The Tombs of Henry VIII's Queens: Part One

by Linda Fetterly Root

Katharine[i] of Aragon (1485-1536):

On the morning of her death, Henry VIII’s discarded wife dictated two letters, one to her kinsman The Holy Roman Emperor, and the other, to the husband who had put her aside. It is not the scornful lament to which she was entitled and which the king deserved. In it, she wishes him well and requests Henry to extend benevolence toward their daughter and generosity to her servants. But it ends as the last letter written by a lover: 'Lastly, I make this vow. That mine eyes desire you above all things.’

When the king heard of her death, he donned clothes of celebratory yellow and frolicked the night away. He was not dancing with his wife, Queen Anne, for whom he had all but moved mountains to marry. He had already tired of her.

And thus, the daughter of the legendary lovers Ferdinand and Isabella was taken to the nearby Abbey of Peterborough and interred in the choir aisle to the north of the altar, with no more pomp than due a Dowager Princess of Wales, the title to which she had been demoted. She was put to rest as Arthur’s wife, not Henry’s. Katharine died on January 2, 1536, and was buried 22 days later. A mere three months after that, on May 2, Queen Anne Boleyn was arrested, and 17 days later, she was dead. Four months and a week after Katharine's death, Lady Jane Seymour was Queen of England.[ii]

In his excellent biography Catherine of Aragon, written in 1941, Garrett Mattingly remarked that few of the hopes the Queen still held when she died had been realized.[iii] However, her burial site at Peterborough may well have been an incidental beneficiary of her death. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries, achieved by a legislative scheme orchestrated by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, Peterborough Abbey Church was confiscated but spared. By royal edict, Henry granted Letters Patent to Peterborough making it a Cathedral and named the former abbot as its bishop.[iv] Thus, Peterborough was appropriately Anglicanized. Some historians think it was spared because it housed the remains of a royal who had once been considered Queen of England. It is just as likely that Henry saw it as a potential source of revenue for the Crown.

The site of Katherine’s burial did not fare well. It was desecrated in 1586 and the culprits caught. During the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell’s troops ravaged both the Cathedral and the town. Their onslaught is described in the Royalist newsbook Mercurius Aulicus as worse than what would have been expected of either the Goths or the Turks.[v]

In 1895, the dignity of Queen Katharine’s burial site was restored, when the wife of one of Peterborough’s canons, Catharine Clayton, solicited funds from women named Catherine, no matter where they lived or how they spelled the name. Then, Mary Teck, King George V’s consort, grandmother of Her Royal Highness Elizabeth II, joined in the cause, and Katharine's place of interment became clearly marked as the tomb of a Queen of England. Her successor did not fare as well.

Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons.

Anne Boleyn (c. 1501- May 19, 1536):

Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of Chris Nyborg

Many historians attribute Catherine of Aragon as having captured the hearts and minds of the English people. Albeit unjustly, not even her successor’s apologists extend the honor to her predecessor. There are as many accounts of Anne’s demise as there are screenwriters and historical novelists, and many versions propounded by historians are scarcely more than musings. One thing is certain: the queen was executed for treason within the grounds of the Tower of London on May 19, 1536. Her remains were disposed of according to the custom of the time. As an aristocrat, she was buried beneath the floor within the confines of the Royal Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula. Much haste accompanied her beheading, and no one had thought to order a coffin. Apparently, her remains were carried from the place of her beheading to her place of burial by her ladies and placed into a wooden box.

At the time, notes may have been made as to where the bodies of Royals executed during that bloodiest of weeks were buried, but none survive, and the accuracy of notations used to identify bones found under the floor during a renovation in the late 19th century are unauthenticated.

St. Peter ad Vincula, Wikimedia, Courtesy of Creative Commons
www.graveyards, Matt Hucke,

There are indeed bones of women scattered in at least two locations, but sources differ as to which if either set were Queen Anne's. A commission formed when the floor was torn up during Victoria’s reign, and a surgeon declared a set of female bones to be of the proper age and configuration. 21st-century historian Alison Weir disagrees and believes bones identified as Anne’s sister-in-law Lady Rochford were the Queen's.

