Remains
In 1782, a gentleman by the name of John Locust discovered the coffin of Queen Catherine at the ruins of the Sudeley Castle chapel. He opened the coffin and observed that the body, after 234 years, was in a surprisingly good condition. Reportedly the flesh on one of her arms was still white and moist. After taking a few locks of her hair, he closed the coffin and returned it to the grave.
The coffin was opened a few more times in the next ten years and in 1792 some drunken men buried it upside down and in a rough way. When the coffin was officially reopened in 1817, nothing but a skeleton remained. Her remains were then moved to the tomb of Lord Chandos whose family owned the castle at that time. The tomb was carefully restored by order of the late Duchess of Buckingham, Lady Anne Greville, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Chandos. In later years the chapel was rebuilt by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who erected a canopied tomb with a recumbent marble figure by John Birnie Philip.
Read more about this topic: Catherine Parr
Famous quotes containing the word remains:
“He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“All that remains is the mad desire for present identity through a woman.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“We are prisoners of the world’s demented sink.
The soft enchantments of our years of innocence
Are harvested by accredited experience
Our fondest memories soon turn to poison
And only oblivion remains in season.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)