The Beauchamp Chapel is slightly below the level of the south transept and is entered down a flight of steps. Photographs give an exaggerated idea of its size, but scarcely do justice to its beauty and the extreme richness of its details, still remarkable, although the ancient coloured glass has been mostly destroyed and the golden images of the altar have disappeared. It is indeed due to the second Lord Brooke, who although a partisan of the Cromwellian side during the Civil War, was naturally keen to preserve the glories of Warwick, that the Chapel was not wholly destroyed in that age of tumults. Lord Brooke was the son of that Sir Fulke Greville, first Baron Brooke, to whom James the First had granted Warwick Castle in 1605, and he no doubt looked upon the Beauchamps as ancestors, although there was never the remotest connection between that ancient martial family and his own, the Grevels, or Grevilles, who descend from the old wool-merchants of the name at Chipping Campden and elsewhere in the Cotswolds. He adopted them, and took them over, so to speak, with the Castle; and a good thing too, for these old monuments, that they had so fortunate an adoption.
The building is in the middle period of the Perpendicular style, that last manifestation of the Gothic spirit and the feudal ages, and is elaborately groined in stone. The great Richard Beauchamp, who lies here in these gorgeous surroundings, directed by will the building of the Chapel and the erection of his monument. He was the greatest as yet of his name, and appears to have been perfectly conscious of it, if we may judge by the state in which he ordained to lie. He was also to prove the greatest to all time, for although his son Henry who succeeded him at his death in 1439 was created Duke of Warwick, his career was undistinguished and soon ended, for he died in 1445. With him ended the long line of his race.
Richard Beauchamp, fourteenth Earl of Warwick, whose effigy lies here in lonely magnificence on the altar-tomb he directed to be made, as though he were too great a personage to have his wife beside him, was holder of the greatest offices of State of his period. The long inscription round his tomb tells us of some of these responsible posts—
“Preieth devoutly for the Sowel whom god assoille of one of the moost worshipful Knights in his dayes of monhode and conning Richard Beauchamp, late Earl of Warrewik, lord Despenser of Bergevenny and of mony other grete lordships whos body resteth here vnder this tumbe in a fulfeire vout of stone set on the bare rooch the whuch visited with longe siknes in the Castel of Roan therinne decessed ful cristenly the last day of April the yer of oure lord god A mccccxxix, he being at that tyme Lieutenant gen’al and governer of the Roialme of ffraunce and of the Duchie of Normandie by sufficient Autorite of oure Sou’aigne lord the King Harry the vi., the whuch body with grete deliberacon’ and ful worshipful conduit Bi See And by lond was broght to Warrewik the iiii day of October the yer aboueseide and was leide with ful solemn exequies in a feir chest made of stone in this Chirche afore the west dore of this Chapel according to his last wille and Testament therin to rest til this Chapel by him devised i’ his liff were made Al the whuche Chapel founded on the Rooch And alle the membres thereof his Executours dede fully make and Apparaille By the Auctorite of his Seide last Wille and Testament And therafter By the same Auctorite Theydide Translate fful worshipfully the seide Body into the vout abouseide, Honured be god therfore.”
History comes in few places with such vivid reality to the modern person as it does here. Unmoved, because too often without the mental agility to perceive the significance of it, we look upon the old royal arms of England as they were for centuries, until the time of George the Third, and see the quartering of the Lions of England with the Lilies of France; that proud boast, an idle pretension long before Calais, the final French possession of England, was lost, in the reign of Queen Mary. But standing before the tomb of the great Beauchamp, and reading his sounding titles, no mere ornamental designations, but the veritable responsible offices of State, as “Lieutenant-General and Governor of the Realm of France and the Duchy of Normandy,” we live again in tremendous days. No tomb of King or Emperor impresses me as does that of this puissant representative and viceroy of such sovereignty.
Beneath a hooped frame or “hearse” of gilded brass which formed the support for a gorgeous pall of crimson velvet lies the effigy of this great soldier and statesman, also in brass, once highly gilt. His bared head rests upon his helmet and his feet upon a griffin and a muzzled bear, and the Garter is on his left leg. The arms are raised in the usual attitude of prayer, but the hands themselves are not joined, as usual. They are, instead, represented apart, in the priestly pose during the celebration of mass.
The rich crimson velvet pall that covered the effigy and was lifted for its inspection by every visitor, was at last removed, on the plea of the injury it was supposed to be causing the figure, and has now unaccountably disappeared.
In niches around the altar-tomb are little figures representing his family, and sons- and daughters-in-law: fourteen in all; such great names as Henry Beauchamp, his son and successor, with his wife Cicely; Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury and his wife Alice; Richard Neville, afterwards Earl of Warwick and his wife Anne; Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his wife Eleanor; Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and his wife Anne; John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Margaret; and George Neville, Lord Latimer, with his wife Elizabeth.
Against the north wall of the Chapel is the costly and ostentatious monument of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, rising in lofty stages of coloured marbles; a vulgar piece of work. The effigies of Dudley and his wife Lætitia, who survived him forty-six years and died in 1634, are gorgeously robed and painted in lifelike fashion. The mantle of the Order of the Garter covers his armour, and the Garter itself is shown on his leg. It is with surpassing interest that one looks upon the chief of these figures; that Dudley who came near being King-Consort of Elizabeth, and died in 1588, at the comparatively early age of fifty-four; the vain and magnificent creature suspected of the murder of his first wife and traditionally poisoned by his last, who is said to have given him the lethal cup he had intended for herself. A long Latin epitaph sonorously recounts his many titles and honours, with the hardy belief in “a certain hope of his resurrection in Christ.”
Against the opposite wall is the altar-tomb of that “noble Impe, Robert of Dudley,” infant son of the last, who died in his fourth year, 1584. A circlet round the brow of the little figure bears the Leicester badge, the cinquefoil. Last of the Dudley monuments, is the altar-tomb of Ambrose, styled the “good Earl,” in tacit contradistinction from his brother Robert, the wicked one. The good Ambrose was not given length of days, for he died the year after his brother. He also is shown in armour and wears a coronet and the Garter. How he was given the post of “Mayster of the Ordinaunce,” made Chief Butler of England, and was altogether a personage of many offices, his epitaph tells. With him and the “noble Impe,” his brother’s infant son, the legitimate race of the Dudleys died.