Queen Elizabeth II’s winding final journey from Westminster Abbey to Wellington Arch to Windsor Castle on Monday weighed heavily on the eight soldiers carrying her coffin, partly because it was lined with lead.
The tradition dates back centuries and began with a practical consideration: helping the bodies of deceased monarchs remain immaculate, especially before modern preservation techniques.
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As a coffin material, “lead helps retain moisture and preserve the body longer and prevent odors and toxins from escaping a corpse,” said Julie Anne Taddeo, research professor of history at the University of Maryland. “His coffin lay exposed for many days and made a long journey to his final resting place.”
Taddeo noted that the added weight created the need for eight carriers instead of the usual six.
Soldiers carry the coffins of dead British monarchs, following an incident in 1901 when the horses pulling Queen Victoria’s hearse spooked and her coffin almost spilled into the street. Winston Churchill, who received the last state funeral in Britain before Elizabeth’s on Monday, also had a lead-lined coffin. It was so heavy that it slipped off the shoulders of some of the bearers when they had to stop on some steps, one of the bearers, Lincoln Perkins, told the BBC. As he fell on the two “pushers” in the back to keep the casket from falling, Perkins said, he said loudly to the corpse, “Don’t worry, sir, we’ll take care of it.”
Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin traveled from Westminster Hall to Wellington Arch and on to her final resting place, Windsor Castle, for her state funeral on 19 September. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post)
“You can feel it slide off your shoulders,” Perkins said. “If we had dropped it … I don’t know what it would have been, very embarrassing, but we didn’t.”
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Elizabeth’s coffin was laid to rest on Monday evening in a vault in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, which is part of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. She is resting near her parents, her sister and Prince Philip, her husband, who died last year.
The preservation measures are reminiscent of those used for high-ranking ancient Egyptians, who were also placed in chambers rather than buried in the ground and whose bodies were impeccably preserved. And while wealthy ancient Egyptians were often buried with caches of jewelry, sculptures and other belongings, Taddeo said, the queen was reported to have been buried with only her wedding band, made of Welsh gold, and a pair of pearl earrings.
This austerity would mean that Elizabeth, who was known for embracing frugality and simplicity, would be buried with fewer belongings than some of her predecessors; Queen Victoria was buried with her husband’s dressing gown and a cast of his hand, and a lock of her hair and a photograph of her favorite maid, with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship, Taddeo said. Elizabeth’s orb, scepter and crown, made of nearly 3,000 diamonds and dozens of other jewels, were taken from the top of her coffin and placed on an altar during her burial.
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The use of lead in coffins is “a long-lived royal tradition,” said Mike Parker Pearson, a professor at the Institute of Archeology at University College London. He said the embalmed corpse of King Edward I, who died in 1307, was “found in 1774 well preserved in his marble sarcophagus” in Westminster Abbey. Pearson added that the practice of using lead was probably adopted around the time of Edward’s death or in the following century.
Previous kings were not embalmed, he said. The corpse of William the Conqueror, who died in 1087, was apparently so decayed that his swollen abdomen burst when priests tried to put his body into “a stone coffin that proved too small for his mass” , Pearson said. “Allegedly, the bad guys ran to the door to escape the putrid stench.”
“William’s swollen bowels burst and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the spectators and the whole crowd,” according to Orderic Vitalis, a Benedictine monk who chronicled Anglo-Norman England.