"Looke back at November 23:1658, and be astonish'd "

Portrait of Oliver Cromwell, unknown artist,  c. 1655    Cromwell Museum, Huntingdon

On 23rd November 1658, John Evelyn watched Oliver Cromwell's State Funeral procession.

"To Lond, to visit my Bro: & the next day saw the superb Funerall of the Protectors:  He was carried from Somerset-house in a velvet bed of state drawn by six horses houss'd with the same; The Pall held-up by his new Lords: Oliver lying in Effigie in royal robes,  and Crown'd with a Crown, scepter & Mund, like a King:
The Pendants, & Guidons were carried by the Officers of the Army, The Imperial banners, Atchivements &c by the Heraulds in their Coates, a rich caparizon'd Horse all embroidered over with Gold: a Knight of honour arm'd Cap a Pe & after all his Guards, Souldiers and innumerable mourners:"

Contemporary Plan of the Hearse (see Thomas Burton below*)

Although Cromwell constantly refused the Crown, his State funeral was conducted with all the splendour due a King of England.  He died on September 3rd, probably from septicaemia, and his body was embalmed and taken to Somerset House.    Here it lay in State on public display from mid-October, but this was a carved wood and wax effigy, which may have been in the coffin for the State funeral procession to Westminster Abbey on 23rd November.  The man himself had been buried privately at night in the Abbey on 10th November.

Westminster Abbey, engraving by Pieter van der Aa, 1707

The full State funeral procession numbered many hundreds of nobles, soldiers, Palace and Parliament servants and officials, all with their attendants and train bearers. Some ten separate groups were each preceded by a black plumed horse, with drums, trumpets, musicians and banners.  The procession was led by the Knight Marshall on horseback with gold-tipped truncheon and accompanying riders.  The hearse and pall bearers were led by the Chief Horse of Mourning  (in black velvet and plumes), and followed by the Horse of Honour, in embroidered crimson velvet with plumes of red, yellow and white.*  The whole event cost £60,000, about 7 million in today's money.

Tellingly, Evelyn continues his account:

"In this equipage they proceed to Westminster [with great pomp] &c: but it was the joyfullest funerall that ever I saw, for there was none that Cried, but dogs, which the souldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise; drinking, & taking Tabacco in the streets as they went."

Two years and two months later, after Charles II was restored, Evelyn also saw the reprisals of 30th January 1661, the anniversary of Charles I's death, when the corpses of Cromwell and two other regicides were dragged from their tombs in the Abbey and hanged at Tyburn.

A popular engraving of the scene, 1661

The corpses were  "then buried under that fatal & ignominious Monument, in a deepe pitt:  Thousands of people (who had seene them in all their pride & pompous insults) being spectators: looke back at November 22: 1658, & be astonish'd
--And (fear) God, & honor the King, but meddle not with them who are given to change".

Quotations from The Diary of John Evelyn, E. De Beer,  Clarendon Press, Oxford
* Details of the funeral procession from Thomas Burton's Diary 1658-9, British Library; see www.british-history.ac.uk