JANE SEYMOUR: FUNERAL OF A QUEEN | Burying a Queen. What happened when royalty died? History Calling

hi history lovers and welcome or welcome back to the channel where i bring you new videos every friday on all aspects of history today on history calling we're looking at the funeral of a queen specifically gn seymour third wife of henry viii jane was unique amongst henry's wives for being the only one to die on the job while she was still his acknowledged consort this video will look at how events unfolded after her death and up until her burial taking into consideration how protestant or catholic the funeral was and when and why her tomb was disturbed in the centuries since she was placed in it it will even include a picture of her coffin in situ if you're interested in the funerals of henry's wives do check out my video on anne of cleve's funeral and on the executions and exhumation of anne boleyn and catherine howard they're linked below in the description box if you love learning about history tutor or otherwise please subscribe to the channel and switch on the notification bell so that youtube lets you know every time i upload the description box also contains links to my instagram account and to books movies documentaries and tv shows about jane's life finally i've had some questions about subtitles on my videos these can be switched on and off using this button at the bottom of each video which says cc short for closed captions [Music] [Music] gm seymour married henry viii on the 30th of may 1536 just 11 days after the execution of his second wife anne berlin by early 1537 the king and his new queen had conceived what would be their only child together and on the 16th of september jain took to her chamber in hampton court palace to await the birth after a lengthy and difficult labour at 2 am on the 12th of october she delivered a healthy son prince edward both parents were ecstatic at the arrival of henry's long-awaited male heir and at first jane seemed to recover from the birth within days however it was clear that all was not well most likely suffering from what was known as childbed fever though i've seen food poisoning floated as a possible problem as well the queen became delirious and at about midnight on the 24th of october she died in the same room in which she had given birth to edward by all accounts henry was grief-stricken he appointed the duke of norfolk and sir william pilot to oversee the arrangements for james burial then he himself retired to a solitary place to pass his sorrows the chronicler edward hall offers a little more detail saying that henry withdrew to westminster where he mourned and kept himself close and secret a great while the first thing done with jane's body was to have it emband in preparation for its lying in state and eventual burial according to a contemporary account the queen's entrails were removed by a wax chandler with searing bombing spicing and trammeling in cloth then her body was placed in a lead coffin which the plumber leaded soldered and chested the entrails were honorably interred in the chapel of hampton court palace where the new prince had been christened just a week and a half earlier on the 15th but the rest of jean's body seems to have stayed where it was for we next hear that on friday the 26th of october there was provided in the chamber of presence a hearse which at this point in time meant a kind of framework which would sit over the top of a coffin rather than something to transport it on with 21 tapers about it etc and the corpse conveyed in honorable ways from the place where she died and laid beneath the hearse all the ladies and gentle women put off their rich apparel doing on their morning habit and white cultures hanging over their heads and shoulders and they're knelt about the hearse during mass of for noon and durage which is a chant for the dead after there was also a watch kept nightly until the last day of the month jane's lying in state was not completed in the present chamber however for on the afternoon of the 31st of october her body was moved again this time to the chapel the route between the two rooms as well as the chapel itself were hung with black cloth and garnished with rich images and jean was conveyed there with great ceremony this was done in the presence of the king's officers and servants standing in double rank from the chamber to the chapel with torches not lighted whilst the bishop of carlisle her almana assisted by the bishop of chichester dean of the chapel and the subdean entered the chamber and did the ceremonies as sensing with holy water and a profundus which means out of the depths and which is the name given to psalm 130 because it opens with those words that done torches were lighted and the procession formed first the cross with priests two and two then gentlemen esquires pursuants and heralds then the nobleman then gator then the earl of rutland the queen's chamberlain and duke of norfolk then the corpse then the chief mourner the lady marquis of exeter in place of the lady mary meaning henry's daughter mary tudor as then a crast assisted by two noblemen as earls then eight noble ladies mourners when the body arrived in the chapel it was placed under another hearse which had been constructed there this one garnished with eight banner rules of descents including those of the king and queen with this done the lancaster herald asked those present to pray for the soul of the departed gene then durage was sung and all departed to the queen's chamber watch was kept every night in the chapel by priests gentlemen ushers and officers of arms who in the morning early were relieved by ladies and went to breakfast which was provided as two shines of beef with bread eel and wine there too sufficient then began lawns meaning music and at 9 00 am the lady mary chief mourner and the others proceeded to the chapel the next day thursday the 1st of november an offering mass was performed at which everyone offered a piece of gold then after dinner and consultation with the coffer and other chief clerks of the household about the provision to be made durage was solemnly sung by the bishop of chichester over the following 11 days masses were performed in the chapel every day by a variety