dating from the time of Richard II., perfect alike in design, form, and colour. It is a low arch supported by clustered pillars. The shield on the right bears the old arms of France and England quarterly, viz. semée of fleurs-de-lis and three lions passant gardant, and that on the left the arms of Edward the Confessor. Above is 'Sanctus Erasmus' in black (once golden) letters, and over this an exquisitely sculptured niche with a moulding of vine-leaves. The iron stanchion which held a lamp still remains by the entrance, and within are a holy-water basin and a bracket for the statue of St. Erasmus (a bishop of Campania martyred under Diocletian), with the rays which once surrounded the head of the figure still remaining on the wall. Near the entrance is the little monument of Jane, wife of Sir Clippesly Crewe (1639), with a curious relief representing her death.

Through this shrine we enter the Chapel of St. John Baptist, of which the screen is formed by tombs of bishops and abbots. In the centre is the tomb of

Thomas Ceoil, Earl of Exeter (1622), eldest son of Lord Burghley and his first wife, Dorothy Nevill. The vacant space on the Earl's left side was intended for his second wife, Frances Brydges, but she indignantly refused to allow her effigy to lie on the left side. This lady lived till 1663, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral, though the inscription states that she lies here.

Making the circuit of the chapel from the right, we see the monuments of

Mrs. Mary Kendall (1710), who 'desired that her ashes might not be divided in death from those of her friend Lady Catherine Jones.' 1

George Fascet, Abbot of Westminster (1500), an altar-tomb with a stone canopy. On it rests the stone coffin of Abbot Thomas Millyng (1492), godfather of Edward V., who was made Bishop of Hereford by Edward IV. in reward for the services he had rendered to Elizabeth Woodville when she was in sanctuary at Westminster. His coffin was probably removed from the centre of the chapel when the tomb of the Earl of Exeter was placed there.

Thomas Ruthall, Bishop of Durham (1523), who died at Durham Place in the Strand, from grief at having sent the inventory of all his great riches to Henry VIII. in mistake for the 'Breviate of the State of the Land,' which he had been commissioned to draw up. He had been Secretary to Henry VII., and had made a good use of his immense wealth, having paid a third of the expense of building the great bridge of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The tomb once had a canopy.

Abbot William of Colchester (1420) is said to have plotted in a secret chamber with the Earls and Dukes imprisoned in the Abbot's house by Henry IV. in favour of the dethroned monarch, and swore to be faithful to death to King Richard.2 The effigy is robed in rich vestments: there are two angels at the pillow, and a spaniel lies at the feet.

(On the site of the altar.) Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon (1596), the first cousin3 and most faithful friend and chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth. He is said to have died of disappointment at the long delay in his elevation. The queen visited him on his death-bed, and commanded the robes and patent of an Earl to be placed before him. 'It is too late,' he said, and declined the offered dignity. The corinthian tomb of alabaster and marble, erected by his son, is one of the loftiest in England (36 feet).

1 The charitable daughter of the Earl of Ranelagh, who built a school at Chelsea for the education of the daughters of the poor Chelsea Pensioners.

2 See Shakspeare's Richard II.

3 Being son of Mary Boleyn, who, without her father's consent, married William Carey, a penniless but nobly born squire.

Thomas Carey (1649), a descendant of Hunsdon, second son of Henry Carey, Earl of Monmouth, a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I., who died of grief for the execution of his master, to whom the mention on this monument is the only memorial in Westminster. By this monument may be seen remains of the ancient lockers for the sacred vestments and plate.

*(Beneath.) Hugh and Mary Bohun, children of Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and the Princess Isabella, fourth daughter of Edward I. A grey marble monument close to the wall, removed by Richard II. from the Chapel of the Confessor to make room for Anne of Bohemia.

Colonel Edward Popham (1651), 'distinguished by land and sea,' and Anne his wife. As he was a general in the Parliamentary army, his body was removed at the Restoration, but, owing to the entreaty of his wife's family, the monument was allowed to remain, on condition of the inscription being turned to the wall.

Sir Thomas Vaughan (1483), Treasurer to Edward IV. The tomb has a beautiful but mutilated brass. Under the canopy is preserved a fragment of the canopy of Bishop Ruthall's tomb.

The banners which still wave in this chapel are those carried at the funerals of those members of the ancient Northumbrian family of Delaval who are buried beneath Susannah, Lady Delaval, 1783; Sarah Hussey, Countess of Tyrconnel, 1800; John Hussey, Lord Delaval, 1806.

Opposite the Chapel of St. John is the staircase by which visitors usually ascend to the centre of interest in the Abbey- -one may say in England-the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor.

