BURIED HEARTS.
It is natural enough that the human heart--deemed by poets and
philosophers to be the seat of our affections and passions, of our
understanding and will, courage and conscience, by some men looked
upon as the root of life itself--should have been considered by many
of the dying in past times as a votive gift peculiarly sacred. And
this feeling has been the cause in many instances of the burial of
the heart apart from the place where the ashes of the body might
repose.
Among the earliest instances of the separate mode of heart-burial is
that of Henry the Second of England. After this luckless monarch
expired in a passion of grief, before the altar of the church of
Chinon, in 1189, his heart was interred at Fontevrault, but his body,
from the nostrils of which tradition alleges blood to have dropped on
the approach of his rebellious son Richard, was laid in a separate
vault. From Fontevrault his heart, according to a statement in a
public print, was brought a few years ago to Edinburgh, by Bishop
Gillis, of that city. If so, where is it now?
When Richard Cœur de Lion fell beneath Gourdon's arrow at the
siege of Chaluz, the gallant heart, which, in its greatness and
mercy, inspired him to forgive, and even to reward the luckless
archer, was, after his death, preserved in a casket in the treasury
of that splendid cathedral which William the Conqueror built at
Rouen; for Richard, by a last will, directed that his body should be
interred in Fontevrault, "at the feet of his father, to testify his
sorrow for the many uneasinesses he had created him during his
lifetime." His bowels he bequeathed to Poictou (Grafton has it
Carlisle), and his heart to Normandy, out of his great love for the
people thereof. Above the relic at Rouen there was erected an
elaborate little shrine, which was demolished in 1738, but exactly a
hundred years later the heart was found in its old place, and
reinterred. It was again exhumed, however, cased in glass, and
exhibited in the Musée des Antiquités of the city; but December,
1869, saw it once more replaced in the cathedral, with a leaden plate
on the cover, bearing the inscription:
"Hie jacet cor Ricardi Regis Anglorum."
So there finally lies the heart of him who, in chivalry, was the
rival of Saladin and Philip Augustus, the hero of the historian, and
the novelist, and who was the idol of the English people for many a
generation.
When this great crusader's nephew, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and
King of the Romans, died, after a stirring life--during which he
formed a conspiracy against the king his father, then, like all the
wild, pious, and bankrupt lords of those days, took a turn of service
in the Holy Land, and next drew his sword in the battle fought at
Lewes between Henry the Third and the confederate barons--his body
was interred at Hayles, in Gloucestershire, but his heart was
deposited at Rewley Abbey, near Oxford, while the heart of his son,
who died before him, and for whose tragical fate he died of grief,
was laid in Westminster Abbey in 1271.
Two successive holders of the see of Durham made votive offerings of
their hearts to two different churches. The first of these was
Richard Poore, previously Dean of Salisbury, Bishop of Chichester,
and then of Durham, from 1228 to 1237. He was buried in the
cathedral of his diocese, but his heart was sent to Tarrant, in
Dorsetshire. A successor in the episcopate, Robert de Stitchell, who
had formerly been Prior of Finchale, dying on his way home from the
Council of Lyons, in 1274, was buried in Durham, but, at his own
request, his heart was left behind, as a gift to the Benedictine
convent near Arbepellis, in France. At Henley, in Yorkshire, in the
old burial vault of the noble family of Bolton, there lies the leaden
coffin of a female member of the house, who had died in France, and
been brought from thence embalmed, and cased in lead. On the top of
the coffin is deposited her heart in a kind of urn. The heart of
Agnes Sorel was interred in the abbey of Jumieges.
In Scotland there have been several instances of the separate burial
of the human heart. The earliest known is that connected with the
founding and erection of Newabbey, or the abbey of Dulce Cor, in the
stewartry of Kirkcudbright, by Derorgilla, daughter of Alan the
Celtic Lord of Galloway, and wife of John Baliol, of Barnard Castle,
father of the unpopular competitor for the Scottish crown. Baliol,
to whom she was deeply attached, died an exile in France in 1269; but
Derorgilla had his heart embalmed, and as the Scotichronicon records,
"lokyt and bunden with sylver brycht;" and this relic so sad and grim
she always carried about with her. In 1289, as death approached,
when she was in her eightieth year, she directed that "this silent
and daily companion in life for twenty years should be laid upon her
bosom when she was buried in the abbey she had founded;" the
beautiful old church, the secluded ruins of which now moulder by the
bank of the Nith. For five centuries and more, in memory of her
untiring affection, the place has been named locally the Abbey of
Sweet-heart.
History and song have alike made us familiar with the last wish of
Robert Bruce, the heroic King of Scotland, when, after two years of
peace and contemplation, he died in the north, at Cardross. He
desired that in part fulfilment of a vow he had made to march to
Jerusalem, a purpose which the incessant war with England baffled,
his heart should be laid in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and on
his death-bed he besought his old friend and faithful brother
soldier, the good Sir James Douglas, to undertake that which was then
a most arduous journey, and be the bearer of the relic. "And it is
my command," he added, to quote Froissart, "that you do use that
royal state and maintenance in your journey, both for yourself and
your companions, that into whatever lands or cities you may come, all
may know that ye have in charge, to bear beyond the seas, the heart
of King Robert of Scotland."
