Saint Mary's church at Warwick was also standing then—the most interesting church in Warwickshire next to Holy Trinity at Stratford. It was burned in 1694, but the beautiful choir and the magnificent lady chapel, or Beauchamp Chapel, fortunately escaped the flames, and we see them to-day as Shakespeare doubtless saw them, except for the monuments that have since been added. He saw in the choir the splendid tomb of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and in the adjacent chapel the grander tomb of Richard Beauchamp, unsurpassed in the kingdom except by that of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. He looked, as we do, on the full-length figure of the Earl, recumbent in armor of gilded brass, under the herse of brass hoops also gilt; his hands elevated in prayer, the garter on his left knee, the swan at his head, the griffin and bear at his feet. He read, as we read, in the inscription on the cornice of the sepulchre, how this "most worshipful knight decessed full christenly the last day of April the year of oure Lord God 1439, he being at that time lieutenant general and governor of the realm of Fraunce," and how his body was brought to Warwick, and "laid with full solemn exequies in a fair chest made of stone in this church" on the 4th day of October—"honoured be God therefor." And the young Shakespeare looked up, as we do, at the exquisitely carved stone ceiling, and at the great east window, which still contains the original glass, now almost four and a half centuries old, with the portrait of Earl Richard kneeling in armor with upraised hands.
The tomb of "the noble Impe, Robert of Dudley," who died in 1584, with the lovely figure of a child seven or eight years old, may have been seen by Shakespeare when he returned to Stratford in his latter years, and also the splendid monument of the father of the "noble imp," Robert Dudley, the great Earl of Leicester, who died in 1588; but in the poet's youth this famous nobleman was living in the height of his renown and prosperity at the castle of Kenilworth five miles away, which we will visit later.
WARWICK IN HISTORY.
Only brief reference can be made here to the important part that Warwick, or its famous Earl, Richard Neville, the "King-maker," played in the English history on which Shakespeare founded several dramas,—the three Parts of Henry VI. and Richard III. He is the most conspicuous personage of those troublous times. He had already distinguished himself by deeds of bravery in the Scottish wars, before his marriage with Anne, daughter and heiress of Richard Beauchamp, made him the most powerful nobleman in the kingdom. By this alliance he acquired the vast estates of the Warwick family, and became Earl of Warwick, with the right to hand down the title to his descendants. The immense revenues from his patrimony were augmented by the income he derived from his various high offices in the state; but his wealth was scattered with a royal liberality. It is said that he daily fed thirty thousand people at his numerous mansions.
The Lady Anne of Richard III., whom the hero of the play wooes in such novel fashion, was the youngest daughter of the King-maker, born at Warwick Castle in 1452. Richard says, in his soliloquy at the end of the first scene of the play:—
"I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
What though I kill'd her husband and her father?"
Her husband was Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI., and was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury.
The Earl of Warwick who figures in 2 Henry IV. was the Richard Beauchamp already mentioned as the father of Anne who became the wife of the King-maker. He appears again in the play of Henry V., and also in the first scene of Henry VI., though he has nothing to say; and, as some believe, he (and not his son) is the Earl of Warwick in the rest of the play, in spite of certain historical difficulties which that theory involves. In 2 Henry IV. (iii. 1. 66) Shakespeare makes the mistake of calling him "Nevil" instead of Beauchamp.