'Mortality, behold, and feare,
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royall bones
Sleep within this heap of stones;
Here they lye, had realmes and lands,

Who now want strength to stir their hands;
Where, from their pulpits seal'd with dust,
They preach, "In greatnesse is no trust."
Here's an acre sown indeed

With the richest, royall'st seed,

That the earth did ere suck in,

Since the first man died for sin :

Here the bones of birth have cry'd,

"Though gods they were, as men they dy'd:"
Here are sands, ignoble things

Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings.
Here's a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate.'

Francis Beaumont, 1584-1616.

'A man may read a sermon, the best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. Where our

kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed,1 the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flames of lust, to abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch of covetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of a lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust, and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world that, when we die, our ashes shall be equal to kings', and our accounts easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be less.'--Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying,' ch. i. sec. 11.

1 See the lines of Francis Beaumont quoted above.

This chapel, more than any other part of the Abbey, remains as it was left by its second founder, Henry III. He made it a Holy of Holies to contain the shrine of his sainted predecessor. For this he moved the high altar westward, and made the choir project far down into the nave, like the coro of a Spanish cathedral; for this he raised behind the high altar a mound of earth, said to be formed by several shiploads of earth brought from the Holy Land-'the last funeral tumulus in England.' For this in 1279 he imported from Rome 'Peter, the Roman citizen'. (absurdly supposed by Walpole and Virtue to be the famous mosaicist Pietro Cavallini, who was not born till that date), who has left us the pavement glowing with peacock hues of Opus Alexandrinum, which recalls the pavements of the Roman basilicas, and the twisted pillars of the shrine itself, which are like those of the cloisters in S. Paolo and S. Giovanni Laterano.

Edward the Confessor died in the opening days of 1066, when his church at Westminster had just been consecrated in the presence of Edith, his queen. He was buried before the high altar with his crown upon his head, a golden chain and crucifix around his neck, and his pilgrim's ring upon his finger. Thus he was seen when his coffin was opened by Henry I. in the presence of Bishop Gundulf, who tried to steal a hair from his white beard. Thus he was again seen by Henry II., in whose reign he was transferred by Archbishop Becket to a new and 'precious feretry,' just after his canonisation (Feb. 7, 1161) by Pope Alexander III., who enjoined 'that his body be honoured here on earth, as his soul is glorified in heaven.' Henry III. also looked upon the 'incorrupt' body, before its translation to its present resting-place, on the shoulders of the royal Plantagenet princes, whose own sepulchres were afterwards to gather around it. The body lies in a stone coffin, iron-bound, within the shrine of marble and mosaic. It appears from an illumination in the Life of St. Edward' in the University Library at Cambridge that, after his canonisation, one end of the shrine was for some time left, open, that sick persons might creep through and touch the coffin. The seven recesses at the sides of the shrine were intended for pilgrims to kneel under. The inlaid wooden wainscoting on the top was added by Abbot Feckenham in the reign of Mary I., by whom the shrine was restored, for it had been partially, if not wholly, displaced at the Dissolution. Before that it probably had a gothic canopy. At the coronation of James II. both shrine and coffin were broken by the fall of some scaffolding. It was then robbed for the last time. Henry Keepe, who wrote the 'Monumenta Westmonasteriensia,' relates that he himself put in his hand and drew forth the chain and crucifix of the Confessor, which were accepted by the last of the Stuart kings. The shrine, which was one of the most popular points of pilgrimage before the Reformation, is still an object of pilgrimage with Roman Catholics. Around the Confessor lie his nearest relations. On his left rests his wife 'Edith or Eadgyth, of venerable memory' (1075), the daughter of Earl Godwin, and sister of Harold. On his right (moved from the

old Chapterhouse by Henry III.) lies his great-niece, another Edith (1118), whose Saxon name was changed to the Norman Maud, the daughter of Malcolm Ceannmor of Scotland, grand-daughter of Edward Atheling, and wife of Henry I. She had been accustomed frequently to pass days and nights together, kneeling, bare-footed and dressed in haircloth, before her uncle's shrine, and had herself the reputation of a saint. She was 'the very mirror of piety, humility, and princely bounty,' says Florence of Worcester. Her virtues were so great,' say the 'Annals of Waverley,' that 'an entire day would not suffice to recount them." Before the shrine, as Pennant says, the spolia opima were offered, the Scottish regalia, and the sacred stone from Scone; and here the little Alphonso, son of Edward I., offered the golden coronet of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales.1 It was while kneeling before the shrine that Henry IV. fell into the fatal fit of which he died in the Jerusalem Chamber. Here his widow, the unfortunate Joanna, was compelled to make a public thank-offering for the victory of Agincourt, in which her brother and son-in-law were killed and her son taken prisoner. Behind the shrine, where the chantry of Henry V. now stands, were preserved the relics given by St. Edward to the church-a tooth of St. Athanasius, a stone which was believed to have been marked by the last footprint of the Saviour at His ascension, and a phial of the precious blood.

