# Would there be anything of historical interest in the King's crypts in Westminister Abbey? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 26, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146 "2011-08-26T06:12:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/1 "2011-08-26T06:12:59Z")
Alot of medieval Kings are in crypts in Westminister Abbey. Is it likely there would be anything of historical interest if they were opened? Jewelry, scepters, medieval clothing etc? Has this ever been proposed? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/2 "2011-08-26T07:20:42Z")
Many (all?) of them have been opened from time to time, for maintenance, repair or other purposes. Several of them were opened in 1875 in an attempt to find out exactly where James I and VI (d. 1625) had been buried. (He was found in the tomb of Henry VII.) The Society of Antiquaries opened the tomb of Edward I (d. 1307) in 1774, apparently to find out how tall he had been. (6’ 2", if you’re interested, and, yes, they found clothing and jewelry in the tomb.) Furthermore, the tombs have regularly been opened to add more burials. The tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots (d. 1587, but tomb erected in Westminster 1612), for example, contains not only Mary but also her granddaughter Elizabeth of Bohemia her niece, Arabella Stuart, her great-grandson, and several infant children of James II and Queen Anne; it must have been opened many times. Henry VIII shares space with Charles I, and with an infant child of Queen Anne’s. And so forth. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/3 "2011-08-26T07:40:57Z")
how tall was edward the black prince, i wonder? ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/4 "2011-08-26T07:44:25Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Henry VIII shares space with Charles I, and with an infant child of Queen Anne’s. And so forth. Given her remarkable fertility, and her rotten luck at keeping the resulting babies alive, it seems possible that every tomb in the place comes with an infant of Queen Anne’s. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/5 "2011-08-26T09:29:06Z")
As **UDS** says, some of them have been opened over the centuries. This was particularly true during the nineteenth century, when there was a general fashion for opening the tombs of the famous and when the then Dean, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, made a concerted effort to investigate those in Westminster Abbey. Stanley’s _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_ contains detailed diagrams of what he discovered. But even Stanley opened only some of the coffins. The contents of quite a few of the royal graves will therefore be intact. Moreover, a number of the earliest ones, grouped around the shrine of Edward the Confessor, were only located as recently as 2005 by means of ground-penetrating radar. Those have not been opened. Of those, the most intriguing is what is suspected to be that of Edward the Confessor himself and there seems a reasonable chance that it would contain items of considerable historical interest. (That said, there is the theory that the more important burial goods were removed when the body was translated in the thirteenth century and that they then became part of the medieval English coronation regalia, which were alas destroyed in 1649.) Of course, arguments for investigating these tombs today tend to be based instead on the possibilities of DNA testing. Suggestions that the ‘Princes in the Tower’ should be tested come up regularly. But the Abbey Chapter and Buckingham Palace (because the Queen would have the final say, as it’s a royal peculiar) always take the line that mere historical curiosity is not a good enough reason. Which is in line with what is usually considered best archaeological practice in the UK, where graves are now rarely investigated unless they are going to be disturbed anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/6 "2011-08-26T10:08:56Z")
> [@APB](#): > > Of course, arguments for investigating these tombs today tend to be based instead on the possibilities of DNA testing. Suggestions that the ‘Princes in the Tower’ should be tested come up regularly. You mean the bones found that may or may not be the princes? Comparing that DNA to one of their immediate ancestors? I wonder why the Queen would be so against that? Granted, its just historical curiosity, but why not let a team pop the lid on a plantagenet tomb, take a sample and close it up again. It would be fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/7 "2011-08-26T11:48:41Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > You mean the bones found that may or may not be the princes? Comparing that DNA to one of their immediate ancestors? Yes. Even establishing whether the two sets of bones are related to each other would be more than is known for certain at present. [QUOTE=Quintas] I wonder why the Queen would be so against that? Granted, its just historical curiosity, but why not let a team pop the lid on a plantagenet tomb, take a sample and close it up again. It would be fascinating. [/QUOTE] Even Prince Edward, when he had a TV company, tried and failed to get permission. But the Abbey objects as a matter of general principle. After all, they have hundreds of tombs which would doubtless reveal interesting information. But where do you draw the line? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/8 "2011-08-26T12:51:54Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Henry VIII shares space with Charles I, and with an infant child of Queen Anne’s. And so forth. I thought Henry VIII was buried in Windsor. His tomb was opened according to the bio I have of him in 1813 and they found his hair still attached to his skull; it was red apparently. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/9 "2011-08-26T12:54:07Z")
Have any of these corpses ever been fopund in an egyptian mummy state of preservation? England is damp-so without embalming, you would have just bones after a hundred years or so. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/10 "2011-08-26T14:06:32Z")
[When Charles I’s coffin at Windsor was opened in 1813, some of the soft tissue was said to have been still intact](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t3pnjsQLiaoC&pg=PA457&lpg=PA457&dq=Sir+Henry+Halford+%22charles+I%22&source=bl&ots=AmLUVr2cyv&sig=GlgqvqBInZd9GzFC2XGog2T1CwQ&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Sir%20Henry%20Halford%20%22charles%20I%22&f=false). On the other hand, when Edward IV’s tomb, also in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, had been opened in 1789, he was just a skeleton. (See the diagram towards the bottom of [this page](http://makinghistory.sal.org.uk/page.php?cat=2).) ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/11 "2011-08-26T14:35:11Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Several of [the tombs] were opened in 1875 in an attempt to find out exactly where James I and VI (d. 1625) had been buried. (He was found in the tomb of Henry VII.) Well how on earth did _that_ happen? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/12 "2011-08-26T14:43:12Z")
