Gone Medieval - Garter Knights & Kings' Graves: St George's Chapel, Windsor

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

There are few places more fascinating and evocative for Medieval enthusiasts than Saint George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis takes a special, out-of-hours tour around some of its extraordinary attractions with Michael Pitfield, Leadership Fellow at Windsor Castle. This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians including Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code MEDIEVAL. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here . You can take part in our listener survey here. If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit history hit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis and today I've got the pleasure of visiting somewhere genuinely exceptional. For someone who's interested in medieval kings, the house of York in particular and the walls of the roses, there are a few places more fascinating and evocative than St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. I was delighted to be invited by Michael Pittfield to go for a tour after hours when it was closed. And it's just the two

of us looking at all the incredible sights. Michael has had a lifelong interest in history which culminated in obtaining a position as a volunteer guide at St George's Chapel in 2006. And I'm so grateful to him for his time in sharing some of the incredible things that can be found in St George's Chapel. I hope you'll enjoy our wonder round. forgive what will probably be slightly echoy audio and possibly some yelps of excitement from me at various points throughout our tour. So let's dive in to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Thank you so much for joining us on Gone Medieval, Michael. I'm looking forward to it very much and telling you about St George's Chapel. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this.

It's so exciting. So we've stopped just outside. Why have we stopped here to begin our talk? Well, because when visitors enter the castle, they will come in and come to the round tower, which most people are familiar with, and then they can come down and they will see St George's Chapel on their right. And it's a huge building, but many of them will walk straight to that huge building and not notice this little building that we're looking at now. And it is a small chapel, much smaller than the big one, and it is the original St George's Chapel. It was built by Henry the third in 1240 and he actually dedicated it to St. Edward the Confessor because he was obsessed with him. And for hundreds of years, 200 years or so, it was the main chapel. But Edward VIII built the big one which rather overshadows it and so people often neglect this original one. But it is beautiful. So the building visitors will see is not on the outside as it was originally designed by Henry III. It was modified by Henry the 7th, but the shell of the building is on the footprint of the original chapel. Interesting. And the old chapel is actually separate from

the new one. We can see the gap between the buildings. That's right, yes. It's very cleverly disguised because there's a false wall that makes it look as if it is joined in, but they are quite separate. And when you enter the door near the old chapel, there is a gallery. And if you go through that gallery on the left is an entrance to the new chapel, and on the right is an entrance to the old chapel. So people could still go inside the old, the original 1240 chapel? They can look at it. Unfortunately, they can't go in because it was substantially redesigned by Queen Victoria as yet another memorial to Albert. So it's now called the Albert Memorial Chapel, and it is spectacular inside with marble engravings and so on, very, very decorative, as you would expect

from the Victorian era, but it's fragile and dangerous for visitors. So people can stand and look in, but they can't actually go in. Fascinating then to think that there's almost two St George's chapels. There's a St Edward's actually in then of St George's. Yeah, exactly. And what's also interesting, when you go into the new chapel and visitors go around towards the end of their tour, they will see a very big red door with lovely gold ironwork in it. And that actually is the entrance to the old chapel.

And so that woodwork, beautiful, dates from 1240. The metal work on it represents the tree of life. It's brilliant. Do look at it when you come. And we know who did it because the guy who did it, he didn't put his name on it once. He put it on three times. And so we know that Gilibertus did this in 1240. Oh, fantastic. It's wonderful to be able to attach a name to a piece of workmanship like that.

Exactly, yes. And we'll see some more. of that sort of thing as we go around. That makes me even more excited to get in there and have a look. Good, let's do that. Let's go. So we've come past the old original chapel outside and we're inside now in what people would probably more recognise as St George's chapel.

When does this part date from? When does this originate from? As I said, the original chapel was 1240 and that went on being the royal residence and initially it was dedicated to St. Edwood, the Professor, as we mentioned. After the end of the Battle of Chukesbury in 1471, Edward VIII, for all sorts of reasons which we may one come to, wanted to build a new chapel. So he built the new chapel, this huge chapel in front of the previous one. And what happened then to the old chapel? Because as we mentioned, it's a separate building. Does that fall into disrepair? It didn't really fall into disrepair, but it was neglected because all the focus was here.

