![]() |
St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Leyton |
![]() |
The Moldovan Detective Druscovich |
Stories from our cemeteries, crypts and churchyards
![]() |
St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery, Leyton |
![]() |
The Moldovan Detective Druscovich |
These
are the rest of my photographs from my visit to Kensal Green on the 15th
December, all taken just before sundown.
This is Mexican poet Xavier Villaurrutia’s poem ‘Cementerio en la nieve’ (Cemetery in the snow) from his book Nostalgia de la Muerte (1934). My translation (all errors mine, please feel to correct in the comments section)) is below:
Nothing can compare to a cemetery in the snow. What name to give to whiteness on white? The sky has let fall unfeeling drifts of snow upon the tombs and now nothing is left but snow upon the snow like a hand left resting on itself for all eternity.
The
birds prefer to cross the sky, striking the invisible corridors of air, to
leave just the snow, which is like leaving it intact, which is like leaving it
snow
Because
it is not enough to say that a cemetery in the snow is like sleep without
dreams, nor like sightless eyes.
If
something has a sleeping insensible body, from the fall of one silence upon
another, and from the white persistence of oblivion, then nothing can be
compared to a cemetery in the snow!
Because
above all snow is silence, made even more silent on bloodless slabs: lips that
can no longer say a single word.
![]() |
The tomb of Alexander Nesbitt Shaw ('late of the Bombay Civil Service") |
I took all these photos at Kensal Green Cemetery on the afternoon of the 15th December. The snow that had fallen a few days before was still on the ground and the temperature was still hovering around zero despite it being a sunny afternoon. The light was spectacular, a clear, cloudless afternoon with the sun already low in the sky by the time I arrived at 2.30. Despite it being ten days before Christmas there were still leaves on some of the trees and the colours of sky, snow and the last gasp of autumn were just beautiful.
I
also took a lot of twilight pictures but I’ll post them later in the week.
Previous previous pre-Christmas visits to Kensal Green can be seen here (2018) and here (2019) and here (St Mary's Catholic Cemetery 2021)
![]() |
View along Central Avenue towards the Anglican Chapel |
![]() |
Memorial to Major General Sir William Casement, Indian army officer |
![]() |
The Tomb of William Mulready, artist and Royal Academician |
![]() |
The tomb of the circus equestrian Andrew Ducrow |
![]() |
A multitude of Angels (playing with your heart?) |
![]() |
The grave of George Ryall formerly of Lahore, India |
![]() |
Damn, I can't for the life of me remember whose grave this is... |
Over Christmas the Hardy Tree in St Pancras Old Churchyard finally succumbed to blight and collapsed. No one was there to witness the trees last moment though reddit user Srinjoy Dey, who was the first to photograph the toppled ash on Boxing Day, says that he heard a loud bang just as he was going into the churchyard. The trunk had been snapped off at the point where it emerges from the encircling headstones. I was last in the churchyard on 12th December when I was taking photos in the snow, including a few of the tree. On my first day back at work after the holidays I stopped off on the way into the office to see the damage for myself. I expected the fallen tree to have already been removed by Camden Council and to find myself contemplating its absence but it was still there, resting where it had collapsed, like a felled giant. As a concession to health and safety the council had surrounded it with a security fence, forcing me to risk losing my phone to take photos as I had to poke it between the wires to get a clear view. The fence also stopped me from acquiring a twig or a piece of bark as a souvenir, as I had planned. I have always been fond of the tree, and I’ve written about it several times, including a debunking of the myth that it had anything to do with Thomas Hardy. Looking at its mortal remains I felt slightly guilty, as if, in the days before they died, I had challenged the accuracy of the tall tales told by an elderly relative.
It
was an anonymous commenter on one of my posts that tipped me off to the tree’s
demise a couple of days after it had happened. By then the event had been
reported on the BBC website and in the Camden New Journal, the Standard, the
Guardian and in various other newspapers nationally and internationally,
including the New York Times. Most of that initial coverage reiterated the
story that it was Thomas Hardy himself that had arranged the headstones around
the tree but by the time The Guardian followed up its initial coverage with an
editorial published on 29 December entitled The Guardian view on the death of the Hardy Tree; a legend uprooted, the connection with Hardy was being called into question;
The toppling of a tree, without injury, in a city churchyard would not normally make news headlines, but the mighty ash outside London’s Old St Pancras church was one of the capital’s most venerated natural landmarks and a destination of literary pilgrimage. Encircled with gravestones that it seemed to be absorbing into its root system, the Hardy Tree acquired its name, and its celebrity, from a story that the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy, then a young architect’s apprentice in a rapidly growing London, was personally responsible for stacking its trunk with stones cleared to make way for the expansion of the Midland railway line in the mid-1860s.
