Note 224 — WALTHAM ABBEY.

The following attested account of this discovery is preserved by Fuller, in his Worthies:—

“The ensuing relation, written by the pen of Master Thomas Smith, of Sewarstone, in the parish of Waltham Abbey, a discreet person, not long since deceased.

“It so fell out that I served Sir Edward Denny (towards the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory), who lived in the Abbey of Waltham Cross, in the county of Essex, which at that time lay in ruinous heaps; and then Sir Edward began slowly now and then to make even and re-edify some of that chaos. In doing whereof, Tomkins, his gardener, came to discover (among other things) a fair marble stone, the cover of a tomb hewed out in hard stone: this cover, with some help, he removed from off the tomb; which having done, there appeared to the view of the gardener, and Master Baker, minister of the town (who died long since), and to myself and Master Henry Knagg (Sir Edward’s bailiff), the anatomy of a man lying in the tomb abovesaid, only the bones remaining, bone to his bone, not one bone dislocated. In observation whereof, we wondered to see the bones still remaining in such due order, and no dust or other filth besides them to be seen in the tomb: we could not conceive that it had been an anatomy of bones only, laid at first in the tomb; yet if it had been the whole carcass of a man, what became of his flesh and entrails? For (as I have said above) the tomb was clean from all filth and dust, besides bones. This when we had all observed, I told them, that if they did but touch any part thereof, that all would fall asunder, for I had only heard somewhat formerly of the like accident. Trial was made, and so it came to pass. For my own part, I am persuaded, that as the flesh of this anatomy to us became invisible, so likewise would the bones have been in some longer continuance of time. O! what is man then, which vanisheth thus away, like unto smoke or vapour, and is no more seen! Whosoever thou art that shalt read this passage, thou mayst find cause of humility sufficient.”

In Mr. Edgar Taylor’s translation of “Master Wace, his Chronicle of the Norman Conquest,” (London, 1837,) p. 259, is given a beautiful drawing from a manuscript of the thirteenth century, representing the deposition of the body of King Harold in his tomb at Waltham.