Stow, writing about 1598, says, ‘This church was again newly rebuilt in the reign of Richard II and king Henry IV. John Gower, a learned gentleman and a famous poet, but no knight, as some have mistaken it, was then an especial benefactor to that work, and was there buried in the north side of the said church, in the chapel of St. John, where he founded a chantry. He lieth under a tomb of stone with his image also of stone being over him. The hair of his head brown, long to his shoulders but curling up, collar of esses of gold about his neck; under his head,’ &c.[51] The tomb is then further described as by Berthelette, with addition of the epitaph in four Latin hexameters, ‘Armigeri scutum,’ &c. (see p. 367 of this volume). In the _Annals of England_ (date about 1600) he again describes the tomb, adding to his description of the painting of the three virgins the important note, ‘All which is now washed out and the image defaced by cutting off the nose and striking off the hands[52],’ from which it would appear that we cannot depend even upon the features of the effigy which now exists, as original. The figures of the virgins were repainted in the course of the seventeenth century apparently, for in Hatton’s _New View of London_ (date 1708) they are described as appearing with ‘ducal coronets[53].’ In Rawlinson’s _Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey_ (published 1719) the effigy is spoken of as having a ‘scarlet gown,’ the older descriptions, e.g. Stow, giving it as ‘an habit of purple damasked,’ and it is said that there is upon the head ‘a chaplet or diadem of gold about an inch broad, on which are set at equal distances four white quaterfoyles.’[54] The writer argues also that the chain should be of silver rather than of gold[55]. The arms are said to be ‘supported by two angels,’ and ‘underneath is this inscription, “Hic iacet Iohannes Gower Armiger Anglorum poeta celeberrimus ac huic sacro Edificio Benefactor insignis temporibus Edw. III et Ric. II. Armigeri scutum,”’ &c. The following remark is added: ‘Our author Mr. John Aubrey gives us an inscription which he says he saw on a limb of this monument, something different from the foregoing, and therefore not unworthy a place here, viz. Johannes Gower, Princeps Poetarum Angliae, vixit temporibus Edwardi tertii et Richardi secundi.’ Later, in 1765, Tyler describes the gown as purple and the arms as pendent by the dexter corner. The figures of women have ducal coronets and scrolls of gold, and below them is the epitaph ‘Armigeri scutum.’ Under the statue the inscription ‘Hic iacet,’ &c.[56] The monument, as here described, is engraved in Gough’s _Sepulchral Monuments_ (date 1796), where there is a full description of it[57]. Blore, under whose direction the position of the monument was changed, says in 1826 that the inscription on the ledge of the tomb ‘Hic iacet,’ &c., was then entirely gone.