CHRIST-CHURCH HOSPITAL.

plimented, as he presented this house to the citizens. Here is also a portrait of Charles II. done by J. Baptist Gaspers, called Lely's Baptist. Doctor Ratcliffe is also here at full-length.* He left five hundred pounds a year to this hospital, for the improvement of the diet; and one hundred a year for buying linen. Happy had all his wealth been so directed, instead of wasting it on that vain mausoleum, his library at Oxford. The patron saint has over the chimney-piece his portrait, but not in the offensive circumstances which Spagnolet would have placed it in; for he is cloathed, and has only the knife, the symbol of his martyrdom, in his hand. In the windows is painted Henry VIII. delivering the charter to the lord mayor; by him is prince Arthur, and two noblemen with white rods.

269

CHRISTHOSPITAL,

CHURCH

Ar no great distance from this hospital stands (within the walls of the city) that of Christ-church; a royal foundation for orphans and poor children, who are taken care of, and apprenticed, at different ages, to proper trades. It was originally the house of the Grey Friars, or Mendicants, of the GREY FRI

* Over the portrait of Doctor Ratcliffe, is one by Sir Joshua Reynolds of the late Mr. Pott, surgeon. In the Counting-house are portraits of merit of Sir William Prichard, knight, president in 1691, by Kneller; Martin Bond, treasurer, 1642; Edward Colson, 1693; Sir Nicholas Rainton, president, 1634; and a half-length of Henry VIII., in a rich dress, dated 1544. ED.

ONCE THE

ARS.

270

ITS FINE
CHURCH.

PERSONAGES

HERE.

CHRIST CHURCH.

order of St. Francis, founded by John Ewin, mercer, about the year 1225. The church was reckoned one of the most superb of the conventual; and rose by the contributions of the opulent devout. Margaret, daughter of Philip the Hardy, and second queen to Edward I. in 1306 began the choir. Isabella, queen to Edward II. gave threescore and ten pounds; and queen Philippa, wife of Edward III. gave threescore and two pounds, towards the building. John de Bretagne, duke of Richmond, built the body of the church, at a vast expence: and Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, gave twenty great beams out of his forest at Tunbridge. No order of monks seems to have had the powers of persuasion equal to these poor friars. They raised vast sums for their buildings among the rich: and there were few of their admirers, when they came to die, who did not console themselves with the thoughts of lying within their expiating walls; and, if they were particularly wicked, thought themselves secure against the assault of the devil, provided their corpse was wrapped in the habit and cowl of a friar.

MULTITUDES therefore of all ranks were crowdINTERRED ed in this holy ground. It boasts of receiving four queens; Margaret, and Isabella, above mentioned; Joan, daughter to Edward II. and wife of Edward Bruce, king of Scotland; and, to make

FOUR

QUEENS.

REMARKABLE PERSONS INTERRED.

the fourth, Isabella wife of William Warren, titular queen of Man, is named. Of these, Isabella, whom GRAY so strongly stigmatizes,

She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,

That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate,

I hope was wrapped in the friars garment, for few stood more in need of a dæmonifuge. With wonderful hypocrisy she was buried with the heart of her murdered husband on her breast.*

HERE also rest Beatrix, daughter of Henry III. and dutchess of Bretagny. Isabella, daughter of Edward III. and wife of Ingelram de Courcy, created earl of Bedford. John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, slain in Woodstocke-park, at a Christmas festivity, in 1389. He was then very young, and, being desirous of instruction in feats of chivalry, ran against a stout knight of the name of John Saint John: but it remains uncertain whether his death was the result of design or accident.†

John Duc de Bourbon, one of the noble prisoners taken at the battle of Azincourt, after eighteen years imprisonment, in 1443 here found a tomb. Walter Blunt lord Mountjoy, lord treasurer of England in the time of Edward IV. and many other illustrious persons, were deposited here. +

Strype, i. book iii. 132.

I See Strype as above.

↑ Holinshed, 471.

271

272

INTERMENTS AT CHRIST-CHURCH.

AMONG the unfortunate who fell victims to the executioner, in the wretched times of too many of our monarchs, as often unjustly as otherwise, were the following. I do not reckon, in the list of the first, the ambitious profligate Roger Mortimer, paramour of Isabella, wife to the unhappy Edward of Caernarvon. He was surprised with the queen in Nottingham castle. In vain did she cry, Bel fitz, bel fitz, ayez pitie du gentle Mortimer. He was hurried to London, and, after a summary hearing, dragged to Tyburn, where he hung like a common malefactor two days upon the gallows.

SIR Robert Tresilian, chief justice of England; and Sir Nicholas Brembre, the stout mayor of London, suffered the same ignominious death in the next reign. The first, as a warning to all judges for too great a complaisance to the pleasure of the court; Sir Nicholas, for his attachment to his royal master. Tresilian fell lamented: especially as the proceedings were hurried in a tumultuary manner, more indicative of revenge than justice. Superstition records, that when he came to Tyburn, he declared that he should not die while he had any thing about him; and that the executioner, on stripping him, found certain images, the head of a devil, and the names of divers others. The charm was broken, and the judge

died.

* See State Trials, vol. xiii. old ed.