Where is the Body of Robert the Bruce Buried? The surprising story of the Scottish hero's corpse.

foreign it seems only fair given I have recently produced a video on the opening of the tomb of king Edward the first of England but I do a second video on the burial of Edward's great rival Robert the Bruce King Robert the first of Scotland but before I get started with that I want to address an interesting issue that has filled the comments box of the Edward the first Tomb video I've had lots of people Express how appalled and disgusted they are that people open the tombs of the Dead thank you for your comments I appreciate you taking the time to make them but what you're expressing is very much a modern sentiment one that first really arises in the late 18th century in Western countries and only really becomes common in the 19th century in a later video I will describe why as a historian I'm interested in exploring with you people's attitudes from the past and this sentiment that the Dad should be left to rest in peace for eternity in their tombs is self-evidently not one that either Edward the first or Robert the Bruce or any other medieval person would have shared firstly the point should be made that the constant opening of the Tomb and the redressing of Edward the first corpse in its wrappings could only have taken place as a consequence of his own instructions secondly though the opening of a tomb was something that would have little bothered medieval people as its little bothers people today in many parts of the world to Medieval people death was rather more immediate than it is in the western world today people died at homes bodies were buried in churches and churchyards churchyards were reused over and over again exhumation and re-burial on consecrated ground was a fairly routine procedure and even monuments where in many cases reused when the memory of those commemorated had fallen away in some cases those monuments were to people who are still fresh in the memory tombs were also routinely moved when Henry III Edward the first father died in 1272 he was originally buried in the old grave of Edward the Confessor and he was moved by Edward the first himself 19 years later to the tomb he currently occupies in The Next Century the tomb of William de valence Le Pembroke Henry III's half-brother was removed from the chapelist and head with the Confessor to make way for the new Tomb of King Richard II and Queen Anne of Bohemia Edward the first and Robert the first would have been somewhat baffled with the idea that they are any dead person should be left eternally to rest in peace in their first Tomb although they would have expected their mortal remains to be reinterred on sacred consecrated ground so I haven't got that out of the way let's get to the matter of hand in the body of King Robert the first who for ease of reference in this video I'm going to call the Bruce before his death the Boost did make provision for the health of his soul and also for the depositing of his mortal remains and those who struggled with Edward's tomb opening might struggle to understand his rather bold instructions for Bruce requested something that was becoming rather fashionable for the social Elite in the 14th century he apparently requested that his body was opened up after death and the different parts of his Anatomy were then to be buried in different locations this video is all about that and also about the evidence we have of his tomb in burial now the boots died on the 7th of June 1329 in his bed at his manner of cardrosnid and Barton on the banks of the river Clyde the cause of his death at the age of 54 has been the question of some speculation a number of foreign chroniclers had suggested that he died of leprosy but none of the Contemporary accounts of his death from Scottish sources suggests that the fact that on his deathbed he continued to hold audiences with his subjects might suggest otherwise too now the manner of cardross where he died is a place that Bruce had constructed to be his retirement home in effect there's no Royal connection to the place before and he'd exchanged lands with other Nobles to obtain it it appears to have been a fortified Manor House rather than a castle a place of comfort luxury and pleasure rather than of Defense with the rivals in the great cause the Scottish succession mostly out of the way in England under the less war like Edward II generally behaving itself Bruce was clearly sure in his older age of the security of his position and also of the security of his kingdom which allowed him this little bit of freedom in his dotage now after his death Bruce was embalmed in the usual late medieval fashion his entrails were removed and his body was clapped in lead like English kings ready for the long journey to his burial place and tradition says that his viscera his entrails were buried in the Parish Church of card Ross dedicated to since surf which was about a mile or so down the road from his manner although the earliest reference we have to this is from the 17th century now this is where things get interesting according to the French chronicler fuasart who is writing some 40 years or so after the fact on his deathbed the Bruce called Fitz and James Douglas the famous black Douglas and he gave him these instructions and I quote I will that as soon as I shall be dead you take my heart from my body and have it embalmed you will also take as much money from my treasury as will appear to you sufficient to perform your journey as well as for All Those whom you may choose to take with you in your train you will then deposit your charge my heart at the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord where he was buried since my body cannot go there you will not be sparing of expense and provide yourself with such company and such things as may be suitable to your rank and wherever you pass you will let it be known that you bear the heart of King Robert of Scotland which you are carrying Beyond the Seas by his command since his body cannot go thither so the Bruce directed Douglas to take his heart and bury it in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem the place where the crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection took place the very heart of Christendom now in John Barber's epic poem The Bruce written within a generation of Bruce's death and by someone who was a clerk in the Scottish Royal household the story is a little different Barber recorded all the Scottish enables