nearly of an even surface with the bottoms of the sockets of the eyes. The whole of the upper jaw was displaced from the skull, and found near the right elbow: it contained four teeth in very good preservation, The lower jaw was also separated from the skull; there were no teeth in this jaw. Some grey hairs were discernible under the covering of the head. The ulna of the left arm, which had been folded on the body, was found detached from it, and lying obliquely on the breast; the ulna of the right arm lay nearly in its proper place, but the radius of neither arm, nor the bones of either hand, were visible. The bones of the toes were in good preservation, more particularly those of the right foot, on two or three of which the nails were still visible. The rest of the bones, more especially of the lower extremities, were nearly perfect. Some large pieces of mortar were found on and below the abdomen; from which there could be no doubt but the body had been removed from the place of its original sepulture. The body measured five feet six inches and a half. It is somewhat singular, that, after lying there 582 years, the body was not more decayed. John died at Newark, in Nottinghamshire, October 19, 1215. His bowels and heart were buried at Croxton abbey, in Staffordshire; the abbot of which had been his physician, and performed the operation of embalming him.

"The dress in which the body of the king was found, appears also to have been similar to that in which his figure is represented on the tomb, excepting the gloves on its

WORCESTER.

hands, and the crown on its head, which on the skull in the coffin was found to be the celebrated monk's cowl, in which he is recorded to be buried, as a passport through the regions of purgatory. The sacred envelope appeared to have fitted the head very closely, and had been tied or buckled under the chin by straps, parts of which remained. The body was covered by a robe, reaching from the neck nearly to the feet; it had some of its embroidery still remaining near the right knee. It was apparently of crimson damask, and of strong texture: its colour however was so totally discharged from the effect of time, that it is but conjecturally it can be said to have been of any but what has now pervaded the whole object, namely, a dusky brown. The cuff of the left arm, which had been laid on the breast, remained. In that hand a sword, in a leather scabbard, had been placed as on the tomb, parts of which, much decayed, were found at intervals down the left side of the body, and to the feet, as were also parts of the scabbard, but in a much more perfect state than those of the sword. The legs had on a sort of ornamented covering, which was tied round at the ankles, and extended over the feet, were the toes were visible through its decayed parts. The coffin is of the Higley stone of Worcestershire, white, and chisel-levelled, wholly dissimilar in its kind to either that of the foundation of the tomb, its pannels, covering, or the figure of the king. A very considerable fracture runs through it in an oblique direction, one foot six inches from the left shoulder, to two feet nine inches from the right. The coffin is