So that was used for all sorts of things. There were ideas later that it might be used as a lady chapel or something like that. Various people had ideas to be buried there, but none of them really came to fruition. And it stayed in a pretty sorry state until after the death of Prince Albert, when Queen Victoria had it completely refurbished internally to become what is now the Albert Memorial Chapel. And it was Edward III who rededicates the chapel to St George? That's right. it was originally dedicated to Edward the Confessor by Henry III.

But Edward III, when he was setting up the Order of the Garter, he rededicated it to St George for all sorts of reasons which we might come to. And so hence it was dedicated to both of them initially, but gradually Edward the Confessor faded away and it became St. George's Chapel. And as we mentioned, St. George's became the home of the Order of the Garter when that's founded. How significant was the establishment of the order to the importance of St George's? Very, very important because this is all part of Edward III, really wanting to build this aura of chivalry and militarism around himself

to secure the loyalty of his senior nobles and so on and make them feel special. And he was very much inspired by the round table of King Arthur. And many people will know that there was actually a round table here, of it were found a few years ago. And so he had a festival here and he envisaged Windsor as being the new Camelot. And the Order of the Garter founded in 1348 was a manifestation of that and that exists to this day. So it was very important for both the chapel and the castle because the chapel is the home of the Order of the Garter. Yeah, so I guess to have the home of the pinnacle of English

knighthood based here is an important. thing to have for Windsor? Very much so. I mean, the main royal residences, they had others, of course, but the main royal residences have been Westminster and Windsor. We're better to have the Order of the Garter somewhere special at Windsor. And do you think the association of the Order of the Garter and Windsor, was that designed to bring prestige to the order having it at Windsor? Or did the order bring more prestige to Windsor? I think it was all part of Edward the Surd's vision of having Windsor as a new Camelot. So I think it was very much honouring the order by having it in this place that was so special for Edward. It fulfilled his dream in a way to do that. And of course, other monarchs have carried it

forward and perpetuated it. It's incredible to think that almost 700 years later, this is still the home of the Order of the Garter, which still exists in the same format as it was then. How important is the connection between the Order of the Garter and St George's today? Oh, incredibly important. The Garter Day, when all the nights come here and there's the procession and many people will have seen on the television, that's one of the highlights of the Royal Year. And so here we are, Michael. We've moved into the choir. We're looking at the Garter stalls. I mean, it's incredible to be in here. I'm going to tell everyone we're in here, slightly after hours, it's dark outside, the lights are on, it is incredibly atmospheric. But one of the things

that's always interested me, so each stall belongs to a knight of the garter. There are effectively two tournament teams. We can see the stalls have all of these plates behind them and that connects to every knight that's ever held that seat. Why are they all kept? Why aren't they taken down and replaced? Well, because it's a record. It's a historical record. These store plates indicate that there were knights of the garter and these are who they were. Sadly, they're not all here because when the order was moved from the old chapel into this one and subsequently some were lost, but if you think now we have over a thousand knights of the garter, we can see who they were and where they sat. So when visitors come here, they can look around and it's almost like a history of Great Britain,

because you have very, very famous people here who will be familiar to people. For example, as you look away from the altar on the right hand side, people will point out to you the garter store plate of Sir Winston Churchill, and on the left hand side you can see the garter store plate of Margaret Thatcher. So there's two very modern knights of the garter. but equally some of them go back to 1348. If anybody is listening who has the power to make this happen, it's my dream to be a knight of the garter, I would absolutely love it. But the idea of sitting on that seat that has that history,

that you can see all of those people who have sat in that place before and served the monarchs in various capacities must be an incredible connection to hundreds of years of history. Oh, absolutely, yes. And we try and help people with this because sometimes we have people who come, whose ancestors were knights of the garter. I myself have ancestors here.

And even now, I find it thrilling to sit in the stalls of my ancestors with their plates above me. And then you have people visit from other countries, for example. And we have foreign monarchs who've been made honorary knights of the garter. And sometimes they come, and we can show them, well, your former king sat there or your current queen sits here. Would you like to sit in their seat? And of course, it's terribly amazing. emotional for them. Almost overwhelming place to be to stand in the midst of all of this.

