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The Opening of the Lost Coffin of Charles I
Author: Edna Coleman, Manus O’Cahan’s Regiment of Foote Orders of the day, Volume 31, Issue 1, Jan/Feb 1999 |
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Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674), who was chief adviser to Charles II from 1660-1667, wrote his History of the Rebellion during the years immediately following the Restoration. In it he describes how the body of King Charles was taken to Windsor, accompanied by the attendants who had served him during his imprisonment, and was buried there without ceremony in a coffin marked with a silver plate bearing the words, King Charles 1648. (Note that the end of the year 1648 would not take place until the end of the month we now refer to as March 1649.) When the coffin was put in, the black velvet pall that had covered it on its journey from London was thrown over it, and the tomb closed again. Charles II intended that his father would be reburied with all due pomp, possibly in the tomb of Henry VII at Westminster, but, says Clarendon, the original attendees at the interment either had died or had forgotten exactly where the body of the King lay. Thus, although several attempts were made to locate the whereabouts of Charles I’s coffin, it remained lost, and the King was left where he was. However in 1812-13 (and although he would not die for a few years yet), a new tomb was begun which would take the body of George III, in Windsor Castle Tomb-house, an extension to St George’s Chapel. In building a passage to it from under the Choir of St George’s Chapel, the workmen accidentally broke a hole in the wall of the King Henry VIII vault. In it were three coffins. Two were presumed to be those of Henry and of Jane Seymour, but whose was the third? Could it indeed be the lost coffin of Charles I? Certainly, the Royal Family were aware of a narrative left by one Mr Herbert, Groom to the Bedchamber of Charles I and one of the attendants who accompanied the body from London to Windsor, in which he stated that the King had been interred with Henry VIII. Representations were therefore made to the Prince Regent who agreed that investigations should be carried out, and so in the presence of the Prince Regent, the Duke of Cumberland, Count Munster, the Dean of Windsor and one Benjamin Charles Stevenson, the Royal Physician Sir Henry Halford opened the black velvet-draped coffin. On removing the velvet pall covering the plain lead coffin, the inscription “King Charles, 1648” was seen. They then made an aperture in the upper part of the lid, and this is how Sir Henry described what he saw: “... An internal wooden coffin, very much decayed, and the Body, carefully wrapped in cere-cloth, into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or greasy matter, mixed with resin as it seemed, had been melted, so as to exclude as effectually as possible the external air. The coffin was completely full; and from the tenacity of the cere-cloth, great difficulty was experienced in detaching it successfully from the parts which it enveloped. Wherever the unctuous matter had insinuated itself, the separation of the cere-cloth was easy, and where it had come off, a correct impression of the features to which it had been applied was observed in the unctuous substance. At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discoloured. “The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately: and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the period of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of the unctuous matter between it and the cere-cloth, was found entire. ... “When the head had been entirely disengaged from the attachments which confined it, it was found to be loose, and without any difficulty was taken up and held to view. It was quite wet and gave a greenish red tinge to paper and to linen which touched it. The back part of the scalp was entirely perfect and had a remarkably fresh appearance; the pores of the skin being more distinct, as they usually are when soaked in moisture; and the tendons and ligaments of the neck were of considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is of a beautiful dark brown colour. That of the beard was a redder brown. ... “On holding up the head, to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidentlyretracted themselves considerably; and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance, transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even, an appearance which could have been produced only by a heavy blow, inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the last proof wanting to identify King Charles the First. ... “On examining the vault with some attention it was found that the wall at the west end had, at some period or other, been partly pulled down and repaired again, not by regular masonry, but by fragments of stones and bricks put rudely and hastily together without cement. “From Lord Clarendon’s account, as well as from Mr Herbert’s narrative of the interment of King Charles, it is to be inferred that the ceremony was a very hasty one, performed in the presence of the Governor, who refused to allow the service according to the Book of Common Prayer to be used on the occasion, and had probably scarcely admitted the time necessary for a decent deposition of the body.” Halford then goes on to express the view that Clarendon was spreading misinformation regarding the King’s final resting place. At the time of the Restoration the bodies of prominent Parliamentarians and regicides were disinterred and placed on public view, put on spikes and generally abused. Given the precarious nature of the political balance in the early 1660’s, Clarendon probably felt that there remained a risk that the rebels could get the upper hand, and that if they did, they could very well retaliate by disinterring the King. Therefore he put it about that the King’s grave was lost. Indeed, Halford mentions that a fourth, tiny coffin was also in the tomb, being the body of one of Queen Anne’s still-born children, and so the Stuarts plainly knew quite well where the King was - they were just not telling! References:
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