Inside the Royal Burial Vaults in Westminster Abbey

foreign [Music] s of the 17th and 18th century with the exception of Charles the first James II and George the first are buried within Henry the seventh Chapel in Westminster Abbey it is surprising perhaps that none of them have proper monuments marking their graves there are inscriptions set into the floor of the Abbey above their approximate burial places but nothing more and these were only added in the second half of the 19th century I knew the seventh Chapel at Westminster was begun in the reign of Henry Tudor and was completed during that of his son Henry VIII it was designed as a new lady Chapel for the Abbey but from the beginning it was the intention that it would serve as the mausoleum for the Tudor dynasty and for their successes it was also intended initially to be a shrine too the place of burial for the 15th century King Henry VI although whose remains were in the event never brought her I have a video All About That a new burial place that Westminster Abbey was needed as the previous burial place of English kings and Edward the confessor's chapel behind the high altar was full at the center of this extraordinary and very flamboyant new Chapel which is topped with its fine fan bolted ceiling is the tomb of Henry Tudor Henry VII himself it is by the Italian sculptor Pietro torigiana that's surrounded by a wonderful bronze railing I think this Monument one of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance workmanship in this country needs another video all of itself under that Monument is buried Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth of York and also King James the first to the west of this Monument under the site of the high altar the chapel is buried the boy King Edward VI the son of Henry VIII the chapel has side aisles and in the north aisle are buried under an effigy of Elizabeth first both Elizabeth and her sister Mary Tudor in the South aisle are buried Margaret Beaufort the mother of Henry VII under a stunning Effigy also by Tori giano and to the West Affair under a large Monument is buried Mary Queen of Scots in her Vault and in a series of other vaults around it are buried many more of her descendants now all of these burial places I will talk about in different videos as each demands one of its own but in this video I want to talk about the two primary Burial Vaults of the Stuart sovereigns and the early Hanoverian royal family if you like my channel there are a number of ways you can support me if you feel able to do so the first is by liking and sharing the content and subscribing to the channel That way more people see my videos you could also subscribe to my magazine the anti-creep which is full of Articles and features all like the videos on here and is copiously Illustrated someone said recently that it's like receiving a miniature coffee table booking each month publishing the antigree supports this channel directly as this is how I make my living and it allows me to spend more time creating lots of interesting content for you here a magic link should have popped up above to take you to the website if you're interested in 1866 a clergyman called Arthur Stanley was appointed as the new Dean of Westminster he was a historian and a man with a curious mind and he was rather surprised by the lack of Marcus for the illustrious people buried in the chapel and he was Keen to find the various Royal burial places and remedy this the burial place of the Stewart sovereigns was the first one Dean Stanley found and entered and he found it by chance in 1867 when a new heating system was being installed in the chapel in order to get to the entrance rather inconveniently the Stalls used by the Knights of the order of the bath have to be dismantled the entrance to the Vault passes directly underneath the massive Monument to George monk Earl of Albemarle General Monk and it is his figure alone that looks down on this burial place which contains the remains of among others Charles II who he helped bring back to the throne monk is actually buried in a vault in the north island of the chapel as well as containing the coffin of the merry Monarch this Vault also contains the coffins of William III his wife Queen Mary II Queen Anne and her husband Prince George of Denmark a detailed engraving of it was published in 1730 in dartswork West monasterium and it shows the interior of this Royal Sepulcher the vault is very small steps from the north run down to the chamber which is entirely Barrel vaulted in stone there was only room with ways for the five coffins and longways for the coffins and also the lead urns encased in wood that contained their viscera their innards which were removed routinely in this period as part of the embalming process before the lying in state the urn of Charles II was set in a niche to the South but the ends of the others were set at their feet the engraving shows the elaborate coffin Furniture decorating the wooden cases of their lead coffins and below is given a transcription of the inscriptions that were on the coffin plates the coffin that was set apart from the rest was that of Charles II which had heavy Furniture decorating it the coffins of the other four were very similar in style and were perhaps provided by the same coffin maker the coffins of Mary II William III and Queen Anne were all decorated with crossed septism crowns with that of Prince George decorated with a Coronet of his rank the visceral urns at their feet were decorated with crowns coronets and Monograms of those whose innards they contained the coffin of poor Queen Anne was almost as wide as it was long when the Vault was entered in 1867 Dean Stanley says that the interior was just as dot had shown it except that the coffins were after two centuries in the state of considerable disrepair much of the metal coffin Furniture having fallen off as the wooden cases decayed the decayed wood of those outer cases had exposed the lead inside the coffins and in many cases that led to head decayed the top of the coffin of Charles II had fallen incompletely and the coffin plate had fallen inside his coffin all the furniture and the coffin plates were made of guilt copper except that of Charles II which was made of solid silver with this Steward burial Vault