And so we've talked a little bit about the old chapel, Henry III, 1240s, the original new chapel rededicated by Edward III and a home to the Order of the Garter. Why does Edward the 4th transform this building in the 1470s into pretty much what we see today? Shortly after the Battle of Tewksbury and the consolidation of Edward the 4th's regime, he was in effect at his most powerful. He was not challenged anymore by anyone, and he wanted to demonstrate all sorts of things. So I think probably if you get inside his mind, people were very religious in those days, and they would have believed that Edward VIII succeeded in his battles because God wanted him to succeed. And when that happened, people wanted to show gratitude to God. And so here's a wealthy monarch. What better thing to

do to show gratitude to God for his victories in the Wars of the Roses thus far, than to build a huge cathedral to the glory of God. So that's one reason. But he had other ideas as well, in my view, and I think it's generally accepted. Many people will know that Edward VIII was familiar with the Court of Burgundy and the magnificence of the Court of Burgundy, his sister was the Duchess of Burgundy and so on, and he'd been there several times. And he wanted to show that England too was now magnificent.

He had a lot of money to do it. And so he was saying, I'm rich, we're magnificent, we're just as good as Burgundy, we can have this magnificent building here. So that was another reason for doing it. There was yet another. He was familiar too with the fact that in France, France being then perhaps the most powerful country in Europe, France they had a magnificent mausoleum of the dynasties of France and all the kings of France were buried there.

We had many kings buried in Westminster Abbey, but Edward was the founder of a new dynasty, this new, powerful, glorious, successful dynasty of York. And so this chapel was also going to be the mausoleum of the Yorkist dynasty. Now, we know what happened, but he didn't. So from his perspective, he was the first monarch of this dynasty that was going to be followed by many, many more Yorkists, and they were all going to be buried here.

And to emphasize that, his was the first tomb that would be buried here, and this is what we're standing in front of now. Yeah, and so I guess he's looking at the best of Burgundy with all of their ability to display power and wealth, the best of France with their commitment to the idea of dynasty and recognising all of that, and he's pulling all of that together, because I guess Edward has to project the idea that he is now settled and strong.

You know, he's been booted off his throne for a time. We're the Yorkists. We're here now and we're here to stay. And so how much change did Edward have to make to the fabric of the building? How much of Edward the third's old chapel still remains? Well, the chapel remains, but Edward the fourth chapel, as I said, was built in front of it. So all of the big St George's chapel now is new from 1475. And it was gradually completed over the next 52 years. And what visitors see when they come here is exactly as was intended.

did. With one minor exception, it hasn't changed externally in all that time. Part of the reason for that is because it's protected within Windsor Castle, and so people weren't able to damage it. It wasn't damaged by battles and so on. And it's been looked after because it's a royal chapel. It was completed under the reign of Edward Vorth's grandson, Henry VIII. Many people forget that Henry VIII was Edward VIII's grandson. I think if you look at pictures of both of them, you can really see the family resemblance. Yeah, exactly, particularly the younger Henry the eighth. And so if Henry the 8th were to walk here today, he would recognise this completely. But be quite annoyed that he's only got a slab on the floor and not a massive tomb.

Yeah, well, that's another story. And he did hope to have a magnificent tomb, but his heir's never got around to building it. So he's buried in the choir under a black slab. I think he'd be pretty upset about that. And talking about black slabs, we're here admiring the tomb of Edward VIII, which is quite magnificent. It's not the original tomb because that was destroyed during the Civil War. but this is an 18th century recreation of the tomb. But right in front of it is the actual burial place of King Edward, the 4th, and Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Woodville, his wife.

But then there's another black slab here a bit further from them, which is the burial place of two of their children, George, Duke of Bedford and Mary, the daughter of the king. George died quite young, Mary died at about 14, as I recall. So there's a little family group here in adjacent crypts. Yeah, and we can see Edward's plans, I guess, because George and Mary were here before him. Yes. So he'd already started burying members of his family here before his own death, as unexpected as that was. It's odd to think that they're right beneath us as we're standing here talking. Well, when you come into old places like this, whether it's here or elsewhere,

you will see lots of ledger stones, they're called, memorial stones, in the ground. And they're simply to commemorate that people are buried all over the place. If you go to Bath, for example, you can hardly move for memorials, but this is a bit more organised. It was very neat, very, very neat. There's another burial here, which is quite interesting and almost contradictory because we remember through the Wars of the Roses,

Edward VIII, his great enemy was Henry the Six. But Henry the Six is actually buried here as well. Should we go and have a look at his tomb? Yes, please, yeah. That's an interesting juxtaposition, isn't it? Just before we leave Edward VIII, so as a Ricardian, I've heard rumours that there are Edward the 4th, Elizabeth Woodville, George, Duke of Bedford, Mary,

and then two other coffins in that vault that nobody knows who they belong to. There's been lots of guesswork that it might be the princes in the tower, it could solve the mystery. Are there two mystery coffins in that vault? There are indeed, and what happened was that over the years there are restorations of floors and things like that. So things get moved and dug up. And there had always been the assumption that George and Mary were buried where we were just standing. And there was a memorial there to that effect.

