The story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

The armour is a most interesting collection. A great many pieces are Elizabethan, but the "Black Prince's helmet" is a unique sallet of the period of the Wars of the Roses. The right way to study the Hall is to mount the little flight of steps at the southern end, and, sitting in the Minstrel Gallery, behind the array of civic armour, examine the glorious fifteenth-century window at your leisure. A few years back the glass was in utter confusion, having been carelessly replaced after re-leading, and the respective heads, bodies and legs of the magnanimous conquerors and kings therein commemorated were sadly astray, their anatomy being rendered thereby most perplexing. This has, however, been judiciously remedied, and we can now clearly see in the nine compartments—as the artist, possibly William Thornton, or a pupil of his, designed—the figures of the Emperor Constantine, King Arthur, William I., Richard I., Henry III., Edward III., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., the last occupying the place of honour in the central light. Above are the arms of various nobles and cities, among others the "elephant and castle" of this city, the three "garbs," wheat-sheaves of Chester, and the sable eagle of Earl Leofric, the city's earliest benefactor.

The dark oak roof belongs also to the fifteenth century, and is worth, even at the cost of some strain to the muscles of the neck, a careful study. At the centre of each beam are whole-length figures of angels, ten in number, of whom eight are playing on various instruments. The first, close to the great north window, has a violin-like instrument, the second a harp, the third a flute, the fourth a flute, but of a peculiarly flat shape, the fifth a violin, the sixth a curved tube, the seventh a tabor, the eighth a curved tube, while the ninth and tenth have no wings or instruments at all; possibly they represent the "morning stars singing for joy."

Under the great north window hangs a piece of tapestry, dating, so say experts, from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is of Flemish design, and was woven, possibly in England, with the intention of filling the place it now occupies. Faded in colour, often blurred in outline, the tapestry still remains a glorious memorial to the love of beauty and artistic workmanship and corporate pride of the great guild. It is divided into six compartments, and represents a king, queen, and their Court adoring the Virgin, the Trinity, and divers saints in glory; being undoubtedly designed to commemorate the admission of a king and queen into the ranks of the Trinity guild—an event which did actually occur in 1500 in the case of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York. Among the company of saints the place of honour is given to those who were the chosen patrons of the guild. Unfortunately the tapestry has not come down to us in the condition in which it left the makers' hands. The figure of Justice holding the scales is obviously out of harmony with the whole design. There is no doubt that the personification of the Trinity, God the Father on the throne holding Christ extended upon the Cross, with the Dove, once occupied this space. The Hebrew letters of the word Jehovah found above the cross still remain, but the reformers, who could not endure the representation of this mystery, cut out the rest.[744] Round the present incongruous figure of Justice kneel angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, the nails, the sponge of hyssop, the crown of thorns, the scourge, pillar and spear. The Assumption of the Virgin in the lower central compartment reminded the guildsmen of their earliest patroness, whose festival was one of their chief days of assembly. The Virgin's feet rest on the crescent moon, which is supported by an angel. The apostles kneel round in attitudes of adoration. On either side of the lower tier a king kneels in prayer, on the right a queen, traditionally identified with Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou; this attribution has not gone unchallenged; and it is at least possible that the contemporary king and queen, Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, may be intended; the heraldic roses in the border are, however, Lancastrian and not Tudor. The King kneels at a table whereon lie a crown and missal; he wears a jewelled cap. None of his followers can be identified save the kneeling cardinal, who probably is intended for Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (or Cardinal Morton), and the standing figure behind the King, who may be the "good Duke Humphrey" (or Henry, Prince of Wales). The Queen kneels opposite. None of her ladies can be identified. The Queen has a head-dress embroidered with pear-pearls, upon which is a crown of fleur-de-lys, her dress is yellow, and the sleeves lined with ermine. Of the three ladies who kneel behind her the third is obviously a child.[745]

