For nearly four hundred years, the body of an English queen lay unburied in Westminster Abbey, exposed to the curious gaze of visitors who came to see her mummified remains. Her coffin, damaged and open, sat above ground beside the grand chantry chapel built for her dead husband, and generation after generation of onlookers peered inside at the preserved face of Catherine of Valois. The situation was not the result of malice or intended disrespect. It was the product of accident, construction work, and shifting attitudes toward the remains of the dead that changed across the centuries.
Catherine was born in 1401, the daughter of Charles VI of France, and she grew up during the bitter, extended conflict between England and France known as the Hundred Years’ War. In 1420, she married Henry V of England, a union arranged as part of a peace treaty between the two kingdoms following Henry’s military victories in France. She was very young when she became queen, but the marriage carried enormous political significance, aimed at uniting the English and French royal families. It did not last long.
Henry V died suddenly in 1422, probably from illness, leaving Catherine a widow at just twenty-one. Their only child, Henry VI, was still an infant when his father died, and England was ruled by regents while the young king grew up. For several years, Catherine lived quietly at court, but she later secretly married a Welsh nobleman named Owen Tudor. That relationship had immense historical consequences, because their descendants eventually founded the Tudor dynasty.
Catherine herself died on January 3, 1437, at the age of only thirty-five. Historians believe she may have died from illness shortly after childbirth. As the widow of Henry V and mother of the reigning king, she was given an honorable burial. Her body was taken to Westminster Abbey, the traditional resting place of English monarchs, and buried near the shrine of Edward the Confessor, where many important royal tombs stood.
At first, nothing was unusual about her burial. Her coffin was placed in a proper tomb, and she rested there like many other queens of England. But roughly forty years after her death, something changed everything. During the late fifteenth century, major construction work took place inside Westminster Abbey.
Henry V’s tomb was being redesigned and expanded into a large, elaborate chantry chapel, built over the site of his burial as a magnificent memorial to the famous king. The construction required the rearrangement of many neighboring graves. Catherine’s tomb lay close to the area of the new building, and as workmen cleared space for the chapel, her tomb had to be dismantled and moved. During this process, her coffin was lifted from its original resting place.
Instead of being carefully reburied in a new tomb, the coffin was simply placed above ground near Henry V’s chapel. Over time, the coffin deteriorated. Medieval wooden coffins did not last forever, and as the centuries passed, the wood began to rot. Eventually, the lid opened, making the remains inside visible.
Because Catherine had originally been wrapped in linen and placed in a tightly sealed coffin, parts of her body had dried and been preserved. In other words, the queen’s remains had become partially mummified. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the strange sight of Catherine of Valois’s body was well known to visitors of Westminster Abbey. The abbey was not only a religious building but also a place people visited to see royal relics and historical curiosities, and the abbey staff sometimes displayed interesting tombs and relics to visitors.
Catherine’s remains became one of these unusual attractions. One of the most famous descriptions of the queen’s body comes from the English diarist Samuel Pepys. Pepys visited Westminster Abbey in February 1669 and recorded what he saw in his diary. According to Pepys, the abbey keeper showed him Catherine of Valois’s coffin and the remains inside it.
He wrote that he could see the queen’s face and that parts of her body were still preserved. In a moment that became notorious, Pepys wrote that he kissed the queen’s mouth, remarking jokingly that it was the first time he had ever kissed a queen and that it happened on his birthday. Today, this story seems shocking and disrespectful. But attitudes toward historical remains were very different in the seventeenth century.
People were often fascinated by the physical remains of famous historical figures, and old tombs were sometimes opened during construction work or historical investigations, with the remains inside occasionally shown to curious visitors. For decades, Catherine’s body remained where it had been left after the construction work, near Henry V’s chapel. Because the original tomb had been dismantled, there was no clear structure to restore. Over time, parts of the coffin eroded further, and the burial shrouds slowly decayed.
Visitors who came to the abbey in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reported seeing bones and pieces of cloth. By the eighteenth century, attitudes toward royal burials began to change. People increasingly believed that the remains of historical figures should be treated with dignity and respect rather than as curiosities. The idea of a queen’s body being exposed for centuries began to seem improper, and the abbey authorities finally decided that Catherine of Valois should be properly buried.
