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Oliver Cromwell's Head · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 1: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
0:32
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd.
0:38
Speaker 3: Brown and I'm Olivia Hidar and I.
0:40
Speaker 2: Believe that makes us your host's Olivia. How's it going.
0:43
Speaker 3: It's going all right. You know, it's the Christmas season,
0:47
Speaker 3: feeling festive.
0:48
Speaker 2: Things could always be worse. Our heads could be getting
0:50
Speaker 2: passed around throughout history, exactly.
0:54
Speaker 3: My head won't be going anywhere. No one will care.
0:57
Speaker 3: That's the nice thing about being nobody.
1:00
Speaker 2: We are covering some weird shit today.
1:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because.
1:03
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Sometimes, I mean, there's only so many
1:06
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories in the world, so sometimes I have to
1:11
Speaker 2: play a little bit of conspiracy documentary lottery and hope
1:17
Speaker 2: that whatever I pull from the balls. I use the
1:20
Speaker 2: balls like lottery, like they blow in the air, and
1:25
Speaker 2: then whatever one shoots up through the two is what
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Speaker 2: I pick. Yeah, and this week it was Cromwell's Head
1:32
Speaker 2: we're doing. We're covering the documentary Cromwell's Head, which is
1:36
Speaker 2: about the guy from Babe It.
1:38
Speaker 3: Beat Me Too. Yeah, it's about James Cromwell's amazing head.
1:44
Speaker 3: That guy. I gotta tell you, if you were going
1:46
Speaker 3: to do a documentary about one actor's head, you could
1:49
Speaker 3: pick worse than James Cromwell. That guy has an amazing dome.
1:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a very appropriately sized head piece for
1:58
Speaker 2: his body. It's it's well proportioned.
2:02
Speaker 3: God, he rules. He's so good. He's in Succession. He's
2:07
Speaker 3: so he's so fucking good in the last season of Succession.
2:11
Speaker 2: I got to get back to Succession first season.
2:14
Speaker 3: He has a killer fucking monologue in what in the
2:19
Speaker 3: last season of Succession. It's so amazing and I love him.
2:23
Speaker 3: Every time he pops up, I'm always so happy. But
2:26
Speaker 3: unfortunately he is not in this documentary.
2:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately that is not the Cromwell in question. Cromwell's
2:33
Speaker 2: head refers to Oliver Cromwell, a very important figure from
2:39
Speaker 2: British history. Yep, this documentary. I mentioned it to you
2:43
Speaker 2: before we started recording. It's very much uh, British. It's
2:48
Speaker 2: British then in it, which I don't know what I
2:51
Speaker 2: was expecting.
2:52
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean, come on, man, it's about Oliver Cromwell.
2:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also onb It's on BBC Select.
3:00
Speaker 3: All of the Americans who care about Oliver Cromwell are
3:04
Speaker 3: interviewed in this documentary exactly.
3:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is on Amazon by way of an Amazon
3:14
Speaker 2: channel called BBC Select. Sure, and if for some reason
3:18
Speaker 2: you do want to watch this after Olivia and I
3:21
Speaker 2: run through it, you can do that with a free
3:23
Speaker 2: trial that I need to make sure to cancel. I didn't,
3:27
Speaker 2: I guess I just look around. What else is on
3:28
Speaker 2: BBC Select? Wonderful?
3:30
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't realize that it was on BBC Select,
3:34
Speaker 3: So I just paid three bucks to watch it, and
3:36
Speaker 3: you know what, that's fine.
3:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. Friend of the show Ethan Lawrence is currently on
3:43
Speaker 2: a BBC show called Boat Story. Oh that I don't
3:49
Speaker 2: think you can get here. I wonder if I can
3:51
Speaker 2: get that on BABC Select, then maybe I'm going to
3:54
Speaker 2: check in it in it chips oil cookies, No they don't, no, no,
4:01
Speaker 2: they call them biscuits. And what are cookies over there?
4:03
Speaker 2: They got to have something that they call cookies, right.
4:06
Speaker 3: Probably they do. I don't think they have to.
4:08
Speaker 2: They have to by law.
4:10
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, wait, hold on one second, convention British cookies
4:18
Speaker 3: that is not helpful. That was not a helpful Google.
4:24
Speaker 2: Them biscuits.
4:26
Speaker 3: It's just like, here's a bunch of different cookies from Britain.
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Speaker 3: I don't know, I can't. It's a mystery that will
4:33
Speaker 3: forever remain unsolved until one of our British listeners yells
4:37
Speaker 3: at us about it.
4:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, which will definitely happen.
4:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, we're sorry. We can't help it that you
4:44
Speaker 3: live on an island of sub human imbreads Like, I'm sorry,
4:49
Speaker 3: I'm kidding. I love I love Britain, except for all
4:52
Speaker 3: of the transphobes that inhabit that island.
4:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's lots of lots of anti immigration types government
5:00
Speaker 2: I'm not a fan of. Yeah, Oliver Cromwell. He's an
5:03
Speaker 2: important figure in British history, which is here's the thing
5:07
Speaker 2: about British history. There's too much of it.
5:10
Speaker 3: It's so old.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, like some of that needs to be sealed away,
5:14
Speaker 2: like it's their youth record or something.
5:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the thing. Like we're gonna be talking about
5:19
Speaker 3: people from the modern times getting upset about this guy
5:22
Speaker 3: who lived in the sixteen hundreds, Like, come on, guys,
5:26
Speaker 3: let it go.
5:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, very strong opinions about this guy, mostly because he
5:31
Speaker 2: killed a king, and it's like, I don't try it out,
5:34
Speaker 2: see how you feel about it.
5:37
Speaker 3: This guy killed a king in the sixteen hundreds and
5:40
Speaker 3: people are still calling him a murderer today.
5:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you also but then you also have
5:46
Speaker 2: people who are like, yeah, he killed a king and
5:48
Speaker 2: participated in some ethnic cleansing of sorts. But beyond that,
5:52
Speaker 2: he was a good dude. He was a cool guy. Yeah,
5:55
Speaker 2: like geez, yeah, but people are very conflicted about this
5:59
Speaker 2: guy still.
6:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:01
Speaker 2: And there was a civil war and he was kind
6:04
Speaker 2: of the leader of one side of that civil war,
6:07
Speaker 2: the parliamentarians. Yes, And at one point, as that civil
6:12
Speaker 2: war was kind of coming to a head, King Charles
6:15
Speaker 2: the First gets tried for treason and Cromwell is a
6:19
Speaker 2: key figure in that trial. King Charles the First is
6:23
Speaker 2: convicted after a nine day trial and beheaded in public.
6:29
Speaker 3: That's cool.
6:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, shit was wild back then, It's true, Like, yeah,
6:33
Speaker 2: if that was still happening. Yeah, I feel like the world,
6:37
Speaker 2: the leaders of the world would be a little more
6:40
Speaker 2: on their ps if routinely getting beheaded for being bad.
6:47
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's a good policy, you know. I
6:49
Speaker 3: think we've got another King Charles right now. And maybe
6:53
Speaker 3: he could stand to like heed his ancestors' life lessons
6:59
Speaker 3: even though he had no real political power whatsoever.
7:02
Speaker 2: No, no, no one's going to give that guy power.
