ARCHÆOLOGY

A MONTHLY EXCAVATION OF ODDITIES AND ANTIQUITIES

ROYAL ‘STRAW’

After being deposed, Henry VI – the saintly but ineffectual mediæval monarch – was most likely killed in the Tower of London in 1471 before being buried at Chertsey Abbey in Surrey. Henry was revered as a healing saint following his death, and had his own cult which may have been lucrative to the monks. Donning his hat was said to cure headaches. In 1484, by order of Richard III, Henry’s body was appropriated by clergy from St George’s Chapel at Windsor, along with the income generated by pilgrims’ donations. It was there in 1910 that experts exhuming the royal remains (by order of King George V) found that one of the arm bones (a humerus) had been replaced by a pig’s. Research suggests the missing bone may have been, which records that the monks of Chertsey Abbey suddenly came into possession of a human arm bone, which they claimed to be that of St Blaise of Sebastea (aka St Blasius), an Armenian bishop and physician venerated as the patron saint of wool combers and throat ailments.