November 7, 2024 • 9 mins
The dead can still be the subject of conversation, as these two curious stories show us.
Pre-order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading this November!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In eighteen fifty one,
(00:38):
a young British man visited London on grim business. He
had just finished burying his mother and now he had
the unenviable task of going through her estate. He was
emptying her desk drawer when he found a small black
object wrapped in paper. When he realized what it was,
he almost dropped it. It was his father's burned and
blackened heart. The story of how the heart was wound
(01:00):
up in that desk begins in eighteen fourteen with one
of the most quintessentially Gothic love affairs in history. It
centered on two star crossed lovers. Mary was the sixteen
year old daughter of a broke novelist. Percy was a
young poet who hung around Mary's house, always trying to
get her father to look at his writing. He was
(01:20):
also twenty one and married with a child on the way.
Despite the obstacles, Mary and Percy were instantly drawn to
one another. They soon began a torrid affair, meeting in
secret by her mother's gravestone. Eventually, they decided to make
their love public, revealing it to Mary's father and Percy's wife.
Neither family took the news very well, and Percy was
(01:41):
forbidden from seeing Mary ever again, but the young lovers
refused to accept defeat. They fled home and spent months
traveling abroad in Europe. When they returned, Mary was pregnant. Unfortunately,
the child was born premature and died only a few
days later. Mary's grief was made worse when news of
her affair spread. She and Percy were ostracized by London society.
(02:04):
The scandal soon became so overwhelming the couple decided to
flee England again, despite being out of money. It wasn't
long before another tragedy struck. Two years into the affair,
Percy's wife, Harriet, was found floating in London's Serpentine River,
having taken her own life. Mary was riddled with guilt
over Harriet's death, but it solved a lot of her
(02:25):
problems too. She and Percy were married only two weeks later,
finally putting an end to the gossip. They were now
free to live more or less as they pleased, but
still preferred to avoid London, where they felt unwelcome for
so long. They traveled, often staying in the Italian countryside
with Percy's wealthy author friends. Meanwhile, Percy and Mary's relationship
(02:47):
continued to face obstacles. They lost two more children to illness,
leaving Mary deeply depressed. Percy sought solace outside their marriage.
He fathered a child with another woman in eighteen eighteen,
and may have had a separate, ongoing relationship with Mary's
stepsister Claire. Despite Percy's infidelity, Mary's love was steadfast. While
(03:07):
they went through periods of estrangement, she always returned to
him eventually, at least until eighteen twenty two. On July
eighth of that year, Percy was sailing off the coast
of Italy when he was caught in a storm. The
boat capsized and twenty nine year old Percy drowned. His
body washed up on shore, where it was found ten
days later. Because it was in the water so long,
(03:28):
there were concerns that the body might carry bacteria. It
was cremated on the beach and the remains were taken
to Rome for burial. At least most of the remains
were buried there. For some reason, Percy's heart survived the cremation.
This is hard to explain, but it could have been
caused by the heart calcifying due to an earlier.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Bouts of tuberculosis. For Mary, though, it was proof that
her husband's romantic spirit persisted beyond the grave. She brought
the organ home, wrapped it in one of Percy's poems,
and placed it in the top drawer of her right,
where it stayed until her death. It's a little spooky
to think of her sitting at that desk writing away
while her husband's calcified heart lay mere inches away. Maybe
(04:11):
it inspired her because her writing captured both romance and horror.
Mary was, of course Mary Shelley, best known as the
author of the novel Frankenstein. Her husband was Percy Biss Shelley,
a famous romantic poet. The strange fate of Percy's heart
is both an unsettling footnote to their torrid relationship and
(04:31):
a romantic symbol of all they endured after everything they'd
been through scandal, infidelity, and even death, their love still burned.
(04:55):
When a person dies, we remember them in a number
of ways. We hold a funeral so that we can
bid them goodbye one last time. We might hold a
candlelight vigil or donate money in their honor as well.
But those who are buried in cemeteries are usually commemorated
by way of a plaque or tombstone marking their grave site.
It could be inscribed with the dates of their birth
(05:17):
and death, or a heartfelt message of peace and love.
But not Sir George Yardley. His grave was different, and
for a good reason. George was born in fifteen eighty
seven in Surrey, England, the son of a merchant tailor
from London, but rather than enter the family business, he
took a different route for his life. He joined the military.
(05:37):
He spent several years at war before seeking new horizons
quite literally. In sixteen oh nine, George ventured out to
sea with Sir Thomas Gates and a fleet of ships
carrying colonists and supplies for an expedition to Jamestown in America.
Although their trip took a bit longer than expected, a
nasty storm forced their ship to wreck in Bermuda, and
(05:59):
it took the crew almost a whole year to build
two new ships that would take every one to Virginia,
but they eventually made it. By the time everyone arrived,
conditions in the colony had grown dire. Many were already
dead from sickness or a lack of food, or from
attacks by the local indigenous tribes. But while others took
to helping the struggling colony, George was given another task.