While Dr. Weir does not have sufficient facts to declare the issue resolved, she certainly has enough to raise substantial doubt. It will be ironic if further studies show that Weir is correct since Lady Rochford and Anne Boleyn were reputed rivals for Anne’s brother George’s affections. And to add to the controversy, recent research implies that even that assertion may not be true. Jane Boleyn may not be Anne's jealous sister-in-law after all. She may just have been a scapegoat.

The fact that Anne’s burial site has not been resolved is further evidence of how little dignity her remains were afforded at the time of her death. As it stands, all that commemorates her final resting place is a plaque in the floor placed at the behest of Queen Victoria, marking the spot where a wooden box with copper screws in embedded in the concrete, and which may or may not contain the bones of Anne Boleyn. Alison Weir suspects they belong to Kathryn Howard, wife #5.

Jane Seymour (1509-October 24, 1537):

Perhaps it is time to look at Queen Jane Seymour in a different light than the one in which she has been cast. At least insofar as Henry VIII was concerned, of his six wives, Jane was special. His affections for her are usually explained by her ability to present him with a male heir, an achievement not to be downplayed. However, some recent research suggests there was more to Queen Jane Seymour than her label as ‘a little mouse' implies. At the very least she lasted a year without offending Henry as long as she kept her opinions to herself, a lesson learned when she approached him about pardoning the peasants who had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace.

The reign of Henry Tudor’s third wife was painfully brief. She triumphed over both of her predecessors by giving Henry the son he craved, but the birth cost Jane her life. Twelve days later, she was dead, either of a partially unexpelled placenta or puerperal fever. Henry's plans for her elaborate coronation became arrangements for a royal funeral. She was the only one of Henry’s wives to receive one. The funeral procession began at Hampton Court where she had died and thereafter, laid in state, and ended at Windsor Castle, where Henry planned to be interred. Because of the elaborate nature of his tomb, which remained very much a work-in-progress, she was placed in what was planned as a temporary crypt in the Quire of Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor Palace, while Henry sorted the details of the elegant tomb he had been planning for decades. He had hired a series of celebrated Italian sculptors to render elaborate designs, none of which pleased their patron.

Later representation of Henry VIII's family as
he defined it. (Wikimedia Commons, (PD)

Henry had begun planning his tomb during the happy early days of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Years later, after five more marriages, he chose to share it with Queen Jane. All he had to do was live long enough to see it finished. He died in 1547, leaving a partially completed set of ornaments for an unfinished tomb.

Sharing a crypt with the mighty Henry VIII should have assured Queen Jane's remains a resting place superior to all others, but such was not the case. Finances and what moderns call regime change intervened. In Henry's will and again, on his deathbed in 1547, he reaffirmed his desire to be buried at Windsor, with Jane alongside him. He anticipated his son and heir, Edward, Prince of Wales, and Edward's powerful Seymour uncles would see to the tomb’s completion, including life-size effigies of Henry and Jane, and a marble statue of himself upon a warhorse. He had not considered continental politics, religious strife in England, or the threat of Calvinism and the Scottish Reformation. Henry's death left Edward Seymour, then Earl of Hereford, and Protector of the Realm, with more pressing problems than a dead king's tomb. As he approached majority, studious and devoutly Protestant Edward VI had no time for such frivolities. During the Catholic restoration that occurred in Mary I’s reign, in spite of her deep affection for Queen Jane, she had no desire to deify the father who had rejected her. When Protestant, parsimonious Elizabeth Tudor succeeded her half-sister, she found other uses for her money. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, and the Tudor Dynasty made way for the House of Stuart, King James VI of Scotland and I of England, was preoccupied with rehabilitating the image of his mother, Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, who had been beheaded in 1587 on a warrant signed by Elizabeth Tudor, and buried at Peterborough on the opposite side of the altar from Katharine of Aragon. It was she, who never set foot in England other than as a fugitive, and later, as a prisoner, who was reinterred in a glorious tomb in the Lady Chapel at Westminster. 

