ROYAL REMAINS

Edward the Confessor collapsed on Christmas Day 1065. He died 11 days later, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had founded. Edward had been an extremely pious king, and was much revered for his holiness. He was also liked very much by the Normans across the channel since, so they claimed, he had promised the crown of England to Duke William of Normandy. But Edward's brother-in-law, Harold, decided that he should be the new king. Harold and William had a bit of an argument about this, which Harold lost, and William became king. But it wasn't until 1161, during the reign of Henry II (the one who brought about the martyrdom of Thomas á Becket) that Edward was canonised. In the meantime, Henry's grandfather (on his mother's side), Henry I, had caused Edward's tomb to be opened up in 1098 because he wanted to know if the body had remained 'uncorrupt'. And then, in 1163, Henry II had the coffin moved to a new shrine and, with the connivance of the aforementioned Thomas á Becket, had the funerary box opened up and Edward's robes removed. But even Edward's naked bones were not allowed to rest. In 1163, another Henry, King Henry III, had the coffin moved during some more alterations to the abbey. And, if this was not enough, Henry VIII's dissolution caused another disturbance, though his daughter Mary tried to restore things when she came to the throne. Then, while James II was on the throne, an accident broke the coffin open, which gave someone the opportunity to remove a ring and a crucifix which were given to the king. Since then, it seems, poor Edward has been allowed to rest in peace.

Catherine de Valois was born in 1401. At the age of nineteen she became Queen of England when she married Henry V, and died aged 35 in the monastery at Bermondsey. She, too, was buried in Westminster Abbey with much pomp and ceremony. Following the custom of the day, her wooden effigy, dressed for the occasion in 'a satin mantle, surcote and tunic all furred with ermine', was carried in front of her coffin. In later years, Henry VII caused the Abbey to be redesigned. The alterations made it necessary to pull down the chapel in which Queen Catherine lay, and her body was placed in an open, wooden box where the badly clothed state of her remains were plainly visible. There she remained for over 200 years, during which time it was a favourite game of the pupils of Westminster School to remove bits of her skin and bone. She was also visited by none other than the diarist Samuel Pepys during the celebration of his thirty-sixth birthday, a fact which he noted in his diary. He boasted that, after bribing the keepers, "I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting in it that I did kiss a queen." What was left of her was eventually reinterred in 1776, but was moved again in 1878 to her final resting place, the Chantry Chapel of her husband, King Henry V.

But on to another Henry - this time Henry VIII. Henry had a somewhat momentous life, and his death didn't change things to start with. His coffin was rather large; Henry was well over six foot tall, and could hardly have been described as of normal build - 'fat' would have been more accurate. What is more, the coffin was made of lead. It took three days to transport it from London to St George's Chapel at Windsor. Its first stop was at Syon House. There a bizarre prophesy was fulfilled. It had been said that "dogs would licke his bones as they did Ahab's". During the night the coffin burst open, and the sentries went to find a plumber to repair the damage. When they returned they found dogs licking up his blood.

And finally to Oliver Cromwell. Not royalty, of course, but he ruled England as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death on 3rd. September 1658. He was given a lavish funeral and interred in Westminster Abbey. But not for long. The monarchy was soon restored, and in 1660 his corpse, apparently well preserved, was exhumed and, with great rejoicing, dragged to Tyburn where it was publicly hanged in the gallows. Later, after it was taken down, the corpse was beheaded. The executioner took no less than eight strokes to decapitate the body, damaging poor Oliver's nose in the process. The head was then stuck on a pole and paraded through the streets before finally being put on the roof of Parliament. By the way, Cromwell had two sons, Richard and, you've guessed it, Henry.

What the moral of this story is I am not quite sure - unless it is that if you have a family member called Henry, don't get buried in Westminster Abbey.

Bill Hutchings