3.420 strayed hearts (125)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@VM.EPAS.UTORONTO.CA)
Fri, 1 Sep 89 20:10:21 EDT


Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 420. Friday, 1 Sep 1989.


(1) Date: 31 Aug 89 01:05:46 EST (82 lines)
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: straying hearts

(2) Date: 08/31/89 18:27:54 EST (23 lines)
From: <HORTONT@SERVAX> (TOM=HORTON)
Subject: Bruce's heart

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 31 Aug 89 01:05:46 EST
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: straying hearts

From: Jim O'Donnell, Classics, Penn

I commend to the attention of all sarcophagophiles a little booklet that
should still be available through the gift shop at Westminster Abbey, `Who's
Buried Where', edited and published by the late Fredrick Delaney, who is
perhaps the only volunteer guide in the Abbey's history to speak with a
pronounced Rhode Island accent -- a retired American postal worker, in fact,
who spent many years in the Abbey fielding questions. His booklet ranges far
beyond the Abbey and makes jolly, if ghoulish reading. (Of general interest, I
add only that the last body buried in Westminster Abbey without cremation
[except for the Unknown Warrior] was Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts
[d. 1906]. And I'd be glad to know why Lord Nelson was buried in Cardinal
Wolsey's sarcophagus.)

Hearts (etc.) from that source: John Baliol, heart (plus bodies of 18
generations of descendants) at Brabourne, Kent.

O. Cromwell, body at Tyburn, head now at Sydney Sussex Chapel, Cam.

Thomas Hardy, body in the Abbey, but he left his heart in Dorset (Stinsford)

F.J. Haydn, buried Vienna, skull kept in museum for 150 years, now reunited

Simon de Montfort (1208-1265), buried in Worcester, but head, one foot, and
both hands buried `elsewhere'

Thomas More: head in Canterbury, body possibly in Chelsea

Percy B. Shelley, cremated and ashes in Prot. cemetery in Rome, heart in
Bournemouth.

Voltaire: d. 1778, remains stolen 1814, heart only returned in 1864 (Pantheon,
Paris) -- reading Le Rouge et le Noir, this actually makes sense

Anne Boleyn: buried Tower of London, heart may be at Erwarton, Suffolk

Edward II of England, d. 1358: buried Gloucester Cathedral, heart at
GreyFriars, London

Eleanor of Castile (d. 1290, wife of Edward I), body in Abbey, heart in
Blackfriars, entrails (!) in Lincoln Cathedral

Henrietta Maria (wife of Charles I of England), di. 1669, body in St. Denis,
Paris, heart in Convent of Visitation at Chaillot

Henry of Almayne (d. 1271), buried in Gloucester, heart in Abbey)

Henry I of England (d. 1135) buried at Reading Abbey Berks., brain, eyes, and
internal organs in Rouen

Henry III (d. 1272), body in Abbey, heart in Fontrevault Abbey

Henry V (d. 1422), buried Abbey, entrails in France (`body dismembered,
boiled, bones and flesh returned to England for burial under his chantry
chapel)

Isabella of France (wife of Edward II), buried Grey Friars London, heart may
be in Norfolk

James II (d. 1701), entrails in France [in several places?!], heart at
Chaillot, what was left in Paris

James I of Scotland (d. 1437), body in Perth, heart originally in Jerusalem
but perhaps now restored.

Saint Margaret (d. 1093), body in Scotland, head last seen at Scotch College
in Douay in 1785

Mary Tudor (Bloody Mary), buried Abbey in vault with Elizabeth, heart in lead
box.

Maria Clementina Sobieska, wife of the Old Pretender (d. 1785), body in St.
Peer's (Rome), heart in another church in Rome

Richard the Lionhearted, heart in Rouen, viscera in Chaluz, body in
Fontrevault Robert Bruce body in Fife, heart at Melrose Abbey

Further respondent deposeth not.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: 08/31/89 18:27:54 EST
From: <HORTONT@SERVAX> (TOM=HORTON)
Subject: Bruce's heart

More on the displaced heart of Robert the Bruce. According to an article
on the front page of the Glasgow Herald on Aug. 17, Douglas gallantly went to
the aid of some Spaniards who were trying to take a castle held by the Moors
when:
"He and his followers were surrounded by Moors and Douglas spurred into
the attack, flinging Bruce's heart at the enemy and shouting that in death
as in life he would follow him."

Thankfully, it appears the heart was carried in a silver casket.

I clipped the article (mainly about the celebration of the 659th (?!)
anniversary of the battle) intending to send it to whomever originally
enquired about this subject. But I've lost that person's name. Whoever you
are, if you want the article, please send me your address.

Tom Horton (Computer Science, Florida Atlantic Univ.)
BITNET: HortonT at SERVAX