Dr Kat and Henry VIII's Boring Grave?

hello and welcome back to the channel if you're new here hi you're very welcome this is reading the past and i'm dr kat and today i want to respond to the following twitter question why does henry viii have such a boring grave at some georgia's chapel windsor he built such flamboyant palaces i think this is a great question and a great point and i want to look into it so let's go [Music] the massively oversimplified answer to that question is that henry viii's plans for his own magnificent burial were simply not followed but we can't leave it there can we because as far as i'm concerned that just opens up more questions firstly what form did those plans take how did henry viii conceive and imagine that his final resting place would look and then why were those plans ignored henry viii is a monarch who is famous for many things and i think principle among them is that he was not a monarch to be ignored so why was he particularly when the stakes are so high in terms of the creation of his legacy and memorial things that as far as i'm concerned it's pretty obvious concerned henry deeply i believe that it is evident that henry viii had high ideas and ideals when it came to making magnificent burials and the evidence of this is found in what is provided for his grandmother lady margaret beaufort and also for his parents henry vii and elizabeth of york to create these fine tombs the italian sculptor pietro torreggiano was commissioned fun fact in addition to being remembered for these works torogiano is arguably even more famous for being the person who disfigured michelangelo by breaking his nose in a fight but let's set that to one side and return to looking at torreigiano's other work lady margaret beaufort's tomb can be found in the south isle of the henry vii lady chapel at westminster abbey her effigy is made of gilt bronze and it reclines on two ornately detailed pillows they are decorated with the beaufort portcullis and the tudor rose her face and widow's attire are recognizable from the later portraits of her like this one from around 1510 which is believed to be a similar time to when her tomb was being constructed it is thought that her face in this effigy was modeled on her own death mask following custom and tradition her hands are shown meeting in prayer a yale which is the mythical beast of the beaufort crest is positioned laying at her feet her effigy lies on a black marble tomb with bronze armorial shields on all sides each one of these armorial shields has seemingly been placed there to highlight her connection to her husbands her royal ancestors and her royal descendants an analysis of the tomb and in particular the effigy on top of it has shown that her hands whimple and edging of her mantle may at some point have been painted because the gilt bronze was found to show trace to the pigment that might have been used the lady chapel of westminster abbey is also home at its east end to the burial site of henry vii and elizabeth of york again the effigies are made of gilt bronze we see that henry and elizabeth have been positioned to lay side by side their heads rest on two pillows their hands are positioned in prayer lions lie at their feet which is fitting as the lion was of course a royal heraldic beast four seated angels are placed on the corners of the tomb at the couple's feet they support royal arms and they're now empty fists would once have held pennant flags beneath them putty support the arms of elizabeth of york on the sides of this black marble tomb medallions of gilt bronze are featured they represent the virgin mary and henry's patron saints said michael said george sent anthony sent christopher and ann some edward the confessor said vincent saint barbara sent mary magdalene sent john the baptist and st john the evangelist all bases being covered there then henry viii's children are also buried in the abbey at westminster edward vi is there as is mary the first and elizabeth the first also henry his short-lived highly celebrated and much-mourned son by his first wife catherine of aragon bearing all of these factors in mind i think that makes it even more surprising that for henry viii all that is provided is a slab of black marble which sits in the floor of the choir of saint george's chapel winter castle and which reads in a vault beneath this marble slab are deposited the remains of jane seymour queen of king henry viii 1537. king henry viii 1547 king charles the first 1648 and an infant child of queen anne this memorial was placed here by command of king william iv 1837. this watercolor made in 1888 gives us an idea of how henry's remains were found in this vault beneath this slab the watercolor was made by a y nut who was surveyor to the dean and cannons of windsor the vault was opened in 1888 in order to replace the relics of charles the first which had been removed in 1813. these relics included a piece of neck bone a portion of beard and a tooth what we are seeing here on the left is the coffin of charles the first on top of it rest the box of relics and the small coffin which contain the remains of queen anne's infant child the coffin on the right is jane seymour's and the coffin in the middle that looks to be in such a sad state of repair so damaged and broken up belongs to henry viii i think we might all be able to agree that this is certainly not what henry viii would have had in mind indeed during his first marriage in around 1518 it seems that henry had begun to plan for a joint tomb for him and catherine of aragon and in this first iteration of his burial plan he started off by returning to the workshop of pietro torregiano perhaps we could say that it's safe to suppose that henry intended to be buried in a similar fashion and style to his parents and grandmother albeit of course to a grander scale this plan was not realised the next iteration of the plan for henry's burial may have been placed in the hands of the venetian architect and sculptor jacopo sansovino in around 1527 some suggest that san savino's plan was the one that henry was following up until his own death he at this point was planning to share his grave with his third wife jane seymour an extract from henry viii's will of 1546 details his wishes for his burial and tomb we do will and ordain that our body be buried and interred in the choir of our college of windsor midway between the stalls and the high altar and there to be made and set as soon as conveniently may be done after our deceased by our executives at our costs and charges if it be not done by us in our lifetime an honorable tomb for our bones to rest in which is well onward and almost made therefore already with a fair great about it in which we will also that the bones and body of our true and loving wife queen jane be put also and that there be provided ordained made and set at the charges of us or of our executors if it be not done by us in our life a convenient alter honorably prepared and appareled with all manner of things requisite and necessary for daily masses there to be said perpetually while the world shall endure further details of the final resting place for henry viii were placed in a document entitled the