Queen Aelfthryth founded a nunnery at Amesbury in 979 to atone for her sins – the murder of Edward the Martyr while he was visiting his step-mother at Corfe to ensure that her own son Æthelred (the Unready) became king. Until Æthelred reached adulthood it placed Aelfthryth in a position of considerable power. Whether she had a hand in killing her step-son or not, she founded two abbeys at about the same time. The second was at Wherwell. Amesbury may have been located on the site of an earlier monastic house. It was written by Sir Thomas Malory, for those of you who like Arthurian tales, that Queen Guinevere became abbess at the first of the monastic foundations upon the site.
Amesbury was mentioned in the Domesday book but in 1177 Henry II refounded the nunnery with nuns from Fontevraud. The old nuns were required to co-operate with the change but could, if they wished, be transferred to a different nunnery. Unfortunately things were not so clear cut. The existing abbess did not depart without a fight. She and thirty of her sisters were expelled – apparently they all led scandalous lives- and the abbey became a priory – a daughter house of Fontevraud.
Eleanor of Brittany, Henry II’s granddaughter, was during the reign of her uncle, Richard the Lionheart, a very marriageable young woman indeed. However, when her Uncle John ascended the throne, and personally murdered her brother Arthur of Brittany (who actually should have inherited being the son of John’s older brother Geoffrey) her situation deteriorated. John kept her a prisoner as did his son, Henry III. By the time she died she had been in custody for thirty-nine years. She was buried in Amesbury. The priory had long established royal links and its dedication to St Melor who was a Breton prince murdered by his wicked uncle was a reminder of her own life. There is no memorial to her now and nor is there a memorial to Henry III’s queen, Eleanor of Province whose body was placed before Amesbury’s high altar after her death. She is known to have had her own quarters at the nunnery, having retired there in 1285, even though she was never a Benedictine nun.
It should be added that King John had other links with the priory. During the Barons’ revolt, he hid part of his treasury with the nuns while Henry III visited on several occasions and made several gifts to the sisters. Plantagenet links with the monastic foundation at Amesbury continued down the years. Edward I sent his youngest daughter, Mary, to become a nun there but she does not seem to have had a calling preferring travel, cards and potentially an affair with the Earl of Surrey to prayer. She cannot have been short of company. Many other noble girls were sent to Amesbury to receive an education. Isabel of Lancaster, Henry III’s great granddaughter, became a nun there before 1337 and ended up as prioress.
By the end of the medieval period, Amesbury was still wealthy – Cromwell ranked it in the top five nunneries in the country. A clock was commissioned during the fifteenth century that can still be found in the church.
Inevitably the Dissolution of the monasteries saw the end of Amesbury’s long monastic tradition. The nuns signed the surrender in 1539. The Seymour family acquired much of the foundations lands while the church remained as the parish church for the population of Amesbury. Edward Seymour, who was 1st Earl of Hertford at that time, had the abbey pulled down. Amesbury Abbey is today a seventeenth century mansion and nothing remains of the priory above ground, other than the church.
Friday again – time flies when you’re doing all those little jobs that you’ve been putting off for the last two decades.
William the Conqueror was of course the Duke of Normandy and is buried in St Stephen’s Abbey, Caen which he founded prior to the conquest and his wife Matilda of Flanders was buried in the sister abbey, the Abbey of the Holy Trinity or Abbey Aux Dames as it is also known in Caen. William the Conqueror’s funeral was a bit on the traumatic side according to Orderic Vitalis because the body was too big for the coffin and there was a bit of an explosion as a consequence.
William Rufus who had a nasty accident with an arrow in the New Forest on 2nd August 1100 was buried in Winchester Cathedral. His bones are believed to be somewhere in the mortuary chests that house the remans of Saxon and Medieval Kings which were desecrated in 1642 by Parliamentarians.
Mortuary Chests, Winchester Cathedral.
Henry I and his first wife Edith or Matilda of Scotland as she became after her marriage are the first royal burial in Westminster Abbey following the interment of Edward Confessor who was buried in the abbey he founded in 1066. His second wife Adeline eventually became a nun and was buried in Affligem Abbey in Brabant. Henry was buried in Reading Abbey.
King Stephen and his wife Matilda of Boulogne were buried in Faversham Abbey in Kent. The royal tombs were destroyed during the dissolution of the monasteries.
Henry II is buried in Fontevrault Abbey in France along with his estranged queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and their son Richard I better known as the Lion-heart – Richard’s wife Berengaria can be found in Le Mans Cathedral. Henry’s daughter-in-law Isabella of Angoulême is also buried in Fontevrault whereas King John is is buried in Worcester Cathedral. It probably would have been complicated to transport his body to France given that the Barons War was underway and the french were invading England at the time.
