Many thanks to the amazing Grace Barrett of Tours by Grace for leading us through Westminster Abbey!

When last I posted, I was still at Westminster Abbey and sharing the graves royals that got the “not so royal” treatment. The last monument I shared was for a non-royal named Ludovic Stewart, who isn’t known for much at all.

Stewart’s monument was created by Hubert Le Sueur (1580-1658), a French sculptor who trained with Renaissance artist Jean de Boulogne (known better as Giambologna) in Florence, Italy. Hubert moved to England and spent most of his career there, providing monuments, portraits, and replicas of classical antiquities for the court of Charles I.

If you find yourself in London’s Trafalgar Square, you’ll see the statue he did of Charles I in 1633, when it was originally commissioned by Charles I’s Lord Treasurer Sir Richard Weston for his house Mortlake Park, Roehampton. The statue was later erected in Trafalgar Square (on the site of Eleanor Cross) in 1674.

I was interested in Le Sueur because he did another memorial at Westminster Abbey that became one of my favorites. The monument to George and Katherine Villiers is stunning. It features some similar motifs as the one he did for Ludovic Stewart, such as weeping ladies and toothy skulls.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, born in 1592, was a favorite of James I and Charles I. He rose to power quickly, but the results of his erratic counsels made him unpopular with the people, if not the king.

On the eve of leading an expedition for the relief of La Rochelle in France, he was assassinated on Aug. 23, 1628 at Portsmouth by disgruntled soldier John Felton. Villiers’ mother, Mary, had such a strong premonition about his death that she was reportedly calm when she was told about it.

Charles I ordered the Duke’s burial in the chapel (previously reserved for those only of royal descent) but with little pomp for fear of public backlash. The Duke was buried at night on Sept. 18, 1628.

The Duke’s wife, Duchess Katherine (Manners), erected the large monument of black/white marble and bronze in 1634. Her effigy is shown beside him but she was actually buried at Waterford in Ireland (she died Nov. 3, 1649). Her second husband was Randal MacDonnell, the first Marquess of Antrim.

The gilded bronze effigy of the Duke shows him in monogrammed plate armor while the Duchess is shown in an embroidered dress, ruff, and mantle, both wearing coronets. At their feet is a figure of Fame although it has lost its trumpet.

At each corner is a black marble obelisk supported on four skulls with bronze mourning figures of Pallas, Benevolence, Neptune, and Mars.

I think, however, one of the most poignant motifs in the monument is that of the Duke and Duchess’ children.

Small statues, by sculptor Isaac Besnier, represent four of their children including Lord Francis Villiers (1629-1648), a posthumous child killed fighting the Parliamentary forces and is buried in the Buckingham vault. The other children buried in the Abbey are Charles (1625-1627), George (second Duke of Buckingham), and Mary, Duchess of Richmond.

Sir George Villiers and Mary, Countess of Buckingham

If you want a glimpse of the Duke’s parents, you can find them (or rather one of them) across the way in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in the Lady Chapel.

A sheep farmer, Sir George was the son of William Villiers and his wife Colett (Clarke). Serving as a sheriff of Leicestershire, he was knighted in 1593 and served as a Member of Parliament.

He had four daughters and two sons with his first wife Audrey. He married next his cousin Mary, daughter of Anthony Beaumont, and had four children that included George, the aforementioned first Duke of Buckingham. Mary was created Countess of Buckingham in her own right in 1618, and married secondly Sir William Raynor and last, Sir Thomas Compton.

Sir George died on Jan. 4, 1606 at age 61. Although he has an effigy, he’s actually buried at St. Denys, Goadby, in Leicestershire near his home.

The Westminster Abbey web page describes the monument like this.

On the altar chest, he is represented partly in plate armor with a plumed helmet, wearing trunk breeches and a sash on which are depicted shells. His feet rest on a lion. His wife has her head on embroidered cushions with cherub head tassels and wears an ermine lined robe, coronet and jewelled necklace with a pendant cross. She has a lion at her feet also. At each end of the monument chest are heraldic achievements with initials SGV and CMB at the corners. It was made in 1631 at the request of the Countess by sculptor Nicholas Stone who was paid 560 pounds for it. The carvers of the arms were Anthony Goor and Harry Akers.

I have a little bit of information on Nicholas Stone at the end of this post.

Mary died on April 19, 1632 and was buried a few days later in the chapel. Although she married twice after Sir George’s death, it was he that she wanted to be buried with after she passed away.

Mildred and Anne Cecil

A few weeks ago, I showed photos of Mary, Queen of Scots’ large monument, carved by Cornelius Cure and completed by his son, William. There’s another grand monument at the Abbey that Cornelius did that was for Mildred Cooke Cecil (1526-1589), Lady Burghley, and her daughter, Anne Cecil de Vere, Countess of Oxford.

The monument is 24 feet high, in St Nicholas’ Chapel. Both Mildred and Anne wear long fur-lined red cloaks, and there is a unicorn at Anne’s feet.

So who were this mother/daughter pair?

Born in 1526, Mildred was one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke (or Coke) of Gidea Hall, Essex, tutor to Edward VI (you might recall his tiny square I featured last week!). Educated by her father, Mildred was known as a scholar and philanthropist. She was William Cecil’s, Lord Burghley’s, second wife. Her effigy is the one in front.

Lord Burghley was Secretary of State and High Steward of Westminster. He was a trusted adviser of Elizabeth I.

Mildred’s children were Anne (1556-1588), Robert (1563-1612) and Elizabeth (1564-1583). Anne is the effigy behind Mildred’s. She was married to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford in 1571 at Whitehall Palace, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I. The marriage was reportedly unhappy one, producing three daughters; Elizabeth, Bridget and Susan, who were later buried with Anne and Mildred. Anne’s husband, Edward, was buried at St. Augustine, Hackney with his second wife.

The kneeling figure of Lord Burghley is up at the top center of the monument, which you can see in the picture just above the one of Bridget and Susan. He’s not buried here, however, and is at St. Martin’s Churchyard in Stamford, England.

There’s also the kneeling figure of Sir Robert Cecil, who was Mildred’s son and Anne’s brother. Sir Robert is credited with being the person who discovered the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, an act of treason against King James I. He’s not interred at Westminster Abbey but is at St. Etheldreda Cathedral in Hertfordshire, England.

You’ll find a number of long epitaphs all over the monument, said to be written by Lord Burghley himself. You can read them all translated into English here.

Then there are the pair of skulls on either side of the monument, with the inscriptions “Death is Life” (on the left) and “Death to me is gain” (on the right).

In the 19th century, the monument was restored by Lord Cranborne, and cleaned and re-painted in the late 1950s.

Cornelius Cure’s father was William Cure I, a Dutchman, but Cornelius was born in England. He lived and worked in Southwark. William Cecil, Lord Burghley, recommended that he be appointed to replace Edward Young as royal master mason to the courtier William Killigrew, highlighting Cure’s skill, honesty, and knowledge of work in foreign places. Cure was appointed master mason of the Tower of London and the Queen’s other residences in June 1596. Cornelius Cure died in 1607.

So it makes perfect sense that Cornelius Cure would be the one to carve the Cecil family’s grand monument.

William succeeded his father to the post of master mason to James I. He worked under Inigo Jones at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, and continued to hold the office until his death in 1632. William was succeeded by Nicholas Stone, who created the monument to Sir George Villiers and his wife, Mary, that I showed you earlier.

Next time, I’ll be on top of the world with Sir Issac Newton.

Many thanks to the amazing Grace Barrett of Tours by Grace for leading us through Westminster Abbey!

It’s hard to believe a year has already passed since we visited Westminster Abbey in June 2023. But as I’ve been working on this series, it’s brought back some wonderful memories and stirred up new observations.

Last time, I showed you the grand monument to Mary, Queen of Scots and shared the story of her tragic life. Having your death ordered by your cousin is not something most of us (fortunately) will ever have to face. Despite doing nothing to prevent his mother’s death, James I later ordered the construction of one of the finest memorials in Westminster Abbey to be created for her.

Not every king and queen (or prince) got the “royal” treatment at Westminster Abbey.

King William III and Queen Mary II

I mentioned in an earlier post that when you’re at Westminster Abbey, you can look down and realize that you’re possibly standing on someone important. That happened when I was near the tombs of King William III and Queen Mary II, who served jointly in the late 1600s. Unlike other monarchs, William and Mary are only marked by stones in the floor of the Triforium of the Lady Chapel.

William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange and Princess Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I of England. He was born in Holland on Nov. 4, 1650, a few days after his father’s death.
English authorities did not want any son of the Roman Catholic James II to become king, so in 1688 they asked William to come to England and march against James to take the throne, and reign jointly with his wife, Mary (whom he wed in 1677). However, before William reached London, James fled to France and his abdication was declared.

