ROyAL BONES RECOVERED.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 902, 23 August 1910, Page 5

ROyAL BONES RECOVERED.

TOMBS OPENED AT FONTEVRAULT. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Paris, August 21. The bodies of King Eichard Coeur do. Lion, King Henry 11, and other members of the Eoyal House of Plantagenet have been found in the Abbey of Fontevrault, since 1804 a central house of detention for convicts. . ;

Henry II was buried in the great Angevin Abbey of Fontevrault, in the Valley of the Loire, on July G, 1189, and Eichard I was also interred there ton years later, in the robes which he had worn at bis'second coronation at Winchester, on his return from captivity. His brother John was buried at Worcester Cathedral, but'his heart was placed ill a golden casket at Fontevrault, where his Queen Isabella was interred.

The abbey,'in spite of mutilation, remains a fine example of the architecture of tho 12th century. The church, of which only the choir and-apse are; appropriated to divine service, has a beautiful nave covered by four cupolas. In a chapel in the south transept are tho effigies of Ms wife,'Eleonora of Guienne, and of Eichard the Lion Heart and John's wife, Isabella of Angouleme. Fontevrault was founded about the end of the lltli century by Eobert of Arbissel, who attained great famo as an ascetic and preacher.