But when the works were being done, they discovered that sure enough, there were two bodies there, but then a little bit later, some work was being done in the old chapel. This was about 1810, as I recall. And they found that there were two coffins there that were actually marked for George and Mary. So that was a bit puzzling. so they were moved back to be near their parents.

And there are these other two coffins there. But there is no evidence whatsoever of who they are. And if you want my personal view, I think it's most unlikely that they're the princes in the tower. There are loads of people buried here, and we don't know who they are. I'm just a man obsessed with the mystery looking for a possible solution, but it's fascinating to think that there are people buried here who we don't even know who they are.

It is incredible. But we've moved across now, to the tomb of Henry VI. And as you mentioned, he is the enemy of Edward IV. How does he end up buried, almost opposite Edward, in Edward's mausoleum? After Henry the Sixth died, and that's another theory we might talk about some other time, he was buried at Chertsey Abbey. And historians will know that Henry VI was a very holy man.

He was much venerated because of his commitment to faith and commitment to peace and so on. And people began to make pilgrimages to Chertsey. And of course, in those days, when people are making pilgrimages, they donate money. And so Churchy was doing quite well out of this. But during Richard III's reign, Richard noticed this, and he wasn't too comfortable with his brothers and his enemy getting this attention. So he had Henry moved here to Windsor. There's all sorts of speculation, why?

Some people think he might have been guilty. I don't think that's the case. I mean, killing people was pretty normal in those days, and there's no evidence that he killed him. Is that controversial? Not to me. I mean, people will know that that's not controversial at all to me. I think the more compelling reasons are two.

First of all, Richard has just established himself with some controversy as king. The last thing he wants is a cult building up against this Lancastrian enemy. He wants peace and quiet and recognition. So what better thing to do than to bring Henry to Windsor where he can control the whole thing is under his control? And the second reason is, of course,

medieval kings and other people in those days weren't loath to make money. So why should the money be going to Chertsey when it could be coming here to Windsor and enhance this great new cathedral that was being built for the mausoleum of the House of York? So it is interesting, he's here, but it's good. I think another reason was that he genuinely believed himself to be the legal heir of Henry the Six.

Because again, if you think about it, Edward VIII was dead. Henry the Six had been dead. From Richard's point of view, there are no obvious successes to Henry the Six. Edward's children had been declared illegitimate. So as far as Richard was concerned, he was the second monarch of the House of York. So he was the heir to both these kings, Edward VIII and Henry the Six. So there's a logic there. I think it's interesting that Edward, I think, tended to try and paint the Lancasterian regime

as a mistake that he was correcting that it should never have happened. Whereas I think Richard was much more willing to look at, I mean, he was interested in the law. So if you look at it legally, his dad had been appointed heir to Henry the 6th. So he was legally the successor to Henry the 6th and clearly not embarrassed or ashamed or concerned

to say that. So he's saying I'm not only the heir to the House of York, I'm the heir to the House of Lancaster, and bringing in all of that together, there's no need to fight. And there's another smart aspect of it. If you can somehow reconcile the Lancasterians with the Yorkists, by doing a gesture to them, that consolidates his regime as well. Which is quite at odds with the historical impression that we have of Richard the 3rd, that he's thinking about how do I reconcile people. You know, we know, with hindsight, his reign wouldn't last. But he's clearly, I think, here, making efforts that often go overlooked.

And I think the other interesting thing about Henry's, while we're standing here, So we're standing here looking at the altar. Edward is in the first bay to the left of the altar. We can see lots of ironwork around his tomb. So Henry is the second king who's buried here, but he's buried in the second bay on the opposite side to the right of the altar. You and I have talked about this before,

and I think we share an opinion on this. Why is the first bay on the right-hand side of the altar, which is currently occupied by Edward VIII and Queen Alexandra? Why was that left empty? Well, indeed, we do share a view on this, and I must stress this is my personal view. This isn't the official view of St. George's Chapel. But I think there's a logic to what I'm going to say. So again, think about it from Richard's point of view. We don't know what he was thinking, but the logic is he's become king relatively recently. He has no reason to think he's not going to stay as king.