7:05
Speaker 2: Look at him. No, I would rather not, honestly, I
7:08
Speaker 2: would be fine. Start with prosecutors. I think probably are
7:12
Speaker 2: that first class of a public figure. That, yeah, because
7:17
Speaker 2: that's that's usually there's a lot of cases where that's provable,
7:21
Speaker 2: Like it's provable in some cases that there are prosecutors
7:25
Speaker 2: who just put people to death totally because they didn't
7:28
Speaker 2: want to be wrong, Like they knew they were wrong,
7:31
Speaker 2: but they didn't want to publicly be wrong.
7:33
Speaker 3: I was watching I watched The Devil's Advocate recently, uh huh,
7:38
Speaker 3: and it really reminded me of how for so long,
7:42
Speaker 3: especially in the nineties, defense attorneys were the bad guys.
7:46
Speaker 3: Like that's what the general public was like, these goddamn
7:50
Speaker 3: defense attorneys, when in reality, it's the prosecutors we really
7:54
Speaker 3: got to watch out for. They're the real Devil's advocate.
7:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like, what do you want? People need
8:00
Speaker 2: defense attorneys? That's exactly some work judges. Why can't we
8:06
Speaker 2: just vote on TV? I mean that might actually be
8:09
Speaker 2: better then.
8:10
Speaker 3: I mean that's probably where we're heading.
8:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. Just Instagram poll something
8:16
Speaker 2: like that. Yeah, exactly deserves to go to the chair.
8:22
Speaker 3: All policy will be decided by Twitter poll. Only four options,
8:26
Speaker 3: so one of them is always see results.
8:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Cromwell, he takes the title Lord Protector Cromwell. Yeah,
8:37
Speaker 2: after he offs King Charles the First, he did not
8:40
Speaker 2: take the title of king. Very noble of him, I
8:44
Speaker 2: guess I don't. I actually don't give a shit.
8:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't really care either. But like, it is
8:48
Speaker 3: funny that he doesn't want to be called the king.
8:50
Speaker 3: He just wants to be the king.
8:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like and again I'm just spitballing here,
8:55
Speaker 2: from what this documentary taught me about British history this
8:59
Speaker 2: morning when I watched it, it seems like he was
9:04
Speaker 2: more like, now, I don't want to be king. I
9:06
Speaker 2: want to be worse than that. I want to be
9:09
Speaker 2: so much worse than king. So in that way, in
9:13
Speaker 2: that way, it's not all that noble of him to
9:15
Speaker 2: have not taken that title.
9:17
Speaker 3: No, I'm going to say it. I think the Puritan
9:20
Speaker 3: murderer seems like kind of a bad guy.
9:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that really is a good way to describe him.
9:27
Speaker 2: He was a puritan who killed a bunch of people,
9:30
Speaker 2: and to this day people are still like, I don't know, you.
9:33
Speaker 3: Know, he had he had some things to teach us.
9:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had some good ideas. Oh no, that's a
9:39
Speaker 2: slippery slope. Yeah. He only ruled from sixteen fifty three
9:42
Speaker 2: to sixteen fifty eight. Yeah, and then he died after
9:46
Speaker 2: a brief illness, because that's how it worked back then.
9:50
Speaker 3: Basically, you get a cold and then they write you off.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, I don't know, pray, I guess, just
9:58
Speaker 2: to the right sect of Chris Janity and he will
10:01
Speaker 2: own you to death. So after he dies, Richard Cromwell
10:05
Speaker 2: takes over. That's Oliver's thirty two year old son. So
10:10
Speaker 2: I'm assuming Oliver was like forty four when he died.
10:13
Speaker 3: Back basically he was like sixty, yeah.
10:17
Speaker 2: Thirty two. At that point, there were probably people being like, okay,
10:21
Speaker 2: and you're still in public office. You know you're gonna
10:24
Speaker 2: die like a year from now. Here's the thing.
10:26
Speaker 3: He takes over and he sucks, which is just a
10:28
Speaker 3: classic millennial move, like he's just he can't live up
10:32
Speaker 3: to his boomer Dad.
10:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, classic nepotism, baby. He's like the rock Well of
10:39
Speaker 2: British history right there.
10:42
Speaker 3: All of these British monarchs are just nepo babies kind
10:47
Speaker 3: of kind basically, yes, literally, And.
10:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's so bad at his job that it
10:54
Speaker 2: starts to kind of tarnish Oliver Cromwell's legacy too, Like
10:58
Speaker 2: how Bill Bellach was the greatest coach in NFL history
11:02
Speaker 2: for a long time, and then Tom Brady went won
11:04
Speaker 2: a Super Bowl somewhere else and Bill Belichick hasn't been winning,
11:09
Speaker 2: so now his legacy is getting retroactively tarnished. Also very similar.
11:14
Speaker 2: It's a good good reference for British listeners. I know
11:17
Speaker 2: they got you. It's a great.
11:18
Speaker 3: Reference for me too because I totally get it.
11:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to throw that one out there, little
11:25
Speaker 2: hail Mary if you will, you know, hail Mary when
11:27
Speaker 2: you throw the ball.
11:28
Speaker 3: Like fifty even, like hail Mary full of grace?
11:33
Speaker 2: What No, I think they got that from the NFL.
11:36
Speaker 4: Oh interesting, Yeah, So at some point people are so
11:42
Speaker 4: disgruntled with Oliver Cromwell's bullshit kid dick they.
11:47
Speaker 2: Start calling him something like leaky Dick or something like that.
11:50
Speaker 3: It was something like that, bwling dick, yes, grumbling dick.
11:55
Speaker 2: I don't remember what it was.
11:58
Speaker 3: I mean, this is why you don't name you kids, Richard.
12:01
Speaker 3: I gotta say.
12:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, if you don't want to have kids,
12:04
Speaker 2: just don't have them, like, don't the name.
12:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:08
Speaker 2: So people get so disgruntled with Richard that eventually the
12:14
Speaker 2: son of King Charles the First takes over as ruler.
12:17
Speaker 2: He's been exiled, and they start a hashtag campaign however
12:22
Speaker 2: that worked back then to get him back. He comes
12:26
Speaker 2: back and he rounds up most of the men who
12:29
Speaker 2: participated in his father's trial. Right, twelve of them are
12:34
Speaker 2: executed in appropriately horrific fashion for the time. They are
12:39
Speaker 2: hanged to the edge of unconsciousness, right, and then disemboweled,
12:47
Speaker 2: and their body parts are distributed to the crowd.
12:50
Speaker 3: I guess, uh, they like hung it. They hung their
12:54
Speaker 3: body parts like around town.
12:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, they like hug them on like lamp like light
12:59
Speaker 3: pools and stuff. I guess they didn't have street lamps
13:01
Speaker 3: and the sixteen hundreds, you know what I mean?
13:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all the bugs.
13:06
Speaker 3: Can you imagine, I mean, look, I have to imagine
13:10
Speaker 3: that it was a pretty smelly time. Anyway. Yeah, I've
13:14
Speaker 3: never looked at like ancient history and thought, I bet
13:18
Speaker 3: this is like a really pleasant place to be. But yeah,
13:22
Speaker 3: there had to be crazy bugs on these dead bodies.
13:26
Speaker 2: Just everywhere, and you don't see them in the pictures.
13:29
Speaker 2: They don't.
13:30
Speaker 3: They feel like they don't draw them.
13:31
Speaker 2: That was a little historical whitewashing. They were like, we
13:34
Speaker 2: can't let people what happened.
13:36
Speaker 3: I mean, all of the pictures are drawn by hand.
13:39
Speaker 3: It's just tedious to draw the little bugs.
13:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be funny if every picture from history
13:46
Speaker 2: just had thousands of bugs drawn on.
