ROYAL REMAINS IN DUTCH VAULT

Southland Times, Issue 23379, 10 December 1937, Page 5

ROYAL REMAINS IN DUTCH VAULT

DIVINING ROD REVEALS ANCIENT COFFINS

LONDON, December 8. The use of a divining rod has resulted in an important historical discovery at Breda, where a Dutch woman diviner was asked to discover whether there were any underground canals, says the correspondent of The Times at The Hague. The woman located subways crossing Princes Chapel, in the Great Church, and expressed the opinion that an entrance to it would be discovered within the church. Officials lifted a wooden partition and found a stone staircase leading to a large vault, with many niches and subways containing several old coffins, which are believed to contain the bodies of the first Counts of Nassau, the ancestors of Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands. The coffins were opened in the presence of the Queen’s Master of Ceremonies. One contained the remains of a child and another the remains of a woman. It is suggested that the others may contain the bodies of Henry 111 of Nassau and his two wives, who died early in the 16th century. The child may have been the daughter of William the Silent by his first marriage. , After consultation the vault was closed down. Investigations of the Royal Archives are proceeding to establish the identity of the remains.

The family of Nassau dates from about 1200 To a younger branch belonged William the Silent and other princes of the House Orange-Nassau. When William 111 died in 1702 this house became extinct and its lands passed to a branch still in Nassau, a district of Germany which is now part of the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. The Nassau branch lost all its lands in 1806, but in 1815 its head, William, was made King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxemburg. His family, extinct in the male line in 1890, is represented in the female line by Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands. The older branch of the family, having produced a German king in Adolph of Nassau, who died in 1298, was broken into three lines. Two of these were made princes of the Empire, and in 1806 Napoleon made them dukes. In 1816, Frederick William, as a result of a succession of deaths, became the sole ruler of Nassau. He called himself Duke of Nassau, joined the German Confederation and gave his people a constitution. In 1866 the Duke joined Austria in fighting against Prussia; consequently he lost his duchy. Twenty-four years later the head of the family became Grand Duke of Luxemburg.