refers to the Stanley family legend of “The Bird and the Baby,” of which two children-ancestors were the heroes. An eagle hovers over the tomb.
The helmet hanging incongruously in mid-air has the Dacre crest, and is not in its proper place here; a helmet exhibited in church often implies that the wearer fought in the Crusades, but this probably is part of the heraldic ornament of the great Dacre memorial in the nave.
The inscription to Sir Robert Stanley is really beautiful in the stately wording and measured metre of the seventeenth century, and is worth quoting entire:
To say a Stanley lies here, that alone
Were epitaph enough; noe brass, nor stone,
No glorious Tomb, nor Monumental Hearse,
Noe gilded trophy, nor Lamp-laboured Verse
Can dignify this grave, nor sett it forth,
Like the immortal fame of his owne Worth.
So, Reader, fixe not here, but quit this Room
And fly to Abram’s bosom—there’s his tombe,
There rests his Soule, and for his other parts
They are embalmed and shrined in good men’s hearts—
A nobler Monument of Stone or Lime
Noe Art could raise, for this shall outlast Tyme!
“Lamp-laboured verse” is first-rate.
We cannot leave the More Chapel without referring to the controversy, dear to the antiquarian papers, as to whether the Chancellor’s body were ever brought from Tower Hill after the fatal July 6, 1535, to be interred in the church he loved. All tradition and probability point to this belief; though his head, exposed on London Bridge, and rescued by his devoted daughter Margaret Roper, was consigned by her to the keeping of St. Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury.
Now for another of Mr. Davies’ anecdotes of the Old Church.
Some twenty years ago, a marvellous story ran round Chelsea that Sir Thomas More’s ghost had been seen to emerge from the south wall monument and, crossing the sanctuary, disappear into the opposite wall. The figure was unquestionably that of the Chancellor, for besides being quaintly dressed, it was without a head—which clinched the matter. Lady artists, painting in the body of the church, had seen the apparition steal across the chancel, in the gloaming, and spreading the news abroad, soon brought half London to inquire into the marvel.
Unluckily Mr. Davies was on guard in his beloved church, and his explanation was crushingly disappointing. He stationed all would-be ghost seekers halfway down the middle aisle, and then produced the ghost—himself—passing from the tiny south door behind the tomb to the vestry opposite, a shawl drawn over his head and wrapped about his shoulders, giving the required appearance of headlessness.