The Head of Cromwell: Pettiness

This installation of History's Mystery: We Never Learn will be a spinoff of last week's tale.  Last week, we covered the topic of the Stuart McDouble, featuring the crazy Puritan Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.  This week, I will be specifically talking about our old friend Cromwell and his craziness.  Some might even say he lost his head (HAHAHAHAHA)

To recap, Lizzy I died heirless, so the Scots ruled Britain.  The English didn't like the Scots, kicked beaheaded them and kicked out his kid, installed a war hero, found out that war hero was crazy, and then brought the Scots back after the nutjob keeled over.  Pretty exciting stuff.

It was no secret that Oliver Cromwell was a jerk.  You couldn't drink or swear in Britain.  What the hell, right?  So after he died, Charles II came back to England and boy was he mad.  Like, he was livid.  You come into my house, disrespect my family, fight against my father, and then have the nerve to behead him and turn England into a crazy convent where the only rules are no fun and be sad.  It was a pretty solid case for old Chuck.  He had every reason to be mad at Cromwell.  Hate him, despise him, loathe him.  The normal procedure for rubbing it in someone's face that you're in charge and they're not would be making him ride backward through the town center on a donkey (that happened to a Pope in Rome once).  But, Cromwell was dead, he was already six feet under and pushing daisies, so naturally Charles couldn't do that.  So what did he do instead?  Cut off his head.

Confused?  Yeah.  You're probably thinking, well gosh, Allison, how could Charles do that if Cromwell was already buried?  Pretty simple: Chuck the Second dug up old Cromwell's body and cut his head off.  He was pretty heated.

But, did it stop there?  Of course not!  When did Europeans ever not overreact?  It's practically in their blood to be dramatic.  Not only did Charles II cut off Cromwell's head, but he put it on a pike and put that pike on top of the Westminster Abbey.  And it stayed there for 25 years.

Now, that is petty.  That's one thing that we as a species haven't lost: our lust for revenge.  We're so desperate to see people suffer (see: Schadenfreude) that we will do the simplest of things to see them uncomfortable or even in pain.  Perhaps we don't go so far as to cut someone's head off, but judging by the number of times I scroll through Twitter and see tweets or retweets about pettiness, I think it's safe to say that we have not yet outgrown being petty.