Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury: with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst GloucestershireMassé, H. J. L. J. (Henri Jean Louis Joseph)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury: with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire
There is a window on the east side containing four lights, the
subjects, beginning from the north side, being as follows:--(1) The
mythical Saxon founders, Oddo and Doddo, A.D. 715. (2) The
Norman founders, _i.e._, Fitz-Hamon and Sibylla. (3) Earl Robert,
1089-1123. (4) The Countess of Warwick, 1439. The figures are based on
the MS. Chronicle of the Abbey, belonging to Sir Charles Isham of
Lamport. This window, the tracery of which is new, is by Bourne of
Birmingham, and forms a memorial to a former churchwarden, John
Garrison, who died in 1876. The tracery contains the red and white
roses of the rival houses of Lancaster and York, appropriately enough,
seeing that under the floor, in front of the altar to St. James, are
interred the remains of Lord Edmund, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Thomas
Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, Sir Richard Courtenay, Lord John
Somerset, and Sir Humphrey Hadley, who were beheaded after the battle
of Tewkesbury. Sir Thomas Tresham, who also was beheaded at the same
time, was buried before a pillar between the altars of St. James and
St. Nicholas.
The whole of this part of the chapel was once the choir or chancel of
the detached Early English Lady Chapel which was erected early in the
thirteenth century. The Annals of Tewkesbury record that in 1239 the
_Church_ of Tewkesbury with a greater altar was dedicated in honour of
the glorious Virgin Mary. The word Church might mean this Early
English Lady Chapel, which with its nave and chancel would be a model
church, although somewhat small in size; but the words _majore altari_
are generally taken to mean the large slab of Purbeck marble now in
its place in the choir as an altar slab.
Lady Chapels were not invariably at the east end of the main building.
At Bristol there was and is still an elder Lady Chapel which at one
time was detached from the main building.
The floor in these chapels is that which was formerly in the choir up
to the time of the restoration of the church.
=St. Margaret's Chapel.=--This is one of the series of the fourteenth
century chapels which surrounds the ambulatory of the choir.
An old altar-cloth which was given by Anne, Countess of Coventry, in
1731 to the church was removed to this chapel after the restoration of
the building.
[Illustration: _Photo. A.H. Hughes._
THE AMBULATORY, LOOKING TOWARDS ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEL.]
A very fine screen of stonework separates this chapel from the
ambulatory, the tomb of Sir Guy de Brien (late Decorated--erected in
1390) forming part of the screen.[17] Sir Guy was the third husband of
the Lady Elizabeth Despenser who is buried in the tomb on the other
side of the ambulatory. In the panelling are the arms of Sir Guy, who
was also Lord Welwyn, and those of his wife, who was by birth a
Montacute. This knight served Edward III. as standard-bearer at Creçy
in 1346, and was a great benefactor to the Abbey. He is credited with
the vaulting of the tower, as his arms occur in the bosses there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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