unfortunate queen lost courage, fell ill and died in 1437. The pitying nuns attended her faithfully to the last. The Queen's body lay in state in the church of St. Katherine's by the Tower: was then removed to St. Paul's and so on to Westminster, and was buried in the Early English Lady chapel, probably near the present steps up to Henry VII's chapel, which would also be near her husband, Henry V. An altar tomb was later erected to her memory by her son, Henry VI, bearing a Latin epitaph.

When Henry VII was buried, or at about that time, for some reason the Queen's body seems to have been exhumed: and being found in a remarkable state of preservation, and Henry VIII showing no disposition to restore her tomb according to his father's intentions, the body was carelessly wrapped to the waist in a piece of lead taken from the roof of the old chapel and placed in a rude box having a loose cover and thrust into a vacant space under the beautiful chantry which she had so carefully provided for Henry V. In this lamentable condition it was seen and handled, for more than three centuries, by any one who chose to pay two pence for the privilege. So Weever

describes it in the time of Charles I: so Pepys, after the Restoration, writing on his birthday, speaks of handling the body and "kissing a queen." So late as 1793, it was still an object of vulgar exhibition: but the attention of the Dean and chapter being called to the matter by Hutton's "Tour Through the Sights of London," the poor remains, rifled and stolen until only a small part of the original remained, were transferred to the Villiers vault in the chapel of St. Nicholas. Thence they were finally removed, in 1878, by Dean Stanley's kindly care, at the instance of Queen Victoria, to an honourable restingplace under the altar of Henry V's beautiful chantry, where they now remain, not far from the original place of their sepulture.

The reredos of the altar in Henry V's chapel consists of seven lofty canopied niches containing large figures, three on either side of a central group, now destroyed, representing the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John: St. George of England; St. Denis of France (the king having possessions in both countries): St. Edmund and St. Gabriel. A richly decorated closet or press is seen in the wall on either side of the chantry, opening from above by sliding doors, now

*Weever's Funeral Monuments.

removed, in which relics and probably rich. vestments were stored. There were spikes in the wall on either side of these recesses where candles were placed to be lighted when the relics were exposed to view.

It will be remembered that an altar with a place for relics formerly stood at the east end of the Confessor's chapel below, which was displaced when this chapel was built and the relics were then transferred to this chantry, and arrangements made for displaying them to pilgrims as they mounted the little stone stairways in the towers. Among the relics thus carefully treasured and exhibited were the Blessed Virgin's girdle wrought by her own hands: a stone bearing the imprint of our Lord's feet when he rose from the dead: one of the six jars in which water was made wine at Cana of Galilee: frankincense offered by the Magi, the gift of the Confessor: a piece of the seamless robe, the scourge, the sponge, and bread blessed by our Lord at the Last Supper: and a piece of the manger in which Christ was born, said to be the gift of Sebert.

The outer walls of this chapel as seen from the ambulatory are carved with ranges of figures and groups under rich canopies and with various emblems, arms and devices. The central group on each