To finance the Civil War, Cromwell's Commonwealth parliament sold the effigy of Henry VIII and other substantially completed components of Henry VIII’s planned memorial. The author of the commentary at the Saint George’s Chapel page cited below remarks that ‘a less ambitious scheme achievable during his lifetime would have been a wiser choice’.

CONCLUSION OF PART I ~ Tombs of Henry VIII’s Queens

St.George's Chapel,Wikimedia, courtesy of Alan Thoma

The only marking above the royal vault at Windsor Castle where Henry VIII and his third wife, Queen Jane are buried dates to the 19th century and is as follows:[vi]

IN A VAULT BENEATH THIS MARBLE SLAB ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF

JANE SEYMOUR QUEEN OF KING HENRY VIII 1537

KING HENRY VIII 1547

KING CHARLES I 1648

AND AN INFANT CHILD OF QUEEN ANNE.

THIS MEMORIAL WAS PLACED HERE BY COMMAND OF KING WILLIAM IV. 1837

Join me in September for a look at the burial sites of Henry VIII's last three consorts, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, and Katharine Parr.

Notes:
[i] The author uses the spelling that appears at the site where the Queen is buried. Mattingly uses the popular spelling of the name. The queen herself signed as Katalina.

[ii] Garrett Mattingly, infra, states the King secretly married Jane Seymour the day after Anne’s execution, i.e., on May 20, 1936, not May 29.

[iii] Mattingly, Garrett, Catherine of Aragon, 1941, Book of the Month Club Edition, 1990, pages 429-430.

[iv] See the official Peterborough Cathedral website for an excellent recap of Katherine’s life, the present festival held in her honor, and a short biography. http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/newsarticle.aspx/41/katharine-festival-2016.

[v] The entire quote is found infra.

[vi] http://www.stgeorges-windsor.org/assets/files/LearningResources/BackgroundNotesHenryVIII.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~

Historical novelist Linda Root left a career as a major crimes prosecutor anticipating a retirement spent writing Historical Crime Fiction. She began compiling a Murder Book, aimed at convicting Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots of conspiracy in her husband Lord Darnley’s murder. Instead of the book she planned, her research inspired her to write a novel, The First Marie and the Queen of Scots, first published in 2011. It was followed in 2013 by The Last Knight and the Queen of Scots and four stand-alone books in the The Legacy of the Queen of Scots series, with a fifth in progress: They are: 1) Unknown Princess (formerly The Midwife's Secret; 2) The Last Knight’s Daughter, (formerly The Other Daughter); 3) 1603: The Queen’s Revenge;  and 4) In the Shadow of the Gallows. The Deliverance of the Lamb will be published this winter..She has also published an adult fantasy, The Green Woman, as J. D. Root.Visit her Amazon Author Page for a complete list:
http://www.amazon.com/Linda-Root/e/B0053DIGM8/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461277095&sr=1-2-ent

The Order of the Garter during the reign of George III

by Jacqui Reiter

On 12 December 1790, King George III issued orders summoning a Chapter of the Order of the Garter at St James's Palace. He then wrote a pointed reminder to his prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, who had just helped avoid war with Spain:

"Having summoned a Chapter of the Garter for Wednesday, and Mr Pitt not having been at St James's in the course of the last week, I think it necessary by this means to remind him of my having offered him one of the vacancies of that Order. When last I mentioned it, he seemed to decline it; but perhaps the conclusion of the dispute with Spain may make him see it ... as a public testominial of my approbation."[1]

Pitt declined again, but requested that his Garter be bestowed instead on his elder brother, the Earl of Chatham, First Lord of the Admiralty. The King agreed, and on Wednesday 15 December 1790 Lord Chatham joined the Foreign Secretary, the Duke of Leeds, to be invested as a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

The Most Noble Order of the Garter (founded 1348) was Britain's most senior Order of Knighthood. Originally a military order, by 1790 it was a significant badge of honour, reserved to members of the royal family and men of high rank and merit. The original Order was limited to twenty-five knights in addition to the sovereign, but in 1786 this was expanded to include all male descendants of George II (because George III had so many sons).[2]

Much pageantry naturally underpinned this ancient and noble Order, although when Lord Chatham acquired his KG in 1790 much of it had fallen into abeyance.