In 1778, the queen’s remains were carefully gathered and placed in a new coffin, then reburied beneath the floor of Westminster Abbey near Henry V’s chapel. This finally ended the strange situation that had lasted for nearly four hundred years. The queen who had once been left above ground finally had a proper burial place. Although her coffin had an unusual history, Catherine of Valois played an important role in the story of English monarchy.
Through her secret marriage to Owen Tudor, she became the grandmother of Henry VII, the king who founded the Tudor dynasty. That meant she was an ancestor of some of the most famous monarchs in English history, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Today, visitors to Westminster Abbey will never see anything like the strange sight that once existed there. Catherine of Valois now lies quietly beneath the abbey floor, properly buried and protected.
But her story remains one of the strangest episodes in the history of royal burials. A queen’s body lay exposed for centuries in one of England’s most famous churches, not because anyone planned it, but because of accidents, construction work, and the very different attitudes people once held toward the remains of the dead. Not far from where Catherine eventually found rest, another queen’s remains suffered a very different kind of indignity. Elizabeth Woodville was born in 1437, the eldest daughter of Richard Woodville, first Earl Rivers, and his wife Jacquetta of Luxembourg, a woman of higher aristocratic standing than her husband and among the most socially elevated women of her time.
Elizabeth was known for her beauty, and many men wished to marry her. Through her parents’ connections, she married her first husband, John Grey, when she was about fifteen. They had two sons, but John was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans, fighting for the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, the same rival family Elizabeth would later head. The Yorkist cause was growing stronger across England, and Elizabeth Woodville became a widow, forced to return to her parents after the crown seized her husband’s lands and property.
She then went to meet King Edward IV, who was hunting in the area. Edward, known as a womanizer who loved women, was captivated by Elizabeth Woodville’s beauty. He began meeting her in secret, and eventually they married. Elizabeth Woodville was crowned queen on May 26, 1465.
The marriage shocked many at court, including the powerful and influential Earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, the man known as the Kingmaker. Everyone who had the Kingmaker’s support remained in power at the top and kept the throne. Eventually, Warwick betrayed Edward IV. But while Elizabeth became queen of England, her family gained vast lands and wealth.
Her brothers came to court, and although her father had been a Lancastrian, as had her first husband, Elizabeth changed her allegiance and now stood at the head of the House of York, the former enemies of her father. Elizabeth gave birth to ten children, but sadly three died in infancy. Her husband, Edward IV, was briefly ousted from the throne in a conspiracy involving the Earl of Warwick and Edward’s own brother, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence. This led to the Battle of Barnet, where Warwick was killed.
Elizabeth’s father and brother had already been executed in the aftermath of an earlier battle. After her husband was briefly deposed, Elizabeth lived in exile for a short time, and she was forced to seek sanctuary and protection for herself within Westminster Abbey. There, she gave birth to the future Edward V, after Edward IV defeated Warwick and secured the throne again. Matters became more stable for her, but this would be greatly disturbed once more after her husband’s death.
When Edward IV died, he left Elizabeth a widow for the second time, vulnerable to others who wanted to displace her son, Edward V. What followed was the tragedy of the Princes in the Tower. Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, seized her two sons, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, and held them inside the Tower of London. Eventually, the children were declared illegitimate, and Richard’s reign began as Richard III, who launched a bitter attack on the legitimacy of Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.
Elizabeth returned once more to the safety of Westminster Abbey, and Richard III stripped her of all her lands and titles. She was now referred to as Lady Elizabeth Grey rather than the queen dowager. Protected inside sanctuary, Elizabeth worked to restore her son to the throne. That never happened, because he was most likely killed within the walls of the Tower of London.
Elizabeth remained politically active within sanctuary, allying herself with Richard III’s enemies and eventually with Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor. The two women worked together to ensure that Henry Tudor, who had some royal blood as a distant descendant of Edward III, could seize the throne himself. With this, Elizabeth Woodville, known as the White Queen for the white rose of York, once again sided with the Lancastrian enemy, the red rose. She supported Henry Tudor in his fight against Richard III, and an agreement was reached to unite the Tudor and York families.
This would make Elizabeth Woodville’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, queen if Henry succeeded, through her marriage to Henry Tudor. Henry Tudor became Henry VII after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and he kept his word, marrying Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth Woodville was now the mother of the queen. She regained her position and title as queen dowager, but she spent her final years in the shadow of the more influential Lady Margaret Beaufort, the king’s mother.