Then all who stood around his bed began to weep, and Douglas replied:
"Assuredly, my liege, I do promise, by the faith which I owe to God
and to the order of knighthood."
"Now praise be to God," said the king, "I shall die in peace."
It is a matter of history how Douglas departed on this errand with a
train of knights, and, choosing to land on the Spanish coast, heard
that Alphonso of Leon and Castile was at war with Osman, the Moorish
king of Granada. In the true spirit of the age, he could not resist
the temptation of striking a blow for the Christian faith, and so
joined the Spaniards. He led their van upon the plain of Theba, near
the Andalusian frontier. In a silver casket at his neck he bore the
heart of Bruce, which rashly and repeatedly he cast before him amid
the Moors, crying:
"Now pass on as ye were wont, and Douglas, as of old, will follow
thee or die."
And there he fell, together with Sir William Sinclair, of Roslin, Sir
Robert and Walter Logan, of Restalrig, and others. Bruce's heart,
instead of being taken to Jerusalem, was brought home by Sir Simon of
Lee, and deposited in Melrose Abbey. Douglas was laid among his
kindred in Liddesdale, and from thenceforward "the bloody heart,"
surmounted by a crown, became the cognizance of all the Douglasses in
Scotland. Bruce was interred at Dunfermline; and when his skeleton
was discovered in 1818, the breast-bone was found to have been sawn
across to permit the removal of the heart, in accordance with the
terms of his last will.
But of all the treasured hearts of the heroic or illustrious dead,
none perhaps ever underwent so many marvellous adventures as that of
James, Marquis of Montrose, who was executed by the Scottish Puritans
in 1650.
On his body being interred among those of common criminals, by the
side of a road leading southward from Edinburgh, his niece, the Lady
Napier, whose castle of Merchiston still stands near the place, had
the deal box in which the trunk of the corpse lay (the head and limbs
had been sent to different towns in Scotland) opened in the night,
and his heart, "which he had always promised at his death to leave
her, as a mark of the affection she had ever felt towards him," was
taken forth. It was secretly embalmed and enclosed in a little case
of steel, made from the blade of that sword which Montrose had drawn
for King Charles at the battles of Auldearn, Tippermuir, and
Kilsythe. This case she placed in a gold filigree box that had been
presented by the Doge of Venice to John Napier, of Merchiston, and
she enclosed the whole in a silver urn which had been given to her
husband by the great cavalier marquis before the Civil War. She sent
this carefully guarded relic to the second marquis, afterwards first
Duke of Montrose, who was then in exile with her husband; but it
never reached either of them, being unfortunately lost by the bearer
on the journey.
Years after all these actors in the drama of life had passed away, a
gentleman of Gueldres, a friend of Francis, fifth Lord Napier (who
died in 1773), recognized, in the collection of a Flemish virtuoso,
by the coat-armorial and other engravings upon it, the identical gold
filigree box belonging to the Napiers of Merchiston. The steel case
was within it; but the silver urn was gone. The former "was the size
and shape of an egg. It was opened by pressing down a little knob,
as is done in opening a watch-case. Inside was a little parcel
containing all that remained of Montrose's heart, wrapped in a piece
of coarse cloth, and done over with a substance like glue." Restored
by this friend to the Napiers, it was presented to Miss Hester
Napier, by her father, Lord Francis, when his speculations in the
Caledonian Canal and elsewhere led him to fear the sale of his
patrimonial castle of Merchiston, and that he would lose all, even to
this relic, on which he set so much store. Miss Napier took it with
her on her marriage with Johnstone of Carnsalloch, and it accompanied
her when she sailed for India with her husband. Off the Cape de Verd
Isles their ship was attacked by Admiral de Suffrien, who was also
bound for the East with five French sail of the line. In the
engagement which ensued, Mrs. Johnstone, who refused to quit her
husband's side on the quarter-deck, was wounded by a splinter in the
arm, while carrying in her hand a reticule in which she had placed
all her most valuable trinkets, and, among these, the heart of
Montrose, as it was feared that the Indiaman would be taken by
boarding; Suffrien, however, was beaten off.
At Madura, in India, she had an urn made like the old one to contain
the heart, and on it was engraved, in Tamil and Telegu, a legend
telling what it held. Her constant anxiety concerning its safety
naturally caused a story to be spread concerning it among the
Madrassees, who deemed it a powerful talisman. Thus it was stolen,
and became the property of a chief; so the loyal heart that had beat
proudly in so many Scottish battles, hung as an amulet at the neck of
a Hindoo warrior. The latter, however, on hearing what it really
was, generously restored it to its owner, and it was brought to
Europe by the Johnstones on their return in 1792. In that year they
were in France, when an edict of the revolutionary government
required all persons to surrender their plate and ornaments for the
service of the sovereign people. Mrs. Johnstone intrusted the heart
of Montrose to one of her English attendants named Knowles, that it
might be secretly and safely conveyed to England; but the custodian
died by the way; the relic was again lost, and heard of no more.