13:49
Speaker 3: It, flies hovering around everything. Yeah, basically that would be accurate.
13:54
Speaker 3: Grosso yep, disgusting time.
13:57
Speaker 2: So this guy wasn't just gonna leave it at okay, Well,
14:02
Speaker 2: I rounded up the people who killed my father who
14:05
Speaker 2: are still alive.
14:07
Speaker 3: Right.
14:07
Speaker 2: No, he decides to take it a step further because
14:09
Speaker 2: here's the thing. Oliver Cromwell got like a monarch's funeral,
14:14
Speaker 2: right they buried him in Westminster Abbey, I believe. Yeah,
14:19
Speaker 2: And so King Charles the second is like, well we
14:22
Speaker 2: got to undo that shit. Yeah, And it's not enough
14:26
Speaker 2: to just like tweet about it and be like, hey,
14:29
Speaker 2: I as King Charles the Second distance myself from all
14:33
Speaker 2: the pomp and circumstances that man's funeral. No, no, you go,
14:37
Speaker 2: you go above and beyond that, he had Oliver Cromwell's
14:40
Speaker 2: body exhumed, along with those of two of his fellow parliamentarians,
14:46
Speaker 2: and thus begins Oliver Cromwell's journey through history as kind
14:52
Speaker 2: of like a side show attraction relic.
14:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, relic in the classic term. Yeah, this is I mean,
15:01
Speaker 3: this is a thing that happened a lot throughout history.
15:04
Speaker 3: I mean because, like as they mentioned in this documentary,
15:08
Speaker 3: if someone is notorious enough, there will be weirdos who
15:12
Speaker 3: want to worship their bones. And so there are many
15:15
Speaker 3: examples throughout history of notorious people's bones being removed or
15:22
Speaker 3: thrown away or you know, they like Hitler's remains were
15:27
Speaker 3: dumped into random river somewhere so no one could like
15:29
Speaker 3: worship them. Sure, sure they were Oh okay, I mean
15:35
Speaker 3: that's what happened, but you can you can doubt all
15:37
Speaker 3: you what?
15:38
Speaker 1: So?
15:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, but before that, before they I mean, they display it.
15:44
Speaker 2: But it seems like King Charles the Second is displaying
15:47
Speaker 2: Cromwell's remains as if to say, hey, this could be
15:50
Speaker 2: you fuck face, don't act up.
15:52
Speaker 3: Sure totally.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean that is that is a pretty
15:56
Speaker 2: interesting move. Yeah, yeah, he charged like per visitor like
16:02
Speaker 2: it really was a come see the Bearded Lady kind
16:05
Speaker 2: of thing, the world's street way.
16:07
Speaker 3: To make it a little extra coin for the king, yeah, you.
16:10
Speaker 2: Know, the king needs it. And then controversy. The bodies
16:14
Speaker 2: were moved to a tavern called the Old Red Lion
16:17
Speaker 2: for some reason, and people suspect all sorts of shenanigans
16:21
Speaker 2: might have happened there. Sure, but then the bodies were
16:26
Speaker 2: displayed at the Tyburn Tree. I want to read all
16:29
Speaker 2: about the Tyburn Tree. It sounds gnarly as fuck.
16:33
Speaker 3: I'm sure it has a rich history, as does so
16:36
Speaker 3: many things in England, but yeah, this is this thing
16:39
Speaker 3: is insane.
16:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a public execution contraption. Yeah, that could
16:46
Speaker 2: dispose of up to twenty one rabble rousers per hour,
16:50
Speaker 2: which doesn't that's not a bad clip, No, that's a
16:53
Speaker 2: that's a.
16:54
Speaker 3: Good rate for you know, pre automation days.
16:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, when you literally we had to walk a
17:00
Speaker 2: person to a place so you could hang them.
17:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, you had to tie them to this goddamn wooden triangle.
17:07
Speaker 2: Because I guess that is still the most efficient means
17:10
Speaker 2: of doing it at this point in history. Like, you
17:12
Speaker 2: can't just beat everybody to death. That's gonna show that's
17:15
Speaker 2: a workout, unless you like were ahead of your time
17:18
Speaker 2: and market it as like the new hot workout. That
17:21
Speaker 2: would have been smart. And like, I mean, I guess
17:24
Speaker 2: you could. I mean, well, there were beheadings too, let's
17:27
Speaker 2: not let's be fair. They weren't just hanging people. They
17:30
Speaker 2: were also beheading Yeah, that one's pretty smooth.
17:33
Speaker 3: But like when you see how this thing is built,
17:36
Speaker 3: you understand that, like this was a good method for
17:40
Speaker 3: mass disposal, like if you needed It's not just for
17:43
Speaker 3: a public exit, because public executions were happening in all
17:46
Speaker 3: manner of ways. But if you needed like like this
17:49
Speaker 3: says like twelve people all killed at the same damn time,
17:53
Speaker 3: then you need this giant pyramid shaped gallows that they built.
17:59
Speaker 3: And you know, public executions they were the hot tickets
18:04
Speaker 3: back in those days.
18:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what else are you going to watch?
18:08
Speaker 3: Exactly? It was like one of the primary forms of entertainment.
18:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was the earliest sport basically, And so yeah,
18:18
Speaker 2: the Tyburn tree. Now there's just like a spot in
18:21
Speaker 2: the middle of a sidewalk, Yeah, England where if you
18:24
Speaker 2: look down you're like, oh, I'm haunted. Now fuck, that says,
18:30
Speaker 2: here's where the tyburn tree was, and now here's.
18:31
Speaker 3: Where you're They moved the mask grave that was underneath it,
18:36
Speaker 3: so it's actually fine there.
18:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that was one of the features. I imagine
18:41
Speaker 2: the way it worked is after the person dies, you
18:44
Speaker 2: just like either cut them down or pushed that body
18:47
Speaker 2: right into that pit. And again the bugs, yeah, the smell. No,
18:55
Speaker 2: I want no part of it. So Cromwell is not
19:00
Speaker 2: only displayed publicly, but eventually his body is beheaded and
19:04
Speaker 2: his corpse is unceremoniously tossed into one of those pits.
19:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, allegedly alleged.
19:11
Speaker 2: That is the claim. There are also some claims that
19:16
Speaker 2: Cromwell was ready for this. He was like, look, someday
19:21
Speaker 2: I'm gonna die and old King Charles the Second is
19:25
Speaker 2: gonna come back and be like, ray, you killed my dad.
19:28
Speaker 3: You know when you play the game, sometimes the game
19:30
Speaker 3: plays you like you know how it goes, and.
19:36
Speaker 2: So he's like, I know what they're gonna do. They're
19:39
Speaker 2: gonna dig my body up and fucking display at public,
19:42
Speaker 2: and it's like, jeez, masdamas well. But he was right,
19:47
Speaker 2: he was And so yeah, there are some people who
19:51
Speaker 2: think that trip to the Old Red Lion Tavern was
19:56
Speaker 2: actually where his body was swapped out with someone else.
20:00
Speaker 2: So that becomes a thing. But what we do know
20:02
Speaker 2: is that head. We know what that head do. It's
20:05
Speaker 2: for real. The head is probably his, Yeah, because King
20:09
Speaker 2: Charles the Second kept that head and put it on
20:12
Speaker 2: a spike overlooking the courtroom where Cromwell had sentenced King
20:17
Speaker 2: Charles the First to death. Yea, and stayed there for
20:21
Speaker 2: twenty three years.
20:23
Speaker 3: Very Game of Thrones. That that death.
20:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that like like that second death, like he
20:30
Speaker 2: was already well.
20:31
Speaker 3: That that burial or yeah, disposal wherever you want to
20:36
Speaker 3: phrase that.
20:37
Speaker 2: So yeah, who knows if that was really his body
20:41
Speaker 2: that was dumped in that pit, but apparently it was
20:45
Speaker 2: the real head, which makes it seem like that would
20:47
Speaker 2: be the real bad I.
20:48
Speaker 3: Mean that it must have been. The body was deep
20:51
Speaker 3: beheaded after it left the tavern.
20:53
Speaker 2: So yeah, And they do talk about some rituals at
20:58
Speaker 2: the time where where like a person's heart would be
21:02
Speaker 2: removed and put in a lead case and buried and
21:05
Speaker 2: there's some suggestion that maybe that's what happened at the
21:09
Speaker 2: Old Red Lion tavern. Sure that parts of Oliver Cromwell
21:15
Speaker 2: were removed and buried in a field like right across
21:18
Speaker 2: the street, which that would make more sense. Like, if
21:24
Speaker 2: that really was his head put on that spike, it
21:27
Speaker 2: had to come off his body, right. I just did
21:30
Speaker 2: a little science there for everybody. You're welcome, You're welcome,
21:35
Speaker 2: thank you. What we do know is that eventually that
21:38
Speaker 2: head just fell off the roof.
21:41
Speaker 3: I love this story, which.
21:42
Speaker 2: Is very funny to me. There was a storm and
21:45
Speaker 2: there's this guard. They mentioned that he was like trying
21:48
Speaker 2: to stay awake. Yeah, and he's what they call him
21:52
Speaker 2: a sentry, I believe, right, Yeah, he was walking the
21:55
Speaker 2: grounds or whatever. Yeah, and uh, there's a storm happening
21:59
Speaker 2: and crome Well's head just falls off yep, lands on
22:04
Speaker 2: the ground, and this guy picks it up and is like,
22:08
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep it.
22:10
Speaker 3: I think he was worried that someone would think that
22:13
Speaker 3: he had removed it.
22:15
Speaker 2: Right, you know, which you know, the easiest way to
22:18
Speaker 2: prevent that would have been to just go to your
22:21
Speaker 2: supervisor or shift leader and be like.
22:24
Speaker 3: Hey, boss, hey, I found this.
22:27
Speaker 2: The Cromwell head fell off in the storm.
22:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, look, these weren't like understanding times.
22:35
Speaker 3: I could like I would understand being like if if
22:39
Speaker 3: I tell anyone about this, they are gonna put my
22:42
Speaker 3: head up there. Yeah.
22:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would have told someone and they'd be like, look,
22:47
Speaker 2: you did the right thing. We obviously have to stone
22:50
Speaker 2: you to death for touching my head exactly.
22:54
Speaker 3: Still better to just play ignorant. I think this is
23:00
Speaker 3: probably what I would have done. I found it a
23:03
Speaker 3: very relatable story.
23:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, he takes it home and then it's like, oh,
23:10
Speaker 2: I probably don't want to get caught with this, right,
23:13
Speaker 2: and so he hides it in his chimney. It's like
23:15
Speaker 2: that JFK Magic Bullet episode we covered not that long
23:19
Speaker 2: ago where the guy just found the bullet in this leg.
23:23
Speaker 2: I'm at that and then freaks out and is like
23:26
Speaker 2: oh shit and toss.
23:27
Speaker 3: It's a similar thing where it's like if I if
23:30
Speaker 3: I reveal this, then there's a chance I'll get in trouble,
23:34
Speaker 3: so I probably shouldn't reveal it.
23:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:37
Speaker 3: I just like that he stuck it up his chimney,
23:40
Speaker 3: like uh, Phoebe Kates's mom for a dad from Grimlins
23:45
Speaker 3: or where he about that story from Grimlins where the
23:48
Speaker 3: dad likes the chimney and dies to gets stuck in
23:52
Speaker 3: the chimney.
23:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember seeing Gremlins as a kid and being like, whoa,
23:58
Speaker 2: that's that's heavy, and then seeing it again as an adult,
24:02
Speaker 2: I was like, that's funny.
24:03
Speaker 3: It's a funny scene. But it is like very sad,
24:06
Speaker 3: but it is. It's funny that it's there.
24:10
Speaker 2: And so this guy, he hides it in his chimney,
24:14
Speaker 2: tells no one about it until he's on his deathbed.
24:18
Speaker 2: Imagine that when your deathbed. Like I just read an
24:23
Speaker 2: article about some it was on CNN and this woman
24:28
Speaker 2: was like, my dad lied to me all his life.
24:30
Speaker 2: It turns out he was a bank robber and he
24:33
Speaker 2: didn't tell me until he was on his deathbed. And
24:35
Speaker 2: it's like that's cool, that's that's really fucking neat. Yeah.
24:41
Speaker 2: While if dad's like, by the way Oliver Cromwell's head,
24:48
Speaker 2: go get it. Yeah. And even then, would you, like,
24:51
Speaker 2: as the kid, would you be like should I or
24:54
Speaker 2: should there? Your dad?
24:58
Speaker 3: You're going senile in your old age thinking about heads
25:02
Speaker 3: and chimneys, and then you go and look and there
25:05
Speaker 3: it is with the fucking spike and everything.
25:09
Speaker 2: God, that's that's a rude thing to do to your kids.
25:12
Speaker 3: It is because imagine how gross that fucking head must
25:15
Speaker 3: have been after a bunch of years in a chimney.
25:19
Speaker 2: And also, this isn't that far removed from him finding it,
25:25
Speaker 2: like he sure like he didn't. Like again, people didn't
25:29
Speaker 2: live that long, so it's not like they could just
25:35
Speaker 2: take it and be like, yeah, my dad found this,
25:38
Speaker 2: but apparently they did. They they take it, and I
25:41
Speaker 2: guess it was different times, a little more progressive. By
25:44
Speaker 2: this time, the second had died. It was sixteen eighty eight,
25:48
Speaker 2: so he was probably like forty six, had a good run.
25:53
Speaker 2: He's replaced by his brother, James the second. That guy's
25:56
Speaker 2: run out of the country pretty quick and replaced by
25:58
Speaker 2: William the third. And this whole middle part, I was like,
26:02
Speaker 2: can we just talk about this guy's head again? Come on.
26:06
Speaker 3: There's a lot of British history in here, and the
26:08
Speaker 3: thing about British history is that it is so complicated
26:13
Speaker 3: because there are so many weird morons in the fault,
26:18
Speaker 3: like all of these all this tumult of like Sir
26:22
Speaker 3: Blank was overthrown by Sir blank and blah blah blah.
26:26
Speaker 2: And in this documentary they'll jump from talking about Cromwell's
26:32
Speaker 2: embalmed head to a battle he led in like the
26:36
Speaker 2: sixteen hundreds, and it's like he's dead. Now, let's just
26:41
Speaker 2: follow this head. It's because a lot of it is
26:45
Speaker 2: about the changing opinions on Oliver Cromwell over the years
26:52
Speaker 2: among British voters. Is that what they do over there?
26:55
Speaker 2: Voters with like euurs.
26:58
Speaker 3: Probably voteurs well, that would be like fridge voters.
27:02
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I suppose, yeah, voter, there's an extra you
27:05
Speaker 2: somewhere via u t ers voters.
