Beneath the great and good deeds of Wykeham, we may here mention a little kindly act, not less indicative of a noble character. When he had purchased Dummers Mead from St. Swithun’s Monastery for the site of his College, a tailor claimed a part of it and took legal proceedings. The man failed to establish his right, and was condemned to pay the heavy costs, which would have ruined him. Wykeham generously defrayed them. [Sidenote: Relics of Wykeham.] There are preserved in a curious vaulted strongroom over the College sacristy, among other manuscripts, a modest pedigree, tracing Henry VII.’s descent from Adam, a Life of St. Thomas à Becket deposited here by Wykeham,[52] and a roll of the household expenses of the founder in 1394.[53] But if we wish to see his most interesting relics we must go to New College, Oxford. Judging from what remains there, we might almost conclude that Wykeham was a giant in stature as well as in mind.[54] There we find a pair of large crimson silk gloves, with I. H. S. amid golden rays, worked on their backs. His ring is about an inch wide, of great solidity, with the crucifixion embossed on the gold at each side. The stone, about the size of a sovereign, is in the shape of a heart and colourless, probably rock crystal. This was doubtless a thumb ring, but it is large even for that. His mitre case is an extraordinary structure, made of thick stamped leather, girded with iron bands and locked at the top. It is a foot wide and nearly two feet high, in shape resembling a beehive. From the strength of the case we should expect valuable contents. But no; the fragments of the mitre show it to have been little superior to a stage “property.” Its rods adorned with trefoil leaves are of silver gilt, but the “jewels” are plentiful and spurious. The tissue bearing the I. H. S. was worked with seed pearls. The purfling which went round the brow of the mitre was of brass, with sham gems, alternated with small squares of silver brightly enamelled with figures of men, animals, and flowers. The most costly of these “jocalia” is the central piece of a morse or clasp for the cope. It is about two inches wide, and is called a Mary crowned, being in the form of an old-fashioned M, like a horseshoe.[55] It is surrounded with pearls, emeralds, and garnets. In the centre stand two little figures in gold, Mary and an angel, and between them is a vase of garnet, from which springs a lily with emerald leaves and flowers of pearls. Behind a glass in New College Chapel is Wykeham’s crozier; a magnificent work of silver adorned with pinnacles and other ornaments, and especially rich in scriptural figures in enamel.