Tradition makes the More Chapel the scene of Sir Thomas’s farewell message to his wife. On the morning of his arrest, she was waiting for him after Mass in the family pew; he had been acting as “server” at the altar, and had been hurried from thence straight to the river and the Tower. A young groom, by the Chancellor’s orders, went to his wife with this message, which the varlet was bidden to repeat exactly in his master’s words: “Bid Mistress More wait no longer for Master More, for he hath been led away by the King’s command.” A smart box on the ear from the insulted lady rewarded the servant for his literal fulfilment of his lord’s mandate. “What do you mean, sirrah, to speak of Mistress and Master More when you name the Chancellor of England and his lady?” but when the boy persisted in his orders, she began to perceive her husband’s hidden design and realise that he had fallen from his high estate, and in this fashion would break it to her. She was his second wife, and neither beautiful nor very sweet-tempered, but Sir Thomas ever treated her with the most courteous consideration, joked at her shrewishness, and complimented her whenever he could. Still we cannot help suspecting that on this occasion he was a little relieved to send the message of his downfall by the young groom instead of having to deliver it in person. The next tomb of interest in the More Chapel is that of the Duchess of Northumberland, 1555, mother of thirteen children, of whom Robert Earl of Leicester, Guildford Dudley, husband of Lady Jane Grey, and Mary, mother of Sir Philip Sydney, were the most celebrated. This lovely monument has been barbarously treated: the spirals were broken off in 1832 to make room for seats and increase the letting value of the chapel, and its awkward position suggests that it has been pushed out of its original setting. Several of the brasses have been wrenched away. Chaucer’s tomb in Westminster Abbey is almost a replica of what it must have been when whole, and is probably by the same designer. The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland succeeded Queen Katharine Parr as tenants of the Manor House, the Tudor palace in Cheyne Walk: the Duke and his son Guildford both died on Tower Hill, with the “nine days’ Queen,” and it is greatly to the credit of Queen Mary I. that she interested herself in the bereaved Duchess, and restored to her part of her confiscated possessions. In Elizabeth’s reign the family flourished again, and there is a minute description extant of the Duchess’s gorgeous funeral at the Old Church.