The Greatest Discovery From Opened Tudor Burial Vaults

Throughout history, there are few royal families which are as ruthless and infamous as the Tudors. Kings such as King Henry VIII dominated England and Queens such as Elizabeth I even took the heads off of other royals. Henry VIII is best remembered for the fact he had six wives. However, in the centuries after his death, his burial vault was disturbed and opened a number of times. What was found inside of this relating to his body was shocking and still today the king's decaying corpse remains exposed to the air because his coffin was so badly damaged. In this documentary, we look at the most incredible discoveries when Tudor burial vaults were opened. Henry VIII's death, despite the chaos he brought to his country, was rather calm and quiet and he the most senior churchman in the kingdom gripped his hand tightly. It was described as an angelic departure but let's remember the beast that King Henry VIII truly was. He was a man who had two of his wives executed by sword and axe and was someone who brought huge amounts of turbulence to the kingdom. But in the centuries after his death, his burial vault has been opened many times and what has been found was shocking. In this video, we look at some of the dark secrets of Henry VIII's remains and coffin and many things that people have never known about before. One of the biggest legends about the death of King Henry VIII is the fact there was a rumour that his body may have exploded and his coffin may have even splintered and cracked. Now it was not uncommon for bodies to have some form of expulsion and explosion after death. Henry VIII was embalmed meaning that his heart and other vital organs were cut out of his body and this was done in an attempt to try and preserve his remains. Now when the body was transported to his funeral, it rested inside of an abbey overnight giving the horses and riders a chance to rest for the evening before it got to Windsor Castle and St George's Chapel. Now probably due to the motion of the funeral cortege on the cobbled streets and not suitable roads, the gases in the body of Henry VIII which had been wrapped in a seer cloth may have actually escaped and caused the body to explode somewhat when it came to rest. The old rumour also adds that a pack of dogs may have licked at the exploding matter which leaked from his coffin. Now there could be some form of truth in the cracked coffin and explosion myth as when Henry VIII's burial vault has been opened in the centuries after, there has been significant damage found to his coffin in particular at the top of the coffin where his head would be. Also the burial vault which he was interred inside of underneath the choir of St George's Chapel in Windsor was never intended to be his final burial spot. He chose in his will to be buried alongside his third wife Jane Seymour who died shortly after giving birth to Henry's son and successor Edward VI. She had been buried in a special vault at the heart of the chapel and there was enough room for Henry's coffin to be placed in. He is still buried inside of the vault today but this was never supposed to be the final resting place. Henry VIII had a huge tomb commissioned for him and it must have been considered that this tomb would have probably been placed inside of Westminster Abbey and the Henry VII Lady Chapel which was constructed by his father. This has become somewhat of a Tudor mausoleum over the years as Henry's three legitimate children who became king and queens were buried there. At the time of his death the tomb was unfinished. It would have been colossal and expensive and it was planned to be made of black touchstone and white marble with copper and gilt and would show Henry and Jane Seymour in a huge effigy form on top and also be decorated with in total 134 religious figures and also have a large sculpture of Henry VIII on horseback under a decorative arch. Now interestingly the marble sarcophagus from his tomb was actually in 1808 moved to St Paul's Cathedral almost three centuries after Henry's death and it was used for the final resting place of Lord Admiral Nelson and he is buried inside of it so the tomb did get some use. Now let's get back to the burial vault itself. In the years and decades after Henry VIII's death his coffin and resting place did get somehow lost but when he was rediscovered there was a lot of furore about it and this led to a foot soldier who worked inside of Windsor Castle becoming a little bit too inquisitive. Whilst working inside of the chapel the soldier made his way into the burial vault and he then approached Henry VIII's coffin. As mentioned it was damaged and it was said at the time that the coffin had a hole and an opening near to the head. Now the foot soldier had a sinister intention and he wanted to take one of Henry's bones in an attempt to try and then craft a knife handle out of it. Now he did actually reach into the coffin through an opening that he cut and he did take one of the king's bones but this thief was then discovered and the bone was returned to Henry's coffin but the coffin was now damaged beyond repair. The coffin being so damaged has never been repaired also and there is no written documentary evidence saying this has taken place. There's