Some famous people and their dead bodies and body parts. Post-mortem adventures. From Ramses II to Thomas Paine.

Bodies were often not left to rest in peace.

The pope who stood trial after his death.

Ramses II inspects a guard of honour 3,500 years after his death.

Oliver Cromwell. Executed two years after his death.

La Grande Mademoiselle and her exploding entrails.

The clergyman who ate the heart of a king.

The queen whose lips continued to pray fifteen minutes after her death.

Napoleon's penis. Removed after his death?

St Anthony of Padua's tongue.

The Auto- Icon of Jeremy Bentham.

Where are the remains of Thomas Paine?

Some appropriate music. by Saint Saens.

When we study history we are fascinated by the things that famous, and not so famous, people did in their lives. For instance if Julius Caesar had listened to the soothsayer's warning he would have not been assassinated. If Isaac Newton didnt like sitting in orchards, we wouldnt know about gravity, and Ben Franklin's propensity for playing dangerous, and childish games, with kites mean that I am able to type this now, as he discovered electricity, and this computer runs off it.

But it is not about the things that people did when they were alive that I want to write about today, but I would rather tell you about some very interesting things that our characters got up to after they were dead. Sometimes it was the whole person, and then again, occasionally only part of the person will be featured. The circumstances that brought about some of their deaths, or the divisions that might have been made to their bodies "post mortem", have bearing on their "performances"

Pope Formosus was Pope between 891 and 896. His was a troubled pontificate, and in 897 his body was disinterred by his successor John VII, placed on a papal throne, and tried for being an unworthy pope.
He was found guilty, and the three fingers that he had used for blessing were cut off. His body was thrown in The Tiber, but it was fished out by a monk.
He must have been innocent of the crimes imputed to him, as several miracles are claimed for people who touched his corpse.

Ramses II was Pharaoh of Egypt 1279 BC – 1213 BC. He was considered to be one of the very greatest of the ancient egyptian kings. When he died he was buried with great pomp in The Valley of The Kings, but later his body was moved, along with many of his royal colleagues, to a cave in the hills to avoid the depredations of the tomb robbers. They were discovered in the nineteenth century, and are currently in The Cairo Museum.
In the nineteen seventies King Ramses's mummy was housed in one of the tombs in The Valley of The Kings.
In 1974, Egyptologists visiting his tomb noticed that the mummy's condition was rapidly deteriorating. They decided to fly it to Paris for examination. Ramses II was issued an Egyptian passport that listed his occupation as "King (deceased)". The mummy was received at Le Bourget airport, just outside Paris, with the full military honours befitting a king.

When the english republican dictator Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, with full honours like a king. In 1660 The monarchy was restored in the person of Charles II. It was decided to punish those who had been responsible for the execution of the late king, Charles I. Some, who were alive, were given a traitors death, but Cromwell was already dead. So accordingly his body was dug up, drawn on a hurdle through the streets of London, and hanged on the gallows at Tyburn. It was then taken down and quartered, and the head was struck off.
I dont know what happened to his body. His head stayed on a spike over Westminster Hall, until it blew down in 1685. It then passed through a number of hands, as a museum piece, until 1960 when it was finally buried in Sydney Sussex College Cambridge, which was Cromwell's university.

La Grande Mademoiselle. Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier was the cousin of King Louis XIV of France, and one of the most interesting characters in seventeenth century France. She was always "her own woman", and was consequently frequently in trouble with her cousin The King. She never married, because no man of sufficient rank to marry her really took her fancy, and it would have been unthinkable for her to marry beneath her.
She died in 1693.
It was customary to embalm royal corpses, and to place the entrails in an urn separately from the coffin.
During the funeral of Mademoiselle, the urn exploded. The entire royal family, and all the courtiers had to flee the church because of the smell.

Devon geologist and clergyman William Buckland was a noted eccentric, whose ambition was to eat at least one of every animal there was. He frequently served up baked mice and rats to his guests. Once on a visit to The Archbishop of York he was shown the preserved heart of King Louis XIV, which the bishop had bought from grave robbers. The Reverend Buckland immediately grabbed the heart and had it sauteed, and then slow roasted. He ate it for his supper with a serving of broad beans.
He said it tasted fine, but a bit chewy.

When Mary Queen of Scots was suffering a martyr's death in 1587, she was not allowed the ministrations of a catholic priest, before having her head taken off. On the scaffold, she was constantly being berated by her executioners to prevent her praying. After her execution, when the executioner held her head up to display to the company, it was noticed that her lips were still moving. They continued in that manner for another fifteen minutes.

When Napoleon Bonaparte died on St Helena in eighteen twenty one, an autopsy was performed. It has been alleged that the doctor who performed the examination removed the "imperial" penis, and gave it to a priest. The artifact, alleged to be Napoleon's willy has been passed around various museums, and collectors ever since. It is very tiny and shrivelled, and has been described as being like a maltreated shoelace, or a shriveled eel.
So far nobody has done DNA tests to discover if it is authentic.

St Anthony of Padua was a franciscan friar, noted for his great eloquence in preaching.
When he died in 1231 his body was buried in the little Franciscan Church of St. Mary in Padua. By 1263 a great basilica was built so that the saint's remains could be buried beneath the high altar.
When the coffin was opened to inspect his remains, the entire body was skeletonised, apart from his tongue which was perfectly preserved.
It is now on display in St Anthony's Basilica in Padua.

If you vist the south cloisters of University College London, you will see a glass cabinet with the stuffed remains of English reformer, and philosopher Jeremy Bentham, sitting on a chair "looking at" you. When he died in 1835 he left instructions that his body was to be stuffed and put on display. He has a wax head. The real one was not very successfully embalmed. It used to sit at the front of his cabinet, between his feet; but because people were always stealing it, it is now kept hidden in a secure place. The last time the head was stolen, it was being used as a ball at a rather rowdy student football game.

When English renegade, or American patriot, (whichever you prefer), Thomas Paine died in 1809, his body was buried in La Rochelle in New York State. The english radical politician, William Cobbett, exhumed the remains in 1819, and shipped them to England, as he considered that Paine was not being suitably treated in America. He wanted to bury him in England with an elaborate memorial.
The english government refused permission, as Thomas Paine was a notorious republican. His remains were kept in a chest in Cobbett's attic until that man's death in 1835. His son is said to have sold the remains in pieces. Part of him is even said to have been made into buttons.
Americans have been trying to trace the bits ever since.

These are just a few of the stories of the adventures of the body parts, and sometimes the whole bodies, of the famous dead. If anyone knows of other similar tales, please post them in the comments.