The Horrific Final Days of Oliver Cromwell

Video Description

September 3, 1658. Oliver Cromwell dies of malaria in Whitehall Palace while a violent storm rages outside. The cure existed—Jesuit's Powder (quinine) from Peru that had saved thousands across Catholic Europe. His physicians knew about it. But Cromwell, who had slaughtered Catholics in Ireland, reportedly refused medicine discovered and distributed by Jesuits. Three years later, Parliament exhumed his corpse, hanged it at Tyburn, and beheaded it with eight blows. His head stayed on a pike for over 20 years. Between August and September 1658, England's Lord Protector endured recurring malarial fevers contracted in Irish marshes nine years earlier—the same campaign where he massacred Catholics at Drogheda and Wexford. Based on physician George Bate's autopsy report describing Cromwell's spleen as looking like "the Lees of Oyl," contemporary accounts from his valet Charles Harvey recording deathbed prayers, and modern medical analysis identifying chronic malaria, Cromwell's death reveals how ideological prejudice may have prevented treatment, followed by the most grotesque posthumous revenge in British history. 📚 WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER: ✓ Why Cromwell reportedly refused Jesuit's Powder (quinine) that could've saved him ✓ How malaria from Irish marshes (1649) killed him nine years later ✓ The autopsy finding: spleen filled with matter like "the Lees of Oyl" (oil dregs) ✓ Why his corpse rotted so badly they secretly buried it and held a fake funeral ✓ The posthumous execution: exhumed, hanged, beheaded with 8 blows, head on pike for 20+ years ✓ The head's 300-year journey from pike to museum to secret burial (1960) 📖 HISTORICAL DOCUMENTATION: https://www.olivercromwell.org/wordpress/cromwells-health-and-death/ https://www.livescience.com/52569-oliver-cromwell-death-typhoid-fever.html https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/elizabeth-claypole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Claypole https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2015/06/lady-protectress-elizabeth-bourchier.html 🎓 HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Cromwell's death demonstrates how ideological prejudice may have prevented life-saving treatment (refusing "popish" medicine), while the 1661 posthumous execution reveals the depth of royalist revenge. Modern medical analysis confirms chronic malaria from his 1649 Ireland campaign, with the autopsy's "Lees of Oyl" description suggesting severe splenic damage from repeated malarial attacks. His death on September 3rd—anniversary of his greatest victories—ended the English Commonwealth, leading to monarchy restoration in 1660. 👑 MORE HORRIFIC ROYAL/LEADER DEATHS: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkOi8i4JLbtGA8YdbWdPQO115sf8m1PvS Subscribe for investigations into leader deaths where ideology trumped survival, posthumous revenge exceeded death itself, and medical understanding couldn't overcome prejudice—even when the cure was available. 💬 HISTORICAL DISCUSSION: Which is more disturbing: dying because you refused medicine from your enemies (ideological martyrdom), or the posthumous execution (exhumed, hanged, beheaded, head displayed for 20+ years)? Did the malaria from Irish marshes in 1649 ultimately get revenge for Drogheda and Wexford? #OliverCromwell #EnglishCivilWar #BritishHistory #17thCentury #Malaria #HistoricalMedicine #EnglishHistory #Cromwell #LordProtector #HistoricalRevenge #PosthumousExecution #MedicalHistory #HistoricalAnalysis #RoyalHistory #HistoricalEducation