RIFLING THE GRAVES OF CELEBRITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 324, 25 January 1908, Page 4

RIFLING THE GRAVES OF CELEBRITIES.

S'UUTUM! STOItIUS OF Till'; EX- | HC'.UATIOA 01'' OKIiAT iI&N. ! .Many people who have been following I Die i.hucc-I'orlland ease limy be inter- | csted ill other eases where the ni.il resting-places of great men have been disturbed )0i- various reasons. .Mr. \V. I'. Frith, K.A., tolls of a relic which was once shown to him by an ullidnl of St. l.wrgc'B Chapel, Windsor—a fragment uf the tlesh of Charles 1. enshrined ill a locket—and llie story lis owner tokl of it was this: "When he was a lail lie accompanied his master and L<eorge IV. illlo the vaults of Windsor Castle to open Lin; collin of the ' .Martyr Kill;./ Tlii: head had been removed tor Ceorge's close inspection, when his -Majesty, exclaiming, ' Look out, the eye is going/ dropped it on the ltuof in his horror. After the head had been restored to the collin the bo.v discovered on lho lloor a piece of llosli, which he quietly secured and preserved all liis life as a precious relic of the unhappy king." Some years earlier than this —in 181.1 —some workmen engaged in constructing an underground passage Irom the choir of St/Oeorge's Clwpel to tile mausoleum recently completed by Oeorge IV". disclosed the collin of Lhe_ lirst Charles, and, making a bote in it, removed the head, winch was luuiid Lo he in 'a slate oi fxceik'nt preservation, and bearing a strong iiKeness to Van Dyck's portraits of Charles. The head of Charles's great enemy, Cromwell, met wiih much more irreverent treatment. After the late I'roteel»r* remains had been dug up from their burial-place at Tyburn, his head was exported for twenty-live years on the top ;il ucsimiiister llall, unlit one stormy night il was blown down and was picked illl bv a sentry who, hiding it under his cloak, took it home and secreted it in i!:e chimney-corner. It was later sold to a man named liurisell, one of whose iuedy descendants exhibited it in a place near' Clare .Market, ll.v him it was so.d to .James Cox, owner of a museum, who in turn parted with it for !'2:iU to three ni"i!, who ■exhibited it in 3iead Court, I'.ond Street, at half-a crown a head; and after lurlhcr strange vicissitudes it e.uuo into j>nr;s<NsioiL of a medical man named Wilkinson, in whose family it remained, a revered possession, down lo our own time. A little more than a century ago .Milion's tomb w,i. shamefully desecrated bv three half-drunken church oiiieinln, who cut open I lie top oi the collin and exposed the upper part of the body. "Hie ghouls removed eight of the teeth, and one of them, .Mr. Laming, S;ii(l thill he "had had at one time a mind to bring away the whole under-jaw with the teeth ill it; he had it ill his hand, but tossed it back again." After the rascals had wrought their evil will, Kli/.abeth (Irani, the grave-digger, took possesion of the coiliii and exhibited the body "at lirst for sixpence and afterwards for threepence and twopence each person, ' while the workmen kept the church doors closed against all who would not pay the price of a pot of heel' Tor entrance.

" llnrii lien Jonson's " grave was opened at dead of night in Dean Bucklaud's time, with the object of ascertaining whether or not he had actually been buried upright. He had. A collecting maniac, who had been permitted to be present, overcame his reverence for Ben's remains to the extent of currying away some relics, and it was only after a threat of public exposure that they were ultimately restored. The Venerable JSede's bones were dug up, some centuries after his death, by a monk named Alfred, who exposed them to publie view and then carried them to the monastery of Durham, where, in company with those of his pupil, Kt, Cuthoeri. they were found in later years huddled up ill a sack. .lames H.'s coliin lay in the church of the English Hcncdictinos in Paris until the days of the French involution, when the lead was stripped from it fur conversion into bullets before it was put underground. Edward lV.'s tomb al Windsor was opened about the same time, and his skeleton was found sheathed in lead, with wisps of brown hair, as fresh in appearance as if they had just been removed from a living head; and when Henry IV.'a remains were brought to light seventy-four years ago his bearded face was described as almost lifelike in appearance. I Edward l.'s tomb was opened iu 1774 at the request of the Society o£ Antiquaries, and his body in its royal robes with a sceptre in the left hand was almost untouched by time; the actual height of Longshaiiks, by the way, was found to be Oft. :iin. A few years later King John's body was disclosed ill equal preservation, with a corroded sword by his side, and in ISUS the brave heart ol Coeur de Lion was found beneath the cathedral of Iloucu, enclosed iu two leaden casktls, and still retaining its shape more than six centuries after it had ceased to beat.