William III and Mary II were crowned as joint monarchs in the Abbey on April 11, 1689, the first time this had happened in England. They had no children, the throne passing to Mary’s sister Anne. Mary died in 1694 at age 32. William died in 1702 at age 51.

I thought you might find Westminster Abbey’s web site take on William’s death interesting:

His death on 8th March 1702 was caused by a fall from his horse which had stepped in a mole-hill. The ‘little gentleman in black velvet’ (the mole) was therefore praised by his enemies. In contrast to his wife’s funeral his was private and simple, at the monarch’s own request. But there was a long carriage procession from Kensington Palace. William was buried with his wife in a vault beneath the south aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel, not far from his mother’s grave. Although a monument was designed for the couple it was never erected.

Anne of Cleves

As the only one of Henry VIII’s six wives interred inside Westminster Abbey, you might think Anne of Cleves received a monument befitting her status. But she did not.

Of Henry’s many spouses, he was wed to Anne of Cleves the shortest amount of time. It lasted from January 1541 to July 1541 when its annulment was completed. As his fourth wife, Anne was born in 1515 in Germany and was the second daughter of John III of the House of La Marck, and his wife Maria, Duchess of Jülich-Berg.

Despite the brevity of their marriage, Anne came out better in the end than her fellow wives. Having left her homeland knowing no English and little of the country she would spent the rest of her life living in, Anne took to it fairly well.

As former queen, she received a generous settlement, including Richmond Palace, and Hever Castle, home of Henry’s former in-laws, the Boleyns. Anne of Cleves House, in Lewes, East Sussex, is one of many properties she owned, although she never lived there.

Anne was invited to court often and, out of gratitude for her not contesting the annulment, Henry decreed that she would be given precedence over all women in England save his own wife and daughters.

I’ve read differing accounts on whether or not she wished to return to Germany after Henry’s death. In the end, she ended up spending the rest of her life in England.

When Anne’s health began to fail, her former stepdaughter Mary allowed her to live at Chelsea Old Manor, where Henry’s last wife, Catherine Parr, lived after her remarriage. Anne died there on July 16, 1557. The most likely cause of her death was cancer. Passing away 10 years after Henry VIII, Anne was the last of his wives to die.

Mary ordered her burial in the Abbey, and the funeral held on Aug. 4, 1557 was conducted according to Catholic rites as Anne wanted. She lies on the south side of the High Altar and her monument is a low stone structure of three sections with carvings showing her initials AC with a crown, lions’ heads, and skulls and crossed bones. It was probably made by Theodore Haveus of Cleves but was never finished.

The tomb’s location is within the area of the sanctuary where the coronation service takes place and is therefore not accessible. For that reason, I only saw what you see in the photo above, which wasn’t easy to find at that because it’s in between two massive monuments for other people. Not exactly what you’d expect for a queen.

Prince Edward VI

King Edward VI (1547-1553) was the son of Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Born on Oct. 12, 1537, Edward’s mother died 12 days later at Hampton Court Palace. A healthy baby, Edward VI was well educated but tended to be sickly.

He succeeded his father when he was only nine years old and was crowned in the Abbey on Feb. 20, 1547. Since he was a minor, a Regency was created and his uncle, Edward Seymour, later Duke of Somerset, became Protector.

Edward died of tuberculosis at age 15 at Greenwich Palace on July 6, 1553. According to John Foxe’s account of his death, his last words were: “I am faint; Lord have mercy upon me, and take my spirit”.

Edward was buried in the Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey on Aug. 8, 1553. But no grand memorial marked his grave for hundreds of years. That was not remedied until the 1960s. I find that a genuine pity considering he was indeed king for part of his life.

Edward’s burial place was unmarked until as late as 1966, when an inscribed stone was laid in the chapel floor by Christ’s Hospital School to commemorate its founder. I just happened to look down and see it. Rest in peace, Edward.

Diplomat and Royal Cousin Ludovic Stuart

By contrast, you don’t have to be royal to manage a jaw-dropping sized monument in your honor. When I saw the one for Ludovic Stuart and his family, I thought he certainly had to be royal to merit something so grand. While he wasn’t a king, he did have royal ties.

Ludovic Stewart, second Duke of Lennox and first Duke of Richmond (1574–1624) was a Scottish nobleman who through his paternal lines was a second cousin of King James VI of Scotland and I of England. He was involved in the Plantation of Ulster in Ireland and the colonization of Maine in New England.

He held a number of titles over his lifetime, including lord high admiral, member of the English privy council, ambassador to Paris (1604–1605) and high commissioner to the Scottish Parliament (1607). In 1623, he was created Duke of Richmond.

Although Ludovic was married three times, he only had one legitimate child and that was a daughter with his second wife. He died suddenly in bed in his lodging at Whitehall Palace on Feb. 16, 1624 at age 49. His third wife, Frances, died in 1639 and is interred with him.

The Westminster Abbey web site describes the Stewart monument like this:

He has a very large monument of black marble and bronze by sculptor Hubert Le Sueur which fills the small chapel. Gilt bronze recumbent effigies of the Duke and Duchess hold hands; he is wearing plate armour, coronet, mantle and collar of the Order of the Garter and carries a wand, while wife Frances wears a ruff, stomacher and coronet. At his feet is a bull’s head and at hers is a chapeau with a couchant lion. At each corner of the tomb are large bronze life size figures representing Hope, Truth, Charity and Faith, acting as caryatides, supporting the domed open-work bronze canopy, with vases at each corner and a figure of Fame on the top. It was repaired and restored in 1875.

To say that the Stewart monument is mind blowing (to me), is an understatement. There’s quite a lot going on here.

Then you’ve got this angel on the top holding a trumpet.

There’s still much to discover at Westminster Abbey so I’m not done just yet!

Many thanks to the amazing Grace Barrett of Tours by Grace for leading us through Westminster Abbey!

This week, I’m going to tackle the story (and tomb) of Mary, Queen of Scots. That’s rather a tall order because her history is tragic and her monument/grave is even grander than that of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I (whom I talked about a few weeks ago).

First, let’s talk about Mary and how she fits into the complex history of the British/Scottish monarchy.

Royal Heir

Mary, Queen of Scots, was born on Dec. 8, 1542 in Linlithgow Palace in Scotland. She was the daughter of King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise. Her father died just a week after her birth.

Incidentally, Mary of Guise was first married to Louis D’Orleans, duc de Longueville in 1534, by whom she had two sons. After the duc’s death in 1537, she was sought for marriage by Henry VIII and James V. She allegedly refused Henry VIII’s proposal by saying “I fear my neck is too small.”

Enthroned as Scotland’s ruler at just six days old, Mary spent her early years at the French court, where she was raised alongside future husband Francis II. They wed in 1558 but he died within a year of his accession and Mary left France in 1560 never to return.

In November 1558, Henry VIII’s elder daughter, Mary I, was succeeded by Elizabeth I. Under the Third Succession Act, Elizabeth was recognized as her sister’s heir, and Henry VIII’s last will and testament had excluded the Stuarts from succeeding to the English throne. Yet, in the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen of England. Mary’s claim to the English throne was a continual sticking point between her and Elizabeth.

Second Marriage

Mary wed a second time in 1565 to Henry, Lord Darnley, son of Margaret Stewart, Countess of Lennox. They had one son in 1566 who later became King James VI of Scotland and I of England. The marriage soured but the couple was reportedly working toward reconciliation when on the night of Feb. 9, 1567, an explosion devastated Kirk o’ Field. Darnley was found dead in the garden, apparently smothered. There were no visible marks of strangulation or violence on the body.

Between April 21 and 23, 1567, Mary visited her son at Stirling for the last time (he was only 10 months old). On her way back to Edinburgh on April 24, Mary was abducted, willingly or not, by James Hepburn (Lord Bothwell) and his men, and was taken to Dunbar Castle. On May 6, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh. On 15 May 15, at either Holyrood Palace or Holyrood Abbey, they were married according to Protestant rites. Bothwell and his first wife, Jean Gordon, had divorced 12 days previously. It was not received well since many believed Bothwell was the one who had worked to have Darnley killed.

Mary and Bothwell were parted forever at Carberry Hill on June 15, 1567, Bothwell to exile and imprisonment where he died in 1578, and Mary to incarceration on the island of Loch Leven, where she was formally deposed in favor of her son James.

