by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2024

One of my favorite vacation pastimes is to pay a call on dead royals. I highly recommend it for learning and making history come alive. I am fortunate to have visited the royal burial sites of the current monarchies of Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom including England and Scotland. In addition, I have visited the royal burial sites of the former monarchies of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, Bavaria, France, and Russia.

Unofficial Royalty: Royal Funerals & Burial Sites has links to articles about burial sites of current and past monarchies. All information below is taken from articles at Unofficial Royalty.

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My Creepiest Experience – Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan (Theatine Church of St. Cajetan) in Munich, Germany

• Unofficial Royalty: Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan (Theatine Church of St. Cajetan) in Munich, Germany
• Unofficial Royalty: Royal Burial Sites of the Kingdom of Bavaria

The traditional burial site for the Electors of Bavaria was the Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan (Theatine Church of St Cajetan) in Munich, Germany which contains the tombs of most of the Electors of Bavaria and their wives, as well as several members of the subsequent Bavarian Royal Family. Besides the Theatine Church, rulers of the House of Wittelsbach have been interred at the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) in Munich, Michaelskirche (St. Michael’s Church) in Munich, and the Andechs Abbey in Andechs.

When I visited the Theatinekirche, my husband did not want to pay the two euros for admission to the crypt, so I went into the crypt alone – just me and 47 coffins of members of the House of Wittelsbach – no one else was there. Being alone was a fairly creepy experience. I looked around, took photos, and exited quickly! Still haunting.

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My Most Amazing Royal Burials Experience – Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Petersburg, Russia

• Unofficial Royalty: Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Petersburg, Russia
• Unofficial Royalty: Romanov Burial Sites

Visiting the burial site of the Romanovs at the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul in St. Petersburg, Russia was something I never thought I would do. On a trip to Denmark and Sweden, my husband and I took a cruise from Stockholm, Sweden with ports of call at Helsinki, Finland and St. Petersburg, Russia. The ship was docked in St. Petersburg for two days. On each day, an eight-hour excursion that visited places related to the Romanovs was offered. Of course, we went on both excursions. Besides visiting the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, we visited the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and Tsarkoe Selo, the town 15 miles/24 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, where the Alexander Palace and the Catherine Palace are located.

On an island in the Neva River that flows through St. Petersburg, Russia is the Peter and Paul Fortress, the original citadel of the city established by Peter I (the Great), Emperor of All Russia in 1703. Inside the fortress is a Russian Orthodox cathedral, the Peter and Paul Cathedral, built under Peter I (the Great). The cathedral is the burial place of almost all the Russian emperors and empresses from Peter the Great to Nicholas II and his family, who were finally laid to rest in July 1998. Of the Russian emperors and empresses after Peter the Great, only Peter II and Ivan VI are not buried at the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The place was packed with tourists, local and foreign, feeling the aura and maybe thinking how that government compares with the present one.

On July 17, 1998, on the 80th anniversary of their murders, the remains of Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and three of their five children Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia along with the remains of physician Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin, maid Anna Demidova, cook Ivan Khartinov, and footman Alexei Trupp were buried in the Chapel of St. Catherine in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The remains of the last two children of Nicholas II – Maria and Alexei – were found in 2007 and positively identified the following year. After the remains were in the state archives for eight years, a burial was scheduled for October 18, 2015. However, the burial has been delayed mainly due to the insistence of the Russian Orthodox Church on more DNA testing.

Nicholas II, his family, and their servants are buried in a small chapel which visitors cannot enter. To view the chapel, one must wait their turn, and stand in the narrow doorway. To take the photo above, I took up as much space as possible in the doorway so no one would be in my way.

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Plain on the Outside, Lots of Sarcophagi on the Inside – Capuchin Church in Vienna, Austria

• Unofficial Royalty: Capuchin Church in Vienna, Austria
• Unofficial Royalty: A Visit to the Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypt) in Vienna

The Habsburgs, including Holy Roman Emperors, Emperors of Austria from 1804 – 1918, their wives, and some children are buried at the Capuchin Church in Vienna where there is still a cloister of Capuchin monks who take care of the church. Unlike other burial sites I have visited, the Capuchin Church is small and on a street with traffic, shops, stores, restaurants, and cafes. One cafe is directly across from it. Walking past the church, one would never think the burial place of emperors was there. After paying an admission fee, visitors descend the stairs marked by a sign that said “Zur Kaisergruft” to the series of crypts containing the remains of the Habsburgs.

