Erwarton Hall is a ghostly looking old place, with an odd-shaped
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early-Jacobean gateway, with nine great pinnacles rising above its
roof. It faces a wide and desolate stretch of road, with ancient trees and curious twisted roots, in front, and a pond: picturesque but
melancholy looking. The house is Elizabethan, of dark red-brick, and
the old mullioned windows peer over the boundary-wall as if they
would like to see something of the world, even in this remote spot. In
the mansion, which this succeeded, lived Anne Boleyn's aunt, Amata,
Lady Calthorpe, and here the unfortunate queen is said to have spent
some of the happiest days of girlhood,—a peaceful spot, indeed,
compared with her subsequent surroundings. Local tradition long
back has handed down the story that it was the queen's wish her
heart should be buried at Erwarton; and it had well-nigh been
forgotten, when some sixty-five years ago a little casket was
discovered during some alterations to one of the walls of the church.
It was heart-shaped, and contained but dust, and was eventually
placed in a vault of the Cornwallis family. Sir W. Hastings D'Oyly,
Bart., in writing an interesting article upon this subject a few years back,[10] pointed out that it has never been decided where Anne Boleyn's remains actually are interred, though they were buried, of
course, in the first instance by her brother, Viscount Rochford, in the
Tower. There are erroneous traditions, both at Salle in Norfolk and
Horndon-on-the-Hill in Essex, that Anne Boleyn was buried there.
There are some fine old monuments in the Erwarton church, a cross-
legged cr
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usader, and a noseless knight and lady, with elaborate canopy,
members of the Davilliers family. During the Civil War five of the bells
were removed from the tower and broken up for shot for the defence
of the old Hall against the Parliamentarians. At least so goes the
story. An octagonal Tudor font is in a good state of preservation, and
a few old rusty helmets would look better hung up on the walls than
placed upon the capital of a column.
The story of Anne Boleyn's heart recalls that of Sir Nicholas Crispe,
whose remains were recently reinterred when the old London church
of St. Mildred's in Bread Street was pulled down. The heart of the
cavalier, who gave large sums of money to Charles I. in his
difficulties, is buried in Hammersmith Old Church, and by the
instructions of his will the vessel which held it was to be opened every
year and a glass of wine poured upon it.
Some curious vicissitudes are said to have happened to the heart of
the great Montrose. It came into the possession of Lady Napier, his
nephew's wife, who had it embalmed and enclosed in a steel case of
the size of an egg, which opened with a spring, made from the blade
of his sword, and the relic was given by her to the then Marchioness
of Montrose. Soon afterwards it was lost, but eventually traced to a
collection of curios in Holland, and retu
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rned into the possession of the fifth Lord Napier, who gave it to his daughter. When she married she went to reside in Madeira, where
the little casket was stolen by a native, under the belief that it was a
magic charm, and sold to an Indian chief, from whom it was at length
recovered; but the possessor in returning to Europe in 1792, having
to spend some time in France during that revolutionary period,
thought it advisable to leave the little treasure in possession of a lady
friend at Boulogne; but as luck would have it, this lady died
unexpectedly, and no clue was forthcoming as to where she had
hidden the relic.
But a still more curious story is told of the heart of Louis XIV. An ancestor of Sir William Harcourt, at the time of the French Revolution
had given to him by a canon of St. Denis the great monarch's heart,
which he had annexed from a casket at the time the royal tombs were
demolished by the mob. It resembled a small piece of shrivelled
leather, an inch or so long. Many years afterwards the late Dr.
Buckland, Dean of Westminster, during a visit to the Harcourts was
shown the curiosity. We will quote the rest in Mr Labouchere's words,
for he it was who related the story in Truth. "He (Dr. Buckland) was then very old. He had some reputation as a man of science, and the
scientific spirit moved him to wet his finger, rub it on the heart, and put the finger to his mouth. After that, before he could be stopped, he
put the heart in his mouth and swallowed it, whether by accident or
design will never be known. Very shortly afterwards he died and was
buried in
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Westminster Abbey. It is impossible that he could ever have digested
the thing. It must have been a pretty tough organ to start with, and age had almost petrified it. Consequently the heart of Louis XIV. must
now be reposing in Westminster Abbey enclosed in the body of an
English dean."