The shrine was probably placed behind the high altar, and afterwards between the reredos and the eastern screen, as at Durham and St. Albans. The bones themselves were deposited in a portable feretrum, so that they might be easily carried in procession.
As in the case of Thomas à Becket, the original place of William's burial still remained an object of veneration.
It was at the eastern end of the nave, and was covered with a great superstructure, so large that processions, it is said, were obliged to divide and march to each side of it.
The head appears to have been kept in a silver jewelled chest separate from the rest of the body. It was exhibited to worshippers who gave offerings to it. At the Reformation the head was seized by one Layton, afterwards Dean, and a follower of Thomas Cromwell; its seizure was one of the chief causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
At this time, also, the shrine was demolished, and also the superstructure over the saint's original place of burial in the nave. It is said that no remembrance was left of the spot except a tradition that the saint had lain under a long marble slab in the nave of the church.
In 1732, during the repairing of the nave of the minster, Drake, the historian of York, obtained leave to search under the said slab, and there found a coffin of stone, containing a leaden box, in which were bones wrapped in sarcenet. There was no inscription by which the remains could be identified, and they were again buried.
Archbishop Melton was buried near the font, as it then stood, at the west end of the minster. In 1736, when the new pavement was laid, the stone covering his grave was taken up, and a lead coffin was discovered, containing the bones of the archbishop. On the top of the coffin was a chalice and paten of silver-gilt. Inside the coffin was the pastoral staff, but no ring or vestments. The archbishop was re-buried in the same place.
Monuments in the South Transept.—In the eastern aisle is the tomb of Archbishop de Grey, who died in 1255. This, one of the two or three really fine monuments in the church, is Early English in style, and has been very little damaged. It consists of an effigy, with a canopy supported by nine pillars above it. The figure of the archbishop is clothed in full canonicals. In his left hand is a crozier, and his right is raised to bless. The feet trample on a dragon, into the mouth of which enters the butt end of the crozier. On each side of the figure is a shaft ornamented with bunches of leafage at regular intervals. Round the head of the archbishop is a gable cusped with censing angels on each side of it.
