In 1789, work was carried out to the paving in St George’s Chapel. Workmen had noticed that it had sunk in the north quire aisle, and during repair work, they came upon the entrance to the burial vault of Edward IV. Within the vault, they found a lead coffin, with the remains of a wooden coffin on top – the coffins of Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. They also found two further coffins which they believed to contain the bodies of George, Duke of Bedford, 3rd son of Edward IV who died aged around 2 in 1479, and Mary, 5th daughter of Edward IV, who died aged 14 in 1482. Both were known to have been buried in Windsor. The workmen did not investigate the vault further, and a slab marking the graves was put in the paving above the vault.

However, in 1810, two further coffins were found in what is now the Albert Memorial Chapel. One of these had the inscription “serenissimus princeps Georgius filius tercius Christianissimi principis Edvardi iiij” on suggesting that this was the coffin of George, not the one in the vault near Edward IV. In fact, when George was buried on 22 March 1479, St George’s Chapel was still under construction, so that although his body was taken to be buried at Windsor, it couldn’t have been interred in the Quire, and was instead laid to rest to the south of the high altar of the old chapel, the Albert Memorial Chapel.  In the written account of Mary’s funeral, it states that she was “buried by my Lorde George, her brother”.

In 1813, both of these coffins were moved to the vault near Edward IV.

So who did the other two coffins belong to? They must have been important to have been buried in the place of honour near Edward IV – could they have been the bodies of Edward’s other sons, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, the young Princes in the Tower? Their fate was never acknowledged, but it was believed that Richard III had had them murdered. Perhaps he had requested their burial near that of their father, his brother, to soothe a guilty conscience?

There is no evidence to suggest who the first two coffins belonged to, and there are many rumours and theories surrounding the Princes in the Tower. However, there are no known records that would prove this hypothesis and the fate of the two Princes is still unknown.

Eleanor Cracknell, Assistant Archivist

Photograph of RMS Titanic in Belfast

Housed in the photographic collections of St George’s Chapel is this photograph of RMS Titanic, under construction at Belfast in August 1911.

Built between 1909 and 1911 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard, she was one of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. Titanic was launched on 31 May 1911, with thousands of spectators watching as 22 tons of soap and tallow were spread on the slipway to lubricate the ship’s passage into the River Lagan. This photograph shows her in the fitting-out berth she was towed to, where, over the next year, her engines, funnels and superstructure were installed and her interior fitted out.

From Belfast, Titanic travelled to Southampton before setting out on her fateful voyage on 10 April 1912. Four days later, she sank, causing the death of over 1500 people.

These photographs appear in a set of over 100 images of Ireland, depicting people, sites of interest and landscapes. They are, essentially, someone’s holiday snaps of their trip to Belfast, Co. Donegal, Co. Kerry and Co. Cork. There is no note of who took them, and the envelopes which house them are marked “Rejected”. Some photographs are labelled, and the handwriting bears some resemblance to that of Robert Burns Robertson, Chapter Surveyor from December 1912 to August 1936. Prior to working at St George’s, he first found employment in the shipyards of John Elder and Company, Glasgow where he worked on the construction of the RMS Umbria and RMS Etruria, launched in 1884 and 1885 respectively. Built for the Cunard Line and used on the prestigious Liverpool to New York route, these were the largest liners then in service. Perhaps he maintained a professional interest?

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

On 6^th November 1817, Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne, died at Claremont House after a labour lasting 51 hours in which she had given birth to a stillborn son. The funeral of Princess Charlotte took place at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, thirteen days after her death.

So great was public grief at Charlotte’s death that, on the orders of the Lord Chamberlain, an armed guard was posted at the undertakers’ in London to ensure that no member of the public could see or gain access to the coffin.  Leopold, Charlotte’s husband, was to visit the coffin at 11pm each day until the funeral.

It was announced that tickets would be available to those other than would be in the “Royal Procession” and to the Dean and Canons of Windsor and their staff, only in the aisles and organ loft of the Chapel.  In the final days before the funeral there was a dispute between the representative of the Lord Chamberlain acting for the Prince Regent and Dean Hobart. It appears that the Canons of Windsor had claimed the stalls in the Quire and the Chapel which, in line with the Statutes of the Order of the Garter, were allocated to Garter Knights, leaving insufficient places for those in the Royal Procession.  The repercussions of this were to continue for some time after the funeral.

On the evening preceding the funeral, the coffins, including that of Charlotte’s infant son, were brought from Claremont to Windsor, a “prodigious multitude” lining the route of the hearse procession up the High Street to the Henry VIII gate entrance to the Lower Ward of the Castle.  The coffins were placed overnight in St George’s Chapel.