In the upper left-hand division is a group of male, on the right-hand a group of female, saints respectively led by the patrons of the guild, S. John the Baptist and S. Catherine. The former are the less interesting company; they consist of S. John the Baptist bearing the book and Agnus Dei; the next is probably S. Thomas, holding a lance. There follow S. Paul with a sword; S. Adrian, patron of brewers, standing on a lion, and holding a sword and an anvil, instrument of his martyrdom; S. Peter with the key; S. George holding a banner, but, oddly enough, with no dragon at his feet; S. Andrew with a transverse cross; S. Bartholomew with a knife; S. Simon with a saw; and S. Thaddeus with a halberd. In the opposite division stands an array of saints in charming Tudor dress; S. Catherine with her wheel; S. Barbara with the tower; S. Dorothea with the basket of roses; S. Mary Magdalene with the vase of ointment; S. Margaret, name-saint of the queen who kneels in the compartment beneath, with a queer, flabby, spotted demon curling round her body; S. Agnes with a delightful little lamb, which she holds by a string. Then follows an abbess, concerning whose identity there has been much discussion. She is arrayed in a monastic habit, bears a crozier, and has three white mice about her person, one on either shoulder, and another springing in the air above. This is S. Gertrude of Nivelles in Flanders,[746] patroness of travellers, and maybe also of the locality where the tapestry was designed. Noted far and wide for hospitality in her lifetime, the saint did not cease her ministrations to wayfarers after death. The journey to Paradise is a long one, occupying three days, so that the popular fancy said that the souls slept with S. Gertrude on the first night, with S. Gabriel on the second, and the third they rested in Paradise. "The saint therefore became," says Mr Baring Gould, "the patroness and protector of departed souls. Next because popular Teutonic superstition regarded rats and mice as symbols of souls, S. Gertrude is represented in art as attended by one of these animals. Then, by a strange transition when the significance of the symbol was lost, she was supposed to be a protectress against rats and mice, and water from the crypt at Nivelles was distributed for the purpose of driving away these vermin." It may be noted that the two nuns in the compartment of ladies attending upon the queen, wear the same habit as S. Gertrude. The next saint of the company is usually identified with S. Anne, but on what grounds I am unable to discover. She bears a long staff (or taper) in her hand. Now the saint likely to be associated with S. Gertrude would be her godchild, S. Gudule, patroness of the cathedral of Brussels. Her appropriate symbol is, however, a lantern. But the artist is not very careful about these, and possibly may have substituted the taper. In this case the demon hovering over S. Apollonia, who follows next, bearing her pincers, really belongs to S. Gudule, and is a reminiscence of the saint's nocturnal difficulties in keeping her lantern alight, so persistently did the evil spirit blow it out.

MAYORESS' PARLOUR, SHOWING STATE-CHAIR

After examining the tapestry there is little to detain you. The oriel window contains some fragments of old glass; on the floor are some ancient tiles; small figures from the ancient cross also stand in the recess. The inscriptions about the Hall are reproductions of Elizabethan black letter which once adorned the ancient wainscotting. A brass commemorating the lease of Cheylesmore Park, granted to the citizens by the Duke of Northumberland in the reign of Edward VI., is fixed in the wall close to the entrance to the Mayoress's Parlour. It is dated 1568. As for the terrible windows, filled with glass in 1826 in imitation of the old work which had been destroyed in an affray concerning a contested election of 1780, known as the "bludgeon fight," let us not speak of them. At the south end of the hall is (right) the Prince's Chamber, leading to the ancient stone-groined treasury in the tower, and containing fragments of carving, one a figure of S. George and the Dragon from S. George's chapel at Gosford gate, and (left) the Council-Chamber, which has been recently wainscotted with Jacobean carving brought from a house in Earl Street. There is a fine Jacobean fireplace, an old chair, and an Elizabethan drawing-table in the room. At the back of the minstrel-gallery is the Armoury, where lies, in neglect and dust, a large picture, "The Baccanali," by Luca Giordano; and at the back of the armoury is Queen Mary's Chamber, the traditional place of confinement of the Scottish Queen in 1569.

Crossing the churchyard, you arrive at Trinity Church whereof the spire was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. The exterior, which has been frequently recased, suffers somewhat from the neighbourhood of S. Michael's, but the interior is of earlier and more finely proportioned architecture than its giant neighbour. Rebuilt at the close of the fourteenth century on the site of a parish church, which existed at least as far back as the reign of Henry III., this building is also full of problems, and is in some respects most interesting of all the churches of Coventry. The jambs of blocked windows at various levels are fruitful of speculations on the original appearance of the church, and a piscina high up on the wall of south transept proclaims the former existence of an upper chapel, with a floor level over a vaulted passage, which was done away with for probably quite insufficient reasons in 1834. The church, which was served by twelve parochial and two chantry priests before the Reformation, contained fifteen altars; while in the Lady-chapel a priest held services, taking a stipend from the Corpus Christi guild.