^ Well they probably thought that Jimmy would feel a little lonely being a Scottish lad among all those Sassenach. Plus Henry VII was his Great Grandfather. ETA: Fair question though, how did they lose him. Did they forget just where they buried the King of England Scotland and Ireland? ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/13 "2011-08-26T14:46:09Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Have any of these corpses ever been fopund in an egyptian mummy state of preservation? Perhaps not in royal tombs, but naturally mummified bodies are not unknown in Britain. See for example [Lindow Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindow_Man), who’s on display at the British Museum. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/14 "2011-08-26T16:52:19Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > ETA: Fair question though, how did they lose him. Did they forget just where they buried the King of England Scotland and Ireland? They really should have written that down somewhere. Did he not have his own headstone, even in a tomb meant for Henry? I’m imagining something like: - Here lieth James I, or possibly VI born 1566, died 1625 King, or possibly Queen, of England, Scotland & Ireland we’re pretty sure \* ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/15 "2011-08-26T17:49:27Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Perhaps not in royal tombs, but naturally mummified bodies are not unknown in Britain. See for example [Lindow Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindow_Man), who’s on display at the British Museum. UDS mentioned that the tomb of Edward I (longshanks) had been opened. I looked up the Wikipedia article and it said the body was in good condition in 1774. 467 years after his death. Here is an illustration: [File:Tomb of Edward.jpg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Edward.jpg) Was it common to use some sort of embalming technique on prominent people in the late middle ages? ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/16 "2011-08-27T12:44:05Z")
Regarding James VI and I, it is important to make clear that he was buried in the same _vault_ as Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. There was space to spare in what was after all the central vault beneath the Henry VII Chapel. Moreover, although James had erected substantial monuments to his mother and to Elizabeth I, he started the trend whereby the royal tombs were not marked by monuments. He had already left unmarked the graves of his eldest son, Prince Henry, and his wife. > [@Quintas](#): > > UDS mentioned that the tomb of Edward I (longshanks) had been opened. I looked up the Wikipedia article and it said the body was in good condition in 1774. 467 years after his death. > > Here is an illustration: [File:Tomb of Edward.jpg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Edward.jpg) It would have helped that he was buried not below ground level but in a sarcophagus in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, which is on a podium above the main floor level of the building. The Dean in 1774 insisted that everything removed from Edward’s tomb had to be placed back where they had been found, so all those items should still be there. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/17 "2011-08-27T13:28:17Z")
Katharine de Valois’s corpse was exhibited to visitors who were willing to pay the Abbey staff in the 17th c., and Pepys was permitted to embrace the corpse > [@](#): > > Up: and to the Office, where all the morning, and then home, and put a mouthfull of victuals in my mouth; and by a hackney-coach followed my wife and the girls, who are gone by eleven o’clock, thinking to have seen a new play at the Duke of York’s house. But I do find them staying at my tailor’s, the play not being to-day, and therefore I now took them to Westminster Abbey, and there did show them all the tombs very finely, having one with us alone, there being other company this day to see the tombs, it being Shrove Tuesday; and here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois; and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen, and that this was my birth-day, thirty-six years old, that I did first kiss a Queen. But here this man, who seems to understand well, tells me that the saying is not true that says she was never buried, for she was buried; only, when Henry the Seventh built his chapel, it was taken up and laid in this wooden coffin; but I did there see that, in it, the body was buried in a leaden one, which remains under the body to this day. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/18 "2011-08-27T13:51:29Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > ETA: Fair question though, how did they lose him. Did they forget just where they buried the King of England Scotland and Ireland? If you’ve been to Westminster Abbey you’ll understand how this scenario isn’t nearly as absurd as it first seems. It’s… pretty crowded there. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/19 "2011-08-27T14:55:31Z")
^ I have been there. I can well imagine knowledge of certain persons precise burial places being lost overtime. I would have thought that James VI/I’s tomb being a _monarch_ would have been noted and not lost. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2011, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146/20 "2011-08-27T15:21:25Z")
> [@APB](#): > > [When Charles I’s coffin at Windsor was opened in 1813, some of the soft tissue was said to have been still intact](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t3pnjsQLiaoC&pg=PA457&lpg=PA457&dq=Sir+Henry+Halford+%22charles+I%22&source=bl&ots=AmLUVr2cyv&sig=GlgqvqBInZd9GzFC2XGog2T1CwQ&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Sir%20Henry%20Halford%20%22charles%20I%22&f=false). On the other hand, when Edward IV’s tomb, also in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, had been opened in 1789, he was just a skeleton. (See the diagram towards the bottom of [this page](http://makinghistory.sal.org.uk/page.php?cat=2).) Wow-old Charley was in good shape! his head was still recognizable after 163 years-they must have put something in with him. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-there-be-anything-of-historical-interest-in-the-kings-crypts-in-westminister-abbey/594146.md?page=2)