Illustration of King John’s effigy also at Worcester Cathedral
Henry III is another Westminster burial where as his wife, Eleanor of Provence, is buried in Amesbury Abbey in Wiltshire. The tomb was lost upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Edward I famously died at Burgh-by-Sands as he was about to cross the Solway on yet another attempt on Scotland. His body was transported back to Westminster Abbey to lay beside his beloved wife Eleanor of Castile.
Edward II, who allegedly died after an incident with a hot poker in Berkeley Castle is buried in Gloucester Cathedral – although there is a theory that he wasn’t killed in which case he is clearly not in the cathedral but so far as regular history is concerned that’s where he can be located. Edward’s estranged wife Isabella of France was buried in Greyfriars Church, Newgate and was yet another loss during the Reformation.
Edward II – Gloucester Cathedral
Philippa of Hainhault is also buried in Westminster along with her husband Edward III. Their grandson Richard II married Anne of Bohemia who died of the plague. She can be found in Westminster as can Richard who died in Pontefract Castle, possibly from starvation having been usurped by his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke. He was originally buried in King’s Langley Church in Hertfordshire but was relocated in 1413.
Henry of Bolingbroke who became Henry IV was married firstly to Mary de Bohun. She died before he became king so technically her burial place in Leicester is not the resting place of a royal. Henry’s second wife Joan of Navarre is buried in Canterbury Cathedral along with Henry.
Both Henry V and his wife Katherine of Valois are buried in Westminster Abbey. Their son Henry VI was murdered by Edward IV bringing the Wars of the Roses to a close on 21 May 1471. He was first buried in Cherstey Abbey in Surrey so that he couldn’t become a focus for disgruntled Lancastrians but he was then removed to St George’s Chapel in Windsor in 1485. Somewhat ironically the man who ordered his murder is also buried in St George’s Chapel along with his wife Elizabeth Woodville – thus disgruntled Yorkists didn’t have a focus either. Edward V was never crowned and disappeared in the Tower – depends which conspiracy theory you believe as to where his remains might be. There is an urn in Westminster Abbey that contains the bones of two children found in the Tower in 1674 during building work.
Richard III, famously the king under the carpark was initially buried in the Collegiate Church of St Mary Leicester and can now be found in Leicester Cathedral along with some beautiful modern stained glass windows. His wife Anne Neville who probably died from tuberculosis is in Westminster Abbey.
Richard III’s tomb at Leicester Cathedral
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York are in Westminster as are their grandchildren Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. Henry VIII is in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. His wives are buried as follows: Katherine of Aragon is buried in Peterborough Abbey. her original tomb was destroyed during the English Civil War. Anne Boleyn was executed and buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower. Jane Seymour is next to her chunky spouse in Windsor. Anne of Cleves is in Westminster Abbey. Katherine Howard is in the Tower (and of course that’s where Lady Jane Grey the nine days queen of England can also be found) and Katherine Parr is buried in Sudely Castle Chapel.
On to the Stuarts. James is buried in Westminster with his wife Anne of Denmark. Charles I was buried in St George’s Chapel Windsor following his execution. His queen Henrietta Maria is in the Cathedral St Denis, Paris. Charles II is in Westminster but his wife Katherine of Braganza returned to Portugal following Charles’ death and is buried in Lisbon. James II was forced to flee in 1688 when William of Orange and James’ daughter Mary were politely asked to invade to save England from Catholicism. James’ first wife Anne Hyde is in Westminster but she died before James became king. James was buried in the Chapel of St Edmund in Paris. The idea was that he might one day be relocated to Westminster. Unfortunately his remains were still in France at the time of the revolution and somas people believe it disappeared.
William of Orange and his wife Mary are in Westminster as is Queen Anne and her husband George of Denmark. All of Anne’s children are also buried in Westminster Abbey in the same vault as Mary Tudor.
Anne was the last of the Stuart line and so the protestant Hanoverians arrived. George I is buried near Osnabruck but George II is in Westminster whereas George III, George IV and William IV are in St George’s Chapel Windsor. Queen Victoria initially buried her husband Albert in St George’s Chapel but he was removed to the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor where he is interred with Queen Victoria who died at Osbourne House on the Isle of White in 1901.
Edward VII is buried along with his queen, Alexandra in St George’s Chapel, Windsor as are George V and Mary of Teck. George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother are also buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Edward VIII abdicated before he cold be crowned. He is buried in Frogmore.