never been any attempt by any monarch to change the coffin of Henry VIII to try and preserve the remains better and with this we must consider the body of Henry VIII is in a skeletal form. The trestle which the coffin was placed on was damaged too and had collapsed meaning the wooden coffin was then on the floor. Now when the coffin was opened the lead coffin was peered into and it was in such a poor state and one documented account said that it was beaten in by violence meaning it looked as if the coffin was battered and broken and this indicates that the explosion mentioned earlier may have actually happened. The remains on display showed the skull of Henry VIII and there was allegedly some hair on the chin of this meaning that his beard had survived almost 300 years. Also found inside the coffin were the principal limb bones as in the arms and legs. Now one of the biggest secrets about King Henry VIII's royal vault is the fact he shares the vault with one of the worst kings ever to rule over England, King Charles I who was the monarch who began the English Civil War and eventually lost his head upon the Axum block in London in front of his own people. So his supporters did not try to take his body and venerate it. The decision was made to bury Charles in secret and the vault containing Henry VIII was selected for this. Under the cover of darkness weeks after the execution the vault was opened and the executed king's coffin was placed inside of the vault next to King Henry VIII. Now this did not go without an issue as this was when Henry's coffin sustained some damage as the coffin had been moved over to allow Charles I in but centuries later in the 19th century the coffin of the executed king was searched for and it was found and then opened in the presence of the future King George IV. In 1813 the coffin of Charles was then opened. It was said of this that these were an internal wooden coffin very much decayed and the body carefully wrapped up in seer cloth into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or greasy matter mixed with resin as it seemed had been melted so as to exclude as effectively as possible the external air. The coffin was full and greatly difficult was experienced in detaching it the cloth from the parts which it lobed. At length the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance. The cartilage of the nose was gone but the left eye in the first moment of exposure was open and full though it vanished immediately and the pointed beard so characteristics of King Charles was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval. Many of the teeth remained and the left ear was found entire. So what happened was that the coffin of Charles I had been opened. His head was found to have been detached from the body even though it had been sewn back on after the execution and the nose was missing having decayed but as the head was exposed to the air the left eye decayed instantly and disappeared but the investigators had found their executed king even if they did cause irreparable damage to the corpse of him and the coffin of Henry VIII. But one of the biggest secrets is actually the location of the burial vault because there is no grand monument just a simple black marble slab outlining who is buried there. Many thousands of people each year pass over the burial vault when visiting St George's Chapel and they don't realise that one of history's most brutal kings, the six-wifed king, is buried beneath their feet. Edward VI was born in the October of 1537, the long-awaited son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. His birth was celebrated across the kingdom but even from childhood he was delicate. Court doctors noted that he suffered repeated fevers, colds and chest problems. Though intelligent and academically gifted, Edward inherited none of his father's broad physical strength. Despite this, his early life was comfortable and highly protected. As a child king, crowned at nine years old in 1547, he was sheltered by his advisors and guardians, particularly his uncle Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset and later John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland. Edward's fragile health was always a concern but few imagined that he would die so young or that his death would plunge England into political chaos. Edward's final illness began in the January of 1553 with what seemed like a simple cold. However, this quickly worsened and contemporary sources described a deep persistent cough, weakness and difficulty breathing and by February the rumours had begun. The king was gravely ill. Doctors initially diagnosed a feverish cold, perhaps influenza, but modern historians believe that Edward suffered from tuberculosis, a common and deadly disease in Tudor England. TB explained his persistent cough, his weight loss, night sweats and the slow, wasting decline described by witnesses. Some modern theories suggest a secondary infection, possibly pneumonia or even measles, may have weakened him further. Regardless of the exact cause, by the spring of 1553 it was clear the young king was dying. Edward's death was not only a personal tragedy but a political disaster. He was unmarried, childless and only 15. England needed a stable succession and according to