27:10
Speaker 3: I think I don't know that they're I don't know
27:12
Speaker 3: if they're voting at this point. I really I am
27:15
Speaker 3: unfortunately extremely ignorant about most British history.
27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, same, because here's the thing, not British doesn't matter.
27:25
Speaker 2: There's so much of it, Like you're gonna have to
27:28
Speaker 2: You're gonna have to tell me a couple key episodes
27:31
Speaker 2: that I should cover.
27:32
Speaker 3: First, I know, the big things.
27:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like at this point, it's like trying to get
27:37
Speaker 2: into how I met your mother or something like, there's
27:40
Speaker 2: so many like it seems like such a complicated story
27:45
Speaker 2: just like, give me the Cromwell's head version. It's like,
27:48
Speaker 2: I I mean, sometimes it's as.
27:53
Speaker 3: Funny times I guess sometimes it.
27:54
Speaker 2: Is and uh so, Yeah, around seventeen hundred is when
27:59
Speaker 2: that guard that century who found Oliver Cromwell's head in
28:04
Speaker 2: that storm. That's when he dies. And again by this
28:08
Speaker 2: point obviously a very different time in British history. Yeah,
28:12
Speaker 2: a lot more forward thinking people are fine with you
28:15
Speaker 2: displaying Royalty's disembodied head for the public to see. The
28:21
Speaker 2: daughters end up selling this head to a guy named
28:24
Speaker 2: Claudius Dupuis, who sounds like kind of a precursor to
28:31
Speaker 2: a person who I am, by total coincidence, wearing on
28:35
Speaker 2: my T shirt right now, which is Zach Began's of
28:40
Speaker 2: Ghost Adventures fan. He has an attraction in Las Vegas
28:44
Speaker 2: that I cannot recommend enough called the Haunted Museum.
28:48
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I've heard.
28:49
Speaker 2: It's just a bunch of sometimes very harrowing shit like
28:55
Speaker 2: he's got he's got stuff that like serial killers used to.
28:59
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I remember We've talked about this because I
29:02
Speaker 3: find it disgusting.
29:04
Speaker 2: It's pretty fucking horrifying. Like there's there's parts of it
29:08
Speaker 2: that are it's like yeah, you wanted that. There's one
29:12
Speaker 2: room in particular. I always forget the name of the
29:16
Speaker 2: serial killer because I try and block it out. But
29:18
Speaker 2: he would abduct male sex workers and then like bind
29:24
Speaker 2: them to the bed with their arms behind their back.
29:27
Speaker 2: Like it sounds like the kind of shit King Charles
29:29
Speaker 2: the Second probably would have had done to people, sure,
29:32
Speaker 2: and would uh put hypodermic needles in their body and
29:36
Speaker 2: connect those to a battery and would like to use
29:39
Speaker 2: that to electrocute them. And it's got like a whole room.
29:43
Speaker 2: He's got the bed of the guy's diary. It's nuts
29:49
Speaker 2: like that is like that's the one room where I
29:52
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this HiT's a little different.
29:54
Speaker 3: Well why does that guy deserve a shrine? You know?
29:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, like like that guy because it's it's not like
30:03
Speaker 2: the Peggy the Doll room. It's just like right, like, hey,
30:07
Speaker 2: don't talk to this doll or she'll follow you home.
30:09
Speaker 3: In spirit exactly.
30:11
Speaker 2: That's different like and it's mostly that, but then there's
30:14
Speaker 2: also you know, stuff like that room he's got some
30:17
Speaker 2: of Patrick Swayzey's teeth that I've always found very interesting.
30:23
Speaker 2: And it sounds like that's where Oliver Cromwell's head ended
30:28
Speaker 2: up around the set.
30:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is that is sort of a
30:32
Speaker 3: modern cabinet of curiosities, which is what these sorts of
30:35
Speaker 3: things would have been called. Yeah, like they're the cursor
30:39
Speaker 3: to modern museums like that is the thing about the
30:42
Speaker 3: Cabbinic curiosities is they were kind of a carnival sideshow,
30:47
Speaker 3: but they were also the closest thing that they had
30:50
Speaker 3: to a museum in that time because history was still happening. Yeah,
30:55
Speaker 3: so they couldn't just have a museum.
30:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so instead it was like I got this thing
31:00
Speaker 2: that died.
31:01
Speaker 3: Look at this thing that died fifty years ago.
31:05
Speaker 2: It's like that still feels a little too soon.
31:08
Speaker 3: Although I totally would have gone to see Cromwell's head.
31:11
Speaker 2: Oh I would absolutely. I'd go see Cromwell's head right now.
31:14
Speaker 3: I know we should, you know, they talk about where
31:16
Speaker 3: it is, we should just go try to find it.
31:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet they take perfectly kindly to es.
31:22
Speaker 3: They'd be happy with that, right.
31:24
Speaker 2: Corners showing up with a shovel. It's like, what do
31:26
Speaker 2: we do here? Don't worry about it.
31:28
Speaker 3: Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
31:30
Speaker 2: We'll be gone soon and so yeah, the Claudius Dupuy,
31:35
Speaker 2: he keeps this thing on display for the public and
31:39
Speaker 2: he dies in seventeen thirty eight, so it spends thirty
31:42
Speaker 2: eight years in a gift shop basically, and then that
31:46
Speaker 2: museum owner died and his son in law sells Cromwell's
31:50
Speaker 2: head to a guy named Samuel Russell. Which this is
31:54
Speaker 2: an interesting turn because how did this guy afford it.
31:57
Speaker 2: Everyone's like he was a down on his luck actor
32:00
Speaker 2: who spent all his money on alcohol. And it's like,
32:03
Speaker 2: and he also bought Oliver Cromwell's.
32:06
Speaker 3: Head and it must have been going cheap.
32:09
Speaker 2: It does reek of like drunk Saturday night eBay purchase
32:14
Speaker 2: right right where he's like, this has changed my life.
32:19
Speaker 2: He wakes up in the morning and he's like, ah, fuck,
32:21
Speaker 2: I bought a head.
32:22
Speaker 3: You have to imagine that there. You know. There was
32:25
Speaker 3: probably also some question called as to whether it was
32:29
Speaker 3: actually Cromwell's head at the time, because it wasn't really
32:33
Speaker 3: confirmed until a lot later that it was legitimately the
32:37
Speaker 3: dude's head.
32:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like that happens way way way later.
32:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it needed a bunch of forensic analysis that
32:45
Speaker 3: didn't exist at the time.
32:47
Speaker 2: And it's also eventually it seems like the way they
32:51
Speaker 2: solve it is pretty elementary. They're like, well, this body
32:55
Speaker 2: was beheaded after it was embalmed, right, and that narrows
32:59
Speaker 2: it a whole lot, because normally normally die you're getting
33:04
Speaker 2: balmbed after that, right, So it matched, the story matched,
33:09
Speaker 2: And so yeah, this guy, he is drunk all the time,
33:14
Speaker 2: he's down on his luck. He displays Cromwell's head in
33:17
Speaker 2: a shop in London, and it does nothing to help
33:20
Speaker 2: his financial fortunes. And eventually a guy he owes a
33:24
Speaker 2: bunch of money to calls in those loans and is like,
33:27
Speaker 2: what do you got If you don't have my cash,
33:29
Speaker 2: how about the Cromwell head? Give me the Cromwell head.
33:34
Speaker 2: And this was apparently at a point in human history
33:38
Speaker 2: where human heads were just all the rage, sure, like
33:43
Speaker 2: people were tossing them around.
