One
of the most notorious monarchs in English History is Bloody Mary, or Mary I. She is
remembered today for being the brutal daughter of Henry VIII who would go on to burn over
280 religious heretics at the stake. Mary died childless and her throne would then pass
to her half sister Elizabeth I, who couldn’t have been more different to her. But following
Mary’s death, she was said to have been buried with her mother Catherine of Aragon,
the first wife of Henry VIII. But her greatest wish for her remains to lie with her mother
inside of Peterborough Cathedral were never taken into consideration. Mary instead was
buried inside of Westminster Abbey, but her tomb is one today which can literally be missed
today. But what is the story of the lost tomb of Mary I?
During her life, Mary I faced a number of difficulties in her kingdom. Following the
death of her half brother Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey came onto the throne and Mary then
outside the 9 Day Queen from power. She would then execute Jane and her husband, but the
Catholic monarch then restored Catholicism as the country’s religion. She began to
punish and persecute Protestants across the lands, and along with many of her Catholic
bishops she began to sentence many religious reformers and heretics to death. In many English
towns and cities, protestants were being burned at the stake in horrific scenes and many were
burned together in large scale executions. These killings solidified Mary’s reputation
for being a brutal ruler, and she continued to punish protestants further as she blamed
them for the fact she could not have a child. She would die without an heir, and she at
times treated her half sister Elizabeth with contempt and suspicion. She even had the future
final Tudor Queen locked up inside of the Tower of London, and the two had many differences
including religion, and a rivalry would form between the two. Her marriage to Philip of
Spain was rather unpopular, especially as many feared the Spanish Catholic influence.
Mary I died on the 17th November 1558 from possibly uterine cancer or ovarian cysts or
cancer at the age of 42. Her will said that the body of Catherine of Aragon was to be
taken from Peterborough Cathedral to the Church of Observant Friars in Greenwich following
her death, and that the pair would be interred together in honourable tombs and monuments.
But the rivalry that Elizabeth I and Mary I had throughout their lives and childhood
would unite them both following their deaths. Mary’s body was embalmed and was wrapped
in a cerecloth after her heart and lungs were removed and the cavity was packed with spices
and herbs. It was then covered in purple velvet and was decorated with lace and gold gilt
nails. It’s believed that Mary’s heart was placed in a silver casket lined with velvet
and was buried in the Chapel Royal of St James.
The funeral procession of Mary I was rather grand, and an observer said, ’the corpse
of the late Queen was brought from St James’ in a chariot with a painted effigy of her
person adorned with crimson velvet and a crown on her heads, her sceptre on her hand and
many gold rings on her fingers.’ The coffin was accompanied by her household servants
in black gowns, and by many others and members of her government. The chief mourner was Margaret
Douglass, the Countess of Lennox, Mary’s first cousin. The coffin passed by Charing
Cross to Westminster Abbey and was taken in the great door of the church. Gentlemen carried
her coffin into the abbey from the chariot, it was met by the bishops and the abbot of
Westminster Abbey. She laid there all night and was watched over by 100 men in black gowns.
Her regalia was offered to god and her body was then buried in a vault in the north aisle
of the chapel of Henry VII. Her ministers and staff broke their staves of office and
threw them into the grave as the heralds proclaimed, ‘The Queen is dead, long life the Queen.’
The Bishop of Winchester stated, ‘She was a King’s daughter, she was a King’s sister,
she was a King’s wife, She was a Queen, and by the same title a King also.’ But
then Mary was buried inside of Westminster Abbey, which was completely against what she
wanted.
Today inside of the Henry VII Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey is a huge and ornate
tomb that marks the burial spot of Queen Elizabeth I. This huge and great marble tomb was built
on the orders of James I to honour the final Tudor Monarch, and on top of the tomb in her
effigy is just Elizabeth. The tomb shows how she would have looked in her old age, and
on the side of the tomb are inscriptions telling her greatest achievements claiming she was
a settler of peace and the defeater of the Spanish Armada. There is no mention of her
mother Anne Boleyn, and the incredible tomb also marked the burial place of her half sister
Mary I. It is easy to miss that Bloody Mary is buried there, and it shows how at the time
her reign was one which was deemed as forgettable or insignificant. There is Elizabeth who is
greatly celebrated, but Mary who is forgotten. But Mary never wanted to be buried inside
a tomb marked by Elizabeth I, or in the same place. The latin inscription on the monument
states, ‘Partners both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary,
in hope of the Resurrection.’
The tomb Mary I wanted was never built by Elizabeth I, but Elizabeth also would not
mark the burial site of her own mother during her reign. She did not even built a tomb for
her father or her half brother Edward VI, and it was James I who made her tomb and commissioned
it. Mary’s grave was left unmarked for around 50 years after her death, and it was said
that rubble from altars broken during the Reformation were piled on top of her burial
site. But James I would be the one who paid for the tomb of Elizabeth I, and James had
her buried on top of Mary I. It was said that, ‘The long war of the English reformation
is closed, the sisters are at one, the daughter of Katherine of Aragon and the daughter of
Anne Boleyn rest in peace at last.’ The two coffins were placed in the same vault,
Elizabeth’s coffin was placed on top of Mary’s showing for a final time that she
was sub-ordinate or below the position of her half sister Elizabeth. During the search
for James I’s remains and body, it was said that the tomb of Elizabeth and Mary was opened.
It was said, ‘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.’
So Mary I was buried inside Westminster Abbey with her sister Elizabeth, and the tomb has
little mention of the Catholic Tudor Monarch. It celebrates her half sister but not her,
and ultimately she is another Tudor Monarch who rests in a place where she did not want
to be buried. Her father Henry VIII was the same, as he wanted to be buried in an elaborate
tomb that was never built or finished. But today Mary I’s tomb is incredibly easy to
miss inside of England’s most beautiful and ornate religious building.
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