All right, he's facing the Earl of Richmond, later Henry the 7, but he's just seen off the due. of Buckingham, so he's not frightened about seeing off rebellions. So his view, I'm sure, was that he was going to beat off the Earl of Richmond just as he's beaten off the Duke of Buckingham. And then at that time, he's a young man, his wife had died, he probably was thinking he was going to marry again. And if he was going to marry again, he would hopefully have children, heirs to the Yorkist dynasty. I'm sure he wasn't even thinking about when he died at that point. But the logic would be again, when he died, he would want to be buried with his new wife, the mother of his air. And my view is that the logic would be that he would be wanting to be buried as the second

monarch of the House of York here in the Yorkist mausoleum created by his brother. And as the second monarch, where would he want to be, but directly opposite his beloved brother? It makes sense to me, but we don't know. We have no idea. He probably didn't know or even think about it. But it is interesting that the first bay on the south side was left empty and Henry the 6th was put in the second bay. It is, you know, hugely suggestive. I just think when you come here today and you look at that tomb of Edward the 7th and Queen Alexandra, which is incredible, that could easily be in a tomb of Richard the 3rd. Yes, yeah.

Just a nice minor thing on Henry the 6th tomb here. You know he founded King's College, Cambridge and Eton College across the river here. Well, every year on the anniversary of his birth and death, two young people from each of those institutions come here and lay wreaths on his tomb in his memory as their founder. I'm James Patton Rogers, a war historian, advisor to the UN and NATO, and host of the the Warfare podcast from History Hit. Join me twice a week every week as we look at the conflicts that have defined our past and the ones shaping our future.

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camps were immediately murdered. Auschwitz combined the functions of death camp and concentration camp and slave labour. Join us on the warfare podcast from a history hit twice a week, every week, wherever you get your podcasts. As I guess, leveraging your expertise while we're in this incredible space, if somebody comes to visit St George's Chapel, what are some of the real medieval features that they could look out for? Well, first of all, the whole building is spectacular. and we mentioned the outside, and just to look at it from the outside, is satisfying it itself, particularly when you recognize it externally, it is unchanged, except for one thing which we'll come to later.

But then when you come inside, you have this huge nave separated by an organ screen, and you look up and you see this incredible fan vaulting. This is a feature of this perpendicular Gothic. So again, it goes back to the religiosity of the time. that people at that time they were reaching up to heaven to the glory of God, and they were able to build these incredible buildings. When you think that ordinary people lived in what we would call hovels, you know, daub and wattle buildings with thatched roofs,

yet they were able to do this magnificent stonework. This is a prime example of it. It's one of the best ones in the country. The others would be King's College Chapel at Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, places like that. They're all that same period. This is absolutely spectacular. When you're in the nave beyond the choir, you see the tall perpendicular pillars.

They're thin and they give the impression of height. And then if people look outside, they'll see the flying buttresses, which are sort of like stone arches propping the pillars up to stop them splaying outwards because the roof is very, very heavy, of course, with stone. And then we're in the choir now. So if people come into the choir, they look around. These original, from the 1470s stalls made of English oak, They look black now, but they used to be brown.

These are fantastic carvings as well. And then we mentioned the tomb of Edward VIII. And just here in front of his tomb beside the altar, we have this incredibly delicate ironwork. We know who did this. This was Trusillian, the iron worker. He did this in the 1470s, but look at it. It is like lacework, but it's made of iron, and it's still there.

It's incredible. The amount of workmanship in it and the amount of heraldry up there, You know, it's telling a story all of its own, isn't it? All of those badges. Those badges, again, they're interesting. They're called bosses, and they look decorative, and they are decorative, but they're actually functional because they're holding the joins in the stonework together.

And the story of those is that when the roof was finished, this was during the reign of Henry the 7th. And Henry 7th had this reputation of being a rather parsimonious monarch, and so he was always looking for ways to save some money. And the story is that he said to his mum, mates, come on guys, help me finish this. If you make a donation, you can have your coat of arms or your emblems on the bosses. So these are all the emblems of the people associated with Henry the 8th and people who contributed to the completion of the chapel. But you mentioned the craftsman

and so on. And when visitors come and they look at the Great West window, there's all sorts of figures there that they can see through the stained glass. But if they look at the bottom at the far right-hand side, there's a man there and he's dressed in a blue cape and he's holding a mason's mallet and that is William Virtue, the man who finished it for Henry the 7th. And it's wonderful that he's commemorated there amongst all these princes, popes, bishops, saints, and goodness, and his world. So an ordinary working man is commemorated there as well. It's interesting then that we've got Gilberthus with the door at one end and the man who finished the window putting himself in it the other end of the trial.

