King James II (of England) died of a brain haemorrhage on 16 September 1701, aged 67, at Saint–Germain–en–Laye (in the western suburbs of Paris). His remains were distributed to six different places in France (five of them in Paris).
James's heart was placed in a silver–gilt locket and given to the convent at Chaillot (Paris's 16th arrondissement); his brain was placed in a lead casket and given to the Scots College in Paris. His entrails were placed in two gilt urns and sent to the parish church of Saint–Germain–en–Laye and the English Jesuit college at Saint–Omer (some 20 miles inland from Calais), while the flesh from his right arm was given to the English Augustinian nuns of Paris.
The rest of James's body was laid to rest in a triple sarcophagus (two wooden coffins with one of lead between them) at the Chapel of St. Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. James's dying wish was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, so rather than being buried, the coffin was put in one of the side chapels. Unfortunately (whichever side you're on, as it turned out) James never got his wish. The Archbishop of Paris heard evidence in 1734 to support his canonisation, but nothing further came of it.
Lights were kept burning round James's coffin until the French Revolution, when the tomb was raided. Sources differ on what happened to James's remains at this time, but it seems likely that they were all lost – except possibly the urn, containing half of his bowel, that was sent to Saint–Germain–en–Laye. Some say that this was rediscovered in 1824, when the church was rebuilt after demolition, and reburied. If this is true, they remain there to this day.
BBC: Missing Monarchs – "the kings who did not rest in peace"
Nonfictioness (the blog of Claire Cock–Starkey)
Wikipedia: what happened after the Revolution?
© Haydn Thompson 2021