On the 28th January 1547, one of the most notorious, brutal and bloody reigns came to
an end.
Inside of the palace of Whitehall, Henry VIII after a long physical and mental decline died
surrounded by important church officials.
Throughout his life he had suffered with gout, smallpox and many more conditions that afflicted
his health, and following a jousting accident his personality changed completely and he
became more tyrannical.
Obesity quickened the famous 6 wifed king, as he became large and ate a huge amount in
comparison to amount of exercise he did.
Despite the King ordering the executions of two of his wives, and many of his closest
friends such as Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s death across England was mourned greatly and
he was very well liked by the English population.
But the plan was for him to have a tomb following his death that had initially been intended
for Cardinal Wolsey, and this would have been a huge monument to the larger than life monarch.
But this was never finished, and Henry VIII was laid to rest in a different way.
But what is the story behind the missing tomb of King Henry VIII?
Following his death, Henry VIII’s will stated that he wished to be buried alongside his
third wife Jane Seymour, who managed to give him the legitimate male heir that he wanted
in his son King Edward VI.
Edward succeeded him, but Henry had given Jane a huge and lavish funeral and following
this she was then buried in a vault in the centre of St George’s Chapel in Windsor,
in the Quire.
Traditionally this is where all the Knights of the Order of the Garter sit in Windsor,
and under the floor there was a vault where Jane was in fact buried and interred.
Henry wanted also to be placed there, but this was only supposed to be a temporary place
to lay their bodies to rest.
However 500 years later, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour still are buried there, along with
the infamous executed King Charles I. Their remains have never been brought back to the
surface and entombed in the tomb that Henry VIII wanted for himself and his wife.
After the King’s death, his body was bathed and embalmed with various spices before it
was encased in a lead coffin which was the tradition for monarchs.
His coffin lay in state inside the presence chamber of Whitehall surrounded by burning
tapes for a number of days before it was then moved into St George’s Chapel at Windsor
Castle.
The procession from London to Windsor was huge and was four miles long.
A tall hearse carried the coffin pulled by horses, and on top of the hearse was a lifelike
wax effigy of the King.
There was also a black satin cap there with precious stones which was covered with a crown,
and the effigy was also covered in jewels.
The funeral procession did rest in Syon Abbey for the night as it took a long whilst to
get to Windsor.
But the following day it arrived at Windsor, and the King’s coffin was carried into St
George’s Chapel by 16 Yeoman of the Guard.
This shows how heavy the coffin was when a standard coffin is carried today by 6 pallbearers,
and the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II as it was lead lined was carried by 8.
St George’s Chapel had been draped in black cloth, and Henry VIII’s coffin was taken
into the quire.
It was lowered into the vault underneath, and Bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner
did the eulogy.
The King’s widow and 6th wife Catherine Parr witnessed the funeral from a special
platform that Henry VIII had built for Katherine of Aragon his first wife so she could witness
the garter ceremonies inside the chapel.
Following the mass which was held, the trumpets sounded as the King’s officers of his household
broke their symbolic staves of office and threw them into the vault with the coffin,
symbolising that their duty to help the King was now over.
Daily masses were said for his soul, and the King allegedly wanted this done until the
day the world ended, with him leaving enough money to do this.
But importantly, the King inside of his will left instructions for the vault to be a temporary
burial site, and for a huge and ornate tomb to be built to later re-inter him in.
The King’s plans for his tomb were drawn up decades before he died.
His parents Henry VII and Elizabeth of York were entombed in a beautiful and ornate memorial
inside of Westminster Abbey, which is covered in gold.
Initially Henry VIII and his first wife made plans for the same man who designed this tomb
to sort theirs out and make it, and Henry VIII planned for his sarcophagus to be made
using white marble and black touchstone in the same manner as his fathers.
However he wanted it to be 25% bigger, and he ended up arguing with the Italian sculptor
who would make this, and plans were then ended.
Henry later considered giving another Italian money to create the monument, but this was
then planned.
But int he 17th century, a researcher unearthed information that documented what Henry VIII’s
tomb would have been like.
The plans said it would have a vast monument decorated with many stones, white marble pillars,
gilded bronze angels and life sized images of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour who would be
entombed together.
IT would have had a huge statue of the King riding on horseback under an arch, and also
would have had 144 brass figures on it.
When Henry VIII’s chief minister Cardinal Wolsey died, he was already falling from grace.
Henry VIII kept the plans for Wolsey’s tomb for himself, and Wolsey was buried inside
of Leicester Abbey with very little in the way of an elaborate tomb for him.
Henry then kept the components of Wolsey’s tomb for himself, and he adopted them and
made a few tweaks.
After Wolsey’s death, the King gained the sarcophagus intended for Wolsey for himself.
The plan was to have a life-sized gilded figure of him on top.
Between the pillars would have been 9 feet tall bronze candlesticks.
It’s fair to say the tomb would have been much grander than the tomb of his parents,
and it would have been the boldest and most expensive tomb and memorial possibly ever
commissioned and built in England.
The effigy for the tomb was cast and polished whilst the King was alive, and a number of
other parts of the tomb were created.
Work on it continued after his death when Edward VI’s government tried to complete
it, however they were short of money and could not.
When Henry’s son died, he did ask for the tomb to be finished, but Queen Mary I Henry’s
eldest daughter did nothing with it.
Elizabeth I his youngest daughter did look into it, and she asked her minister William
Cecil to see how it was going.
Plans were prepared, but it was never finished and some of the components were left in Westminster
for a long time.
The candlesticks were split up and some were even sold to Belgium, with other parts melted
down to be sold for money by the Stuart monarchs.
It remained the lost tomb of Henry VIII, but parts of it were used as the base for Lord
Nelson’s tomb which today resides in St Paul’s Cathedral.
But still to this day, Henry VIII lies inside the Quire of Windsor Castle’s chapel against
his wishes.
Charles I the executed monarch was buried inside there with the Tudor King as it was
deemed quieter and less accessible to attract royalist pilgrims to.
Joining the two Kings and Jane Seymour was also an infant child of Queen Anne who was
buried there in a small coffin.
Interestingly the grave of Henry VIII and the vault was lost for centuries until in
1813 it was rediscovered as they were extending the royal vault underneath the Chapel’s
floor.
Some relics of Charles I were removed for identification, but a watercolour drawing
of the vault showed that Henry VIII’s coffin was very badly damaged and something had happened
to it in the centuries.
Jane Seymour’s coffin was intact, but Henry VIII’s coffin had broken in a number of
ways.
The trestle supporting it possibly collapsed, and it’s also believed that when Charles
I was interred there that Henry’s coffin may have been damaged.
It also could have split from pressure from inside, or that the coffin split on it’s
way to Windsor.
Today only a simple marble slab marks the resting place of Henry VIII.
It says, ‘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.’
This certainly wasn’t the elaborate and colossal tomb that Henry VIII dreamed and
wished for.
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