Henry VIII is most famously known today for the fact he had sixth wives, and there were
two of them unfortunate enough to find themselves beheaded inside the walls of the Tower of
London.
The King’s wives are best remembered by the, ‘divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded
survived,’ rhyme but the fate of the wife that survived is incredibly interesting.
In fact after Catherine Parr was laid to rest there was a significant and shocking degree
of tampering with her remains, which led to her corpse being desecrated.
The corpse of the Queen of England which had been laid to rest for centuries was disturbed,
and even had teeth pulled out of her jaw.
But why did this happen, and what is the story of the desecration of the body of Henry VIII’s
Sixth Queen?
Remember to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Catherine Parr married Henry VIII on the 12th July 1543 at Hampton Court Palace.
She was different to Henry’s other wives as she had been married before, and it’s
clear that the King who had lurched from disaster to disaster previously wanted someone to look
after him in his sixth wife.
The pair were third cousins once removed, and when Catherine became Queen she had a
rather modest household.
She was a talented writer who encouraged women to write their own scripture and to read the
bible, which was frowned upon at the time.
She wrote a number of books based on religion, and when Henry VIII went on his final campaign
to France in July 1544, Catherine was left as the Regent.
She was in charge of finances and provisions for the King’s French campaign, and she
was seen as a confident and strong Queen and ruler in the King’s absence.
But the Queen’s religious views caused her to attract suspicion and trouble.
Many anti-protestant officials in the church such as Stephen Gardiner the Bishop of Winchester
targeted her, and she was accused of turning the King too radically Protestant.
However the King did reconcile with her despite an arrest warrant being drawn up, but shortly
before the King died she was awarded a modest allowance of £7000 a year for her to support
herself following Henry’s death.
But four months after Henry VIII’s death, Catherine Parr married Thomas Seymour, whom
she had been linked with before marriage to the King.
They married in secret, but when their marriage was made public it shocked many.
Catherine continued to publish more works and at the age of 35 she became pregnant,
giving birth to a daughter named Mary.
However on the 5th September 1548 at Sudeley Castle, Catherine Parr died from what is believed
to have been childbed fever following giving birth.
It was common at the time for mothers to contract this as giving birth wasn’t as hygienic
as it is today.
But two days after her passing she was buried inside St Mary’s Chapel on the grounds of
the castle where she passed away.
Her daughter was put into the household of Catherine Parr’s close friend Catherine
Willoughby, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk.
But following her death, Catherine was left in her room at Sudeley Castle for a short
time where her body was wrapped in cloth and was then placed inside a lead coffin.
A impression was left into the soft lead which read, ‘KP, Here Lyeth Queen Katherine, Wife
to King Henry VIII and Wife of Thomas Lord Of Sudeley High Admiral of England and Uncle
to King Edward VI.
At the funeral, Lady Jane Grey was the chief mourner, and it was considered the first protestant
service ever held in the country.
But afterwards, Catherine Parr was laid to rest and was buried inside of the chapel and
she was left there for over two hundred years untouched, but things did change.
Sudeley Castle following the Tudor Period changed also, as when the English Civil War
had come to an end, it was slighted by Oliver Cromwell to put it beyond military use.
But in the centuries following, there was a number of people who decided to disturb
the resting place of Catherine Parr the final Queen of King Henry VIII.
Int he summer of 1782, it was said that,
‘Mr John Lucas who occupied the land of lord rivers where the ruins of the chapel
stand, had the curiosity to rip up the top of the coffin, expecting to discover within
it only the bones of the Queen.
But to his great surprise found the whole body wrapped in 6 to 7 seer cloths of linen,
entire and uncorrupted, although it had lain there upwards of 230 years.
His unwarrantable curiosity led him also to make an incision through the seer cloths which
covered one of the arms of the corpse, the flesh of which at the time was white and moist.
I was very displeased at the forwardness of Lucas who of his own hand opened the coffin.
It would have been quite sufficient to have found it, and then to have made a report of
it.’