33:44
Speaker 3: His gifts beanie babies didn't exist, the cards.
33:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to be a collector of rare artifacts,
33:52
Speaker 2: all you really got are human heads at this point
33:54
Speaker 2: basically a dark dark time. But hey, at least they're
33:58
Speaker 2: treated and they don't stink that much. I bet his
34:01
Speaker 2: head still fucking reeked.
34:04
Speaker 3: You know, I bet it just smelled musty. You know,
34:07
Speaker 3: at this point, it's almost one hundred years old now.
34:10
Speaker 2: I bought a RMS Titanic sweatshirt at the Titanic exhibit
34:17
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas because I was like, that's that's weird merch.
34:21
Speaker 2: That's that's on my chest? Sure, And I shit you not.
34:26
Speaker 2: It's been washed a couple times since I bought it,
34:30
Speaker 2: and it always smells musty. It's like, yeah, that's what
34:33
Speaker 2: I get. I bought a haunted sweatshirt. That's fair. That's
34:37
Speaker 2: what I get for being all cheeky and like not
34:40
Speaker 2: wear a Titanic sweatshirt. Yeah, it smells like the boat
34:44
Speaker 2: those people died on. Probably.
34:47
Speaker 3: Well, luckily the boat doesn't smell like much of anything
34:50
Speaker 3: since it's at the bottom of an ocean with a
34:51
Speaker 3: bunch of submarine parts.
34:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Titanic exhibits really cool though. They actually have
34:57
Speaker 2: part of the ship like that rules yeah, and a
35:00
Speaker 2: big ass iceberg that you can oh put your hand
35:03
Speaker 2: because it makes sense. Once you touch that iceberg, it's like, oh, yeah,
35:06
Speaker 2: I bet that would rip a fucking hole. Yeah. Yeah.
35:10
Speaker 2: So there's no human heads though, which is disappointed because
35:14
Speaker 2: they had to have found some Is it disappointing? Oh,
35:18
Speaker 2: I was joking.
35:20
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like, I'm fine with that. I
35:23
Speaker 3: think those people's bodies have been through enough.
35:25
Speaker 2: So speaking to just how different history was by this
35:30
Speaker 2: point in what the human head trade was, like, this
35:33
Speaker 2: guy is like he treats this Cromwell head like it's
35:36
Speaker 2: the rarest Pokemon card of all and he's like, I'm
35:40
Speaker 2: not displaying this anywhere. I'll show it to friends when
35:43
Speaker 2: they come over. That's what he did. He would just
35:45
Speaker 2: like over the years, friends would come by and he'd
35:49
Speaker 2: be like, I want to see something cool, Yeah, like
35:51
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we're here for.
35:53
Speaker 3: Of course, that's also how I would treat it. I
35:57
Speaker 3: would just be like, guys, hey, you want to see
35:59
Speaker 3: this head?
36:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Vladimir Putin does with Robert Kraft's super Bowl.
36:04
Speaker 3: Ring exactly, just like Vladimir Putin.
36:08
Speaker 2: That is a fun story. Robert Kraft is the owner
36:10
Speaker 2: of the New England Patriots, and this is what you
36:14
Speaker 2: get for Palin around with Putin. I guess he was
36:17
Speaker 2: at some event and Putin was there and he takes
36:21
Speaker 2: off his super Bowl ring and shows it to Vladimir Putin,
36:24
Speaker 2: and Putin just put that shit in his pocket wow,
36:27
Speaker 2: and has never given it back. It is apparently on
36:30
Speaker 2: display at some library within the Kremlin or something.
36:35
Speaker 3: So this might be a controversial opinion, but I think
36:39
Speaker 3: that guy sucks ass. I really hate that guy.
36:42
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin. Yes, come on.
36:47
Speaker 3: I know, I know I shouldn't say such things, but
36:50
Speaker 3: I do think he's a huge dickhead.
36:52
Speaker 2: Controversial opinion. Yeah, that's the thing, Like, it's not a race.
36:58
Speaker 2: Just because you know, you American government's bad, that doesn't
37:01
Speaker 2: mean Russia is not either, absolutely like way it very
37:08
Speaker 2: much goes like most governments are pretty fun.
37:10
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, but I think but more than his government
37:14
Speaker 3: being bad, I think he is an asshole. Like more
37:19
Speaker 3: than being a bad guy, an evil dictator, whatever you
37:23
Speaker 3: want to call him, I just think he seems like
37:25
Speaker 3: a dick Oh yeah.
37:26
Speaker 2: And I'm not not convinced that he like actually orchestrated
37:32
Speaker 2: a false flag attack on Russia to power. We did
37:37
Speaker 2: an episode about it, right, yeah, the Russian apartment bombings.
37:41
Speaker 2: So over the years, the head is just like in
37:45
Speaker 2: this Wilkinson guy's house basically, and then eventually it resurfaces
37:52
Speaker 2: or no, that no, not Wilkinson yet. God, this is
37:55
Speaker 2: even this is a confusing moment in British history. It's like,
38:00
Speaker 2: who's got this guy?
38:02
Speaker 3: We're still at du No wait no, no.
38:05
Speaker 2: We're Russell James Cox, because eventually that's who Russell owed
38:11
Speaker 2: all this money to. Russell was the drunkard who bought
38:16
Speaker 2: Cromwell's head thinking it was going to change his life.
38:19
Speaker 2: And then James Cox is the name of the guy
38:22
Speaker 2: who buys it and just like shows it to friends
38:25
Speaker 2: when they come over, because that's what you did back
38:28
Speaker 2: then eventually the head resurfaces after James Cox sells it
38:34
Speaker 2: for two hundred pounds, which is six point eight million
38:37
Speaker 2: dollars in today's money.
38:39
Speaker 3: Probably fucking Christ. Oh wait, I thought you had the
38:42
Speaker 3: actual conversion there, because no, I would not have been surprised.
38:46
Speaker 3: But that's like crazy.
38:48
Speaker 2: And for years it's displayed in a very fashionable part
38:53
Speaker 2: of London called Mead Court because again I guess if
38:57
Speaker 2: you're collecting heads, this is the one, this is the
39:00
Speaker 2: one you want, for sure, people probably maybe the most
39:04
Speaker 2: sought after severed head in the seventeen hundreds. Arguably I
39:09
Speaker 2: wouldn't I wouldn't doubt it. Listicals from the time confirm.
39:15
Speaker 2: So in eighteen thirteen it was sold once again to
39:19
Speaker 2: a guy named Josiah Henry Wilkinson, and it's claimed that
39:25
Speaker 2: the people who owned it, there were these three brothers
39:28
Speaker 2: who owned it when it was displayed at Mead Court.
39:31
Speaker 2: It's claimed that they all died under mysterious circumstances. Yeah,
39:36
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, how come no one else did?
39:39
Speaker 2: Can't You can't call it a curse. If it only
39:41
Speaker 2: happened to like one ownership group, they could have been
39:44
Speaker 2: cursed by any number of things they owned, exactly.
39:47
Speaker 3: I mean, if they're already collecting severed.
39:49
Speaker 2: Heads, Cromwell's head is innocent, is what I'm getting at, exactly.
