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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-03 > 0920722465


From: John Carmi Parsons <>
Subject: Re: Catherine of Valois / Owen Tudor / The nature of history!
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 07:14:25 -0500 (EST)


It has very often been remarked that the left side of the face of Edward III's
effigy is curiously flat and that the mouth shows a slight but umistakable
curve downward on that side. Since it is commonly accepted that a death mask
was used as a model in carving the effigy, many deduce that this flatness and
the curve of the mouth witness the cerebrovascular accident that apparently
caused Edward's death.

There is a recent collection of essays on the Westminster funeral effigies:

The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey, eds. Anthony Harvey and Richard
Mortimer (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1994).

John Parsons

On 6 Mar 1999, D. Spencer Hines wrote:

> What does Edward III's effigy tell us?
>
> Thank you.
>
> D. Spencer Hines
>
> Exitus Acta Probat
> --
>
> D. Spencer Hines --- "Scots! wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots! wham
> Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory!... Lay
> the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every
> blow! - Let us do or die! So may God ever defend the cause of truth
> and liberty, as He did that day! Amen." "Scots Wha Hae" ["Bruce's
> Address at Bannockburn"] (24 June 1314) [1794] Robert Burns
> [1759-1796]
>
> John Carmi Parsons wrote in message ...
> >It's true that there is no tomb with an effigy of Catherine de
> Valois, as she
> >was finally buried in the 19th century in Henry's chantry chapel,
> which is not
> >open to the public. But in the undercroft chapel are preserved the
> extant
> >effigies that were actually placed on top of the coffins of various
> kings and
> >queens during their lyings-in-state and their funeral processions.
> Catherine's
> >is the second oldest among these--Edward III's is the oldest, dating
> from 1377
> >(the most recent is that of Queen Anne). Like Edward III's,
> Catherine's is
> >carved from a single piece of wood, and it is commonly accepted that,
> like
> >Edward's and most of the others, it was based on a death mask. The
> close
> >facial resemblance between Catherine's effigy and that of her
> grandson Henry
> >VII, also in the undercroft, has often been remarked.
> >
> >John Parsons
> >
> >
> >On 5 Mar 1999, SEEpstein wrote:
> >
> >> I've been to Westminster and there is no effigy of Catherine of
> Valois. Who is
> >> Rouse and when was he there?
> >>
> >> --Elaine Pirrone
> >>
> >>
> >> Rouse speculates, from the "wasted" appearance of her funeral
> effigy in
> >> Westminster Abbey--generally acknowledged to have come from a death
> mask--that
> >> it was cancer. But we'll never know.
>
>
>

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