were assembled uh at Bruce's deathbed honor given the instruction by him that his heart is to be sent to battle to war Sir James Douglas then takes the heart of Bruce in a silver casket on campaign to Spain and he joins the army of Alfonso the 11th of Castile against the Muslims of Granada says that Douglas died in that campaign and modern historians think that he died at the Battle of Tabor in August of 1330. and that Douglas's bones were then brought back to Scotland along with Bruce's heart and that the heart was then buried beneath the high altar of Melrose Abbey more on that later so what happened to the rest of Bruce's Body well he was taken for burial 60 miles away at the Benedictine Abbey of dunfermline this was the primary Royal mausoleum in Scotland in this period The Abbey had been founded by Bruce's ancestor David the first in the early 12th century on the site of an earlier Monastery where Saint Margaret of Scotland and her husband Malcolm III Malcolm Canmore had also been buried as befitted the great king Bruce was buried in a tomb that was seemingly smack in the center of the Abbey choir the holiest part of the Abbey complex being buried in dunfermline and in such a prominent position and the choir was not a neutral act politically Bruce the Victor in the succession crisis called the great cause that had erupted after the death of Alexander III was associating himself and his dynasty that followed with the previous Dynasty to whom he was distantly related and was really making the point by choosing this burial place that his rule in life was one of seamless continuity with the reign of Alexander III who was also buried in the Abbey choir the medieval choir of Dunn firmlin Abby was a victim of the Scottish Reformation in the 1560s it had been unroofed in 1563 and the many monuments within it including that of Bruce perished as part of an iconoclastic Protestant Purge of the building by 1672 the walls of the choir had fallen down and with all the monuments gone the precise burial place of Bruce and the other Scottish sovereigns was lost and that brings us on to the juicy bit of the video in 1818 a decision was made to build a brand new Parish Kirk in dunfermline on the site of the medieval Abbey choir and lots of really interesting things were found archaeologically in the process and the ground plan of the medieval choir was traced in mid-February of 1818 the workmen discovered a burial Vault that was capped with stone directly in the center of the choir and in front of the place where the medieval High altar of the Abbey would have been the stones covering the vault at iron rings set into them and by means of these Rings the stones were lifted there is an account of the opening of The Vault written in 1821 by Henry Jardine who was a solicitor and an amateur antiquarian and was also a civil servant he was the king's remembrancer a role in which he was the guardian of the honors of Scotland the Scottish crown jewels as well as various other roles he was present at the opening in a professional capacity when the Vault was opened and entered there was found to be but one coffin within it there was a lead anthropoidal shell tightly hugging the form of a corpse according to Jardine the lead appeared quite entire except at the feet and at one of the knees where it was decayed through which the bones of the skeleton appeared and over the head the lead was formed into the shape of a rude crown he had found the coffin of a king this lead shell had clearly been set within a wooden case with iron handles and the handles remained although the case had mostly Fallen away to dust over the top of the lead shell had originally been evidently placed a a Paul of cloth of gold bits of which also remained there is a fragment of that pull now in the national museum of Scotland and although decayed you can still see the gold thread woven through the linen cloth other portions of this survive elsewhere after the initial inspection The Vault was sealed up again and secured until the walls of the new church were complete then on the 5th of November 1819 at the behest of the Barons of the exchequer it was opened again and a proper scientific examination of the remains took place Jardine was accompanied by Dr Gregory his Majesty's first physician for Scotland and a Dr Monroe the professor of anatomy at the University of Edinburgh and by other gentlemen of science The Remains were removed from the Vault on a board and were thoroughly examined the opportunity was taken to take a plaster cast of the school and there are numerous copies of this plaster cast in existence including one in the Royal collection the skeleton was found to be in good condition and they estimated that the man was tall that he was between five foot eleven and six foot one of the most extraordinary features of the skeleton was that the sternum had been sawn down the middle after death presumably to remove the heart by the time the examination was being made a large crowd had gathered at the Abbey and the decision was made to display the skeleton briefly to the public on the board on top of a new lead coffin now Jardine says that this public viewing was very orderly and went without a hitch but there is other evidence that it was less so and that some of the public pilfered bits of the skeleton bits of the skeleton including this bone from the foot and the femur in its ball joint did not return to the Vault these have been in the collection of the Dumfries and Galloway Museum service since 1996 having been donated to the museum by a descendant to the person who stole them in 1821. although it's appalling to steal body parts you can understand people wanting relics of this the most powerful and important figure in the medieval history of the Scottish Nation after this public viewing the skeleton was placed back into a new lead coffin and 1500 pounds of molten pitch were poured over them sealing them in the coffin forever and the Vault has not been open since the location of this vault is now under the pulpit of the Kirk and over the top of it is has been placed a modern Monumental brass commemorating Robert the Bruce and with an idealized portrait of him now a number of people on the edge with the first video mentioned in the comments box that they had read that pictures poured into the tomb of Edward in 1774 after it was opened to my knowledge there is no evidence that this ever happened quite the country in fact and I think there's been a bit of a mix-up between Edward's tomb