WHAT HAPPENED TO KATHERINE HOWARD’S BODY? Missing royal remains. Six wives documentary. Tudors

she was executed at the Tower of London on the orders of her husband in February 1542 and supposedly buried in the nearby Chapel of Saint Peter at vincula but when the victorians went digging in the 1870s the boons of Queen Catherine Howard were nowhere to be found so where on Earth did she go and is there any chance we might ever be able to find these missing Royal remains this is history calling where I bring you new videos every week on all aspects of the past and today we're going to look at The Disappearance of Catherine Howard and why the traditional explanation for her Vanishing act doesn't hold water [Music] thank you [Music] Catherine Howard was Henry VIII's Fifth and youngest Queen most likely born between 1521 and the Autumn of 1523 she was there for between 16 and 19 when she married Henry in July 1540 and between 18 and 21 when he had her executed on the morning of the 13th of February 1542. the reason for her death was the king's anger upon finding out about her pre-marital and possible post-marital relations with several men called Henry Mannix Francis Derham and Thomas Culpepper she wasn't the only one to suffer for her supposed transgressions Culpepper and darum had already been executed on the 10th of December and on the same day that Catherine was killed so too was her lady in wedding Gian Berlin Dowager vikantis Rochford she was the Widow of Catherine's cousin George Berlin and therefore sister-in-law to Catherine's other cousin and Berlin and had been accused of helping the young Queen in her extramarital Liaisons with Culpepper we don't have any pictures of Jim Berlin however if you'd like to hear me dismantle the theory that this Hans haul been drawing depicts her and tell you who it actually shows I'll leave the relevant video linked on screen and below for you I already have a video which looks at Catherine and gian's executions in great detail so make sure you check that out after this one as I'm just going to be giving a quick overview of the young Queen's demise today so that we can move on to the story of her remains a topic I've been wanting to take a proper look at for ages and today is finally the day we only have one eyewitness account of her execution written by a man named otwell Johnson in a letter to his brother John two days after the event it confirms that the women were killed quote within the tower but gives no details as to their burial Spanish Ambassador used to shop Hui was not present at their deaths but he was generally well informed on such matters and confirms the location was on the tower green explicitly stating that they were killed on the same spot as Ann Berlin which would be here in between the modern day Jewel house and the White Tower he also tells us that Catherine was killed first and that they died by the ax the French Ambassador Charles de Marillac also not actually present said the same but what of the burial on this shapui and Marillac are silent the Spaniard says that after death Catherine's body quote had been covered with a black cloak the ladies of her Suite took it up and put it on one side but that's all we get from him fortunately we do have another source which is more forthcoming this is the chronicle of the gray fairs of London written by an unnamed member of an English religious order he says that the 13th day of February was the Queen Catherine and Lady Rochford beheaded within the tower and there buried there is also another anonymous source informally called the Spanish Chronicle because it was originally written in Spanish though its full title is actually the chronicle of King Henry VIII of England and it was translated and published by Martin Hume in 1889 it says of Catherine's remains that she was carried to the Tower Church and buried near Queen Anne which can only mean the chapel of Saint Peter adventular I can't emphasize enough though what a noisy Source this is it is absolutely full of errors and cannot be trusted at all it gives a completely fabricated and scandalous final speech to Catherine that none of the Contemporary sources bear out says that Culpepper who had been dead for months was killed after her and insinuates that she died upright on her knees like her cousin Anne rather than with her head on the Block in fact we know that Catherine definitely did die on a block because she famously had it brought to her the night before to practice laying her head on it the Spanish Chronicle should not be relied upon for any information about her death its writer likely just made an educated guess based on what had happened to Anne and got lucky the reason we can be confident that the women never left the tower is because of the gray Friar's Chronicle neither Chronicle of the gray Friars of London doesn't specifically say the women were interred in the chapel of Saint Peter adventular never mind right next to Anne but equally there is no record of Catherine or Jin being buried anywhere else furthermore it would have made sense to follow the precedent set in 1536 when Anne and George were killed and again in 1541 when Henry had his mother's cousin Margaret Paul Countess of Salisbury executed by placing his fifth wife and Lady Rochford in front of the altar in the chapel where all the other corpses had been put this is especially true when we consider that this President continued to be followed for high-profile execution victims for centuries to come the likes of the Duke of Northumberland and his daughter-in-law lady Jian gray who he tried to put on the throne in place of Mary the first are also buried in this location while the space under the communion table was used in 1685 for Charles II's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth who like Northumberland had tried to forcibly change the succession in his case he'd attempted to take the throne from his uncle James II as we'll see in a minute this