…Hardy
himself wrote of overseeing the exhumations. He was charged with turning up at
unexpected times to ensure that the clerk of works was doing a respectful job
and not simply dumping the bones, as had happened in previous cemetery
clearances.
What
is missing is any evidence that Hardy had any direct involvement in the
arrangement of the stones. Moreover, photographs of the churchyard, unearthed by an assiduous amateur historian, suggest that the current ash grew between
1926 and 1960, only later becoming known as the Hardy Tree. That it had no
greater verifiable connection with the Victorian author than, say, Sherwood
Forest’s Major Oak had with Robin Hood, or Berkshire’s Ankerwycke Yew had with
the signing of the Magna Carta, hardly matters. By mere dint of their
longevity, trees collect myths and become lightning rods for the historical
imagination.
There
was a link to the work of the ‘assiduous amateur historian’, who I was
pleasantly surprised to find out, was me. I wasn’t named but being tagged and
linked by a broadsheet are enough kudos for me. Guardian readers are a literate
bunch; the last contribution to the comments section before it was closed is a
poem called Ashes to Ashes by Lepidus77;
An
assiduous amateur historian
questions the provenance
of the Hardy Ash, that crashed
in Old St. Pancras churchyard
late in twenty twenty-two.
Ashes
are the opportunists
of the arboreal world,
good for a few hundred years
with luck, becoming
lightning rods for the historical imagination.
Legend
has it Hardy helped
stack the stones to
stay the mighty ash
where the Shelleys had tiptoed
permissively, and later
Mary Wollstonecraft would lie.
We
need that tree to have
predated Hardy, ideally
witnessing the sunlit
Shelley trysts, providing
shade for Mary’s long lying in.
A
post-war chancer ash, toppling
after sixty odd years,
barely mocks our own
three score plus stint. We need
the ash to bookend us,
implying that life going on.
At
least one commenter, who calls himself Alabasterhand, took umbrage with the
Guardian questioning the authenticity of the connection between the tree and
Thomas Hardy; “There is something positively malignant in the way that this
newspaper seems grimly determined to sweep away what it seemingly regards as
dangerous myths like the age of the Hardy tree.... If the Editorial team on The
Guardian feels it has nothing better to do than to crush and stamp out charming,
harmless consolatory legends then I would suggest it is high time they pack it
in altogether.” Several other commenters pointed out that you can hardly
complain about someone doubting the truth of something you call a ‘charming
harmless consolatory legend’ as legends are, by definition, not true.
Another
commenter, stpman, had additional interesting details to add about the history
of the tree; “About 20 years ago I suspected that the tree was rather less
than 100 years old and did some research at the Camden Local Studies Library in
Theobald's Road, Holborn... In the late 1970s the graveyard needed repair work
to the paths, railings and stonework. The gravestones were again tidied - and
placed rather more neatly around the tree that had grown alongside from about
the 1920s. I was told by the library staff that a St. Pancras church cleric
began referring to it as "The Hardy Tree" at that time, and this is
probably how the myth was born.” Alabasterhand
was quick to jump in again; “Hardy's activity at Old St Pancras is most
certainly not a "myth" but a well documented fact, working under the
supervision of the architect Arthur Bloomfield. I can moreover confirm that the
circle of overlapping gravestones was attributed to Hardy to my clear memory in
the mid 1960's. Why would anyone make up such a story? More importantly, why
are people so keen to rush in to call the story into question? What horrible,
joyless times we live in.” Quite why
anyone would take a correction to the factual record so hard is a mystery to
me.
The
Guardian finished its editorial with the following reflection;
The
demise of an old tree is always sad. But perhaps the real story of the Hardy
ash is that it wasn’t special; it didn’t witness the canoodlings of the
Shelleys, fall in a freak storm or die in a scary, imported pandemic. The
entanglement of root and stone reveals a history of nature and humanity
competing and coexisting in a swiftly changing industrial landscape. In death,
it has grown into its own urban myth.
