Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeeSergeant, Philip Walsingham
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Sergeant, Philip Walsingham
Winchester Cathedral
In the corresponding position to the south is the #Chantry of Cardinal
Beaufort#, now kept in repair by the Dukes of Beaufort. In Britton's
time, as he tells us, there had fallen a "horse-load of the pinnacles in
the canopy of Cardinal Beaufort's chantry." Owing, however, to the
extreme elaboration, the effect is hardly impaired by this loss. The
plan of the tomb is two groups of four clustered piers at each end,
supporting a mass of canopies, niches, and pinnacles, which "bewilder
the sight and senses by their number and complexity," as Britton
quaintly says. The screen at the west end is closed, that at the east
end open. The vault displays some elaborate fan-tracery. The body of the
cardinal is presented in his scarlet official robes and the tasselled
and corded hat, and the serenity of his face suggests very little the
traditional portrait of him, as represented, for example, in
Shakespeare's "Henry V." His death-bed moments, it is well known, have
been much misrepresented. The inscription originally on his tomb has
been destroyed, but Godwin quotes one sentence of it thus:--_Tribularer
si nescirem misericordias tuas_.
Against the north wall, not far from Waynflete's chantry, is an unknown
tomb with part of an effigy, to the east of which is the grave of one
William Symonds, "Gentleman, of Winchester twice Maior and Alderman," as
his epitaph of 1616 relates. The last four lines of the inscription run
as follows:--
His Merrit doth Enherit Life and Fame,
For whilst this City stands Symonds his name
In alle men's harts shall never be forgotten,
For poores prayers rise when flesh lyes rotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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