The Opening of the Tomb of King Edward I in Westminster Abbey

foreign King Edward the first king of England headed to Scotland to meet in Conflict the armies of Robert to the Bruce during the journey North he developed dysentery the night of the 6th of July 1307 he was encamped at bear on the Sands in Cumberland for when his servants came to tend him on the morning of the 7th of July 1307 he died in their arms Edward's body was embalmed it was normal practice for English kings eviscerated and wrapped in waxed cloth and then it was brought South resting temporarily at Waltham Abbey before being buried on the 27th of October in Westminster Abbey the funeral was taken by the king's friend and confidante Bishop Anthony Beck backwards Bishop of Durham from 1283 and was also the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from 1306. he was one of Edward's most trusted and loyal servants his relationship with the King going as far back as 1270 when aged 25 he accompanied Edward then the prince and Heir Apparent on Crusade Edward was buried in the chapelis and head with a Confessor behind the high altar of Westminster Abbey then the arch next on the west to where his father Henry III who had constructed the chapel was buried and unlike his father's tomb which is tall fine and surmounted by an effigy and made of wonderful cosmati work Edward's tomb is relatively plain and simple in construction it is simply made of five slabs of perbec marble it is unadorned except for an inscription which reads eduardus Primus scotoro mallios hick EST melessimos trekentissimos octavos pactum server here is Edward the first Hammer of the Scots 1308 Keep The Pact this mysterious inscription what precisely doesn't mean keep the pact is on the north side of the Tomb facing out towards the ambulatory the walkway around the conferences chapel and it was intended to be seen it is assumed to be later than the date given it gets the date of the King's death wrong 1308 rather than the correct 1307. the usual assumption is that it was added in the middle of the 16th century by Abbot John fickenham the Abbot of the monastic community that was restored to Westminster in the reign of Mary the first and stylistically it is painted in Roman letters which would make sense for a 16th century date others have argued that its original I can't see that the title Hammer of the Scots is not one that Edward was ever given in life and seems to derive from this inscription in life he was generally known as Edward Longshanks which as we will see later was the title that he well deserved there is Visual and documentary evidence that the tomb was originally not quite so simple as it is now at Medieval coronations the tomb appears to have been covered with a pole made of cloth of gold an engraving by James Cole published in darts West monasterium in 1701 a very detailed guide to The Abbey shows the tomb enclosed with a metal railing or grill a row of upright posts topped with fleur-de-lis the two outer posts seem to be topped with tiny little busts of Kings by the time that goth wrote his great work sepulchral monuments only one of these busts then remained but goth concluded that the bus were intended to be portrayed to the king it isn't clear when these railings disappeared they were still in place in 1774. there was also at 1.8 Timber tester or a canopy of Honor directly over the tomb and this is shown in gaywood's engraving of 1677 in Sanford's genealogical history of the Kings of England this tester May well have been 15th century and painted like the surviving tester over the tomb of Edward's father Henry III the Testo was torn down and destroyed in 1764 at the funeral of the Whig politician and briefly Prime Minister William poultney first Earl of bath who was bowed in the Islip Chapel which is on the other side of the north ambulatory from Edward's tomb there was also situated beside the tomb watt Dart refers to in West monasterium as a table a tablet a board with both the Latin inscription and an English translation beside it Weaver also sees the board in 1631 and he publishes the text of it in his volume ancient funeral monuments by the time Dart gets to it it is very worn and he relies on Weaver's transcript this table seems to have been put up in lieu of a proper Epitaph on the tomb and its primary role was to extol in very flowery language the virtues of king Edward the first and to praise his military achievements in arms a giant Fierce and fell it reads attempting famous facts most prudent did subdue The Proud by feet of Martial Acts and Flanders Fortune gave to him by lot to write good success in Wales he won the Scottish route with arms he did suppress the inscription also painted the picture of Edward as a Pious man he now doth lion timid here which furthered each good thing now naughty is but dust and Bones which was a worthy King the very Son of God whom ears to this King did love right dear have given to him Immortal Bliss for his good living here whilst lived this King by him all things were in most goodly plight floor delay hid great peace was kept and honesty had might I think the Scots and the Welsh might have had a thing or two to say about this particularly glowing assessment of king Edward the first it seems that measures were actually taken after Edward's Death to ensure that his body was not allowed to Simply fall into dust and Bones as this Epitaph declared the coffin of Edward was routinely opened in the Middle Ages and his body underwent continual treatment Dart records that during the reign of Richard II the great grandson of Edward Richard ordered that the treasurer and chamberlains of the household were to renovate the wax around the body of Edward as hath here to before being accustomed similar orders were given by Ed to the third and also by King Henry IV no other medieval King's bodies except those of saints were so treated presumably the wax that needed renovating was in fact The Seer cloth the waxed cloth that was used as the principal agent of embalming in the Middle Ages now there's been a long tradition often these days assumed