The fantastic legend of the Confessor is told in the fourteen rude sculptures on the screen which divides the chapel from the choir. We see

1. The Bishop and Nobles swear fealty to the yet unborn child of Queen Emma, wife of Ethelred the Unready.

2. The child, Edward, is born at Islip in Oxfordshire.

3. His Coronation on Easter Day, 1043.

4. He sees the Devil dancing on the casks in which his tax of Danegelt was collected, and decides to abolish it.

5. He warns a scullion who has been stealing from his treasure-chest to escape before Hugolin his treasurer returns and catches him.

6. He sees our Saviour in a vision, standing on the altar of the church, where he is about to receive the Sacrament.

7. He has a vision of the King of Denmark, who is drowned on his way to invade England.

8. The boys, Tosti and Harold, brothers-in-law of the king, have a quarrel at the king's table, prophetic of their future feuds.

9. The Confessor, seated in the midst of his courtiers, has a vision of the seven Sleepers of Ephesus, who turn suddenly from the right side to the left, portending great misfortunes.

10. The Confessor meets with St. John the Evangelist as a pilgrim and beggar, and having no alms, presents him with a ring.

11. The blind are restored to sight by the water in which the Confessor has washed.

12. St. John meets in Palestine two English pilgrims of Ludlow, and bids them restore the ring to Edward, and warn him that within six months he would meet him in Paradise.

13. The pilgrims deliver the ring and message to the king.

14. Edward, warned of his approaching death, completes the dedication of the Abbey.2

1 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments.

2 The date of this screen is uncertain, but it must have been later than the

The whole chapel is, as John Dart has it, 'paved with princes, and a royal race,' kings, queens, and princes, who all wished to rest as near as possible to the miracle-working shrine.

On the left of the steps by which we ascend is the tomb of the founder, Henry III. (1272).

'Quiet King Henry III., our English Nestor (not for depth of brains, but for length of life), who reigned fifty-six years, in which term he buried all his contemporary princes in Christendom twice over. All the months in the year may be in a manner carved out of an April day; hot, cold, dry, moist, fair, foul weather being oft presented therein. Such the character of this king's lifecertain only in uncertainty; sorrowful, successful; in plenty, in penury; in wealth, in want; conquered, conqueror.'-Fuller's 'Church History.''

Henry died at Westminster Palace1 on the day of St. Edmund of Canterbury. His body was carried in state by the Knights Templar, whom he had first introduced into England, and his effigy was so splendidly attired 'that,' says Wykes, 'he shone more magnificent when dead than he had appeared when living.' On the day of St. Edmund, king and martyr, he was buried here before the high altar, in the coffin in which Henry II. had laid the Confessor, and whence he himself had removed him. His son Edward, then returning from Palestine, who had lately heard of the death of his sons Henry and John, broke into passionate grief on hearing the news of this third bereavement-'God may give me more sons, but not another father.' He brought from abroad the 'diverse-coloured marbles and glittering stones,' and 'the twisted or serpentine columns of the same speckled marble,'3 with which the tomb was constructed by 'Peter, the Roman citizen;' and thither he transferred his father's body, at the same time fulfilling a promise which Henry had made to the Abbess of Fontevrault by delivering his heart to her, to be enshrined in the Norman abbey where his mother Isabella, his uncle Richard I., his grandfather Henry II., and his grandmother Eleanor were buried. The effigy of the king, by the English artist William Torel, is of gilt brass. The king wears a coronet, and a long mantle reaching to his feet.

Lying at her father-in-law's feet is 'the queen of good memory,' the beautiful Queen Eleanor (1290), wife of Edward I., and daughter of Ferdinand III. of Castile. Married in her tenth year to a husband of fifteen, she was separated from him till she was twenty, and then won his intense affection by a life of heroic devotion, especially during the perils of the Crusades, through which she insisted upon accompanying him, saying in answer to all remonstrances, 'Nothing ought to part those whom God has joined, and the way to heaven is as near from Palestine as from England.' She was

time of Richard II., as part of the canopy of his tomb has been cut away to make room for its stonework. The subjects of the sculptures are taken from Abbot Ailred's Life and Miracles of St. Edward, written on the occasion of the translation of the relics of the saint in 1163, or fragments taken from an older Life. 1 Rishanger says that he died at Bury St. Edmunds, but all other authorities agree that he died at Westminster. 3 Keepe.

2 See Gough.