reliable. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the bones of the Protector were apparently scattered widely over -- or under -- his former domain, from London to Yorkshire via Huntingdon, Northborough and Naseby field. Oliver Cromwell died at Whitehall on the afternoon of Friday, 3 September 1658. At the direction of the Council, the corpse was embowelled and embalmed on the following day. Thereafter the physical remains effectively disappeared from public view and both the elaborate lying in state at Somerset House during October and early November and the grand state funeral through London on 23 November centred on a (probably empty) coffin and on one or more life-size models or effigies. It was assumed that the corpse had been quietly interred before 23 November somewhere within Westminster Abbey, probably at the spot near the east end of Henry VII's Chapel over which the hearse and recumbent effigy were placed at the conclusion of the state funeral. In autumn 1660 parliament ordered the exhumation and posthumous execution of several regicides and in January 1661 Westminster Abbey was searched for the remains of Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw. Three corpses were duly produced and conveyed to Tyburn, where they were hanged and then decapitated on 30 January, the twelfth anniversary of Charles I's execution. The heads were displayed on poles above Westminster Hall. The three headless corpses, including the supposed trunk of Oliver Cromwell, were simply dumped at dusk in an unmarked pit beneath Tyburn gallows. Doubts over the