(06:22):
He was sent to look for gold and silver in
the nearby mountain ranges. Years passed, and in sixteen sixteen,
his hard work and loyalty had earned him the title
of Deputy Governor of Virginia. Throughout his tenure as both
Deputy Governor and then as governor, George accomplished quite a lot.
He secured peace treaties with the Chickahamane Native Americans, formed
(06:43):
a local governing body, cultivated land with other farmers, and
encouraged the construction of a new college. He also married
a woman named Temperance Flowerdew. She had arrived in Jamestown
the year before her would be husband, and the couple
had three children together, Elizabeth, Abigail and their youngest A
son named Francis. But not everything George did was good
(07:05):
or wholesome. He oversaw the introduction of the slave trade
to Virginia when a ship carrying dozens of enslaved Africans
landed on its shores. The governor then chose to own
a number of enslaved persons himself, putting them to work
on his private plantation. Sir George Yeardley did not live long.
He died in sixteen twenty seven, when he was roughly
forty years of age. His body was laid to rest
(07:28):
in Jamestown and adorned with a large grave marker made
of polished black limestone. It was a significant grave too,
likely of some great expense, given that had to be quarried, cut,
and imported from Europe. The stone featured a carving of
a knight in armor, to its left a curly symbol
that resembled a backwards question mark, and to the right
(07:49):
the imprint of a shield. When first installed that his grave,
these carvings would have been covered by brass overlays, each
with intricate details, but record of who the stone had
belonged to had been lost for four centuries, leading many
to speculate as to who the owner might have been,
while in September of twenty twenty four we finally got
our answer. Researchers determined that Sir George Yardley had in
(08:13):
fact been the original recipient of the gravestone following his
death and burial in Jamestown. But they didn't obtain this
information by testing his remains for traces of DNA. There
was none to test after such a long period of time. Instead,
they poured through documents and records dating back to the
sixteen hundreds. Figuring the shape on the stone was a knight,
(08:34):
they looked at all deceased Englishmen from the sixteen twenties
who had been knighted, and this led them straight to Yardley.
As for the stone itself, the researchers were also able
to find out that it was over three hundred million
years old and had come from either Ireland or Belgium.
It would have been very expensive and chosen by Yardley
or someone close to him in order to show off
(08:55):
just how rich he really was. But there's something else
about Sir George, a fact that sets him apart from
all others in both Jamestown and the rest of America.
His grave is so old. It's believed to be the
first in the country ever to be marked with a gravestune,
and that fact, well, it kind of rocks. I hope
(09:20):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:42):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcomed Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In eighteen fifty one,
(00:38):
a young British man visited London on grim business. He
had just finished burying his mother and now he had
the unenviable task of going through her estate. He was
emptying her desk drawer when he found a small black
object wrapped in paper. When he realized what it was,
he almost dropped it. It was his father's burned and
blackened heart. The story of how the heart was wound
(01:00):
up in that desk begins in eighteen fourteen with one
of the most quintessentially Gothic love affairs in history. It
centered on two star crossed lovers. Mary was the sixteen
year old daughter of a broke novelist. Percy was a
young poet who hung around Mary's house, always trying to
get her father to look at his writing. He was
(01:20):
also twenty one and married with a child on the way.
Despite the obstacles, Mary and Percy were instantly drawn to
one another. They soon began a torrid affair, meeting in
secret by her mother's gravestone. Eventually, they decided to make
their love public, revealing it to Mary's father and Percy's wife.
Neither family took the news very well, and Percy was
(01:41):
forbidden from seeing Mary ever again, but the young lovers
refused to accept defeat. They fled home and spent months
traveling abroad in Europe. When they returned, Mary was pregnant. Unfortunately,
the child was born premature and died only a few
days later. Mary's grief was made worse when news of
her affair spread. She and Percy were ostracized by London society.
(02:04):
The scandal soon became so overwhelming the couple decided to
flee England again, despite being out of money. It wasn't
long before another tragedy struck. Two years into the affair,
Percy's wife, Harriet, was found floating in London's Serpentine River,
having taken her own life. Mary was riddled with guilt
over Harriet's death, but it solved a lot of her
(02:25):
problems too. She and Percy were married only two weeks later,
finally putting an end to the gossip. They were now
free to live more or less as they pleased, but
still preferred to avoid London, where they felt unwelcome for
so long. They traveled, often staying in the Italian countryside
with Percy's wealthy author friends. Meanwhile, Percy and Mary's relationship
(02:47):
continued to face obstacles. They lost two more children to illness,
leaving Mary deeply depressed. Percy sought solace outside their marriage.
He fathered a child with another woman in eighteen eighteen,
and may have had a separate, ongoing relationship with Mary's
stepsister Claire. Despite Percy's infidelity, Mary's love was steadfast. While
(03:07):
they went through periods of estrangement, she always returned to
him eventually, at least until eighteen twenty two. On July
eighth of that year, Percy was sailing off the coast
of Italy when he was caught in a storm. The
boat capsized and twenty nine year old Percy drowned. His
body washed up on shore, where it was found ten
days later. Because it was in the water so long,
(03:28):
there were concerns that the body might carry bacteria. It
was cremated on the beach and the remains were taken
to Rome for burial. At least most of the remains
were buried there. For some reason, Percy's heart survived the cremation.