of abbots and officiants then finally on the 12th of november it was time to take jane to her final resting place we have conflicting reports for the day the body was moved edward hall says that this was done on the 8th of november however another chronicler charles risley as well as a report in the herald's college manuscript which is found in the letters and papers of the reign of henry viii and which is the main source i've been using up tonight both say the 12th the fact that there's a detailed list of all those who officiated over the masses said in the chapel between the 1st and 11th of november also indicates beyond a reasonable doubt that the 12th was the day on which the body was moved jain's remains boring the aforementioned entrails were loaded onto what the herald's college manuscript calls a chair and what i think we can imagine as a kind of wagon or chariot and pull to windsor castle by six horses we have no image of what this looked like however this picture of the funeral procession of her mother-in-law elizabeth york who died in 1503 offers some idea of the scale of the operation the body was attended by 14 men carrying banners and a huge assortment of england's aristocracy including charles brandon duke of suffolk henry grave marcos of dorset and the earls of surrey westmoreland wiltshire and sussex mary was also there as chief mourner and was attended by lords montague and clifford there were also countless members of the royal household including gentlemen ushers officers of arms sergeants at arms and riders for the horses when the procession finally began the way was led by two men holding black staves followed by 200 poor men wearing the queen's badges who at colebrook exton meaning eaton and windsor stood on each side of the street with their torches then came minstrels and trumpets strangers and ambassador servants the cross with priests knights chaplains abbots barons and bishops counselors and head officers vikons and earls lord cromwell lord privy seal with the french ambassador monster de chateau the lord chancellor with the ambassador of the emperor last come the cross of the archbishop of canterbury born before him by his chaplain and he himself with the emperor's ambassador longest being here then clarenceo and garter the queen's almanar the chamberlains to the king and queen the earl of oxford high chamberlain the duke of norfolk high marshall then the corpse surrounded by banners born by sir william masham lord hungerford lord mordont lord bray and lord mount joy assisted by the earls of sussex and westmoreland marcos of dorset the earls of wiltshire and surrey and duke of suffolk then my lady mary chief mourner her horse trapped in black velvet and assisted by lourdes clifford and montague noble ladies following i won't bore you with a long list of these noble ladies but suffice to say there were a lot of them despite the fact that a large number of gentle women had been sent on ahead to windsor rather than having them ride in the procession after the ladies campster william kingston who is constable of the tower of london had overseen the execution and burial of anne boleyn the year before then the king's vice chamberlain and captain of the guard followed by the guard three and three and all other noble men's servants two almonders were appointed to distribute alms by the way at colebrook the corpse was reverently received and so forth at eaton where the bishop of lincoln the bishop of carlisle provost of the said college and all the priests clerks and children received it with caps and tapers in their hands at windsor the mayor and brethren met at the bridge foot with lighted torches and so passed to the college we have some additional details of what this procession looked like from charles ridley and it bore some similarities with the litter funeral of elizabeth the first which you see here he tells us that the chariot carrying the body was covered in black velvet and had a picture of the said queen richly apparelled like a queen with a rich crown of gold on her head lying above on the coffin of the said corpse the mourners were all attired in black as well and the gentlemen and priests of henry's chapel sang funeral obsiquies throughout the journey when the body finally made it to st george's chapel it was taken in via the west door and underneath a canopy with mary following her trian was born by none other than jane berlin by countess rochford the widow of ambulance brother george for more on her ultimate fate spoiler alert it wasn't good see my video on the double execution of catherine howard and lily rochford in 1542 i'll leave that linked on screen and in the description box once the body was in place inside the chapel a durage was performed and a number of lessons read by several prelates the nobles present then went to windsor castle the next day the mourners returned for the final ceremony at which point there was a solemn mass of requiem sung by the archbishop of canterbury that's thomas cranmer and the bishop of wooster called dr latimer made a notable sermon and at the offertory all the estates offered rich pauls of cloth of gold by 12 noon gene's lead coffin housed inside another of wood had been lowered into the crypt beneath the choir in the chapel where it remains to this day with the funeral of seques over the mourners returned to the castle where they enjoyed a great feast the funeral wasn't the only sign of the country's morning that day back in the capital that same afternoon there was a solemn hearse made at paul's meaning saint paul's cathedral in london and a solemn darage done there by paul's choir the mayor of london being their present with the aldermen and sheriffs and all the mayor's officers and the sheriff's sergeants mourning all in black gowns and all the crafts of the city of london in their liveries also there was a nail rung in every parish church in london from twelve of the clock at noon till six o'clock at night with all the bells ringing in every parish church solemn peels from three of the clock till the nails ceased and also a solemn durage sung in every parish church in london and in every church of friars monks and cannons about london and tomorrow after a solemn mass of requiem in all the said