The Morbidly Creepy And Straight Up Weird Contents Of Queen Victoria's Coffin

Originally Posted on Ranker.com

Queen Victoria, despite the fact that she was quite tiny, looms large over most of the 19th century. She was every bit a woman of her time, engaging in the overblown sentimentality and culture of death so pervasive during the age that bears her name. When she died at 81, she left secret, detailed instructions on how to handle her body and what items to place in her coffin. There are indeed, a number of strange Queen Victoria death facts worth exploring.

Victorians had something of an obsession with death and death rituals. One reason for this had to do with the fact that people of the era literally lived much closer to death than most people do today. For example, aspects of the Industrial Revolution shortened life expectancy, even in an age when 40 was considered old. Bodies were cleaned and prepared for burial by family members, and the corpses were put in the parlor for viewing. Death and all that came with it hovered far more closely to the living than it does today.

Friends and loved ones created jewelry made from the hair of the deceased; furniture and doorways were draped in black crepe; and even photos were taken of the dead, dressed and seated in chairs with other family members, as though they were still alive. Or families would gather for photos – all dressed in black – around a portrait of the dearly departed, sorrowful looks on every face.

This was also the age of Romanticism, an artistic, literary, and cultural tradition that focused on both the natural and unnatural world. Some Victorians expressed a strong interest in the paranormal, the spectral, and otherworldly. Sentimentality and emotion also held sway during the 19th century. It’s no wonder, really, that Queen Victoria’s death wishes were anything but simple.

At the time of her death, Queen Victoria was Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. She’d lived a life full of responsibilities, loves, and intrigues. Some of the latter did not meet with her family’s approval; indeed, her nine children were often in vehement opposition to some of the ways Victoria lived her life and resentful of those with whom she was closest.

So when it came time for the Queen to make her final arrangements, she knew her wishes would require an element of secrecy in order that they be observed. Chief among those carefully kept secrets were the weird things Queen Victoria wanted to be buried with. Luckily, those detailed instructions still exist, so the Queen’s zany requests didn’t get interred with her. However, for a long time, very few people were aware that Victoria’s secret instructions survived. At the end of her life, Victoria summoned her secretary (who was also her chief lady-in-waiting) and dictated 12 pages of specific instructions regarding her funeral and burial. The lady-in-waiting hand delivered the instructions to the Queen’s personal physician, Sir James Reid. According to author Tony Rennell, a Reid family descendant wrote a book on the doctor and his famous patient, but the contents of the secret instructions were forbidden by the Royal College censors.

When Rennell, who was also writing a book on Victoria’s final years, was invited by the Reid family to research their archives, he came across the hidden instructions written just before the old Queen’s death. He was able to successfully publish his research and – for the first time – Victoria’s final wishes came to light. And so it was her doctor who followed through with all her wishes. He was the lone person who was there to know how Queen Victoria died. He nursed her day and night during her final days, and it was his name she spoke as she expired. And he followed through with each of her requests, however bizarre.

One of the first strange items on Victoria’s list of burial instructions was a plaster cast of Prince Albert’s hand, which was made shortly after his death. When Albert died unexpectedly at age 42, Victoria was utterly devastated. She embarked on her own personal cult of death and worship of her departed husband.

For decades, she remained out of public view, wore black until her death, and forced her children to pose in innumerable photos with their father’s sculpted bust, draped in black crepe, of course. She even had them pose that way at their own weddings. Her approach to his loss was an enormous influence for and inspiration to grieving people across the western world during the age that still bears her name.

But there was more. For years, she had Albert’s former servants attend to his morning rituals. Servants brought hot water, his shaving brush and cup, and towels to his room every morning. His valet also continued to bring in the suit he would wear that day. At the end of the day, the servants would return and remove the items, only to repeat the same the next day. And the next.

Victoria kept her bedroom draped in black and decorated throughout with Albert’s visage in photos and portraits. She slept nightly with the plaster cast of his hand.