location was also used for other not forgotten individuals as well we're not only going to leave the 16th century and move forwards to the late 19th the year is 1876 and the chapel of Saint Peter adventular is in serious need of restoration work one person involved in fixing the problems is doing Courtney Bell secretary to Queen Victoria's pretty purse he will later write a book about the work done to the chapel entitled notices of the historic persons buried in the chapel of Saint Peter adventular in the Tower of London in it he records that the floor was uneven and unstable in some places no doubt thanks to the number of times it had been dug up for use as an indoor Cemetery there were sanitary issues too presumably an allusion to the very shallow nature of some of the burials although it had been hoped that notice internments would be necessary and that new paving stones could simply be laid it soon became clear that quote this was practically impossible as in two places the pavement had sunk and showed signs of considerable hollowness beneath it it was therefore decided that the pavement must be removed in order that this sinking might be rectified but that is little disturbance of the grind as possible should take place the level of disturbance was such though that some of the remains buried would have to be lifted out for a time then replaced after the work was complete one area in which this needed to be done was around the altar where Catherine and so many others were assumed to be buried that November a team of men under the auspices of the office of works and including Major General Charles Maitland the lieutenant of the Tower and Colonel George Millman the measure of the tower therefore got to work disentering some of the most famous names in English History they had this map of the famous burials and only the famous burials which bale says they had constructed from various historic sources and they found several of the people they were looking for in exactly the correct locations most notably and Lynn if you see my video all about this disintermined you can hear about the condition of her remains all I'll say here is that she had evidently been dug up before as she was found above the remains of the 1750 burial of a woman called Hannah Beresford and her bones were in a pile not laid out in anatomical order her skull was there but a considerable number of her other remains were missing what we're interested in today though isn't so much what Belle and the others find as what they didn't find but there was no sign of Catherine the burial map suggested that Henry's youngest Queen should have been only slightly to the right of the communion table with the Duke of Northumberland executed in 1553 to her left and Jean Berlin and Lady Salisbury to her right this area was not dog on the same day that Anne's remains were found but rather a couple of days later and when they got there they went down just two feet before they discovered a male skeleton six feet tall and aged about 50. this was accepted as being Northumberland who was in his late 40s nearby to the southeast the remains of two females were found close to one another but in separate piles and with many bones missing Bell recorded that these groups had been much Disturbed and moved towards the east of their original resting places in order to make room for two unknown persons who had been buried close to the step of the chancel probably about 100 years ago meaning the late 1700s he offers no explanation as to why he thought those burials were about a century old so take it with a pinch of salt one of these females was between 30 and 40 years of age and had quote rather delicate proportions she was supposed to be Gian Berlin the other was tall much older and supposed to be the kindness of Salisbury who was 67 when she died Bell specifically said no remains which could be identified as those of Queen Catherine Howard were fined So what had happened where was the missing queen before I talk you through some theories as to what could have happened just a quick reminder to tap those like And subscribe buttons if you haven't already and if you click the Bell icon you have the option to be notified every time I upload a video I sometimes have people tell me that they think they have all notifications switched on then realize they don't when they don't get an alert about a video so it might not hurt to just double check your notification status both for my channel and for others you follow too you can also find me over on Instagram where I post at least once a week as well as on patreon where I provide bonus material including many podcasts and early access to ad-free videos thank you to everyone who already supports me on that platform as well as those of you who make one-off donations to the channel using the thanks button underneath videos your kindness and generosity Are Much appreciated the first and I think most widely disseminated Theory comes from Belle himself who postulated that quote lime has been most extensively used in these internments and as Catherine Howard was only 20 years old when she was beheaded at which age the Bones have not become hard and Consolidated it is very possible that even when judge Jeffries who was an Infamous judge during the reign of James II and who died in custody at the tower in 1689 was interred in the chancel her remains had already become dust elsewhere in his book he expanded on this Theory rating the bones at the age at which she was executed are softer in texture and a great portion of them are more a cartilaginous than when growth is completed and the framework of the body Consolidated it so that they would disintegrate and disappear much more rapidly than had she been fully formed and the whole process of ossification being completed the large admixture of lime with Earth which was found in the grave would accelerate this process there is nothing therefore inconsistent with the fact of