Volume 2
An account of the discovery of the body of King John, in the Cathedral Church of Worcester, July 17th, 1797. From authentic communications; with illustrations and remarks / [Valentine Green].
- Valentine Green
- Date:
- 1797
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the discovery of the body of King John, in the Cathedral Church of Worcester, July 17th, 1797. From authentic communications; with illustrations and remarks / [Valentine Green]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
13/14 page 7
![It is prefamed from the abundant evidences apparent on the view of the royal body and its appendages, that they have unqueftionably undergone a tranflation fmce the time of their original interment in this cathedral. The change in the por¬ tion of the fkull, the difplacing of the jaws; the lofs of the bones of the hands, and the radii of both arms j the mutilations of the fword and its fcabbard, and the broken fragments of the mortar upon and below the abdomen ; the large Ira&ure, fuppofed to be entirely through the frone coffin, and laftly, the tomb itfelf of modern conftru£Hon, paired indeed, but not matched with the ancient; form to¬ gether a teftimonial phalanx of evidence, much too ftrong to be relifted with a view to proving that the place in which the body is now found depofited, was that of its firft burial. And thus, while a lefs dignified tenant may have been ad¬ mitted to the poffeffion of the royal grave, the king himfelf is proved literally to remain above ground, intombed indeed, but unburied. In the courfe of this curious and interelting invefligation, we have wit- neiled a no lefs curious refult.—Speculative opinions, ® which the refearches into the tranfa&ions of paft ages, mull: more or lefs fubjefl the antiquarian and hiftorian to enter into, having in this inftance elevated into an affumed fact, an. event of ancient date of which no record had been made in the archives of the cathedral, a reliance on thofe opinions, and a confequent refort being had to the only pra£tical means of eftabliffiing or deftroying them, that effe£iual ordeal is feen in its operation to have fecured a valuable recompence to pofterity, in the de- Itruftion it has wrought on ingenious {peculation, founded on fpecious poffibilities, out of the ruins of which hath been raifed a pofitive truth, that lias for ever clofed the lips of conjecture, and happily placed an ancient faCt,. beyond the reach of future doubt. Had the fugitive memorandum made by Mr. Dougharty, dated July the 24th, 1754, and inferted as a MS. note in p. 35, in his copy of Dr. Thomas’s Survey of the Cathedra], and now in the poffeffion of Sir Charles Trubfhaw Withers* Knight,* been fortunately entered in its proper place-, in the Archives, of the formed the ceremony of interring-King John in this cathedral, and died himfelf i& July, 12-19, in’die fame year he had difplaced the remains of St. Wulftan from his grave, aad put them in a new ffirine, in which operation he fawed fome of his,b ines in funder with his own>hands. The remains of St. Ofwald had been fiift erdhrined by Bifhop Adulph his fuccefibr, A. D. 1002, and again by Bifhop Wulftan in 1089, at the opening of the prelenfc cathedral. The grave of St. Wulftan to the north, which the author examined in 1796, is oscupied by the fton* coffin and remains of William de Blois, fuccefor to Bifhop Sylvefter ; he died Auguft the 18th, 1233. See Hiftory and Antiquities of Worcefter, Vo?. I. Seftion IV. p„ 73, 74 } Section VII. p. r86, and planof the Ca¬ thedral, Ref. 1, 2, 3. It appears therefore that the three coffins, of the fafhron of that period, were all made: and placed there in the courfe of only twenty three years. Other inftances of the fame mode of interment in the fame fort of coffins occur in this cathedral, of which that of William de Harcourt, temp. King John, in. the Dean’s chapel, is one. * See Hiftory and Antiquities of Worcefter, Vol, I. Seel. IV. p.. 7a*](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31896236_0002_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