Early on the day of the funeral Charlotte’s coffin was brought back to nearby Lower Lodge and placed in the room which, when Charlotte had occupied the Lodge, had been the Dining Room.  The main mourners, members of George III’s household and those who had applied successfully to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office for tickets, were able to view the coffin, covered with crimson Genoa velvet, enriched with silver gilt nails.

The funeral took place at 8.00 pm.  In Windsor, as throughout Britain, all shops, inns and businesses were closed, as most had been since Charlotte’s death was announced.   For many hours in advance the town was thronged with onlookers and with carriages whose occupants were in deepest mourning.

Charles Knight, editor of The Windsor and Eton Express, whose reports of the events following Charlotte’s death are an important source of the chaos and confusion at the entrance and inside the Lower Ward of the Castle, had obtained a coveted ticket for the organ loft of St George’s Chapel.  He was for some time refused entry, along with other ticket holders, and he describes being roughly jostled and pushed against a wall of the Castle in a mêlée of carriages and people arriving on foot, while soldiers permitted entry to others, including some fellow soldiers and their ladies who had no ticket.

The funeral service was held without further disruptive incident.  The Prince Regent, Charlotte’s father, too distressed to attend, spent the day “in mournful privacy” at Carlton House.  Charlotte’s coffin, that of her infant son and their funerary urns, were interred in the Royal Vault, beneath the east end of St George’s Chapel, completed only a few years earlier on the order of George III.

Three years later the funeral of George III, in the Quire of St George’s Chapel, was to prove a most shamefully disorganised and chaotic formal royal occasion.

Jill Hume (Archives volunteer)

Note:   In the exhibition “Queens in Waiting” currently at the National Portrait Gallery, a painting of the “Funeral Procession of Princess Charlotte” and an engraving of the funeral service in St George’s Chapel can be seen.

Many of the Garter knights have performed noble deeds and service, but not all of them have led exemplary and well-regulated lives. One of the most colourful of the 18^th century knights was Evelyn Pierrepont (1711-1773), the second Duke of Kingston upon Hull. His father, William Pierrepont, died the year after his birth, so he grew up without what might have been a restraining paternal influence. His early education seems to have been deplorable, and after some kind of schooling at Eton College, he took off on the grand tour of Europe in 1726, aged only about fourteen. The same year, he succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Kingston upon Hull, an inheritance which was to have a major bearing on his lifestyle.

The ‘grand tour’ was an almost obligatory initiation for young men from aristocratic families.  In most cases, the tour would last a few years, usually taking in France, Italy, and possibly the Germanic lands. Evelyn Pierrepont chose to stay away for ten years, during which he acquired a scandalous reputation, a French mistress (already married with three children), and a love of sport and gambling. Whilst abroad, he came of age, which meant he inherited Thoresby Park and Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottinghamshire, plus estates in seven other counties, stretching from Yorkshire to Somerset.

And so in 1736, the young duke arrived back from France with his mistress, Marie-Therese de Fontaine de la Touche, in tow. She later became a British subject and joined the Church of England. Their relationship lasted about fourteen years, though at one time he may have dallied with Frances Anne Vane (1715-88), the memoirist and serial sexual adventurer. On the domestic economy front, his lucrative estates were just what he needed to finance his extravagant and rakish lifestyle, and so he spent without restraint. By 1745, his debts were four times his income.

His grandfather, the first duke, had been a Garter knight, and this may have been the reason why he also received the Garter, in April 1741. On the day of his installation, he folded back the front of his coat to hide the star, perhaps feeling slightly embarrassed by the honour.  Politics was of scant interest to him, but he did hold several local offices, such as head ranger of Sherwood Forest, and master of the staghounds north of the Trent. In 1745, though heavily in debt, he raised a regiment of light cavalry in response to the Jacobite threat, and his troops saw action at the decisive battle of Culloden in 1746. Afterwards they burnt every house they could find and seized cattle. He actually reached the rank of general in 1772, though could hardly be termed an active soldier.

Around 1750, he broke up with Marie-Therese and found a new mistress, Elizabeth Chudleigh (c.1720-1788). She was a notorious society figure and unbeknown to him, had secretly married the future earl of Bristol in 1744. There seemed to be some doubt about the marriage’s validity and it was eventually declared unlawful by the courts. So, on 8 March 1769, he was at last able to marry Elizabeth.  By this time, she had become seriously overweight, a result of excessive eating combined with fondness for the bottle. The duke’s valet claimed he was never to have a week’s happiness again.

