Generational

not be questioned. Parliament at the time had become increasingly Puritan, and so when King Charles the First married the French Catholic Henrietta Maria, and his support of an English High Church was redoubled, they worried about a backslide into Roman Catholicism. Tensions between the crown and the Parliament grew until sixteen forty two, when the King tried to arrest five members of the House of Commons, widely considered an assault on

its constitutional privilege. Negotiations between parties fell apart, and on August twenty second of sixteen forty two, Charles declared war on Parliament. The civil war that erupted as a result would last for two whole years and exposed the deep divides in politics and religion that had long been simmering in England. In the end, the Royalist army was defeated and Charles was captured by Parliament's forces. In victory, Parliament faced a massive dilemma, what exactly do we do with

the King? Debate raged on for months before a grim decision was finally made. On January thirtieth of sixteen forty nine, Charles the First was brought to London Bridge, where, in front of a crowd of his former subjects, London's official executioner, Richard Brandon, ended the king's life with an axis blow. The head was displayed on a spike to deter any Royalists from further action. Eventually it made its way to the Tower of London, where it was placed into storage.

In the coming years, another would rise to take the mantle of Leader of the Commonwealth. One Oliver Cromwell, a farmer and a senior officer in the Parliamentarian Army, who rose to claim the mantle of Lord Protector in sixteen fifty three. His Puritan administration championed religious tolerance, although brutally cracked down on Royalist descent wherever it reared its head, and conspiracies to reinstate the royal line were many. The beheading at Charles the First cast a long shadow over

the political landscape. Cromwell would rule until his death in the autumn of sixteen fifty eight, after a stroke left him incapacitated. With its figure had gone, Parliament was once

again leaning toward Royalist sentiment. Within days of the Lord Protector's death, a measure was passed Oliver Cromwell's corpse was a trader, and so a posthumous execution was ordered for the dead man, who was exhumed and summarily beheaded, and, as with Charles's skull displayed at the Palace of Westminster, now as a warning to those who may try to carry on Cromwell's republican tradition. It would be displayed there

for nearly two years. As the Stuart monarchy reclaimed the throne after the coronation of Charles the Second in sixteen sixty, the head was removed from its public perch, boxed up and placed in Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, with the thought that its gruesome reminder was no longer necessary. It would remain hidden until sixteen eighty five, after Charles

the Second's brother, James the Second, took the throne. You see, it was during his reign that yet another uprising took place, and although it was quelled, Cromwell's head was brought back out and put on display at the Tower of London just to be safe. And after that, while the head vanished from official inventories, its ultimate fate shrouded in mystery. And looking at these two gruesome spectacles, several striking parallels

and contrasts emerge. Both heads were exhibited in highly visible civic locations, ensuring that the largest possible number of ordinary citizens would witness the stark warning. Yet the timing of the displays diverged dramatically. Charles the First's head was shown immediately after his death, serving to legitimize a brand new Commonwealth and a signal that the old order had been broken.

Cromwell's head, by contrast, was displayed years after his burial, precisely to delegitimize the Republican experiment that he had embodied and to try to reinforce the restored Stewart claim to divine right. But the most striking difference of all between those heads was probably how they were treated after they.

never been happier in his life. The year it was seventeen ninety and he was living with his second wife and their children in their home in Derbyshire, England. Although he was a doctor by trade, he also had a second passion invention. He was seated now in his workshop sketching plans for a combustion device that could be used to propel carriages. He already tinkered with his existing carriage, making it sturdier and easier to steer. Now, he wondered if he could get it to move on its own

without horses. But this invention would have to wait. The sun was rising and he needed to get out to his garden to observe his plants. Now that might sound boring to you and I, but natural observation had always been an important part of Erasmus's medical practice, because, as far as Erasmus was concerned, the only difference between a doctor and a shaman was observation as to whether a plant was actually effective at treating the disease in question.

Keeping an open mind, but also doing empirical research allowed Erasmus to find success treating people who other doctors hadn't been able to help. For example, back in the seventeen sixties, he had become so well known for this approach to medicine that the King himself asked Erasmus to be his personal physician, but Erasmus declined. He wanted to have time to focus on his experiments. Looking at a thorn apple plant growing in his garden, he was pleased at how

well it was doing. Erasmus had learned to cultivate plants by splicing different samples to create the strongest possible plant. It was the kind of thing that humanity had done for thousands of years, but now he was putting these plants to the greatest possible use. After his work in the garden was done, he spent his afternoon at his medical practice, attending to patience. He saw one man who he felt quite bad for, because thus far he'd been

unable to help him. The span was large, like Erasmus himself, but unlike Erasmus, he had poor circulation and stamina. His heart seemed to be struggling. In the past, Erasmus had also treated this man's father, who had died from a similar condition. The father ate as much as Erasmus and was also quite large, and so it seemed to this doctor that the father had passed this propensity toward overeating onto his son. Erasmus worried that he had done the

same to his own children. But as he checked the man's vitals, a star startling link formed in his mind between the thorn apple and his garden and the man on his exam table. Both were the product of their parents. Only one had inherited traits that were useful, and the other had inherited traits that were harmful, and while the plant and its offspring would endure, this patient sadly would not. Much of the plant and animal kingdom that Erasmus had

observed behaved in a similar way. Each species produced variations, the most adaptable of which survived and even evolved into new species. It had struck him as odd that so many plants and animals all seemed to be a variation of one another. Even humans themselves were a sort of variation on a chimpanzee if one observed how similar the

two species were. And so that night, Erasmus took his idea to the latest meeting of the Lunar Society, a group of scientists and inventors that he was friends with. His friend Josiah Wedgewood was present. Josiah was a businessman who always encouraged Erasmus's endeavors, including his writing of poetry, which had in fact led to him becoming the most popular poet in England on top of all of his

other accomplishments. Josiah thought that Erasmus's theory that all life might somehow be connected in some way was quite interesting, and told him that he should expand on it in

a book. Encouraged, Erasmus decided to do just that. They spent the rest of the meeting discussing the abolition of slavery and the education of women, two causes the society supported, but they were having trouble gaining traction for in English society, and over the next few years, Erasmus expanded on his ideas in his two volume work Zoonomia, where he detailed his understanding of anatomy and how to treat various illnesses.

And in the book, this is something that he wrote, would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of years, that all warm blooded animals have arisen from one living filament. Sadly, the book didn't gain much traction during his lifetime. Decades later, though, long after Erasmus's death, his grandson Charles, began to research his grandfather

in an attempt to get to know him. Erasmus's ideas inspired Charles's own research, and eventually, through observing animal and plant life, Charles put forth his own theory of evolution. Curiously, it was Erasmus Darwin and not his grandson Charles, who first thought of the foundational scientific theory. Erasmus was a polymath, someone who is knowledgeable about a variety of things. For all his accomplishments, though it was the writing least admired

in his own lifetime that contained his greatest ideas. I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show and the people who make it over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in

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