Oliver Cromwell died on September 3, 1658 and was buried with all the ceremony due to the Lord Protector of the Realm. In 1661, after the restoration of Charles II, the body was dug up and hanged in its shroud at Tyburn; its head was cut off and displayed outside Westminster Hall for almost twenty years (Fraser 678–9). This belated punishment can be seen as the fanciful execution of a justice whose ferocity was entirely symbolic, since only a decaying corpse remained to exhibit the shame and pain that Cromwell could no longer suffer. Its gruesome display illustrates how justice resorts to fantasy in order to render its severest judgments. Cromwell was given what he deserved, just as he had been buried in accordance with a more reverent judgment of his merits. According to the new authorities, however, his crimes were so horrendous that even the supreme penalty of death was insufficient, and some humiliation beyond the grave had to be devised. His punishment also demonstrates that justice is always public in the sense that it is a civic ritual affirming social order and official power.