Evelyn Pierrepont died at his home in Bath on 23 September 1773, and was buried at the family seat, Holme Pierrepont. In default of a male heir, his titles became extinct. Three years later, his widow was declared a bigamist by the House of Lords. The writer Horace Walpole summed him up as a very weak man, but also one of great beauty and the finest man in England – a suitably ambiguous verdict upon an extravagant grandee.

Simon Harrison  (Archives volunteer)

On November 6th 1817, Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Prince Regent, died aged 21 after giving birth to a stillborn son. The public response, nationwide, to the loss of the heir presumptive to the throne, the only surviving legitimate grandchild of George III, was overwhelming. Charlotte’s popularity and esteem had soared during the tumultuous years of The Regency, in inverse proportion to the decline of that of her father. An increasing number of journals and news sheets were being published in this era, also the great output of satirical cartoonists, all reaching a large and eager market.

An example of public adoration of Charlotte can be seen three years before her death, when she visited Weymouth, where she was welcomed by great crowds and where the centrepiece of an illuminated welcome read: “Hail, Princess Charlotte, Europe’s Hope and Britain’s Glory”. Charlotte, on boarding from her yacht, the huge gunship ‘RN Leviathan’, compared herself with Elizabeth I, “who took great delight in the Navy”.

There had been great rejoicing at Charlotte’s marriage to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg in May 1816 and excitement at the news, early in the following year, of her pregnancy. On the news of her death the mourning of the nation was on a scale never before seen.

The Windsor and Eton Express reported that: “The death of the Princess Charlotte has fallen upon the people like a sudden and universal darkness. It has everywhere produced the same expression of deep regret for the public loss, the same remembrance of her promising virtues… Admiration of her character and grief for her loss have penetrated every portion of…these kingdoms”

On the announcement of Charlotte’s death most people went into mourning, and black “mourning cloth” quickly sold out. Shops, inns, markets and law courts closed, often until after the funeral, and church bells tolled and memorial services were held across the kingdom.

Royal courts in France, Belgium, Holland and Berlin also went into mourning. Although the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars against France had ended only a few years earlier, a French newspaper, the Journal des Debat could report that: “The mourning of one nation becomes that of all… and then, more than ever, they remember that they are brethren… Though in the days of prosperity, power sometimes experiences in England contradictions and resistance, in those of misfortune it only meets with consolation, with homage and devoted loyalty”.

A Dublin newspaper, announcing the “melancholy event” of the death of Charlotte, recorded that: “Every [Irish] countenance expressed astonishment and anguish – every individual felt overwhelmed by… misfortune. Every family seemed as if it had lost one of its dearest members”.

From Edinburgh it was reported that: “There is a loyal people who feel it deeply. Many people who had crowded to the post office burst into tears when the death of the Princess was announced… This expression of public sympathy, unlike the normal mourning for a Princess is genuine and general”.

Jill Hume (Archives volunteer)

Robert Johnson was a Canon of Windsor from 30 July 1572 to 23 July 1625. During this time, he founded two grammar schools and two hospitals in Oakham and Uppingham, Rutland, the two schools later becoming distinguished public  schools,  and from 1574 served as Rector of North Luffenham, also in Rutland, where he is buried. He served as Archdeacon of Leicester from 1591 to his death on 23 July 1625 and was one of the eight founding fellows of Jesus College, Oxford. He also held canonries at Peterborough, Norwich and Rochester. In 1591 he obtained letters patent from Elizabeth I granting dispensation to be non-resident at Windsor and at his other three canonries without forfeiting the profits of the prebends. This led to a dispute with the Dean and Canons of Windsor involving the College Visitor.

Documents in the St George’s Chapel Archives illuminate the nature of the disagreement. They include two petitions from Robert Johnson, who described himself as ‘Prebendary of her Majesty’s Free Chapel of Windsor’, to the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Egerton , Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Visitor of the College of St George at Windsor [SGC XI.D.32/4-5]. The first of these petitions, undated but almost certainly written in 1598, outlines Johnson’s grievance.

“Whereas at his humble suit to her highness, and for the better enabling of your said orator to perform the building, endowing, ordering  and overseeing of two free schools and two hospitals in Okeham [Oakham] and Uppingham in the County of Rutland upon special considerations it pleased her highness by her letters patents …. to grant him liberty to be absent from his said prebend and to remain at his benefice in the County of Rutland reserving unto him all the profits of his said prebend as fully as if your said orator were continually resident upon the same  …which notwithstanding the Dean and Canons of Windsor do refuse to allow pressing him to be resident there as if he had no such dispensation whereby he should greatly neglect the cure of his benefice being more than sixty miles off, and whereby his estate also in performance of his said enterprises to the furtherance of learning and maintenance of the poor should be greatly weakened his said prebend being a chief part of his living”.