Elizabeth spent the last five years of her life at Bermondsey Abbey. This may have been to restrict her influence at court, but at Bermondsey she was treated well, with considerable respect, receiving a proper pension and gifts from the king. She witnessed the birth of her granddaughter Margaret and also the birth of her grandson, the future Henry VIII. Her daughter continued to visit her.
Elizabeth Woodville died on June 8, 1492. For centuries, the cause of her death was unknown, but it is now believed she succumbed to illness, possibly plague. Her will stated that she wanted a simple funeral ceremony. However, her funeral took place only four days after her death, and her remains were quickly placed in a coffin to be made ready for burial.
The speed of the burial was supposedly to prevent the spread of plague, and it is likely she was not embalmed for that reason. Court physicians may not have wanted to handle her plague-contaminated organs. It was also said that Henry VII was not prepared to arrange a more magnificent funeral for his mother-in-law. Her coffin was hastily buried in the same vault as her husband, King Edward IV, inside St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
The burial vault is about three meters long and 1. 4 meters wide, not elevated at all, and located near the altar inside the chapel. This vault has been opened several times. During the Commonwealth period, following the English Civil War, the tomb built for Edward IV was destroyed and damaged, then later restored.
Today, only a marble plaque indicates Edward IV’s resting place, and it does not mention Elizabeth Woodville. In 1788, officials inside the chapel tried to find the entrance to the vault from the choir above, but failed. On March 21, 1789, restoration work was taking place on the chapel floor, and during this time the entrance to the vault was found. What shocked people was the condition of the vault, and especially the remains of Queen Elizabeth Woodville.
Inside the vault, it was clear that someone had entered before and caused damage. King Edward IV’s coffin appeared intact and undamaged, but Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s coffin had been broken, smashed, and destroyed. Investigators discovered that her skull and bones were scattered around the vault, pulled out of the coffin and mixed with bricks and other rubble. Fragments of the coffin showed she had been buried in a cheap pine coffin, poorly made, which had also been broken.
Someone had clearly entered the vault and tampered with the remains of the White Queen. This deliberate scattering of her bones led many to wonder who could have done such a thing. Elizabeth Woodville still lies today in the burial vault beside her husband, and it is believed her bones were gathered and placed in a different coffin or container to help preserve them. She was one of the most influential women in medieval society, and her daughter would later become the mother of the Tudor dynasty, perhaps the most famous royal family in England.
The daughter of the Kingmaker himself suffered a fate that was less violent but far more mysterious. Anne Neville was born on June 11, 1456, at Warwick Castle, the younger daughter of Richard Neville, the sixteenth Earl of Warwick, and Anne Beauchamp, heiress to the vast Beauchamp estates. The Neville family was one of the most powerful noble families of the fifteenth century, and the Earl of Warwick wielded immense political influence during the Wars of the Roses, earning the name the Kingmaker. Warwick initially supported the Yorkist cause, helping Edward IV secure the throne from the Lancastrian Henry VI.
Anne grew up in a world of wealth and privilege, but also of political uncertainty. Her childhood coincided with a period of intense civil war, and as a noblewoman, her marriage prospects were of great strategic importance. Along with her older sister Isabel, she was considered a valuable prize for any noble family seeking to strengthen its claim or forge alliances. In 1469, Warwick’s relationship with King Edward IV collapsed.
Once a powerful ally of Edward, Warwick became disillusioned with the king’s policies and his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, which threatened Warwick’s influence. In a dramatic reversal of allegiance, Warwick defected to the Lancastrian side, allying with his former enemy, the formidable Queen Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI. To cement this alliance, Warwick arranged for Anne, then only fourteen, to marry Margaret’s son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and heir to the Lancastrian throne. The marriage took place in December 1470 at Angers Cathedral in France.
As Edward’s wife, Anne became Princess of Wales and a possible future queen of England if the Lancastrians could regain the crown. The union was short-lived. In April 1471, Warwick was killed at the Battle of Barnet, a decisive Yorkist victory. Only a month later, Anne’s young husband Edward was killed, most likely during or after the Battle of Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471, where Lancastrian forces were crushed by Edward IV.
