Who is Buried in the Royal Vault?

[Music] foreign who is buried in the Royal vaults at St George's Chapel Windsor Castle [Music] on September 19 2022 millions of people worldwide watched as the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II was lowered into the Royal vault at St George's Chapel Windsor Castle the Monarch who had reigned for 70 years thus became part of history and she is now in astonishing historic company she joined 11 monarchs eight consorts and over 30 other members of the royal family dating back as far as the 1400s who are also interred below St George's Chapel in the Royal Vault and in other Crypts around the ancient building let's explore the numerous Burial Vaults of Windsor dig up the past and find out who else is spending eternity with the queen Windsor Castle is the longest occupied Palace in Europe and has been home to the English royal family for nearly a thousand years it was one of several defensive wooden castles erected by William the Conqueror around London in the decade after his 1066 Invasion subsequent Generations replaced wood with stone and built Windsor into a luxurious Royal residence which remained Queen Elizabeth's favorite home even in the 20th century King Edward III built the chapel in the mid-1300s and dedicated it to Saint George the patron saint of England he established the Cheval recorder of the Garter and new knighthoods are still bestowed in Saint George's Chapel to this day the chapel has played host to dozens of royal family baptisms and weddings including the recent nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the Middle Ages the coffins of the wealthy were nearly always placed in vaults below Church floors this was Far preferable to the cold dirt and damp of being buried in a churchyard like a commoner English kings were often buried in Westminster Abbey in London but during the wars of the Roses in the 1400s Windsor received its first Royal remains the earliest bodies were laid to rest in a series of small vaults under the floor of the choir the section of the church containing the altar where members of the royal family clergy and the choir of singers sit during Services the oldest body in the chapel belongs to King Henry VI he suffered mental illness and his inability to rule opened the door for his cousin Edward IV to capture him and Seize the Throne Henry was locked up in the Tower of London and it wasn't long before the new king carried out the corpse of the old the official story was that Henry died of melancholy but there were rampant rumors that he had been slain while kneeling to pray he was originally buried at churchy Abbey but soon Miracles began being attributed to his remains and the royal family exhumed and reinterred him at St George's Chapel Windsor Henry's corpse was exhumed in 1910 when the South choir Isle was renovated for the tomb of Edward VII blood was discovered in his hair confirming that he had indeed died of violent death though his body is the oldest in the chapel it was not the first to be buried there that honor goes to King Edward IV's third son George Duke of Bedford who died of Bubonic plague in 1479 at the age of two the second burial was the King's Daughter Mary who would have wed Frederick the first and become queen of Denmark had she not died of illness at 14. both were placed under the north choir aisle a walkway just behind the wooden seating in 1483 King Edward IV died of an unknown illness at the age of 40. Windsor had been his favorite castle and he spent lavishly on Renovations so it was fitting that he was laid to rest there with his two children the king's sudden death left his 12-year-old son now King Edward vulnerable on the throne his mother Queen Elizabeth Woodville tried to protect him but his father's loyal Knight Sir William Hastings had never liked her and urged the king's uncle Richard to hasten to London and claim the Regency Hastings trust was Gravely misplaced when Richard arrived he kidnapped the king and his younger brother locked them up in the Tower of London and had himself proclaimed King Richard III he ordered Sir William Hastings be headed on false charges of treason and he was buried near his old friend Edward IV the princes and the tower were never seen again they were most likely murdered on Richard's orders the whereabouts of their remains have long been a mystery in 1674 workmen in the Tower of London discovered the skeletons of two children buried under a stairwell the bones were placed in an urn in Westminster Abbey and inscribed as Edward V and Richard of York however in 1789 workmen carrying out repairs at St George's Chapel accidentally broke into the Vault of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville there they discovered the coffins of two unidentified children could these be the remains of the Lost princes buried with their parents for all of these years the royal family has yet to approve DNA investigation of any of the bones in question so the mystery remains King Edward IV's older sister Anne and her husband Thomas were buried under the Rutland Chantry in 1491. their daughter Anne and son-in-law George were later interred there in a grand Alabaster tomb the next Crypt was added for Henry VIII's wife Jane Seymour the only one of his six spouses who managed to give him a son she died of childbed fever days after the delivery and was buried in 1537. Henry