[58]. This was written in the year 1754.
[59]. In the centre of the nave of Wells Cathedral there is a large stone that had formerly upon it an effigy in brass, which was generally ascribed to king Ina, the founder of that church.
[60]. This is one of the earliest specimens we have of the cross-legged monument. It is made of Irish oak, as well the table part, as the effigy. On the pannels are the arms of several of the worthies, and at the foot the arms of France and England, quarterly, which shews these escutcheons to have been painted since the reign of king Henry the fourth. This monument stood entire until the parliamentary army, during the Cromwell usurpation, having garrisoned the city of Gloucester against the king, the soldiers tore it to pieces, which being about to be burned, were bought of them by Sir Humphrey Tracy, of Stanway, and privately laid up until the Restoration, when the pieces were put together, repaired, and ornamented, and again placed in their former situation by Sir Humphrey, who also added a wire screen for their future preservation. There is an engraving of this monument in Sandford’s Genealogical History, page 16, which Rudder, (History of Gloucester, p. 126.) calls a noble representation of it.
Gibbon has left us the following account of this prince, (Rom. Hist. vol. 11. p. 32)—“Robert, Duke of Normandy, one of the chiefs of the first crusade, on his father’s death was deprived of the kingdom of England, by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus. The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness of temper; his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure, his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the amiable qualities of a private man, became the essential defects of a sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks (the one hundredth part of its present yearly revenue) he mortgaged Normandy during his absence in the first crusade, to the English usurper; but his behaviour in the Holy War, announced in Robert, a reformation of manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.”
There is an engraving of Robert, Duke of Normandy, in Ducarel’s Anglo-Norman Antiq. Plate 5.
The monument of William, Earl of Flanders, son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, as also two of his seals, are engraven in Sandford’s Genealogical Hist. p. 17.
[61]. The monument of Edmund Crouchback has been very lofty; it was painted, gilt, and inlaid with stained glass. The inside of the canopy has represented the sky with stars, but, by age, is changed into a dull red. On the base, towards the area are the remains of ten knights, armed, with banners, surcoats of armour, and cross-belted, representing, undoubtedly, his expedition to the Holy Land, the number exactly corresponding with what Matthew Paris reports, namely, Edmund and his elder brother, four earls and four knights, of whom some are still discoverable, particularly the Lord Roger Clifford, as were formerly in Waverly’s time, William de Valence and Thomas de Clare.
[62]. These rules are extracted from the Antiquarian Repertory, vol. ii. p. 124; and from the Introduction to Gough’s “History of Sepulchral Monuments,” p. 115.
[63]. This account of these monuments is extracted from Gough’s “History of Sepulchral Monuments.”
[64]. This monument was asserted by Green, in his History of Worcester, to have been a cenotaph, and accordingly the Dean and Chapter had determined on its removal, intending to place it over the supposed remains of the king in the lady chapel. But on opening the tomb on Monday, July the 17th, 1797, the royal remains were found therein in a stone coffin, the internal measure of which from the feet to the top of the excavation hollowed out for the head, was 5 feet 6 inches and a half. The body was doubtless originally placed in the coffin, nearly in the same form, and arrayed in such a robe as the figure on the tomb, with his sword in his left hand, and booted, but it was so much deranged as evidently to shew that it had been disturbed, and that perhaps at its removal from the place of its first interment in the lady chapel, if ever that event had taken place, which seems to have been a controverted point with historians. The most perfect part of the body seemed to be the toes, on some of which the nails were still distinguishable, but of what the dress had originally been composed, could be only matter of conjecture. The influx of people, eager to see the royal remains after an interment of nearly 600 years, was so great as to be the cause of the tomb being closed on the following day.