Anne, now a teenage widow and a political pawn, was captured by the Yorkists. Her mother-in-law, Queen Margaret, was taken prisoner, and the Lancastrian cause effectively collapsed. After the Lancastrian defeat, Anne’s future was uncertain. Some accounts suggest she was placed under the guardianship of her brother-in-law, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, who had married her sister Isabel.
George may have tried to keep her secluded, fearing that Anne’s vast fortune as heiress of the Neville family would diminish his own holdings if she remarried. At that time, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the younger brother of King Edward IV, showed interest in marrying Anne. Richard had spent part of his youth under Warwick’s guardianship and had likely known Anne since childhood. A marriage between Anne and Richard would strengthen his power and his claim to the Neville inheritance.
According to later accounts, Richard had to rescue Anne from her brother-in-law’s grasp. The marriage negotiations were marked by disputes over her dowry and property, but the couple eventually married in 1472, when Anne was about sixteen. Richard and Anne settled in northern England, where Richard served as the king’s lieutenant, governing the region efficiently and gaining a reputation for justice and loyalty. Over the next decade, Anne lived a relatively quiet life as Duchess of Gloucester.
She and Richard resided at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, which became their principal home. There, around 1473, Anne gave birth to her only child, Edward of Middleham. The boy became the focus of Anne’s affections and her hopes for the future. Anne’s years as duchess were perhaps the most peaceful of her life.
Richard was a devoted husband, and their household was known for its generosity and piety. But this stable life was shattered by the dynastic upheaval that struck the House of York after Edward IV’s sudden death in April 1483. Edward IV’s death set off a chain of events that radically changed Anne’s life. As the king’s brother, Richard was named protector of the realm for Edward’s young son, Edward V.
But Richard seized the throne for himself, claiming that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and that the children of that marriage were illegitimate. On June 26, 1483, Richard was proclaimed king as Richard III, and Anne was crowned queen consort at Westminster Abbey on July 6. At twenty-seven, Anne found herself at the height of power, the first queen consort to be crowned alongside her husband since the Norman Conquest, an event that underscored her importance in legitimizing Richard’s rule. Despite the grandeur of her coronation, Anne’s reign as queen was overshadowed by tragedy and political turmoil.
Rumors spread about the fate of the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, who had disappeared from the Tower of London after their uncle seized power. These rumors tainted the reputations of both Richard and Anne, casting a dark shadow over their reign. The major personal blow for Anne came with the death of her only son, Edward of Middleham, in April 1484, at the age of ten or eleven. This loss devastated both Anne and Richard, who had no other children to secure their dynasty.
Historians have noted that Anne’s health began to decline rapidly after her son’s death, as she became increasingly weak and frail. Her grief was compounded by political instability. Richard III faced growing opposition from Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian claimant to the throne who was in exile in Brittany and would soon challenge him for the crown. As Richard’s position grew more precarious, rumors circulated that he intended to divorce Anne and marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, to strengthen his claim to the throne.
Though evidence for this is scarce, the speculation reflects the tension and uncertainty of the time. Anne Neville died on March 16, 1485, at the age of twenty-eight, most likely from tuberculosis or another chronic illness. In fact, there are not many records concerning the queen’s funeral, and specifically where Anne was actually buried. It was claimed that King Richard III attended his wife’s funeral and wept greatly.
But at the time, there were rumors that Richard had poisoned her so he could marry his niece, Elizabeth of York. The king addressed these rumors, reportedly stating, in a loud and clear voice, his grief and displeasure, saying that he had never contemplated such a marriage, nor desired it, nor was he pleased by the death of his queen, but was as sorrowful and heavy with grief as any man could be. Richard III was devastated. We know her funeral was held at Westminster Abbey, and a considerable sum of money was spent on a formal funeral fitting for the burial of a queen.
The surviving records of Westminster Abbey state that 42 pounds and 12 pence were allocated for her burial. The burial register inside the abbey also claims that Anne Neville was buried on the south side of the sanctuary, and it was said in 1530 that her grave lay beside the south door leading to the chapel of St Edward. This is the most sacred and important part of the abbey, next to the shrine of Edward the Confessor, surrounded by other medieval monarchs. Today, this area is inaccessible and cannot be seen, and there is no grave marker identifying her location.
Locating Anne Neville’s remains has proven difficult. For nearly five hundred years, her burial site also remained unmarked. The queen’s grave was lost over time. But in 1866, while some work was being carried out in the area south of the high altar, a heavy lead coffin was discovered lying alone in a grave at the approximate location of Queen Anne.
