"with the king's commendation of his service in his letters patent; for he gave him the Manour and Lordship of Ealding in Kent, late belonging to the Duke of Buckingham. So the letters ran,—'Richard &c.,—to al and singular the Officers, &c.,—Wit ye, that in consideration of the true and faithful service which our well beloved servant Rauf Banistre Esq, now late hath done unto us, for and about the taking and bringing of our said great Rebel into our hands, we have given unto the said Rauf, and to his heirs male, the said Manour for ever.'"
Both giver and receiver a congenial pair, and the gift that passed a characteristic one, being a portion of the spoil of their victim. Of such men it may be said,—
"Shame and Desolation sit
By their graves ever."
But where was Buckingham buried, after he had been thus "condemned and executed in such summary way, on a new scaffold erected in the Market-place of Salisbury." A tomb to his memory is erected in Britford church, about a mile and a half distant from that city, but it is a cenotaph only, his body was not interred there; where then was its final resting-place, after his troublous life had found such disastrous extinction? Still further ignominy appears to have remained to be meted out to the inanimate form, after man had wreaked his last vengeance on the life.
DISCOVERY MADE IN THE KITCHEN OF THE SARACEN'S HEAD INN,
SALISBURY.
From the Saturday Magazine, 6 April, 1839.
[View larger image]
From an article in the Saturday Magazine, 6 April, 1839, we gather the following,—
"Tradition assigns the court-yard of the Blue Boar Inn, as the scene of this bloody tragedy; but great uncertainty seems always to have prevailed as to the spot where the mutilated remains of this unfortunate nobleman were finally deposited. The frontispiece which is presented to our readers, gives a view of the kitchen of an inn (the Saracen's Head) in Salisbury, in which, while some repairs and alterations were being made, a skeleton, in the condition shewn in the picture, was discovered beneath the floor of the apartment, which is on a level with the ground. A view of the appearance of the figure, together with the apartment, was made and published by Mr. J. M. Cullam—of which view, with his permission we have taken a copy. These human remains, are with good reason, supposed to have belonged to that Duke of Buckingham.
"It is supposed that the head and right arm, after having been submitted to the personal inspection of the King, then resident in "the King's house," in the Close, were sent to London to be affixed to Temple Bar, or exposed on Tower Hill, as was commonly used to be done in those times. A tomb in the north chantry of St. Thomas's church, Salisbury, was once supposed to contain the remains of Buckingham, and another in Britford church, near Salisbury, obtained a similar reputation; but sufficient evidence has been found to shew these were only monuments to his memory, and no indications, leading to probability, have ever appeared, to point out the place of the sepulture of the Duke of Buckingham, till the discovery took place represented in our frontispiece.
"The Saracen's Head Inn (owing to the peculiar contiguity of the two places) is supposed to have once formed part of the premises attached to those of the Blue Boar. The grave, therefore, of the Duke, was probably made only a few yards, possibly feet, from the spot where he suffered decapitation. The skeleton was found about eight inches below the surface of the soil; the spinal column appeared imbedded in the clay, and on taking up some of the detached vertebræ, they crumbled to dust in the hands. All the remains were in a like friable condition."