"FAIR MAID OF KENT."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14223, 20 November 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

"FAIR MAID OF KENT."

REINTERMENT OF BODY OF ;, BLACK. PRINCE'S WIFE. The ; Home Secretary, has ordered that the mummified body discovered at Stamford a few weeks ago, said to be that of Joan of Kent, wife of Edward, the Black Prince, should be restored to its original leaden coffin and: reinterred in consecrated ground. :,. ,■

The body, it will be recalled, was discovered during the : drainage operations on the site of a 15th century Black Friary, jit was placed in a wooden coffin and buried in a field just outside the town, .the local authority having for some extraordinary reason refused to allow -it to be interred in the cemetery. The Black Friars from Leicestershire have arranged for a proper funeral ceremony. ' ; v Belief that the remains are those of the famous -''Fair, Maid of Kent" is based on ■■■ discoveries :' which■* were made when the leaden coffin < was first opened. The body was ..wrapped, in cerecloth .wrappings,: and resting on the bosom was a document of sheepskin bearing a Latin inscription in black lettering;: The parchment was in a poor state of preservation, but in the legible portion of the writing the word Johan (a corruption of which is Joan) was plainly discernible. /Attached to the parchment, with two long- strands of tape, was a leaden seal. The' parchment is believed by some experts to be a " pardon." ' Peck, the historian, records that the " Fair Maid of Kent" was buried in this locality, for he states that' "her body being wrapt in cerecloth and put in lead was kept until" the King's arrival from Scotland to be buried in the Gray Friars at Stamford." The finding of the leaden coffin recently unearthed on the site of the Black Friars monastery may be due to the fact that the ancient Black Friary and Grey Friary at Stamford adjoined. .