![]() |
The Hardy Tree when it was still hale and hearty |
![]() |
The Soane Mausoleum |
When
I stepped outside on Sunday evening the freezing air was full of large
snowflakes gently sinking to the ground in the windless air. I had been sceptical
when I had seen it earlier on the news but the weatherman had been proved right:
snow was general all over London. It was falling softly upon the East End and,
further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous streets of Westminster.
It was falling too upon every part of lonely Old St Pancras churchyard where so
many of the illustrious dead lie buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked
crosses and headstones, on the spears of the railings, on the barren thorns. I
felt light headed watching the snow swirl in the darkness at the back of the
house, hearing it fall faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like
the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
By
next morning the snow had brought the central line to a complete standstill
anywhere east of Liverpool Street and I was obliged to trek to a mainline
station to get into London. On the way to the office I took a detour to Old St
Pancras churchyard to get some photos of the snow before it disappeared. In these
days of global warming snow in London is an evanescent phenomenon; here one
day, transformed to filthy slush the next and gone altogether within 48 hours.
I would have preferred to have gone to Brompton or Kensal Green but I didn’t
have the time and so I made do with St Pancras Gardens, a ten-minute walk from
the office. The snow had stopped falling during the night but the sky was
leaden and the light terrible. I’m not enthralled
with the photos I took, in fact I was so dissatisfied I processed them all in
black and white because I thought they looked better in monochrome. After much
debate I’ve decided to post the original colour versions.
I clambered up an embankment to get a photo of the Soane mausoleum sitting inside its circular railed compound. The mausoleum was designed and built in 1815 by the architect Sir John Soane for his wife Eliza. The couple had met through Eliza’s uncle and ward George Wyatt the builder who had worked with Soane on the rebuilding of Newgate Prison. On the 10th January 1784 Soane took her to the theatre and a few weeks later, on the 7th February she took tea with Soane and a group of friends. Soane began to accompany her regularly to plays and concerts and, on the 21st August 1784, less than 8 months after that first visit to the theatre, they were married at Christ Church in Southwark. It was a happy marriage until they began to have children. They had four sons, two of them died in infancy, the other two survived into adult, both causing their parents endless grief. John, the eldest, was lazy and suffered from infirmity. He was sent to Margate in 1811 to improve his health where he met a woman called Maria Preston. John badgered his father into agreeing to a marriage which he had deep reservations about; the £2000 dowry promised by Maria’s parents failed to materialise and the couple became financially dependent on Soane. Not to be outdone the 20-year-old George wrote to his mother a few weeks later to break the news that he had married behind his parent’s back, making no bones about his reasons, he had done it, he said, “to spite you and father.” Sir John tried to keep his wayward offspring in check by tightly controlling their finances but George threatened to go on stage for a living and disgrace his father if he did not settle £350 a year on him. When the blackmail did not work George took, unsuccessfully, and was imprisoned for debt and fraud. Possibly behind her husband’s back Eliza Soane settled the debt and repaid the embezzled money to get her son out of prison. In September 1815 an article was published in the magazine Champion called ‘The Present Low State of the Arts in England and more particularly of Architecture’. Sir John was the target of an acrimonious attack in the article which, although it had been published anonymously, soon became clear had actually been written by George. His distraught mother wrote on the 13th October 'those are George's doing. He has given me my death blow. I shall never be able to hold up my head again'. She died, quite possibly of heartbreak, on 22 November 1815 and was buried on 1 December. Soane wrote in his diary that he had endured 'the burial of all that is dear to me in this world, and all I wished to live for!' He designed this elaborate mausoleum for his wife and was buried alongside her when he died in 1837.
