One of the greatest monarchs in history to rule
of England was Elizabeth I. She during her reign saw off the threat from the Spanish
Armada, and also tried to unite the country in a number of ways. One of her most shocking
actions was to order the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, who many believed was her
biggest rival to the throne as Catholics across England wanted the Scottish monarch to become
Queen. She faced many plots, and was loved by her people however in the early hours of
the 24th March 1603, Elizabeth I died. The Elizabethan era was over, and as she did not
have an heir the throne of England passed to James VI of Scotland, who then became James
I. But it was he who was responsible for ordering a funeral for Elizabeth which befitted her
status. He also sorted out her tomb and monument, but centuries on her coffin would be opened
and broken into. But what is the story of this?
Elizabeth had become ill over a number of months, and she saw many of her friends die
over the last few years of her life. She was 69 when she passed away, and on her deathbed
the Archbishop of Canterbury asked her to think towards God. It was said that her throat
swelled, and she then fell into a deep depression, and she was losing the fight for life. She
died in her privy chambers at Richmond Palace, and she made strict instruction that she did
not want to be disembowelled, but this was not adhered to. Robert Cecil left orders with
the surgeons to disembowel her and fill her insides with herbs and spices. The Queen was
then embalmed and her body was placed inside a lead lined wooden coffin. She lay in state
at Richmond for a number of days before she was taken down the Thames to the Palace of
Whitehall. Her coffin was draped in velvet and was watched by 6 ladies, and it was said
that when she travelled down the river, ‘the oars at every stroke did tears let fall.’
There are reports at this time that from the coffin there was a loud crack which could
have been Elizabeth’s body and head breaking open from the coffin. This it’s believed
was from the pressure of gasses released from her dead body, and it was said the force of
the explosion splintered the wood and the cerecloth. But on the 28th April a month after
her death, her body was taken on a grand procession to Westminster Abbey. It was said that, ‘‘The
City of Westminster was surcharged with a multitude of all sorts of people in their
streets, house, leads and gutters that came to see the obsequies… there was such a general
sighing, groaning and weeping as the like has not been seen or known in the memory of
man.’
On top of the coffin was the Queen’s effigy, which was dressed in her parliament robes
with her crown on her head, and her sceptre in her hand. The coffin was pulled by four
horses, and she was then taken into Westminster Abbey for the funeral service. Dean Andrews
conducted the funeral, and her coffin was then carried to Henry VII’s Lady Chapel.
Initially to begin with her body was placed inside the vault which was also containing
the body of her grandfather and grandomother Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. But then
in 1607, her coffin was moved to be in the same location as her half sister Mary I. The
Protestant Elizabeth was interred alongside her Catholic half sister. It was said that
’46 shillings and 4 pence was paid for the removal of the Queen’s body to her new resting
place. On top of this a huge tomb which cost £1485 was commissioned and made which showed
Elizabeth I on top. This tomb was life like, and today it is incredibly grand. Mary lays
at rest below Elizabeth, but there is no grand and ornate monument to mark her place in history,
only a small stone today states that Mary is actually buried there. But in the 19th
century, the tomb of Elizabeth I was broken into.
A book in 1880 was published by Arthur Stanley who had been given permission to survey all
the tombs inside of the abbey by Queen Victoria. He went into the crypts and the royal burial
vaults and he wrote detailed descriptions of the tombs and what he saw. These vaults
were hidden, but he was trying to find the coffin of King James I, Elizabeth’s successor.
Stanley explored a narrow aisle underground int he eastern end of Elizabeth I’s monument,
and here he found a opening in one of the walls. When he went inside he saw a narrow
vault with two coffins inside, and these were Elizabeth and Mary’s coffins. Arthur Stanley
then wrote what he saw he went into the vault, and he described Elizabeth’s coffin. He
stated, ‘The excavations, however, had almost laid bare the wall immediately at the eastern
end of the monument of Elizabeth, and through a small aperture a view was obtained into
a low narrow vanlt immediately beneath her tomb. It was instantly evident that it enclosed
two coffins, and two only, and it could not be doubted that these contained Elizabeth
and her sister Mary. The upper one, larger, and more distinctly shaped in the form of
the body, like that of Mary Queen of Scots, rested on the other.
There was no disorder or decay, except that the centering wood had fallen over the head
of Elizabeth’s coffin, and that the wood case had crumbled away at the sides, and had
drawn away part Vault of of the decaying lid. No coffin-plate could be discovered, but
fortunately the dim light fell on a fragment of the lid slightly carved. This led to a
further search, and the original inscription was discovered. There was the Tudor Badge,
a full double rose, deeply but simply incised in outline on the middle of the cover; on
each side the august initials E R: and below, the memorable date 1603. The coffin-lid had
been further decorated with narrow moulded panelling. The coffin-case was of inch elm;
but the ornamental lid containing the inscription and panelling was of fine oak, half an inch
thick, laid on the inch elm cover. The whole was covered with red silk velvet, of which
much remained attached to the wood, and it had covered not only the sides and ends, but
also the ornamented oak cover, as though the bare wood had not been thought rich enough
without the velvet. The sight of this secluded and narrow tomb, thus compressing in the closest
grasp the two Tudor sisters, ’ partners of the same throne 'and grave, sleeping in
the hope of resurrection '—the solemn majesty of the great Queen thus reposing, as can hardly
be doubted by her own desire, on her sister’s coffin—was the more impressive from the
contrast of its quiet calm with the confused and multitudinous decay of the Stuart vault,
and of the fulness of its tragic interest with the vacancy of the deserted spaces which
had been hitherto explored in the other parts of the Chapel. The vault was immediately closed.’
Today it is unlikely that anyone will ever be allowed into these royal vaults to document
and photograph the coffins of the monarchs who lived centuries ago. But Stanley brings
forward a brilliant account of the coffin of Elizabeth I, and where she rests today.
But he remains one of the only people in History who has been able to see Elizabeth I’s coffin,
and the Tudor monarch’s remains today are still located under the magnificent tomb of
her.
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