In the year 1878, Katherine of Valois, who had first been buried in
Henry III.’s chapel, then left for more than two hundred years in a
rudely made coffin, open to the public gaze, by her husband’s tomb, and
afterwards laid in a side chapel, was at last buried under the altar
slab in the Chantry Chapel of Henry V., and here within the calm shelter
of Edward’s shrine were carried the remains of two other queens,
Eadgytha, the wife of Harold, and good Queen Maude, the wife of Henry I.
Here, too, rest two tiny royal children, Margaret of York, the baby
daughter of Edward IV., and her niece, Elizabeth Tudor, the
three-year-old child of Henry VII. and Elizabeth. Their little marble
tombs are plain and bear now no name. One other royal prince is buried
here, Thomas of Woodstock, the uncle and for some time the adviser of
Richard II., who certainly suffered heavily for any advice he gave, good
or otherwise, for he was smothered to death at Calais with Richard’s
consent. And one man not of royal birth lies here—John of Waltham,
Bishop of Salisbury, for whom this same Richard II. had so great a
liking, that, defying every one, he ordered him to be laid among kings,
close to the tomb of the Confessor.
I wonder if by now you know thoroughly that chapel which holds our
earliest and some of our greatest kings and queens? Does that stately
tomb in the centre call to your mind Edward, the dreamer and the
builder, the dramatic ending of his life, the splendid ceremony of his
burial within these walls, when he was honoured not alone as king of
England or founder of the Abbey, but as a saint of the Church? Does the
tomb of Henry III., with its remains of soft coloured marble and gilt
mosaics, tell you of Westminster’s second great builder, a lover of
beauty and religious observances, but withal weak and extravagant, and
incapable of rising to his great responsibilities? Does the rugged,
undecorated monument of Edward I. show you the man, strong, stern, and
steadfast, or the tomb of his beloved Eleanor speak to you of his
wonderful love for her and of her sweet goodness? And when you look at
the resting-place of Edward III. and Philippa, does it not call up to
your mind the days of chivalry and the feats of English soldiers, the
victories of Poitiers and Crecy, the siege of Calais and the
compassionate pleading of the kindly queen? You stand by the tomb of
Richard and Anne, united at last, and do not you think, "Oh, the pity of
it," when you remember how Richard might have been strong and brave, had
only he kept true to his best self? And then, do you not turn with a
thrill of pride to the lofty chantry which encircles the grave of Henry
V., the best loved king England ever had, the king who set a glow of
patriotism alight in his realm, who rose above his failings and his
faults, and gave to his people the fine example of a man who was victor
over himself as well as victor over his foreign foes? Worthily I think
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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