Imprisoned and Executed

After a brief stint of liberty the following year, defeat of her supporters at a battle at Langside put her once more to flight. Mary sought refuge in England with her cousin Elizabeth. But Elizabeth, with all the political cunning Mary lacked, used a series of excuses connected with the murder of Darnley to hold Mary in English captivity in a series of prisons for the next 18 years of her life.

It was the discovery in 1586 of a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and bring about a Roman Catholic uprising that convinced Elizabeth that, while she lived, Mary would always constitute too dangerous a threat to her own position.

Mary was tried by an English court and condemned. James, who had not seen his mother since infancy and now had his sights fixed on succeeding to the English throne, raised no objections. Mary, now 44, was executed in 1587 in the great hall at Fotheringhay Castle, near Peterborough.

Repairing Mary’s Reputation

Mary was buried five months after her death on Aug. 5, 1587 in Peterborough Cathedral. There was already had one queen buried there, namely Katharine of Aragon, buried in 1536.

When Mary’s son, James VI, became James I of England in 1603, he did not immediately take action to move his mother. However, he did encourage rehabilitating his mother’s reputation via portraiture. A well-recognized portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, was painted between 1610 and 1615. The portrait (see below) is held by the National Galleries of Scotland, and depicts Mary wearing a black gown and white veil; perhaps an allusion to what she wore on the day of her death.

By 1612, James had a marble tomb created for his mother in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. Her body was exhumed and moved from Peterborough to Westminster Abbey in October 1612. It is quite something to behold. The Scottish thistle is embedded in the arch over Mary’s effigy, I noticed.

James erected a magnificent marble tomb for his mother on which there is a fine white marble effigy under an elaborate canopy. She wears a close-fitting coif, a laced ruff, and a long mantle fastened by a brooch. The sculptors were father and son, Cornelius and William Cure. Cornelius died before it was finished to William completed it. A red crowned Scottish lion stands at her feet.

According to Westminster Abbey’s website, the Cures received 825 pounds for their work.

On the side of the tomb is a long inscription in Latin. Certain excerpts from the inscription show what some think is an attempt to rehabilitate Mary’s legacy:

Mistress of Scotland by law, of France by marriage, of England by expectation, thus blest, by a three-fold right, with a three-fold crown; happy, ah, only too happy, had she routed the tumult of war, and, even at a late hour, won over the neighbouring forces… here lies buried the daughter, bride and mother of kings. God grant that her sons, and all who are descended from her, may hereafter behold the cloudless days of eternity….

Perhaps by making such a statement with his mother’s tomb, James was taking further steps to redeem Mary’s public image. I do find it a bit strange that for a son who had put up no form of resistance to his mother’s execution back in 1587, he was doing quite a bit to make a show of creating such an elaborate tomb. But in looking at how things played out, I’m sure he was trying to pave the way with Elizabeth to becoming her successor when the time came.

Mary’s Mother-In-Law

I don’t know if it was by design or accident that Mary, Queen of Scots’s tomb is beside that of the mother of her second husband, Lord Darnley. Margaret Douglas’ mother was Margaret Tudor (1489-1541), daughter of Henry VII and widow of James IV of Scotland, who had married Archibald Douglas, the sixth Earl of Angus in 1514 (they divorced in 1527).

Born in 1515, the young Margaret lived for a time with her aunt Princess Mary and then became a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn and led an eventful life, being imprisoned in the Tower of London on several occasions.

On July 6, 1544, she married Matthew Stewart, 13th Earl of Lennox, a descendant of James I of Scotland. Matthew died after being shot in the back in a skirmish at Stirling Castle in 1571. None of her eight children survived her and she died, in poverty, on March 19, 1578 (New Style dating).

Margaret was buried, at the expense of Elizabeth I, in the south aisle of Henry VII’s chapel in Westminster Abbey, in the same grave as her son, Charles.

The monument was completed in 1578 by her executor Thomas Fowler. The sculptor is not known. Her effigy, made of alabaster, wears a French cap and ruff with a red fur-lined cloak, over a dress of blue and gold. On either side of the tomb chest are “weepers” (small kneeling statues) of her four sons (Charles and Henry and two who died young) and four daughters (all died young).

I did unwittingly take a photo of the side where the weepers are. Darnley, Mary’s second husband, is the one with the crown over his head. He’s not actually buried there but is in the Abbey of Holyrood in Edinburgh, Scotland.

James I and Anne of Denmark

James I would eventually wed Anne of Denmark in 1589 and they had seven children together. You’ll recall the tombs of Sophia and Mary that I shared a few weeks ago that are with Queens Elizabeth and Mary. Those are two of those children. Anne died in 1619, and James I died of a stroke at age 58 in 1625.

Considering the grandness of his mother’s tomb, you might think James’s tomb would be equally grand. But that did not happen. Like Queen Mary I, he ended up being interred with someone else.

The place of his interment was rediscovered by Dean Stanley in February 1869 in the vault containing the coffins of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. The body of his wife, Anne of Denmark, had been buried nearby on May 13, 1619. The antiquary John Dart saw a labelled urn containing the embalmed organs of Anne of Denmark in 1718, which he thought had been moved in 1674 during the reburial of the Princes in the Tower.

We didn’t get a very good photo of Henry VII (the king responsible for the Lady Chapel’s construction) and Elizabeth of York’s vault, sadly. There were too many people milling around it to do so. But Chris did the best he could. I did like this one he took of the angel sitting on it.

There’s so much more to see at Westminster Abbey. I’ll have more for you in Part IV.

Many thanks to the amazing Grace Barrett of Tours by Grace for leading us through Westminster Abbey!

Now that we’ve gotten the history of Westminster Abbey out of the way, what better time than now to start visiting some royalty?

There plenty to talk about when it comes to Queen Mary I (1516-1558) and her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603).

Queen Mary I

Born on Feb. 18, 1516 at Greenwich Palace (which no longer exists), Mary was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon of Spain. People tend to forget that Henry and Catherine were married for more than 20 years before divorcing her to wed Anne Boleyn.

After her parents’ divorce around 1533 and Henry’s break with the Catholic Church, Mary eventually lived at Hatfield with half-sister Elizabeth. She did have some pity for Elizabeth after Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1535. At that time, Elizabeth was ousted from favor and had little contact with her father. It was thanks to Mary that Elizabeth became closer with him.

During her father’s final marriage to Catherine Parr, Mary was brought back to court and named in her father’s will in the line of succession.

Mary succeeded to the throne on the death of her brother Edward VI in 1553. Once in power, Mary took action to return England to Catholicism. She also resurrected the laws against heresy, and as a result, nearly 300 Protestants were burned at the stake. Her moniker “Bloody Mary” was well earned.

Mary married Prince Philip of Spain in 1554, which didn’t please her subjects. At age 37, she was 10 years older than her new husband. She insisted that he be given the title of king consort and all official documents bear their joint names. However, Philip left England to return to Spain a few years later when he realized he would have no heir with her.

Death of Queen Mary I

Dying childless on Nov. 15, 1558 at age 42, Mary was buried in a vault in the north aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in a coffin, above which the large monument we see today was later erected. Most of the monarchs at Westminster Abbey are buried beneath the Lady Chapel. Henry VII spent a great deal of money on it, which was begun in 1503 but not completed until 1516, nearly six years after his death.

Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and like her half-sister, she was born at Greenwich Palace on Sept. 7, 1533. When Henry tired of Anne and had her beheaded so he could marry Jane Seymour, Elizabeth was unceremoniously tossed aside. Her household was allotted little money but she did receive a good education.

From time to time, depending on her father’s mood, Elizabeth was brought to the English court where she impressed Henry VIII with her intellectual prowess. She developed a relationship with her stepmother, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, only to see her beheaded. It’s small wonder that Elizabeth had little trust in marriage by this time.

By now, Elizabeth and Mary were not exactly “bosom friends” for many reasons. The largest bone of contention was their religious differences. Not surprisingly, Mary was staunchly Catholic like her mother Catherine and had married a Catholic. Elizabeth favored her father’s Church of England, which had replaced the Catholic Church when he divorced Catherine of Aragon.

When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey on Jan. 15, 1559. She ruled for 44 years until her death on March 24, 1603 at age 69. She never married and had no children.

Two Sisters, One Monument

Here’s where it gets interesting!

As I noted earlier, Mary’s coffin was placed in a vault in the north aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel. After Elizabeth died, the monarch who replaced her, James I, had Elizabeth’s coffin placed on top of Mary’s in the vault. I don’t think that was an accident.

Grace, our tour guide, shared with us that what came next was rather fitting considering how much the two sisters couldn’t stand each other.

When you walk into the north aisle, this is what you see. Made of white marble, the monument is massive. Commissioned by James I, it was made by sculptor Maximilian Colt and painted by John de Critz. The recumbent effigy resembles portraits of Elizabeth in old age. According to Westminster Abbey’s web page, the cost was £1,485 at the time.

