We have already seen part of this chapel. On the floor in the foreground
are two fine fourteenth-century brasses, raised on low altar tombs;
against the screen behind is a dilapidated monument, which was once one
of the most beautiful in the Abbey. In the wooden coffer above the stone
base are the bones of William de Valence, Henry III.'s half-brother, and
upon it lies his effigy, which was originally covered with Limoges
enamel, but a few pieces only remain intact, notably in the shield and
the sword belt. Facing us is a large Jacobean monument, which
commemorates Edward Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and was put up by his
widowed Countess, whose own effigy lies beside that of her husband.
Through the pillars beyond the wooden screen of the Chapel appears the
stone screen between Edward the Confessor's Chapel and the high altar,
while beyond, above the south arches of the Confessor's Chapel, are the
openings of the triforium.
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A large mural monument close by recalls a happy marriage and records the
grief of the heart-broken husband. Elizabeth's trusted Minister, the
great Lord Burleigh, is here depicted in his robes of state, kneeling
above the recumbent effigies of his wife, a lady noted for her learning
and for her active benevolence, and of their unhappy daughter, Anne,
Countess of Oxford. At his mother's feet is the figure of Robert Cecil,
the first Lord Salisbury of that name, who succeeded his father as
confidential adviser to their sovereign. Neither father nor son is
buried here. Lord Burleigh lies at Stamford, his country place, and on
the day of the funeral a stately service was held in the Abbey, a mark of
respect repeated recently (August 1903) {68} when his descendant, the
late Lord Salisbury, was laid to rest at Hatfield.
Returning into the ambulatory we should look at this side of the royal
tombs before passing round the corner into the chapel itself. From here
the nearest is that of Richard II., which is raised too high above us to
see well. The lower part was formerly in a very bad state of repair, and
through the holes in the wooden chest which contained the royal remains
the bones of Richard and his wife Anne could be clearly seen. Indeed,
the schoolboys used to amuse themselves by flipping marbles into the
sepulchre. The jawbone of the King is said to have been picked out by
one bold youth; smaller bones and such-like curiosities were the easy
prey of the less venturesome. Edward the Third's, on the other hand,
which comes next, has never been thus tampered with, although a few
shields have been carried off. But we can still see the six gilt brass
images of his children on this side, those on the other have been stolen
long ago; these are headed by Richard's father, the warlike Black Prince,
whose tomb some of us know at Canterbury Cathedral. Queen Philippa's
monument, the third in order, has been stripped bare of all the "sweetly
carved niches" and little alabaster {69} figures, not to speak of the
gilt angels and other beautiful decorations, which once adorned it. The
same sad tale of spoliation and vanished splendour must be repeated when
we reach the top of the wooden steps which lead up into St. Edward's
Chapel. The battered oak effigy of Henry V. need not detain us now, we
speak of that great monarch later. Standing before the shrine itself the
oft-told tale of our Saxon founder must not be omitted--the fascinating
legend of his strange visions, one of which led him to select Thorneye as
the favoured site of his monastic foundation. The story of his life and
death are illustrated by the stone pictures on the screen, which divides
the chapel from the high altar, and was probably put up by the pious
Henry VI. One of the favourite scenes is the remission of the Dane-gelt,
which may have taken place in the old Treasury, the Pyx Chapel; here we
see the King pointing to the casks which contain his people's hard-earned
money; upon them formerly danced a demon Dane, thus thwarted of his due.
Edward lies upon his bed in another, calmly watching the scullion who
rifles his treasure-chest, and escapes with a mild admonition from the
gentle King. Further on we see him seated at dinner between his wife
{70} and her father, Earl Godwin, while in front her brothers Tostig and
Harold are disputing, as they quarrelled years afterwards over the crown,
and Edward is roused to a prophetical burst of wrath. The most
significant are the last ones, which recall the famous legend of the ring
and the consecration of the Abbey. St. John, who, disguised as a beggar,
received the ring from Edward, is shown delivering it into the hands of
two pilgrims, who are bidden to return with it to England and deliver it
back to the King, with a message intimating his approaching end. This
ring, taken from the incorruptible finger of the royal saint a century
after his death by Abbot Laurence, was deposited amongst the relics, and
no doubt the wedding ring of England, which is still placed upon the
finger of the sovereign after he has received the insignia of royalty,
had its origin in this sacred ring. We turn to the shrine itself, and
try to picture it in all its pristine beauty before the sacrilegious hand
of the despoiler had touched it. West of the shrine is a modern altar,
the ancient one was destroyed long since, but hitherto a wooden table was
temporarily placed here at coronations, for which this marble altar was
substituted on the last occasion. The modern gilt {71} group over it and
the gilded cornice sorely afflict the eye, and are sadly out of keeping
with the artistic work of the Roman artisans, Odericus and Peter. The
wooden top, of no merit in itself, but dating from Mary Tudor's reign, is
now covered by a velvet pall, which unfortunately conceals the saint's
coffin, formerly visible from the chantry. On either side of St.
Edward's altar were once golden pillars presented by Edward II.; the
golden image of St. John the Evangelist stood upon one, that of the
Confessor himself upon the other. The stone basement was entirely
covered with elaborate decorations, glass mosaic, precious stones, and
enamels; and the twisted pillars, also richly decorated, remind the
Italian traveller of those in the cloister at St. John Lateran. Within
the niches sick persons used to crouch all the long night, believing that
this mere proximity to the dead saint would cure their diseases. The
coffin itself is above, raised high, as the old writers tell us, "on a
candlestick, to enlighten the world." It was originally encased in a
wonderful feretory, made of pure gold and decorated with golden and
jewelled images of kings and queens, of saints and angels. This was
melted down, and all the valuable ornaments were sold, when Henry VIII.
suppressed the {72} monastery. The last Abbot, John Feckenham, did his
best to restore some of its former glory to St. Edward's Chapel. He
rebuilt the basement of the shrine, which the monks had concealed before
they fled, and painted over the gaps left by the theft of the mosaic
work. He also rewrote the inscriptions on all the royal tombs, probably
in most cases restoring the ancient words.
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[Illustration: The West End of the Confessor's Shrine, with the Modern
Altar]
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