As queen consort and dowager queen of England and Wales, Catherine of Valois was able to receive a burial fit for a queen. Originally, she was buried in the old woman’s chapel in Westminster Abbey. When her grandson Henry VII came to power in 1485, that was bound to change.
Around 1503, Henry VII began renovating the Old Lady’s Chapel to produce the chapel that stands in Westminster Abbey today. To do this, he needed to get his grandmother’s corpse to a safe place. The corpse of Catherine de Valois was placed by Henry V in an open coffin, for all to see.
When Henry VII died in 1509, the construction of the Lady Chapel was incomplete. It was this year that Henry VIII came to power. Unfortunately, his intentions did not coincide with his father’s, which meant that the chapel was left unfinished and his great-grandmother’s corpse remained exposed.
It was not until the middle of the 16th century that the construction of the chapel was completed. However, when this happened, the body of Catherine de Valois had not yet been placed in her original burial place. Curiously, it remained exposed to all for hundreds of years. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, parts of the wooden effigy of her were stolen from her. As a result, the one that remains in Westminster Abbey today appears poorly cared for.
During the 17th century, the late chronicler Samuel Pepys visited his corpse on one of his birthdays. He took the opportunity to pull her into his arms and kiss her, before recording the event in a journal entry. When you consider that Pepys survived some of London’s worst plague outbreaks, it’s incredibly strange that he would come face to face with a corpse that was hundreds of years old. Of course, Catherine was embalmed, but it still seems like a pretty macabre action on Pepys’ part.
It was not until the reign of Queen Victoria in the 19th century that the body of Catherine de Valois was buried in Westminster Abbey. By now, hundreds of spectators had swarmed her body to pay homage to her, or simply to touch her like Pepys did.
Over the years, people have speculated as to why Henry VII decided to leave his grandmother’s corpse on the surface. Some have suggested that he wanted to disguise his trembling lineage, which descended from Catherine and Owen Tudor. However, if he had wanted to do that, he would have placed her out of sight, not next to Henry V.
Fortunately, his body is now in a more suitable resting place. During the years that he was out in the open, he acted as a source of fascination for many people.