The green isle of Glaston, severed as it was from the outer world by its girdle of marsh and mere, was from old time a haunt of peace. Its history as a religious foundation goes back into the mists of antiquity, and is lost in legend and fable. To this quiet retreat, this secluded stronghold of a more ancient faith, the footsteps of the first Christian missioners were guided, and the company of Eastern pilgrims found rest in its green recesses and a well-guarded focus for the great work of evangelising the isle of Britain. Successive waves of pagan immigration flooded the land, yet never was the lamp of truth extinguished here; and, stranger still, those who came, though of alien race and custom, cherished the older landmarks and sought not to destroy; for the heritage of Glaston was not the heritage of any individual race, but of all--a trust for Christendom. Within the sacred precincts the dust of many holy men was preserved, and the church enshrined their relics. She grew great through the pious benefactions of kings and nobles whose memory she kept green. Among these the gifts of the great Saxon King, Edgar, "yclept The Peaceable,"[2] were always gratefully remembered. In the great Abbey Church there was a chapel to his honour, well endowed, and, we doubt not, sumptuously furnished. But it was not esteemed sufficient, and in the day of Richard Bere, the last great building Abbot, it was decided that a new and more glorious monument should be erected to his memory. So we learn from Leland, who saw the chapel as it stood, a completed work, but a few years before the dissolution and ruin of the monastery. Then came, in 1539, the forced surrender, the barbarous execution of the last Abbot, Whiting, the violation of the shrines, and the dispersal of all the treasures of art and learning stored within the Abbey walls. But of the Edgar Chapel nothing more is heard, save that we can infer from a document we quote that it was standing in the days of Elizabeth. Yet it is doubtful whether it can have lasted through half her reign. And perhaps it was one of the first of the buildings to be utterly destroyed, since even its memory had perished and its form and grandeur were alike forgotten. Those who have seen the delicate and beautiful work at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, or that masterpiece of stonecraft, the Chapel of King Henry VII. at Westminster, may form some idea of the general character of this Chapel of Edgar in its finished state. [2] Vide Capgrave's _Chronicle_. Local memory and tradition generally preserve some traces, however dim or distorted, of an architectural work of great magnitude and beauty, but it is a strange fact that this one had utterly faded out of knowledge save for some scattered and obscure notes in the pages of the old county antiquaries, which contained no hint of its identity. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--PLAN FROM PHELPS'S "SOMERSET," REPRODUCED IN WARNER'S "GLASTONBURY."