In
Lights Out for the Territory Iain Sinclair describes the Hardy Tree “with
its cluster of surrounding headstones – like a school of grey fins circling the
massive trunk, feeding on the secretions of the dead.” The tree has become one
of the great myths of London with its backstory of how the young novelist personally
supervised the clearing of the churchyard and the stacking of the headstones
around the Ash tree. The information board by the tree is a little more
circumspect, saying that “the headstones around this Ash tree (Fraxinus
Excelsior) would have been placed here around” the time Hardy was supposedly
overseeing the exhumations in the churchyard. There is no evidence that Hardy
had anything to do with the tree named after him but most people assume that
the gravestones had been arranged around the tree in the first place. A photo of
“St. Pancras churchyard and it’s disturbed gravestones” published in ‘Wonderful
London’ a 1926 book edited by St. John Adcock and published in 1926 shows the
familiar circular arrangement of headstones but with one significant
difference; there is no tree! In 1926 the Hardy tree did not exist. The tree, presumably
self-seeded, has grown since the late 1920’s and is less than one hundred years
old.
Mary Woolstonecraft and William Godwin were married at St Pancras Old Church on 29 March 1797. Mary gave birth to their daughter (the future Mary Shelley) on 30 August 1797 but died of septicaemia 11 days later on 10 September. William was married again in 1801, to Mary Jane Clairmont. When he died in 1836 he choose to be buried with his first wife. Mary Jane joined them in 1841 and all three are commemorated on different faces of what was originally Mary’s memorial. All very modern for the 18th century but Godwin's was a radical household. The post mortem menage a trois were later forcibly split up after passing just 10 years of their eternal rest together when William and Mary were disinterred in 1851 and reburied on the south coast by their grandson Percy. He wanted to grant his mother's wish that she be buried with her parents but didn't want to bury her in grimy Kings Cross. Instead he removed William and Mary's remains (but leaving Mary Jane Clairmont where she was) to a new Shelley tomb at the church of St Peters in Bournemouth.
![]() |
The Burdett-Coutts memorial sundial |
The adjoining burial grounds of St Pancras and St Giles were closed in 1854. In 1866 a portion of the grounds were sold to the Midland Railway Company to allow the building of a new main line into London and the construction of the new terminus of St Pancras. A scandal ensued during the insensitive exhumation of thousands of bodies and the removal of hundreds of tombs and headstones. In 1874 the railway company approached the vestries of St Pancras and St Giles again to see if they were willing to sell the reminder of the burial ground. This time the public outcry was so strong that the vestries declined to sell and instead proposed laying out a public garden. One of those who took a fervent interest in the future of the disused burial grounds was the philanthropist Baroness Burdett Coutts who felt that as they were “no longer used for their original purpose, they have lost the protection of the living, without securing the sanctity that should protect the dead.” In a letter she later wrote to the vestry of St Pancras she goes into some detail about her motivation for involving herself in the preservation of London’s old burial grounds, explaining that “the feelings and reflections which even an unnamed tombstone is calculated to excite …. would be lost if the graves of the dead were obliterated from the land, for a number of stones huddled together, possibly as carefully as circumstances permitted, cannot convey the same feelings as does a grave, even to the least reflective mind. The mere fact of closing over and stamping out of remembrance the dead renders them lifeless indeed and denies to their memory those tender and salutary lessons so often given in the quiet of ' God's acres.'” The Baroness was determined that the garden should be a memorial to the dead interred there and that it should preserve the principal tombstones and key features of the burial ground. She funded works to conserve headstones and to landscape the gardens but her most lasting contribution to the project was the enormous sundial dedicated to the memory of the illustrious dead placed at the heart of the garden.
Serious
Motoring Accident at Cannes. Jan. 20. Sir Edward Sassoon met with a serious
accident this morning. Whilst he was motoring to the golf links the car
encountered a restive horse, and though the chauffeur took a sharp turn to the
left in the hope of avoiding the animal, there was a collision of great
violence. The car, after striking the horse, ran into tree, and, rebounding,
fell over a six-foot embankment. Sir Edward received a terrible shaking, and his
face was badly cut. The horse had to be destroyed.
Daily News (London) - Saturday 21 January 1911
When
the 55-year-old MP for Hythe Sir Edward Sassoon died quietly at his Park Lane
house on Friday 24 May 1912 the newspapers were quick to point out that he had
never really recovered fully from his motoring accident on the French Riviera
the year before. Sir Edward’s wife, Aline Caroline de Rothschild, had died in
1909 at her parent’s house in Paris and so their two children inherited the
considerable family fortune; the newspapers reported that “he leaves a son,
Philip, and daughter, Sybil, who made her first appearance in society this
season. It is thought that these will now be two of the most wealthy young
people in England.”