There was some debate over whether these were her remains or those of another queen named Anne, Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII, who was also buried nearby. The fact that her burial site was relatively lost may have saved Queen Anne from having her coffin broken into or her grave disturbed. Inside the abbey during the Victorian era, many royal burial places were examined. This means that, having been untouched, Anne Neville’s body, assuming it was embalmed according to royal custom and wrapped in a thick shroud, could be in as good a condition as it was on the day she died.
There is a relatively high chance that the skin on her body still remains. If she was buried with a crown on her head or in her royal robes, they could potentially still be there. In 1960, an enamelled shield bearing the coat of arms with a brass plate was placed on the wall of the south ambulatory, relatively near the site of the grave. This marked her burial location and affirmed that she was, in her person, seemly, amiable, and beauteous, according to interpretations of her name, Anne full of grace.
But this is, of course, not the exact spot, only a memorial. Today, Anne Neville’s grave remains a mystery, and the true burial site is one of the secrets of Westminster Abbey. She is surrounded at her approximate grave site by medieval kings and queens, resting near the most sacred part of this remarkable abbey. But in life, she is remembered primarily as the wife of one of the most infamous kings England has ever known.
Long before Anne Neville, another powerful queen had risen to prominence through two marriages and survived the chaos of conquest. Emma of Normandy was one of the most powerful and influential women in early medieval England. Living at the turn of the first millennium, she became queen not once but twice, marrying two different kings of England and operating as a pivotal political figure for over thirty years. Through diplomacy, survival, and ambition, Emma helped shape the fate of England during one of its most dangerous and turbulent periods.
Born around 985 in Normandy, she was the daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy, and his wife Gunnor. Normandy had been founded only a few generations earlier by Viking settlers, and Emma grew up in a court shaped by both Scandinavian and Frankish traditions. From a young age, she received an elite upbringing, learning languages, court etiquette, religion, and politics, skills that later helped her survive at the top of English power. In 1002, Emma was sent to England to marry King Æthelred II, known to history as Æthelred the Unready.
This was not a romantic marriage but a political one. England was under constant attack from Viking raiders, many of whom used Normandy as a base. By marrying the daughter of the Duke of Normandy, Æthelred hoped to secure Norman support and weaken the Viking threat. Upon arriving in England, Emma adopted the English name Ælfgifu, though modern historians prefer to use her birth name.
Life as queen was far from stable. Viking attacks intensified, towns were burned, and royal authority crumbled. Emma gave birth to several children, including Edward, who later became King Edward the Confessor, and Alfred. Despite her royal title, she had little power during Æthelred’s reign, which was dominated by military failures and court intrigue.
In 1013, disaster struck when Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, invaded England and forced Æthelred to abdicate. Emma fled with her sons to Normandy, living in exile while England fell to the enemy. When Sweyn died unexpectedly the following year, Æthelred returned to power and Emma returned with him to England, but the kingdom remained unstable. In 1016, Æthelred died, and almost immediately the new Danish king, Cnut, invaded again, defeating Æthelred’s son Edmund Ironside.
England was now fully under Danish control. In a stunning political move, Emma did not retreat into obscurity. Instead, she agreed to marry Cnut, the very man who had conquered England. This union preserved her royal rank and ensured her security, while strengthening Cnut’s claim to the English throne through alliance with the Norman dynasty.
This second marriage made Emma more powerful than ever before. Unlike her first reign as queen, she now became a true political partner to the king. She appeared on royal charters, acted as a counsellor, and oversaw religious institutions. Cnut ruled a powerful North Sea empire controlling England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden, and Emma was queen over it all.
She gave birth to Harthacnut, who would later become king of England, and, crucially, she worked tirelessly to secure the succession for her sons rather than the sons of Cnut’s previous relationship. After Cnut’s death in 1035, a brutal succession struggle erupted. Emma supported Harthacnut’s claim while opposing her stepson, Harold Harefoot, who seized the English throne. Her other son, Alfred, a child from her first marriage, was captured while trying to return to England, brutally blinded, and died shortly afterward.
Emma grieved for him deeply and never forgave his killers. For several years, Emma lived in political exile in Flanders, effectively stripped of her influence. But the balance of power shifted again with Harold’s death in 1040. Harthacnut returned, took the crown, and brought Emma back to England, restoring her royal status.
