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. The young woman on duty in the museum said the hugeness of the hat was a sign of status, as was its colour. Most puritans didn’t wear black, since black was too expensive a dye.
My friend and I were the only visitors, and there we were with Cromwell’s hat having a conversation about it with a Cromwell-hat enthusiast. The intimacy of the moment and, dare I say, the almost spiritual connection with a slice of English history, were a reminder that small museums like this are one of the remaining joys in our culture. A little eccentric and erratic. Beautifully odd.
The museum is housed in the ancient building that was Cromwell’s school, a short walk along the high street from his home. It’s now a single room so packed with treasures that paintings overlap each other and about a third of the collection is in storage.
Competing for space are letters, death masks, family portraits, uniforms, weapons, pamphlets and more. We have a letter in Oliver Cromwell’s hand, written when he was at a low ebb in 1652: I am left alone, almost so, but not forsaken. Lend me one shoulder, pray for me, along with the letter book of Oliver’s son Henry who served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1657 to 1659. Henry’s handwriting is rather beautiful – clear and easy to read. There are two replica death masks – one with his famous wart, one mysteriously without.
What is absent from small museums like this, mercifully, is the over-bearing hand of a committee of arts graduates who wish to superimpose their themes and stories onto a collection. So there are no 21st century essays on the sufferings of Irish citizens, let alone on current obsessions such as Cromwell’s male privilege or the LGBTQ heroes of the New Model Army, or some newly-unearthed link to slavery.
Indeed, there are very few instructions at all on how to think about the exhibits and, as a consequence, you’re left with a personal and immediate impression of Cromwell’s life, rather than a political one. I was struck that he was one of ten children, but the only boy to survive infancy. Seven sisters, and their need for dowries, were one reason that the family fell on hard times. Also, that he grew up as the relatively-poor relation to his uncle, who was master of the nearby pile at Hinchingbrooke. You get the impression that Oliver was a man who felt such things deeply.
There’s a lock, both hefty and intricate, crafted by the gunsmith and locksmith Richard Hewse – which was fixed to the Lord Protector’s bedroom door when he lived at Hampton Court. Long accompanying notes aren’t needed to convey what life must have been like as a man who didn’t just put the lights out before sleep; he barricaded the room to avoid assassination.
It’s a blessing, too, that the museum does not prioritise the entertainment of children. Too often at, say, a National Trust property, I’ve been so bombarded with big, bouncy lettering urging me to have family fun, that I’ve felt like I’m visiting an infants’ school. At Huntingdon there’s a dressing up box and, more thrillingly, an iron cannon ball from the Battle of Marston Moor (1644) which is kept behind the counter; it’s covered in dents, showing that it was actually fired.
So, fanfare for the makers, the volunteers, the history-buffs and the curators of small museums like this. Last month, a nearby small museum at Ely suffered a break-in and the theft of two 3,000 year-old gold objects, a bracelet and a torc – and local residents said the loss felt like ‘a punch to the stomach.’ I feel their pain.
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