Sir Edward’s body was cremated privately at Golders Green in the early morning of Sunday 26 May. The ashes, still warm from the furnace, were taken to Victoria Station where a specially chartered train was scheduled to depart at 1.30 for Brighton carrying the mourners as well as Sir Edward’s mortal remains. A closed hearse and several carriages met the train at Central Station and the funeral procession then made its way down Queens Road to the sea front, past the pier and along Marine Parade to number One Eastern Terrace where the large house built by Sir Edward’s father still stands. The funeral cortege made its way a hundred yards up Paston Place where at the corner of with St George’s Road, at the back of what was then the rear garden of Eastern Terrace stood the family mausoleum, built in 1892 by Sir Edward’s father, Sir Albert Sassoon. The funeral arrangements had been kept secret so there were not many people around when the cortege first arrived at the mausoleum, though a sizeable crowd of curiosity seekers soon gathered. Inside the mausoleum Rabbi SJ Rocco conducted what the Sussex Daily News called “an impressive service” in Hebrew assisted, in English, by Rabbi Jacobs of the Jewish Synagogue in Brighton, Rabbi Conque of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, Rabbi Levinson and a Mr Lubetzki of Brighton. Sir Edward’s ashes were laid at the side of his father’s embalmed body and covered with white arum lilies by Mr Biggs, the mausoleum caretaker. At 4.30 the mourners all returned to London on the chartered train to take part in a 6.30 memorial service held at the Sassoon house at 25 Park Lane.
![]() |
The Sassoon Memorial up for sale in 1956 (www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk) |
DEATH OF SIR EDWARD SASSOON, M.P.
HEBREW FAMILY'S ROMANCE
Sir Edward Sassoon,
Bart, MP, died at his residence in London yesterday, aged 55. He had
represented' the Hythe Division in the Conservative interest since 1899. At the
last election Sir Edward was returned without opposition. The Sassoons are a Hebrew
family of very great antiquity. They claim to be descended from Shephatiah V.,
son of David. There are numerous references to the Sasoons in Hebrew mediaeval
literature, the name, indeed, is to be in found in the Talmud. For generations
they were a well-known family in Bagdad, famous for their wealth and their
integrity. Some years ago, one David Sassoon received notice that a plot was
foot to sack his house and murder its inmates. He contrived to escape, and fled
with his wife and children by the Persian Gulf to Bombay. There he founded the
house of Sassoon, the only important firm not in the hands of Parsees. About
1863, after the death of David Sassoon his son, the late Sir Albert. then known
as Abdallah, came to England in company with his half brothers Reuben and
Arthur. Sir Edward Sassoon, born in 1856, was a son of Sir Albert, succeeding to
the title in 1895. He was educated at London University. In 1887 he married
Aline, daughter of Baron Gustave de Rothschild. She died in February, 1909. It
was at a by-election in the early part 1899 that Sir Edward was first returned to
the House of Commons as the member for the Borough of Hythe, defeating Sir
Israel Hart by a substantial majority, and at the general election in the
following year, he was re-elected without opposition. He enjoyed Parliamentary
life, and was earnest in the pursuit of his duties. He was an enthusiast in the
cause of Imperial cables, which he frequently advocated in Parliament. He was
an honorary major in the Duke of Cambridge's Hussar Yeomanry. Sir Edward
resided for two years in China, and gave much study to Oriental problems. He was
also an authority finance and bimetallism. He emphasised his connection with
the East by the ownership of two residences in India, Garden Beach, Poona, and
Sans Souci, at Bombay. He also had a magnificent residence in Park Lane,
London, and at Trent Park, Sandgate. He is succeeded in the Baronetcy by Mr Philip
Albert David Sassoon, who was born in 1888. His only daughter is Sybil Rachel,
who was born in 1894.