"The habits and ensigns" 

Modern Garter robes, from here

By 1790 the Order's original medieval dress had evolved into six representative parts: the "habits" and the "ensigns". The "habits" were the mantle, the surcoat (or kirtle), and the hood and cap; the "ensigns" were the Garter, the George, and the collar.

2nd Duke of Newcastle in his Garter robes
(Wikimedia Commons)

The mantle and surcoat were patterned on the ancient Roman toga and tunic respectively. Both were made out of silk velvet lined with white taffeta: the mantle, tied loosely with two gold cordons with large tassels, was dark blue, the surcoat crimson. The mantle bore an embroidered Garter, motto ("Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense" – "Shame on him who thinks ill of it") and St George's Cross on the left breast. The crimson hood had evolved into a purely decorative splash of scarlet on the right shoulder, but knights also wore a flat black velvet cap covered in ostrich feathers and an "agrette" of black heron feathers affixed with diamonds. Under all this the knights wore silver satin clothes modelled on 16th century fashions and white leather shoes with red heels.[3]

The collar—30 troy ounces of solid gold fashioned into twenty-six enamelled red roses on a blue background, with an effigy of St George slaying the dragon hanging from the middle—was affixed to the mantle with gold hooks and eyes at the shoulder. The Garter itself, embroidered with gold thread and often picked out with pearls or precious stones, was worn "on the left Leg, a little beneath the Knee".[4]

Collar, Garter and Lesser George
Wikimedia Commons

The "full habit" (mantle, surcoat, collar, George, and Garter) was only to be worn in full at certain prescribed times, normally only installations, the three days surrounding the Feast of St George (22, 23, and 24 April), and other holy days named in the statutes of the Order.[5]

At times when not wearing the full whack, knights wore a blue silk ribband instead, wrapped over their left shoulder. From this ribband hung another effigy of St George, called the "lesser George" to distinguish it from that which hung from the collar, partially concealed under the right arm. Whereas the collar had to be plain, however, "lesser Georges" could be decorated in any way the owner wished. 

Regency-era Garter Star
Wikimedia Commons

Knights also had to display the Star of the Order, known as "the Glory", on their left breast. The points of the star, often decorated with diamonds and other jewels, represented rays of light from the Holy Spirit.[6]

Copy of John Hoppner's portrait
of John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham,
wearing the blue ribbon and Star
(from here)

The Garter had to be worn at all times, on pain of a half-mark fine. The only exception was when the knights wore riding boots, and even then they had to wear a band of blue silk under their boots to represent the Garter.[7]


Becoming a knight

Nominations were frequently political, of course, but the ceremonies surrounding becoming a Knight of the Garter were intricate. First, the knight-elect was knighted with the Sword of State, since only "a Knight and [a man] without Reproach" could join the Order.[8] After being elected, the new KG had to be invested and installed before enjoying full privileges.

During the reign of George III there were, however, only three Installations, in 1762, 1771, and 1805.[9] By 1801 several knights had died uninstalled, and there were twenty-one KGs who remained half-in half-out, Lord Chatham amongst them. At the end of May 1801 the King finally issued patents installing everyone "by dispensation". Lord Chatham's patent, dated 29 May 1801, can still be seen at the National Archives.[10]

The only ceremony Chatham underwent, therefore, was that of investiture. This was "Garter lite": participants wore the Garter, mantle and chain only, and it could be held anywhere. The King sat at the head of a table covered in a crimson velvet cloth, with the Privy Council inkstands and silver before him.[11]

After being knighted, the knight-elect was taken out of the room and the election took place. This was a mere formality: each member of the Chapter inscribed nine names for the monarch to consider from all ranks of nobility and gentry. Once elected, the knight-elect was collected by the two most junior knights. Garter King of Arms presented the Garter to the King on a velvet cushion. The King tied it round the knight-elect's leg with the assistance of the two most senior knights, then slipped the blue ribbon over the head of the knight-elect.

