 In one of our previous episodes, we spoke about the notorious Grey Fires Kirkyard up in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you remember from that episode, Grey Fires Kirkyard at one point was used as a prison to jail the local Presbyterians. The Presbyterians of Scotland were turning their back on the English crown, which was Charles I, who ran the notorious Church of England. And as a result of these Presbyterians being jailed at Grey Fires Kirkyard, they were subjected to torture, terror, execution, and for some deportation, making Grey Fires Kirkyard a very, very haunted church. Well, today we are going to talk about another revolt against King Charles I and a particular artifact that made its rounds throughout the English country for 300 years after this revolt. But before we go any further, you know what to do. Please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. Again, a very special thank you to all of our patrons who really help make this channel possible. Again, special shout out to Tiffany Monroe, our producer here on Esoteric Atlanta. Again, Tiffany is a Reiki master here in the city. And if you would like to get in touch with Tiffany regarding her services, there is an email down below where you can reach out to her. Welcome to Esoteric Atlanta. My name is Bryce. And today we are going to be talking about Oliver Cromwell's traveling head. Regicide means to purposely kill a monarch. Probably one of the most famous regicides was that of Marie Antoinette and her husband King Louis during the French Revolution. However, long before they got their heads chopped off, another king in England got his head chopped off as well. And this was King Charles I. King Charles I's execution is still one of the most controversial events that ever took place in England's history. But how did King Charles I come to be the first English king to be executed? Well, that all starts with a man named Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25th in 1599. Now Oliver was born into a gentry class or an upper class in English society. However, by the age of 18, Oliver Cromwell's father himself passed away, leaving Oliver Cromwell with a lot of responsibility. By the age of 18, Oliver was responsible for his mother, his wife, and his six, yes six unmarried sisters. All this stress and responsibility meant that the Cromwell family was slowly starting to slip out of the gentry class. In fact, because of Cromwell's inability to pay dowries, four of his sisters had to marry beneath their rank in society. Again, this caused a lot of stress for Oliver Cromwell. He carried a lot on his shoulders at a very young age. Many historians believe that all this stress caused Oliver Cromwell to develop mental problems that started with depression. This depression led to anxiety, which led to violence and fits of rage. And because during the 1600s, there really wasn't therapy, we now see that Oliver Cromwell had a lot of emotional issues that he could not control or knew how to control. Pretty shortly after Cromwell's father's death, Cromwell found the Puritan faith. Now the Puritan faith was one of the most intense reformation forms of the Christian faith. We spoke about Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan beliefs back in our Christmas episode as well. And of course, I will link that episode down below along with our episode on Greyfriars Kirkyard. Now a lot like the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Puritans of England were very much opposed to King Charles I and the official state religion that was the Church of England. The Church of England still held onto a lot of the Catholic disciplines of ritual, just like the Episcopalian Church does today. And the Puritans believed, like most Protestant faiths believe, that one does not need a priest or a preacher to communicate with God. One has that power to do so within oneself. Just like the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Puritans were seen by the crown as a direct threat to the crown. The Church of England was essentially the royal family and the Puritans did not believe that the King held any power over men's soul here on earth. The Puritans also saw the Church of England as pure idolatry, just like they saw the Catholic Church. And because of this, a lot like the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Puritans were persecuted by the King. Now another interesting side of the Puritan faith is that they felt like God prepared you for a particular duty within your life. And so Cromwell started to see his misfortune that he had at such a young age, not as a disgrace, but as a special training session that God had picked Oliver Cromwell specifically to do a very important job, and therefore Oliver Cromwell needed to go through all the heartache and stress that he'd gone through at a certain age. Basically, Cromwell was under the impression that God thought Cromwell was special. Therefore, God humbled him and his, again, his disgrace slipping from the Gentry was a privilege. In 1636, Oliver Cromwell's uncle passed away. His uncle had no heirs. So by default, Oliver Cromwell inherited all of his uncle's estates and wealth. This pushed Oliver Cromwell back up into the Gentry class of England. Oliver Cromwell's troubles were seemingly over. Now I really feel like I need to remind everybody who's watching that being a part of the Gentry class in England meant that you held more power than just mere wealth, because it was the Gentry class, the men of the Gentry class, that had the privilege of voting. If you were not a landowner, if you were not part of the upper society of England, then you held no civilian rights. You could not vote on parliament. This would become a huge issue and would also eventually lead to King Charles I's execution. If we back up a little bit, we look at the year 1629. We see this Puritan faith sweeping through the nation, and a lot of the Gentry parliament members were of the Puritan persuasion. And again, because the Puritan persuasion was such a direct threat to the monarchy, King Charles I got rid of parliament. Now again, parliament was a way