Catherine Valois was born on the 27th of October 1401 to Charles the sixth of France.
Catherine‘s first husband was Henry the fifth King of England but it was her second
husband which would create a new dynasty.
No Kathryn married a man called owain app moderate app Tudor - oh and we know him today
Owen Tudor.
Owen and Kathryn would fall in love and their marriage was scandalous.
But their sons would create the line of Tudor kings that would rule England for nearly 150
years.
But Catherine although the mother of the dynasty would be disgraced after her death and her
descendants would ignore the situation.
Now the actual cause of Kathryn‘s death is uncertain.
She had given birth recently but some records indicate she had a health issue for many years
and that is why she sought treatment of prayers at Bermondsey abbey.
Kathryn was only 35 years old when she passed away on the 3rd of January 1437.
Although Kathryn had remarried Owen Tudor, when she died she was given the funeral fit
for a queen.
It is thought that she was embalmed shortly after her death as was common practice at
the time.
Her body would then be wrapped inside a cloth and encased in a sheet of lead Kathryn would
then be placed into a wooden coffin.
During the embalming process Kathryns organs would have been removed and these were placed
into jars or boxes and buried in separate locations.
It is thought that some of Kathryn‘s organs would have been buried in the churches on
route of the funeral procession But there is no documented proof to say that Kathryn’s
organs were found at any documented stop.
Kathryn did have a funeral at Saint Kathryns the church of her patron saint before then
being moved towards her final destination.
Now on top of Kathryn‘s coffin was an effigy and it was dressed in Kathryn‘s own clothing.
Interestingly Kathryn‘s effigy was carved of wood and you can see this if you visit
Westminster abbey today.
Her effigy was painted in realistic colours with a long neck and charming tilt to the
head.
Ideally messages were intended to look as much as like the deceased as possible so if
Catherine is effigies following in this tradition she was a tall willowy figure.
There are clues to say that the effigy once had a wig attached to its head according to
the painted surface on the scalp Kathryn‘s eyes were bluey grey.
But the effigy now only wears a painted red shift but during the funeral it wore a purple
satin mantle.
Kathryn is coughing itself was covered in cloth of gold perched atop a huge hearse.
Then on February 8 1437 Kathryn had her second funeral service and was laid to rest in an
alabaster tomb in Westminster Abbey near to her first husband Henry the fifth.
Now for most people their story would end at their place of burial for poor Kathryn,
this was just not the case.
Some historians believe that perhaps Catherine‘s tomb was intended to be temporary with her
son Henry the sixth wanting to devise a more appropriate memorial for her.
But unfortunately Henry died before he could decide what to do in her memory.
Catherine‘s grandson was Henry the seventh and he decided to demolish the old lady chapel
where Kathryn was buried and to build a new one.
So unfortunately Kathryn‘s tomb was destroyed in the process and earthing her body as they
were digging for new foundations.
Kathryn is coughing, that was made of wood was found to be badly decayed and so the decision
was made to take her remains out of it.
Catherine’s body was put into a wooden chest lined with flat sheets of lead cut from the
roof of the old chapel.
Kathryn now laying in a chest was placed onto the floor near to her husband‘s tomb and
it was here that she would remain for another 300 years.
An interesting concept believed by some is that the reason Henry the seventh ordered
the tombs deliberate destruction what’s the distance himself from his ancestry.
But Henry did mention that Kathryn or someone that he wanted to be buried with in his will.
"In our monastery at Westminster rests... our noble progenitors and blood, and specially
the body of our great dame of right noble memory, Queen Catherine, wife to King Henry
the Vth….
Our body therefore to be buried within the same monastery, that is to say, in the chapel
where our said great dame lay buried...."
It is believed that Henry the seventh saw the lady chapel at the Tudor family tomb.
But just like Kathryn son Henry the seventh died before the chapel could be completed
and Henry the eighth his son never carried out his last requests nor did Henry the eighth
bury his great grandmother as did none of the tutors that came after him.
Now this chest that Kathryn now found herself in Adelaide into sections and it is believed
through accounts that this lid was opened to display her remains from the waist up whenever
visitors wanted to see her.
A sad thing is that one individual stripped back to cere cloth from Kathryn’s face and
chest and legs and found that her body although desiccated was somewhat intact.
“The bones being firmly united, and thinly clothed with flesh, like scrapings of tanned
leather.”
It is thought that because people describe Kathryn‘s first skin with no clothing over
it that perhaps she was buried naked in her shroud.
Another sad fact is that the Abbey tour guides would charge a shilling for visitors to get
a peek at Kathryn‘s remains and her body became a popular tourist attraction for around
300 years.
There are Legends as to why Kathryn ended up in the way that she did and some believe
it is because she went against her husband‘s orders and gave birth to Henry the sixth at
Windsor.
There is a prophecy believed by Henry the fifth stated that a Prince born at Windsor
would lose everything his father had gained so Henry ordered Kathryn not to give birth
there but Kathryn didn’t listen.
“Sensible of her fault in disobeying her husband it was her own desire and pleasure
that her body should never be buried.