As you get closer, you’ll notice something. There’s only one effigy resting on top of the base enclosed under the canopy, and that’s of Elizabeth I. Mary is nowhere to be seen! Below is a photo of the only mention of Queen Mary I.

To get some idea of what the monument looked like in its earlier days, this is a 1620 engraving of it from London’s National Gallery.

The roses and fleur-de-lis were prominently placed on the railings around the monument.

Princess Sofia

After you’ve seen Queen Elizabeth I (and pondered poor Queen Mary I’s lack of presence), you’ll notice at the end of the north aisle there are monuments to some royal children worth mentioning.

To the left is Princess Sofia, born on June 23, 1606 and died the next day at Greenwich Palace. She was the fourth daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark. Below is an engraving of her monument.

Sophia’s monument resembling a stone crib was designed by Maximilian Colt, and painted and gilded by John de Critz (they created Elizabeth I’s monument). The tomb is carved with lacework and an embroidered velvet cover. I didn’t get a very good photo of it. The angle at which it is placed makes it impossible for you to see the effigy’s face, so they have a mirror in place.

The Latin inscription on the end of the monument is translated below:

Sophia, a royal rosebud untimely plucked by Fate and from James, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and Queen Anne her parents, snatched away, to flower again in the rose garden of Christ, lies here. 23rd June, 4th year of the reign of King James 1606.

Princess Mary

To the right of Princess Sophia is her older sister, Princess Mary. Born on April 8, 1605 at Greenwich Palace, she was the third daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark. She lived 17 months before succumbing to pneumonia on Sept. 16, 1608.

Her effigy, created by Maximilian Colt, represents a young girl wearing a mature dress, with the traditional ruff, carved in ivory.

It reads:

I, Mary, daughter of James, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland and of Queen Anne, received into heaven in early infancy, found joy for myself, but left longings for my parents, on the 16th of September, 1607. Ye congratulators, condole: she lived only 1 year [sic, according to Everett Green] 5 months and 88 days.

Princes in the Tower?

You may be wondering what this item is located behind Princess Sophia and Princess Mary. I admit that I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.

I learned this was a monument created for the so-called Princes in the Tower, Edward and Richard. Their story is long and complicated. William Shakespeare wrote about them in his play, “Richard III”.

The princes, sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, were born during the Wars of the Roses. After Edward IV’s death in 1483, his brother the Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) became Lord Protector of Edward’s son and heir, the 12-year-old Edward V. The Duke immediately placed Edward in the Tower of London, closely followed by his nine-year-old brother Richard, for “their protection”.

What became of these two boys remains a mystery but they were never seen alive again. It’s long been believed that Richard III, who was crowed king in 1483, had them murdered. This has been debated for centuries with many theories having been put forth about it..

Nearly 200 years later, in 1674, King Charles II ordered the demolition of what remained of the royal palace to the south of the White Tower. The location included a turret that once contained a privy staircase leading into St. John’s Chapel.

Beneath the foundations of the staircase, some 10 feet below the ground, workmen found a wooden chest containing two skeletons. It was concluded that they were the bones of children. Charles II had them interred at Westminster Abbey in the later 1670s and they’ve been there ever since in the monument you see today.

In 1933, the remains were forensically examined and thought to be the bones of two boys between 10 and 12. But testing was not exactly precise in those days, so doubts remain still today if it truly is Richard and Edward. We’ll likely never know.

I’ve got more royal tombs for you so come back for more in Part III!

[Note: For more information on Tours by Grace, visit: https://www.toursbygrace.com/]

Last week, I told you I planned to feature some local (to me) cemeteries in my next blog posts. But this week, I realized I didn’t want to do that.

In the past, I’ve tried to write about my adventures chronologically. However, sometimes I get the urge to do something different.

When you make the rules, you can do that.

Today I’m starting a new series on London’s Westminster Abbey, which I visited in June 2023. There’s a bit of a story behind my relationship with this place, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

Disappointed in 1998

It started in July 1998 when I visited London for the first time with my college roommate and dear friend Megan. While I was not yet a cemetery hopper, I wanted to see Westminster Abbey. So one day we headed over there and to my disappointment, it was closed for an event.

However, that event turned out to be a visit from Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip! They were due to arrive in a few hours. We decided to settle down and wait, getting a prime place to watch near the gates. They were going to be part of a ceremony in which some new statues of 20th-century martyrs were to be unveiled.

Needless to say, seeing the royal couple walk in was worth the wait! But that meant we missed out on going inside.

My second opportunity came in September 2000 after a week-long tour of Scotland. I spent a few days in London after the tour before heading west to Swindon to stay with a couple I knew. I planned to go back to the Abbey, but I ran into a fellow tourist in my hotel’s Internet cafe who was catching a bus to see St. Paul’s Cathedral and he invited me to tag along. So I did.

Fast forward to January 2020 as my family and I prepared to visit London and Paris, my husband and son had been to neither. I’d never been to Paris. Covid rudely put that off until June 2023 and we made new plans. I was determined to not only visit Westminster Abbey, but to hire a guide who could show us around to make the most of it.

Hopefully, the third time would be the charm.

Tours By Grace

There are plenty of guides eager to show you around Westminster Abbey. You can also rent an audio tour if you prefer. But when I found Grace (of Tours by Grace) online, I got the feeling right away that she was exactly the right person for us. And she was!

Grace is a certified Blue Badge London Tourist Guide and that’s nothing to sneeze at. It takes two years of training and passing strict qualifications to become one. These are not folks reciting a list of facts out of a guidebook while glancing at their watch. They tailor your tour to what you specifically want to see. Even if what you want to see most are graves.

There’s an awesome benefit to having waited until 2023 to visit. You couldn’t take pictures inside the Abbey until October 2020. Photography is still not allowed during services. But had I visited before, I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture of a single grave or tomb.

Britain’s Oldest Door

If it hadn’t been for Grace pointing it out, I’m not sure we would have seen Britain’s oldest door.

The door was dated for the first time in 2005 by a process called dendrochronology. A detailed study of the wooden door (in the vestibule leading to the Chapter House), showed that the wood came from a tree chopped down after 1032 A.D. The door was constructed sometime in the 1050s. This was during the reign of King Edward the Confessor.

According to the Westminster Abbey web site:

The door was obviously retained when Henry III rebuilt the Abbey and Chapter House from 1245 but cut down to be put in a new position. In the 19th century, the fragments of cow hide were first noted and a legend grew up that this skin was human. It was supposed that someone had been caught committing sacrilege or robbery in the church and had been flayed and his skin nailed to this door as a deterrent to others.

A Few Facts

I’m not going to spend much time on the history of Westminster Abbey, which is over 1,000 years old. With only two exceptions, every monarch since 1066 has been crowned there. The Abbey had just hosted the coronation of King Charles less than a month before our visit. We saw the Coronation Chair, pictured below, that he sat in. It has plexiglass in front of it, thus the reflection of the stained glass.

The Abbey has never had a bishop, except for a brief time during the 1540s (before then, it was presided over by an abbot). Upon its re-founding by Elizabeth I in 1560, it was established as a royal peculiar. Ever since, it’s been outside the hierarchy and jurisdiction of the Church of England.

Westminster Abbey is among many monasteries founded in the Catholic Church, although it was later repurposed as a powerful symbol of Protestant national identity. Although much of the architecture is French in origin, the Abbey is widely regarded as quintessentially English.

How Many People Are Buried in Westminster Abbey?

Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the Abbey. Many are not buried there but have a cenotaph placed in their honor, such as Victorian authors (and sisters) Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte. They’re actually buried in Haworth in Yorkshire.

An estimated total of 18 English, Scottish and British monarchs are buried in the Abbey, including Edward the Confessor, Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry V, Edward V, Henry VII, Edward VI, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles II, Mary II, William III, Queen Anne, and George II.

During the early 20th century, for reasons of space, it became more common to bury cremated remains (ashes). In 1905, actor Sir Henry Irving became the first person to have their ashes interred at the Abbey.

Eight British prime minister are buried in the Abbey, and I happened to notice a few of them as I was walking around (and over) them. That’s the tricky thing about walking around Westminster Abbey. You might be stepping on a king or a poet or a prime minister and not even realize it!

The Unknown Warrior

At the west end of the Nave, you’ll find the grave of the Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought from France to be buried at the Abbey on Nov. 11, 1920. The grave, which contains soil from France, is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble from a quarry near Namur.

