heraldic emblems-the swans and antelopes derived from the De Bohuns-- is the flaming beacon or cresset light which he took for his badge, "showing thereby that, although his virtues and good parts had been formerly obscured, and lay as a dead coal, waiting light to kindle it, by reason of tender years and evil company, notwithstanding, he being now come to his perfecter years and riper understanding, had shaken off his evil counsellors, and being now on his high imperial throne, that his virtues should now shine as the light of a cresset, which is no ordinary light." Aloft were hung his large emblazoned shield, his saddle, and his helmet, after the example of the like personal accoutrements of the Black Prince at Canterbury. The shield has lost its splendour, but is still there. The saddle is that on which he "Vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, The helmet-which, from its elevated position, has almost become a part of the architectural outline of the Abbey, and on which many a Westminster boy has wonderingly gazed from his place in the choir-is in all probability "that very casque that did affright the air at Agincourt," which twice saved his life on that eventful day-still showing in its dints the marks of the ponderous sword of the Duke of Alençon-"the bruised helmet" which he refused to have borne in state before him on his triumphal entry into London, "for that he would have the praise chiefly given to God:" "Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride; Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent, Quite from himself, to God." 2 Below is his tomb, which still bears some marks of the inscription which makes him the Hector of his age. Upon it lay his effigy stretched out, cut from the solid heart of an English oak, plated with silver-gilt, with a head of solid silver. It has suffered more than any other monument in the Abbey. Two teeth of gold were plundered in Edward IV.'s reign. The whole of the silver was carried off by some robbers who had "broken in the night-season into the Church of Westminster," at the time of the Dissolution. But, even in its mutilated form, the tomb has always excited the keen interest of Englishmen. The robbery "of the image of King Henry of Monmouth' was immediately investigated by the Privy Council. Sir Philip Sidney felt, that "who goes but to Westminster, in the church may see Harry the Fifth;" and Sir Roger de Coverley's anger was roused at the sight of the lost head: "Some Whig, I'll warrant you. You ought to lock up your kings better; they'll carry off the body too, if you don't take care. '-Dean Stanley, Memorials of Westminster.' From the Chantry above the tomb (only shown by special order), where Henry ordained that the masses were to be for ever offered up for his soul by 'sad and solemn priests,' one can look down into the shrine of the Confessor, and see the chest it contains. Under the altar of the Chantry now rests the body of Queen Katherine de Valois, daughter of Charles VI. of France, and Isabella of Bavaria. After the close of the brief married life, in which, as queen of Henry V., she was 'received in England as if she had been an angel of God,' 3 being widowed at twenty-one, she sunk at once into obscurity, and her son, Henry VI., was taken from her guardianship to be brought up by the Earl of Warwick. Falling in love with Owen Tudor, a handsome Welsh squire of her Windsor guard, she married him secretly, and became the mother of three children, Edmund, Earl of Richmond, father of Henry VII.; Jasper, 1 Henry IV., Part I. Act iv. Scene 1. 2 Some contend that the helmet is only one mentioned in the account as having been ordered for his funeral. 3 Monstrelet. Duke of Bedford, and Owen, a monk of Westminster. But the anger excited by the discovery of the queen's mésalliance led to her being deprived of her children, to the imprisonment of her husband in Newgate, and to her being herself shut up in Bermondsey Abbey, where she died in 1437. She was buried at first in the Lady Chapel, at the east end of the Abbey. When that chapel was pulled down to make room for the building of Henry VII., her mummified body was placed in a wooden chest by the side of Henry V.'s tomb. Pepys, writing Feb. 22, 1668-69, says 'Here we did see, by particular favour, the body of Queen Katherine of Valois ; and I had the upper part of her body in my hands, and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queene, and that this was my birthday, thirtysix years old, that I did kiss a queene.'--Diary. In 1776 the body of Queen Katherine was laid (at the funeral of Elizabeth, Duchess of Northumberland) in the vault of the Percies in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, but when that vault was opened in 1878 for the funeral of Lord Henry Percy, it was brought back here and buried near her royal husband. Close to Edward III.'s monument is the little tomb of the infant Princess Margaret of York (1397), daughter of Edward IV. and Elizabeth Woodville; and opposite it that of Princess Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., who died at Eltham, aged three. In front of the screen, facing the foot of St. Edward's shrine, stand the Coronation Chairs, which, at coronations, are moved to the middle of the chancel. That on the left, scratched and battered by irreverent visitors, as full of varied colour as a mountain landscape, is the chair decorated by 'William the Painter' for Edward I. In it was enclosed by Edward III., in 1328, the famous Prophetic Stone or Stone of Destiny of Scone, on which the Scottish kings were crowned,1 and with which the destinies of the Scottish rule were believed to be en woven, according to the old metrical prophecy— 'Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.' The legend of the Stone relates that it was the pillow on which the Patriarch Jacob slept at Bethel when he saw the Vision of the Ladder reaching to heaven. From Bethel the sons of Jacob carried the Stone into Egypt. Thither came Gathelus the Greek, the son of Cecrops, the builder of Athens, who married Scota,2 the daughter of Pharaoh, but being alarmed at the judgments pronounced 1 The custom of inaugurating a king upon a stone was of Eastern origin, and became general among Celtic and Scandinavian nations. Seven of the AngloSaxon kings were crowned on the King's Stone,' which still remains in the street of Kingston-on-Thames. 