AFTER SIX HUNDRED YEARS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20966, 19 February 1938, Page 11

AFTER SIX HUNDRED YEARS

ABBEY BODIES EXHUMED BURIAL OF ROYAL GRANDCHILDREN LONG YEARS OF DOUBT ENDED United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received February 18, 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 18. An exhumation, secretly carried out in Westminster Abbey, has verified, beyond doubt that the bodies of the two four-year-old grandchildren of King Edward I, namely Mary Bohun (1300-4) and Humphrey Bohun (13015), lie in a tomb in the north wall of Saint John the Baptist chapel. "The Daily Mail” points out that it has been doubted for many years whether the children were buried in this part of the Abbey, as tradition held. When the marble tomb was opened, the bodies were found in oaken coffins, still fully wrapped, after 600 years, in their funeral shrouds. The children were found one at the foot of the other. The remains apparently were perfectly preserved, and Sir Frederick Kenyon, director and principal librarian at the British museum, and others were able to satisfy themselves as to identity.

Exhumations in the Abbey are extremely rare, this being only the second in this century. The first was the occasion when the bodies of the two princes who were murdered in the Tower were secretly disinterred from the Abbey in July, 1923.