Silently they took their seats in the carriage, and the coachman next drove them to Saint Mary’s Church, which stands in the quaint village of Warwick. Its old tower holds ten bells, and these play every four hours. There is a different tune for each day, which is always changed at midnight. The Warwick towns-people, living near their church, must have an enviable musical education, for they have continually dinned in their ears all sorts of tunes, from the “Easter Hymn” to “The Blue Bells of Scotland.”
On the site of Saint Mary’s, an ancient church is believed to have stood, prior to William the Conqueror. The present edifice, having been much altered and added to by various benefactors, and at very various times, presents a rather confused and not especially pleasing appearance architecturally. All visitors to the town are attracted there, however, by the presence of the Beauchamp Chapel, which contains the tomb of the Earl of Leicester.
Having paid the entrance fee, Mrs. Pitt and her charges were permitted to descend the few steps leading from the church proper into the Beauchamp Chapel. It is very beautiful, and was built in 1443, by William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who intended it as his memorial. It was once most elaborate with its fine marbles, monuments adorned with precious stones, and the gold statuettes which filled its niches, but these have long since been carried away. The tomb of Ambrose Dudley, who was named the “Good Earl of Warwick,” stands in the center, and against the wall is that of the great Leicester and the Countess, his wife.
“Look here,” called Mrs. Pitt. “Here lies their son, the little boy who wore the armor which you saw over at the castle. The inscription speaks of him as ‘That noble impe, the young Lord Denbigh, their infant son and heir.’ ‘Impe’ in those days had no such meaning of mischievous as we give it to-day. It then simply signified a young boy.”
Betty was much impressed by a small flight of winding stairs, just off the chapel, which are entirely worn down in the middle.
“Was it because so many monks went up there?” she asked.
“Yes, so it is said,” was Mrs. Pitt’s reply. “Perhaps it may have been a kind of confessional, where the monks knelt.”
There was one more thing in the church which they paused to note; that is, the tomb of Fulke Greville, the first Lord Brooke, who was stabbed by a valet, in 1628. Greville was “servant to Queene Elizabeth, conceller to King James, and frend to Sir Philip Sidney,” as the inscription tells us; and it would seem that the greatest emphasis and respect was even then given the fact that he was “frend to” the noble Sir Philip Sidney.
Nearby, the quaint buildings of Leicester’s Hospital still stand. Here was a monastery until the Dissolution, or the breaking up, of all the religious houses, under Henry VIII. When the property came into the hands of Leicester in 1571, he made the house into a hospital for twelve men. The present brethren have all been soldiers of the Crown, who now receive a pension and are spending the remainder of their days in the sunny nooks and corners of the old timbered houses. One of these brethren who showed the party about, was a most curious old character, and afforded the young people no end of amusement. He invariably gave his information in a very loud voice, which was absolutely without expression, and his eyes were kept steadily fixed upon some distant point.
He showed them the ancient hall in which Sir Fulke Greville once received King James, and it seemed to give him the keenest pleasure to describe how that King was “right royally entertained.”