After the investiture, a Knight was allowed to wear the Garter, ribbon and lesser George; but only after installation was he allowed to display the Star, wear the Collar and participate fully in any Chapters. During this ceremony, the new Knight was "installed" in a stall in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His "achievements" (banner, crest, and stall plate) were erected there.[12]


The installation of 23 April 1805 

The first installation for over thirty years was particularly interesting because one of the knights-elect, Lord Hardwicke, was absent (he was lord lieutenant of Ireland), so he sent his younger brother Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke as his proxy. I can't help feeling a little sorry for Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King of Arms: appointed in 1784, he managed to miss the only installation that took place under his watch due to an accident.[13]

Six new knights were being installed, along with Hardwicke's proxy. All knights wore their full fig; the knights-elect in their silver underhabits (except for the proxy, who wore normal clothes), and paraded to the sound of kettle drums and trumpets from Windsor's Royal Apartments to the Chapel.

St George's Chapel, Windsor (1818)
Wikimedia Commons

In the Chapter-House the surcoat, girdle and sword were put on the knights-elect, after which the Knights of the Order processed into the Chapel and stood beneath their banners. The achievements of deceased members of the Order (banners, swords, helms and crests) were taken down and laid before the altar.

The senior knight-elect, the Duke of Rutland, was brought in first by the two most senior Knights. Windsor Herald, deputising for Garter King of Arms, carried the mantle, hood, collar, and book of Statutes on a cushion. The Register of the Order took Rutland through the oath, then the two senior Knights took him to his stall and clothed him in the mantle, hood, collar, and cap. They then embraced him and sat him down, and the process was repeated for the next highest-ranking man.

When Hardwicke's proxy arrived the ceremony was slightly different. Instead of clothing Yorke in the mantle, the Knights accompanying him laid it over his left arm so that the embroidered cross was visible. At the end of the ceremony Yorke remained standing with the mantle still over his arm.

After Divine Service the procession returned to the Castle for a grand dinner. The King dined under the state canopy with the princes of royal blood arrayed about him, the Knights at a separate table in order of seniority. At the end of the first course the King drank to the Knights, who stood, uncovered, while trumpets sounded a fanfare and cannons fired a salute outside. At the end of the second course Windsor Herald called "Largesse!" three times, then read out the King's style in Latin, French, and English; he then declared "Largesse" for each new member of the Order, although this time he only read the style in English.[14]


Conclusion 

All this must have been very expensive, and I'm only slightly surprised it was only done three times during a sixty-year reign. I do feel slightly sorry for my boy Chatham, though, who never got a proper installation and who was not even permitted to wear the Star or attend a Chapter until May 1801.

__________


References 

[1] Earl Stanhope, The life of William Pitt II (London, 1861), Appendix, xiii

[2] George Frederick Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (London, 1841), cxxxii

[3] The clothes are described at length in Elias Ashmole, The history of the most noble Order of the Garter... (London, 1715), pp. 156-69; Thomas Robson, The British herald, or cabinet of armorial bearings... I (London, 1830), 95; William Berry, Encyclopaedia Heraldica, I (London, 1828)

[4] Ashmole, pp. 158, 173-5; Robson, 95

[5] Ashmole, pp. 184-6

[6] Ashmole, pp. 169, 180-2; Robson, 95

[7] Ashmole, pp. 136, 188; Robson, 95

[8] Ashmole, p. 133

[9] Francis Townsend, Calendar of Knights ... (London, 1828), p. 133

[10] National Archives Chatham MSS PRO 30/8/371

[11] Charles Taylor, The Literary Panorama, and National Register... II (London, 1807), 1079

[12] The ceremonies of investiture are described in Robson, p. 96. Lord Chatham's installation in December 1790 is described in the Times, 17 December 1790

[13] Robson, 96

[14] The ceremony is described at length in Robson, pp. 96-9; also in Ceremoniale at the Installation of the Knights of the Garter in the Chapel of St George within the Castle of Windsor (London, 1757)

__________


Jacqui Reiter has a Phd in 18th century political history. She believes she is the world expert on the life of the 2nd Earl of Chatham, and is writing a novel about his relationship with his brother Pitt the Younger. When she finds time she blogs about her historical discoveries at http://alwayswantedtobeareiter.wordpress.com/.

