. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. s last victoriouscharge, the field being afterwards ploughed overthat his enemies might not discover the account, indorsed by Heath, the authorof the Flagellum —who, by the way, contradictshimself, as he afterwards goes on to describe theexhumation in the abbey and the subsequentgibbeting—is that as the body was decomposedand corrupt to such an extent that it was impos-sible either to embalm or publicly bury it, it wasencased in lead and flung into the Thames atmidnight. Oldmixon adds that it was thrown
. Old and new London : a narrative of its history, its people, and its places. s last victoriouscharge, the field being afterwards ploughed overthat his enemies might not discover the account, indorsed by Heath, the authorof the Flagellum —who, by the way, contradictshimself, as he afterwards goes on to describe theexhumation in the abbey and the subsequentgibbeting—is that as the body was decomposedand corrupt to such an extent that it was impos-sible either to embalm or publicly bury it, it wasencased in lead and flung into the Thames atmidnight. Oldmixon adds that it was throwninto the deepest part of the Thames. To saynothing of the intrinsic improbability of theseaccounts, of the fact that neither Cromwell norhis friends were likely to anticipate any indignitybeing offered to his remains, of the difficulty ofsecretly conveying the corpse either to Northamp-tonshire or to Naseby, of the physical impossibilityof decomposition necessitating a humed burial inthe Thames—though this is certainly the best S7^ DLt) ANt) NfiW LONDON*. Whitehall.] CROMWELLS SUPPOSEt) GkAVE. 373 authenticated theory—there is, as we shall see, everyreason to believe that he was actually interred near ihis mother and his daughter in the Abbey. First,-there is the fact that none of the leading men ofthe day had any suspicion that the funeral proces-sion, of which we have many elaborate accounts,Avas a mock ceremonial. Secondly, Cromwell wouldaiaturally desire to lie with his mother and daughterin the national mausoleum among those whom he Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw. This accountis corroborated by the following passage in a workentitled Oliver Cromwell and his Times, byThomas Cromwell:— When the coffin of Crom-well was broken into, a leaden canister was foundlying on his breast, and within it a copper giltplate with the arms of England impaling those ofCromwell, &c. This copper plate is or was,says a writer in the Gaiikniaris Mamzine for
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