That's right, yeah. And Tresillian, some of the decorations. Again, it's great we know who these people are. And so there are some other interesting medieval burials here. What should people look out for if they come to visit? Are there any other links to the medieval area? Well, we've mentioned Elizabeth Woodville, Henry the 6th, Edward VIII and their children's, so there weren't really medieval burials after that until we come to Henry the 8th. Henry the 7th was buried at Westminster, but Henry the 8th is buried here. Now again, he had the idea to convert the old chapel. His father had had the same idea as well to convert the old

chapel into a lady chapel and to have a magnificent tomb in there. His father didn't do it. He did Westminster instead. But Henry fully intended to do it. And we actually have plans of the magnificent tomb that Henley intended. And everything about Henry was big. So the tomb was going to be very big. So when people are here in front of the altar, they'll notice two enormous bronze, candlesticks. And so these were designed to be round Henry the 8th's tomb, and there would have been eight of them. And so if you imagine the tomb would have towered above that, so these are what, two metres high? So Henry's tomb would have been about eight meters high, filling the old chapel. He did actually start it. He actually got a sarcophagus as well, a beautiful black stone sarcophagus from

Italy. But of course he died and his children never got around to it because they had other things on their minds. And so he was put in a temporary vault in the middle of the choir and he was put where his beloved wife, the mother of his son, Jane Seymour, was buried. And so he's put in there on a sort of temporary basis until the tomb was finished but it never was. So he remains there in the center of the choir. And lots of people will come to Windsor and said, oh, I've come to see the of Henry the 8th, where is it? And we would say, well, you're actually standing on it. And they're very disappointed because this black slab in the middle of the choir is all there is of Henry the 8th. Yeah, I think Henry would have been disappointed as well.

Yes, yeah. It wasn't forgotten. People knew it was there, but it wasn't commemorated because they covered over the flooring and so on at various times. So it was only in the late 1830s when they were doing some more flooring and digging the huge vault underneath here, the royal vault, which perhaps we'll come to in a minute, that they accidentally broke in, into the crypt of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and they decided to commemorate it. But when they broke into it, they found there was another coffin in there as well. And that was Charles I. So Charles I had been executed, of course, and he was bought here after his execution with no great ceremony,

but they thought they'd better bury him with some dignity. And they thought, well, where are we going to put him? The story is that there was a very old man who said, well, my grandfather says there's a vault in the choir where Henry the 8th is. So they went around tapping sticks on the floor to find the sound of the hollow and they found it and they quickly shoved Charles I'm first in there as well.

So the stone now commemorates Charles I first as well. It's interesting how some of those things happen, is it? Because at Westminster Abbey, James I and James I 6th of Scotland is chucked in with Henry the 7th and Elizabeth of York and you've got Mary the first and Elizabeth the first buried together. On top of each other. Elizabeth's on top of Mary, yeah. It's quite odd how these two.

get kind of repurposed, they don't they, reused? Well, I mentioned the great sarcophagus of Henry the 8th. It was repurposed after 1805. So if people go to St. Paul's Cathedral and they go in the crypt there, they will see the tomb of Nelson. And the sarcophagus that Nelson is in was the sarcophagus of Henry the 8th. So everything gets recycled in the end, even magnificent sarcophagi. I guess people will recognise St. George's Chapel from recent,

television appearances at major state events, weddings and funerals, most notably. When did it become the place where royals were regularly buried and celebrated funerals and weddings and things like that? When did it finally realise Edward IV's plans of being the mausoleum for kings and queens? Really, during the reign of George III, George III, have a very large family. And Westminster Abbey by that time was pretty full. The Stuarts and the earlier Georges had been buried either in Westminster Abbey or in Hanover. So George was faced with this problem about where we're all going to be buried because he had lots of brothers and they had children and he had lots of children.

