42 Quotes by Catharine Arnold

In February 1660, a Lady Monck visited the hospital, and received this greeting from one of the ‘phanatiques’: Most noble lady, now we see The world turns round as well as we. Whilst you adorn this place we know No greater happiness below, Than to behold the sweet delight Of him that will restore our right, Let George know we are not so mad, But we can love an honest lad.64.

However, not everyone who was entitled to an elaborate funeral received one. When Jane Seymour died in 1537, a fortnight after the birth of Edward VI, Henry VIII made strenuous attempts to restrict extravagant mourning.

Nottingham’s Rock Cemetery, with its magnificent marble angels and sandstone catacombs.

For, as FitzMary knelt to pray, An angel whispered in his ear ‘The Holy Land is far away, Prepare another Manger here. Build you a second House of Bread In this fair city of renown, And God His Son,’ the angel said, ‘Shall come to dwell in London Town.’ So spake the angel, bending low Reddens laudes Domino.

The satirical magazine Punch, at that period closer in spirit to today’s Private Eye, editorialized that: ‘A London churchyard is very like a London omnibus. It can be made to carry any number.

Intent on wiping out their oppressors, Boudicca’s army descended on London and burned it to the ground. This first Great Fire of London was so intense that it melted bronze coins, scorching the earth so profoundly that archaeologists discovered a seared layer of soil centuries later.

Once the corpse had been dressed, complete with a nightcap which kept the jaw closed and created the impression that the dead person was but sleeping, it was placed in an open coffin. This was lined with a sawdust mattress, to absorb the by-products of early decomposition, and scattered with pungent herbs such as rosemary to disguise the smell.

Nelson’s body was pickled in brandy, which was replaced with wine at Gibraltar, and brought back to England, amid macabre speculation that the Admiral’s crew had drunk the embalming brandy in transit.

Despite the reservations of Wren, Vanbrugh and their successors, burial in vaults beneath churches had continued. The processes of decomposition, shaky foundations and the British disease of rising damp caused particular difficulties. Chadwick noted that, however solid the coffin, ‘Sooner or later every corpse buried in the vault of a church spreads the products of decomposition through the air which is breathed, as readily as if it had never been enclosed.