As of 2024, there are 145 Habsburgs interred here, plus urns containing hearts and cremated remains. 107 metal sarcophagi are visible and they range in style from plain to fancy. All sarcophagi are labeled in German with the person’s identity and their relationship to a Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of Austria, or Archduke.

I think this is my second creepiest royal burial site. There are sarcophagi everywhere and some have creepy skulls. Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI’s sarcophagus has a death’s head at each corner wearing one of the crowns of his major realms, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Archduchy of Austria.

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A Destroyed Burial Site – Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland

• Unofficial Royalty: Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh, Scotland

The abbey church of Holyrood Abbey, founded by David I, King of Scots in 1128, now stands in roofless ruins adjacent to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1559, during the Scottish Reformation, the abbey church suffered much damage when a Protestant mob destroyed the altars and looted the rest of the church. In 1569, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland decided to demolish the east end of the abbey church because of the damage. Only the nave was retained, all but two of the windows in the nave were blocked up, and the royal tombs were removed to a new royal burial vault in the south aisle.

In 1688, the abbey church was ransacked by a mob, furious with the Roman Catholic allegiance of James VII, King of Scots (also James II, King of England). There was some restoration work done on the abbey church in 1758 – 1760 including the rebuilding of the roof but during a storm in 1768 the roof collapsed, leaving the abbey in its current ruins.

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Destruction and Restoration – Basilica of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, France

• Unofficial Royalty: Basilica of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis, France
• Unofficial Royalty: French Royal Burial Sites: House of Valois
• Unofficial Royalty: French Royal Burial Sites: House of Bourbon, House of Bonaparte, House of Orléans

The Basilica of Saint-Denis is a Roman Catholic church in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, France. The current Gothic cathedral was built in the 12th century. The Kings of France and their families were buried for centuries at the Basilica of Saint-Denis. The remains of all but three monarchs of France from the 10th century until 1789 are interred at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

During the French Revolution, the remains of French royals were desecrated and some tombs and effigies were destroyed. By the decree on August 1, 1793, the National Convention ordered: “The tombs and mausoleums of the former kings, mounted in the Church of Saint-Denis, in temples and in other places, across the entire Republic, will be destroyed.” This occurred systematically from August 1793 – October 1793. The remains of 46 kings, 32 queens, and 63 other royals were thrown into two large pits in the monks’ cemetery adjacent to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and covered in quicklime and soil. A combination of seventy effigies and tombs were saved because of the efforts of archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir who claimed them as artworks for his Museum of French Monuments.

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French reopened the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1806 but left the royal remains in their mass graves. One of the first things King Louis XVIII, a younger brother of the guillotined King Louis XVI, did after the Bourbon Restoration in 1814 was to order a search for the remains of his brother and sister-in-law, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. They were originally buried in the cemetery at the Madeleine Church and covered with quicklime. The few remains that were found were reburied at the Basilica of Saint-Denis on January 21, 1815, the twenty-second anniversary of King Louis XVI’s execution.

In 1817, King Louis XVIII ordered the mass graves adjacent to the Basilica of Saint-Denis to be opened but due to the damage from the quicklime, identification of the remains was impossible. The remains were collected into an ossuary, a site serving as the final resting place of human skeletal remains, in the basilica’s crypt. Large marble plates on either side of the gated door leading to the crypt are engraved with the names of those whose remains are buried in the crypt. The seventy effigies and tombs that Alexandre Lenoir saved were returned to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and are now mostly in their original places.

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The Tell-Tale Story of the Heart of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France

• Unofficial Royalty: Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France – Titular King Louis XVII of France

Louis-Charles of France, Dauphin of France, born in 1785, was the only surviving son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, who were guillotined during the French Revolution. Louis-Charles and his family were imprisoned at the Temple, the remains of a medieval fortress in Paris. He was only eight-years old when his parents were beheaded in 1793. The terrible conditions of Louis-Charles’ imprisonment led to the rapid deterioration of his health. Ill with tuberculosis, Louis-Charles died on June 8, 1795, at the age of ten. He was buried in an unmarked grave at the Cimetière Sainte-Marguerite in Paris.