Henry the Eighth's will and the third act of succession, the next monarch should be Edward's half-sister, Mary Tudor, a committed Catholic. But Edward had spent his reign pushing England into a strongly Protestant direction. He feared that Mary, a Catholic, would undo all of his religious reforms and guided by John Dudley, a powerful Duke of Northumberland, the dying king began to consider an alternative. This led to one of the boldest and most controversial succession plans in English history. As Edward grew weaker, he worked on what he called his device for succession. This document attempted to bypass both of his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and instead name his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as Queen. Jane was young, highly educated and most importantly, firmly Protestant. She also happened to be married to Northumberland's son, which raised suspicions that the Duke was manipulating the situation for his own political gain. In Edward's own words, the crown should pass to the Lady Jane and her heirs male. He believed he was acting to protect England's Protestant future, but many nobles and much of the country were uneasy about overriding Henry the Eighth's legally established succession. Still, with Edward on the brink of death, his country accepted the plan, at least publicly. By early June of 1553, Edward was clearly dying. His coughing fits were so violent that attendants could hear him from outside his chambers. Reports described him spitting up blood and suffering extreme weight loss. His once active, studious lifestyle was replaced with long periods trapped in bed. Ambassadors at court wrote vividly about his condition. The French ambassador noted that the boy king was so thin that he seemed no more than skin and bone. The imperial ambassador feared he would not live much longer. Despite the bleakness of his condition, Edward remained mentally sharp. He continued to discuss state affairs and the succession plan with his counsellors, even as his strength faded. By June's end, he could no longer sit upright, his fingernails turned black, his skin became discoloured and his breathing grew shallow. The symptoms strongly matched late-stage tuberculosis. Edward the Sixth died in the evening of the 6th of July, 1553, at Greenwich Palace. He was fifteen years old. A touching but likely embellished account says that, as he died, Edward whispered, Lord have mercy upon me, O Lord save the chosen people of England. There is also a report that have mercy upon me, O God, which emphasises forgiveness and repentance. Whether or not these details are accurate, they reflect how contemporaries saw Edward as a devout and earnest Protestant whose final thoughts were for his faith. His death was kept a secret for two days. Northumberland and the council wanted time to prepare for the announcement of Lady Jane Grey and prevent Mary from raising support. But secrets rarely last long in Shudder, England. Edward the Sixth was buried inside of Westminster Abbey shortly after his death, and specifically, he was buried in the Henry VII Lady Chapel, the extension to the Abbey created by his grandfather. He was buried in a small vault beneath the original altar of Henry VII's Lady Chapel, and he was left under this as it was supposed to symbolise he was buried at the heart of the Tudor dynasty's mausoleum. He had actually been unburied during the long negotiations about how to carry out his funeral, as Mary I wanted him to have a Catholic funeral. Edward the Sixth's burial vault is immediately to the west of King Henry VII's tomb, and is a few feet below the pavement. It's a narrow space meant for just one coffin, and there's no way that someone else's coffin could be placed inside of this vault. Later, this vault was opened in the 19th century, and it was stated that it was a shallow vault containing one leaden coffin. It was described as being rent and deformed, as well as wasted by long corrosion, and perhaps having been examined before. What this meant is the body and coffin of the Tudor king had been opened before, and someone had been inside of the vault for some reason. The vault was measured to have been seven and a half feet long and two and a half feet wide. There was debris in the vault, and when this was cleared, the wooden case of the coffin has been in part cleared away, leaving only the lead-lined coffin. It was claimed that at the lower end, the original coffin plate was loosened, unsoldered, and had curled up. The Latin on this plate stated, Edward VI, by the grace of God, King of England, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, and on earth, under Christ supreme, head of the churches of England and Ireland, and he migrated from this life on the sixth day of July, in the evening of the eighth hour, in the year of our Lord, 1553, and in the seventh year of his reign, and in the sixteenth year of his age. But also it was noticed that the head and skull of Edward VI had come undone, and had been disturbed, meaning that his face was exposed to the royal air. So what had happened was that someone had been inside of the burial vault of King Edward VI, and for some reason had cleared away the wooden outer shell of his coffin, and had also peered inside, and someone had uncovered his