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Royal coffins, like that of Queen Elizabeth, are lined with lead. here’s why

September 21, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II’s winding final journey from Westminster Abbey through Wellington’s Arch to Windsor Castle on Monday weighed heavily on the eight soldiers carrying her coffin, in part because it was covered in lead .

The tradition dates back centuries and began with a practical consideration: helping the bodies of deceased monarchs remain intact, especially before modern preservation techniques.

Queen Elizabeth II buried after historic state funeral

As a material in coffins, “lead helps keep out dampness and preserve the body longer and keep odors and toxins from a corpse from escaping,” said Julie Anne Taddeo, professor of history at the University of Maryland. “His coffin was laid out for many days and made a long journey to its final resting place.”

Taddeo noted that the extra weight created the need for eight porters instead of the usual six.

Soldiers carry the coffins of deceased British monarchs, following an incident in 1901 when horses pulling Queen Victoria’s catafalque were spooked and her coffin nearly overturned in the street. Winston Churchill, who received the last state funeral in Britain before that of Elizabeth on Monday, also had a lead-lined coffin. It was so heavy that it slipped off the shoulders of some of the porters when they had to stop on some steps, one of the porters, Lincoln Perkins, told the BBC. When he came across the two “pushers” in the back to keep the coffin from falling, Perkins said, he said aloud to the corpse, “Don’t worry sir, we’ll take care of you.”

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin traveled from Westminster Hall to Wellington Arch and to her final resting place, Windsor Castle, for her state funeral on September 19. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post)

“You could actually feel it slipping off your shoulders,” Perkins said. “If we had let him down… I don’t know what it would have been, very embarrassing, but we didn’t.”

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Elizabeth’s coffin was buried Monday night in a vault in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, part of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. She rests close to her parents, her sister and Prince Philip, her husband, who died last year.

The preservation measures are reminiscent of those used for ancient high-ranking Egyptians, who were also placed in chambers rather than buried in the ground and whose bodies were perfectly preserved. And while wealthy ancient Egyptians were often buried with caches of jewellery, carvings and other possessions, Taddeo said, the Queen would have been buried with just her wedding ring, in Welsh gold, and a pair of earrings. in pearls.

Such austerity would mean that Elizabeth, who was known to embrace frugality and simplicity, was buried with fewer possessions than some of her predecessors; Queen Victoria was buried with her husband’s dressing gown and a cast of his hand, a lock of hair and a photo of her favorite servant, with whom she was said to have had a romantic relationship, Taddeo said. Elizabeth’s orb, scepter and crown – made up of nearly 3,000 diamonds and dozens of other jewels – were removed from the top of her coffin and placed on an altar during her burial.

The epic queue for Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin was over 250,000 people

The use of lead in coffins is “a long-standing 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 its marble sarcophagus” at Westminster Abbey. Pearson added that the practice of using lead was probably adopted around the time of Edward’s death or in the century after.

Earlier kings were not embalmed, he said. The corpse of William the Conqueror, who died in 1087, was apparently so badly decomposed that his bloated abdomen exploded when priests attempted to stuff his body into “a stone coffin which proved too small for its mass”, said Pearson. “Mourners would have run to the door to escape the putrid stench.”

William’s “swollen entrails burst and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of passers-by and the whole crowd”, according to Orderic Vitalis, a Benedictine monk who chronicled Anglo-Norman England.