3 Twisted Tales of Royal Exhumation

three twisted tales of royal exhalation when someone dies and is laid to rest we tend to think of them as gone but their remains may remain waiting to play a further part in history here are three twisted and true tales about Royals whose earthly vessels were not left in peace one involves an exclamation done out of love one done out of hate and the final exhalation may hold the key to solving a centuries-old murder mystery in ESDA coastal posthumous queen of Portugal all hail the corpse Queen Ynez was born in 1325 in the kingdom of galicia what is now in northern Portugal she was of noble but illegitimate birth at fifteen she arrived at the Royal Court of Portugal to serve as lady-in-waiting to Constanza de Castillo the new bride of Prince Pedro heir to the Portuguese throne but Pedro was not particularly interested in his new wife he preferred the company of her beautiful and charming lady in s the two began a very open affair and outraged the rest of the court Pedro favored his lovers Galician family and offered them favors while ignoring and infuriating his wife's more powerful Castilian kin they had three children together Juan Denis and Beatriz but the prince must have found his way to his wife's bed at least once because she gave birth to a son Fernando Constanza died a few weeks after the birth single again Pedro wanted to make his mistress wife number two but his father King Afonso the fourth refused to bless the match Ynez having been born out of wedlock was not considered a worthy bride and her family was not nearly important enough so the King banished Ynez to a convent and proposed several other more suitable ladies for his sons consideration but Pedro vehemently refused he would have no other wife but in Eze he married her in secret and frequently stole away to the nunnery to be with her when King Afonso learned that his son had disobeyed his orders he was infuriated and he commanded his three most trusted Knights to sneak into the convent and murder in S they beheaded her in front of her three small children when Prince Pedro learned of his beloved's brutal murder he was heartbroken and unhinged the King was baffled at his heirs outraged he had expected his son to brush off the murder fall in line and marry a nice princess but instead Pedro raised an army and prepare to take Portugal from his father by force but just as the prince was about to strike the old king conveniently died now King Pedro rode down at the murderous night who had butchered in his and publicly ripped out their hearts crying that they didn't deserve hearts as they had pulverized his own he then determined that his beloved would have the honors in death that she should have had in life he had her decaying cadaver exhumed from her grave and her head sewn back on her body was dressed in the finest gown and royal robes and sat upon the throne he placed the diadem of the Queen upon his corpse bride head and ordered all the nobility of the kingdom to kiss the hem of her dress and swear loyalty to her as Queen he begged the Pope to recognize his marriage to an S and to make their children legitimate but he was refused though they could not be his heirs he moved his three children by a nez into the palace and ensured that they were treated with esteem some time later King Pedro was ready to say a final farewell to his cherished Queen and he had her buried in an exquisitely carved tomb ten years later he was buried next to her he said that at the Last Judgment he and his darling Anna's would look upon each other as they rose from their graves and that they would be together until the end of the world Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England he killed a king and his corpse paid the price in the 1640s england was engaged in a bloody civil war between the parliamentarians known as the Roundheads and King Charles the first supporters the Cavaliers one commander emerged as the great hero of the round head side Oliver Cromwell he was a fervently religious man and called himself the Puritan Moses in 1649 Cromwell and the Roundheads captured King Charles and put him on trial as a tyrant the monarch was of course found guilty and Cromwell signed his death warrant Charles wore two shirts on that January morning so that he would not shiver and appear frightened and before a jeering London crowd the King of England had his head chopped off his son Charles and the rest of his family were banished to France for the first time in over 700 years England didn't have a monarch instead Oliver Cromwell was named Lord Protector Puritan Cromwell cracked down on the country's morality closing theaters and brothels demanding that everyone go to church and stay sober and even outlying Christmas and though he claimed to be a pious and humble man his rule began to resemble that of a kings he was addressed as your highness took up residence in the Royal Palace of Whitehall and had gold coins minted with his visit but cromwell's new regime didn't last five years into his rule he died of malaria at the age of 59 this death mask was cast of his face primitive embalming techniques were used to preserve the Lord protectors body for a grand public funeral but as preparations for the ceremony were not complete for several weeks his corpse turned far too putrid for public view his cadaver swelled and burst from whence came such filth that raised such a deadly annoys and stink that it was found prudent to bury him immediately which was done in as private a manner as possible meanwhile a wood and wax effigy of the late commander was carved and laid in state for several days to be fond over by the public an empty coffin with a royal crown atop it was paraded to Westminster Abbey the resting place of generations of kings and queens in an elaborate funeral procession which emulated that of King James the first just like a king would have been Oliver it was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard Cromwell but he was not the leader his father had been and the nation quickly turned on him a new Parliament was elected and they wanted to go back to the good old days of drinking debauchery and monarchy they invited King Charles's son also called Charles to return from exile and take the throne and Richard Cromwell wisely made himself scarce once the new king charles ii was crowned he set out to avenge his decapitated father he had all the men who'd put his father on trial hanged but he saved the most gruesome punishment for the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell the fact that he was now over a year in his grave wouldn't stop Charles on the anniversary of his father's execution the King had Cromwell's corpse exhumed from its resting place in Westminster Abbey he also had three other rebels dug up who had escaped royal justice through death Cromwell's rotting corpse was given the punishment of a traitor it was hung in chains at Tyburn for several days of public viewing his head was then chopped off and his body thrown in a pit the now mummified skull was set on a pike and displayed outside of Westminster Hall