Where did the idea come from? In 1916, a chaplain at the Front, the Rev. David Railton (1884-1955), noticed something in a back garden at Armentières. It was a grave with a rough cross on which were written the words “An Unknown British Soldier”. In August 1920, Rev. Railton wrote to the dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, who took up the cause of creating a memorial. The body was chosen from unknown British servicemen exhumed from four battle areas, the Aisne, the Somme, Arras, and Ypres. (some sources say six bodies but confirmed accounts say four).

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, on behalf of the United States, conferred the Congressional Medal of Honor on the Unknown Warrior on Oct. 17, 1921, which hangs in a frame on a pillar near the grave.

First Impressions

As an American accustomed to outdoor cemeteries, I found the tombs/graves of Westminster Abbey overwhelming and amazing all at once. The range of materials, along with the different sizes of monuments and memorials, had my head spinning. A single rectangle represented the author Charles Dickens, while an admiral I’d never heard of merited an enormous monument that could fill a small house.

Some feel that Dickens actually wanted to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, near where he died in 1870. But public opinion at the time demanded that Westminster Abbey was the only place for the burial of someone of his distinction.

Also, you can look up at a wall in the East Cloister and see a memorial that just happens to include some skulls. While I’ve seen skulls on grave markers in New England cemeteries, that’s not something I’ve ever seen inside an American church.

There’s a great deal more to see at Westminster Abbey. So much more. I hope you’ll join me.

I’m wrapping up my series on Iowa City’s Oakland Cemetery today, which brings my July 2019 Iowa Road Trip to an end as well.

Last week, some of the veteran graves I shared with you were made of white bronze (zinc). These are some of my favorite markers because in this part of the country, I don’t see too many of them. Because the Monumental White Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Conn. had a factory in Des Moines, Iowa, zinc markers are easy to find in Hawkeye state cemeteries.

When I came across the Carleton family white bronze marker at Oakland, I was flummoxed. So many little children’s names were on it and almost all had died in infancy. Figuring out their story took a little time but it was worth it.

The Carleton Family

Born in Maryland in 1812, James P. Carleton graduated from Pennsylvania’s Washington College (now known as Washington and Jefferson College). He married Louisa Patterson in Indiana. Eventually, the couple settled in Iowa City, Iowa around 1841 and James became a well-regarded judge of the Fourth Judicial District.

Over the course of their marriage, Louisa would bear six children. Five died in childhood. One, Cornelia, died at age 16. I don’t have any information on their causes of death. Was it illness? Was it a congenital heart defect? Something genetic? We will never know.

Louisa gave birth to their last child, Rinehart, on Oct. 12, 1848. He died on Jan. 14, 1849. She died on March 6, 1849 at age 29.

I can’t help but wonder if it was from a broken heart.

Judge Carleton remarried to widow Mary Jane Young on Oct. 4, 1849. They had three children together, Adda, Mary, and James-Anna. Adda lived to age 36, Mary to age 88, and James-Anna only 15 months.

Judge Carleton died on Oct. 3, 1853 at age 43.

James-Anna, the last child born to Judge Carleton and his second wife, died on June 5, 1855. She has her own plate at the foot of the marker.

Two other white bronze plates can also be found at the base.

The final death noted on this monument is for the father of Judge Carleton’s second wife, Mary, the Rev. Alcinous Young, who died on March 30, 1876. His wife, Mary’s mother (Mary Young), shares the panel with him. She died on Oct. 8, 1856.

This white bronze marker must have been purchased after Rev. Young’s death in 1876. I don’t know who planned what it would say and whose names would be included. My guess is that it was Judge Carleton’s widow, Mary. She died in 1899 at age 72 in Burlington, Iowa. Her obituary indicates she was probably buried in Oakland Cemetery but I found no marker for her there.

I have to think that the rest of the Carleton clan owes a great debt to the person who had this monument made because these children, however short their lives were, deserve to be remembered.

Civil War Governor

I promised last week that I’d fill you in with more information about Iowa governor Samuel Jordan Kirkwood.

Born in Maryland in 1813, Kirkwood taught school before moving to Mansfield, Ohio in 1835. In 1843, he was admitted to the bar and served as the area’s prosecuting attorney for four years. That same year, Kirkwood married Jane Clark, sister of Phoebe Ann Clark, and thus became the brother-in-law of Edward Lucas. He was the son of Iowa’s first territorial governor Robert Lucas and his second wife Friendly Ashley Sumner Lucas.

The couple moved from Ohio to Iowa in the 1850s and Samuel got into the milling business with his brother-in-law Ezekiel Clark.

Samuel was elected to the Iowa Senate, serving from 1856 to 1859. In 1860, he was elected governor of Iowa. That year, the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry further inflamed the country over slavery, and Kirkwood sided with abolitionists. Barclay Coppock, a young man who was part of Brown’s raid, fled to Iowa. Kirkwood refused to accept extradition papers for him from Virginia, and allowed Coppock to escape.

During the Civil War, Kirkwood recruited enough volunteers to put together over 50 regiments of infantry and cavalry for the Union cause. He was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the minister to Denmark, but Kirkwood declined.

After leaving office in 1864, Kirkwood practiced law in Iowa City. In 1865-1867, he served the remainder of James Harlan’s term in the U.S. Senate, and served in the Senate again from 1877 to 1881. Between his separate terms as a Senator, he was again governor of Iowa from 1876 to 1877. He resigned as governor in 1877 to begin his second term as U.S. Senator.

In 1881, Kirkwood resigned his Senate seat to become Secretary of the Interior under President James Garfield until 1882. After unsuccessfully running for Congress in 1886, Kirkwood spent the rest of his life practicing law and serving as president of an Iowa City bank.

Samuel Kirkwood died in Iowa City on Sept. 1, 1894, at the age of 80. Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Coralville, and Cedar Rapids is named for him. Kirkwood Avenue in Iowa City, where Kirkwood and his wife, Jane, lived for much of his political career, is named for him, as is Kirkwood Elementary School, located in Coralville, Iowa.

The Kirkwoods had no children. Jane stayed in Iowa City after her husband passed away. She died at age 99 on April 28, 1921. She is buried with Samuel.

Large Rectangular Slabs

I encountered a number of large, rectangular slabs from the 1840s to the 1870s that look like they came from the same stone mason. I don’t know much about the individuals they represent, but I enjoyed the different fonts and motifs on them.

Oakland has 27 Stover memorials listed on FindaGrave.com. This pair is for father and son Joseph Stover (1782-1875) and John Stover (1830-1858). It’s possible that John died of typhoid. Their markers both feature weeping willow trees.

A native of Ohio, Samuel Shields married Jane M. Eaton in 1850. The couple moved to Iowa City in 1853. They had two children, Rocina (who died in 1860), and Wilbur (who died in 1952 at age 79).

Samuel died in 1858 at age 35. His marker features an open Bible. Jane outlived him by over 30 years, dying on Feb. 12, 1890 at age 63.

A native of New York, Jane Shepard married British immigrant Joseph James Moyle in 1854. The couple moved to Iowa where Joseph worked as a miller. The couple had three children together. The third, Jennie, was born on Sept. 16, 1860. Jane died less than a month later on Oct. 5, 1960. Her grave marker features a hand pointing upward to Heaven.

Joseph remarried twice after Jane passed away, adding four more children to his family. He died in 1888 at age 57 and is buried with his third wife, Ida, in Fairview Cemetery in Lenox, Iowa.

End of the Road

I flew back to Atlanta a few days later, savoring the memories of our Iowa road trip. But I was ready to explore some cemeteries closer to home that I’d been wanting to visit. I’ll be sharing those with you in the next few weeks.

In my last post, I introduced you to Iowa City, Iowa’s Oakland Cemetery and focused on the story of the Black Angel. This week, I’ve got some veterans I’d like to honor by sharing their stories.

During the Civil War, Iowa contributed 48 regiments of state infantry, one regiment of black infantry, nine regiments of cavalry, and four artillery batteries. In addition to these federally mustered troops, the state also raised a number of home guard or militia units. In other words, a lot of soldiers!

Near the front of Oakland is the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) section where you’ll find a handful of military graves for soldiers who served during the Civil War. They were Union soldiers enrolled in different groups from various states, most from Iowa but not all. There are other veterans buried at Oakland as well.

Samuel J. Kirkwood Corps 78 GAR Monument

Oakland Cemetery has something I can’t say I see very often and that is a tree-shaped GAR monument. It was erected on May 30, 1896 by the Samuel J. Kirkwood Corps 78 to honor the fallen GAR soldiers. At the time it was placed, there were 16 GAR graves there.

Samuel J. Kirkwood was Iowa’s governor twice (1860 to 1864 and 1876 to 1877). He also served in the U.S. Senate and was U.S. Secretary of the Interior. He passed away in 1894 and is buried at Oakland, but I’ll feature him in more detail in Part III.

