Welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service.

Today I'm taking you back to England in 1661 when Oliver Cromwell was publicly executed

in revenge for having deposed King Charles I. But the thing is, Cromwell had already been

dead and buried in his grave for two years. In 2014 Vincent Dowd heard from civil war

historian Charles Spencer.

Today marble arch in London is a huge traffic island. It's hard to picture the Tyburn

gallows which stood here for almost 500 years and where hundreds of people were hanged.

In 1661 the disinterred body of Oliver Cromwell who 12 years earlier had removed King Charles

the first from power was beheaded here along with two others.

The 30th of January being that day 12 years from the death of the King, the odious carcasses

of Oliver Cromwell, Major General Iaton and John Bradshaw were drawn upon the sledges

to Tyburn where they were hanged by the neck till four in the afternoon. Cromwell very

fresh embalmed. Iaton was like a dried rat yet corrupted. Bradshaw in his winding sheet,

the fingers of his right hand and his nose perished.

Yet two years earlier Cromwell had been buried at Westminster Abbey amid great pomp, now

an inscribed brass plate which lay with Cromwell in his coffin, identifying him as his country's

leader has come up at auction, Gabriel Heaton of Sotheby's.

So we have here the object itself. It's about 15 centimeters by 15 centimeters.

Engraved on both sides and if we turn it over, here we have the inscription.

Oliverius, Protectoré, Ray public eye, Angliai, Scotiii, Et hebernii, Protector of the Republic

of England, Scotland and Ireland.

And that word republic is incredibly important. It tells us what this entire story is about.

...