London at the time, and many searched for it, hoping to claim the "considerable reward" being offered for its safe return. The guard, after seeing "the placards which ordered any one possessing it to take it to a certain office ... was afraid to divulge the secret". The first firm sighting of the head since its disappearance from Westminster Hall was recorded in 1710, when it was in the possession of Claudius Du Puy, a Swiss-French collector of curiosities, who displayed it in his private museum in London. According to Fitzgibbons, Du Puy's museum was internationally famous and ranked among the top attractions in London at the time, attracting visitors such as the traveller Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who was not impressed by what he saw. After hearing Du Puy's boast that he could sell the head for as much as 60 guineas (£63, or the equivalent of about £5000 in today's British money), Uffenbach exclaimed his surprise that "this monstrous head could still be so dear and worthy to the English". Russell and Cox By Du Puy's death in 1738, the head had shifted in importance and status. When it was atop Westminster Hall high above the London skyline, it gave a sinister and potent warning to spectators. By the 18th century, it had become a curiosity and an attraction, and it had lost its original sinister message. The head fell out of prominence until the late 18th century, when it was in the possession of a failed comic actor and drunkard named Samuel Russell, who was rumoured to be a relative of Cromwell. This is plausible; the Cromwells intermarried with the Russells in several alliances. It is also possible that the head was sold to the Russell family after Du Puy's death as an easy target for a sale. Russell possibly had some connections with Sidney Sussex College, as he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the head to the Master of the College in or before 1775. Some time around 1780, it was spotted by the prominent goldsmith, clockmaker and toyman James Cox, who was "convinced by all the circumstances that it was the identical head of Oliver Cromwell". Cox offered £100 (about £5,600 in today's money), but "poor as he was, and considerably in debt, Russell refused to part with it, so dear to him was that which he knew to be the sacred relic of his great