The first curiosity that commands your reverence is the ancient venerable shrine of St. Edward, once the glory of England, but now defaced and robbed of its beauty, by the devotees of this extreme pious man, all of whom were proud to possess some stone or dust from his tomb. This On the south side of the shrine, Editha, daughter of Goodwyn, Earl of Kent, and Queen of St. Edward, lies interred. The writers of those times commended her for beauty, learning, prudent economy, gentle manners, and inimitable skill in needlework, having wrought with her own hands the curious and magnificent robes the King used to wear on his collar days. She died at Winchester, Jan. 15, 1073. Part of a Latin epitaph on this excellent Princess has been handed down, and is to this effect:— “Success ne’er sat exulting in her eye, Near this was buried Matilda, Queen of England, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and wife to Henry I. She died May 1, 1118. This Queen would, every day in Lent, walk from her palace to this church barefoot, and wearing a garment of hair. No verse or stone to mark the place of interment are to be found. On the north side of this Chapel is an ancient tomb of admirable workmanship and materials, the panels being of polished porphyry, and the Mosaic work round them of gold and scarlet; at the corners of the table are twisted pillars, gilt and enamelled, and the effigy of Henry III. upon it is of gilt brass, finely executed. He died in 1272, after a troublesome reign of fifty-six years, aged sixty-five, and was buried by the Knights Templars, of whose order his father was the founder, with such splendour, that Wykes, the Monk, says, he made a more magnificent figure when dead, than he had done while living.—Cavalini. Near that of Henry III. is a small monument in memory of Elizabeth Tudor, second daughter of Henry VII., who died at Eltham, in Kent, Sept. 14th, 1495, aged three years, from whence she was removed in great funeral pomp, and here buried. At the feet of Henry III. is an ancient monument of Eleanor, Queen of Edward I. On the sides of this monument are engraven The chantry of Henry V. is next, on each side of which are images as large as life, guarding, as it were, the staircases ascending to it. Beneath is the tomb of that glorious and warlike Prince, Henry of Monmouth (so called from the place of his nativity). On the upper slab lies a headless and otherwise mutilated figure of the King, carved in oak, which was originally covered with silver; the head appears to have been cast in silver; but this, Camden says, “was gone when he wrote his Britannica, in the reign of Elizabeth.” This Prince was guilty of great extravagances in his youth, and is said, with Sir John Falstaff, to have belonged to a gang of sharpers; yet, upon his advancement to the crown made a most excellent King, and, by the memorable battle of Agincourt, acquired to himself and the English nation immortal glory. He died in France, Aug. 31, 1422, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of his reign. In the chantry above, is the saddle, helmet, and shield, supposed to have been used at Agincourt, brought here at his interment.—John Anderne, sculptor. The next is an ancient tomb to the memory of Phillippa, third daughter of William, Earl of Hainault, and Queen of Edward III., with whom she lived forty-two years, and bore him fourteen children. Harding tells us, that when an embassy was sent to choose one of the Earl’s daughters, a certain English Bishop advised to choose the lady with the largest hips, as promising a numerous progeny. She died August 15, 1369; and the King, her husband, bestowed a profusion of expense in performing her exequies and erecting her tomb, round which were placed as ornaments the brazen statues of no less than thirty kings, princes, and noble personages, her relations. Adjoining to this is the tomb of Edward III., which is likewise covered with a Gothic canopy. On a table of grey marble lies the effigy of this Prince, though his corpse was deposited in the same grave with the Queen’s, according to her request on her death-bed. This tomb was surrounded, like the former, with statues, particularly those of his children, six of which remain on the south side of the tomb; viz., Edward, Joan-de-la-Tour, Lionel, Edmund, Mary, and William. He died June 21, 1377, aged sixty-four. Between the Chairs are placed the shield and sword carried before Edward III., in France. The sword is seven feet long, and weighs eighteen pounds. Under a large stone, once finely plated with brass, lies the great Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; he was brother