39:54
Speaker 2: And so Wilkinson. He also kind of refrains from publicly
39:59
Speaker 2: displaying the head, but again he does also whip it
40:03
Speaker 2: out at parties. I'm saying, kids over apparently the way
40:08
Speaker 2: to do it. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's a it's a
40:11
Speaker 2: macabre artifact, that's for sure. It reminds me, Yeah, it
40:15
Speaker 2: along those same lines. It reminds me of how when
40:18
Speaker 2: I was a kid, I would often for friends who
40:21
Speaker 2: would come over whip out this stack of crime scene
40:24
Speaker 2: photos that my grandfather got when he retired as a cop,
40:31
Speaker 2: someone owed him a favor, and for one thing, I
40:34
Speaker 2: don't even want to fucking know what that means in
40:37
Speaker 2: cop Yeah, like, what what favor did someone from the
40:44
Speaker 2: crime lab owe you?
40:46
Speaker 3: Better than not know?
40:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to know what the guy in
40:50
Speaker 2: the crime lab did for you, but to repay this favor,
40:55
Speaker 2: this guy just gave him a stack of like crime
40:58
Speaker 2: scene and death scene photo. Oh great, And me and
41:03
Speaker 2: my sister just had access to these things for years
41:06
Speaker 2: and years and years as kids. They were just like
41:08
Speaker 2: they were in a Manila like a yellow envelope sitting
41:12
Speaker 2: around our house, and they were all black. They were
41:15
Speaker 2: all black and white, which made it more horrifying because
41:18
Speaker 2: you had to like, guess at, there's one I can
41:22
Speaker 2: still see where I am convinced the guy had a
41:24
Speaker 2: green sweater on and had red hair, and I can
41:28
Speaker 2: still see that fucking picture in it, Like this kind
41:32
Speaker 2: of reminds me of that, Like, yeah, that's not unlike
41:36
Speaker 2: pulling out a severed head and being like, hey cool, right,
41:39
Speaker 2: that's like nope, you just scarred me for life, yeah,
41:43
Speaker 2: which I bet I did.
41:44
Speaker 3: But also, these people, these people will again we're going
41:47
Speaker 3: to public executions and shit like death was a little
41:49
Speaker 3: bit more present in their lives than it is for us.
41:53
Speaker 3: So they probably weren't as affected by the severed head,
41:56
Speaker 3: especially because at this point it is desiccated and then
42:00
Speaker 3: basically mummified.
42:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've seen beheadings so exactly.
42:05
Speaker 3: They've seen them be fresh.
42:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so there's a book that comes out in
42:09
Speaker 2: eighteen forty five, highly influential. It's written about Cromwell, kind
42:14
Speaker 2: of revives his reputation among the British people. But the
42:18
Speaker 2: spoil Sport who writes that book also is very skeptical
42:21
Speaker 2: that the Cromwell head is really the Cromwell head. It's like,
42:25
Speaker 2: shut up, narc let us have the fun.
42:29
Speaker 5: It around this.
42:29
Speaker 3: It's around this point that the head they bring up
42:33
Speaker 3: that the head like made an appearance with in like
42:36
Speaker 3: a circus with General Tom Thumb. And I had the
42:40
Speaker 3: google General Tom Thumb. Have you did you see this guy?
42:44
Speaker 2: I did not google General Tom Thumb.
42:47
Speaker 3: I highly recommend there's some great photos out there, some
42:51
Speaker 3: old timy photos of a guy of General Tom Thumb
42:55
Speaker 3: who was adopted by P. T. Barnum and performed in
42:58
Speaker 3: his circus. Just resting an interesting little side tangent.
43:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard the name.
43:04
Speaker 3: I just there's Tom Thumb, Like he's named after the
43:07
Speaker 3: story of Tom Thumb.
43:09
Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, But.
43:11
Speaker 3: Because he's a little person and they would dress him
43:14
Speaker 3: up like Napoleon and shit and like trot him out,
43:19
Speaker 3: it's kind of great. Again, there's some really excellent Oh what,
43:27
Speaker 3: there's some really good shit. I don't remember exactly why
43:31
Speaker 3: he came up, and we're not going to talk any
43:34
Speaker 3: more about him, but like I did want to mention him.
43:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, he around this point in the documentary when they
43:41
Speaker 2: bring up that book and how it kind of revived
43:44
Speaker 2: Cromwell's image a little bit.
43:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where.
43:48
Speaker 2: The documentary starts jumping around. But the I just thought
43:52
Speaker 2: of how appropriate it is to say that the documentary
43:55
Speaker 2: is jumping around, because let's talk about Ireland. They certainly
44:00
Speaker 2: do not share the same sentiment about James or about
44:04
Speaker 2: Oliver Cromwell. James Cromwell, probably Cromwell. Yeah, Oliver Cromwell, on
44:10
Speaker 2: the other hand, he did bad, bad things in Ireland,
44:14
Speaker 2: and I understand why Ireland looks at him a little
44:19
Speaker 2: differently than some people. In the rest of that part
44:23
Speaker 2: of the world might because he uh, there's a guy
44:26
Speaker 2: who's just kind of like, yeah, I mean, he participated
44:28
Speaker 2: in some ethnic cleansing, but he's not.
44:32
Speaker 3: Look, if you're Irish and talking about English figures from
44:37
Speaker 3: the past, he kind of have to. Like that's just
44:39
Speaker 3: how it goes. Like there are way worse English monsters
44:43
Speaker 3: than Oliver Cromwell, but he's still committed ethnic cleansing.
44:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's suggested that Oliver Cromwell was kind of
44:52
Speaker 2: the head of a sort of British Taliban during his reign.
44:59
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I like totally that kind.
45:02
Speaker 2: Of sounds right, like he was way into like no Christmas.
45:07
Speaker 3: He was a Puritan.
45:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a Puritan, and you know what fuck that.
45:12
Speaker 2: I like, he has cigars named after him, Now, that's
45:14
Speaker 2: very funny.
45:15
Speaker 3: He has cigars and booze named after him.
45:19
Speaker 2: That is ideal. Yeah, but also yeah, it seems like
45:23
Speaker 2: like I say, that's ideal, but also like imagine you're
45:27
Speaker 2: Irish and you're like, yeah, that's not really ideal. Like
45:33
Speaker 2: he did still do all that stuff.
45:35
Speaker 3: He did still do all that stuff.
45:37
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I think I fall on the side of
45:39
Speaker 2: him being mostly bad, very bad.
45:42
Speaker 3: I mean, what you know from my limited understanding, Yeah,
45:46
Speaker 3: I feel pretty confident calling basically any member of the
45:52
Speaker 3: ruling class in Britain from like the last six hundred
45:56
Speaker 3: years of a piece of shit, don't I don't think
45:59
Speaker 3: I'm be proven wrong on any of that.
46:02
Speaker 2: And they get into all this and it's interesting. But
46:05
Speaker 2: at the same time, I'm watching this documentary and I'm like, yeah,
46:08
Speaker 2: but where's his head at?
46:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to know more about this head. Please
46:12
Speaker 3: where his head go?
46:13
Speaker 2: And around this time it was apparently still in the
46:16
Speaker 2: possession of that Wilkinson guy.
46:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
46:19
Speaker 2: And there's lots of interviews with British politicians who are
46:23
Speaker 2: probably all huge pieces of ship because there are There's
46:26
Speaker 2: there's one guy who I can just tell from the
46:29
Speaker 2: look on his face.
46:30
Speaker 3: We might be thinking about the same guy.
46:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a suit on.
46:34
Speaker 5: He's not with the suit in the in the Who's like,
46:41
Speaker 5: I am a conservative and I like to claim out
46:45
Speaker 5: of a crumwell.
46:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's he's talking about Oliver Cromwell in a
46:50
Speaker 2: way I don't like. Yeah, he's like he wasn't all bad,
46:53
Speaker 2: you know. It's and there's a lot of no, he
46:56
Speaker 2: didn't do that, Parliament did it's like, okay, okay, I.