intended this to be a temporary resting place he planned to have her moved to lie beside him in his own Grand tomb Henry had an artist create elaborate plans which Incorporated a life-sized marble sculpture of himself on Horseback surrounded by gilded angels and Saints but Henry was superstitious about his own immortality and was afraid to have Craftsmen Begin work on his tomb while he was alive when death finally caught up with him in 1547 age 55 he was temporarily placed in the vault next to Jane he left instructions in his will that his son Edward VI should would pay for the grand Monument the fitting his greatness but Edward was a fervent Protestant and frowned on his father's ostentatious popish tomb design he put off construction when he died at 15 he passed the project off to his sisters Mary the first and Elizabeth the first but they too neglected to spend gobs of money on Henry's massive tomb perhaps because of how horrendously he had treated their mothers Mary and Elizabeth were buried in an extravagant Tomb at Westminster Abbey but their father remained forgotten under the floor of the choir at St George's Chapel in the mid 1600s King Charles the first was embroiled in civil war with Parliament the king lost the war and his head in 1649 his enemies conducted his body to Saint George's Chapel in a simple coffin draped in black he was placed in an available space in the Vault of Henry VII without Fanfare one other small coffin was placed in the vault in 1698 before it was sealed off that of a stillborn son of Queen Anne she had 17 pregnancies and lost all of her children to miscarriage stillbirth or child mortality most of her babies were buried in the steward vault in Westminster Abbey where she herself would eventually be laid to rest but this tiny coffin of her 16th Lost Child was placed at St George's in 1805 a vault was built in the choir near The Sovereign stall for the remains of King George III's younger brother Prince William Duke of Gloucester the Gloucester Vault also holds the remains of his wife princess Maria their daughter Princess Sofia and their son Prince William Duke of Gloucester and his wife Princess Mary who was also the 11th and last surviving child of King George III the steward and early Georgian monarchs were buried in small cramped vaults under Westminster Abbey but by 1810 they were full King George III and his wife Queen Charlotte needed a new resting place for themselves and for their large family so they ordered the construction of the royal Vault Workman excavated 20 feet below the Altar and a structure behind the chapel then known as the tomb chamber in this space was built a cavernous Crypt 70 feet long and 28 feet wide with arched Gothic ceilings on either side are rows of stone shelves with space for 64 Coffins on the far end a raised plinth for five coffins and in the center low plinths for 12 more coffins there was plenty of space for George Charlotte and generations of Royals to come it has never been filled however there are currently 23 Royals resting there they are princess Amelia George III's youngest daughter who died of tuberculosis in 1810 at the age of 27. Princess Augusta George III's sister she was married to the Duke of Brunswick and lived in Prussia her daughter Caroline married her nephew the Future King George IV when her husband was killed in the Napoleonic Wars Augusta fled back to her Homeland she died there in 1813 age 75. princess Charlotte daughter of the future George IV she was the only child the Prince of Wales had from his disastrous marriage Charlotte was expected to someday be Queen and was beloved by the people but at the age of 21 she died in childbirth the nation mourned deeply for the Lost Princess she and her stillborn son were laid to rest together in 1817 a monument to princess Charlotte was placed in the earthwick Chantry Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg strelitz wife of George III after giving birth to 15 children and enduring her husband's years of mental illness the queen died in 1818 age 74. a stillborn daughter of George III's fifth son Prince Ernst Augustus was laid to rest in 1818 Prince Edward Duke of Kent was George III's fourth son and the father of Queen Victoria when she was just eight months old Edward died of pneumonia at 52. King George III was Monarch during the American and French revolutions after Decades of debilitating mental illness he died in 1820 age 81 at the time his 59-year Reign held the record for the longest in British history when the King was laid to rest in the vault the bodies of two of his sons who had died decades earlier of smallpox were removed from Westminster Abbey and placed with him Prince Alfred Age Two and Prince Octavius age four princess Elizabeth of Clarence was the daughter of the Future King William IV and queen Adelaide she was born six weeks prematurely and died at just two months old she was the third of four children the couple lost had Elizabeth lived she would have been Monarch instead of Queen Victoria Prince Frederick Duke of York was King George III's second son he was a decorated veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and died at 63 during the reign of his older brother George IV King George IV served as Prince Regent during his father's bouts of madness he was unpopular owing to his extravagant spending on his own lavish lifestyle and his cruel