Committed to the deep : A post about burial at sea.
My recent post on Ned Pellew's final orders No singing no sermon
made eglantine_br ask what form his funeral would have taken in that case.
Some thoughts on that and how the TV series depicts burials at sea follow under the cut.
When the sea shall give up her dead
The answer to that is the form of service for Burial in the 1662 Prayer book of the Church of England with its very familiar set of sentences as the procession goes to the church or the grave, so often shown in dramas of all kinds :"I Am the resurrection and the life " and later as the priest and people throw soil into the grave 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'..
The service will be one which was only too familiar to Pellew and every naval officer who had served through many years at that period because as lieutenants and captains they will have read the service when members of their ship's company were shrouded in weighted hammocks and sent overboard.You may recall several scenes of that happening such as the one where Lt.Ecclestone is reading the service for the sailor in Horatio's division who dies after losing a leg in action and Horatio is on hand to remind him that the mans name was Davy Williams.
That scene is well written not only for its progression of the trust between Horatio and his division, and for the nice little hint of the distance of a first lieutenant from the ordinary sailors but because of what the lieutenant is shown reading.For there is one crucial difference between a burial in a churchyard and at sea which the prayer book provided for -such is the importance of Britain's navy historically that there is a special 6 page section of prayers and readings entitled Forms of prayer to be used at sea.
Most specifically there is one prayer that is for the moment the body is let go, the committal.The image of dust to dust not working off dry land the prayer is completely different.What the lieutenant is reading is this:
We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption,looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come,through our Lord Jesus Christ who at his coming shall change our vile body,that it may be like his glorious body,according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.
Imagery that follows from the theological trends of the age - though I wish the prayer book compilers had been more influenced by the transformation the sea makes as in Shakespeare's Tempest 'Full Fathom Five...a sea change, into something rich and strange'! Perhaps fanciful but a good deal more beautiful.
But back to Ned Pellew by insisting on a service without sermon or singing Pellew was asking to be taken to his grave with the same words that any ordinary seaman of any rank would have had spoken over him -with the exception of this prayer that I suspect held a particular place in many officers hearts simply because of those over whom they had read the service, holding in their grief for the sake of order.It is more than likely that one of the first times Pellew had done that for his very much loved mentor Captain Pownoll.
Of course every officer will also remember bodies thrown overboard in the heat of battle for whom there was no memorial or burial service, other than the memories kept and perhaps passed on by their friends.it is appropriate that it is after Davy's funeral that Styles first begins to respect Horatio. The special section of prayers in the prayer book was an acknowledgement of the service and often sacrifice which so many men gave their lives for, many of whom had no standing memorial to glorify them, but for whom the rituals and routines they observed kept the honour of dead friends remembered.
made eglantine_br ask what form his funeral would have taken in that case.
Some thoughts on that and how the TV series depicts burials at sea follow under the cut.
When the sea shall give up her dead
The answer to that is the form of service for Burial in the 1662 Prayer book of the Church of England with its very familiar set of sentences as the procession goes to the church or the grave, so often shown in dramas of all kinds :"I Am the resurrection and the life " and later as the priest and people throw soil into the grave 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'..
The service will be one which was only too familiar to Pellew and every naval officer who had served through many years at that period because as lieutenants and captains they will have read the service when members of their ship's company were shrouded in weighted hammocks and sent overboard.You may recall several scenes of that happening such as the one where Lt.Ecclestone is reading the service for the sailor in Horatio's division who dies after losing a leg in action and Horatio is on hand to remind him that the mans name was Davy Williams.
That scene is well written not only for its progression of the trust between Horatio and his division, and for the nice little hint of the distance of a first lieutenant from the ordinary sailors but because of what the lieutenant is shown reading.For there is one crucial difference between a burial in a churchyard and at sea which the prayer book provided for -such is the importance of Britain's navy historically that there is a special 6 page section of prayers and readings entitled Forms of prayer to be used at sea.
Most specifically there is one prayer that is for the moment the body is let go, the committal.The image of dust to dust not working off dry land the prayer is completely different.What the lieutenant is reading is this:
We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption,looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead) and the life of the world to come,through our Lord Jesus Christ who at his coming shall change our vile body,that it may be like his glorious body,according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.
Imagery that follows from the theological trends of the age - though I wish the prayer book compilers had been more influenced by the transformation the sea makes as in Shakespeare's Tempest 'Full Fathom Five...a sea change, into something rich and strange'! Perhaps fanciful but a good deal more beautiful.
But back to Ned Pellew by insisting on a service without sermon or singing Pellew was asking to be taken to his grave with the same words that any ordinary seaman of any rank would have had spoken over him -with the exception of this prayer that I suspect held a particular place in many officers hearts simply because of those over whom they had read the service, holding in their grief for the sake of order.It is more than likely that one of the first times Pellew had done that for his very much loved mentor Captain Pownoll.
Of course every officer will also remember bodies thrown overboard in the heat of battle for whom there was no memorial or burial service, other than the memories kept and perhaps passed on by their friends.it is appropriate that it is after Davy's funeral that Styles first begins to respect Horatio. The special section of prayers in the prayer book was an acknowledgement of the service and often sacrifice which so many men gave their lives for, many of whom had no standing memorial to glorify them, but for whom the rituals and routines they observed kept the honour of dead friends remembered.