47:02
Speaker 3: Like the guy who was like, yeah, you know, it's
47:04
Speaker 3: it's always kind of funny when people try to apply
47:07
Speaker 3: modern political standards to a figure from so long ago.
47:12
Speaker 3: And if the Tories want to claim Oliver Cromwell did,
47:16
Speaker 3: more power to them, which I found the really funny line.
47:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So in nineteen eleven, the Royal Archaeological Institute
47:25
Speaker 2: somehow gets their grubby paws on the Cromwell head and
47:30
Speaker 2: they can't really make any determination as to whether it's
47:34
Speaker 2: real or not.
47:35
Speaker 3: Well, then World War One starts and they've got other
47:37
Speaker 3: shit to worry about.
47:39
Speaker 2: They have bigger fish to fry, so they don't pick
47:41
Speaker 2: that thread back up until the nineteen thirties.
47:43
Speaker 3: Right when things are way more calm.
47:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we didn't have anything going on by the
47:50
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties. Yeah, what were they? Why even why in
47:53
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties were they even It's like, what are
47:55
Speaker 2: you doing?
47:56
Speaker 3: Well again? But this is the thing, like it pops
48:01
Speaker 3: up and then interest dies down again until after that
48:04
Speaker 3: war basically, yeah.
48:06
Speaker 2: And they aren't really able to determine much, but eventually
48:11
Speaker 2: they do figure out that this probably is Cromwell's head,
48:14
Speaker 2: because again the order in which the events happened, like
48:19
Speaker 2: most people were not embalmed and then beheaded. You were
48:23
Speaker 2: normally beat and then embalmed.
48:25
Speaker 3: Well, or I think the main argument is most of
48:29
Speaker 3: the people who were getting beheaded were getting embalmed at
48:31
Speaker 3: all because they weren't honored like people. So the fact
48:36
Speaker 3: that this head was embalmed even before it was before
48:40
Speaker 3: it was removed from the body like shows that it
48:43
Speaker 3: was given an honorable rest before being a zoo. Yeah,
48:49
Speaker 3: which tracks with the story.
48:50
Speaker 2: And I do like this last detail in April nineteen
48:54
Speaker 2: fifty seven. The Wilkinson who was in charge of the
48:58
Speaker 2: head by this point, because it's stayed in the Wilkinson
49:01
Speaker 2: family it seems for a long time. Sure, and again
49:04
Speaker 2: they would just whip it out like okay, I know,
49:07
Speaker 2: why can we at least play on board game? First?
49:12
Speaker 2: Eventually he dies and his kids are like, you know what,
49:17
Speaker 2: let's break the cycle. Let's uh, let's get Oliver Cromwell's
49:20
Speaker 2: head out of our home.
49:22
Speaker 3: Right. Well, they're moving and they're like, well, we got it.
49:25
Speaker 3: We can't pack everything. We got to get rid of
49:27
Speaker 3: this goddamn head.
49:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. They actually have like eight hundred in balmed Heads.
49:33
Speaker 2: We have two Cromwells. We're gonna give one away. It's fine.
49:36
Speaker 2: I think ours is the real one. They end up
49:39
Speaker 2: giving it to Sydney Sussex College, which is a Cambridge
49:44
Speaker 2: school that Cromwell was tied to, and they go, like
49:49
Speaker 2: the KFC original recipe route, they bury it. One person
49:54
Speaker 2: knows the north south coordinates, one person knows the east
49:57
Speaker 2: west coordinates. Yeah, and those people both work at the
50:01
Speaker 2: school and they're the only ones who know it until
50:05
Speaker 2: they move on from that position, and then their successor
50:08
Speaker 2: finds out.
50:09
Speaker 3: That's so fun. I love this.
50:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is fun, and it seems like a system
50:15
Speaker 2: that could very easily lead to him just being lost.
50:18
Speaker 3: Absolutely, there's no chance that this lasts forever.
50:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of those people is going to have like
50:25
Speaker 2: an unexpected car accident and someone's going to be like,
50:29
Speaker 2: they wrote it down though, right, they wrote down the coordinates. Nope, Nope, sorry.
50:35
Speaker 3: Sorry sorry, And that's fine, that's okay. That's a good place.
50:39
Speaker 3: I think that is a perfectly fine place for the
50:42
Speaker 3: story of this dude's head to finish.
50:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it, Yeah, I like that. It adds a
50:48
Speaker 2: little air of mystery to it. Like, yeah, we generally
50:53
Speaker 2: know where it is. It's at that school somewhere, right,
50:56
Speaker 2: Also just the school taking that on and being like,
51:00
Speaker 2: we're going to bury this dude's head somewhere.
51:03
Speaker 3: It is the worst thing that is buried on the
51:05
Speaker 3: grounds of this Cambridge college.
51:10
Speaker 2: Probably, And so that's that's where we stand with Oliver
51:15
Speaker 2: Cromwell's head. If you find it, please let us know.
51:19
Speaker 2: Y conspiracy the show.
51:22
Speaker 3: It to ur Po box.
51:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do have one. So yeah, actually I don't
51:28
Speaker 2: want to because someone will just send us ahead and
51:30
Speaker 2: be like.
51:31
Speaker 3: No, it's well, why is it dripping?
51:38
Speaker 2: Why does he have face tattoos? So I think that's
51:43
Speaker 2: our episode this documentary. I mean, it's an interesting story.
51:47
Speaker 2: I feel like we probably told it a little more
51:49
Speaker 2: interestingly than the documentary does. But sure you can watch it.
51:54
Speaker 2: It's on BBC Select. You can watch it for free,
51:56
Speaker 2: get that free trial exactly. See what else is out there.
52:00
Speaker 2: I bet there's some other good.
52:01
Speaker 3: Shit if it's all sixty six minutes.
52:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a short documentary. I appreciate that it's not
52:07
Speaker 2: like multiple episodes, which I'm sure they were tempted. Everyone
52:12
Speaker 2: multi pule episodes these days. Uh, but hey, that is
52:16
Speaker 2: our sewed Olivia, thank you so much.
52:19
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, of course.
52:22
Speaker 2: Uh, what do we have to plug before we get
52:24
Speaker 2: out of here? Uh? You don't show dot link slash store.
52:29
Speaker 2: We have a bunch of shirts on sale, and we
52:33
Speaker 2: have on Pops Forever drives on sale. That is a
52:36
Speaker 2: hard drive that has every podcast episode the network has
52:40
Speaker 2: released on it. It's over one hundred gigabytes.
52:43
Speaker 3: Totally shit.
52:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so go retain that history somewhere, give it
52:49
Speaker 2: to a museum someday in the future. Uh and that's all.
52:53
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Adam Todd Brown dot substack dot com follow
52:56
Speaker 2: me there, Olivia. What do you got to plug?
52:58
Speaker 3: Nothing? Nothing? Really, My Twitter accounts on private. I mean
53:05
Speaker 3: you can find me on letterbox if you care, but
53:08
Speaker 3: no one.
53:08
Speaker 2: Does so No, I think you mean your ex account.
53:12
Speaker 3: No, my Twitter account is like my ex account is
53:15
Speaker 3: still very active.
53:18
Speaker 2: Perfect. Uh all right, let's get the funk out of here.
53:21
Speaker 2: Olivia say goodbye, good bye, goodbye, everybody. We love you people.
53:31
Speaker 2: You're