So they decided to build this royal vault under the choir here and under the old chapel. It's like a huge cellar underneath here. On either side there are these shelves where the coffins go. So they're not buried. They're put on the shelves. And in front of the altar here, there's an elevator that takes the bodies down and they go into there. And it was while they were constructing this vault that they broke into Henry the 8th's tomb. And so when you saw the funeral of Prince Philip and Her Lake Majesty, their coffins would here. And the committal was they went down into the ground there.

And then they were put somewhere else, which were come to in a minute. George the 3rd, lots of his family are buried here. George the 3rd, Queen Charlotte, Princess Charlotte, the one who died young, George the 4th, William the 4th, lots of their other children. And since then, all monarchs have been buried here except Victoria, who built a mausoleum for herself in the park at Frogmore, and Edward VIII, who lay in state here, but he was also buried in the royal burial ground at Frogmore. And then ceremonies, weddings and so on, that started in the Victorian period as well, because royal weddings used to be rather private affairs. You know, there's no great big celebrations, but Queen Victoria arranged for the marriage of the Prince of War. Wales to take place here. And there's a very famous picture of where we're standing now looking at the altar. People can stand in the same place and envisage it. So the bride and groom was standing

right in front of the altar, being married and all the court and so on behind them in the choir. But in that oriel window up there, or to the left, Catherine of Arrigan's window, you can see in this picture, Queen Victoria up there, dressed in black, watching it, not part of it. Incredible to be able to almost recreate those pictures to stand in those scenes from so many years ago. And incredible to think that a project that Edward IV began in the 1470s that saw him buried here in 1483 has continued to the point where, as you say, her late majesty was buried here so recently. It's such an ongoing continuing thing, you know, 500 more years of history. But should we move on and look at that then?

Yes, please. I think that would be incredible. I mentioned that there was no additional building to the exterior of the chapter with one exception. And we're now standing in front of that exception, which is the George the 6th Memorial Chapel. And people will recall that the Queen's father, George 6th, died in 1952. And there was a discussion about what would happen to him, where would he be buried. And he particularly wanted to be buried in the ground. He didn't want a tomb above the ground, like his father and grandfather. So they decided to build this little extension chapel, and they broke through the external wall

and built this very modern chapel to house the remains of George the 6th and later Queen Elizabeth, who we know as Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and then more recently, Prince Philip and Elizabeth II. So the little family are buried there, the four of them, and then also in there are the ashes of the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret. She was cremated and her ashes were buried here

alongside the rest of the family. So that's the only addition, quite a moving one, I think, to see them there as a family sort of reunited. Yes, yeah, it's lovely. And I mean, now lots of people want to come and see this, of course. And they can, they can stand right where we are and look down into it. I want to just pause here again because of your Ricardian interest. This is the Hastings Chancery.

So we're just past the George the Sixth Chapel. On the right-hand side, we're looking at a Chancery Chapel with a doorway into it, some lights inside, paintings on the wall and on the ceiling. And so just so people can find it when they come and look, this is the Hastings Chanchary Chapel. So this was a memorial to William Lord Hastings. Ricardians will know that Lord Hastings was executed after a council meeting at the Tower of London and later his family built this chantry to him. And it's magnificent, it's tiny, but it's magnificent because it is highly coloured.

And if people look up at the ceiling here, they see it's blue and gold and gilded and beautiful paintings. inside it, very, very colorful. And people forget nowadays that these medieval buildings were a riot of colour. They weren't just the plain stone like they are now, but they were technical in their time. It was only during the Reformation that the paint was taken off where it was white washed over. So here we are looking directly at the Hastings Chapel. And if people look up at the ceiling at the right, in the fan vaulting up there, they can see the original colours faded. which you can see the blue there, particularly in the ceiling. So imagine the whole thing brilliantly coloured and gilded.

Kind of gives us a window on what the whole place might have looked like. Exactly. The whole place would have been magnificently and vibrantly coloured. And also another connection to Richard III, so I'm here for that. Now, apropos of Richard III then, let me show you Richard the third's stall plate. Yes, we know Richard, as Duke of Gloucester, was a member of the Order of the Garter. So he sat in one of these stalls on Garter days and he had a plate. Yeah, and I'll show it to you. And given here you are, you can sit in his store plate if you want to.

I'm not sure people want to hear the noises I might make if I sit at Richard the Third's stall. The problem with this is always finding them, of course. So here we are, that's Richard the Third. So where are we? So if we're facing the altar, we're on the right-hand side. The south side. And this is Bay Nine. When visitors come, if they want to see this, especially, they ask one of the stewards and the stewards can point it out to them.

