There is a window on the east side containing four lights, the subjects, beginning from the north side, being as follows:—(1) The mythical Saxon founders, Oddo and Doddo, A.D. 715. (2) The Norman founders, i.e., Fitz-Hamon and Sibylla. (3) Earl Robert, 1089-1123. (4) The Countess of Warwick, 1439. The figures are based on the MS. Chronicle of the Abbey, belonging to Sir Charles Isham of Lamport. This window, the tracery of which is new, is by Bourne of Birmingham, and forms a memorial to a former churchwarden, John Garrison, who died in 1876. The tracery contains the red and white roses of the rival houses of Lancaster and York, appropriately enough, seeing that under the floor, in front of the altar to St. James, are interred the remains of Lord Edmund, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Thomas Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, Sir Richard Courtenay, Lord John Somerset, and Sir Humphrey Hadley, who were beheaded after the battle of Tewkesbury. Sir Thomas Tresham, who also was beheaded at the same time, was buried before a pillar between the altars of St. James and St. Nicholas.
The whole of this part of the chapel was once the choir or chancel of the detached Early English Lady Chapel which was erected early in the thirteenth century. The Annals of Tewkesbury record that in 1239 the Church of Tewkesbury with a greater altar was dedicated in honour of the glorious Virgin Mary. The word Church might mean this Early English Lady Chapel, which with its nave and chancel would be a model church, although somewhat small in size; but the words majore altari are generally taken to mean the large slab of Purbeck marble now in its place in the choir as an altar slab.
Lady Chapels were not invariably at the east end of the main building. At Bristol there was and is still an elder Lady Chapel which at one time was detached from the main building.
The floor in these chapels is that which was formerly in the choir up to the time of the restoration of the church.
St. Margaret's Chapel.—This is one of the series of the fourteenth century chapels which surrounds the ambulatory of the choir.
An old altar-cloth which was given by Anne, Countess of Coventry, in 1731 to the church was removed to this chapel after the restoration of the building.
Photo. A.H. Hughes.
THE AMBULATORY, LOOKING TOWARDS ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEL.[ToList]