for the people to have a balance of power with the monarchy. England still has a monarchy. I think I honestly don't think that the Queen is still alive. I think it's all BS, basically. I think they're all gone, but we'll just say that they're still a monarchy. And we all know that the Queen does still hold complete power. She can get rid of Prime Ministers. She really is still the head of the United Kingdom. But back in the 1600s, because of King Charles I's direct need for complete control, he did get rid of parliament, again, because they were mostly under the persuasion of Puritans who took more of a stance of having a republic, which is what the United States is, instead of having a divine right monarchy. Well, things got a little heated. They're about to get a lot heated, but for now, they got a little heated. And so King Charles I had to bring back the parliament by 1640. This was four years after Cromwell's uncle had died, pushing Cromwell back up into the Gentry class. And so now when parliament was reestablished, Cromwell became one of parliament's members. At this point, we do see a huge struggle of power between parliament and between King Charles I. Parliament is demanding that the King have limited power now. At this point, they're not asking to actually get rid of the King or his family. They just want a more balanced approach to managing the English empire. Long came something known as the Irish massacre, where men, women, and children were tortured over in Ireland. Of course, the whole of Ireland at this point was managed by the English monarchy. Well, this was just too much for the parliament members. And so they created their own army. Now, as most people know, a country is only as strong as its military. And at this point, the parliament, the men of parliament ran the army, not the King. So in actuality, now it was parliament who held the upper hand, not the monarchy. And from 1642 to 1651, England had a civil war. This would briefly result into England being a republic by getting rid of the monarchy. But let's back up again just a little bit. Cromwell became second in command of the English army run by parliament. There's a very famous battle. Well, where Oliver Cromwell had to go up against King Charles I's nephew, Prince Rupert. Now it turns out that because of all the rage and issues of violence that Oliver Cromwell had earlier in life, it made him pretty good at war. And he battled against Prince Rupert, who was famous for carrying a poodle into battle with him on his horse. And I guess this image paints a pretty big picture, a good, good picture of what was really happening. You had on one side the people of England who were hungry for more power to manage and govern themselves versus the royalty who were so decked out in the finities of life that they were extravagant enough to have poodles under their arm in a battle. Well, at this point, I guess King Charles I kind of saw the writing on the wall, maybe a little bit, because he decided to run away to Scotland. And then Scotland, he gave him back to England for the price of £400,000. By 1647, Cromwell had pretty much destroyed the royalist movement or the people supporting the monarchy. We now have King Charles I, who is held under house arrest at Hampton Court. And Oliver Cromwell goes back into a deep depression. He doesn't know what to do with the king specifically. Oliver Cromwell thinks it's a pretty good idea to keep the king, but more as a figurehead, strip the king of his power and let the people run the country. But the army was not okay with that. At this point, it became the army versus parliament. The army consisted of just everyday English men. And when they realized that Cromwell wasn't going to get rid of the king, 18,000 of these army men marched to London. In October of 1647, Cromwell agreed to meet with representatives from the army to try to find a compromise. At this point, the men of the army wanted to extend power to all people outside of the ruling class. They believed that it was a good idea to give all men the right to vote, regardless of whether they owned land or not. Yes, this is the beginning of our modern times, where we see now all human beings in most countries have the right to vote, regardless of status or family heritage. The army also wanted this thing called free speech. They wanted to be able to criticize the government without being tried for treason, something that had not been done before. Because remember, for a very long time, people believed in the concept of divine right. Divine right meant that the kings and queens of England were hand selected by God to rule over these people. So to speak out against the government or against the monarchy was seen as treason against God Almighty Himself. These were definitely very revolutionary times. Well, on the 11th of November 1647, Charles I, the king of England, escaped his house arrest at Hampton Court. He didn't get very far though before he was captured again. And this time, because they knew that he could not be trusted, they sent him to a castle on the Isle of Wight. I guess it was kind of like their Alcatraz, unless Charles is some fantastic swimmer, it's not like he's going to be able to get off the island. For Cromwell, this now meant the struggle over what to do with King Charles I was over. Charles stayed prisoner on the Isle of Wight for a whole year. And then by December 6th of 1648, the army marched again into London and blocked the parliament building. They only allowed parliament members in that supported the idea of a republic and not the monarchy. Call it fraud, whatever you want to call it. Obviously, the people that were in parliament that day voted that the king, the king of England, should be tried for treason against the people. Of course, this left King Charles I in a state of shock. Before now, no court could ever try a king. A king was above the court because a king was hand selected by God. And on January 27th, 1649, the High Court of Justice declared Charles guilty of attempting to, quote, uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will and overthrow the rights and liberties of the