So as for Bay Nine on the south side. Yeah. And I'm looking at some of the other stall plates on here, so I can see highly Selassie shared this stall plates. Do you know whose stall this is at the moment? It is the King of Sweden, Karl Gustav of Sweden. Oh interesting. So the King of Sweden is currently sitting in, Richard the Third storepice. Just to explain this, I think you mentioned yourself,

Math, that there are 24 knights of the garter, but there is a provision for extra knights. So this is when foreign monarchs are honoured. So they don't become actual knights of the Garter of the 24, they're extra ones. And it's like an honour. So if the king goes to Spain, for example, he might be invested with their order. If the King of Spain comes here, he's invested with the Order of the Garter. Then in addition, we have members of the Royal Family who are members of the Order of the Garter as well,

men and women. They have their stalls and so on as well. I'm just going to stand here and stare at Richard III's garter store, Platen, his garter store for a little while. When you think he actually sat there? I mean, this is the bit that blows my mind. This is the same wood from the 1470s. And I mean, this is true of anyone who's interested in anybody

who's ever been a night of the garter. But for me, Richard III sat on this piece of wood. He lent his back against here, and he listened to services in this incredible space around us. Nilton put his hands here to pray, yes. And we can do the same today. I mean, it's just such an incredible, tangible connection to hundreds of years of history. It's an amazing space to be in. So you've brought me to one more place of Yorkist interest, given my obsessions.

What are we looking at in here, Michael? So this is called the Rotland Chantry, and I'll explain why it's called that in a moment. But it was built as the chantry of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, sister of Edward the 4th. There's a brass plate here commemorating Anne. So here she is, the Royal Arms of England above her. And this is her second husband, Thomas St. Ledger. And it was he who constructed this chantry in her memory.

And chantries are like side chapels, so they're endowed in the memory of people. And a lot of money is given. And the idea is that priests are then paid to pray for the souls of the people in the chantries for perpetuity. But of course, all that stopped with Henry VIII and the Reformation. And there is a magnificent tomb in here. And this is the tomb of Anne St. Ledger,

the daughter of the Duchess of Exeter and Thomas St. Ledger. And she was the heiress of her mother and of her mother's first husband. That's a long story. But she was a very, very wealthy woman, great heiress. and this is her husband, Baron Ruse. It's a marvellous alabaster tomb, and they later became, under Henry VIII, there were great friends of Henry VIII,

they later became the Earl and Countess of Rottland, and from them the Dukes of Rutland descend, and so that's why this is the Rutland Chantry. But there's another particular reason I brought you in here because we're all very familiar as Ricardians, with, of course, the recent discovery tribute of fact, Philippa Langley, the discovery of Richard's body in Leicester. And one of the problems they faced was actually proving that the body in the tomb,

in the grave, was Richard. And the well-known story is they found DNA. Well, the DNA they found with this guy in Australia whose mother was a direct descendant of Anne St. Ledger. And so her mother was sister of Edward VIII and Richard III. So that proved the DNA. And as I recall, they had another proof of DNA also. descended from Anne of York. This is a very special place for Ricardians because this is the heritage

that proved that Richard III in the grave in Leicester was Richard III. Yeah, it's such a great connection to one of the most incredible stories of recent times. And so if visitors come, they can't get to Leicester, they can get a feel for it here and they can look at this brass plaque and this tomb and see Anne, Duchess of Exeter and Anne St. Ledger. So many incredible connections to the House of York that I'm fascinated with. It's been an absolutely pleasure and honour even to be shown around by you, Michael. I honestly can't recommend it highly enough to people to come down here. There are volunteer guides here who will show you around and share their expertise with you. Hopefully Michael's given you some pointers for places to look at. Stall 9 on the south

side of the choir, Richard the 3rd Garter Stahl. Look at it. But thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your time with us, Michael. I really appreciate it. Well, I hope you can tell that I've really enjoyed it and great to welcome you here to Windsor. Thank you very much. There are a brand new episodes have gone medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please join us next time for more on the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast from and to tell your friends and family that you've gone medieval. If you get a moment, please drop us a review or rate us anywhere that you listen to podcasts. It really does help new listeners to find their way to us. If you're enjoying this and looking for a bit

more medieval goodness in your life, you can subscribe to our Medieval Monday's newsletter by following the links in the show notes below. Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis. and we've just gone medieval with history hits.