Inside of Westminster Abbey, lies the remains of a Medieval Queen that died in 1437.
Catherine of Valois was the daughter of the French King, but she married one of England’s
heroic rulers, Henry V the victor of Agincourt.
She was a woman who’s son became a long ruling yet deposed King of England in Henry
VI, but Catherine is known today as the unburied Queen as she was left to rot in the open,
with her remains tampered with an even kissed over the centuries.
Her treatment in death was a disgrace.
Catherine of Valois can also be considered as the grandmother of the Tudor dynasty, as
she was married to Owen Tudor, and their descendant would then go on to rule England, deposing
Richard III during the wars of the Roses being King Henry VII.
However Catherine died on the 3rd January 1437.
She was a very well liked Queen, and it was said that shortly after she was buried in
the old lady chapel of Westminster Abbey, but this was not the case.
It was believed that the cause of death was some illness that had plagued her for some
time, and she made her will three days before her death knowing what was coming.
Following her death her remains were embalmed and she was given a huge funeral, and a Queen’s
funeral and her internal organs had been removed to keep decay away.
Her body was filled with herbs and spices, and was then wrapped in thick layers of cerecloth
before her body was encased in lead and was placed in a wooden coffin.
It’s believed Catherine’s organs were buried elsewhere, but on top of her coffin
was a funeral effigy carved from wood and dressed in her clothes.
The coffin was covered in cloth of gold, and she was then laid to rest to begin with in
a tomb in Westminster Abbey close to Henry V her first husband.
However this did not last forever and her son Henry VI wanted a bigger memorial for
her, but he died and then the old lady chapel was demolished to make way for a new one during
Henry VII’s reign.
Catherine’s tomb was destroyed, and her body had been dug up, and then the wooden
coffin was found to have decayed, and her remains were then taken from this and were
then taken from the inner lead lined coffin, being placed in a wooden chest with fresh
flat sheets of led on top.
This chest was then placed infront of Henry V’s tomb, but she was left in this unburied
for 300 years, but then things became even more disturbing.
Her body was not buried and remains above ground inside the abbey, and the Chest was
opened regularly to show visitors the body and remains of the Queen for a small fee.
One witness when he pulled back the cerecloth said, ‘the bones being firmly united, and
thinly clothed like flesh, like scrapings of tanned leather.’
Another said that her remains had no clothing and that she was buried naked in her shroud.
Tour guides were making money from exhibiting the remains of the Queen, and then people
were even allowed to touch the body of Catherine of Valois.
Samuel Pepys wrote that he kissed the corpse of the Queen which had been dead for around
200 years at this time, and the mistreatment continued.
A group of young students it was said tore pieces from her body, and then it was said
to have been a shapeless mass of whiteish colour.
But then to make less desecration occur, she was briefly left inside of the Villiers Vault,
before Queen Victoria ordered the abbey’s officials to find her a suitable position
to be buried.
Catherine’s remains were found on top of a pile of coffins and her coffin had fell
against a damp wall, with the wood rotting.
When the officials tried to pick it up, it had stuck to the coffin below and when it
was exposed to the atmosphere it fell to pieces.
But Catherine’s remains had been tampered with again, and bones and parts of her body
had been taken and were missing.
The front part of her skull had gone missing, and there was one piece from the back of her
skull found resting on her pelvis.
Her teeth had been torn from her body, presumably taken by tourists as souvenirs, but her legs
were found to have been perfectly preserved meaning that chances are her whole remains
would have been if she had not been treated in this way.
One witness said of her reinterment to her final resting place that, ‘‘“It was
a striking and impressive scene, which I shall ever remember, and which at the time it was
impossible to view without some feeling of emotion.
The daylight had quite faded, and we were alone in the darkened Abbey.
Two workmen took up the box containing the Queen's remains, and followed Mr. Poole and
the clerk of the works; the latter, carrying in his hand one small lantern to light us,
led the way out of St. Nicholas' chapel to the north side of the chantry chapel.
Mr. George Scharf and myself followed, no one else was present, and we seemed unconsciously
and silently to fall into a sort of processional order.
I remarked to him 'We are attending the Queen's third funeral.'
Not a word was said as we passed slowly round the ambulatory in the darkness.”
Catherine of Valois was finally left to rest around 400 years after her death, and throughout
the centuries she had been placed in a temporary coffin above ground, and this chest had been
opened a number of times with gruesome and grizzly antics happening to the remains of
a Queen of England.
She was an important Medieval woman, and she deserved to be treated so much better than
she was.
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