face. It's unlikely that the vault will ever be reopened again. Royal burials and a crypt that ended up hosting one of history's strangest family reunions, because here is the question, why did Elizabeth I get buried in Mary I's tomb? The mighty Virgin Queen ended up buried in the same tomb as her sister, because these two sisters, they absolutely hated each other. Yet, thanks to royal politics and a bit of medieval real estate juggling, they've been stuck as eternal tomb mates for over 400 years, but let me explain. Let's set the stage, it's the 16th century, Mary I and Elizabeth I were half-sisters, same dad, Henry VIII, and different mums. Mary's mother was Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, famously executed when Elizabeth was barely a toddler. So even before religion got involved, family dinners were probably quite awkward. Mary was fiercely Catholic, she tried to reverse her father's break from the Pope and bring England back to Rome, that earned her the nickname Bloody Mary. Because of the hundreds of Protestants burnt at the stake, around 300. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was Protestant, her reign firmly established England as a Protestant nation. So, two sisters, two religions, one crown, and more than a few assassination plots. But Mary died in 1558, and she was buried inside of Westminster Abbey in the Lady Chapel, the same place Henry VII built the royal burials. And at the time, Mary's burial was fairly simple, a vault under the abbey floor, without a grand monument above it. And for a while, that was that. And then, fast forward to 1603, Elizabeth dies after 44 years on the throne. She survived plots, threats of invasion, and became one of the most iconic monarchs in English history, Gloriana, the Virgin Queen. And naturally, she'd get a magnificent tomb, right? Well, sort of. But here is the part that people miss. When Elizabeth died, she wasn't put into Mary's tomb straight away. She was initially buried in the vault of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, her grandparents, in the Lady Chapel. It was one of the most prestigious spots in Westminster Abbey. But there was a problem. Enter James I, Elizabeth's successor, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, a king with a bit of an identity crisis, Protestant in practice, but the son of a Catholic martyr, executed on Elizabeth's orders. Awkward. James decided he wanted the vault of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York for himself, or at least to keep it clear for his dynasty. So three years after Elizabeth's death, in 1606, he ordered her body to be moved. And guess where she ended up? That's right, in the same vault as her half-sister, Mary. So why bury Elizabeth with Mary? The first answer is space. Westminster Abbey was already crowded. Digging a brand new vault meant disturbing older graves. Secondly, cost. Even for royals, funerals and tombs were expensive. And third, and most interestingly, politics. James wanted to promote unity after decades of religious conflict. Burying the Catholic Mary and Protestant Elizabeth together, or symbolic, two rival queens, finally united in death. Though I suspect neither of them would have liked the idea. But there is one final twist. You see, Elizabeth did get her own monument. In 1606, James I commissioned a magnificent white marble tomb to sit over the vault. Elizabeth's effigy lies proudly on top. She's shown in full royal regalia, crown and all. But if you look at the Latin inscription, it only mentions Elizabeth. Mary, not a single word. Royal shade carved in marble. So it wasn't until the 18th century that Westminster Abbey finally added an inscription acknowledging that Mary is buried in the same vault. So technically they're both there. Elizabeth on top, in marble glory. Mary beneath, entirely unmentioned for over a century. Enemies in life, stuck as eternal tomb mates in death. So that's why Elizabeth I ended up buried in Mary I's tomb. We've got a lack of space, political manoeuvring by James I, and maybe the grandest royal irony of all. You see, it's a reminder that even the most powerful people in history don't always get what they want. And sometimes the final chapter of a royal feud is written in stone. Anne of Cleves was born in 1515 in the German Duchy of Cleves, part of the Holy Roman Empire. Her family was Protestant-leaning and her upbringing was modest compared to some European courts. She did not learn to sing or dance, nor was she trained in complex court etiquette. Instead, she was taught how to run a household, manage estates and work dutifully as a noblewoman. This background later became important because it shaped her calm and practical personality and set her apart from the dramatic, finely-educated ladies of Henry VIII's court. Henry VIII, by the late 1530s, was in a difficult position. He had broken from the Catholic Church, dissolved monasteries and made England independent from the Pope. And this left him politically isolated and he looked to form alliances with Protestant German princes. Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister, believed that a marriage with Anne of Cleves would strengthen England's position on the European stage. Henry agreed to consider the match and the famous court painter Hans Holbein was sent to paint Anne's likeness. Holbein's portrait showed Anne as a modest, dignified and attractive, in a reserved way, girl. Henry approved the match based on the portrait alone and negotiations continued. However, when Anne arrived in England in late 1539, Henry was deeply disappointed. He claimed she did not resemble her portrait and described her as nothing so fair as hath been reported. Whether this was due to actual differences or simply Henry's changing taste is still debated. Anne was not ugly. Several contemporary observers described her as tall, healthy and pleasant-looking. This difficulty was that she did not behave in the flirtatious or courtly way that Henry had preferred. She followed German customs, remaining formal and quiet, which Henry misinterpreted as dullness. Henry went through with the wedding on the 6th of January 1540, though he was reluctant. From the beginning, the marriage was stained and Henry claimed that he could not consummate the marriage, saying he found Anne unattractive. He blamed her figure and her clothing and later told his courtiers that he liked her not. Anne, unfamiliar with English customs and the expectations of a wife in Henry's court, did not know how to engage him or change his mind. Meanwhile, Thomas Cromwell, who had engineered the marriage, began to fall from Henry's favour. The unsuccessful union gave Henry a reason to move against him and by the summer of 1540, Henry decided he wanted the marriage ended. Conveniently, Anne had no interest in resisting. She understood the dangers of opposing the king, especially after witnessing the previous fates of his wives. When Henry's counsellors began to ask whether she would agree to have the marriage annulled, she cooperated. The marriage was officially annulled in the July of 1540. The grounds were that Henry had not consummated the marriage and that Anne had previously been contracted to another nobleman. Anne accepted the annulment gracefully. Her wise decisions saved her life. Henry rewarded her for her compliance with generous financial settlements, including Richmond Palace and Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. From this point onwards, Anne lived comfortably as an independent noblewoman in England. Henry referred to her as his beloved sister, a status that placed her above almost every other woman in the kingdom except his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth. She maintained good relationships with Henry and his children and was often invited to court for Christmas and major celebrations. In many ways, she enjoyed more freedom than any of Henry's other wives. She did not have to please the king or produce an heir or compete for attention. She simply lived a peaceful life among her estate. Anne witnessed the fall of Thomas Cromwell, executed just days after her marriage was annulled. She also lived through Henry's marriage to Catherine Howard, who was executed for adultery, and then Catherine Parr, who outlived him. Through all this, Anne avoided political entanglements and stayed out of court intrigue. If her marriage had been a failure, her later life was quite a success. After Henry VIII died in 1547, Anne remained in England. She maintained her friendship with Princess Mary, who later became Mary I, and when Mary became queen in 1553, Anne participated in her coronation and was given a place of honour. However, during Mary's Catholic reign, Anne's position weakened slightly. As a German Protestant, she no longer fit neatly into the new religious environment, and her visits to court became less frequent. Still, she was never persecuted and she continued to live comfortably. Anne of Cleves died on the 16th of July 1557, at the age of 42. She'd been suffering from a long illness, possibly cancer. Immediately after her death, her body was embalmed, and with this process, her internal organs were cut from her body and removed. This was traditional for the bodies of royals and high-ranking people in Tudor society. The physicians would have made a large cut into her chest, and then removed the heart, liver, lungs, and other internal organs such as the intestines. This created a cavity, and it was then washed and filled with spices and sweet-smelling things. Then the body would be washed again, and wrapped in a thick, heavy wax-dipped cloth known as a seer cloth. This seer cloth was a shroud and acted as a protective layer to the remains in order to keep away decay and rot. These cloths have been known to have been so effective that the bodies of kings buried 500 years ago are in remarkable states of preservation, and they look as fresh as the day they died. The funeral of Anne of Cleves was rather large. There was a huge procession. Her coffin, which was lead-lined and had an outer wooden shell, was processed to Westminster Abbey, and it was then left in the Abbey for the evening. When the time for her burial came, she was interred on the south side of the high altar, in a low stone structure and tomb. On three sides of the tomb show the carvings and initials AC with a crown, a lion's head, and skulls and crossed bones on. The back part of the tomb was covered by the later monuments. Now, for centuries, this burial was rather mysterious, but then, in the 1970s, the