to the Black Prince, and sixth and youngest son of Edward III. He was murdered at Calais, Sept. 8, 1397. Next adjoining to this is a tomb, erected to the memory of Richard II. and his Queen; over which is a canopy of wood, remarkable for a curious painting of the Virgin Mary and our Saviour still visible upon it. This Richard was son of Edward the Black Prince, and grandson of Edward III., whom he succeeded at eleven years of age. He was murdered on St. Valentine’s day, 1399. In the same tomb lies his Queen, Anne, daughter of Charles IV., and sister of Wenceslaus, Emperor and King of Bohemia, who brought him neither dowry nor issue. She died at Shene, June 7, 1394, after being married twelve years. The Coronation Chairs.—The most ancient of them was made to enclose the stone (which is reported to be Jacob’s Pillar), brought with regalia from Scotland, by Edward I., and offered to St. Edward’s shrine, in the year 1297 (after he had overcome John Baliol, King of Scots, in several battles). In this chair all the reigning Sovereigns have been crowned since Edward I. The other chair was made for Queen Mary II. At the coronation, one or both of them are covered with gold tissue, and placed before the altar, behind which they now stand, surrounded by several monarchs, who seem to guard them even in death. Above those chairs, along the frieze of the screen of this Chapel, are fourteen legendary sculptures, respecting the Confessor. The first is the trial of Queen Emma; the next the birth of Edward; another is his coronation; the fourth tells us how our saint was frightened into the abolition of the Dean-gelt, by his seeing the devil dance upon the money casks; the fifth is the story of his winking at the thief, who was robbing his treasure; the sixth is meant to relate the appearance of our Saviour to him; the seventh shows how the invasion of England was frustrated by the drowning of the Danish King; in the eighth is seen the quarrel between the boys Totsi and Harold, predicting their respective fates; in the ninth sculpture is the Confessor’s vision of the seven sleepers; the tenth, how he met St. John the Evangelist in the guise of a pilgrim; the eleventh, how the blind were cured by their eyes being washed in his dirty water; the twelfth, how St. John delivers to the pilgrims a ring; in the thirteenth they deliver the ring to the King, which he had unknowingly given to St. John as an alms, when he met him in the form of a pilgrim; this was attended with a message from the saint, foretelling the death of the King; and the fourteenth shows the consequential haste made by him to complete his pious foundation. Near this tomb is a large stone, plated with brass, to the memory of John of Waltham, the twenty-sixth Bishop of Salisbury, anno 1388. He was master of the Rolls in 1382, then Keeper of the Privy Seal, in the year 1391, and died Lord High Treasurer of England to Richard II., in 1395. In this Chapel was interred the heart of Henry d’Almade, son of Richard, King of the Romans, brother of Henry III. He was sacrilegiously assassinated in the Church of St. Silvester, at Viterbo, as he was performing his devotions before the high altar. Simon and Guido Montford, sons of Simon de Montford, Earl of Leicester, were the assassins, in revenge for their father’s death, who, with their brother Henry, was slain in the battle of Evesham, in fighting against their lawful sovereign. The picture of this murder the inhabitants had painted, and hung up in the church, where we are told it still remains. This murder happened in 1270, and in the year after the body of Henry was brought to England, and buried in the monastery of St. Helen’s; but his heart was put in a cup, and placed near St. Edward’s shrine, of the removal of which we have no account. Upon a careful perusal of the guide-book to this portion of the Abbey, it will not be uninteresting to observe that the bodies of six kings, five queens, two princesses, a duke, and a bishop are deposited in this remarkable receptacle of the dead. Before entering the Chapel of St. John, on the right or east side of the door, is a monument erected to the memory of Jane, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Pulteney, and wife of Sir Clippesby Crewe, Knt. She died Dec. 2, 1639, aged twenty-nine. On the left, or west side of the door, is a monument to the memory of Juliana, only daughter of Sir Randolph Crewe, Knt., Lord Chief Justice of England. She died unmarried April 22, 1621. Over the door is the monument of the Right Rev. Dr. Barnard, Lord Bishop of Londonderry, who died in London, January 10, 1768, aged seventy-two, and was here buried. |