Here are two coffins covered with velvet, in which are said to be the bodies of two Ambassadors, detained here for debt; but what were their names, or what Princes they served, I could not learn.
Our guide next showed us the body of King Henry the Fifth's Queen, Catherine, in an open coffin, who is said to have been a very beautiful Princess; but whose shrivelled skin, much resembling discoloured parchment, may now serve as a powerful antidote to that vanity with which frail beauty is apt to inspire its possessors.
Among the waxen effigies, I had almost forgot to mention King Charles II. and his faithful servant General Monk, whose furious aspect has something terrible in it.
Not far from these is the figure of a lady, one of the Maids of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, who is said to have bled to death by only pricking her finger with a needle
.
I must now return to those monuments, which are in the open part of the church, and free to every one's sight; for those I have been speaking of are inclosed
[sic]
, and not to be seen without a small gratuity to the conductor.
Among these, then, on the north side, stands a magnificent monument erected to Lady Carteret, for whose death some reports assign a cause something odd, viz. the late French King Louis the XIV.'s saying, That a lady (whom one of his Nobles compared to Lady Carteret) was handsomer than she.
Near this stands a grand monument of Lord De Courcy, with an inscription, signifying that one of his ancestors had obtained a privilege of wearing his hat before the King.