full after the burial of Queen Anne it was clear that at some point new provision would be needed Elsewhere for the burial of future sovereigns and their families George the first the successor of Queen Anne was buried in his beloved Hanover when he died in 1727 and it was left to his son King George II to sort things out he did nothing for the first 10 years of his Reign but when his wife Queen Carolina Vans back Pharrell in 1737 he began preparations a commodious new burial Vault was constructed of stone just in time for her internment it is under the floor of the central Isle of the main Chapel to the west of the grave of King Edward VI unlike the Stewart fault when Dean Stanley starts his investigation he discovers that the Vault had been entered in living memory it had last been opened in 1837 to remove the coffin of a stillborn daughter of Ernst Augustus the son of King George III who had just that year become the king of Hanover all we know of the Vault we know from Engravings two published in and around 1751 when Frederick Prince of Wales was buried in there and a third from 1805 by which time the Vault was pretty full the vault is really large it's 26 foot wide and it's 40 foot in length inside it is Stone vaulted with a barrel Vault throughout and there are seven compartments within it the central eastern compartment is the burial place of King George II and queen Caroline there is a tradition that King George asked at the time of his wife's death in 1737 that her coffin and his should be prepared so that at some point the sides could be removed and the coffins pushed together and their dust mingled together in death and so only me that finds that oddly romantic the Dean Stanley when he entered the vault in the 1860s found evidence that this indeed was true as two sides of different coffins were seen leaning up against the wall the coffins of the king and queen could not be seen for they were both placed within a single oval marble sarcophagus quite an extraordinary thing one of the 1751 Engravings shares a couple of details of the sarcophagus showing the coffin of Queen Caroline within it it also suggests that the sarcophagus is raised from the floor on a lion and a unicorn as feet the other engraving suggests that it had simple block feet but gives a view of the sarcophagus from the West which seems to be decorated with fluting on the front it also shows the lid in Gray for the names of the king and queen with cross scepters and two crowns under Laurel branches by the time of the 1805 engraving there are plenty of other occupants of the Vault and it helpfully gives a key to where they're positioned only a few feet away in the first compartment on the North side where the coffins of Frederick Prince of Wales who died in 1751 and his wife Augusta Princess of Wales who died in 1772 parents of course of King George III there is this peculiar thing in the Hanoverian royal family of resentment and Loathing developing between fathers and their sons Frederick was loathed by his parents and was captured arm's length by them during his life and it seemed so odd that he's buried so close to them in death the compartment opposite on the south side or opposite to Frederick and Augusta it's occupied by two of their children both of whom died in their twenties Prince Edward the Duke of York and Albany and Princess Louisa Ann in the next compartment to the west of The Prince and Princess of Wales are two more of their children who died in their teens Prince Frederick and Princess Elizabeth opposite them on the South Side are copper coffins of two daughters of George II Princess Caroline who died in 1757 at the age of 44 and Princess Emilia Sapphire Amelia Sapphire died in 1786 at the age of 75 and was one of the longest lived members of her family apart from her father Joyce II who lived longer than any of them then the two westernmost compartments contain the coffins of two Dukes of Cumberland Prince William Duke of cumbland was buried on the north side a career Soldier a son of George II after putting down the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 in Scotland that culminated in the Battle of Culloden he was nicknamed by his wig supporters Sweet William and by the Tories as butcher Cumberland he was laid to rest here in 1765 having died at the age of 45. opposite him on the south side was Prince Henry Duke of Cumberland another son of Frederick Prince of Wales and a brother of George III he died at the age of 44 in 1790 by the time he was buried here in the vault it was almost full in addition to the stillborn child of the king of Hanover there were a few children's coffins buried in the vault too next to his parents sarcophagus was the tiny coffin of Prince George William the Second Son of George II in Queen Caroline he died in 1718 he was only three months old and he had originally been buried elsewhere in the Abbey and was placed in this vault in 1737 at the time of his mother's burial two of George III and queen Charlotte's children were buried here initially too little prince Alfred who died Age Two in 1783 and Prince Octavius who died age four the following year their tiny coffins were laid next to one another beside that aunts it was clear that by the time George III and his family died there would not be any room in this fault for them which is why George III then created the tomb house the Royal vault at Windsor in Time Prince Alfred and Prince octavius's coffins were moved there to lie with the rest of their immediate family their parents and their siblings none of the burials in the Hanoverian vault in Henry the seventh Chapel where Martin anyway until Dean Stanley inscribed their names on the checkerboard of black and white stones on the floor above thanks for watching [Music] foreign

Channel: Allan Barton - The Antiquary

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Keywords: westminsterabbey, royal funeral, westminster abbey, royal vault, burial vault, funeral, monuments, kings of england, british monarchy, georgian kings, stuart monarchs, george II, charles II, Queen Anne, Mary II, William III, Henry VII chapel, Henry VII, Frederick Prince of Wales, coffins, caskets, coffin, Queens of England, British monarch's

Id: avgf1-6XnW8

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 25 2023