Tragically, Harthacnut died just two years later in 1042, reportedly collapsing at a wedding feast. This sudden death paved the way for Emma’s eldest surviving son, Edward, to take the throne, becoming Edward the Confessor, one of England’s most famous kings. Emma expected to dominate court politics as queen mother, but Edward surprised her. He cut off her financial support and stripped her of many of her properties.
Their relationship was strained by years of separation, shifting loyalties, and bitterness from past political conflicts. Emma withdrew from effective power, living quietly in her remaining years. Emma of Normandy died at the age of sixty-eight, a remarkable age for a medieval woman, on March 6, 1052, in Winchester. She was buried beside Cnut and Harthacnut in the Old Minster at Winchester.
However, her grave was first disturbed after the building of the new cathedral in Winchester following the Norman Conquest. Her remains were removed and placed near the high altar, probably in chests. But in the sixteenth century, a new set of painted wooden chests, known as mortuary chests, was made to house the remains of the Anglo-Saxon kings and queens buried in Winchester. These chests are visible today inside the cathedral and contain the remains of many kings and queens.
Emma of Normandy’s bones were placed in one of these chests. During the English Civil War in 1642, however, Oliver Cromwell’s troops sacked Winchester Cathedral. They attacked everything that symbolized monarchy, and it is said they threw down the chests holding the bones of bishops, just as they did with the bones of William Rufus, Queen Emma, Harthacnut, and the rest of the West Saxon kings. Many of the mortuary chests were destroyed and lost completely, and the bones of the kings, including Queen Emma, were scattered across the cathedral floor.
The soldiers also smashed the windows and threw some of the bones through them to the outside. Later, new chests were made, and the human remains that were found were gathered and placed inside them. It is impossible to know how many bones were stolen, lost, or thrown away. The bones were mixed together within the mortuary chests, making it difficult to separate one person’s remains from another.
This means that Emma of Normandy’s remains must have been partly lost, but some of her bones are certainly inside the funeral chests, very difficult to separate from the others. A reconstructed skeleton of Queen Emma is displayed today, but her skull is not entirely complete, and many parts are missing, including the bones of her legs. Another queen who found herself thrust into leadership during her husband’s absence was Philippa of Hainault. Born between 1310 and 1315 in the County of Hainault, now part of modern Belgium, Philippa was the daughter of Count William I of Hainault and Joan of Valois, a niece of Philip IV of France.
She possessed strong royal blood, a link that became important diplomatically in the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War. The marriage between Philippa and Edward III was not the product of romantic love but of political necessity. Her future mother-in-law, Queen Isabella of France, arranged the match during her campaign to depose her husband, Edward II. Isabella and her ally Roger Mortimer needed military help from the Low Countries, and the alliance was secured by a marriage from Hainault that provided that vital support.
Philippa was betrothed to Edward in 1326, and they married in January 1328, shortly before Edward III was officially crowned in February. She was about thirteen to fifteen years old, and Edward was fifteen. Despite the political motives behind the union, the marriage developed into a true partnership marked by mutual respect and deep affection. Philippa’s early years as queen were overshadowed by the strong dominance of Isabella and Mortimer, who effectively ruled England in Edward’s name.
But in 1330, Edward III led a coup against his mother and her lover, asserting his personal rule and executing Mortimer. Isabella was exiled to comfortable retirement. Throughout this upheaval, Philippa remained quietly loyal, never involving herself in court intrigue. Her tact and diplomacy were key to maintaining the integrity of the royal family.
Philippa was immediately and enduringly popular with the English people. Chroniclers such as Jean Froissart, who served in her court, portrayed her as the ideal medieval queen, characterized by kindness, charity, and piety. Philippa donated to religious institutions, supported artists, and protected scholars. Her interest in education led her to support The Queen’s College in Oxford, which was named in her honour.
Philippa’s most enduring legacy is her role as mother of the English royal family. Over two decades, she gave birth to thirteen children, including five sons who survived to adulthood. Their offspring would shape the future of England and France. Edward, the Black Prince, her eldest son, became a legendary military commander.
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, founded the House of Lancaster, central to the Wars of the Roses. Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, founded the House of York. Thomas of Woodstock, her youngest son, played an important role in late fourteenth-century politics. Her fertility and political acumen ensured the continuation of the Plantagenet dynasty and established a lineage of far-reaching consequences.
