Henry was a curious mixture of a desire to hoard up money, and a desire to build what he undertook on a very lavish scale. He saved more money than any other English king, and he certainly spent less, for he was simple in all his tastes, a silent, gloomy man. But he has left behind him in Westminster Abbey a piece of work as beautiful as wealth and art could make it, a building "stately and surprising, which brought this church to her highest pitch of glory," and though his original ideas as to its purpose were frustrated, his longings that here "three chantry monks should say prayers for his soul so long as the world endured," being ruthlessly disregarded by his own son, Henry VIII., his chapel still stands, so that with Edward the Confessor and Henry III. he ranks among the three great royal builders of the Abbey. Before you go into this chapel stand for a minute in King Edward’s shrine, with its stately simplicity; then pass under the chantry of Henry V., simple too, but telling of strength, of life, and vigour; walk up the steps of Henry’s Chapel into the dark entrance, and then stay still in the doorway to drink in the matchless beauty before your eyes. Here, simplicity is a word unknown; everywhere, inside and out, is a wealth of carving; no spot or corner was deemed too hidden away to be ornamented; roof and walls alike are covered with delicate lacework and rich embroidery made out of stone. "They dreamed not of a perishable house who thus could build." The foundation-stone was laid one afternoon in the January of 1502 by Islip, "that wise and holy man who was Abbot of the Westminster monks," and the building was solemnly dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary by order of Henry VII., king of England and France and Lord of Ireland. The work went on quickly, for money was not lacking. Abbot Islip was a man of action, and Henry was feverishly anxious that the building should be completed in his lifetime. Here it was that he meant to be buried, for just because his claim to the throne was not a very good one, he was doubly anxious to link himself on by many different ways to the kings of the past. Everywhere in his chapel, round his tomb, on the roof, and on the doorways, you will find his different badges set up, as if to say, "Each one of these badges gave me the right to be king of England." You will see over and over again the York and Lancaster roses; the portcullis and the greyhound, both of them Beaufort badges, which had come to him through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, the direct descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; the red dragon of Cadwallader of Wales, the last British king, whom Henry alone of all the English kings proudly claimed as his ancestor, through Owen Tudor, his father; and the lion, which always figured in the royal arms of England. These badges, everywhere carved, were Henry’s challenge to any one who might dispute his claim.