The progress of style in tombs has already been traced to a certain extent in dealing with the early stages of the Renaissance movement. It has been shown how the old idea of the altar tomb, with recumbent figures, lingered on till quite late in the sixteenth century. In the closing years, however, it became fashionable to place the figure, still recumbent, beneath an arched canopy, upon which was lavished an extraordinary amount of ornament. The arch itself was coffered and adorned with bosses and stiff flowers of various kinds. It was flanked with columns which carried an entablature, above which again rose a superstructure displaying the family arms, and so designed that with its supporting obelisks and detached figures it formed a more or less pyramidal finish. The back of the tomb above the figures, and enclosed by the arch, was usually occupied by a tablet setting forth the name and qualities of the defunct person, together with his alliances, if they were thought at all worthy of record; and round this tablet was a frame of strap-work of intricate design filling up the remainder of the space, and decked with all manner of delicate ribbons and garlands. In every suitable place appeared the arms of the chief person concerned, or those of his wife, or some notable family to which they were allied. The whole monument was brightly coloured, where the use of different kinds of marble did not render such embellishment unnecessary, and the effect was striking in the extreme. The nobleman and the squire of Elizabeth's days had each a very high opinion of his family, and of his own importance in the scheme of the universe, and nothing would have pleased him better than to see the monument under which he was buried. Some of these great tombs are pretentious in idea and poor in design, but some of them are full of delightful detail, consistent in scale, varied in treatment, and beautifully modelled. There is a good example in the Chichester tomb at North Pilton, in Devonshire (Fig. 202), which departs from the usual arched type, and which, if it were erected soon after the death of those whom it commemorates, in 1566, is quite an early example of the use of strap-work. The detail of this monument, shown on Plate LXXXI., is of unusual delicacy, and the elaborate frame which encloses the black marble panel is handled with a delicacy and lightness of touch too seldom met with. The Foljambe tombs in Chesterfield Church, Derbyshire, are treated with considerable originality. One of them (dated 1592) is in the form of a sarcophagus, and is adorned with beautifully modelled carving (Fig. 203). These examples are of unusual excellence. The tomb in Bredon Church (Fig. 204) to G. Reed, who died in 1610, and that in the Spencer aisle at Yarnton (Fig. 205) to Sir William Spencer, who died in 1609, are specimens of the ordinary treatment of arched monuments. As time went on this kind of tomb became much coarser in design. The detail was less