Through her daughters, she linked the English crown to the nobility of Flanders, Castile, and beyond. Philippa was not a queen confined to the royal chambers. In an era when queens often remained in the background, she accompanied Edward on many military campaigns, including those in Scotland and France. In 1346, while Edward was waging war on the continent during the Hundred Years’ War, Philippa found herself leading the kingdom when David II of Scotland invaded northern England.
At the Battle of Neville’s Cross near Durham, the English army defeated the Scots, and Philippa personally oversaw the victory celebrations. She was not merely a symbolic figure but involved herself in logistics, morale, and diplomacy. Her presence reassured the people and legitimized the regency during Edward’s absence. Perhaps the most famous anecdote concerning Philippa occurred during the siege of Calais in 1347.
After the city surrendered to Edward following a brutal siege, the king demanded that six of the city’s leading citizens be executed as a display of vengeance. The men, known as the Burghers of Calais, presented themselves in rough clothing with halters around their necks. Moved by their plight, Philippa knelt before Edward and begged for their lives, arguing that this act of mercy would benefit a Christian king and be a good omen. Because she was in the final stages of pregnancy, Edward relented and pardoned the men.
Froissart describes the moment as a testament to Philippa’s compassion and moral authority. It became one of the defining legends of her reign and an enduring symbol of female intercession in medieval politics. As queen, Philippa maintained a vibrant, cultured court. Her household was a centre of European chivalric culture, with poets, musicians, and scholars regularly present.
Froissart himself dedicated his Chronicles to her and painted a romantic picture of English court life under her reign. She also served as a diplomatic link between England and the Low Countries. Her upbringing in Hainault made her multilingual, fluent in French and Dutch, and possibly Latin. She used her background to foster trade, diplomacy, and alliances with continental powers, especially during the early stages of the Hundred Years’ War, when English support on the continent was crucial.
The mid-fourteenth century was marked by the tragedy of the Black Death, which reached England in 1348. Philippa, known for her generosity, played a role in organizing relief and spiritual support for affected communities. The royal family was not immune to the devastation. Many members of her household died from the plague, including some of her children.
Despite the suffering around her, Philippa continued her duties, though she began to suffer from declining health in the 1350s. The queen withdrew from public life in her final years, but she retained a close bond with Edward, who remained devoted to her. Philippa of Hainault died on August 15, 1369, at Windsor Castle, most likely from oedema or dropsy. Edward was devastated, and according to Froissart, the king was at her bedside, kissed her hand, and wept without control.
She was buried with full honours in Westminster Abbey, where her tomb, featuring an alabaster effigy, still stands. She was buried beside her husband, the former king of England. The tomb inscription reads: “Here is the glory of the English, the example of former kings, the model of future kings, the merciful king. The peace of the peoples, Edward III who completed his jubilee year, the invincible leopard, strong in war as Maccabaeus.
While he lived prosperously, his kingdom revived in integrity. He ruled powerfully in arms, now may he become king in heaven. ” The tomb is lavishly decorated, although it has suffered desecration. A number of small bronze statues of children that once adorned it have been stolen.
But the tomb remains magnificent, showing Edward with his long hair and beard, and also showing Philippa in her formal dress, her effigy lying on a cushion. It is believed that the bodies of both the king and queen are inside the tomb of Edward III and Philippa, preserved within the tomb itself rather than in a crypt beneath it. This tomb has never been opened, meaning the remains have never been disturbed. There was no need to open the coffin and check what was inside.
This means that the remains of Philippa and Edward might still be in their embalmed state, and there is a chance they are in as good condition as the day they were buried. Medieval monarchs could appear entirely human, without any decay. Remains were embalmed by removing the heart and vital organs to give the body the best chance of preservation. So is this the case for Philippa?
Perhaps. One queen who was denied the crown she fought for still received an elaborate embalming according to royal tradition. The Empress Matilda was born in February 1101 to King Henry I of England and his wife, Matilda of Scotland. Her maternal grandparents were King Malcolm III of Scotland and his wife, Saint Margaret of Scotland.
Her birth is thought to have taken place in Winchester. When she was only seven, Matilda was betrothed to Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor. She was sent to the Holy Roman Empire at the age of ten to begin learning how to become the wife of a powerful ruler. The couple married on January 7, 1114, in a grand ceremony, and she later served as regent in her husband’s absence while he was away.