The Death of Henry VIII: Demolishing the Myths

By Nancy Bilyeau

No one would have called Sir Anthony Denny a brave man, but on the evening of January 27, 1547, the Gentleman of the Privy Chamber performed a duty the most resolute would recoil from: He informed Henry VIII that “in man’s judgment you are not like to live.”

            The 55-year-old king, lying in his vast bed in Westminster Palace, replied he believed “the mercy of Christ is able to pardon me all my sins, yes, though they were greater than they be.” When asked if he wanted to speak to any “learned man,” King Henry asked for Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer “but I will first take a little sleep. And then, as I feel myself, I will advise on the matter.”

            Cranmer was sent for but it took hours for the archbishop to make his way on frozen roads. Shortly after midnight, Henry VIII was barely conscious, unable to speak. The faithful Cranmer always insisted that when he asked for a sign that his monarch trusted in the mercy of Christ, Henry Tudor squeezed his hand.

            At about 2 a.m. on January 28th Henry VIII died, “probably from renal and liver failure, coupled with the effects of his obesity,” says Robert Hutchinson in his 2005 book The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant.

            It was a subdued end to a riotous life. The sources for what happened that night are respected, though they are secondary, coming long after the event: Gilbert Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England (1679) and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1874).

            Yet there are other stories told of the death and funeral of Henry VIII. He was perhaps the most famous king in English history, and so it is no surprise that in books and on the Internet, some strange or maudlin words and ghoulish acts have attached themselves to his demise.

            It is time to address them, one by one.

            Myth 1: “Monks, monks, monks”

            Henry VIII broke from Rome and made himself the head of the Church of England, dissolving the monasteries. The monks and friars and nuns faithful to the Pope lost their homes and were turned out on the road. Those who defied the king and denied the royal supremacy, such as the Carthusian martyrs, were tortured and killed.  

            Did the king regret it at the end? “He expired soon after allegedly uttering his last words: ‘Monks! Monks! Monks!’" says the Wikipedia entry for Henry VIII. It’s a story that has popped up in books too. The major source for it seems to be Agnes Strickland, a 19^th century poet turned historian who penned the eight-volume Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and Lives of the Queens of Scotland, and English Princesses. Strickland writes: The king “was afflicted with visionary horrors at the hour of his departure; for that he glanced with rolling eyes and looks of wild import towards the darker recesses of his chamber, muttering, ‘Monks—monks!’ ”

            More on Strickland later. But when it comes to visions of cowled avengers glowering in the corner, it seems certain that this is an embellishment, an attempt at poetic justice. But not something that happened. Most likely at the final hour Henry regretted nothing.

Myth 2: “Cried out for Jane Seymour”

            Another story is that while dying Henry VIII cried out for his third wife, the long dead Jane Seymour. It supports the idea that Jane, the pale lady-in-waiting who rapidly replaced Anne Boleyn, was the love of Henry’s life. He did, after all, request to be buried next to her. And whenever a family portrait was commissioned after 1537, Jane was shown sitting beside him, rather than one of the wives he was actually married to. But Henry VIII does not quite deserve his reputation for being impossible to please when it comes to women. He actually had a low bar for marital success: birth of a baby boy. Jane produced the son who became Edward VI—doing so killed her—and thus moved to the top of the pecking order. 

Whether he actually loved Jane more than the five other spouses (not to mention those alluring mistresses) is best left to screenwriters. But one thing seems certain: Henry VIII did not cry for his third wife while expiring. There is no historical source for it.

