Shakespeare's Bones: The Proposal to Disinter Them, Considered in Relation to Their Possible Bearing on His Portraiture: Illustrated by Instances of Visits of the Living to the DeadIngleby, C. M. (Clement Mansfield)
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Shakespeare's Bones: The Proposal to Disinter Them, Considered in Relation to Their Possible Bearing on His Portraiture: Illustrated by Instances of Visits of the Living to the Dead
I give one more example of robbing the grave of an illustrious man,
through the superstition of many and the cupidity of one. Swedenborg was
buried in the vault of the Swedish Church in Prince’s Square, on April 5,
1772. In 1790, in order to determine a question raised in debate, viz.,
whether Swedenborg were really dead and buried, his wooden coffin was
opened, and the leaden one was sawn across the breast. A few days after,
a party of Swedenborgians visited the vault. “Various relics” (says
White: _Life of Swedenborg_, 2nd ed., 1868, p. 675) “were carried off:
Dr. Spurgin told me he possessed the cartilage of an ear. Exposed to the
air, the flesh quickly fell to dust, and a skeleton was all that remained
for subsequent visitors. {21b} At a funeral in 1817, Granholm, an
officer in the Swedish Navy, seeing the lid of Swedenborg’s coffin loose,
abstracted the skull, and hawked it about amongst London Swedenborgians,
but none would buy. Dr. Wählin, pastor of the Swedish Church, recovered
what he supposed to be the stolen skull, had a cast of it taken, and
placed it in the coffin in 1819. The cast which is sometimes seen in
phrenological collections is obviously not Swedenborg’s: it is thought to
be that of a small female skull.”
In the latter part of the reign of George III a mausoleum was built in
the Tomb House at Windsor Castle. On its completion, in the spring of
1813, it was determined to open a passage of communication with St.
George’s Chapel, and in constructing this an opening was accidentally
made in one of the walls of the vault of Henry VIII, through which the
workmen could see three coffins, one of which was covered with a black
velvet pall. It was known that Henry VIII and Queen Jane Seymour were
buried in this vault, but a question had been raised as to the place of
Charles the First’s interment, through the statement of Lord Clarendon,
that the search made for the late King’s coffin at Windsor (with a view
to its removal to Westminster Abbey) had proved fruitless. Sir Henry
Halford, in his _Account_, appended to his _Essays and Orations_, 1831,
{22} thus describes the examination of the palled coffin.
“On representing the circumstance to the Prince Regent, his R. H.
perceived at once that _a doubtful point in history might be cleared up
by opening this vault_; and accordingly his R. H. ordered an examination
to be made on the first convenient opportunity. This was done on the
First of April last [_i.e._, 1813], the day after the funeral of the
Duchess of Brunswick, in the presence of his R. H. himself, who
guaranteed thereby _the most respectful care and attention to the remains
of the dead_, during the enquiry. His R. H. was accompanied by his R. H.
the Duke of Cumberland, Count Munster, the Dean of Windsor, Benjamin
Charles Stevenson, Esq., and Sir Henry Halford.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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