Intimately connected with Warwick Castle and its former lords, is the Beauchamp Chapel attached to St. Mary’s Church. The chapel is one of the most exquisitely beautiful buildings remaining in this country, and ought to be seen by every visitor to Warwick. It is placed on the south side of the choir of the church, from which it is entered by a descent of several steps beneath a doorway said to have been carved by a mason of Warwick in 1704, but probably being only a freshening and touching up, or restoration, of the original design. The size of the chapel is 58 feet in length, 25 in breadth, and 32 in height, and its design and finish are of the most chaste and beautiful and elaborate character. It was built in the reign of Henry VI., in accordance with the will of its founder, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1439. The foundation was laid in 1443, and in 1475 the chapel was consecrated, and the body of its founder with much solemnity laid therein. It is stated to have cost £2,481 4_s._ 7_d._, an enormous sum in those days, when the value of a fat ox was only 13_s._ 4_d._: and the contracts for some of the work are still preserved. In the chapel is the monument of the founder, which is, with only one exception, the most splendid monument of its kind in the kingdom. It is an altar-tomb of Purbeck marble, bearing the recumbent effigy of the great earl, in fine latten brass, gilt. His head, uncovered, rests upon a helmet, and at his feet are a bear and a griffin. The tomb is surmounted by one of the few “hearses” that yet remain in our churches. It consists of six hoops of brass, extended by five transverse brass rods, on which formerly was hung a pall, “to keep the figure reverently from the dust.” Around the tomb, in niches, are fourteen figures in “divers vestures, called weepers,” friends and relatives of the deceased who mourn his loss. Between the weepers are smaller niches, raised upon pillars, containing whole-length figures of angels holding scrolls, inscribed “Sit deo laus in gloria, defunctis misericordia.” The effigy of the earl is the finest of its class, and it is a perfect figure, the armour on the back, and all the details being as highly and carefully finished as those on the front of the figure. For this effigy in brass, William Austen was paid (exclusive of cost of workmen, carriage, &c.) £40, and the goldsmith, Bartholomew Lambespring, was paid £13 for gilding it; the “weepers” cost in brass, 13_s._ 4_d._ each, and the angels 5_s._ each; and the gilding of these, and preparing them for gilding, cost also a considerable sum—the contracts being of the highest interest, and very minute in every particular. [Illustration: _The Beauchamp Chapel, monument of the founder._] In the same chapel are monuments, &c., to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his Countess Lettice, 1588; to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, 1589; to Robert Dudley, Lord Denbigh, 1584; to Lady Katherine Leveson, and others.