July 28. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



75 



CromweWs Skull (Vol. v., p. 382. ; Vol. xi., 

 p. 496 ). — I send you an addition to the notices 

 supplied by your correspondent H. G. D. re- 

 specting Cromwell's skull. It is taken from an 

 Additional MS. in the British Museum, and is 

 dated "April 21, 1813." It does not appear that 

 Sir Joshua Reynolds was so desirous of possessing 

 this interesting relic as is stated in your corre- 

 spondent's " cutting." 



« The head of Oliver Cromwell (and it is believed the 

 genuine one) has been brought forth in the city, and is 

 exhibited as a favour to such curious persons as the pro- 

 prietor chooses to oblige. An offer was made this morning 

 to bring it to Soho Square to show it to Sir Joseph Banks, 

 but he desired to be excused from seeing the remains of 

 the old Villanous Republican, the mention of whose very- 

 name makes his blood boil with indignation. The same 

 offer was made to Sir Joseph forty years ago, which he 

 then also refused. The history of this head is as follows : 

 Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey, with all the 

 state and solemn ceremony belonging to royalty ; at the 

 Kestoration, however, his body, and those of some of his 

 associates, were dug up, suspended on Tyburn Gallows for 

 a whole day, and then buried under them ; the head of the 

 Arch Rebel, however, was reserved, and a spike having 

 been driven through it, it was fixed at the top of W^est- 

 minster Hall, where it remained till the great Tempest at 

 the beginning of the 18th century, which blew it down, 

 and it disappeared, having probably been picked up by 

 some passenger. 



" The head in question has been the property of the 

 family to which it belongs for many years back, and is 

 considered by the proprietor as a relic of great value ; it 

 has several times been transferred by legacy to different 

 branches of the family, and has lately it is said been in- 

 herited by a young lady. 



" The proofs of its authenticity are as follows : it has 

 evidently been embalmed, and it is not probable that any 

 other head in this island has, after being embalmed, been 

 spiked and stuck up as that of a traitor. The iron spike that 

 passes through it is worn in the part above the crown of 

 the head almost as thin as a bodkin, by having been sub- 

 jected to the variations of the weather; but the part 

 within the skull, which is protected by its situation, is not 

 much corroded ; the wood work, part of which remains, 

 is so much worm-eaten that it cannot be touched without 

 crumbling ; the countenance has been compared by Mr. 

 I Flaxraan the statuary, with a plaster cast of Oliver's face 

 taken after his death, of which there are several in 

 I London, and he declares the features are perfectly similar. 

 I " Mark Noble (whose authority is very questionable) 

 tells us that all the three heads (Oromwell's, Ireton's, and 

 Bradshaw's) were fixed upon Westminster Hall ; and he 

 adds, that Cromwell's and Bradshaw's were still there in 

 I 1684, when Sir Thomas Armstrong's head was placed 

 between them. 



" A ludicrous circumstance occurred not long ago at 

 the British Museum : there is, it seems, in the Ashmole 

 Museum, at Oxford, a skull said to be that of Oliver 

 Cromwell. A visitor at the British Museum, after having 

 seen the curiosities that were there shown him, inquired 

 of the assistant, ' Pray, Sir, have you a skull of Oliver 

 Cromwell in this house ? ' to which the assistant answered, 

 ' No, Sir.' ' Well, Sir,' said the stranger, ' I wonder at that, 

 as they have one at the Ashmole Museum at Oxford." 



Z. z. 



-S"^. Allan's Day (Vol. i,, p. 399.; Vol. vii., 

 p. 500.). — I send you the following extracts from 

 No. 300.] 



an account of St. Alban's, In a description of Hert- 

 fordshire, which I found in looking over the pages 

 of an odd volume of the Universal Magazine. If 

 any reliance is to be placed on these statements, 

 there seems to have been some reason for the 

 alteration in the calendar, to which reference has 

 already been made in some of the earlier volumes 

 of " N. & Q." Bede, however, asserts that St. 

 Alban suffered on the tenth day before the calends 

 of July, i. e. June the 22nd. 



" Here Offa built a large monastery for black monks, 

 dedicated the same as directed, and enshrined St. Alban's 

 bones in a rich and sumptuous tomb within their church, 

 with this inscription : — ' Here lieth interred the body of 

 St. Alban, a citizen of Old Verulam, of whom this town 

 took its denomination ; and from the ruins of which this 

 town did arise. He suffered June 17, 293.' " — Vol. viii. 

 p. 54. 



" In the most eastern part of the church they show you 

 a place where the shrine of St. Alban is said to have been 

 fixed with this inscription : — • S. Albanus Verulamensis, 

 Anglorum Protomartyr 17 Junii, 293.' " — Vol. viii. p. 55. 



" King Edward VI. after the dissolution of the monas- 

 tery granted for the better government of the 



town a charter of incorporation, whereby .... that the 

 Mayor and Burgesses shall .... hold three fairs, on 

 Michaelmas day, on the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, 

 and on St. Alban's day, June 17," &c. — Vol. viii. p. 55. 



E. H. A. 



Deadening Glass Windows (Vol. xi., pp. 409» 

 471.). — Mix mastic varnish with a small quan- 

 tity of white lead, merely sufficient to dim It ; 

 apply It to the Inside of the pane of glass with 

 an old, much worn, stumpy, large paint-brush, 

 using a very small quantity of the varnish at a 

 time, and applying It to the glass with the points 

 of the hairs of the brush only. 



I have windows so dimmed, and looking like 

 ground glass, twenty-two years ago, as perfect as 

 ever, except where the untutored assiduity of a 

 new housemaid may have exerted Itself, not quite 

 In vain, to scrub off the varnish. J. Ss. 



NOTES ON BOOKS, BTC. 



We transcribe at length the full title of a work which 

 will, we doubt not, interest large classes of our readers, 

 The Benefit of Christ's Death, probably written by Aonio 

 Paleario : reprinted in facsimile from the Italian Edition 

 of 1543; together with a French Translation printed in 

 1551 ; from Copies in the Library of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, to which is added an English Version made in 

 1548 by Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, now first 

 edited from a MS. preserved in the Library of the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge. With an Introduction by Churchill 

 Babington, B.D., F.L.S., Fellow of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge. Of the importance of this work to the history 

 of the Reformation in Italy, some idea may be formed 

 from the fact that the number of copies of it destroyed by 

 the Romish Inquisitors was certainly not less than 



