The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English HistoryKingsley, Rose Georgina
History
The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English History
Kingsley, Rose Georgina
Children -- England -- London; Westminster Abbey -- Biography
King Edward seems to have been dissatisfied with the first place chosen
for his young brother's tomb. There is a very interesting warrant
written in curious old French among the archives of the Abbey, dated
"Brussels, the twenty-third day of August, in the thirteenth year of our
reign," while Edward was beseiging Tournay in 1340. In it he directs the
abbot and monks to order and suffer, _"que le corps de nostre trescher
frere Johan jadis Counte de Cornewaill peusse estre remuez et translatez
du lieu ou il gist jusques a autre plus covenable place entre les
Roials. Faisant toutesfoitz reserver et garder les places plus
honourables illoeques pour le gisir et la sepulture de nous et de noz
heirs, selonc ce que reson le voudra droitement demander."_[21]
St. Edmund's Chapel was therefore chosen as meeting all requirements. It
lies on the south side of the Abbey, and is only separated from the
Confessor's Shrine and the tombs of the kings by the ambulatory. Of all
the tombs of that period in the Abbey, John of Eltham's is considered
one of the most remarkable. He must have been the very pattern of a
gallant young knight. His effigy of white alabaster impresses you at
first with a sense of profound repose. Then when you look more closely
you begin to see what a striking figure it is; and you picture to
yourself the young Earl of Cornwall riding with his young brother, the
king, at the head of their troops through the bleak north-country, over
the wild wastes of the Border, up to fair Perth lying on the Tay, where
the fishermen draw in nets full of silvery salmon, and the
moors--covered with pink and brown heather and swarming with plump
grouse--roll up to the mountains of the Highlands. We can see the very
clothes he wore, for his effigy as a specimen of military costume is
most interesting and valuable. He is clad in plate armor, and wears the
_cyclas_, a curious garment cut much shorter in front than behind;
"beneath it, the _gambeson_; then the coat of mail; and lastly the
_haqueton_." The Prince's sword-handle, ornamented with lion's heads, is
beautifully sculptured; and the shield has three splendid lions on
it--the English royal arms--bordered with the French fleur-de-lis. Round
his helmet is a coronet, which is remarkable as the first of the kind
known. It is of the ducal form with greater and lesser trefoil leaves
alternately, instead of the usual circlet.
The tomb is surrounded by small, finely executed alabaster statues
representing mourning kings, queens, and relations of the dead prince.
Terribly broken though they now are--some are destroyed altogether, and
all are headless--enough of them remain to show that they were
sculptured with wonderful grace and spirit.
[Illustration: ANCIENT CANOPY OF THE TOMB OF JOHN OF ELTHAM.]
But the worst loss that the monument has sustained is in the exquisite
Gothic canopy of carved stone which once surmounted it. It was highly
colored and gilded, with an angel on a small spire crowning the centre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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