In 1776 Elizabeth Percy, first duchess of Northumberland, whose name will always be remembered as the patroness of literature to whom we owe the _Percy Reliques_, was buried in the family vault of the Percys in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. In spite of her repeated desire that the funeral should be "as private as her rank would permit" a vast crowd collected, so that the officiating clergy and choir could scarcely make their way from the west door to the chapel. Just as the procession had passed St. Edmund's Chapel, the whole of the screen, including the canopy of John of Eltham's tomb, came down with a crash, which brought with it the men and boys who had clambered to the top of it to see the spectacle, and severely wounded many of those below. The uproar and confusion put a stop to the ceremony for two hours. The body was left in the ruined Chapel, and the Dean did not return till after midnight, when the funeral was completed, but still amidst cries of murder, raised by such of the sufferers as had not been removed.[22] The broken canopy was never restored. The Dean of that day seems to have thought it not worth while to take the trouble of mending it; and by his order it was swept away. The fragments, it is said, found their way to Strawberry Hill, Walpole's famous villa, where, at some time in the end of the last century, they were put up for sale, having been used as a chimney piece. Their subsequent fate I have not been able to ascertain.