manner of the tomb to be made for the king's grace at windsor unfortunately this document no longer survives but luckily it was transcribed in the 17th century by john speed and his transcription can be found in his text the history of great britain this image is based on the details found in that transcription it is a later reconstructed or imagined plan for what henry's tomb might have been intended to look like as the archivist and chapter librarian for saint george's chapel windsor claire ryder explains no expense was to be spared in crafting the vast edifice ornamented with fine oriental stones and resplendent with white marble pillars gilded bronze angels four life-size images of the king and queen jane and a statue of the king on horseback under a triumphal arch of the whole stature of a goodly man and a large horse in all there were to be 134 figures including george st john the baptist the prophets the apostles and the evangelists all of brass guilt as in the pattern appeareth referring to this image this reimagined reconstructed plan she goes on to say henry viii's original pattern no longer survives but these 19th century conjectural drawings drawn by summers clark for alfred higgins fsa which are held in the chapel archives provide an indication of the likely magnificence of his intended tomb although they omit the king on horseback and show only a small proportion of the intended figures if this image and description has quest your appetite and you want more detail perhaps you want to read john speed's transcription then i will leave a link in my description box to an online pdf which includes a full transcript of speeds text as it refers to the two another fascinating aspect in the design and plans for henry viii's tomb at least as far as i'm concerned is where he was planning to get some of these materials from in the early years of henry viii's reign he was high dependent on the friendship advice and management skills of his chief minister and friend cardinal thomas woolsey among woolsey's many talents was his capacity for project management and the creation of an image of magnificence and he would do this both for his king and for himself woolsey was determined he would have his own glorious tomb and it would be designed and created by benedetto de rovezano and giovanni de mayano it would feature a black marble sarcophagus with statues of angels all around and other ornamentation like pillars for the statues to stand on here is an artist's impression of what may have been intended to be created work on the tomb came to a total halt with woolsey's fall and eventual death in 1530 woolsey had died in disgrace so he would not get to be buried as planned in his glorious memorial instead woolsey's materials and his craftsmen would be appropriated by henry viii to be repurposed for his own burial plans however this new plan would not come to fruition before henry's own death and that's despite the fact that it occurred nearly two decades later why did henry's burial turn out the way that it did well i think that there are a number of factors that can be seen to have conspired in this firstly and principally that henry did not complete the tomb during his own lifetime and why might that have been perhaps henry was showing a rare frugality here his country was impoverished and his plans for the tomb were grand and expensive for me however i think that's the less likely option i think it's probably got more to do with the fact that henry as we know had a well-documented aversion for confronting his own mortality i think he was making tentative plans for his burial but he didn't want to tempt fate by ever completing it when henry viii died on the 28th of january 1547 he was 55 but his son and heir was the nine-year-old edward edward would be only the third two demonic until edward's rule could be secured his council securely ensconced in place henry's death would have to be kept secret edward would spend his six-year rule dealing with being a protestant boy king with an impoverished treasury and a religiously confused nation his father's expensive and roman catholic inspired burial plans may well have been far from ideal as far as his son was concerned for example henry viii written request that his tomb should be built in such a way that it would be conducive for regular paid masses to be said for his soul would for his devoutly protestant son be viewed as nothing more than superstition an expensive heresy perhaps due to this we might understand why it was that any work on henry viii's tomb that continued during edward vi reign was clearly lackluster and that the request for the tomb to be completed in edward's own will was also ignored as for his half-sisters the queens that ruled after edward vi they too failed to complete their father's tomb why might that have been for both mary and elizabeth could we point to cost they also inherited an impoverished treasury perhaps they were simply distracted by trying to stabilize and maintain their respective queenships another factor that i think we should probably consider although i'm not sure how much weight we should give it is that for both of these women their father was a clear and evident source of trauma in their lives could this possibly have led them to ignore his wishes and leave him forgotten in this temporary tomb however elizabeth the first did make a public show of having plans drawn up to complete her father's tomb but as we can all see the way history played out evidently these plans were also abandoned but henry did have some of the components to make up his tomb they'd either been made on his orders or of course stolen from cardinal woolsey where are they now some of the more valuable elements such as henry's effigy and the candlesticks were melted down or sold off for profit during the english civil war for me however it is the fate of the sarcophagus that is the most interesting after more than two and a half centuries being kept in storage at windsor henry's sarcophagus which had once been intended for cardinal woolsey's tomb was moved to paul's cathedral it remains there in the crypt where it stands as the burial site for the hero of trafalgar admiral horatio lord nelson but what do you think as always i'm looking forward to reading your conversation in the comments section underneath the video or you can come and find me over on my social media i'll be leaving links to my instagram and twitter in the description box you can follow me there and we can continue this conversation i do hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe to this channel and while you're there hit the notification bell beside the subscribe button so that youtube tells you when i've next uploaded i hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and i look forward to speaking to you in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] you

Channel: undefined

Views: 60,889

Rating: 4.9799299 out of 5

Keywords: Henry VIII, Tudor, Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel, Beaufort, Torrigiano, Sansovino, Wolsey, St Paul's, Nelson, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: A7_5Icu6ODY

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020