I recently had an encounter with Oliver Cromwell’s hat which, these days, rests on a bespoke hat-rest in the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. It’s an astonishing piece of craftsmanship being far wider than any normal hat at nearly three feet across. The perfectly horizontal brim is constructed from thick black felt and the central head-holding part is a cylinder that rises sharp and perpendicular, like a chimney pot from a roof.
What is absent from small museums like this, mercifully, is the over-bearing hand of a committee of arts graduates
What a sight he must have been, wearing this extraordinary hat, at the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in 1653, railing at the politicians: Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Calling them a bunch of sordid prostitutes, imploring them: In the name of God, go! The provenance of the hat is good – it’s on loan from the Bush family who are direct descendants of Cromwell.
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