The Mausoleum of the House of Windsor - St George's Chapel

foreign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died she was such a presence in all of our lives and since her death we have really in all senses entered a new era in the United Kingdom and in the whole world the queen was of course interred in Saint George's Chapel Windsor within the castle she loved so much and was laid to rest in a vault beneath the King George VI the Memorial Chapel beside her parents the late King George and Queen Elizabeth and her late husband the Duke of Edinburgh I produced a video a year ago all about the George VI Memorial Chapel and its Construction and design and also one on the George the third royal Vault where the lay Queens coffin and that of the Duke of Edinburgh were temporarily held and I thought I'd follow up a year later with the video looking at the tombs of other members of the House of Windsor and the house of sax Coburg gota that are scattered around the interior of Saint George's Chapel Saint George's Chapel Windsor is very much the mausoleum of the modern house of winter in the 20th century the George III Royal Vault was gradually abandoned as the burial place of the British royal family except as a temporary holding place of repose as we saw last year the sovereigns and their consorts on a buried routinely elsewhere in Saint George's Chapel since 1928 minor Royals of the Windsor Dynasty have usually been buried in the Royal burial ground at Frogmore next to the mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert many of those formerly buried in the George III Royal Vault were removed to Frogmore in 1928. I will do a separate video to explore Frogmore and its environs the earliest sax Coburg gota tombs in the chapel are in the so-called Albert Memorial Chapel a separate building to the East End of the main Chapel this building was called the tomb house by the hanoverians as it was directly above the George III Royal vault the chapel was in fact constructed in the early years of the 16th century by Henry VII with the intention of housing his own tomb and that of his forebear Henry VI but that didn't come to pass the structure was roofed but unfurnished when Henry died and in the 1520s Cardinal Thomas Woolsey earmarked it as his potential burial place that too did not of course transpire so this place was left Dusty and unused for nearly 350 years in 1862 Queen Victoria proposed that the space would be completed as a permanent Memorial to her husband Prince Albert and would be a place where the public could come and pay their respects to him and in 1875 it was transformed by the fashionable architect Sir George Gilbert Scott into a Gothic Revival Wonder with mosaics of Old Testament scenes lining the wall by Henry Detroit and Altarpiece by corbald mosaics on the ceiling by Antonio salviati and Medallion portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's nine children by the sculptor Susan Durant at the East End of the chapel directly before the altar was placed a cenotaph an empathy tomb of Prince Albert which was also carved by Henri de triquetti it is a Gothic style tomb chest with an effigy of the prince consort on the top in full medieval armor his pillow supported by two angels and his feet resting on a lion on the tomb chest is the inscription a text from the Bible from 2 Timothy 4 I have fought the good fight I have finished my course on the sides of the chest there are more angels and images representing truth justice charity and Hope the September issue of the antique magazine is now available on my website there are articles this month on Coats of Arms and funerals Colonel blood the man who tried to steal the crown jewels in 1671 and the lost State Crown he tried to steal if you like the channel and you love British history you will really love the magazine buying the antiquree and even better subscribing each month helps support this Channel and gives you even more of the content that you love the first member of the House of sax Coburg Gautier to be buried within George's Chapel rather than in the Royal Vault below was Prince Leopold the youngest son of Victorian Albert who died of Hemophilia age 30 in 1884. he was buried at the West End just near the entrance of his father's Memorial Chapel sir Edgar bone was commissioned to carve Leopold's monument and began work on it soon after the prince died by no means as Grand as the cenotaph of Leopold's father it consists of a white marble Effigy Of The Prince dressed in a hassar uniform on a white marble tomb chest decorated with shields and Gothic arcading in 1892 a second member of the House of sucks Cobra gota was later dressed in the same place Prince Albert Victor Duke of Clarence and Avondale known to his family as Eddie he was the eldest son of the Future King Edward VII and therefore second in line of succession to the throne had he lived he would have been King at the age of 28 in January of 1892 he contracted influenza in the epidemic raging that year and he died of pneumonia at Sandringham house in Norfolk he was only a month away from marrying May of tech who went on to marry