The south side of this chapel is formed of the monument over the grave of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, surnamed "good" by an admiring people, though some modern historians hold that he had little real claim to this title. He was the son of Henry IV., and therefore brother of Henry V., and was uncle of Henry VI. and guardian to the young King in the early part of his reign. He who likes may read in any history of the part he played in the affairs of the country: how he incurred the hatred of the unscrupulous and vindictive Queen of Henry VI., Margaret of Anjou, "she-wolf of France"; how he was murdered by Suffolk, with, it is said, the connivance of the Queen and Cardinal Beaufort. It was at one time supposed that he was buried in London, but there is little doubt that he found a resting-place in a grave prepared for him in St. Alban's Abbey, on March 4, 1447. This would be during the time that John Stokes was Abbot, between the two abbacies of John of Wheathampstead. The body was discovered in its leaden coffin during the reign of Queen Anne, when another grave was being dug. The coffin was opened, and the duke's body was discovered to be in a good state of preservation in the coffin, which is described as being "full of pickle." It is said that at one time the vergers would, for a due consideration, allow visitors to carry away the smaller bones when, owing to the body having been removed from the preserving fluid, nothing but a skeleton was left. [Illustration: MONUMENT OF HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.] The monument is a handsome one. It was probably erected by Wheathampstead, who had been on terms of intimacy with the duke, when he for the second time became Abbot. The canopy over the grave is richly carved; the antelopes we see on it were the badge of the duke. His epitaph speaks of him, among other things, as Fraudis ineptae Detector, dum ficta notat miracula caeci. This refers to the story told of him by Sir Thomas More, how he convicted an impostor who claimed to have been born blind, but to have received sight at St. Alban's shrine, by asking him the colour of the garments that the duke himself and others were wearing; all these questions were correctly answered by the beggar, who forgot for the moment that one born blind who had only just received his sight, would not have known the _names_ of the various colours, though he might distinguish one colour from another. The beggar was punished for his imposture by being set in the stocks. This story is introduced into the first scene of the second act; of the second part of "Henry VI.," a reproduction of a St. Albans legend in which some students of the play will find an argument for attributing the play to Francis Bacon, who lived close by and would be likely to know the stories current in the town.