REMAINS OF JAMES II.
(Vol. ii., pp. 243. 281.)
To the information which has recently been furnished in your pages respecting the remains of James II., it may be not uninteresting to add the inscription which is on his monument in the church of St. Germain-en-Laye, and which I copied, on occasion of my last visit to France.
The body of the king, or a considerable portion of it, which had remained unburied, was, I believe, interred at St. Germain soon after the termination of the war in 1814; but it being necessary to rebuild the church, the remains were exhumed and re-interred in 1824. Vicissitudes as strange in death as in life seem to have attended this unhappy king.
The following is the inscription now on his monument in the parish church of St. Germain:
"REGIO CINERI PIETAS REGIA.
"Ferale quisquis hoc monumentum suspicis
Rerum humanarum vices meditare
Magnus in prosperis in adversis major
Jacobus 2. Anglorum Rex.
Insignes ærumnas dolendaque nimium fata
Pio placidoque obitu exsolvit
in hac urbe
Die 16. Septemb. anni 1701.
Et nobiliores quædam corporis ejus partes
Hic reconditæ asservantur."
Qui prius augustâ gestabat fronte coronam
Exiguâ nunc pulvereus requiescit in urnâ
Quid solium—quid et alta juvant! terit omnia lethum,
Verum laus fidei ac morum haud peritura manebit
Tu quoque summe Deus regem quem regius hospes
Infaustum excepit tecum regnare jubebis."
But a different inscription formerly was placed over the king's remains in this church, which has now disappeared; at all events, I could not discover it; and I suppose that the foregoing was preferred and substituted for that, a copy of which I subjoin:
"D.O.M. Jussu Georgii IV. Magnæ Britanniæ &c., Regis, et curante Equite exc. Carolo Stuart Regis Britanniæ Legato, cæteris antea rite peractis et quo decet honore in stirpem Regiam hic nuper effossæ reconditæ sunt Reliquiæ Jacobi II., qui in secundo civitatis gradu clarus triumphis in primo infelicior, post varios fortunæ casus in spem melioris vitæ et beatæ resurrectionis hic quievit in Domino, anno MDCCI, v. idus Septemb., MDCCCXXIV."
At the foot of the monument were the words—
"Depouilles mortelles de Jacques 2. Roi d'Angleterre."
A third monumental inscription to the memory of James II., in Latin, is to be seen in the chapel of the Scotch College in Paris. This memorial was erected in 1703, by James, Duke of Perth. An urn, containing the brains of the king, formerly stood on the top of it. A copy of this inscription is preserved in the Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. vii.
J. REYNELL WREFORD, D.D.
Bristol, November 8. 1850.