instead his brother George and would become Queen Mary in 1910. after his funeral Prince Albert Victor's coffin was placed in the Albert Memorial Chapel between his grandfather Senator and his uncle's tomb from the very beginning Queen Victoria his grandmother and his parents The Prince and Princess of Wales intended to provide him with a fine tomb and it would occupy in time the position where his coffin lay the designer and sculpture chosen by Queen Victoria was Alfred Gilbert who's better known these days for the Statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus and the monument would be in Gilbert's style an English version of the avant-garde alt Nouveau Style Queen Victoria was the primary Commission of the work and she visited Gilbert in his Studio to discuss its progress in March of 1893 the finished design was completed in 1894 but the work on the monument dragged on for years most of the monument was installed and Prince Eddie re-buried in it in 1897 but it was not then quite complete Gilbert's though an extraordinary artist was not a very good businessman and the work resulted in his bankruptcy in 1901 it's no great surprise he became insolvent the tomb is not only complex and large but is also made of disparate expensive and unusual materials and Gilbert underestimated the cost of those materials and also the labor involved the monument is on an extraordinary scale that dwarfs entirely the cenotaph of Prince Albert and the tomb of princely uphold some years after he started the tomb Gilbert stated that in forms scale and materials he was influenced by the surviving elements of the unfinished tomb of cardinal Woolsey of which the sarcophagus and some bronze figures remain Albert Victor's tomb occupied the spot that Woolsey had intended for himself the sarcophagus of Albert Victor's tomb as this model shows it's clearly influenced in shape and form by that of cardinal Woolsey which is now of course the tomb of Lord Nelson in simple's Cathedral you can see the marble and poor free sarcophagus of Albert Victor in place here in this illustration that shows the funeral flowers of the Duchess of tech in 1897. the Effigy Of The Prince on top of the Tomb is mixed media Prince Eddie is shown sleeping and dressed in the hussar uniform like his late uncle the body of the figure is of bronze but for the head and hands Gilbert's chose to use white marble a deliberate reference to the work of Boom to whom he had been apprenticed there is a deliberate Echo too of the design of the senator for Prince Albert in The Haunting figure of an angel that Towers over the princess Effigy holding a bronze crown the tomb chest is railed in by a bronze grill for the form of this Gilbert said that he was Loosely inspired by the grill that surrounds the tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey by torigiano though he stated categorically that the shapes and forms of the ornament were his own and the grill are Incorporated a series of small figures and these were not completed until 1927 right at the end of Gilbert's life when he was finally persuaded to return to England to complete them by this stage he had lost some of the skill of his earlier years and the figures are often pitted in texture compared to those he completed a quarter of a century before in Gilbert's original drawings for the scheme the intention was at the bronze elements the monument were all to be gilded just as much Renaissance metal work was but in the final execution much of the Bond's work was left in its original color the monument is a tour de force of the period and there's nothing like it in the rest of England when Prince Albert Victor's father King Edward VII the only Sovereign of the House of sax Coburg goter died in 1910 he was initially buried in the George III Royal Vault but this was intended to be a temporary measure in 1919 his widow Queen Alexandra commissioned a monument for herself and for her husband from the Australian sculptor and medalist Bertram mckennell mckennell was the artist who was also responsible for the portrait of George V on his coinage and also on the stamps that King George so avidly collected he was also responsible for the Statue of king Edward VII in Waterloo place the completion of the tomb was a long and drawn-out process it was still incomplete when Queen Alexandra died herself in November of 1925 she too was initially buried in the George III Royal Vault the tomb of Edward the seventh and Queen Alexandra is placed in a very prominent position in the choir of the chapel on the south side of the sanctuary between the high Altar and the South choir Isle it is directly opposite the tomb of king Edward IV it consists of a tomb chest or sarcophagus thus made of black and green marble on each side of the Tomb chest are bronze panels one of the Royal Arms and two female figures on each side which seemed to be mckennell's take on the weepers found on the medieval monuments of the Kings of England in Westminster Abbey the whole tomb is a nod to tradition and on top of the Tomb chest a white marble Effigies of the king and the queen dressed in their garter robes again