Aberdeen Press and Journal - Saturday 25 May 1912
![]() |
The mausoleum in the 1960's (www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk) |
The
Sassoon Memorial is now a grade II listed building. The Historic England
website says that it was built in “1892. Stucco. Tent roof of copper. Square in
plan with wing to south. single storey over basement. In imitation of Nash's
Mughal-inspired design of the Royal Pavilion.” The copper dome was originally
covered in gold leaf. Sir Edward’s son and heir, Philip decided that a
mausoleum at the bottom of a garden was not an appropriate place for his
ancestors to lie, especially as he wanted to sell the house. In 1933 the bodies
of his father and grandfather were reburied in Willesden and the mausoleum sold
off. It served time as a decorators storeroom, a furniture depository and, during
World war II, an air raid shelter. In 1949 it was sold again and became a pub,
The Bombay Bar. The story was reported widely in the newspapers, including in
the New York Times which ran it became the headline ‘Baronet’s Tomb to be
Saloon’.
TOMB TO BE PUBLIC-HOUSE
SASSOON BURIAL PLACE.
A
square, glass-domed mausoleum in St. George's Place, Brighton, once the burial
place of Sir Albert Sassoon, one of the founders of the Sassoon family
fortunes, is to become a public-house. The mausoleum, where the body of Sir
Albert lay for 37 years, has served in its time as a decorator's storehouse and
an air raid shelter. It has been bought by a local brewery, who plan to use it
as an extension to a public-house next door. The public-house has only a beer
licence and to obtain a wine and spirit licence another public-house nearby will
be closed. It is estimated that the conversion will be a long job. The building
has no windows, but light enters from the glass dome. The district in which the
mausoleum is situated is surrounded by hotels and boarding houses. The tomb was
built by Sir Albert Sassoon at a cost of £B,OOO. He died in 1896 and his body
lay in the mausoleum until removed in 1933 and re-interred in London.
Belfast Telegraph - Saturday 27
August 1949
In 1956 the mausoleum was acquired by the Hanbury Arms which stands next door and was reopened as a ballroom. It was renovated in 2006 and became a private members club for a short time before entering its current incarnation as the Proud Cabaret, Brighton’s premier drag club compered by the incomparable Ms Dolly Rocket. The venue, according to its present owners “is truly astonishing. Our Drag Queen cabaret show is accompanied with world-class musicians and award-winning acrobats, fire breathers and burlesque beauties. Be prepared to be amazed.” If a night on the tiles seems likely to stretch beyond your usual bedtime then do not despair, “we're not just a Cabaret restaurant,” say Proud, “sashay down to Proud Cabaret Brighton for our fabulous Drag Extravaganza Bottomless Brunch. With raucous entertainment and bottomless booze, this is all singing, all dancing, brunching experience.” Not your usual mausoleum visit then?
When we say, in English, I left my heart in… (San Francisco or wherever), it is merely a figure of speech indicating our fondness for a particular place. When Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, left his heart in the Portuguese city of Porto, he left it literally, in a jar of formaldehyde. Last summer we arrived in Porto on the 21st of August, the day Dom Pedro’s coração was removed from a mausoleum in the church of Lapa, where it had laid more or less undisturbed for the last 187 years, and was sent by military jet to Brasília to take part in Brazil’s bicentennial celebrations. I knew nothing about this until we were in the hotel in the evening watching SIC Notícias. My ignorance cost me the rare opportunity of seeing the heart of a king, as Dom Pedro’s had been, very briefly, put on public display in the church before being sent on its 8000 kilometre journey to South America. It is unusual, to say the least, for a disembodied heart to form the focal point of independence celebrations and to be received, after travelling in the passenger seat of a Brazilian air force jet, with all the pomp and ceremony that would have been accorded a living head of state including a cannon salute, a guard of honour and full military honours. After arriving in Brasília Dom Pedro’s heart was allowed a much-needed night of rest at the Palácio Itamaraty before taking a Rolls Royce next morning to an official reception with Jair Bolsonaro in the Presidential Palace. In the skies above Brasília six military jets drew a vapour trail heart to welcome the heart. Whether all this was strictly necessary given Brazil’s many economic and military problems especially as the rest of Dom Pedro’s body has been in Brazil for the last 50 years, largely forgotten in the crypt of the Monument to Independence in São Paulo.
