Although travelling was a slow and tedious process in those days, it was not necessarily so slow as this lengthy funeral procession. On December 4th, the body of the Queen having been previously removed from Harby to Lincoln Cathedral, the solemn pageant set out for Westminster, but did not reach London until eleven days later, and the entombment did not take place in the Abbey until the 17th of the month. The reasons for the length of time taken are twofold, and are to be found in the pompous circumstances under which the journey was taken, and in the circuitous route chosen. The usual route was by way of Stamford and Huntingdon, and so by Royston and Cheshunt, but it was intended that the procession should pass through a more frequented line of country and districts where the Queen had been better known. Another object was to take some of the greater religious houses on the way, and thus have suitably dignified places where to rest at the close of every day. The route chosen was, therefore, Grantham, Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, Waltham, West Cheap, and Charing.
The greatest magnificence marked the occasion, and twelve memorial crosses, of different design, were afterwards erected on the places where the bier had rested. Charity was given and masses paid for, and here at Hardingstone, close by the Abbey of Delapré, in whose chapel the body of the Queen rested for the night, this most beautiful of the three remaining crosses was erected. “Living, I loved her dearly,” the King wrote to the Abbot of Cluny, “and dead I shall never cease to love her”; and so with every care the great officers of State who accompanied the procession were directed to mark with particular care those resting-places the King thought sacred, so that no doubt might arise as to the exact spot where these memorials should be built.
The detailed accounts of the cost of these crosses exist to this day in the Record Office, where, inscribed in crabbed Latin on parchment rolls, they may be readily seen, if not so readily deciphered. From them may be gathered the names of the masons and the sculptors engaged: John de Bello being the chief architect of the crosses at Hardingstone, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, and St. Albans; and “Alexander le Imaginator,” otherwise Alexander of Abingdon, and William of Ireland the chief sculptors of the statues. Master Richard de Crundale was principal “cementarius,” or master-mason.
A very special care that the Cross should be frequented is to be observed in the remains of the stone-flagged pathway from Northampton, constructed at the time when the Cross was built, for the purpose of ensuring an easy journey to the spot, where the devout might pray for the soul of the departed Queen. The cost of this is set down in the accounts in payments of forty and sixty marks.
QUEEN ELEANOR CROSS.
From a photograph taken before the restoration of 1881.
In spite of the weathering of over six hundred years, and the mischief wrought by thoughtless people, the Cross is still a finely preserved work, and the graceful statues of the Queen under their protecting canopies in the upper stage are yet beautiful. But more than shoulder-high, the initials of the obscure, carved numerously in the stone, bear witness to that passion for remembrance that belongs to all classes, and has written itself deeply on venerable monuments such as this, in tree-trunks, on the margins of books, on walls, and on window-panes innumerable.
HOW NOT TO DO IT
Many restoring hands, and others that can scarcely be so described, have been laid upon “Queen’s Cross,” as it is locally styled. In the reign of Queen Anne, a good deal was done, and was complacently alluded to in a long Latin inscription on a huge tablet which, together with the Royal Arms, was actually affixed to the Cross, in company with a sundial on each of the eight sides. We may judge of the self-sufficient spirit of those “restorers” in this English version of the inscription: “For the perpetual commemoration of conjugal affection, the honourable Assembly of Magistrates, or Justices, of the County of Northampton, resolved to restore this monument to Queen Eleanor, nearly falling into ruins by reason of age, in that most auspicious year 1713, in which Anne, the glory of her mighty Britain, the most powerful avenger of the oppressed, the arbitress of peace and war, after that Germany had been set free, Belgium made secure by garrisons, the French overthrown in more than ten battles, by her own, and by the arms of her allies, made an end of conquering, and restored peace to Europe, after she had given it freedom.”
Dear me!