and these remains at Don firmland now the big question is is the skeleton in the vault and feminine Abbey Robert the Bruce well we can never know for certain and opinions among Scholars have ranged rather widely on the matter when the body was first discovered those who found it were unequivocal that this was the body of Bruce the certainty being somewhat compromised by the appearance at the time of the vault's opening of a clearly faked lead deposit in plaque during the 20th century primarily due to this counterfeiting others have been less certain and there has been a suggestion that the body is in fact that of David the first but recent scholarship has returned to the conclusion that this is indeed the body of Bruce the mode of the burial which is something that the recent scholarship doesn't really dwell on it's in my mind a good indication to the identity of the deceased as it's not a type of burial that was usual before the second quarter of the 14th century prior to that it was normal practice to bury High status people in stone coffins that was set directly into the Earth often with the lid of the coffin flush with the floor or with a tomb chest built directly over it wrapping bodies in tight fitting lead anthropoidal shells in constructed Burial Vaults only seems to begin to come into fashion in the early 14th century when across Europe prolonged funerals ceremonial becomes the norm this burial therefore follows the latest funery practices of the 14th century and unless David the first was exhumed and lavishly reburied in a lead shell designed to slow decomposition it can't really be him I think the cutting through of the skeleton's sternum is also fairly indicative although evisceration of a corpse has common practice throughout the Middle Ages the removal of the heart which as we have seen with Bruce's last request was but rarely undertaken before this period it is difficult therefore to see who else this skeleton could be but Robert the Bruce around the vault in demolition debris fragments of alabaster and black marble were also found there are 19 such Alabaster fragments and they are divided up among the national museum of Scotland Abbotsford house the huntarian museum and dunfermline Museum and there were further black marble fragments found in the early 19th century which have now disappeared now we know that during his lifetime Bruce commissioned a marble Monument for himself from Paris it was to be modeled after the tombs of French Kings and was erected before his death there's nothing unusual in this many monuments were erected during the lifetime of the deceased in medieval Europe these bits of marble and alabaster which are now in these various collections May well be the remains of such a monument many recent historians and archaeologists are convinced by this and I think I'm more or less on side with them and recently an attempt has been made to use these tiny fragments all of which are architectural to come up with a reconstruction of what this Monumental Bruce might have looked like I think a lot of artistic licenses used in this reconstruction and the assumption is that the tomb was like those of French and English kings in the period topped with a recumbent Effigy Of The deceased and with a tomb chest decorated with figures uh uh morning figures called weepers in this reconstruction they are shown as figures of Kings I think this is a fairly convincing reconstruction and what a monument this would have been dominating the interior of the Abbey choir now to finish let's return to the fate of Bruce's heart now we know that when the Black Douglas died in battle in Spain that the heart of Bruce was brought back to Scotland with his bones and was then buried beneath the high altar of Melrose Abby a cistercian royal Abbey that had been founded by David the first there was no more prestigious spot than to be buried under the high altar close to where the mass was celebrated of course in Catholic Doctrine the sacrifice of the mass is a repetition of Christ suffering on the cross the altar therefore represents Golgotha and Christ's tomb now remember how one tradition has it that Bruce wanted his heart buried at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem the location of both Golgotha and Christ's tomb but burial under an altar where the mass was celebrated should be understood as a substitute for burial in Jerusalem in 1921 the Scottish office of Works undertook an excavation of the Chapter House of Mel Ray's Abbey and during the course of that work they found a heart burial the spariel took the form of a lead cone it wasn't opened but was re-buried at the end of the excavation as it was found in 1996 a further excavation resulted in the rediscovery of this heart burial and this cone-like casket was opened to reveal a shriveled heart within now even though the location of Bruce's heart burial was well known it was immediately assumed for some reason that this heart found in part of the domestic buildings The Abbey away from the church was Bruce's heart on the basis that his was the only known heart burial in the abbey and for some bizarre reason it was decided in 1996 to bury the heart in the middle of the site of the chapter house and give it a fancy marker as though it were Bruce's heart this is all nonsense of course as heart burials became increasingly common in the Middle Ages and it is certain that other notable people following Bruce's own lead would have had their hearts buried in Melrose too even if they're not recorded my conclusion is this that Robert Bruce's Body is the skeleton found in that vault in the 19th century in the center of the choir of dunfermline Abbey and that he still lies at rest where he was laid in 1329 and that his heart is still under the sight of the high altar in the bear and ruined choir of Melrose thanks very much for watching if you enjoy my YouTube Channel please do take the time to like or to share or subscribe and if you press the Bell button 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Channel: Allan Barton - The Antiquary

Views: 105,701

Keywords: Robert the Bruce, Robert I Scotland, Scottish Independence, The Great Cause, Funeral practices, Royal funerals, royal burial, Scottish history, medieval history, medieval kings, medieval monarchs, Edward I, medieval death, funerals, coffins, burial vaults, lead coffin, heart burial, dismemberment, entrails

Id: WM-bVDCcwQQ

Length: 24min 34sec (1474 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 27 2022