words, born 1515, died 1557, were added. Her tomb looks like an altar. However, it is not recorded that this burial vault and tomb has ever been opened. She was placed inside the centre of the tomb, and because it hasn't been opened, we must consider that her remains may actually be perfectly preserved. There's no record of her body being disturbed either. So the combination of the seer cloth and the lead lining may have protected her body well. What is also interesting is that the tomb is very small and modest, and would only have enough space as to interre one coffin and one person. But most importantly, Anne was buried very closely to the shrine of Edward the Confessor, a key spot inside of the Abbey, in the most holy part of the Abbey. Now, her tomb has actually been used in the coronations of most monarchs, and it sits close to where the coronation chair is placed. As her coffin and tomb have not been opened for almost 500 years, it is unlikely that it will ever be, meaning that we'll never know truly what state of decay the fourth wife of King Henry VIII's remains are in, and she may, in fact, be perfectly preserved, which is strange to think. Now, we're talking about wife number five, Catherine Howard. She was young, she was beautiful and Queen of England, and yet she left behind no tomb that we can visit. Her body and her grave quite literally vanished. This is the story of the lost tomb of Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard. So, let's set the stage. By the time Catherine Howard came into his life, Henry VIII was, well, not the dashing prince he'd once been. He was nearly 50. He was obese. He was plagued by leg ulcers and increasingly paranoid. Meanwhile, Catherine, she was not even 20 years of age, and the exact year of her birth is debated. Most historians put it around 1521. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard, a younger son of the powerful Duke of Norfolk. So, technically noble, but not exactly rolling in cash. And as historian David Starksie put it, she was a Howard, but a Howard without money. And because of the family's financial situation, Catherine spent much of her early life in the household of her step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. It was a kind of aristocratic finishing school, but with a distinct lack of supervision. Catherine shared a large dormitory chamber with other girls and young women. And according to multiple accounts, the place was not exactly virtuous after dark. Men often visited those rooms at night, and two of those men would define Catherine's fate. First, Henry Mannox, her music teacher. Their relationship was physical, though perhaps not fully sexual. And during investigations years later, Mannox admitted, I knew her carnally before she was married to the king. Then came Francis Dearham, a secretary in the Duchess's household. Catherine and Dearham called each other husband and wife. They shared a private chamber, they exchanged gifts, and Dearham claimed that they'd made a binding pre-contract. Basically, a promise to marry, which under Tudor law was nearly as serious as marriage itself. And chronicler Edward Hall wrote, She used the company of Francis Dearham as her husband and made him believe that she would never marry another person. Then we fast forward to 1540. Catherine was brought to court as a lady-in-waiting to Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. And that's where Henry noticed her. And by all accounts, he was smitten. Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapley described Catherine as a very small woman of extraordinary beauty. And Henry moved fast. His marriage to Anne was annulled for reasons ranging from her unpleasantness to claims that she wasn't a virgin. And on the 28th of July, 1540, Henry then married Catherine Howard. That was the same day that his long-serving minister, Thomas Cromwell was executed. And because Henry's love life and political purges often shared a date in Tudor calendars. For a brief moment, Catherine Howard was Queen of England. Henry called her his rose without a thorn. He showered her with gifts, including jewels, fine clothes and land. But trouble was brewing. While Henry adored her, Catherine's past and possibly her present caught up with her. Enter Thomas Culpepper. One of Henry's gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. He was young, he was attractive and reportedly very close to the Queen. And evidence suggests that Catherine began a secret affair with Culpepper. Lady Rushford, who had once served Anne Boleyn and was Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law, helped arrange private meetings between the Queen and Culpepper, sometimes late at night. In one confession, it stated, When word of this leaked in 1541, it set off a full-blown scandal. Henry VIII was devastated. And some reports say he went openly. Others say that he flew into a violent rage. The Queen was arrested. So was Culpepper, Dearum and Lady Rushford. And then on the 13th of February 1542, Catherine Howard was led to the scaffold on Tower Green. She was barely 21. And chronicler Edward Hall described her execution. She made the most godly and Christian end, confessing her faults with tears. She was then buried in the Chapel of St. Peter Advincula, the same