2 According to the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, Scotland was named from Scota. "The Scottes yclupped were After a woman that Scote hyght, the dawter of Pharaon against Egypt by Moses, who had not then crossed the Red Sea, he fled to Spain, where he built the city of Brigantia. With him he took the Stone of Bethel, seated upon which he gave laws and administered justice unto his people, thereby to menteine them in wealth and quietnesse.'1 In after days there was a king in Spain named Milo, of Scottish origin, and one of his younger sons, named Simon Brek, beloved by his father beyond all his brothers, was sent with an invading army to Ireland, that he might reduce it to his dominion, which he did, and reigned there many years. His prosperity was due to a miracle, for when his ships first lay off the coast of Ireland, as he drew in his anchors, the famous Stone was hauled up with the anchors into the ship. Received as a precious boon from heaven, it was placed upon the sacred hill of Tara, where it was called Lia-fail, the 'Stone of Destiny,' and gave the ancient name of Innis-fail, or 'the Island of Destiny,' to the kingdom.2 Irish antiquaries maintain that on the hill of Tara the real Stone still remains, but others assert that about 330 years before Christ, Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy, bore the Stone across the sea to Dunstaffnage, where an ancient sculpture has been found of a king with a book of the laws in his hand, seated in the ancient chair 'whose bottom was the Fatal Stone.'3 But from Dunstaffnage the Stone was again removed and carried to Iona by Fergus, who 'Broucht pis stane wythin Scotland, Fyrst qwhen he come and wane pat land, It was Kenneth II. who, according to the legend, in A.D. 840, brought the Stone to Scone, and there enclosed it in a chair of wood, ' endeavouring to confirm his royal authority by mean and trivial things, almost bordering on superstition itself.'5 The first authentic record of a coronation at Scone is that of Malcolm IV. in 1154, and upon it all succeeding kings of Scotland were inaugurated till the time of John Baliol, who, according to Hardynge, was crowned 'In the Minster of Scone, within Scotlàd grond, As all the Kynges there vsed had afore, On Sainct Andrewes day, with al joye therefore.' After Edward I. had defeated Baliol near Dunbar in 1296, he is said, before he left the country, to have been himself crowned king of Scotland upon the sacred Stone at Scone. However this may be, on his return to England he carried off as trophies of his conquest, not only the Scottish regalia, but the famous Stone of Destiny,' 'to create in the Scots a belief that the time of the dissolution of their monarchy was come.'6 Placing the Stone in the Abbey of Westminster, he ordered that it should be enclosed in a chair of wood. 1 Holinshed. 3 Pennant's Tour to the Hebrides. 5 Buchanan's History of Scotland. 2 Sir James Ware. 4 Wyntoun's Cronykil. 6 See Rapin's Hist. of England, 375. 'for a masse priest to sit in.'1 Various applications were afterwards made for the restoration of the Stone to the northern kingdom, and the immense importance which the Scotch attached to it is shown by its having been the subject of a political conference between Edward III. and David II., king of Scots. In 1328 Edward III. actually agreed to deliver it up: 2 the Scottish regalia was sent back, but when it came to giving up the Stone, 'the people of London would by no means allow it to depart from themselves.' The Stone (which geologically is of reddish sandstone) is inserted beneath the seat of the chair, with an iron handle on either side, so that it may be lifted up. The chair is of oak, and has once been 1 Hardyng's Chronicle, 2 Ayliffe's Calendars, p. 58, entirely covered with gilding and painting, now worn away with time and injured by the nails which have been driven in when it has been covered with cloth of gold at the coronations. At the back a strong lens will still discover the figure of a king, seated on a cushion diapered with lozenges, his feet resting on a lion, and other ornaments. In this chair all the kings of England since the time of Edward I. have been crowned; even Cromwell was installed in it as Lord Protector in Westminster Hall, on the one occasion on which it has been carried out of the church. When Shakspeare depicts Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, imparting her aspirations to her husband Humphrey, she says 'Methought I sate in seat of majesty In the Cathedral Church of Westminster, And in that Chair where kings and queens are crowned.' The second chair was made for the coronation of Mary II., and has been used ever since for the queens consort. Between the chairs, leaning against the screen, are preserved the state Shield 2 and Sword of Edward III., which were carried before him in France. This is the monumental sword that conquer'd France,' mentioned by Dryden : it is 7 feet long and weighs 18 lbs. 'Sir Roger de Coverley laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, and leaning upon the pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; concluding, that in Sir Richard Baker's opinion Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne.'--Spectator, No. 329. Before leaving the Chapel we must glance at its upper window, filled with figures of saints, executed in stained glass, of the kind called 'Pot-metal,' in the reign of Henry VI. 'A feeling sad came o'er me as I trod the sacred ground I stepp'd with noiseless foot, as though the sound of mortal tread *Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (1296), second son of Henry III., who fought in the Crusades. His name of Crouchback is believed to have had its origin in the cross or crouch which he wore embroidered on his habit after he had engaged to join in a crusade in 1269. 'Edward above his menne was largely seen, By his shoulders more hei and made full clene. See also Skene, 1 Nearly all these and many other particulars concerning the Coronation Chair will be found in an article in Brayley's Londiniana, vol. ii. Proceedings of the Society of Scotland, vol. viii. 2 Of wood lined with leather. |