After Louis-Charles’ death, an autopsy was held. Following the tradition of preserving royal hearts, Louis-Charles’ heart was removed and smuggled out during the autopsy by Dr. Philippe-Jean Pelletan, a royalist, who preserved the heart in alcohol. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1815, Dr. Pellatan offered the heart to Louis-Charles’ paternal uncle King Louis XVIII but he refused it because he could not bring himself to believe that it was his nephew’s heart. Following the July Revolution in 1830, Dr. Pelletan’s son found the heart in the remnants of a looted palace and placed it in the crystal urn where it still resides. After the death of Dr. Pelletan’s son in 1879, Eduard Dumont, a relative of Dr. Pelletan’s wife, took possession of the heart.

In 1895, Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Legitimist claimant to the French throne under the name Charles XI, accepted the heart from Eduard Dumont. The heart was kept at Schloss Frohsdorf near Vienna, Austria. Upon the death of his father Carlos, Duke of Madrid in 1909, Jaime, Duke of Madrid, the next Legitimist claimant to the French throne, inherited the heart and gave it to his sister Beatriz.

During World War II, Schloss Frohsdorf suffered damage. The heart was rescued by descendants of Carlos, Duke of Madrid, and ultimately came into the possession of his granddaughter Princess Marie des Neiges Massimo. In 1975, the princess offered the heart to the Memorial of Saint-Denis in Paris, the organization that oversees the royal graves at the Basilica of St. Denis. The heart was placed in an underground chapel at the basilica where the remains of French royals that were desecrated during the French Revolution were subsequently interred.

In 2004, mitochondrial DNA testing proved the heart belonged to Louis-Charles. Comparison samples were taken from descendants of Marie Antoinette’s sisters, members of the Bourbon-Parma family including Queen Anne of Romania who was born a Princess of Bourbon-Parma, and a strand of Marie-Antoinette’s hair. With the approval of the French government, the Legitimists organized a ceremony at the Basilica of St. Denis on June 8, 2004, the 209th anniversary of Louis-Charles’ death. His heart was placed in a niche near the graves of his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette whose remains were transferred to the basilica in 1815.

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“I feel like everywhere I walk, I’m walking over dead people.” – Westminster Abbey in London, England

• Unofficial Royalty: Westminster Abbey in London, England
• Unofficial Royalty: Westminster Abbey: Royal Burials
• Unofficial Royalty: British Royal Burial Sites

Note: I have no photos of Westminster Abbey because photographs are not allowed.

Not exactly Haley Joel Osment’s “I see dead people” from The Sixth Sense, but the comment above was said by my 13-year-old son during a 1990 visit to Westminster Abbey. Yes, there are a lot of dead people there. One of the United Kingdom’s most significant honors is to be buried or commemorated in Westminster Abbey. Musicians, poets, generals, admirals, politicians, doctors, scientists, and more were given the honor over the years. There have been over 3,300 burials and there are over 600 monuments, wall tablets, and markers on the floor. People have been interred in crypts under the floor, in the walls, in side chapels, and in tombs.

One of the renowned people accorded a burial at Westminster Abbey was the theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking. On June 15, 2018, his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey’s nave, alongside the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Thirty kings and queens are buried at Westminster Abbey, starting with King Edward the Confessor whose magnificent shrine stands just behind the High Altar. Five kings and four queens lie buried in his Chapel.

October 13 is the feast day of St. Edward the Confessor, the day his body was interred in Westminster Abbey in 1163. Every year, from October 13 – 18, St. Edward the Confessor is remembered and celebrated. A national pilgrimage to his shrine is held, attracting people from across the United Kingdom and the world. I have visited Westminster Abbey several times and one of those times was during the national pilgrimage. The Chapel of Edward the Confessor is usually not open but it is open during the national pilgrimage and it was awe-inspiring to see Edward the Confessor’s shrine surrounded by the tombs of kings and queens.

Mary, Queen of Scots, who was beheaded in 1587 during the reign of her first cousin once removed Queen Elizabeth I of England, was originally buried at Peterborough Cathedral. In 1612, Mary’s remains were exhumed upon the orders of her son King James I of England and ironically were reburied in a chapel directly across the aisle from the chapel containing the tomb of Queen Elizabeth I.

By the time King George II died in 1760, the royal burial vaults at Westminster Abbey were quite crowded. His successor, his grandson King George III, decided to build a new royal vault at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Since the reign of King George III, royal burials, with a few exceptions, have been at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle or the Royal Burial Ground and Mausoleums at Frogmore, near Windsor Castle. The last monarch buried in Westminster Abbey was King George II in 1760. The last royal burial in Westminster Abbey was that of Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland, son of Frederick, Prince of Wales and brother of King George III, in 1790.

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