chapel inside the Tower of London that houses the remains of Anne Boleyn, Lady Rushford and victims of Henry's wrath. So why can't we find Catherine's grave? Because in 1876, during Victorian renovations of the chapel, builders exhumed and reburied remains they found beneath the floor. They tried to initially identify the skeletons, but in many cases bones were scattered, incomplete or so decayed they couldn't be matched to individuals. The Victorians did remark some graves. Anne Boleyn's, for example, was given a plaque near the altar. Catherine Howard's remains were either never positively identified or simply not found at all. And there's a grim possibility. You see, a persistent story suggests that after her execution, Henry VIII ordered Catherine's body to be treated with quicklime, or as they often called it, lime, to speed up decomposition. This would have made her remains virtually unrecognisable when the Victorians opened the floor over 300 years later. Now it's not definitively proven, but chroniclers and Victorian historians mention the rumour. In 1877, historian Doyne Bell wrote, The remains of Queen Catherine Howard were sought in vain. It was whispered that her body had been destroyed with quicklime by order of the king. Now it is possible that her bones dissolved so thoroughly that nothing remained to be found, meaning that the last traces of Henry V's queen simply vanished. So when you visit the chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula, remember, under those stone slabs lie the victims of power and passion. Anne Boleyn, Lady Rochford, Thomas More, but not Catherine Howard. Because the Queen, Henry VIII, once called his rose without a thorn, has no tomb at all. Henry VIII is remembered today as the notorious Tudor king of England, who had six wives, and two of these would lose their heads inside of the Tower of London. But Henry VIII's final wife was Catherine Parr, who many believed nursed the king in his final moments before he died. However, Catherine was a woman who, despite being a survivor, could very easily have experienced execution herself. She came close to losing her head or being burned at the stake as a heretic for being too radical in her religious beliefs. But following Henry's death, Catherine Parr scandalously married quickly. But following giving birth to a daughter, she succumbed to death herself, and she was buried closely to the rooms where she passed away inside of the walls of Sudley Castle. However, her coffin was broken into and disturbed a number of times, and what those who broke into her remains did were shocking and harrowing. Catherine Parr was believed at the time of the Tudor period to have been a too radical Protestant, and many inside of Henry VIII's government believed she was leading the king down a path of more ruthless religious changes, and she was not the most popular woman. She was a woman who had married before, and Henry's final wife was very different to his other wives, and she was more of a scholar than a doting wife. She married Henry VIII inside of Hampton Court Palace on the 12th of July 1543, and was made the first queen of England, who was also made the queen of Ireland. She was the queen up until Henry's death, and she had throughout her life even acted as the regent whilst the king was away in France. She involved herself in educating the future Elizabeth I. However, after the king's death, Catherine Parr fell in love again with Thomas Seymour, the first baron Seymour of Sudley, and he was sniffing around for more power. The pair had a long history together, and Seymour saw his opportunity to marry the new Dowager Queen as a way of getting closer to the throne. His brother Edward Seymour was made the Lord Protector of Edward VI, and the chair of the boy king's regency council, and Thomas Seymour was very jealous about this. Edward Seymour was now acting almost as a king. However, Catherine Parr and Thomas married in secret, but when the information about this came to light, there was a huge scandal. Catherine's actions in accepting marriage so shortly after Henry's death were seen as shameful and disgraceful, and Edward VI was not impressed with this, and Catherine then joined forces with her new husband to take on Edward Seymour. However, despite never being pregnant before having any children, she became pregnant with Seymour's child, and at the time, childbirth during the 16th century was incredibly risky. It could be a death sentence for a woman, and Catherine's risk was heightened as she was slightly older. Complications could have been fatal. At the time, she was living inside her husband's castle, Sudley, and she continued to help educate Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Day Queen, whilst being pregnant, but then she entered her bedchambers to give birth to a daughter who arrived on the 30th of August 1548, but Catherine Parr never recovered from childbirth, and on the 5th of September, she died inside of her rooms days after giving birth. After her death, Thomas Seymour left his castle, and the funeral was arranged, and it would become historic, as it was the first fully Protestant service to occur across England. The chief mourner was Lady Jane Grey, and Catherine's body was embalmed inside of her bedroom by physicians, and