We have now almost completed our round of the Chapel, and are again at the south door by which we entered. Only two more windows remain, and in these we return to the typical treatment of Our Lady's life. That over the south door has, by accident (as it appears), been more shattered and defaced than any other in the Chapel. It is arranged thus:
|
Type The death of Tobit. |
Type The burial of Jacob. |
| —— | —— |
|
Antitype The death of Mary. |
Antitype The burial of Mary. |
Mary is dying with the full rites of the Church. St. Peter sprinkles her with holy water, while St. John places in her hand a lighted "trindall" (three candles twisted together). The prayer book and cross are borne by other Apostles. Her bier is covered by a white pall with gold cross, and two severed hands may (with difficulty) be seen clinging to it. This refers to the legend that a certain Jew who sought to overthrow the bier was thus miraculously dismembered, and did not recover his hands till he penitently besought her to restore them.
Finally the south-west window completes the wondrous series:
|
Type The Translation of Enoch. |
Type Bathsheba enthroned by her son Solomon. (I. Kings, ii., 19.) |
| —— | —— |
|
Antitype The Assumption of Mary. |
Antitype Mary crowned by her Son Jesus. |
The west window remained unglazed, for some unknown reason, till as late as 1879, when there arose a benefactor, Mr. Francis Stacey, a Fellow of the College, who has left this noble memorial of his generosity. The glass is by Messrs. Clayton and Bell, and the subject, as is usual in west windows, is the Last Judgment. The heraldic devices in the tracery are not those found in the older windows, but comprise (in order) the Tudor Portcullis,[20] the Plantagenet Rose, and the shields of King's College, Eton College, Cambridge University, King Henry VI., King Henry VII., King Henry VIII., Queen Victoria, and Stacey. There are also the shields of the See of Lincoln, whose Bishop is ex officio Visitor of the College, impaling Wordsworth (then Bishop), and of Okes (then Provost of the College).
The glass of King's College Chapel by no means exhausts the interest of the building. The next point to be observed is the great organ screen, erected during the brief ascendancy of the miserable Ann Boleyn, whose initials are carved upon it. On either side of the door-way, within, are emblazoned the twin shields of King's and Eton; differing only in that the former bears three red roses, the latter three white lilies (not fleurs-de-lys) on the sable ground beneath the chief, with its lion of England and fleur-de-lys of France on their respective red and blue. The organ itself was not put up till 1606, but the nondescript Renaissance dragons supporting it show that the case must have been in hand more than half a century earlier. They are for all the world like Raphael's wonderful creations in the Vatican. The great trumpeting angels on the top of the organ are eighteenth century work. Originally much smaller angels stood there, which in the seventeenth century were replaced by pinnacles. The doors of the screen belong to the Laudian revival, and bear the arms of Charles the First. The west door of the Chapel is of the same period, but the north and south doors are the original ones.