people. King Charles I was executed three days later on January 30th. He got his head chopped off in front of spectators. And apparently, even the executioners themselves were still in shock that they had actually decapitated a king. I mean, this had never been done before that the monarchy was above reproach. It was above most humans and they had literally just chopped Charles head off. Now, King Charles I did have a family. He had a wife and children and he had a son, Charles II. Now, of course, because they're trying to get rid of the monarchy, they can't have this family hanging around in England. And so his wife and children were exiled out of the country. And by 1653, Oliver Cromwell himself was basically crowned Lord Protector. I mean, they established a commonwealth, but Oliver Cromwell pretty much acted like a king. He lived in all the palaces and he had absolute power. Now, according to many historians, this gift of absolute power did make Oliver Cromwell pretty uncomfortable. After all, he at the end of the day was a Puritan. He believes that God was the only being that held the absolute power. However, because Oliver Cromwell was a devout Puritan, he did use the responsibility that he had as Lord Protector of the commonwealth to try and continue to purify England of all the idolatry of the Church of England and the monarchy. During this commonwealth, England became a pretty grim place. All the ale houses were shut down, meaning like you can't drink and go have fun. As you know, from our Christmas episode, they also outlawed Christmas because Christmas is a pagan holiday, really. And they even got rid of like maypole dancers, which apparently maypole dancers back in the day were like brave kids. At this point, Puritan leaders started to act like the tyrannical leaders of the monarchy. And Oliver Cromwell was not very happy about this. He had fought to give all men liberty so that they could be Puritans that they wanted to. And they didn't have to subject themselves to the divine wishes of a monarchy. And now he was really upset that the Puritans themselves were starting to behave in the manner that they just fought a war against. Nonetheless, Oliver Cromwell ruled over England's commonwealth for five years. Apparently, the stress of being the Lord Protector left him pretty aged and lonely at the end of the five year mark. Well, by 1657, the English Parliament asked Oliver Cromwell if he would take the crown and become their new king. Oliver Cromwell took two months to answer Parliament, and he turned them down. He sided with the army saying that there should be no king. On the 3rd of September of 1658, Oliver Cromwell passed away. As you remember from our Christmas episode, because of the grim state of England after the Puritans had taken over the commonwealth, soon after Oliver Cromwell died, the English people requested that King Charles II come back to England and rule as their king. At least the monarchy was more fun than the commonwealth. And hey, they're going to get Christmas back. They're going to get their ill houses back. They were even going to be able to reign on the maypole with King Charles II. Now, what you need to know now is that after Oliver Cromwell passed away, they did lay his body in state. He was embalmed. They did have a spectacular funeral at Westminster, and he was buried. But when they brought King Charles II back to England, he, needless to say, was a little bit pissed about what had happened to his daddy. And so he rounded up 12 men who were still alive, who had participated in the execution of his dad, and he had them hung, drawn, and quartered. This means that they were dragged through town. Then they were hanged to the point where they were almost dead, and then had their bowels pulled out in front of them. They could actually see their bowels coming out of their stomach. And just when the pain was super intense, they had their head chopped off, which I'm sure was a sweet release. And then the body was cut into quarters, and bits of the body were sent everywhere all over England. Not a very respectable way to die. Well, King Charles II had one person that he still could not take his vengeance on. And that was Oliver Cromwell, because Oliver Cromwell had already died. In 1661, King Charles II had Oliver Cromwell's body dug back up. He hung Oliver Cromwell's whole body up on a hangman's noose for a little while. But then he had the body taken down and he cut Oliver Cromwell's head off and put Oliver Cromwell's dead head on a spike on top of Westminster Hall. This was supposed to be a warning to anybody else in England who dared to challenge the monarchy. Now, it's not like he left Oliver Cromwell's head on a spike for like a day or two, just to be like, aha, I'm back and screw you, Cromwell. Now I'm the boss. No, King Charles II left Cromwell's head on a spike for 20 years. His head just became part of the decor. And part of me thinks his head would still be there today if it wasn't for a storm that hit London somewhere between 1685 and 1688. Now, at this point, Charles II's son, King James II, is on the throne. What people believed happened is that sometime in this three-year period, this storm hit London and the head just popped off of the spike and like fell on the ground in front of Westminster Hall. At that point, a guardsman probably found his head. It was like, oh, well, there's Oliver Cromwell's head. And he just like picked up the head and took it home with him. He believes the guardsman or the historians believe that the guardman um, hit the head probably in his chimney for a good amount of time. Well, eventually the leaders of the country parliament, the king, noticed that the head was gone. And so they offered a reward to any of the citizens of London who had the head or knew where the head was. Well, nobody turned the head in and people think it's because the guardman was probably like, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. And he knew if he admitted that he had the head, he himself might get his head chopped off from stealing the head from Westminster Hall. Well, nonetheless, by 1710, a museum owner of Claudius de