In this illustration we see the niches in the shrine, where sick persons
used to crouch all night in order to be cured of their diseases by
contact with the saint's coffin, which is above, covered by the pall.
Beyond is the Chantry Chapel of Henry V. with a bar across the top, upon
which are fixed the dead King's helmet, sword, and shield, all of which
were carried at his funeral. The tomb itself, with its headless and
battered oaken effigy, is seen through the open gate; stone steps, worn
by the knees of many pilgrims, ascend the turret to the right and lead
into a little chapel, where now reposes the mummified body of Henry's
queen, Katherine of Valois. It was buried here by Dean Stanley after it
had been unburied for two centuries and then hidden away in one of the
vaults. From here we see the effigy and tomb of Queen Philippa, the
latter stripped bare of all its original splendour, including the
alabaster angels and gilt statuettes of mourners.
* * * * * *
Standing on the south side we are now directly above the tomb of that
masterful Countess of Buckingham, mother of Charles the First's
favourite, whose own pompous monument will be found in Henry VII.'s
Chapel. In the vault {86} beneath lay for more than a century the
withered mummy of a French princess, the coquettish Kate, whom Henry V.
courts so ardently in Shakespeare's play. Katherine lost her prestige at
her son Henry VI.'s Court by her second marriage with a Welsh gentleman
of no rank, but she thus became the ancestress of the great Tudor
dynasty, which was destined to supplant both her royal husband's line,
the Lancastrians, and their rivals, the house of York. Yet it was in the
reign of her own Tudor grandson that Katherine's original sepulchre in
the old Lady Chapel was destroyed, and her embalmed body in its broken
wooden coffin placed by the side of Henry V.'s effigy. Possibly Henry
VII. intended to suitably re-inter his noble grandame's corpse in his new
chapel, but after his death nobody stirred in the matter, and there the
remains lay, a curiosity for all visitors to the Abbey to stare at, till
at last Dean Zachary Pearce buried them under the Countess of
Buckingham's tomb. Dean Stanley removed the coffin and placed it in this
chantry chapel against the east wall, where an altar dedicated to the
Virgin used to stand. The ancient altar slab, found concealed beneath
the step, now forms the cover of the Queen's tomb. On the wall behind
are the {87} badges of Henry V. The antelope and the swan, which he
inherited from his mother's family, the de Bohuns, are each chained to a
tree, between them is burning the cresset light, an emblem taken by the
young King at his coronation as a proof of his desire to be "a light and
a guide to his people to follow him in all virtue and honour." The
badges are repeated all over the stone-work inside and out, while the
niches are filled with numerous statues, representing royal personages,
mitred abbots, and saints, notably the patron saints of England and
France, St. George and St. Denis--the latter carries his head in his
hand. Upon the arch over the ambulatory is depicted Henry's coronation
in the Abbey. His figure armed _cap-à-pié_ is shown on the eastern side,
crossing a raging torrent, while a castle, with troops drawn up in front
of it, is carved in the background. The shields of England and France,
to which kingdom Henry was, as son-in-law to the French king and by right
of conquest, the acknowledged heir, are also prominent. We return below
the chantry arch and descend into the ambulatory, whence we have a good
view of the carvings alluded to, besides many others. Before us is a
flight of stone steps which leads directly up to the other royal chapel,
the mausoleum {88} of the Tudors and Stuarts. Beneath our feet is the
family vault of the Royalist historian of the civil wars, Edward Hyde,
Earl of Clarendon, who was closely connected with the Stuarts, and shared
the exile of his young master, afterwards Charles II. In later days the
powerful Lord Chancellor fell from his high position at Court, and was
sentenced to lifelong banishment by that same prince whom he had served
so faithfully in his youth. Clarendon's daughter married James II., then
Duke of York, and thus by the irony of fate the disgraced favourite was
destined to be the grandfather of two Stuart queens, Mary and Anne.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Tomb of Queen Philippa and the Chantry Chapel of Henry
V. from the South Ambulatory]
* * * *
THE TOMB OF QUEEN PHILIPPA AND THE CHANTRY CHAPEL OF HENRY V. FROM THE
SOUTH AMBULATORY
We see again the ruined tomb of Queen Philippa and the southern side of
the Chantry Chapel. Here the coronation of King Henry V. is represented
above the arch, and numerous little statuettes of kings, ecclesiastics,
saints, and angels are carved above and below it. In the spandrels of
the arch are the arms of England and France, while along the cornice are
some of the royal badges. Beneath it are the steps leading up to the
Chapel of Henry VII.
* * * * * *
At the top of the steps a triple portico leads into the centre of Henry
VII.'s Chapel; on each side narrow doorways admit to the north and south
aisles. The arch overhead is most elaborately carved and decorated with
the same badges which we see on the bronze gates, and all over the inside
of the chapel. Chief amongst these are the Tudor rose, the flower of
York and Lancaster alike, and the portcullis, which was the emblem of
Henry's maternal relations, the Beauforts, who traced their descent from
John of Gaunt. This badge, originally a castle protected by a
portcullis, was a symbol of Henry's undisputed (although not really {89}
flawless) title to the throne, and he added the proud motto "Altera
securitas." A crowned fleur-de-lis is constantly repeated on the walls,
and on the gates the shield of France is to be seen next to the lions of
England; for our English sovereigns continued to assert their right to
the French succession. The other badges on the gates include the crown
on a bush, which recalls Bosworth Field, when Lord Derby took the golden
circlet from the hawthorn bush, where it fell when Richard was slain, and
placed it on his step-son's head. The daisy root belongs to Derby's wife
and Henry's mother, Lady Margaret, whose tomb we shall see in the south
aisle. The falcon with a fetter-lock was a badge of Edward IV., which
his daughter Elizabeth adopted after her marriage to the young Tudor king.
We pass through the middle gate and emerge into that beautiful chapel so
extravagantly praised by old writers as the "orbis miraculum," the
miracle of the world, so unfairly decried since by narrow-minded
adherents of the Gothic style. Here, a contrast to the rest of the
church, is pure Perpendicular of the Tudor period. The stone-work is
decorated in every corner, and the details are elaborately carved,
leaving no vacant space anywhere; {90} no less than 130 stone figures, 95
of which remain, contributed to the rich effect of the whole. Angels and
archangels, saints and martyrs, apostles and evangelists, the hierarchy
of heaven and the sainted ones of earth, all had places on these walls.
Above our heads the fan tracery of the stone roof seems literally to hang
from the sky, so delicate and light is the workmanship. The Cambridge
graduate in our party, and those indefatigable sightseers our American
friends, compare it with King's College Chapel, which was built about
this period by the same King's munificence, and probably by the same
architect. The windows were once all filled with painted glass, only a
few fragments of which, notably the founder's figure at the east end, are
left. The altar was dedicated to the Virgin, and had upon it her statue
made of pure gold, but both were destroyed in the time of Henry's
grandson, Edward VI., by order of the Protector Somerset, when the side
altars were also swept away and the glass broken in a fury of Protestant
zeal. Long afterwards the tomb of Edward VI. himself, which then took
the place of the high altar, was broken in pieces by the Puritan zealots,
who were unaware that they thus desecrated the monument of the first
Protestant king.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Chapel of Henry VII., looking east]
* * * *