her having been buried there in the absence of any portion of hermians after a lapse of more than three centuries this Theory sounds good at first but it has a massive problem and one which wasn't understood in the 1870s lime doesn't speed up the decay of a human body it retards it according to the authors of the 2015 article in the Journal of archaeological science which looked at lime burials between the 10th and 18th centuries quote whilst the ancient Egyptians used Lyme for desiccation purposes in the Greek and Roman period confusion occurred about the effects of lime on decomposing bodies the persistent misconception that Lyme accelerates Decay and consumes away bodies was first described by Pliny the Elder in the 1st Century A.D centuries later this common fallacy was perpetuated by Poets such as Oscar Wilde who wrote that lime eats flesh and Boone away in his poem The Ballad of reading Jill a misunderstanding that remains even today these same authors go on to say that Lyme retards the rate of decomposition if present in a burial environment but does not stop it since lime is only applied to the outside of a body putrefactive Decay continues From the Inside by microorganisms derived mainly from the body itself bacterial populations on the exterior of the carcass are reduced by the lime but not eliminated a superficial desiccation takes place but the surface area to volume ratio is too large to desiccate a full body with internal organs and bacterial Community the end result is skeletonization so the lime Belle and His companion saw might have helped dull the smell of decomposition but it didn't eat away Catherine's bones in fact it should have preserved her Theory too is that she had completely disintegrated due to Natural decomposition this makes little sense either though whilst younger than the others buried with her Catherine was still an adult why should she turn to dust when the bones of others who have been buried either on the same day as her or less than a year earlier in the case of Lily Salisbury were fined intact mere inches from where she should have been even Anne was found and her remains had a six-year head start on Catherine's Theory three is that her remains are still there or were in the 1870s at least but are now hopelessly mixed in with others as there are so many people just some of whom you see here buried in what is really a very tight location if you ever go to the tar and see this room in the chapel for yourself you'll understand what I mean it's not a big area and it's mind-boggling to think of how many people are buried in it the Mac Bell provided in his book showed only the best known of the graves but we know from his written descriptions of the excavations that plenty of others are under the floor in this part of the chapel too there's Hannah Beresford who was put in so close to Anne Berlin that Anne's remains were Disturbed in the process judge Jeffries though his remains were later moved and the two unknown individuals close to contest Margaret and Gian Berlin who's intermined under the chancel steps was the cause of Margaret and Jane's burials being disturbed perhaps Catherine is dispersed in amongst the rest it's certainly an idea but I'm not sure I believe it although Bale recorded muddled remains like this elsewhere in the church under the altar where the most famous are buried the graves seem to have been kept quite distinct despite the earlier disinterminants suggesting a level of respect for those buried there apart from Catherine Howard and George Berlin all the bones expected to be found were located and in the places where it was anticipated they were buried and they all matched the physical parameters of those people to whom they were supposed to belong this doesn't suggest that a lot of intermixing was allowed to happen Theory number four is that Catherine was fined and that the bone supposed to be Jean Valens were actually hers the argument for this would be that it would be more natural to put the former Queen and member of the powerful Howard family next to the altar in a place of honor within the church rather than a mere Dowager vikantis of course that would mean that Gian is missing but perhaps she was buried elsewhere in the chapel or somewhere else entirely Belle and his companions considered this but quickly discounted the idea for he said a closer examination showed that the age and size of the bones Catherine Howard is said to have been very small in stature would not support that supposition and these are not believed to be the remains of Lily Rochford no I think this is a bit of a stretch as we don't actually know the heights of Jin Berlin and Catherine however even though Catherine might have been a little over 20 the estimated age and location of the bones is enough for me to be as confident as possible without the advantage of DNA testing that this woman was Gian Berlin though this assumption does rest on the idea that the age of the bones was accurately determined and it might not have been still it would seem natural to bury Jean near her husband and sensible to you as burying her elsewhere would have entailed opening up two graves instead of just one greatly adding to the workload of those charged with laying these two women to rest we might also argue that Catherine was one of the extra two burials that Bell Rudolph as being from the late 18th century but without knowing more about why he discounted these it's impossible to steer this with any confidence were they meals for instance or did they have grave Goods with them that indicated a much lighter burial I just don't know Theory five is that it is Catherine and not Gian who's buried elsewhere in the chapel why put Jin near The Altar and not Catherine though and again in order to do so one would have to open up two graves and there was very little reason to do that although the space near the communion table is stuffed full of bodies nowadays that wasn't the case in 