This is hard to explain, but it could have been
caused by the heart calcifying due to an earlier.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Bouts of tuberculosis. For Mary, though, it was proof that
her husband's romantic spirit persisted beyond the grave. She brought
the organ home, wrapped it in one of Percy's poems,
and placed it in the top drawer of her right,
where it stayed until her death. It's a little spooky
to think of her sitting at that desk writing away
while her husband's calcified heart lay mere inches away. Maybe
(04:11):
it inspired her because her writing captured both romance and horror.
Mary was, of course Mary Shelley, best known as the
author of the novel Frankenstein. Her husband was Percy Biss Shelley,
a famous romantic poet. The strange fate of Percy's heart
is both an unsettling footnote to their torrid relationship and
(04:31):
a romantic symbol of all they endured after everything they'd
been through scandal, infidelity, and even death, their love still burned.
(04:55):
When a person dies, we remember them in a number
of ways. We hold a funeral so that we can
bid them goodbye one last time. We might hold a
candlelight vigil or donate money in their honor as well.
But those who are buried in cemeteries are usually commemorated
by way of a plaque or tombstone marking their grave site.
It could be inscribed with the dates of their birth
(05:17):
and death, or a heartfelt message of peace and love.
But not Sir George Yardley. His grave was different, and
for a good reason. George was born in fifteen eighty
seven in Surrey, England, the son of a merchant tailor
from London, but rather than enter the family business, he
took a different route for his life. He joined the military.
(05:37):
He spent several years at war before seeking new horizons
quite literally. In sixteen oh nine, George ventured out to
sea with Sir Thomas Gates and a fleet of ships
carrying colonists and supplies for an expedition to Jamestown in America.
Although their trip took a bit longer than expected, a
nasty storm forced their ship to wreck in Bermuda, and
(05:59):
it took the crew almost a whole year to build
two new ships that would take every one to Virginia,
but they eventually made it. By the time everyone arrived,
conditions in the colony had grown dire. Many were already
dead from sickness or a lack of food, or from
attacks by the local indigenous tribes. But while others took
to helping the struggling colony, George was given another task.
(06:22):
He was sent to look for gold and silver in
the nearby mountain ranges. Years passed, and in sixteen sixteen,
his hard work and loyalty had earned him the title
of Deputy Governor of Virginia. Throughout his tenure as both
Deputy Governor and then as governor, George accomplished quite a lot.
He secured peace treaties with the Chickahamane Native Americans, formed
(06:43):
a local governing body, cultivated land with other farmers, and
encouraged the construction of a new college. He also married
a woman named Temperance Flowerdew. She had arrived in Jamestown
the year before her would be husband, and the couple
had three children together, Elizabeth, Abigail and their youngest A
son named Francis. But not everything George did was good
(07:05):
or wholesome. He oversaw the introduction of the slave trade
to Virginia when a ship carrying dozens of enslaved Africans
landed on its shores. The governor then chose to own
a number of enslaved persons himself, putting them to work
on his private plantation. Sir George Yeardley did not live long.
He died in sixteen twenty seven, when he was roughly
forty years of age. His body was laid to rest
(07:28):
in Jamestown and adorned with a large grave marker made
of polished black limestone. It was a significant grave too,
likely of some great expense, given that had to be quarried, cut,
and imported from Europe. The stone featured a carving of
a knight in armor, to its left a curly symbol
that resembled a backwards question mark, and to the right
(07:49):
the imprint of a shield. When first installed that his grave,
these carvings would have been covered by brass overlays, each
with intricate details, but record of who the stone had
belonged to had been lost for four centuries, leading many
to speculate as to who the owner might have been,
while in September of twenty twenty four we finally got
our answer. Researchers determined that Sir George Yardley had in
(08:13):
fact been the original recipient of the gravestone following his
death and burial in Jamestown. But they didn't obtain this
information by testing his remains for traces of DNA. There
was none to test after such a long period of time. Instead,
they poured through documents and records dating back to the
sixteen hundreds. Figuring the shape on the stone was a knight,
(08:34):
they looked at all deceased Englishmen from the sixteen twenties
who had been knighted, and this led them straight to Yardley.
As for the stone itself, the researchers were also able
to find out that it was over three hundred million
years old and had come from either Ireland or Belgium.
It would have been very expensive and chosen by Yardley
or someone close to him in order to show off
(08:55):
just how rich he really was. But there's something else
about Sir George, a fact that sets him apart from
all others in both Jamestown and the rest of America.
His grave is so old. It's believed to be the
first in the country ever to be marked with a gravestune,
and that fact, well, it kind of rocks. I hope
(09:20):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:42):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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