![]() |
Dom Pedro and his muttonchops in Brazil |
Dom Pedro had a short but eventful life. His father Dom João VI, acted as regent for his mentally unstable grandmother, ‘mad’ Queen Maria I and his mother was Doña Carlota Joaquina, the daughter of the King of Spain. At the time of their marriage his father was 18, his mother just 10; she tried to bite off his ear on their wedding night. It was a deeply unhappy union; Doña Carlota never reconciled herself to life with her husband or in Portugal, refusing to be sexually faithful (Dom Pedro’s own paternity is not a matter of certainty) and going as far as plotting to overthrow him with a group of disgruntled Portuguese nobles. As the second son of the miserable marriage, Dom Pedro only became heir to the Portuguese throne when his older brother died of smallpox at the age of 6. As a 9-year-old he was forced to flee to Brazil, along with the rest of the dysfunctional royal family, when the Napoleonic army invaded Portugal. The only liberal in a family of absolutist monarchs, he grew up at loggerheads with his father and hating his mother, who he referred to as ‘a cadela’, the bitch. When his father was forced back to Portugal by the Liberal revolution of 1820, Dom Pedro took advantage of his position of Regent in Brazil in 1822 by impetuously declaring the liberation of the colony from Portuguese rule in an impromptu speech made to his followers from the saddle of a bay mare whilst out riding. He became King of Portugal in 1826 but after just two months abdicated in favour of his daughter, who became Maria II and was known popularly as a Boa Mãe, the good mother of her country . In 1831 he was forced to finally return to Portugal to fight in a civil war against his younger brother Miguel, who had usurped the crown from Maria. He married twice, had numerous extra marital affairs and 14 known children by 5 different women. He died of tuberculosis in the Palácio de Queluz in Lisbon in September 1834 at the age of 35.
As
he lay dying in Portugal Dom Pedro dictated a 14-page letter of exhortation to
the people of Brazil. This letter, dated at 4am on the 23rd September 1823, the
day before he died, gave his instructions on what was to happen to his corpse:
Brasileiros!
Eu deixo meu coração à heroica Cidade do Porto, teatro da minha verdadeira
glória, e o resto do meu despojo mortal à Cidade de Lisboa, lugar de minha
nascença. (Brazilians! I leave my heart to the heroic city of Porto, the
theatre of my true glory, and the rest of my mortal remains to the city of
Lisbon, the place of my birth.)
When
his doctors removed the heart they must have been astounded at its size; it is
hugely engorged and its weight is often said to be 20lbs. Now this surely can’t
be right? Even a large human heart rarely exceeds one pound in weight – in fact
any male heart weighing more than a pound is considered to be suffering from cardiomegalya,
abnormal enlargement of the cardiac muscle. 20lbs would be about right for a
giraffe heart. A human heart that size wouldn’t fit into the chest cavity
unless you removed everything else that is supposed to be in there! Don Pedro’s
heart may be big but it cannot weight 20lbs. It took eleven years for Dom Pedro’s
heart to reach its final resting place; political instability in Portugal led
to endless delays about where it should it buried and so it remained at Queluz
under armed guard until a final decision was made. On 4th February 1836 the
heart was sent via the battleship Jorge IV to Porto with a 70 strong
guard of honour, a journey which lasted 3 days. The heart is kept in a glass
jar of formaldehyde, the jar is inside a silver urn, which is held in a gold reliquary
and the whole ensemble stored in a mahogany coffin. The coffin is kept behind a
copper plaque inside a mausoleum which requires five different keys to open it.
Stealing Dom Pedro’s heart is almost mission impossible.
![]() |
Dom Pedro I on his deathbed in Queluz, by José Joaquim Rodrigues Primavera, 1834. |
His
body, left to the city of Lisbon, was interred alongside his royal ancestors in
the Pantheon of the House of Braganza in the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
in Lisbon. The body remained there until 1972 when the military junta in Brazil
requested that it be repatriated to Brazil in time for the 150-year anniversary
of independence. It was the dying days of the Estado Novo, Salazar had died in
1970, and the country was embroiled in a set of disastrous wars in almost all
of its colonial possessions. Virtually friendless on the international stage, Brazil’s
military dictatorship was one of Portugal’s few allies. So when they asked for
the corpse of a dead king Portugal was happy to agree and to throw in a couple
of dead Princesses as well, to keep Dom Pedro from getting lonely in his new
home in the specially built crypt of the Monument to Independence in São Paulo.
![]() |
The marriage record of David Jersey and Ann Garrin at St Stephens, Coleman Street |