So a man living on the land of the lord who owned the land decided to break into the coffin
of Catherine Parr, and then inspect her body.
But what he found was rather shocking.
He did not find bones as you would expect, but instead found the almost perfectly preserved
remains of Catherine Parr as if she had just fallen sleep.
It was then said that, ‘In the summer of the year following 1783, his Lordship’s
business made it necessary for me and my son to be at sudeley castle, and on being told
what had been done the year before by Lucas, I directed the earth to be once more removed
to satisfy my own curiosity.
I found Lucas’ account of the coffin and corpse to be just as he had represented them,
with this difference that the body was then grown quite fetid, and the flesh where the
incision had been made was brown and in a state of Putrefaction, in consequence of the
air having been let in upon it.
The stench of the corpse made my son feel quite sick, whilst he copied the inscription
which is on the lead of the coffin, he went through it however with great exactness, I
afterwards decided that a stone slab should be placed over the grave, to prevent any future
and improper inspection.
So to confirm morbid curiosities, the coffin of Catherine Parr had been opened again to
confirm what had happened.
But when Mr Lucas opened the coffin initially, he had disturbed the remains to the point
where because of his involvement, the remains of the Queen had started now to decay, not
as they had done previously.
Also where he made the incision into Catherine Parr’s body, the decay had then set in and
had caused some rot to happen.
The Queen should have been left to rot, but also at this time there was more shocking
desecration done to her body.
Hair clippings were taken from her head, fabric was taken from the bridal dress she was wearing
which she was buried in and also shockingly a tooth was ripped from her mouth.
These artefacts can today be seen at Sudeley Castle on display.
But this was not the only time that Catherine PArr’s body would be interfered with and
disturbed, as once again in 1792 a group of drunk people dug up her remains and then reburied
her for some bizarre reason upside down.
But in the decades following this, the owner of Sudeley Castle Lord Chandos then took great
steps to look after the remains of Catherine Parr, she was after all a Queen of England
and she was moved to a safer tomb.
He also organised for the exhumation to be done properly by Reverend John Lates.
He had been involved in repair work to Sudeley’s Chapel and Church, and upon the exhumation
taking place it was said, ‘after a considerable search, the coffin was found bottom upwards
in a walled grave where it had been deposited.
It was then removed to the Chandos vault, and we proceeded to examine the body.
But the coffin having been so frequently opened, we found nothing but the bare skeleton, except
a few pieces of seer cloth, which were still found under the skull, and a dark coloured
mass which provided to contain when washed a small quantity of hair, which exactly corresponded
with some I already had.
The roots of the ivy which you may remember grew in such profusion on the walls of the
chapel had penetrated into the coffin and completely filled the greater part of it.’
We then had the different pieces of lead, which from time to time had been cut from
the coffin, firmly nailed together as to present the original form of the coffin, and it was
placed on two large flat stones by the side of that Lord Chandos.
The Queen must have been low of stature, as the lead which enclosed her corpse was but
five feet four inches in length.’
So the fact Catherine Parr’s tomb had been broken into on 3 occasions actually caused
her remains to decay at a rather rapid rate after.
The first time it was opened the cut made by John Lucas caused her skin to become decayed,
and then as time went on the further disruption caused her corpse to rot even quicker.
What baffles me is why they decided to break into the tomb of a Queen, and it goes to show
the lack of respect they had at the time for Catherine Parr.
Even cutting hair off her remains and ripping out one of her teeth is shocking, and following
the reburial of her in a proper tomb, the examination showed how the remains had been
altered greatly since the initial opening.
In around 25 years the remains had completly decayed, as before for centuries they had
not shown any signs of decay or deterioration.
The church of St Mary’s inside the walls of Sudeley Castle where Catherine Parr lies
today is a remarkable building which was restored, and Catherine sits next to the altar in an
elaborate marble tomb that outlines who she was, and contains the same inscription that
was placed on her initial memorial.
The shocking desecration of the remains of the last Queen of Henry VIII shows how awful
people can be some times.
Once again thanks for watching.
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.