sition, but he could not found it on the acceptance of the nation.
Maidstone does not hesitate to say that it was the burden of being compelled to wrestle with the difficulties of his places without the assistance of parliament which brought Cromwell to his grave (Thurloe, i. 766). Yet he had hardly dissolved his last parliament when the need of money obliged him to determine to summon another, and he was considering the question of the securities to be exacting from its members during the summer of 1658. In the last months of his life, Cromwell, according to Heath and other royalist writers, was in constant dread of assassination (Flagellum, 204). His murder had formed part of the plots of Gerard (1654) and Sindercombe (1657), and incitements to it both from royalist and republican quarters were not wanting. A proclamation was secretly circulated in 1654, promising in the name of Charles II knighthood and 500l. a year to the slayer of ‘a certain base mechanic fellow called Oliver Cromwell,’ who had tyrannously usurped the supreme power (Thurloe, ii. 248). Sexby published ‘Killing no Murder’ during the debates on the kingship, in 1657. In 1656 Cromwell had thought it necessary to double his guards, but there is no evidence of extraordinary precautions being taken in 1658.
Cromwell’s health had long been impaired by the fatigues of war and government. In the spring of 1648, and again in the spring of 1651, he had been dangerously ill, an mentions of his ill-health frequently occur during the protectorate (Cal. of State Papers, Dom. p. xvii, 1657–8; Guizott, ii. 230). The summer of 1658 was exceedingly unhealthy, and a malignant fever raged so generally in England that a day of public humiliation on account of it was ordered. The death of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypoole (6 Aug. 1658), and attendance on her during her illness seriously affected Cromwell’s own health. Even before his daughter’s death he had begun to sicken, and his illness finally developed into what was defined as ‘a bastard tertian ague.’ Early in August he was confined to his bed, but on the 20th George Fox met him riding at the head of his guards in Hampton Court park, and thought he looked like a dead man already (Fox, Journals, p. 195). The fever returned and grew worse, and, by the advice of his physicians, Cromwell removed from Hampton Court to Whitehall for change of air. At Whitehall he died, at three o’clock on the afternoon of 3 Sept., on the day after the great storm, and the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester. (Accounts of Cromwell’s illness and death are to be found in the following places: Thurloe, vii. 294–375; A Collection of several Passages concerning his late Highness Oliver Cromwell in the Time of his Sickness, written by one that was then Groom of his Bedchamber, 1659, probably by Charles Harvey; Bate, one of Cromwell’s physicians, gives some additional information in his Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum, pt. ii. p. 234, ed. 1685; and something may be gathered from Ludlow, Memoirs, p. 232, and Mercurius Politicus, 2–9 Sept. 1658.)
Cromwell’s body after being embalmed was removed to Somerset House (20 Sept.), where his effigy dressed in robes of state was for many days exhibited. The funeral was originally fixed for 9 Nov., but, owing to the magnitude of the necessary preparations, did not take place till 23 Nov. (Mercurius Politicus). He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in Henry VII’s chapel at the east end of the middle aisle, ‘amongst kings and with a more than regal solemnity,’ writes Cowley. (Accounts of the funeral are given in Mercurius Politicus for 1658; Noble, i. 275; Cromwelliana; Burton, Diary, ii. 516; Evelyn, Diary, 23 Nov. 1658.) The expense of the funeral was enormous: 60,000l. was allotted for it, and in August 1659, 19,000l. was reported to be still owing (Heath, Chronicle, 39; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1658–9, xi.) In the second session of the Convention parliament a bill for the attainder of Cromwell and other dead regicides was introduced into the House of Commons by Heneage Finch (7 Nov. 1660). On 4 Dec., when the bill was returned from the lords with their amendments, Captain Titus moved that the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw should be exhumed and hung on the gallows. This was unanimously agreed to; though many must have secretly agreed with Pepys, whom it troubled, ‘that a man of so great courage as he was should have that dishonour done him, though otherwise he might deserve it well enough’ (Diary, 4 Dec. 1660). Cromwell’s body was accordingly disinterred on 26 Jan. 1661, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on 30 Jan. 1661, the twelfth anniversary of the king’s execution. The head was then set up on a pole on the to of Westminster Hall, and the trunk buried) under the gallows (Mercurius Publicus, 24 Jan., 7 Feb. 1661; Kennet, Register, 367; Parliamentary History, xxiii. 6, 38; Diaries of Pepys and Evelyn, 30 Jan. 1661). Before long a rumour was spread that the body thus treated was not Cromwell’s. When Sorbière was travelling in England in 1663, he heard that Cromwell had caused the royal tombs in Westminster Abbey to be opened, and the bodies to be