It is believed they had no surviving children, though one scholar claims that Matilda, also known as Maud, gave birth to a child who died shortly afterward. When her husband died in 1125, she became a childless empress dowager at only twenty-three. Her brother had died years earlier in the White Ship disaster, making Matilda the only legitimate heir to the English throne. She was referred to by the title of Empress, but she had never been crowned Holy Roman Empress by a legitimate pope, which is thought to have been required.
She had only been formally crowned as queen of Germany. Matilda returned to England, where her father named her his heir and arranged another marriage for her. On June 17, 1128, she married Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, in Anjou. He was eleven years younger than her, and was nicknamed Plantagenet, from which a dynasty of English kings would descend.
The marriage was not happy, and Matilda separated from her second husband and returned to England, but later went back to Geoffrey. The couple had three sons, the eldest named Henry after Matilda’s father. King Henry I even visited his grandchildren, but her father died in December 1135. After his death, Matilda was expected to succeed him as queen of England.
However, her cousin, Stephen of Blois, seized the throne, breaking an oath he had sworn to her. Stephen had lied when he agreed to defend her rights, and what erupted was a civil war known as the Anarchy. The fighting was violent and prolonged, and neither side could exploit its advantage enough to decisively end the war. In 1139, it was believed Matilda could muster enough military strength to challenge Stephen in his own country.
During the war, Matilda achieved her greatest victory in April 1141, when her forces defeated and captured King Stephen, making him a prisoner and deposing him from the throne. Matilda now controlled the country, but she did not call herself queen. Instead, she styled herself Lady of the English. She remained in power for a few months, then Stephen was released, and a year later Matilda was besieged at Oxford, but escaped across the snow-covered countryside wearing a white cloak.
She also managed to escape another dangerous situation by disguising herself as a corpse. But in 1147, Matilda was forced to return to France. Her son, however, showed signs of being a good leader, while Stephen’s rule was not firmly established. A military campaign led by Matilda’s son, Henry, forced Stephen to recognize him as his heir.
In her final years, Matilda retired to Rouen in Normandy, where she kept her own court. She settled disputes between her sons over power and land, and eventually her second son Geoffrey rebelled against her eldest son. Later, her other son William was granted vast lands in England. Her son Henry II became king of England, and Matilda again tried to settle his problems by negotiating between him and Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
But Becket was later killed in his church on the indirect orders of Henry II. The Empress Matilda died on September 10, 1167, in Rouen, and her money and wealth were given to the church. After her death, her body was embalmed and prepared in a very specific way. The traditions of the time dictated that the bodies of kings, queens, and royal figures be embalmed, with the vital organs, including the heart and entrails, removed and placed in a separate container.
Like her father’s body, Matilda’s body was wrapped in bull hide when prepared for burial, and she was buried in a coffin at Bec Abbey. Her tomb inscription read: “Here lies the daughter, wife, and mother of Henry: great by birth, greater by marriage, but greatest by motherhood. ” Now, it is believed that part of her body was moved to be buried in England beside her father at Reading Abbey. This part has never been found, and it may be her heart or entrails removed during the embalming process.
In the years after her death, however, her remains were rediscovered and disturbed. Matilda’s body was uncovered during church rebuilding work in 1282, and the tomb was moved to the centre of the church before the main altar. But later, soldiers loyal to Henry V destroyed Matilda’s tomb, and her bones were discovered during repairs to the building in 1684. Little remained of her, and some of her bones had been taken by relic hunters and soldiers.
These bones were then reburied beneath the main altar in a lead-covered box, and a new memorial was created in the eighteenth century to mark the location. But during the French Revolution, everything that symbolized the monarchy, including members of foreign royal families, came under attack, and revolutionaries stormed the church where she was buried and destroyed the abbey. The box containing Matilda’s remains was later found and reburied in 1846 inside Rouen Cathedral. By the time the Empress Matilda’s remains were properly buried, not much was left of her, as her bones had been stolen and significantly desecrated over the centuries.
Even today, part of her is buried in Rouen Cathedral, but she remains immortal in history through her desperate campaign to become the first queen of England, even though she only ruled briefly. Matilda would not have made this count in her favour. She is known today mostly by her first marriage title, the Empress.