He prays that the Lord Keeper will “take the hearing of the said cause into your hands and to deal in it as visitor of the said free Chapel and to command the Dean and Canons to attend your Lordship in the premises and to show cause why your Lord’s suppliant should not take the benefit of her Majesty’s said letters patents.”

The Dean and Canons had previously, in 1593, agreed in Chapter to allow Johnson to receive an annual fee of £51 22d in lieu of profits from his prebend despite his non-residence, at the request of the previous Lord Keeper, Sir John Puckering [SGC IV.B.4 p79]. However, significantly, the grant was only for five years.  In November 1597, aware that the term was due to expire, Johnson obtained letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Whitgift, to the Dean and Canons in his favour [SGC XI.C.23]. However, on 27 April 1598, Chapter refused his request for an annual stipend of £50 during his continuing absence [SGC VI.B.2 4v]. It seems that Johnson had no intention of returning to Windsor. Why, therefore, should he continue to receive an income from the Dean and Canons?  After several communications with the Lord Keeper, including a letter from the Dean and Canons appealing against Johnson’s case, Sir Thomas Egerton, as College Visitor, ordered the Windsor Chapter to take “such good order” that Johnson may have “no more just cause to make further complaint” in a letter dated 2 June 1598 [SGC XI.C.23*].   The Treasurer’s accounts from 1598 to 1625 [SGC XV.59.18-38] show that, from that date, the Dean and Canons did indeed allocate a stipend to Robert Johnson, amounting to £40 year, until his death in 1625 – the final quarterly payment of £10 being made at the Feast of the Annunciation that year – after a record fifty-three  years as Canon of Windsor.

Clare Rider (Archivist and Chapter Librarian)

In December, through the joint efforts of the Capital Development Team and Archives & Chapter Library, the College was awarded a two-year grant totalling £9,000 from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust towards the preservation of medieval and early modern documents in the Chapel Archives, with priority given to those with interesting wax seals.

Damaged seal of John, Duke of Bedford, 1421

Seals were the prime means of validating documents in the Middle Ages and continue to be affixed to legal records, academic certificates and company documents today. The early ones, with their interesting and often elaborate heraldic, institutional or decorative designs, provide a fascinating insight into the medieval world. However, their composition (generally wax) and their positioning on documents (usually attached to a tag or tongue which hangs below the deed) make them particularly vulnerable, and cumulative layers of dust and dirt often obscure their detail. In many cases, the parchment documents to which they are attached have been folded, making them difficult to consult in their present form, and most have been affected by ingrained dirt. Cleaning and rehousing the documents and their seals will greatly increase their accessibility, reveal lost detail and preserve them for future generations. 

Phase one of the restoration programme will be administered over two years by the Archivist and Chapter Librarian, with major conservation work assigned to Sue Hourigan, Senior Conservator at Berkshire Record Office, and minor cleaning, rehousing and recording tasks undertaken in–house by Archives volunteers. With well over a thousand seal-bearing documents in the College’s collections, it is hoped that further funding will be found for future phases of the project.

A new learning resource on medieval pilgrimage has been added to the existing one on the burial of Henry VIII.

These worksheets have been produced using documentary sources for use in the classroom to further explore topics, either following a visit to St George’s Chapel or as part of a wider study of the subject.

We hope that they add to your experience of St George’s Chapel.

St George’s Chapel was founded by Edward III in 1348, and over the years it became commonplace for the nobility of the country to give presents and money to the Chapel as a means to ensure the security of their souls and safe passage to heaven on their death. The Chapel therefore built up a rich collection of plate, vestments and jewels which were used in daily service as a visual display of the glories of God. The inventory of 1534 shows that there were over 160 items of “jewells and very precyous relycks pertayning to the Collegge of Wyndesor belonging to the hyghe awter.” This number did not even include the opulently embroidered vestments, many adorned with pearls, rubies and other precious stones.

During the Protestant rule of Edward VI, many of these treasures were sold off or had to be given up to make way for the new, plainer style of celebrating services. Following his death and the accession of Mary, many items were repurchased and the collection began to build up again. Beautiful pieces of gold plate and wonderfully embroidered vestments re-entered the collection during the early 17^th century, and the trappings of the services seemed secure, until 1642 and the arrival of Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentarians.

