Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. iv. JULY i, 1911

liis burial took place in secret and without ceremony.

There are two contemporary statements on the subject which should place the matter beyond dispute. The first is a letter from Lady Hobart, quoted by Lady F. P. Verney in her 'Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War ' (vol. iii. p. 422). Lady Hobart' s letter is undated, but states :

" My lord protector's body was Bered last night .-at one o-clock very privittly & tis thought that will be [no] show at tall ; the army dou bluster a letill. God send us pes for I dred a combustion."

The reason for this secret burial is stated in the MSS. of the Rev. John Prestwich, Puritan Fellow of All Souls. Prestwich was one of the Fellows of All Souls retained by the Parliamentary visitors in 1649. He died in 1679, aged 72, and is buried in the ante-chapel of his college. Copious extracts from his MSS. are printed in his descendant Sir John Prestwich' s ' Respublica,' pub- lished in 1787, from which I take the follow- ing (p. 172).

After stating that Cromwell " sickened

of a bastard tertian," the Rev. John Prest- wich continues. He died

" on Friday, the third of September, at three of the clock in the afternoon in the year of our Lord

one thousand six hundred and fifty eight. His body presently after his expiration was washed and laid out ; and being opened was embalmed

.and wrapped in a sere cloth six double and put

into an inner sheer of lead, inclosed in an elegant coffin of the choicest wood. Owing to the disease he died of, which, by the bye, appeared to be that of poison, his body, although thus bound up and laid in the coffin, swelled and bursted, from whence came such filth that raised such a deadly and noisome stink that it was found prudent to bury him immediately, which was done in as private a manner as possible. For the solemnization of the funeral no less than the sum of sixty thousand pounds was allotted to defray the expense. The corpse being thus buried, by reason of the great stench therof, a rich coffin of state was on the 26th of September, about ten at night, privately removed from Whitehall in a mourning hearse, attended by his domestic servants to Somerset House in the Strand, where it remained private for some days till all things were prepared for public view, which being accomplished the effigy of his highness was, with great state and magnificence, exposed openly."

This gruesome account is corroborated in most details by Dr. George Bate in his ' Elenchus,' and it must be borne in mind that both the Prestwiches were strong partisans of Cromwell. A charge of poison- ing Cromwell was brought against Sir Samuel Morland by Sir Richard Willys in his autobiography, among the Restoration State Papers. It is also alluded to by Morland in his * Breviate ' of his life, among the

Lambeth MSS. But the best corroboration of the secret burial is to be found in the fact that the bi-weekly newsbook (Mercurius Politicus and The Publick Intelligencer) which gives the fullest accounts of the ceremonies after Cromwell's death never once mentions his body after 21 October. In all its subsequent descriptions it speaks of nothing but " the effigies." Reticence about the cause of this sudden burial is explained by the fact that if it had been known, there would have been rejoicings by the Royalists, and the majority of the Puritans too.

On the subject of the pretended removal of Cromwell's body to Somerset House, Marchamont Nedham writes as follows :

" Whitehall. Sept 20. This night the Corps of his late highness was removed hence in a private manner, being attended onely by his own servants. .... Two heralds or officers of arms went before the body ; which, being placed in a herse drawn by six hdrses, was conveyed to Somerset House where it rests for some daies more private, but afterwards will be exposed in state to publick view." Mercurius Politicus, 16-23 Sept., 1658.

It never was exposed to public view, nor does Nedham afterwards venture to say that it was, and I believe his statement that the body was removed to have been a wilful falsehood. The discrepancy between the two dates is probably accounted for by Sir John Prestwich converting a naught into a six when copying the MS.

J. B. WILLIAMS.

(To be continued.)

THE KING'S PALACE, FOKDWICH, KENT. A tradesman long associated with the Canter- bury district has purchased an old house and adjoining garden near the celebrated "Tow r n Hall " of the recently defunct ancient borough of Fordwich, and, with historical and antiquarian interest, probed the earth in many places after surprising discoveries during the renovation of his old house. The excavations laid bare a series of foundations on a liberal scale which point to an ancient building of considerable importance having existed on this site in early Norman or pre- Norman times. The water supply of the village is now drawn from a Roman well, and it is an accepted fact that this place was the port of Canterbury and part of the personal possessions of pre^Norman kings. The Roman tomb in the church is claimed 30 be part of that of St. Augustine, and his 'oundation St. Peter and St. Paul's Monastery was according to the evidences now pro- duced at Fordwich beinglater re-established