where it continued to wither for a further 24 years Cromwell's head was finally taken down in 1685 after king charles ii died but the traitors head was not yet laid to rest it was bought sold and put on public display many times over the next 300 years finally in 1960 Cromwell's cranium was buried beneath the floor of the ante Chapel of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge where it remains to this day and the vault in Westminster Abbey where Cromwell thought he would spend eternity moldering in the company of Kings was later used to interchange our Allah seconds illegitimate children Richard the third and the princes in the tower centuries of propaganda and cold case murders in the 1400s England was in the grips of the War of the Roses a deadly conflict between York and Lancaster cousins over the crown insane King Henry the sixth was ousted by his cousin Edward the fourth who was then under threat by Henry Tudor King Edward the fourth was a strong leader and might have held the crown from the grasp of the Lancaster's for decades to come but in the Middle Ages disease often swooped in to spoil the party Edward the fourth died at the age of 40 and left the throne to his twelve-year-old son Edward the fifth at such a young age he didn't stand a chance against his scheming relatives his uncle Richard was appointed as his regent and he rode out to escort the boy King to London for his coronation but Edwards mother Queen Elizabeth Woodville didn't trust Richard one bit especially with her beloved son's life her family attempted to hide Edward but Richard seized him and took him and his younger brother to the Tower of London he claimed that this was for their protection until the coronation could be arranged but Richard kept finding excuses to postpone the ceremony in the meantime he covered a priest who swore that Edward the fourth had been betrothed to another young woman before he married Elizabeth Woodville which would make their marriage illegal and young King Edward illegitimate and conveniently this meant that Richard was the rifle King he had himself declared King Richard the third on June 26 throughout the summer the two young boys Edward 12 and Richard 9 remained locked away in the tower they were occasionally seen playing on the battlements but their appearances became more and more rare until August and they were never seen again in the 500 years since the two princes vanished many visitors to the tower have claimed to hear children playing near where the boys were last seen many theories have been put forth as to their fate but the most probable is that they were murdered on their uncle Richard's orders to secure his own place on the throne Richard didn't get to enjoy his ill-gotten crown for long two years into his reign Henry Tudor raised an army and marched against the usurper Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field eyewitness accounts claimed that the king's head was bashed in and his helmet was driven into his skull the Royal Crown was found lying under a bush and placed on the head of the Victor Henry Tudor who had himself declared King Henry at the 7th he married Edward the fifth sister Elizabeth of York thus uniting the two belligerent factions ending the War of the Roses and establishing the new Tudor dynasty during the reigns of the tutors Richard the thirds reputation at grew darker and more ominous william shakespeare riding under the patronage of Tudor Queen Elizabeth the first painted Richard as one of England's most heinous villains in his play Richard the third Shakespeare proffered that not only it did Richard have the adolescent Prince's smothered in their sleep but that the Kings twisted soul was reflected his frame that he was physically disabled and hunchbacked it was not until 2012 that the speculation about Richards appearance was confirmed historian investigators tracked down the original site of the Greyfriars Church where the slain King had been hastily interred after his battlefield demise they dug under a parking lot and discovered the skeleton of a 14th century man under a painted letter R for reserved parking or perhaps more cosmically for Richard or Rex forensic pathologists determined that the remains were indeed those of King Richard the third they found that the skeleton had suffered multiple serious head wounds the worst of which would have left the brain exposed and certainly resulted in death additionally the man was found to have suffered from scoliosis of the spine which would have made one shoulder noticeably higher than the other thus confirming Richard's legendary hunchback the skeletons DNA was a match to one Michael absent a matrilineal descendent of Richard's mother Cecily of York in 2015 the long-lost remains of Richard the third were laid to rest in Leicester Cathedral under a stone tomb fit for a king but what of the fates of the two boys in the tower Edward and Richard in the 1490s a man named Perkin Warbeck came forth claiming to be the younger brother Richard who had escaped to Flanders as a child and been raised by an aunt he asserted that he was the rightful king and led a small army against King Henry the seventh but was easily defeated captured and hanged as a traitor at Tyburn in 1674 workmen in the Tower of London discovered the skeletal remains of two children buried under a stairwell on the orders of King Charles the second the remains were placed in Westminster Abbey in an urn bearing the names of King Edward v and Prince Richard in 1933 the urn was opened and the bones reexamined it was discovered the the skeletons were incomplete and that some of the bones were from an animal no conclusions could be drawn as to the identity of the remains as DNA and forensic science have advanced there have been repeated requests to reopen the urn a matrilineal descendent of the boy's mother Elizabeth Woodville has been identified by genealogists opera singer Elizabeth Roberts has offered a DNA sample for comparison to the remains however thus far the crown and the Church of England have denied petitions to study the bones they cite insufficient ability to confirm or rule out the identity of the remains or how they died so for now the mystery of the princes in the tower will remain unsolved if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe comment your thoughts and check out my other royal history videos if you really want to help please consider supporting me on patreon a link is in the description thank you for watching

Channel: History Tea Time with Lindsay Holiday

Views: 1,043,706

Keywords: history, game of thrones, documentary, royal family, nobility, royalty, bbc, the crown, british history, england, scandal, royal wedding, women, europe, historic costumes, queen, richard iii, edward v, the princes in the tower, tower of london, tyburn, oliver cromwell, exhumation, halloween, spooky, scary, cadaver, dna, archeology, burial, grave, embalming, funeral, king charles ii, britian, creepy, ghost, charles i, executioner, london bridge, mummy

Id: CTbc2lFLP80

Length: 16min 32sec (992 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020