If so, it is pity but that woman (especially a Queen) should have her will therein, whose
dust doth preach a sermon of duty to feminine, and of mortality to all, beholders.”
It is believed that this legend reflects early judgement Kathryn couldn’t contain her love
for Owen Tudor and therefore she ended up as a person who became a morbid curiosity
through her own so-called bad behaviour.
No one famous writer Samuel Pepe‘s described what he saw when he made a visit to the abbey
and saw Kathryn‘s body.
He had previously been to see Shakespeare’s production of Henry the fifth and thought
this may have spurred his curiosity to see the real Kathryn who had been wooed by a king.
“On Shrove Tuesday 1669, I to the Abbey went, and by favor did see the body of Queen
Catherine of Valois, and had the upper part of the body in my hands, and I did kiss her
mouth, reflecting upon it I did kiss a Queen: and this my birthday and I thirty-six years
old and I did kiss a Queen.”
There are even talks of a tradition that arose where individuals would kiss Kathryn‘s corpse
and this is referenced by Shakespeare in the play with several kisses for the Queen who
had witchcraft in her lips.
But if the last 300 years had not been enough when the 18th century passed the mistreatment
of Kathryn‘s body escalated.
In 1786 Richard Gough wrote that in recent years the young scholars at Westminster had
amused themselves with tearing it to pieces and then when gough himself saw it he reported
the condition of Kathryn‘s body as being a shapeless mass of a whitish colour.
It was 10 in 1788 when the situation came to a close and Kathryn‘s remains put into
the village as fault where it was only opened to admit the recently deceased Countess of
Buckingham.
Catherine‘s body their lay undisturbed for almost 100 years and memory of her began to
fade with her location being half forgotten when Dean Stanley who restored of the monuments
in the abbey began to search for Kathryn in the records.
In the December 201877 Lord Percy died and his family tomb was opened to admit his body
Devilliers fault by Kathryn Lane was adjacent and with permission of Queen Victoria Dean
Stanley’s assistance waited until the evening after the funeral and then into the Percy
vault they broke through the thin wall that separated the tombs to see if Kathryn was
really into Villiers fault and retrieve her.
Stanley’s team found her remains on top of a pile of Coffins beneath the countesses
effigy.
The pile had tilted over and Kathryn is coughing had fallen against a damp wall with the word
touch in the wall at rotted into soft pulpy mush.
When they tried to lift Catherine's coffin, it stuck to the coffin below.
They managed to free it and slid a solid plank of wood beneath, and shored up the pulpy side
so they could move it.
After considerable effort of shifting around in the small space, they managed to work the
coffin free and lift it out of the vault.
But the change in humidity had an immediate effect, and within a few hours, the coffin
had fallen into fragments.
Sadly, “several portions” of Catherine's body were found to be missing.
It appeared to the examiners that the remains had been doused with lime, and several portions
had been eaten away by it, but they may have misinterpreted the damage they saw.
The entire front portion of Kathryn skull was gone and one piece of the back of it was
found lying by her pelvis.
Most of her vertebrae were missing as well as all of her ribs except for one and two
of her right arm bones.
Though the team searched they did not find a single one of her teeth one of her chemicals
was gone and had been replaced with a pelvic bone.
It is believed that Kathryn‘s bones and teeth were taken by visitors as souvenirs
over the centuries.
Unfortunately for Kathryn it was at this point that there was some more damage albeit accidental.
Because her bones were so fragile from the dampness of the atmosphere they turned to
powder when touched like wet sand but as they dried they hardened.
Kathryn‘s legs however were found to be still encased in about 12 layers of cerecloth
and in perfect condition.
It is believed that they’ve reported her skin still remaining on the right arm smoothed
out as she dried and her legs still appear to be supple.
Denise Kathryn is head under the sheets of sea cloth were the remains of a wool pillow
still retaining a few fragments of the silk which had once covered it and it is believed
that Queen Victoria was presented with one of the shreds.
Now Kathryn is coughing or showed up a little bit more and then carried into Henry the fifth
chapel.
“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.”
Kathryn‘s body was then placed into a new coffin which was made of English oak they
also placed the pieces of the old chest inside the new one along with an inscription plate
explaining the journey her body had taken over the last 100 years lifting the altar
slab they built a new tomb benefit to using grey marble slab of slate inside On which
the coffin would arrest.
Catherine of flour finally had the tomb of a queen 400 years after her death.
There is a Latin inscription on Catherine’s tomb which reads under this slab wants the
altar of this chapel for long cast down and broken up by Fire, rest at last, after various
vicissitudes, finally deposited here by command of Queen Victoria, the bones of Kathryn developer,
daughter of Charles the sixth, king of France, wife of Henry the fifth, mother of Henry the
six, grandmother of Henry the seventh, born 1400, crowned 1421, died 1438.
Now we know the birth is off by one year as well as the date of her death as Kathryn was
actually born on the 27th of October 1401 and died on January 3 1437.
the report that talks of her internment at the abbey comes to a close with these lines.
“It is the latest royal tomb in the Abbey, and, though long delayed, it has been thought
that the singular and romantic history of a French Princess and an English Queen should
at length be brought to an honourable end.
Requiescat in pace.”