High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Following the death of Oliver Cromwell on 3 September 1658, he was given a public funeral at Westminster Abbey, equal to those of monarchs before him. After successfully defeating and executing King Charles I after the English Civil War, Cromwell had become Lord Protector and ruler of the English Commonwealth. His legacy passed to his son Richard, who was overthrown by the army in 1659, after which monarchy was re-established and King Charles II, who was living in exile, was recalled. Charles` new parliament ordered the disinterment of Cromwell`s body from Westminster Abbey and the disinterment of other regicides John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, for a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After hanging "from morning till four in the afternoon", the bodies were cut down and the heads placed on a 20-foot (6.1 m) spike above Westminster Hall. In 1685 a storm broke the pole upon which it stood, throwing the head to the ground, after which it belonged to private collectors and museum owners until 25 March 1960, when it was buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge.