Author: Phillip BT Wheeler

Orders of the Day, Volume 35, Issue 4, Aug/Sept 2003

This is a brief insight into aristocratic funerals. The sources quoted are worth delving into for their breadth and the individuals mentioned from the period. I make reference to Cromwell’s funeral mainly as it is well documented, though at an extreme end of the scale.

The organising of the heraldic funeral was in the seventeenth century under the authority of the College of Arms. Its purpose was to symbolise the loss to the State of a constituent part of its body and the reunification of that body. Hence strength and continuity were preserved in association with social hierarchy and power. The heralds’ presence was as representatives of the Sovereign’s power, a useful means of reminding the people who were the rulers.

The time taken to organise such a funeral inevitably led to delays in burial. In an age that lacked cold storage, enter the embalmer and his art. When circumstances dictated that the corpse be buried in haste, a life-sized effigy would be substituted during the later public procession and service, as with Cromwell’s and Monck’s funerals.

The heraldic funeral was conducted according to a suffocating list of rules and regulations involving status and protocol associated with the deceased. For example, the status of the deceased determined the appropriate number and sex of the hired mourners, while the hearse had to be of a precise type and size according to rank. All participants had to be clothed in black; this extended to include house rooms, the church and the hearse. As an indication of the sums spent, Cromwell’s mourning cloth cost an extravagant Ł19,000. Coats-of-arms of the deceased ancestry were researched by the heralds, and these impaled arms (two coats of arms shown together) would show the marriage alliances. These were then painted on hatchments, banners, bannerols, guidons and pennons, to be carried in their allotted place in the procession - see the two illustrations of Essex‘s funeral in 1646. Another flag called a ‘pencil’, triangular and made of paper or buckram, was also produced in large numbers.

Escutcheons of paste paper were painted and pinned on the hearse and hangings, although the 2,000 produced for Cromwell were of satin or taffety. While only two of these are said to have survived, only the whereabouts of the one illustrated is known and is in the Museum of London. This shows the arms of the Protectorate with those of the Protector, namely Cromwell, as an escutcheon (a shield appearing on a coat of arms), a common arrangement at the time. These arms are impaled with those of his wife, Elizabeth Bourchier. Note the crown: he was contemplating assuming the title of King at the time of his demise.

Interestingly, in March 1646 Parliament had to urgently appoint heralds to the Court of Chivalry for the funeral of Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex in 1646. Edward Bysshe had been performing the duty of Garter King-of-Arms since 1643 and in October 1646 he was confirmed in that post. Thus there were now two Garter officials, as in the same year King Charles I had promoted Norroy King-at-Arms, Sir Edward Walker to that position. The newly appointed heralds were able to oversee the process of granting arms and peerages. At the funeral of Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law in 1652 their tabards first displayed the arms of the Commonwealth, at a cost of Ł220.

Part of the public service emphasising continuity was that the chief mourners would take the achievements of the deceased - coat-of-arms, shield, sword, helmet and crest - up to the altar. These would be handed to the heir to the title by the minister, who would pass them on to the senior herald, who laid them back on the altar. This was followed by a procession of all the banners, pennons and standards which were placed against the altar.

A cause for complaint from the College of Arms at this time was a practice introduced by James I’s Scottish courtiers, who were exempt from the English College-of-Arms authority - that of burial at night. This also found favour with the English aristocracy as it avoided the considerable expenses incurred through travel, accommodation, heralds, mourners and drapery etc. (Although an extreme example, an estimate for Cromwell’s funeral is Ł60,000.) Of prime concern to women was that it did away with the intimacy of the embalmer’s attentions. Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond set aside Ł2,000 for a night burial, but this was also to include her household’s mourning for three-four weeks after the burial.

The bereaved family had little opportunity to grieve amongst so many strangers in attendance, who had no kinship or affection for the deceased. The heraldic funeral was by the seventeenth century in decline, and the monopoly was finally abolished by William of Orange.

References and Acknowledgements

• Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England, Clare Gittings, 1984, Croome Helm. 1988, Routledge.
• Oliver Cromwell: King In All But Name 1653-1658, Roy Sherwood. 1997, Sutton Publishing. This also gives an illustration in Cambridge University Library from Prestwich, Republica, depicting all the banners, escutcheons etc carried at his funeral (page 159).
• Cromwell, Antonia Frasier 1973. Weidenfield and Nicholson Ltd.