treatment of his wife Carolina Brunswick in 1813 workers tasked with expanding the Royal vaults anti-chamber accidentally broke into the neighboring Vault containing the lead coffins of Henry VII Jane Seymour and Charles the first the prince Regent oversaw the opening of the coffins Charles the first body was found to be partially mummified Henry and Jane were both skeletal though Henry's beard was visible this incident was one of many used to mock the unpopular Prince Regent this cartoon shows him admiring the corpse of Henry VIII for being able to get rid of so many wives while George couldn't get rid of one when he finally inherited the throne and his wife Caroline showed up to be crowned he had the doors of Westminster Abbey slammed in her face she died of cancer a few weeks later and he had her body shipped back to Germany so that they wouldn't have to spend eternity together George IV continued to overindulge in food and drink he died in 1830 of gastrointestinal bleeding at the age of 67. at his funeral the crowd outside the chapel was so jolly and Rowdy that the service had to be rushed through King William IV inherited the throne from his brother he ordered a marble slab to be placed over the tombs of Henry VIII Queen Jane and Charles the first William IV reigned for seven years before dying of heart disease at 71 and passing the throne to his niece Queen Victoria princess Augusta Sophia was George III third's second daughter she was a beauty and received several marriage proposals but the king and queen avoided allowing their daughters to leave the nest Augusta Sophia may have been secretly married to an Irish army officer she died in 1840 age 71. Queen Adelaide was the wife of William IV the German princess was chosen as a bride when she was 26 and he 53. he left his mistress and 10 illegitimate children for her Adelaide lost four children to miscarriage in stillbirth she was close to her niece Louise of sax vimar Louise suffered paralysis from a young age and her aunt invited her to England in the hopes that the Sea Air at Brighton might revive her health but she contracted chicken pox and died at just 16. the bereaved Queen had her laid to rest in a special vault in the north choir aisle Queen Adelaide lived well into the reign of another niece Queen Victoria and was friendly with her she died in 1849 age 57. Prince Frederick of schleswig Holstein was the son of Queen Victoria's third daughter princess Helena he died just eight days after his birth in 1876. King George V of Hanover was the son of George III's fifth son Aaron St Augustus since George the first the kings of Britain were also Kings of Hanover but as a woman Queen Victoria was barred from inheriting the Hanoverian Throne it went instead to her uncle Ernst Augustus and then to his son George V in 1866 Prussia annexed Hanover and George was deposed he died in Paris at 59 and his body was taken back to his father's Homeland for burial his daughter princess Frederica settled down in England as a philanthropic Aristocrat she died in 1926 age 78 and was also buried in the Royal vault Princess Mary Adelaide was the daughter of George III's Seventh Son Prince Adolphus her own daughter Mary wed the Future King George V Mary Adelaide died in 1897 age 63 after an emergency operation her husband Prince Francis the Duke of TAC in Germany was buried next to her in 1900. her parents Prince Adolphus Duke of Cambridge and Princess Augusta were originally buried elsewhere however in 1930 during the tenure of their granddaughter Queen Mary both of their coffins were moved to the more prestigious Royal vault at St George's Chapel the Royal vault is strictly off limits to the public and is only glimpsed in a handful of images in this engraving from 1821 we can see on the far plinth the coffins of George III Queen Charlotte and their three youngest children during this period many Royal coffins were covered in Crimson velvet and silver fittings in this illustration from the 1850s we see in the center plinth the coffins of George IV William IV and queen Adelaide they were topped with funerary crowns of gilded copper the Vault can be accessed in two ways via a spiral staircase for those entering on foot or by a shaft through which coffins travel down the black and white tiles in front of the altar can be removed to allow access to a mechanical catafalk or coffin elevator we saw the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II being lowered on this during her funeral the lift takes the coffin 20 feet down to a small anti-chamber which is connected via a passage to the Royal Vault we can see it in this 1897 illustration of Princess Mary Adelaide's coffin lying in the vault in this 1910 photograph taken after the funeral of Edward VII we see that the far Center plinth has been replaced with an altar this was done by Queen Victoria in the 1860s she had the coffins of her grandparents aunts and uncles moved into the wall niches iron grates were installed over the niches with the engraved names of their occupants when Victoria lost her beloved husband Prince Albert in 1861 at the age of 42. she was devastated she became obsessed with mourning and had the structure behind George's Chapel converted into the Albert Memorial Chapel her consort rested there until the Frogmore Royal Mausoleum was completed Victoria herself would be laid to rest there next to Albert in 