in a nod to the Middle Ages where Effigies were often supported at their feet by dogs and lions the Effigy Of King Edward features his favorite dog Caesar at his feet King Edward and Queen Alexandra's bodies were moved to the tomb on the 22nd of April 1927 King Edward VII son King George V was the first Sovereign of the House of Windsor having changed the name of his Royal House in 1917 to something less Germanic when he died in 1936 he too was initially buried temporarily in the Royal vault there was of course no room for Monument to him in the choir of the Chapels as all the available spaces were occupied so it was decided that George V would eventually be buried in the Nave of the chapel under the penultimate Arch from the west of the north Nave arcade the person chosen to create the monument with Sir William Reed dick a Scottish sculptor who had come to prominence in the 1920s he had produced several high-profile War memorials and in 1925 he was responsible for the monument in Saint Paul's Cathedral to Lord Kitchener in 1938 he was appointed as the king's sculptor in ordinary for Scotland and was commissioned to produce the tomb for George V George V was moved from the Royal vaults to the tomb on the 27th of February 1939 in the presence of the king and queen princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and all the other children of King George V Queen Mary wasn't present on the 31st of March 1953 Queen Mary was buried beside her husband and her Effigy was then placed on the tomb beside his the Tim's materials referenced the tomb of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the Frogmore Mausoleum the tomb chest like Victorian Alberts is made of polished can Gill Granite from aberdeenshire all the Effigies of Victorian Albert are made of white Italian marble the Effigies of George V and Queen Mary are of an equally creamy white stone but from England polished Portland Stone the tomb chest is very much a work of the 1930s decorated with highly stylized heraldry and a bold inscription the Effigies are stiff and somewhat stylized too both the king and queen are laid there with their hands clasped in prayer dressed in the mantles and collars of the order of the Garter the king wearing the uniform of an admiral of the fleet Queen Mary wears the distinctive strings of pearls layers of pearl chokers and bracelets that she was accustomed to wear in her life they both have their feet on heraldic beasts that represent the union of the English and Scottish crowns a lion at King George's feet and a unicorn at Queen Mary's lastly there is one burial of a member of the House of Windsor that I haven't covered in this or in the previous videos and that is the grave of Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister the late Princess Margaret Countess of Snowden when she died in 2002 and usually for a member of the royal family she was cremated and her cremated remains were buried in the vault below the George VI Memorial Chapel with her father and of course only a few months later her mother too many people in the comments box on my previous video were surprised that princess Margaret's name was not on the black Ledger Stone led into the chapel floor that now commemorates her parents and her sister this is by no means a slight on The Late princess's memory she would have expected to be buried at Frogmore not here and she would have been well aware that her name could not go on the stone her burial is not unmarked she has her very own substantial Stone marker made of Welsh slate that is placed up against the wall of the chapel directly over where her remains are believed to be positioned in the vault below and above it reflecting the bronze roundels with portraits of her parents is a Randall also a slate with her profile in relief incidentally the bonds relief portraits of George VI and Queen Elizabeth are an integral part of their memorial that of George VI is the work of Sir William Reed dick and is a copy of one made in 1953 that hangs in Sandringham Parish Church the roundel of Queen Elizabeth the queen mother is in the style of red dick but I haven't been able to ascertain if it is by him perhaps a viewer might know given that all three early occupants of the vault in this Chapel were commemorated in this way I would expect that in due time we will also see release of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip added to so well will the next Generations of British sovereigns be buried where will Charles and Camilla William and Catherine and George in his future consort be laid to rest when they die well that is anybody's guess it has been suggested that there is room for Charles and Camilla in the George VI Chapel but not for the generations that follow them they will have to make alternative Arrangements but I think by that point I will be pushing up the daisies myself so I don't think I'm going to be making a YouTube video about it thanks very much for watching [Music]

Channel: Allan Barton - The Antiquary

Views: 115,142

Keywords:

Id: whOLiX58S18

Length: 19min 2sec (1142 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 08 2023