I just finished reading “The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn” by Eric Ives and there’s a sentence that annoys me a little,p359: “There the clothes were removed-the Tower claimed its perquisites even from a queen” . I don’t really understand why Anne’s clothes were removed ? But also if the Tower claimed them as “perquisites”,what did they do of Anne’s clothes,did they keep them or destroyed them ? Sorry if my questions appears quite trivial and morbid but I can’t imagine a Queen being buried without clothes but also without proper burial,it’s just so disrespectful !
Rating: +0
It was perfectly normal for a body to be stripped and, in the case of a normal everyday death (rather than execution), be washed and laid out, and embalmed and sealed in a lead coffin if the family were wealthy. Poorer people would be put in a re-usable wooden coffin for the funeral and then be buried in just a sheet. In Anne's case, we know that she was stripped of her clothing, wrapped in white cloth and then placed in an elm chest before being buried in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. She was buried as a traitor because she was executed as one. I'm sure that her ladies would have made sure that her body was treated with respect.
As far as her clothing is concerned, I would expect that any cloth that was not tainted with blood would have been re-used and the rest destroyed.
Actually I have read in several books that Anne’s clothes were bought by Henry from those in the Tower who laid claim to them as partial payment for her execution. He did not want any “relics” of Anne’s floating around, prehaps being venerated by the people. I am sorry that I can’t remember just what books I found that referenced in; but probably Alison Weir is one. When Mary of Scots was executed, she too was stripped but her clothes were burned for the same reason.
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