I wasn’t sure what the Samuel J. Kirkwood Corp 78 was until I stumbled up on this tidbit on Pat Grandsta’s web site about the governor’s early involvement in the Civil War in raising troops for the Union:

Kirkwood immediately issued a proclamation calling for the various counties to raise volunteer companies consisting of a minimum of 78 men each; the companies would comprise a state militia which would ultimately be mustered into the United States army. In addition, the governor used his oratorical skills to explain his — and Lincoln’s— belief that the Union should remain inviolate. The result was that twice as many Iowans volunteered as could be accepted.

I admit I was almost giddy to find an article about this exact monument in the Iowa City Weekly Republican from June 3, 1896. Iowa City’s GAR veterans pooled their money to erect a proper monument to honor their comrades interred at Oakland Cemetery.

Little Drummer Boy

At the GAR plot, my gaze was drawn to the marker for Johnny Hendricks. It’s not often you see a Civil War veteran marker for a 12-year-old boy.

I couldn’t find much about Johnny back in 2019. But a fellow named Kurt Knapp on another Facebook page managed to find out the following:

Not very much info available on Johnny, being only 12. Below is a brief listing of his death in the Iowa Volunteers Casualty/Death list. He was a private in the 25th Iowa Volunteers. Died in a hospital in Nashville on May 5, 1865. Most likely, he had friends who paid for embalming and shipping his remains back to Iowa.

At the time, most soldiers of both sides were buried in local graveyards or other open land, unless compassionate friends pooled their resources to return the remains to their home state.

Difficult to see the cause of death, but looks like: Febris Typhoidea. (Typhoid), a serious stomach and intestinal infectious disease caused by bacteria Salmonella typhi. Not uncommon among Civil War soldiers, in fact, more died from diseases than trauma.

Children on the Civil War battlefield were not as uncommon as you might think. According to the Vintage News, it’s thought that over 250,000 of participants were younger than 18, some not much older than 10. Tossed into an unfamiliar world, they were forced to act like adults. Most had lied about their age and joined without their parents’ permission.

The youngest, like Johnny, often became drummers and messengers.

Johnny’s friends (it appears) rallied to get his remains sent home so he was not left to rest in a grave in a state he never knew. While his life was short, Johnny was not forgotten then. Or now.

“We Miss Thee Everywhere”

Not far away from the GAR plot are two white bronze (zinc) monuments that got my attention. The first was for Dover, Maine native Justin H. Trundy, who saw a great deal of action while a member of the Sixth Maine Infantry, Co. E.

Trundy moved to Iowa City with his new bride, Nellie, in 1869. When he died on Aug. 7, 1888 at age 47, he was senior vice commander of Iowa City’s GAR. He and Nellie had one son, George. Nellie would outlive Justin by 45 years, passing away in 1933.

Trundy’s monument has one of the more poignant epitaphs on the base.

We miss thee from our home, dear.

We miss thee from they place;

A shadow o’er our life is cast,

We miss the sunshine of they face.

We miss thy kind and willing hand,

They fond and earnest care;

Our home is dark without thee,

We miss thee every where.

“Rest, Soldier, Rest”

Ohio native Jasper N. Templeman enlisted at 16 in the Union Army but due to his small stature, he was made a drummer boy much like Johnny Hendricks. He was noted for his handsome features and good nature. He mustered into the 22nd Iowa Infantry, Co. G, on Feb. 17, 1864.

Three of Jasper’s brothers also served in Co. G. One of them, Milton, would die of disease in 1863. Jasper mustered out with the regiment in Savannah, Ga. on July 25, 1865.

After the war, Jasper moved to Miller, Dakota Territory, where he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad and later opened the Pioneer Gallery, a photography studio in Miller. In 1870, he married Alma Reeves in Norway, Iowa. They would have seven children together, all but one living to adulthood.

Unfortunately, Jasper’s health was failing by the time he reached his 40s. His youngest child was still an infant when he died at age 42 on March 22, 1890.

From the Oxford Weekly Journal (Oxford, Iowa), April 3, 1890:

Jasper N. Templeman died at his home in this city, on Saturday morning after a long and painful illness He had only recently returned from southern California where he had spent some time in hope of restoration to health. He leaves a wife and seven children. Mr. Templeman was about 43 years of age; in 1864, when a boy not yet seventeen, he enlisted in Co. G, 22nd Iowa Infantry, and made a good record as a soldier. His burial was conducted by Iowa City Post, G.A.R. Many of our citizens will remember the deceased as a former citizen of our town. He was highly respected by all who knew him.

Alma did not remarry but remained in Iowa City, later moving to California for a time. She died in 1946 at age 95 and is buried beside Jasper.

I’ll be back soon with more stories from Iowa City’s Oakland Cemetery.

Iowa City is only about 15 miles west of West Branch and is the home of the University of Iowa. We stayed in a hotel there overnight and headed for Oakland Cemetery the next morning.

According to its website, Oakland Cemetery was deeded to the people of Iowa City by the Iowa territorial legislature on Feb. 13, 1843. The original plot was one block square. The cemetery now encompasses 40 acres. Oakland Cemetery is a non-perpetual care cemetery supported by city taxes. The staff is committed to the maintenance and preservation of privately-owned lots and accessories. It is still an active cemetery and you can purchase a plot there if you so desire.

According to Find a Grave, Oakland Cemetery has around 16,000 graves recorded there. However, I’m sure there are more than that.

Teresa Karasek Dolezal Pica Feldervert

Most people visit Oakland Cemetery for one reason and that’s to see the Black Angel. This is the second Black Angel I’ve encountered in Iowa. The first was the statue in memory of Ruth Anne Dodge by sculptor Daniel Chester French that’s adjacent to Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I wrote about that one in 2017.

The story surrounding Iowa City’s Black Angel is a bit sketchy in places and some of the specifics are unknown. But when it comes to a haunted statue, that’s kind of the norm. Right?

We do know that Terezie “Teresa” Karasek was born around 1836 in Czechoslovakia (then known as Bohemia). It was only after her death that it was discovered that she’d studied at the University of Vienna, earning the equivalent of a degree in gynecology and becoming a midwife. She reportedly delivered more than 100 babies.

Her son, Eduard, or “Eddie”, was born in 1873. He was her son by Dr. Frantizek Dolezal, whom she married in 1865. She arrived with Eddie in Iowa City sometime around 1877. I’m not sure what became of Dr. Dolezal.

Eddie died in 1891 at age 17 of meningitis. He was buried in a crypt in a different plot in the cemetery than where he is now and a tree-shaped monument was erected in his honor. His body (and the tree marker) were later moved to the site of the Black Angel monument around 1913.

Overwhelmed with grief, Teresa moved to Chicago then to Minnesota where she married Joseph Pica. She would divorce him and move to Eugene, Ore. where she met and married wealthy ranch owner Nicholas Feldevert in 1897. He was of German heritage.

At the base of the monument, you can see the words “Rodina Feldevertova”. The word “rodina” means “family” in Czech. Both Teresa and Nicholas shortened it to Feldevert at some point.

When Nicholas died in 1911, he left Teresa a wealthy widow. Much of the money went to fund projects back in her hometown of Strmilov in Czechoslovakia.

But Teresa also wanted to honor her third husband and son, so she began making plans to commission a statue that would eventually be placed by their graves at Oakland. It would eventually be her final resting place as well.

Mario Korbel

On the advice of friends, Teresa contacted up and coming Czech sculptor Mario Korbel in Chicago to create a statue. She also wanted him to incorporate Eddie’s tree monument into his design. His model in clay at the Art Institute of Chicago caused a stir and Teresa gave him the green light to cast it in bronze. In July 1911, he stopped in Iowa City on his way west to check the site where it would eventually be placed.

While waiting for Korbel to finish, Teresa had Nicholas’ remains disinterred in February 1912 and sent to Portland, Ore. to be cremated before having them sent on to Oakland Cemetery in Iowa.

Korbel’s eight and a half foot statue arrived in Iowa City in November 1912. Unfortunately, Teresa didn’t like what she saw and refused to pay Korbel for his hard work. He hadn’t incorporated Eddie’s tree monument as she had requested. She also did not like the dark patina on the bronze at all.

A lawsuit ensued and Teresa ended up paying for it after all. The statue was placed on its four-foot tall base. An inscription in Czech is on the side of it.

The inscription translated reads:

The sun and clouds stood above my journey/There were tough and joyful days in my life./ You did my work just to make the world better./ You fold your hands and your head goes down./ Your spirit flies away where everlasting reward/ Is waiting for you after hardship.

