I am planning to feature images of all the tombs I can get to. The starting
point is an analysis of where they all are. The second column gives the date of
death. The order used for listing is the the 'popularity' of the location, and
then descending date order with overseas tombs at the end.
Well, that was the plan, but it started poorly at Westminster Abbey (2nd Aug
2005), which charges a princely £8 entry and then does not allow photography. I
managed a shot of Henry III's before realising the restriction. I will have to
rely on postcards and books,
This is the only shot I managed before the no-photography ban was enforced.
There is not much to see from ground level, many of these tombs comprise
12-15 feet of box with an effigy on top.
Henry's tomb is also visible in the background of Edward's, below. Source of
second image, Trowles
from the main page He
was buried at Greyfriars Church, Leicester. His remains might have been
thrown into the River Soar during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but if
not, it is probably under a car park in Leicester.
Faversham Abbey was founded in 1147 by
Stephen and Queen Matilda and both were buried there. The Abbey was
dissolved in 1538 and subsequently most of it demolished as part of King
Henry VIII’s plans to sweep the monasteries from England.
The Abbey Church was excavated in 1964 and the empty graves of King Stephen,
his wife and son were found. Their bones are said to have been thrown into
Faversham Creek when the building was dismantled, however in the Parish
Church is a canopy tomb with no contemporary inscription where is said that
their bones were re-interred.
The Abbey of Reading was founded by Henry I
in 1121. When Henry died in 1135 the church was far enough
advanced for him to be buried in front of the high altar, but was not
finally consecrated until 1164 by the Archbishop Thomas A’Becket, in
the presence of Henry II. The Abbey buildings survived Henry VIII, who made
part of the monastic buildings into a Royal Palace, which was used now and
again by the next three sovereigns. In 1550, Edward VI had granted the Abbey
Church to Protector Somerset. The parish church of St. Mary in Reading was
rebuilt and, to provide material, the choir was taken down. In the course of
this, Henry I's tomb was broken up and his bones scattered.
from the main page,
He was buried in the old St. Paul's
Cathedral (finally destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 1666, but not in
much of a state at that time).
