From parrots to painted shields A feast of royal artefacts

1 This West African parrot was the lifelong companion of Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, who was thought a great beauty (she was, it is said, one of the few women to reject the advances of Charles II). The parrot died very soon after her, in 1702. X-rays show that its entire skeleton is intact, including the skull, and it has probably survived because it has been kept in a case with the Duchess’s funeral effigy (also on show).

2 Wood, and later wax, effigies were made for the funerals of monarchs, when the delay caused by planning intricate formal ceremonies made displaying the real body impossible. Aristocrats copied the custom and specified the exact items of clothing, down to the effigies’ stockings, corsets and bloomers. The bodies are mostly fashioned from wood and straw, but great attention was paid to the faces, and hands, which were modelled in wax to be incredibly lifelike. The earliest at the abbey belongs to Edward III, who died in 1377. This one was for Robert Sheffield, Marquess of Normanby, who died aged three, in 1715.

3 Henry V was crowned at the abbey in 1413. Nine years later, his embalmed body was brought back from France in a coffin. He is buried at the eastern end of St Edward the Confessor’s chapel. The original silver head and hands of his effigy were stolen in 1546, and replaced by resin versions only in the 1970s. His funeral “achievements” – a saddle, helm and shield – placed in the chapel at the same time he was interred, are things he would have used. The saddle was originally covered in blue velvet, while the front of the shield was painted with the arms of France and England – faint traces of blue paint remain. The five-sectioned jousting helm weighs 16lb.

4 Latin for “Royal Book”, the Liber Regalis contains the order of service and ceremonial instructions for the coronation. Dating from the 14th century, it was probably made in preparation for the 1382 coronation of Richard II’S wife, Anne of Bohemia. It provided the order of service for all coronations up to and including Elizabeth I, after which the liturgy was translated into English, but the ceremony’s basic form remains, and was used for Elizabeth II, in 1953.

Lucy Davies