The Perth Charterhouse – James I and Queen Joan’s Tomb.
Professor Richard Oram.
Foremost amongst the reasons why James chose to found a Carthusian priory at Perth was his desire to create a generator of spiritual power that would be channelled towards securing the future salvation of his mortal soul. The austere Carthusian monks, whose severely simple life and reputation for intense spirituality and personal piety had earned them a reputation as intercessors with God, had been selected carefully with that purpose in mind. The church which stood at the heart of the priory complex was intended from the outset to be the burial-place of James and Joan, where they could rest at peace for all eternity, spiritually safe amidst the masses and prayers celebrated around them.
Although we have no images or descriptions of what the royal tomb looked like, we can be fairly sure of its general appearance and location. Like the tomb of Joan’s uncle at Mount Grace in Yorkshire (whose site is in the middle of the photograph, marked out on the grass), it would have been covered by a free-standing monument, formed like a great stone chest, on top of which there were almost certainly life-size effigies of the king and queen lying on their backs, side-by-side, with hands clasped in prayer. We are used to seeing tomb effigies as bare stone carvings, but originally they would have been painted in vibrant colours, adorned with gilding and set with sparkling glass ‘jewels’ to reflect back the light of the altar candles. James and Joan would have known of the magnificent tomb built for Philip, duke of Burgundy, in the Charterhouse of Champmol near Dijon, which was the envy of Europe’s rulers, and seen the tombs of England’s Lancastrian kings in Canterbury and Westminster and wanted to emulate them. The mid-15th-century effigies of Sir Duncan Campbell (d.1453) and his wife, Lady Marjory Stewart, at Kilmun in Argyllshire, give a sense of how these paired monuments would have looked, but without the colour and gilding that once adorned them.
Work on the tomb would have started almost as soon as work on the priory church had begun, so intimate was the link between the building and the burial place. Kings took great care over their graves and monuments, which were as important for their reputation after death as their acts had been in life. It would have been covered in richly symbolic carving to stress his power as a king but, more importantly, his Christian faith and deep relationship with the Church. Like the Charterhouse itself, however, the tomb was still unfinished when James was murdered and work continued for several years after his death, with records of payments for paintwork and purchases of iron to make the wrought-iron railings and grilles to enclose the monument and protect it from damage.
We are used to ‘state funerals’ for the great and the powerful, but James’s funeral in February 1437 would have been quieter and more intimate. A public procession would have conveyed the king’s coffin on a bier to the gates of the priory precinct, but only the closest family and senior royal councillors and selected churchmen would have been permitted to accompany it inside. Magnificent though the church may have been, it was small and could not hold a great throng of people. Instead, the funeral party and the monks would have formed a select group who processed in, carrying the coffin, for the requiem mass and interment. Not even the sound of the monks’ plainsong would have carried over the precinct wall to those outside, just the tolling of the bell in the priory’s tower.