Teresa died on Nov. 18, 1924 in Iowa City. Her remains were cremated in Davenport, Iowa, and her ashes were buried with her husband and son beside the Black Angel. She was 88 and had little money left. Her death year was never carved into the base because there was nobody left in her family to pay for it.

The Black Angel only darkened more over the years, causing people to talk. But according to an NPR article bout the statue that I found, that’s not unusual:

Bronze is an alloy made up of copper and zinc and sometimes even other metals like aluminum, manganese, nickel or zinc. So that metal combination can change the color. Also chemical combination called a patina is added to the surface of Bronze sculptures and that can create some interesting color changes.

Paul Benson is an art conservator for the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and he also says the environment can play a big role.

“Put a sculpture out in Kansas City, put another one out in New York City they may turn completely different colors,” says Benson.

The Myths of the Black Angel

There are quite a few myths and stories surrounding the Black Angel. Many students and other Iowa City residents visit the statue, along with interested travelers like me.

The biggest night of attraction is on Halloween where visitors gather around the statue, and some test their luck by touching or kissing the statue. It’s said that if someone touches or kisses the statue they will be struck dead unless that person is a virgin.

It is also rumored that if a pregnant woman walks beneath the statue’s stretched wings that she will miscarry. Some have seen mysterious ghostly figures walking nearby. It goes on from there.

The Black Angel has been vandalized several times over the years. Her outstretched fingers have been damaged. Paint has been applied many times. It’s rather amazing that she is still intact after all these years.

The Black Angel appears in W.P. Kinsella’s 1986 novel “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” in which the statue plays right field for the Confederacy. She also makes an appearance in Andrea Lawlor’s 2017 novel “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” in which the titular Paul seduces a graduate student under its wings. Footage of the Black Angel is included in the music video for “Alive Twice” by the band Friendship.

More recently, a new restaurant called The Black Angel opened in Iowa City in August 2023.

The NPR article said Oakland’s grounds keeper Russell Buffington noted that people leave money and flowers for the angel. He’s found bottles of liquor given as offerings, and a lot of people have been married in front of it.

Teresa’s Legacy

In the end, the ghost stories aren’t what really matter. It’s always been about one woman’s wish to keep the memories of her beloved son and her husband alive.

Author Tim Parrot wrote a book called “The Black Angel A Centennial History 1913 – 2013”. He said Teresa didn’t care about the whispers about the statue, according to interviews with her that he’s read.

“Her concern wasn’t for the Black Angel. It wasn’t about anything except her son and her last husband. She seemed very concerned about people knowing who they were.”

I’ll be back next week with more stories from Oakland Cemetery.

When I realized we would be driving right past the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa on our journey back to Omaha, I was determined that we’d stop. We wouldn’t have time to visit the library itself, but if it was possible to get a glimpse of Hoover’s grave, I was going to try.

This was my first official U.S. presidential grave! I’ve seen 10 more since, but seeing Hoover’s was special to me.

Born in West Branch, Iowa

Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa on Aug. 10, 1874, making him the first American president to be born west of the Mississippi River.

His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner. His mother, Hulda Randall Minthorn Hoover, raised in Canada, moved to Iowa in 1859. They were Quakers. From what I’ve read, he had a happy early childhood.

Jesse died in 1880 at age 34 of a sudden heart attack and Hulda died in 1884 of typhoid, leaving Herbert and his two siblings orphans. Hoover lived the next 18 months with his paternal uncle Allen Hoover at a nearby farm.

In November 1885, Hoover went to Newberg, Ore., to live with his maternal uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman. The Minthorn household was considered cultured and educational, and imparted in Herbert a strong work ethic.

We did watch a film at the visitor’s center before they closed. I was curious to know why, since Hoover only lived in West Branch nine years, did he choose it as the site for his presidential library? Apparently, Hoover always had fond memories of his childhood in West Branch, when his parents were still living, so that’s where he wanted it.

The library and museum are located within the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, which contains Hoover’s birthplace, a reconstruction of Hoover’s father’s blacksmith shop, a one-room schoolhouse, and a Quaker meeting house. We had time to briefly visit Hoover’s birthplace cottage then hoofed it down a long path up a hillside to his grave. The National Park Service manages the site.

Early Days

Plenty of authors have written about the Hoovers, so I’m going to try to hit the highlights.

Herbert Hoover was part of the inaugural class at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He graduated in 1895 with a degree in geology and became a mining engineer, working on a wide variety of projects on four continents.

While a senior at Stanford, Hoover met his future wife, Waterloo, Iowa native Lou Henry. Born in 1874, Lou grew up something of a tomboy in the Monterey, Calif. area. She loved the outdoors as much as Herbert did.

Lou got a teaching credential in 1893 from San Jose State University (then San Jose Normal School) and worked at her father’s bank. The following year, she enrolled at Stanford to pursue a degree in geology. In 1898, Lou became the first woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in geology from Stanford, one of the first women in America to hold such a degree.

Married Life

In 1897, Hoover took an engineering job in Australia. Lou and Herbert were engaged before he left. They were married in her family’s home on Feb. 10, 1899. Herbert was hired as chief engineer of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company in Tianjin, China, where they went after their honeymoon.

Caught in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Hoover organized relief for trapped foreigners. Lou, who learned Chinese, treated gunshot wounds, built barricades, and rode through the area on her bicycle with a pistol patrolling with Western troops. I have to say, Lou was no slouch!

The Hoovers made their home in London in November 1901 after Herbert was offered a partnership with a British mining company. His work took them all over the world. The Hoovers had two sons who joined them as they traveled. Herbert Hoover Jr. was born in 1903, and Allan Hoover was born in 1907. The family became wealthy after Herbert’s decision to become an independent consultant in 1908.

In 1914, Hoover helped Americans stranded in Europe at the outbreak of World War I. For the next three years, he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, helping find food for some nine million people. His skills impressed Pres. Woodrow Wilson so much that he appointed him U.S. food administrator for the duration of the war.

The Hoovers returned to America in January 1917. When the U.S. entered World War I three months later, Herbert was appointed head of the Food and Drug Administration, and the family made their home in Washington, D.C.

After World War I

Hoover was tapped to head the American Relief Administration. The ARA sent food and supplies to war-ravaged Europe. The outreach to Soviet Russia garnered Hoover much criticism, but he defended his actions by saying, “Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed.”

In 1921, President-elect Warren G. Harding chose Hoover to serve as secretary of commerce. Continuing as commerce secretary under Pres. Calvin Coolidge, Hoover spearheaded efforts that ultimately led to construction of Hoover Dam and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

When Coolidge decided not to run for another term in 1928, Hoover received the Republican presidential nomination. Hoover and running mate Charles Curtis ran against New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith and vice presidential candidate Joseph T. Robinson in a contest that focused on Prohibition and religion. Hoover captured more than 21 million popular votes to Smith’s approximately 15 million, and he received 444 electoral votes to his Democratic opponent’s 87.

Presidential Years

Lou was her husband’s frequent adviser while he was president. Throughout her tenure, she refused to give interviews to the press, seeing them as intrusive. Instead, she gave speeches over the radio, the first president’s wife to do so.

The stock market cash of 1929 plunged the country into the worst economic collapse in its history. Hoover parted ways with leaders of the Republican Party who thought there was nothing for the government to do but wait for the next phase of the business cycle.

Hoover called business leaders to the White House to urge them not to lay off workers or cut wages. He urged state and local governments to join private charities in caring for Americans made destitute by the Depression. He asked Congress to appropriate money for public works projects to expand government employment. He established new agencies such as the Federal Farm Board, the Federal Drought Relief Committee, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

But Hoover would not provide direct federal relief to the unemployed. Instead, he promoted indirect relief through public works projects and loans to states. His programs proved inadequate as the number of unemployed workers increased from 7 million in 1931 to 11 million in 1933.

Hoover’s political reputation as the “master of emergencies” collapsed in the face of rising unemployment. Although he mounted a vigorous campaign for re-election in 1932, Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Hoovers departed Washington on March 4, 1933. He was only 58.

Back to Private Life

While Hoover considered going back into politics after his defeat, the Hoovers were understandably bitter about what happened. He and Lou lived in Palo Alto until her death after a heart attack in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Jan. 7, 1944. Her funeral was held at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York.

Hoover was a constant critic of Roosevelt. In response to continued attacks on his character and presidency, Hoover wrote more than two dozen books, including The Challenge to Liberty (1934). At the 1940 Republican National Convention, Hoover hoped for the presidential nomination, but it went to the Wendell Willkie, who lost to Roosevelt in the general election.