           

Myth 3: “And the dogs will lick his blood”

            The most macabre story of all supposedly happened weeks after the king died but before he was lowered into the crypt next to Jane Seymour in St. George’s Chapel.  On February 14th, the king’s corpse was transported in a lead coffin from Westminster to Windsor; the procession of thousands lasted two days. There was a large funeral effigy on top of the coffin, complete with crown at one end and crimson velvet shoes at the other, that, one chronicler said fearfully, was so realistic “he seemed just as if he were alive.”

            At the halfway mark, the coffin was housed in Syon Abbey, once one of England’s most prestigious religious houses. That is fact. But the rest is suspect. Because of an accident or just the undoubted heaviness of the monarch’s coffin—Henry VIII weighed well over 300 pounds at his death—there was supposedly a leak in the night, and either blood or “putrid matter” leaked onto the floor. When men arrived in the morning, a stray dog was seen licking under the coffin, goes the tale.

            This hearkened to an unforgettable Easter Sunday sermon in 1532 before the king and his soon-to-be-second-wife, Anne Boleyn. Friar William Peto, provincial of the Observant Franciscans and a fiery supporter of first wife Katherine of Aragon, compared Henry VIII to King Ahab, husband of Jezebel. According to Scripture, after Ahab died, wild dogs licked his blood. Peto thundered that the same thing would happen to the English king.

            Gilbert Burnet is the main source for the coffin-leaking story. A Scottish theologian and bishop of Salisbury, he is today considered reliable—except when he’s not. One historian, while praising Burnet’s book as an “epoch in our historical literature,” fretted that “a great deal of fault has been found—and, no doubt, justly—with the inaccuracy and general imperfection of the transcripts on which his work was largely founded and which gave rise to endless blunders.” One of Burnet’s most well known contributions to Tudor lore was that a disappointed Henry VIII described fourth wife Anne of Cleves as a “Flanders mare.” Author Antonia Fraser, in particular, writes sternly that Burnet had “no contemporary reference to back it up” in her book The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

             What seems undeniable is that the foundation Burnet created, Agnes Strickland built on. Indeed, she raised a whole Gothic mansion in her own description of that night in Syon: “The King, being carried to Windsor to be buried, stood all night among the broken walls of Syon, and there the leaden coffin being cleft by the shaking of the carriage, the pavement of the church was wetted with Henry’s blood. In the morning came plumbers to solder the coffin, under whose feet—‘I tremble while I write it,’ says the author—‘was suddenly seen a dog creeping, and licking up the king’s blood. If you ask me how I know this, I answer, William Greville, who could scarcely drive away the dog, told me and so did the plumber also.’

             “It appears certain that the sleepy mourners and choristers had retired to rest, after the midnight dirges were sung, leaving the dead king to defend himself, as best as he might, from the assaults of his ghostly enemies, and some people might think they made their approaches in a currish form. It is scarcely, however, to be wondered that a circumstance so frightful should have excited feelings of superstitious horror, especially at such a time and place; for this desecrated convent had been the prison of his unhappy queen, Katherine Howard, whose tragic fate was fresh in the minds of men; and by a singular coincidence it happened that Henry’s corpse rested there the very day after the fifth anniversary of her execution.”

              Putting aside Strickland’s Bram Stoker-esque prose, there’s the question of whether such a ghastly thing could even occur. Sixteen-century embalmment did not call for completely draining a corpse of blood, it is true. And medical experts say it is possible that fluids circulate 17 days after death.

              But Strickland’s fervent connections to not only Friar Peto’s sermon but also Syon’s monastery past—echoing the “Monks, monks, monks” poetic justice—and the (near) anniversary of Katherine Howard’s death make it seem likely that this was a case of too good a story to resist.

               No one disturbed the coffin of the indomitable King Henry VIII—not even ghosts in “currish form.”

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of Tudor-era historical thriller.  THE CROWN, published in nine countries, was shortlisted for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award. The protagonist is a Dominican novice taking on the most important men of the era.  THE CHALICE was published in 2013 and won the RT award for Best Historical Mystery. The third and final book in the series, THE TAPESTRY, was a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier award for Best Historical Suspense. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com