1542 at that time only three people and George and Margaret were muldering away under the floor in that spot there was plenty of room for both women as is proven by the fact that so many others were later buried there too even before Boone started being moved around to make way for additional internments Theory 6 is that Catherine is buried exactly where we think she is and the excavations simply didn't come across her remains in other words she lay just outside the area dug up and surveyed or possibly so deep that she wasn't located although given her shallow lady Salisbury and Rochford lay that seems unlikely she could well have been missed though George Berlin's bones weren't found either but in that case Belle felt they might be just outside the area examined Theory 7 is that she was never buried in the chapel at all no contemporary source gives it as her specific burial place we're not trusting the Spanish Chronicle remember and the gray Friars chronicler whoever he was just said the two women were buried within the tar's walls so could Catherine have been buried elsewhere in the complex it seems unlikely to be honest when there was already an established pattern of burying prominent execution victims in the chapel why use another location and besides the bones of Gian Berlin do seem to be in the expected place I think two that had one or other of them being interred elsewhere it would have raised a comment specifically because a church burial in the chapel would have been the expectation plus as I've already mentioned if Catherine is elsewhere it would have been a lot of extra work for the gravediggers and it would have meant another location within the tower was stinking with the smell of a decomposing body rather than just the chapel Catherine's ladies and wedding may have had the job of moving her corpse too and it would have been a lot to ask to have them carry her much further away than the church finally though it's hardly conclusive evidence tradition has never Associated her burial with any other location even despite the fact that her remains can't be found and her name appears on the later Memorial plaque inside the chapel though funnily enough jeans doesn't but I think that might have been a genuine oversight Catherine has even been given an octagonal grave marker in the floor near the altar just as the other famous people buried there have too the eighth and final Theory I'm going to offer you is that Catherine was buried where Belle and his companions expected to find her but sometime in the 334 years between her death and their excavations her bones were disinterred and taken away perhaps this was to put her somewhere else in the chapel to make room for other burials like the two unnamed individuals who lie so close to Gin and Margaret or perhaps she was the victim of gray of robbers who took her for their own sick reasons certainly stealing bits of dead people especially famous dead people was a very common practice in centuries gone by as I've proven time and time again with my other videos looking at the post-mortem adventures of the likes of Catherine Parr and Charles the first and I've even come to suspect that it's the reason amberlyn's remains were not completely extant in 1876. it's one thing to take a vertebra a tooth or a finger bone though and quite another to disinter and remove an entire skeleton we would have to ask why would anyone do this and if they did want to why Catherine and Catherine alone if the grave was opened up to put another person in and it was discovered there was no room for them why not just stop and open up a fresh grave for that other individual Why move the current occupants if grave robbing was the motive why not take an arguably the more famous of the two or any of the other well-known names in the vicinity a complete disintermined and removal seems unlikely to me and it would have been difficult to do with no one noticing or passing comment on it so what do you think happened well in my experience the simplest explanation is usually the correct one and so if I was going to bed on it I would say that Catherine's still in the chapel because I think that's the likeliest place for her to have been buried and just located in a slightly different position to what was expected leading her grave to be missed during the Victorian renovations as for whether we could ever find her again theoretically yes if a team of professional archaeologists went and tore the floor of the chapel apart and were able to run DNA on all the bones find until they get a female from the correct time period who is a first cousin of Anberlin but let's be realistic that's never going to happen the chapel is a royal peculiar meaning the Monarch has to give permission for the remains held within it to be interfered with a new monarch is going to sign off on something so invasive perhaps if the floor needs further renovation work in the exact area where Catherine is lying we might stumble across her by accident but I can't see it happening in any other way I'm interested to hear what you think about this little tutor mystery though what do you believe has happened to the remains of Catherine Howard do you buy into any of the theories I've come up with for you or do you have another one of your own let me know in the comments below and if you want to hear more about the Tutors or delve into some more corpse stories try one of these options next I'll be back next time with a new video and until then keep learning

Channel: History Calling

Views: 98,770

Keywords: Katherine Howard’s body, execution of Katherine Howard, burial of Katherine Howard, what happened to Katherine Howard, who is buried at the tower of London, missing royal remains, the death of katherine howard, the disappearing queen, what happened to katherine howard's body, tudor mystery, Catherine Howard, Kathryn Howard, History Calling

Id: RF1GYu2njC8

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2023