THE PLANTAGENET TOMBS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 6042, 29 October 1906, Page 5

THE PLANTAGENET TOMBS

Tno A'l-ViS of the vjiuoe sivto'si* uiiuieA.ng notes m connect.on uuu 1113 i-nuns 01 tno ti'ltisu aiunomies to mote across Ino Cnunuoi tno ionics of tne r-ngi.sn soveroigus «'ni) no uuneil at r muevramt, i’runco. nc says:— 1

“ ine Angevin*, wo leant in Baris, arc deeply oissausnea. it is rumoured limn the .on gus a ccorcrumuut is agum press- .. lug ns maim, to nave tile Tumusccuer : or cue BiantageucV rvmgs ailu queen's, wno aro Uur.en m tlie -mbey or r outenauit, romovett to ivus minister. 11111. request wan.years ago on tno po 1 m or being acceaeu to by -'.upoieonm., bur trouble broke out ana prevented it. Now that Eugiaiui nas again renewed her demand, winch is buosed ■by tno .sup port of tlie Entente Cordiaie,- we learn that there is a good prospect of tut relics being removed, and; this; is very distasteful.to tho puopio of Anjou, and -; indeed of many other parts 01 the ‘fair land of Franco.' Nor is their protest without reason, for tho Kings in question chose themselves to be buried in the land in which they had more tics even than in England—and it in all seven centuries . ago. The. four , tombstones which it is proposed to removo are those of Henry 11. of England anri hit wife, Eloonoro do Guyeiuio :or d’Aquitaino (who died at tho abbey of Fontevrault in 1201), Richard Coeur do Lion, and Isabelle d’Augoulemc, wife of John Lackland. It was Stotbard, the traveller, who in 1816 discovered these, tombstones in tho cellars of the famous: and ancient Abbey; but the ashes had boon scattered” at the Revolution. Other of tho Blautagonets were buried, hero, but all trace and memory of them, has disappeared. ' “Augustin Thierry, the famous French, liistorian, has'related in dramatic stylo tho strange funeral of Henry 11., who died cursing his son 'Richard..' All abandoned him, after despoiling him of hiv clothes; and it was with., difficulty .that, anyone was found to put him in his winding sheet or to fetch, horses to transport the body. Tho corpse was already deposited in tlie, great Abbey church awaiting tho day of sepulture, when Count Richard (Coeur doLion) learned from public rumour the death, . of his father. Ho canxo to tho church and found tho King lying in. his coffin,. his face uncovered, and still showing, by ' tho contraction of his features, signs of a violent agony. This sight caused tlie Count of Poitiers,'an involuntary shudder. Ho went 'on his, knees and prayed before tho altar, hut . lie rose after*a few minutes, after a Paternoster, say tho historians of the time, and left never to return. Con-< temporaries assert that from tlie instant ,when : Richard .entered the Church, to tho moment -when ho loft it tho blood never ceased to flow in abundance: from the two nostrils of tho dead man. On the morrow of this day took place the ceremony of interment. It was wishod to decorate the body with some of tho insignia of royalty, but tlie guardians of the treasure of Ohinon. refused them, and after many supplications sent only an old sccptro and a ring of lillla value. In tho absence of a crown, the -; Kang’s head war-dressed with a kind of diadem made wi ,1 a. piece, of gold fringe 1 from a woman’s dross, and it was in this strange guiso that Homy, son of Geoffrey Plantc-'G-cnest, King of England,, . Duko of Normandy, Aquitaine, and lire- p lagne. Count of Anjou and Manio, Sig- ■ nonr of Tours and Amboise, descended to his last reubing-placo.’ - ■■,,,• 1 ‘The extent of this King's authority

and his connection with France- is not exaggerated in these lines What with his inheritance*) from his father and mother and Touraino, which Kloonoro of Guyonnc, divorced wife of Lon ip VII., brought him, he was lord over 47 of the present departments, while the poor King of France, to whom ho was, a vassal, was reduced to some 20. Henry IX- did not understand English, any more than his sou Richard, who, however, as is well known, was elegantly versed in the two languages of Franco the language of the North, : or the , languo d’Oil, and that of the South, or the languo d’Oc.”