After World War II, Hoover befriended President Harry Truman despite their differences. Because of Hoover’s experience with Germany at the end of World War I, Truman selected him in 1946 to tour Allied-occupied Germany and Rome, Italy to ascertain the food needs of the occupied nations. On Hoover’s initiative, a school meals program in the American and British occupation zones of Germany began on April 14, 1947. It served 3,500,000 children.

In 1954, a group of Hoover’s friends incorporated the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation to raise money for preservation of his birthplace, and to plan for site improvements. One of their ideas was to build a small museum, and with Hoover’s approval work began in the late 1950s. The architectural firm of Eggers and Higgins of New York drew the plans for the original building. While the museum at West Branch was still under construction, Hoover decided to expand it and make it his Presidential Library.

The Library and Museum was officially dedicated on Aug. 10, 1962, Hoover’s 88th birthday. Hoover and former President Truman were present at the dedication.

Herbert Hoover died in New York City on Oct. 20, 1964, following massive internal bleeding. Two months earlier, Hoover reached the age of 90, only the second U.S. president (after John Adams) to do so. At the time of his death, Hoover had been out of office for over 31 years. This was the longest retirement in presidential history until Jimmy Carter broke that record in September 2012. Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

On October 25, Hoover was buried in West Branch. Lou Hoover, buried in Palo Alto following her death in 1944, was re-interred beside him soon after.

The original Library and Museum building was expanded several times. On Aug. 8, 1992, former President Ronald Reagan rededicated the Library and Museum. The $6.5 million renovation/expansion was a public–private partnership, with Washington supplying $5 million for bricks and mortar, supplementing $1.5 million raised by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association for new exhibits.

Iowa architect William Wagner designed the memorial. Two plainly inscribed ledger stones of Vermont white marble mark the Hoover graves.

Across the curved walkway, an American flag waves. Hoover signed the congressional resolution making “The Star Spangled Banner” the national anthem during his term as president in 1931. My picture of it isn’t very good but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

It would be easy to sink into the debate over how much Herbert Hoover was out of touch and inept as a president, as many scholars opine. But as we were heading back to our car, I thought how more interested I was in the Hoover marriage. They were both outdoor enthusiasts, highly intelligent, shared a love of geology, and were devoted to each other. I don’t doubt that they had some lively debates in their private moments. More than some presidential marriages, I think the Hoovers respected and loved each other deeply.

It was time to head to Iowa City to check into our hotel for the night. We had another Iowa cemetery stop before we returned to Nebraska.

It’s not often I visit a large cemetery and only visit a few graves, then take off. But in the case of Anamosa, Iowa’s Riverside Cemetery, that is exactly what I did. Sometimes time is not on my side.

You might remember that I talked about artist Grant Wood a few months ago when I was writing about Cedar Rapids’ Oak Hill Cemetery because Dr. Byron McKeeby is buried there. A dentist in real life, he stood is as the model for the farmer in Wood’s classic “American Gothic” painting.

In a nutshell, Riverside Cemetery has about 4,720 memorials listed on Find a Grave with the earliest death date listed in the 1840s. It’s an active cemetery with burials taking place. That’s about all I know about it.

Grant Wood’s Home Town

Born in Anamosa in 1891 to Francis Maryville Wood and Hattie DeEtte Weaver Wood, Grant Devolson Wood and his mother moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa after Francis passed away in 1901. Soon after, Wood began as an apprentice in a local metal shop. After graduating from high school, Wood enrolled in the Handicraft Guild, an art school run entirely by women in Minneapolis, Minn. in 1910.

In 1913, Wood enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and performed some work as a silversmith. Near the end of World War I, Wood joined the military, working as an artist designing camouflage scenes as well as other art.

From 1919 to 1925, Wood taught art to junior high school students in the Cedar Rapids public school system. From 1922 to 1935, Wood lived with his mother in the loft of a carriage house in Cedar Rapids, which he turned into his personal studio.

Between 1922 and 1928, Wood made four trips to Europe, where he studied many styles of painting. But it was the work of the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that influenced him to take on the clarity of this technique and incorporate it in his new works.

In 1932, Wood helped found the Stone City Art Colony near Anamosa to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a great proponent of Regionalism in the arts, lecturing throughout the country on the topic.

From 1934 to 1941, Wood taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art. During that time, he supervised mural painting projects, mentored students, produced a variety of his own works, and became a key part of the university’s cultural community.

On our journey east, we stopped at Iowa State University and visited the Parks Library to see some of the murals Wood did there. According to a sign, the murals illustrate the theme put forth by Daniel Webster: “When tillage begins, other arts follow.” The murals were restored in 1974.

Regionalism

Wood is associated with the American movement of Regionalism, primarily situated in the Midwest, and advanced figurative painting of rural American themes in an aggressive rejection of European abstraction.

Wood was one of three artists most associated with the movement. The others, John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton (a favorite of mine), returned to the Midwest in the 1930s due to Wood’s encouragement and assistance with locating teaching positions for them at colleges in Wisconsin and Missouri, respectively.

A portrait of the Wood’s mother, “Woman With Plants” (1929), is regarded as Wood’s stylistic breakthrough, but it was “American Gothic” in 1930 that put him on the art world map and has kept him there. Alternately interpreted as a hymn to Middle American values or a spoof of them, it caused a sensation when it first appeared at the Art Institute of Chicago and has since been endlessly reproduced and parodied in all kinds of media.

Wood died of pancreatic cancer one day before his 51st birthday on Feb. 12, 1942. A lounging lion dominated the family stone in the middle of the plot.

Grant is buried with his parents, his brother, John (who died in 1935), and his sister, Nan (who was the farmer’s daughter in “American Gothic”). Nan died in 1990 and spent the last decades of her life promoting her famous brother’s work. I did not get a picture of her marker, unfortunately.

White Bronze Beauty

It was a delight to find a few white bronze markers scattered about Riverside Cemetery. This one for Adeline Spaulding Smith caught my eye due to the fact it was in such good condition. The clam shell on top is still intact as well. I’d never seen one up close before.

Born in Maquoketa, Iowa in 1850 to master carpenter Alonzo Spaulding and Mary Sheerer Spaulding, Adeline Brown Spaulding was one of four children the couple had. On Nov. 4, 1873, she married Scottish immigrant James E. Smith in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Before that time, her death notice told me, she had been a school teacher in the Cedar Falls, Iowa public schools.

Adeline died on Oct. 7, 1878 after a short illness at age 28. Her body was returned to Anamosa so she could be buried with grandmother in Riverside Cemetery. Adeline’s husband, James, moved to Vermont to be near his mother and died there in 1933. I don’t know what became of the little child they adopted before Adeline died.

The next two white bronze markers, I later learned, are cenotaphs. That means the people they represent are not actually buried there.

On the left is the cenotaph for Martha “Patty” Eyre Booth. According to her Find a Grave memorial:

She is listed on the cemetery records as “Mrs. Martha Booth,” but she was the widow of Peter Booth, and had married a second time, to Levi Rumrill. But Rumrill also predeceased her by a number of years. Where Martha actually is buried is not known. After Rumrill’s death, she came to Anamosa, Iowa, in June 1840, where several of her children were, and she reverted to the “Booth” name. It is believed that she was buried in Wilcox Cemetery near Fairview, Iowa — where her son Edmund’s first daughter — who died at age 17 months — was buried. But the location of the graves was lost. Thus the cenotaphs in the Anamosa cemetery with the rest of the family.

Mrs. Booth died on June 28, 1854, many years before white bronze markers were being made. So it was placed much later.

On the right is a smaller marker for Harriet Booth, the daughter of Edmund and Mary Ann Booth. Born on Feb. 22, 1846, Harried died on July 31, 1847 at the age of 14 months.

Her father, Edmund (1810-1905), was a bit of a legend as a deaf pioneer and abolitionist. His Find a Grave memorial notes:

Born in 1810, Edmund Booth epitomized virtually everything that characterized an American legend of the 19th century. He taught school in Hartford, Conn., then went west to Anamosa, Iowa, where he built the area’s first frame house. He left in 1849 to travel the Overland Trail on his way to join the California Gold Rush. After he returned to Iowa in 1854, he became the owner and editor of the Anamosa EUREKA, the local newspaper. Edmund Booth fit perfectly the mold of the ingenious pioneer of 19th-century America, except for one unusual difference – he was deaf.

Edmund is buried at Riverside Cemetery with his wife (and Harriet’s mother), Mary Ann Walworth Booth. Also deaf, Mary Ann was one of Edmund’s former pupils in Connecticut. I did not get a photo of either of there graves.

Time to Go

We had one more stop to make before checking in at our Iowa City hotel that night. We had a Presidential grave to visit!