues were all private ones. As for the accusations that she had collected fees and perquisites from those seeking her husband’s favour, there is no proper evidence for it, except on the rather unfair principle of Qui s’excuse, s’accuse. Charged by the newspapers with selling the royal jewels and pictures at a fruiterers’ warehouse she responded with a pathetic petition to the King, even before his return, denying the slur, and asking, out of “princely goodness” that he should grant her that “protection without which she cannot expect now in her old age, a safe retirement in any place in your Majesty’s dominions.”19 It is good to relate that the King, ever courteous to the female sex, suffered her to live without molestation. Just before his return she had thought it prudent to disappear with her daughter Frances, but later, possibly after visits to Wales and even Switzerland, she was able to end her days in peace at the home of her son-in-law, Bettie’s widower John Claypole, at Northborough Manor in Northamptonshire. There she died in 1665, to be buried in the local church.
The truth was that the Cromwell family, in the absence of their august head, were considered harmless. An anonymous merry piece of satire printed in August 1660 called The Case is Altered or Dreadful News in Hell purported to be a dialogue between the ghost of old Noll and his living wife “Joan”. The ghost’s purpose was to discover “what strange alterations have been here since I departed my late reprobate vale of tyranny”, and what had become of “my dear Imps the two Princes Richard and Henry”. When Joan expressed some fears for herself, that she might end up in the Tower or Bridewell, the dreaded prison for women, Noll’s ghost merely asked: “Why? You were never accessory to any of my horrid Vilainies, were ye?” And the scornful phantom went even further in his dismissal of Richard, whose elevation is supposed to have surprised him: “Wear a Crown, wear a Halter, I never knew he was capable of it … he had more mind to his Dogs and Hawks than he had to be a Tyrannical Protector like me.” Henry Cromwell was treated generously, allowed to keep his Irish lands (although lost in the next generation) and retiring eventually to Spinney Abbey in Cambridgeshire without troubles from the King, died there in 1674. Richard’s daughters having left no descendants, the descendants of Henry’s seven children provide many of those today who still enjoy the blood of the Lord Protector.
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