Poy, I don't know if I'm saying that right, a Swiss museum owner living in London got the head, whether he bought it from the guardsman. I'm not 100% sure, but he had this museum of oddities. We're coming into a time in our timeline where people are starting to come really fascinated with the macabre. We're still fascinated with the macabre. I mean, hello, if you have fripplies, believe it or not. But he thought, oh, okay, I have Oliver Cromwell's head. I'm going to place this head now in my museum and collect money from citizens to come and see this famous skull of Oliver Cromwell. Well, by 1738, the museum had closed down and now the head comes into the possession of a man named Samuel Russell. Now, Samuel Russell allegedly was a distant relative descendant of Oliver Cromwell, although that's a little sketchy. He also was very well known to be drunk a lot. He was a party guy. And so when he got his grand old ancestor's skull, oddly, you would think he would treat it really well and preserve it, but no, no, he didn't. He used his relative's skull as like a party favor. It was like, as one person said, like a beach ball that would bounce around his like parties at his house. So by the end of his time with the skull, the skull had been, it had been beaten up pretty badly. Now, Samuel Russell tried to sell the skull to the Sydney Sussex College, which was the college that Oliver Cromwell had attended, but they, they didn't want this whole tattered, beat up skull. So then Samuel Russell finds a goldsmith by the name of James Cox and James Cox buys the skull for 5,600 pounds. However, by 1799, the skull ends up in the possession of a group of brothers. This group of brothers now want to use the skull for display, just like our original museum owner of oddities. Well, towards the end of their lives, one of the daughters of one of these brothers ends up with Oliver Cromwell's skull. And by 1850, this daughter then sells the skull to a Josiah Henry Wilkinson. Now, the skull would say in the Wilkinson family as a family heirloom for 150 years. What a weird heirloom to inherit from your grandpa. By 1930, one of the descendants of the Wilkinsons who had possession of the skull decided that they were going to get the skull tested to make sure that it was actually Oliver Cromwell's skull. I mean, who really knows, right? Could this just be a fake or another scroll? People are saying is Oliver Cromwell's missing skull? We do know his skull is missing. And it could have been people just found skulls and sold them on the pretense that it was Oliver Cromwell's skull. And many people around that time had popped up saying, no, I have the skull, no, I have the skull, no, I have the skull. And so they had the skull tested. Well, the Wilkinson family got 109 page dissertation back claiming that the skull they had was the legit skull of Oliver Cromwell. In 1957, Horace Wilkerson died and he left it to his son, who was also named Horace. But alas, this Horace was like, okay, this insanity has to end. And so in March of 1960, with the permission of the college, Horace Wilkerson took Oliver Cromwell's head to the city Sussex College and buried it somewhere on the property. Nobody knows exactly where. Now there is a plaque at the college that states the head is somewhere on the property. And they decided to leave its burial place anonymous so that the head would finally be able to rest in peace. You know, by this point that there is quite a legend behind Oliver Cromwell's decapitated head. And I'm sure that if they had marked the burial, somebody at some point would have tried to bury it up and sell it again and continue this crazy story of this decapitated body part. Now personally, I am glad that Oliver Cromwell's head is not the most famous part of Oliver Cromwell's story or his life. Even though the Commonwealth that was ruled by Oliver Cromwell didn't really work out, it maybe was too extreme. We do see the beginning of revolutionary times where eventually we have the French Revolution and of course the big American Revolution where a country is established without a monarchy at all. So we do have to give Oliver Cromwell some of our respect for the fact that he was willing to give all men the chance to vote and the chance to have a say in what happens in their own government. As human beings, we live and we learn. We are fallible. We do make mistakes. But if Oliver Cromwell had not taken the chances that he did, we would not have learned from his mistakes. And we would not be able to take the good part of his idea and make them better. Now, even though I am a descendant of King Charles I, my loyalty always lies with the people. I don't believe in a monarchy. I don't believe in divine right. I've said many times before that I'm more proud of my American ancestors who fought in the American Revolution to give us freedom than I am in my royal ancestors. I do believe, as it says in our American Constitution, that all men have certain rights that are given to them by God that no government can take away. So rest in peace, Oliver Cromwell. Alright guys, thank you so much for sitting through another story. I know that was a long one today. We will be back on Monday for Mystery Monday. We're going to be hanging out in England for a little while. Our mystery is going to be regarding something that happened in the English royal family. And then on Wednesday we'll be going over the Gospel of Philip. And then Friday I have another kind of cool story revolving around King Charles I as well. Super excited about filming that story for you guys. I am trying to get a bonus video out to you guys with some cooking stuff. It just might take a little bit of a while for me to edit it, but it's coming soon. And oh yeah, happy New Year. Happy Age of Aquarius 2021. It is going to be spectacular. And I wish you all the best for your new year. If you would like to purchase our opening song, there's a link in the description box below. Thank you again to Josh McCabe for doing the song for us. And thank you to Todd Roderick for helping me get this video on the interwebs for you to watch. All right, guys, I will talk to you soon. Bye.