Richardson’s Charnel House: Pamela, Lovelace and ‘The Skull of King Philip

Nace talks about an anecdote regarding the skull of King Philip II of Macedonia. Over the next 150 years an anecdote about the skull of King Philip II of Macedonia begins to embody this neglected aspect of the Yorick scene, becoming the paradigmatic example of how skeletal remains constitute a final, levelling anonymity. The inability to distinguish king from commoner draws its potency here not only from its message of mors omnia aequat, but also from its reminder that, forensic radiography aside, humans begin to look largely the same as they are denuded of flesh. In the 1740s, Samuel Richardson found enough utility in the increasingly popular anecdote about King Philip's skull to place it, with some alterations, in both Pamela and the darker, death-tinged Clarissa.