churches with all the bells ringing from nine of the clock in the morning till noon also there was a solemn mass of requiem done at paul's and all paul's choir offering of the same mass the mayor aldermen and sheriffs and the wardens of every craft of the city of london and after the said mass the mayor and aldermen going about the hearse saying deeper fundus with all the crafts of the city following everyone after their degrees praying for the soul of the said queen so what can we learn from this extravagant funeral procession and burial first that despite the break from rome there should be no doubt that henry was still a practicing catholic gn2 and that this was a catholic funeral as the many masses said over the body and the prayers for jane's soul indicate second the fact that henry wasn't there and didn't personally organize the funeral means nothing it was standard practice for a reigning monarch to not attend a funeral even of their own spouse and a monarch always had people to delegate the enormous task of organizing such an event to henry's absence is why mary acted as chief mourner as she was female like the deceased and the highest ranking woman in the family and indeed the land despite her ambiguous position after being declared illegitimate she also loved gian and it was reported that she was grief-stricken at the loss of a stepmother who had helped to reconcile her with her father third can we see this funeral as merely a matter of form or as a sign of henry's great love for jane i think it's a little of both certainly it would have looked in very prettiest to give her much less considering she was his queen and the mother of his heir but henry does genuinely seem to have taken jane's death quite hard i say quite because i'm not sure how hard henry really took anyone's death he wore mourning for her into the new year but already there were plans of food to find another wife for him i also suspect part of his grief over losing jain stemmed from the fact that while he was used to leaving his wives he wasn't used to being left by them he usually had the next one lined up ready to go jin unexpectedly dying therefore caught him off guard still he always had a sentimental attachment to the woman who had finally given him the legitimate son he so desperately craved and when henry himself died in 1547 he was buried next to her this brings us to the final chapter in the story of jane's body and burial the repeated re-openings of her tomb if you've seen my video on whether henry viii exploded after death i'll leave it linked on screen and below just in case you haven't you'll know that jane's tomb has been opened at least five times since her burial the first was to inter her husband in 1547. the second was in 1649 to deposit the remains of the executed king charles the first a third time occurred at some point during the 1680s or 1690s so that the vault could receive the remains of one of queen anne stuart's many children i have a video on her tragic childbearing record which i'll leave linked on screen and below for you the fourth was when the vault was discovered during work on the chapel in 1813. this discovery was accidental as the vault was unmarked at this point as you can see from this 19th century image of the interior of the chapel on the first of april that year a group of men including the prince regent the future george iv entered the tomb and saw all the coffins henry's was broken with the skeleton visible and the visitors deliberately opened charles's to look at the corpse and confirm its identity which seems a bit pointless given that there was a plaque on it saying that it held charles but anyway jeans and the baby's coffins were intact and left in peace for the prince regent declared that mere curiosity wasn't a sufficient reason to touch the queen's remains this visit eventually led to the fifth and final known opening in 1888 when relics taken from the coffin of charles the first during the 1813 opening were replaced in the presence of and with the assistance of the then prince of wales from this opening we have a description of the condition of james coffin it reads the order wooden coffin of queen jane had quite fallen away but the latin coffin was perfect and unimpaired a watercolor was also painted of the condition of all the coffins in the vault which you can see here james is on the far right of the image with henry in the middle and charles on the left surmounted by the tiny coffin of his great-grandchild nowadays the vault in which jain and the others lie is marked by a marble slab in the floor with each of their details on it you can see it in this old photograph of the choir of the chapel which i know isn't very clear but i literally could not find a modern public domain or creative commons image of this because you're not allowed to take pictures in the chapel nowadays the slab was placed there in 1837 though some research suggests that it's actually slightly to the west of the vault this may have been done by accident or to protect the vault's exact location or for reasons of symmetry so the slab is in the middle of the floor barring maintenance work on the chapel it seems unlikely the occupants of the vault will be disturbed again and this is almost certainly the end of the teal of june's death and burial if you enjoy this video please remember to give it a like and subscribe to the channel and let me know in the comments section if you believe jane's elaborate funeral was a sign of love from henry or just a matter of form or even a combination of both i'll be back next week with a new video and until then keep learning

Channel: History Calling

Views: 131,127

Keywords: FUNERAL OF A QUEEN, Burying a Queen, six wives documentary, History Calling, Queen Jane Seymour's funeral, Jane Seymour's funeral, The death of Queen Jane Seymour, The death of Jane Seymour, What happened when royalty died, British royal funerals, A history of mourning, Jane Seymour, Queen Jane Seymour, tomb of Charles I, tomb of Henry VIII, the six wives of Henry VIII, six wives of Henry VIII, royal funerals, royal burials, St George's Chapel, Hampton Court Palace, Tudors

Id: N8e1qSS8EJA

Length: 18min 13sec (1093 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021