10 British Kings Buried In Unusual Places

6. King James II Was Dissected After Death And His Body Parts Sent Around France... But His Intestines Were Reinterred At St-Germain-En-Laye In 1824

King James II of England and VII of Scotland ruled on the throne between February 6, 1685 and December 11, 1688 - before he was deposed during the Glorious Revolution for Dutch stadtholder King William III of Orange-Nassau and his wife Queen Mary II. After being exiled for a second time having failed to lead a rebellion from Ireland to reclaim the British throne, James II lived in the royal chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the western suburbs of Paris in France. It was here that he died on September 16, 1701, of a suspected brain haemorrhage - and his body was placed to rest in the Chapel of Saint Edmund in the Church of the English Benedictines in the Rue St Jacques in Paris. However, not before it had been dissected and his brain sent to the Scots College in Paris, his intestines divided between the English Church of St Omer and the parish church of St-Germain-en-Laye, and his heart given to the Convent of the Vistandine Nus at Chaillot. Due to the fact King James II was not buried but merely placed in one of the side chapels, during the French Revolution of 1789 his tomb was demolished and his brain disappeared. The only part of his that was kept were his intestines, and they were reinterred at the church of St-Germain-en-Laye in 1824 and remain to this day. Who knows what happened to the rest of him...