it was then taken inside of the chapel, St Mary's Chapel, next to the castle, and she was prepared for burial. She was to be buried in a huge ornate tomb that was made for her, and was then placed on the north side of the chapel, and on this tomb was an effigy of Catherine, and it had a Latin inscription on the bottom of it. However, Catherine Parr's remains were disturbed many times over the following years, and her coffin was shockingly broken into. In 1642, the tomb of Henry VIII's sixth wife was destroyed during the English Civil War, as roundhead forces of Parliament's army smashed up the chapel and desecrated her monument as she stood for monarchy. However, her body was also disturbed, and the grave was smashed to pieces and dug up, and it was said that There is in the castle a godly fair church. Here they dug up the graves and disturbed the ashes of the death. They break down the monuments. However, in 1782, a number of people arrived at Sudley, and a group of ladies, who had an interest in history, wanted to find the remains and tomb of Catherine Parr. Inside of the chapel, they found a block of alabaster marble in the north wall from her tomb, and some men dug underneath it, and they came across the lead-lined coffin of Henry VIII's sixth wife. These group of people then opened the coffin. What they found was remarkable. They found Catherine Parr's body wrapped tightly in a seer cloth, a heavy wax dipped in cloth, which had been almost mummifying her to preserve her. They saw her face for the first time in two centuries. However, as her corpse was exposed to the air for the first time, the colour of Catherine's face drained, and her eyes turned a different colour, and lost their sparkle. The women then asked the men, after their curious outing, to rebury her body inside of the coffin. But a local farmer found out about what had happened inside of the church nearby, and he tried to inspect the body of Henry VIII's sixth wife himself. It was said that, in the summer of the year 1782, the earth in which Q K Parr lay interred was removed at the depth of about two feet, or very little more. Her leaden coffin, or coffin, was found quite whole. Mr Lucas had the curiosity to rip up the top of the coffin, expecting to discover within it only the bones of the deceased. But to his great surprise, he found the whole body, wrapped in six or seven seer cloth linen, entire and uncorrupted. His unwarranted curiosity led him to make an incision through the seer cloth, which covered one of the arms of the corpse, and the flesh of which, what at the time was white and moist. He made an incision and uncovered one of the arms, and he said that the flesh was white and moist, and he also cut off a few locks of the queen's hair, as well as some material from her cloth and dress, which was buried in. In 1783, just a year later, the steward of the castle then directed for the grave to be opened again, to see the queen's remains. And it was said that the body had begun to decay quickly. It was also noted that the shoes were on the feet, which were very small, and that the queen's proportions were extremely delicate, and that her hair was gold. Four years later, the coffin of Catherine Parr was yet again opened. This time it was a curious local priest, who wanted to see the state of her body, and he had found that the head of Catherine had totally decayed, and presumably no skin was left. He also found that teeth had fallen out of her mouth, or may have been pulled out by those hungry to take a souvenir of a wife of Henry VIII. However, he also found when inspecting the remains that her hands and arm had turned brown, and he made a short sketch of what he saw in her body. He then covered up the body, but six years later, one of the most shocking parts of Catherine's desecration occurred. A group of drunk vandals entered the chapel, and they then disinterred Catherine Parr out of the coffin and messed around with it, and one man even danced with the corpse of Catherine Parr. They then dumped the body of her in the corner in a pile, making off with some more teeth, and one man allegedly even stabbed an iron bar through the torso of Henry VIII's final queen, and then had buried this in the ground upside down. Hearing of this, a local priest then appealed to Queen Victoria to give Catherine Parr a better and deserved burial in a final monument where she could finally be laid to rest after centuries of desecration. It was agreed that Catherine would be buried inside of a new coffin and a new tomb, which was made from stone, and she was interred in safety. When the time came to rebury her inside of the newly renovated church within the grounds of the castle where she died, it was found that Catherine's body was just a pile of bones now, with a smaller part of flesh and hair on her body. But she was then buried inside of this new tomb where she still lies today. Indecency. The horrific story of those people who opened the coffin of Catherine Parr were a mix of criminals and curious. She was in death not given the respect that she deserved, but she is a woman who is considered a survivor of the brutal reign of Henry VIII, for she could have experienced execution herself. But what happened to her coffin over the centuries was shocking and barbaric.