n lead and placed upon his breast, and among
further royal personages whose hearts were buried in a similar manner
may be mentioned Charles II., William and Mary, George, Prince of
Denmark, and Queen Anne.

The heart of Edward, Lord Bruce, was enclosed in a silver case, and
deposited in the abbey church of Culross, near the family seat. In the
year 1808, this sad relic was discovered by Sir Robert Preston, the
lid of the silver case bearing on the exterior the name of the
unfortunate duellist; and, after drawings had been taken of it, the
whole was carefully replaced in the vault; and in St. Nicholas's
Chapel, Westminster, was enshrined the heart of Esme Stuart, Duke of
Richmond, where a monument to his memory is still to be seen with this
fact inscribed upon it.

Many interesting instances of heart burial are to be found in our
parish churches. In the church of Horndon-on-the-Hill, Essex, which
was once the seat of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a nameless black marble
monument is pointed out as that of Anne Boleyn. According to a popular
tradition long current in the neighbourhood, this is said to have
contained the head, or heart. "It is within a narrow seat," writes
Miss Strickland, "and may have contained her head, or her heart, for
it is too short to contain a body. The oldest people in the
neighbourhood all declare that they have heard the tradition in their
youth from a previous generation of aged persons, who all affirm it to
be Anne Boleyn's monument." But, it would seem, there has always been
a mysterious uncertainty about Anne Boleyn's burial place, and a
correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (October, 1815), speaks of
"the headless remains of the departed queen, as deposited in the arrow
chest and buried in the Tower Chapel before the high altar. Where that
stood, the most sagacious antiquary, after a lapse of more than 300
years, cannot now determine; nor is the circumstance, though related
by eminent writers, clearly ascertained. In a cellar, the body of a
person of short stature, without a head, not many years since, was
found, and supposed to be the reliques of poor Anne, but soon after it
was reinterred in the same place and covered with earth."[51]

By her testament, Eleanor, Duchess of Buckingham, wife of Edward, Duke
of Buckingham, who was beheaded on May 17th, 1521, appointed her heart
to be buried in the church of the Grey Friars, within the City of
London; and in the Sackville Vault, in Withyam Chur