Some monasteries were dissolved more thoroughly than others. As you can see Shaftesbury Abbey was dissolved as thoroughly as an Alka- Seltzer in a tooth mug.
A few stones mark out what had been the second richest abbey in the kingdom, until the king chose the abbey-free option in 1536, not an especially easy date to remember. You will not forget when Shaftesbury Abbey was founded: 888 AD, by King Alfred. He installed his daughter, Æthelgifu as the first abbess (we won’t mention her again as she’s hard to spell) and, though he is buried in Winchester, is commemorated at the abbey with this representation; a fanciful depiction glowering over a flower bed.
So here’s a royal abbey with almost five hundred years of history; now an oasis in the centre of Shaftesbury. After clocking King Alfred there is one other significant feature: this chest tomb.
The Edward in question is St Edward the Martyr, teenage king for three years from 975 AD. Whether his life was solitary, poor, nasty and brutish I cannot say but it was short. He was murdered at Corfe Castle and his remains eventually came to Shaftesbury. It was not until the 20th century that they were disinterred. There was no royal re-burial at Shaftesbury such as Richard III’s in Leicester Cathedral in 2015. Instead there was an unseemly squabble over the saint’s bones, the outcome of which was that his remains were buried in a shrine at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.
So the chest tomb at Shaftesbury is empty but it is hoped (at least in Shaftesbury) St Edward’s bones may one day be returned to what seems a more appropriate resting place than Surrey. The tomb was constructed with this in mind in the 20th century; so the history of the abbey may have another chapter.
Visitors to Shaftesbury pay more attention to this street (Golden Hill) than the abbey and here’s why.
It was not a smooth transfer. Edward’s bones were put in a cutlery box which was placed in the vaults of the Woking Branch of the Midland Bank for 30 years while two brothers whose family had owned the Abbey argued over their disposition. One wanted them to stay in Shaftesbury while the other hawked them unsuccessfully around various dioceses before finally convincing the Brookwood Cemetery branch of the Russian Orthodox Church to accept them. The bones being royal, the Attorney General intervened in the subsequent litigation which was no doubt as lucrative for the lawyers as it was undignified for Edward’s memory. So, pursuant to a High Court ruling, they now rest in a commercial cemetery built for commuters far from Edward’s home. Surely they should be returned to what Thomas Hardy called the ‘magnificent apsidal abbey, the chief glory of South Wessex’. This assumes that the bones are Edward’s. Prince Philip kindly provided a DNA sample to verify the last Tsar’s remains. Maybe another royal could offer a DNA sample here.