According to the posthumously published memoirs of Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, on 25 October 1642, Captain Fogg of the Parliamentary Forces, demanded the keys to the Treasury, claiming to have a warrant from the King. He threatened the Dean and Canons that if they did not allow him access, he would “pull down the Chapel about their Ears”. Not finding the 3 key-keepers, he forced open the door with iron bars and carried out several pieces of plate. This included:

1)      All the rich treble gilt plate made by Van Vianen, estimated at above three Thousand Pounds

2)      Two fair double gilt Chalices with covers

3)      Two fair double gilt Flagons

4)      A gilt basin for the bread at Communion

5)      The gilt coat of mail of King Edward IV, covered with crimson velvet richly embroidered with pearl, gold and rubies

6)      The hangings across the Quire, of crimson velvet and gold

7)      Thirteen rich copes, embroidered and wrought in gold

8)      Two rich copes of gold wire

9)      A large carpet of gold wire for the Communion table

10)   The blue velvet Garter robe of Gustavus Adophus, King of Sweden, embroidered with pearls and gold, with jewels

11)   The great basin or font for Christenings, given by Edward III

It was a devastating loss for the Chapel. On the restoration of the monarchy, Charles II encouraged his Garter Knights to donate money to enable more plate to be purchased, but never again would the plate of the Chapel be so splendid and vast.

Eleanor Cracknell (Assistant Archivist)

Stall plate of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu

John Montagu, the second Duke of Montagu (1690-1749), who became a Knight of the Garter in 1718, deserves remembrance not for his achievements, but for his range of interests and for the kind of man he was. He was born at Boughton in Northamptonshire, the county of “spires and squires” into a fairly conventional aristocratic family. We don’t know much about his early years, but he had a private tutor and went on the tour of France and Italy which was almost obligatory for young men of his social background.

In 1705, aged only fifteen, he married into one of the grandest families in England. His bride was the teenage Mary Churchill (1689-1751), who was the fourth and youngest daughter of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Their marriage was to last more than forty years until Montagu’s death, but was tinged with sadness. Their two sons both died young, and one of their three daughters died in infancy.

Montagu’s father-in-law was one of the great military leaders of his time, so he went off to Flanders with him on campaign in 1706. However he soon returned home to England having little taste for the arts of warfare. He was much more suited to the life of a courtier. When his father died in 1709, he inherited the dukedom as well as the office of master of the great wardrobe, which he held until his death.

Aside from his life at court, Montagu was something of a scholar with a keen interest in the advancement of scientific knowledge. He was very pleased therefore to be made a fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians and, in 1717, he was admitted a doctor of physic at Cambridge. Colonial enterprise was another area of his interests and in 1722 he was granted the West Indian islands of St Lucia and St Vincent. Having been appointed governor of the islands he set about establishing British settlements there, and dug into his own pocket to finance the venture. It was a total failure, partly because of opposition from the French who regarded the islands as neutral under treaty.  He lost over £40,000, a huge sum at the time.

Despite his colonial failure, the duke remained in favour under both George I and George II. He was created a Knight of the Bath in 1725, was made captain of the gentlemen pensioners (the monarch’s personal bodyguard) in 1734 and, in 1740, was appointed master-general of ordnance. Notwithstanding his lack of military prowess, he was made a major-general in the army in 1735, and in 1745 (the year of the Jacobite rebellion) was promoted to general.

In character, Montagu was a generous and kindly man, who also loved fun, practical jokes and hoaxes, which led more sober spirits (his mother-in-law included) to see him as frivolous. According to an 18th century source, he funded the education at grammar school and Cambridge of a black Jamaican, Francis Williams (c.1690-1762). This is an intriguing story, but the facts are doubtful. Francis was the son of freed slaves, but his parents did well financially so it seems unlikely he needed patronage, and also his name does not appear in the records of Cambridge University. But Montagu certainly helped another black man called Ignatius Sancho (1729?-1780). Ignatius was born on an Atlantic slave ship, his father took his own life, and aged two he came into the care of three maiden sisters living in Greenwich. They named him Sancho after Don Quixote’s companion, but had no regard for his education. One day, Montagu, who had a house at Blackheath, met Ignatius by chance, invited him home, and went on to lend him books. Ignatius later became an author, had his portrait painted by Thomas Gainsborough, and may have been the only Afro-Britain to have voted in an 18th century parliamentary election.

The duke’s country seat, Boughton House, had gardens laid out in the style of Versailles (the work of his father), and he continued the work of developing these. Boughton later came into the possession of the Buccleuch family. He also had a London residence called Montagu House, later the site of the British Museum, which opened to the public in 1759.

He died of a violent fever at a house in Whitehall on 6 July 1749, leaving his widow and two daughters. He’d been a man of many parts, who, in the words of the Oxford DNB, was “the proponent of a gentler way of life, all hidden under a devil-may-care attitude and style of life.”

Simon Harrison (Archives volunteer)