But the worst loss that the monument has sustained is in the exquisite Gothic canopy of carved stone which once surmounted it. It was highly colored and gilded, with an angel on a small spire crowning the centre.
In 1776 Elizabeth Percy, first duchess of Northumberland, whose name will always be remembered as the patroness of literature to whom we owe the Percy Reliques, was buried in the family vault of the Percys in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. In spite of her repeated desire that the funeral should be "as private as her rank would permit" a vast crowd collected, so
that the officiating clergy and choir could scarcely make their way from the west door to the chapel. Just as the procession had passed St. Edmund's Chapel, the whole of the screen, including the canopy of John of Eltham's tomb, came down with a crash, which brought with it the men and boys who had clambered to the top of it to see the spectacle, and severely wounded many of those below. The uproar and confusion put a stop to the ceremony for two hours. The body was left in the ruined Chapel, and the Dean did not return till after midnight, when the funeral was completed, but still amidst cries of murder, raised by such of the sufferers as had not been removed.[22]
The broken canopy was never restored. The Dean of that day seems to have thought it not worth while to take the trouble of mending it; and by his order it was swept away. The fragments, it is said, found their way to Strawberry Hill, Walpole's famous villa, where, at some time in the end of the last century, they were put up for sale, having been used as a chimney piece. Their subsequent fate I have not been able to ascertain.
It is difficult to believe that such an act of vandalism took place little more than a hundred years ago. The Deans of Westminster now are a very different race to the one who swept away John of Eltham's beautiful canopy. With the beginning of this century a spirit of love and veneration for Westminster Abbey seemed to revive. Dean Vincent appealed to Parliament and persuaded the nation to repair Henry the Seventh's chapel which was falling into decay. Under Dean Ireland free admission was given to the greater part of the Abbey. And Dean Buckland, the well-known geologist, carried on the good work by taking down some hideous screens which shut off the transepts from the choir. He was succeeded by Dean Trench, the present learned Archbishop of Dublin, who inaugurated the special services on Sunday evening in the nave—a grand movement in the right direction. And all this time public interest was growing more and more keen about the Abbey. New discoveries were being made by architects and antiquarians each year. But it was not until Dean Stanley succeeded the Archbishop of Dublin that the Abbey came quite to life. No one who has ever accompanied the late Dean in those memorable excursions which he delighted to make over the building can forget the enthusiasm with which his vivid descriptions inspired his listeners. Whether he was talking to the Emperor of Brazil, or a score of poor factory lads from some northern town, the brilliancy and humor of his speech held them spellbound. To him Westminster owes among many other things that unrivalled volume of Memorials—from which I have so often had occasion to quote—the most perfect handbook to any cathedral that I know, save his yet more perfect Memorials of Canterbury, written when he was canon of that cathedral. Dean Stanley's memory which must always be present in the minds of those who have known him at Westminster, is specially bound up with my recollections of St. Edmund's Chapel; it was one of his most favorite spots in the Abbey, and John of Eltham's tomb one of those he most delighted to show to all his visitors. And this brings us back from nineteenth century deans to fourteenth century princes, and to the old tombs in whose histories we can find such inexhaustible mines of interest.
In 1340, two more young "royals" were buried beside John of Eltham in St. Edmund's Chapel. These were his nephew and niece who died quite young—William of Windsor and Blanche de la Tour—children of Edward the Third. The boy was born at Windsor, which was fast becoming a rival to Westminster as a royal residence; and little Blanche was born at the Tower of London. The effigies in white alabaster are very small, only about twenty inches long: but they are in full costume of the time. The boy wears the short close-fitting jerkin, with a wide jewelled belt round the hips, and a flowing cloak fastened with a jewelled clasp falls to his feet. The little girl has on a full long petticoat with a tightly fitting bodice, to the square neck of which her mantle is fastened by a cordon with a rose and two studs. The hideous muffled chins of the last century had given place to a horned headdress (the horns are broken in little Blanche's effigy) and a close net of gold, each wide mesh, through which the hair shows, being fastened at the crossing with pearls or precious stones. Blanche's feet rest against a little lion: but her brother's have been broken off obliquely. The tomb altogether has been cruelly used, and no trace of the children's faces remain. Yet who can wonder, when we see the way in which John of Eltham's splendid monument has been mutilated.
TOMB OF WILLIAM OF WINDSOR AND HIS SISTER BLANCHE.
When these two little children were laid to rest in the Abbey, their father was just beginning his great wars with France—the wars that lasted for a hundred years and only ended in Henry the Sixth's reign with England's final loss of her French possessions. And six years after, in 1346, Cressy was fought and won by their brother, the Black Prince. With the battle of Cressy, England entered upon a career of military glory, which, though for a time it proved fatal to her higher interests, gave her a life and energy she had never known before, and laid the foundation of the Englishman's dogged love of fighting that is not quite dead yet, if we may judge by the way British soldiers and sailors fought at El Teb.