"So with great solemnity and honour was that excellent prince brought unto the monastery of Westminster, and there at the feet of St. Edward reverently interred, on whose soul, sweet Jesus, be merciful."
The little king of England was not yet a year old, but directly after the funeral Parliament met, and Queen Katherine rode through the city of London in a chariot drawn by white horses, surrounded by the nobles of the land. She held her baby in her arms, and in the words of one who watched, "Those pretty hands which could not yet feed himself, were made capable of wielding a sceptre, and he who beholden to his nurses for food, did distribute law and justice to the nation." By his Chancellor the infant king saluted, and to his people spoke his mind, by means of another tongue. Alice Boteler and Joan Ashley were appointed by this year-old child to be his governess and nurse, "from time to time reasonably to chastise us as the case may require, to teach us courtesy and good manners, and many things convenient for our royal persons to learn."
The building of the chantry over the grave of Henry V. was not long delayed, and all his instructions were carefully carried out. You will see it is a little chapel of itself at the east end of the Confessor's Chapel, standing so high, that at first the people from the farther end of the Abbey could see the priests celebrating mass at its altar.
HENRY V.'s TOMB
But before long the stone screen put up about this time, to the further honour of St. Edward, cut it off from view. How exquisite must that screen have been, with its lacework tracery, its niches full of saints, its brilliancy of gold, of crimson, and of blue! You must look carefully at the carvings, which tell the story of Edward's life, fact and legend blended together. Here I will tell you shortly what each scene is meant to represent, beginning from your left as you face the screen.
The first two describe the birth of Edward; the third, his coronation; the fourth, his dream of the devil dancing for joy over the piles of money collected by the much-hated tax called Danegeld, a dream which so alarmed the king that he did away with the tax. The fifth shows how Edward had mercy on a thief who tried to steal his gold, for the king said, "Let him keep it; he hath more need of it than us." The sixth tells how Christ appeared to the king at the Holy Sacrament; the seventh and eighth describe the crowning of the king of Denmark and a quarrel between Harold and Tostig. The ninth and tenth go back to legend, the vision of the Seven Sleepers and the appearance of St. John as a pilgrim; while the twelfth and thirteenth describe St. John giving back the ring to the pilgrim, and the pilgrim's bearing it to King Edward. The eleventh shows the king washing his hands on the right, and on the left are three blind men, waiting for their sight to be restored to them when they wash their eyes in the water Edward had used; and the two last tell of the king's death and the dedication of the Abbey.
The chantry of King Henry was less ornate than this screen, but it was nevertheless very beautiful. You must look at the pattern of the open work on the iron grating which is round the tomb gates, and pick out the fleur-de-lis, the emblem of France, claimed by Henry as his inheritance. The figure of the king was the special gift of his widow, and was carved of the best English oak, with a head of silver, and its value made it too great a temptation to some "covetous pilferers about the latter end of Henry VIII., who broke it off and conveyed it clean awaie."
Over the chantry you will see a helmet, shield, and saddle; and though the helmet is certainly not the one which Henry kept hidden from all people at the Agincourt festival, it is certainly as old as the funeral day, and was probably made for that occasion.
In the year 1878, Katherine of Valois, who had first been buried in Henry III.'s chapel, then left for more than two hundred years in a rudely made coffin, open to the public gaze, by her husband's tomb, and afterwards laid in a side chapel, was at last buried under the altar slab in the Chantry Chapel of Henry V., and here within the calm shelter of Edward's shrine were carried the remains of two other queens, Eadgytha, the wife of Harold, and good Queen Maude, the wife of Henry I. Here, too, rest two tiny royal children, Margaret of York, the baby daughter of Edward IV., and her niece, Elizabeth Tudor, the three-year-old child of Henry VII. and Elizabeth. Their little marble tombs are plain and bear now no name. One other royal prince is buried here, Thomas of Woodstock, the uncle and for some time the adviser of Richard II., who certainly suffered heavily for any advice he gave, good or otherwise, for he was smothered to death at Calais with Richard's consent. And one man not of royal birth lies here—John of Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, for whom this same Richard II. had so great a liking, that, defying every one, he ordered him to be laid among kings, close to the tomb of the Confessor.