In the wall of an aisle of the old ruined church of Culross, there
was found, not long ago, enclosed in a silver case of oval form,
chased and engraved, the heart of Edward Bruce, second Lord Kinloss
(ancestor of the Earls of Elgin), in his day a fiery and gallant
young noble, who fought the famous duel with a kindred spirit, Sir
Edward Sackville, afterwards Earl of Dorset, a conflict which is
detailed at such length, and so quaintly, in No. 133 of the
_Guardian_. Bruce was the challenger, and after a long and careful
pre-arrangement, attended by their seconds and surgeons, they
encountered each other, with the sword, minus their doublets, and in
their shirtsleeves, under the walls of Antwerp, in August, 1613.
Sackville had a finger hewn off, and received three thrusts in his
body, yet he contrived to pass his rapier twice, mortally, through
the breast of his Scottish antagonist, who fell on his back, dying
and choking with blood.
"I re-demanded of him," wrote Sir Edward, "if he would request his
life; but it seemed he prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden
for it, bravely replying that 'he scorned it,' which answer of his
was so noble and worthy, as I protest I could not find in my heart to
offer him any more violence."
As Sackville was borne away fainting, he escaped, as he relates, "a
great danger. Lord Bruce's surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came
full at me with his lordship's sword, and had not mine, with my
sword, interposed, I had been slain, although my Lord Bruce,
weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life, conformable
to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly noble, cried out,
'Rascal, hold thy hand!'"
Sackville was borne to a neighbouring monastery to be cured, and died
in 1652 of sorrow, it was alleged, for the death of Charles the
First. Kinloss died on the ground where the duel was fought, and was
buried in Antwerp; but his heart was sent home to the family vault,
in the old abbey church, which lies so pleasantly half hidden among
ancient trees, by the margin of the Forth; and a brass plate in the
wall, with a detail of the catastrophe engraved upon it, still
indicates its locality to the visitor.
Still more recently there was supposed to be found in the vault of
the Maitlands, at St. Mary's Church, in Haddington, an urn containing
the heart of the great but terrible duke, John of Lauderdale, the
scourge of the Covenanters, a truculent peer, who, for his services
to the powers that were, was created Baron Petersham and Earl of
Guildford, and who died at Tunbridge Wells in 1682. He was buried in
the family aisle, amid the execrations of the peasantry, to whom his
character rendered him odious, and his coffin on tressels was long an
object of grotesque terror to the truant urchin who peeped through
the narrow slit that lighted the vault where the lords of Thirlstane
lie. The heart of the unhappy king, James the Second of England,
which was taken from his body, and interred separately in an urn, in
the church of Sainte Marie de Chaillot, near Paris, was lost at the
Revolution, in 1792, while the heart of his queen, Mary d'Este, of
Modena, and that of their faithful friend and adherent, Mary Gordon,
daughter of Lewis, Marquis of Huntley, and wife of James, Duke of
Perth (whilom Lord Justice-General, and High Chancellor of Scotland),
were long kept where the ashes of the latter still repose, in the
pretty little chapel of the Scottish College, at Paris, in the Rue
des Fosses St. Victoire, one of the oldest portions of the city.
When the body of the Emperor Napoleon was prepared for interment at
St. Helena, in May, 1821, the heart was removed by a medical officer,
to be soldered up in a separate case. Madame Bertrand, in her grief
and enthusiasm, had made some vow, or expressed a vehement desire, to
obtain possession of this as a precious relic, and the doctor,
fearing that some trick might be played him, and his commission be
thereby imperilled, kept it all night in his own room, and under his
own eye, in a wine-glass. The noise of crystal breaking roused him,
if not from sleep, at least from a waking doze, and he started
forward, only in time to rescue the heart of the emperor from a huge
brown rat, which was dragging it across the floor to its hole. It
was rescued by the doctor, soldered up in a silver urn, filled with
spirits, by Sergeant Abraham Millington, of the St. Helena Artillery,
and placed in the coffin.
During the repair of Christ's Church, at Cork, in 1829, a human
heart, in a leaden case, was found embedded among the masonry; but to
whom it had belonged, what was its story, the piety or love its owner
wished to commemorate, no legend or inscription remained to tell.
In 1774, Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Le Despenser, seems to have
received the singular bequest of a human heart, as the obituaries of
that year record, that when "Paul Whitehead, Esq., a gentleman much
admired by the literati for his publications, died at his apartments
in Henrietta-street, Covent Garden, among other whimsical legacies
was his heart, which, with fifty pounds, he bequeathed to his
lordship." But of all the relics on record, perhaps the most
singular, if the story be true, is that related in the second volume
of the memoirs of the Empress Josephine, published in 1829, when the
Duc de Lauragnois had not only the heart of his wife, to whom he was
tenderly devoted, but her entire body, "by some chemical process
reduced to a sort of small stone, which was set in a ring, that the
duke always wore on his finger." After this, who will say that the
eighteenth century was not a romantic age?