1901. three other family members remain in the Albert Memorial Chapel baroness Victoria the only child of Princess Frederica of Hanover she died at 20 days old in 1881. Prince Leopold Duke of Albany was Queen Victoria's youngest son he suffered from hemophilia and died in 1884 at the age of 30 after falling down a flight of stairs Prince Albert Victor Duke of Clarence was the future Edward VII's eldest son and was expected to someday be king he died of influenza in 1892 age 28 allowing for the eventual succession of his younger brother George V a handful of other people who enjoyed the special favor of the royal family have been laid to rest in Saint George's Chapel including Henry VII's brother-in-law Sir Charles Brandon Lieutenant General Sir John E Lee who distinguished himself in the Battle of Waterloo and Prince al-mayu the son of Emperor tuodros II of Ethiopia when he was seven his father was defeated by the British and he died by Suicide his mother soon died as well the orphaned Prince was kidnapped by a British officer and taken back to England to be educated almeihu was unhappy so far from his family he died of a lung infection at just 18. Queen Victoria arranged his burial and a plaque which reads I was a stranger and he took me in but al-meihu's body was actually buried and evolved just outside the chapel though no remains have been permanently consigned to the Royal Vault since 1930. a number of late Royals have taken the dramatic trip down the catafalk to lie in the Royal Vault temporarily until their own tombs could be built in this photograph from 1910 we see the coffin of king Edward VII resting in the center plinth he was eventually moved to a grand tomb in the South choir aisle his consort Queen Alexandra was buried with him when she died in 1925 age 80. their son George V shares a similar tomb with his wife Queen Mary in the north Nave Isle George died in 1936 age 70 and remained in the Royal Vault until the completion of his tomb in 1939. Queen Mary lived to 85 and was laid next to him in 1953. their son King George VI who brought Britain through World War II died in 1952 after a battle with lung cancer he was initially interred in the Royal Vault but his daughter Queen Elizabeth II commissioned a new Chantry Chapel to be added to the side of the chapel the addition was designed to fit the medieval Gothic style of the rest of the structure George's Widow the Queen mom didn't care for the elaborate marble Effigies of her in-laws and requested a simple Belgian Marble Slab on the floor the queen personally paid at the construction bill of 25 000 pounds about 437 thousand pounds in today's money underneath the George VI Memorial Chapel is a vault with room for three monarchs and their consorts George VI was re-buried there in 1969. in 2002 his daughter Princess Margaret died at 71 after a stroke she had wanted to be buried with her beloved father but there wasn't room for an extra coffin in the vault so Margaret came up with a compromise she is the only senior member of the royal family to have been cremated the urn containing her ashes was able to be placed in the George VI Memorial Vault her mother Queen Elizabeth the queen mother died just seven weeks after her at the age of 101. her coffin was placed in the vault at the same time Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh died in 2021 age 99. he was initially interred in the Royal Vault there he waited just over a year until the death of his wife Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 the world saw her body being lowered down the catafalk into the Royal Vault but once the cameras were turned off and the crowds laughed the royal family returned for a private service during which her body and that of her husband were brought back up and moved to the burial Vault underneath the King George VI Memorial Chapel the black marble slab has since been embellished with the star of the chivalric order of the Garter and inscribed Elizabeth II 1926-2022 fill up 1921-2021 no images of the inside of the king George VI burial vault have ever been made public however we know from the original designs that there is room for two more coffins it remains to be seen if King Charles III will wish to spend eternity with his parents in their vault at St George's Chapel Windsor want even more tea on History check out the history Tea Time Podcast available on Spotify Apple podcasts and Google podcasts a special thank you goes to my patrons Laura Jane and Roderick Walker if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe comment your thoughts and check out my other Royal history videos if you really want to help please consider supporting me on patreon a link is in the description thank you for watching

Channel: History Tea Time with Lindsay Holiday

Views: 2,394,493

Keywords: history, royal family, royalty, bbc, the crown, british history, queen, queens of europe, Royal history, Lindsay Holiday, Lindsay Holliday, History tea time, british royal family, queen elizabeth's funeral, where is queen elizabeth buried, where is the queen buried, who is buried in the royal vault, royal vault, royal vault at st. george's chapel, king george vi memorial chapel, where are kings and queens buried, st. george's chapel, who is buried at windsor, windsor castle

Id: VupDLS5mamI

Length: 26min 57sec (1617 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 04 2022