Blackfriars, London.
It was a custom of the time for devout persons to desire that the heart should be removed after death, and taken to some peculiarly holy place. Queen Eleanor had taken special interest in the community of the Black Friars, and especially in the Church which they had just built in London. By her own special request her heart was to be taken to this church, and Edward took special pains that a tomb should be erected worthy of containing this relic.
There is little knowledge of the design for this monument. A certain John le Convers seems to have been a clerk dealing with the payments, while Adam, a well-known goldsmith of the time, and much in the confidence of the King and Queen, was asked to make an angel to support the casket containing the heart. In addition to this figure, which was of metal and gilt as were Torel’s great effigies, statues ornamented the tomb. These were no doubt of the same design as those erected in other places. They were the work of Alexander the “Imaginator” and Dyminge de Legeri, and very probably of the same character as those at Lincoln. Alexander also constructed certain iron work around this monument. William de Suffolk made three small images in metal for the Blackfriars tomb.
One of the most interesting features of the monument were the paintings by Walter of Durham. This artist received the large sum of £46 13s. 4d., according to the Queen’s accounts, for his work at Blackfriars. Part of the stonework, consisting of a crista, perhaps an ornamented stone canopy, was built by William de Hoo.
All traces of the tomb disappeared at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. The responsibility for the final act of destruction seems to rest on the shoulders of the same Sir Thomas Cawarden into whose clutches there also fell the Church and possessions of St. Mary Roncevall.