to be apocryphal that Edward the first wanted his heart taken to the Holy Land and that his body was to be removed from the gray from time to time and taken with the English army into battle on every campaign against the Scots now the removal of the hearts of the Holy Land is quite believable such things were common practice but the carting around of the corpse is perhaps less so but perhaps this constant care for King Edward's corpse and the Simplicity of the kings tomb which is relatively easy to dismantle was in order to prepare for the Fulfillment of this wish if it ever needed to be enacted we will never know but what we do know is that Edward's body does not appear to leave the tomb once it is placed within it so that's all the contextual stuff now for the Gory bit in 1770 daines Barrington a lawyer and a fellow of the Society of antiquids began a campaign to persuade the dean and chapter of Westminster to allow the tomb of king Edward the first to be opened primarily to work out what was meant by all those references to the wax renovation of his corpse mentioned in medieval documentary sources four years after the initial request the dean and chapter agreed and King Edward the first Tomb was opened on the 2nd of May 1774 an account of the opening was given to the Society of antiques by Sir Joseph ayloff and William Blake The Poet painter was on hand to record the content his drawings of Edward's tomb the interior of Edward's tomb and his coffin Ono in the collection of the Society of antiques of London it was found when it was removed that the lid of the tomb was not fixed to the rest of the monument I was simply resting on the top presumably to allow for the frequent access required to the king's body for the renovations inside the tomb chest was found as Stone coffin laying on a a fine layer of rubble a coffin made of fine smooth pelvic marble that was six foot seven inches long it had a three inch thick lid and the outside of the coffin and the lid were covered in a layer of yellow varnish which it has been suggested may be the remains of gold leaf opening the coffin was an extraordinary moment for Barrington and Aloft the first thing they saw was that the corpse of the king had been wrapped up in a square mantle of strong coarse linen which had been waxed on the underside that the side that touched the king's body this cloth ran under the king's body and overlapped the front but didn't completely envelop him in this drawing by William Blake you can see that the top of the king's head with a crown upon it is visible sticking up above this cloth presumably this is the waxed cloth that was replaced so often now when this wax cloth was pulled back the king's body was revealed he had a cloth of red silk over his face which had more or less perished as we see in this drawing by Blake The King's corpse was discovered richly habited adorned with ensigns of royalty and almost entire his body had little decomposed but was simply dry Brown chocolate colored Aloft says and slightly shrunken his body was measured and he was found to be six foot two inches in height which no doubt gave rise to his name Longshanks his body except for his lower arms and his hands had been wrapped tightly in an inner covering of waxed cloth but over this Edward had been dressed in a lavish set of Royal robes over the sear cloth wrapping he was dressed in a Tunic of red silk the mask and over this was placed a Priestly stole this was crossed over the chest as a medieval priest would have worn it this stole worked in gold embroidery was decorated with what the Antichrist thought were glass or paste stones and with hundreds of tiny little beads like pearls over all of this the King was wearing a mantle of crimson satin clasped at the side with a brooch of guilt metal which was also studded with false stones then from the waist down a piece of cloth of gold covered the entirety of the king's lower body now I find this absolutely fascinating Edward is dressed in precisely the robes that British sovereigns wear when they are crowned today although the peasant garments of course are modern the lower layer that Edward is wearing the tunic is called eight supertunica over this our Sovereign still wear a Priestly stole indicating that The Sovereign has a quasi sacredotal role and then over that is one of Royal mantle now in the coffin there was also funeral regalia made of guilt copper on King Edward's head was a narrow band or circulator of Gilt copper decorated with trefoils in his right hand was a two and a half foot scepter topped with a cross and in his left hand a five foot rod surmounted with a dove decorated with green enamel still to this day uh sovereigns at their coronations are invested with the shortest scepter with a cross and a longer rod with a dove these are 17th century copies of objects from the medieval coronation regalia kept in Westminster Abbey the regalia associated with Saint Edward the Confessor and we're probably part of the confessor's Grave Goods Edward the first seems to have been the first English king to be invested with the confesses regalia after his father Henry III had retrieved them all from the confessor's coffin and it seems likely that Edward's Mortuary scepter and Rod replicate The Originals and Edwards regalia and therefore give us a sense of their form King Edward the first wrapped and re-wrapped every few years was buried in this rather austere tomb chest in the extraordinary Royal finery he would have worn at his coronation nothing was removed from his coffin in 1774 and he still rests within his tomb so adorned thanks very much for watching if you like what you see on this channel Please Subscribe and share you can help support my Channel at PayPal and the website buy me a coffee details are below in the description box and links are on the home page

Channel: Allan Barton - The Antiquary

Views: 1,400,318

Keywords: edwardIII, medievalking, medievalroyal, royal history, westminster abbey, royal vault, coronation, royal tomb, funeral history

Id: jjFzHXj_U3k

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022