Charles I’s Coffin Found

On April 1, 1813 the Prince Regent, the Duke of Cumberland, Count Munster, the Dean of Windsor, Benjamin Charles Stevenson and Sir Henry Halford found themselves standing in the tomb of Henry VIII.

The tomb had been rediscovered during excavations in the royal vault at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. These excavations were for the burial of George III’s sister Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick. Four coffins were found during this work. One coffin was quite large. It was assumed to contain the large remains of Henry VIII. A smaller coffin, near the larger, was thought to have the body of Jane Seymour. The fourth was a very small mahogany coffin. It was covered with crimson velvet. It holds the stillborn child of Princess George Denmark, who later became Queen Anne.

It is the fourth coffin, however, that the illustrious persons came to examine. It is a plain leaden coffin. The identity of the person in the coffin was found in the inscription on the coffin’s lid. The royal person had been buried in secret and the whereabouts had not been confirmed until that very day on April 1, 1813. The inscription on the coffin read: “King Charles 1648″.

The Prince Regent gave instructions to open the coffin. Inside the corpse of the executed Charles I was found wrapped up completely in a cloth veil. The face was decomposing, the cartilage of the nose gone, but the beard, a red-brown, still came to a perfect, almost defiant, point. The head was understandably loose from the rest of the body.

The Prince Regent’s physician, Sir Henry Halford, will later provide a fuller description of what they saw:

On removing the pall, a plain leaden coffin, with no appearance of ever having been inclosed in wood, and bearing an inscription ‘ King Charles, 1648,’ in large, legible characters, on a scroll of lead encircling it, immediately presented itself to the view. A square opening was then made in the upper part of the lid, of such dimensions as to admit a clear insight into its contents. These were, an internal wooden coffin, very much decayed, and the body carefully wrapped up in cere-cloth, into the folds of which a quantity of unctuous or greasy matter mixed with resin, as it seemed, had been melted, so as to exclude, as effectually as possible, the external air. The coffin was completely full; and from the tenacity of the cere-cloth, great difficulty was experienced in detaching it successfully from the parts which it enveloped. Wherever the unctuous matter had insinuated itself, the separation of the cere-cloth was easy; and when it came off, a correct impression of the features to which it had been applied was observed in the unctuous substance. At length, the whole face was disengaged from its covering. The complexion of the skin of it was dark and discoloured. The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance; the cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the first moment of exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately: and the pointed beard, so characteristic of the period of the reign of King Charles, was perfect. The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of the unctuous matter between it and the cere-cloth, was found entire.

It was difficult, at this moment, to withhold a declaration, that, notwithstanding its disfigurement, the countenance did bear a strong resemblance to the coins, the busts, and especially to the pictures of King Charles I. by Vandyke, by which it had been made familiar to us. It is true, that the minds of the spectators of this interesting sight were well prepared to receive this impression; but it is also certain, that such a facility of belief had been occasioned by the simplicity and truth of Mr. Herbert’s Narrative, every part of which had been confirmed by the investigation, so far as it had advanced: and it will not be denied that the shape of the face, the forehead, an eye, and the beard, are the most important features by which resemblance is determined.

When the head had been entirely disengaged from the attachments which confined it, it was found to be loose, and, without any difficulty, was taken up and held to view. It was quite wet, and gave a greenish red tinge to paper and to linen which touched it. The back part of the scalp was entirely perfect, and had a remarkably fresh appearance; the pores of the skin being more distinct, as they usually are when soaked in moisture; and the tendons and ligaments of the neck were of considerable substance and firmness. The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and, in appearance, nearly black. A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is of a beautiful dark brown colour. That of the beard was a redder brown. On the back part of the head it was more than an inch in length, and had probably been cut so short for the convenience of the executioner, or perhaps by the piety of friends soon after death, in order to furnish memorials of the unhappy king.

On holding up the head, to examine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves considerably; and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even, an appearance which could have been produced only by a heavy blow, inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the last proof wanting to identify King Charles the First.

After this examination of the head, which served every purpose in view, and without examining the body below the neck, it was immediately restored to its situation, the coffin was soldered up again, and the vault closed.

Sir Henry Halford does not mention the macabre souvenirs taken from the royal corpse. When the coffin is closed three parts of Charles’s body were taken: the half cervical vertebra, a tooth, and a portion of the King’s beard. The Prince Regent gave the relics to Halford saying “these are more in your line than mine, you had better keep them”. Later, stories would be told of Halford passing around the Charles’ vertebrae at dinner parties to the amusement of his guests. [1]”

Notes

1. For more information see article by John Morris, Sir Henry Halford, president of the Royal College of Physicians, with a note on his involvement in the exhumation of King Charles I which can be found here. He writes that the relics were returned by Halford’s grandson to the Royal Family. Queen Victoria later ordered the relics to be re-interred in Henry VIII’s tomb. Prince Albert carried out this task. The lock of Charles I’s hair, that was cut on April 1 1813, appears to remain in a locket kept with the Royal Collection. It can be seen here. The above post also relies on information from the article of D. Geraint James, Sir Henry Halford’s essays and orations found here.