His funeral was the most magnificent ever known in England. It was exactly imitated from that of Philip II, who had died on the same day, sixty years before, and is said to have cost in our values £150,000. The legends, which have gathered round the remains of Oliver are almost as strange as those which are told of Alexander, Charlemagne, or Barbarossa. The ordinary histories record that the Protector’s body was embalmed, buried in a chapel of Henry VII, disinterred at the Restoration, hung at Tyburn, decapitated, and the head set up over the gate of Westminster Hall. It has been continually asserted (1) that his body was never buried in Westminster Abbey at all: (2) that it was buried on the field of Naseby; (3) that it was secretly sunk in the Thames ; (4) that when disinterred at the Restoration, it was recovered by the family; (5) that, after hanging at Tyburn, it was buried near the foundations of No. 1 Connaught Place; (6) that it was obtained by Lady Fauconberg, and walled up in masonry at Newburgh in Yorkshire, which is still in the possession of Sir G. Wombwell, who inherits it from the Fauconberg family.
The truth it is now perhaps impossible to recover. The whole funeral ceremony was avowedly performed with an “effigy”. The more probable account would be, that the body was really buried in the Abbey, and was disinterred at the Restoration, and the head was actually exposed for many years over Westminster Hall. It is far from improbable that Lord Fauconberg had influence enough to secure the remains, and privately immured them in the walls of the mansion, where so many relics of Oliver remain.
If this be so, the quickened conscience of the nation might yet reverse a deed which dishonours our Monarchy and stains our annals; and the bones of the greatest ruler this country ever had might again be laid to rest beside the heroes and statesmen of England.
