Many people discount this alleged confession as a mere rumour, or perhaps spiteful gossip, but mystery still hangs around Cromwell’s death, and over the years many people have come up with different explanations for it, such as kidney failure. The truth is none of us will ever be sure – but I have always found the mysterious death of Oliver Cromwell, and the story of the ignored deathbed confession, intriguing. If Oliver Cromwell was to be assassinated, to clear the way for the return of the king, who better to administer the fatal dose than his own doctor? And certainly any unease over the death of the great dictator would be discouraged by those who benefited most from his death – the king and his exiled court.
Similarly, the story of Elizabeth, the Countess of Dysart, is a fascinating one. It seems clear now that she was a secret agent on behalf of King Charles II, living in England during the time of the Protectorate and befriending Cromwell and his family and friends, while secretly sending news to the exiled court. It is known she wrote many letters in code, or with concealed messages written in invisible ink, and she worked on developing a new type of invisible ink that could not be easily discovered.
At the time of Oliver Cromwell, she was married to Sir Lionel Tollemache, but used her own title, which she had inherited from her Royalist father, who went into exile with the king. However, after the Restoration – and the death of her husband and his wife – she married the Duke of Lauderdale, one of the king’s most trusted councillors, and became a very wealthy and influential woman. There were many whisperings about her – that she had poisoned her husband or the duke’s wife – and that she was a witch. Certainly she was always very interested in the occult.
Interestingly, a portrait of her second cousin, Mrs Henderson, has the words ‘the celebrated poisoner’ inscribed upon it by some unknown hand.
Author photo: Dani Rosair
Kate Forsyth, The Butterfly in Amber
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