St. Michael Abbey & Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, 1st Baron Grenfell

 St. Michael Abbey
Farnborough

 St. Michael Abbey in Farnborough is a Benedictine abbey. The community of monks is known for its liturgy and Gregorian chants. They are also recognized for their pipe organ recitals and involvement in liturgical publishing and printing.

Empress Eugenie

The Abbey was established in 1881 by Empress Eugenie to serve as a mausoleum for her husband, Napoléon III, and her son, Prince Imperial.

The Abbey encompasses an Imperial Crypt, inspired by the crypt of the Saint-Denis Basilica near Paris, where the Emperor had initially wished to be interred. Empress Eugénie was subsequently laid to rest beside her husband and son. All three are entombed in granite sarcophagi that were provided by Queen Victoria.

Napoléon III 
portrait by
Alexandre Cabanel,
1865

Following the Fall of the Second French Empire in 1870, Napoléon III, accompanied by his wife, Empress Eugenie, and their son, Prince Imperial, were exiled from France and settled at Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent. Napoléon passed away there in 1873. Initially, he was interred at St. Mary’s Church in Chislehurst.

Prince Imperial, born Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte in 1856, took part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 as a sub-lieutenant alongside his father. When the war turned against the Imperial Army, Napoléon instructed him to cross into Belgium. He subsequently travelled to England and arrived there by September, joined later by his parents. The Second Empire was abolished. After his father's death, he was proclaimed Napoleon IV.

Prince Imperial

He trained as a British Army officer in England. Seeking combat experience, he convinced the British to let him join the Anglo-Zulu War. In 1879, while serving with British forces, he was killed in a skirmish with Zulus. His death attracted significant international attention and impacted Europe, as he was considered the last potential dynastic candidate for restoring the House of Bonaparte to the French throne.

Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, 1st Baron Grenfell, was born in Maesteg House, Swansea, in 1841. Grenfell served as a British Army officer and during the Anglo-Zulu War, he acted as an aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Chelmsford.

Following the death of the Prince Imperial, Field Marshal Grenfell writes in his memoirs, “My Life As A Subaltern”

Field Marshal Francis Grenfell,
1st Baron Grenfell

“I joined General Fred Marshall, who was in command of the cavalry, and rode over the same road that I had gone over the day before. As the scene of the tragedy was approached, I advanced with General Marshall, and after we had descended the hill, and when near the kraals, we saw in the distance a white object on the ground. We rode to it, and it was the Prince Imperial lying in a donga. He had been stripped of everything except one sock, and a broken spur also lay by his side. We lifted up his head, and found behind his neck a locket containing some relic given to him by his mother. This had either escaped the Zulus, or very likely they regarded it as some religious emblem, and thought it would be bad luck to remove it from the body.

“He was assegaied in seventeen places, his arms were crossed over his chest, and his face, which was beautiful in death, was disfigured by the destruction of the right eye from an assegai wound. This wound, the doctor told us, was the first, and the deadly one, the subsequent ones being inflicted on the dead body. It was a sad sight as we, his English brother-officers, stood round the dead body of the hope of the Imperialists of France, the Prince’s two servants weeping bitterly, and we all felt the great disaster and the deep disgrace which had fallen on the British Army. His body was raised from the ground, wrapped in a cavalry cloak, and carried by the officers up the hill to the ambulance. That evening in the Itelizi Camp a solemn funeral service was performed by the Catholic chaplain, and the same night the body of the Prince made its first journey towards England and Farnborough, where it now reposes.

“The sword he wore was one worn by the great Napoleon in all his campaigns; it was taken by the Zulus, but two days before the battle of Ulundi, which ended the campaign, I, riding ahead with the cavalry, met some Zulus with a white flag. They were sent by the King to say that, hearing the officer killed at the Ityotyozi Camp was a great Prince, he returned his sword in order that it might be despatched to his relatives – a noble act on the part of Cetewayo.”

Napoléon III 
sarcophagus

Empress Eugenie
sarcophagus

Prince Imperial
sarcophagus

His remains were transported to Spithead on the British troopship HMS Orontes, then transferred onto HMS Enchantress for the journey to Woolwich Arsenal. He lay in state overnight in the western octagonal guardhouse by the riverfront. The funeral procession, which included Queen Victoria, proceeded to Chislehurst, where he was interred at St Mary's Catholic Church. On 9 January 1888, his body was moved to a mausoleum constructed by his mother as the Imperial Crypt at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, beside his father.

St. Mary and All Saints church
Beaconsfield

Francis Grenfell,
1st Baron Grenfell
St. Mary and All Saints church
credit - findagrave

This January commemorates the 100th anniversary of Francis Grenfell's death at Windlesham. He was interred at St. Mary and All Saints churchyard in Beaconsfield.