To the skill and genius of English William we owe the Trinity Chapel, where stood the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury, now but a memory, where still stands the tomb of Edward the Black
Prince, who, in his will, laid it down that he should be buried in the crypt, but here in the brighter light he lies. A splendid figure of romance he was—a great fighter, and, as such, beloved of his race; the boy victor of Cressy; the conqueror at Poitiers, where the French King became his captive; in his life the glory of his country, by his untimely death leaving it to anarchy and civil war. A great figure of a man, a name resonant in history, yet on the whole one of the least effective of our princes in that his work lasted not. We stand by his tomb, looking upon his effigy which is life-like in its strength. “There he lies: no other memorial of him exists in the world so authentic. There he lies, as he had directed, in full armour, his head resting on his helmet, his feet with the likeness of ‘the spurs he won’ at Cressy, his hands joined as in that last prayer which he had offered up on his death-bed.” That prayer which he uttered when the evil spirit, the lust of revenge, departed from him: “I give Thee thanks, O God, for all Thy benefits, and with all the pains of my soul I humbly beseech Thy mercy to give me remission of those sins I have wickedly committed against Thee; and of all mortal men whom, willingly or ignorantly, I have offended, with all my heart I desire forgiveness.” He died on Trinity Sunday in the forty-sixth year of his age. Above the canopy hang his gauntlets, his helm, his velvet coat that once blazed with the arms of England and of France, and the empty scabbard of his sword. We stand by this tomb, and all the horror, brutalities, cruelties of those cruel days are forgotten, and the air resounds with echoes of the trumpets of chivalry.
Close by lie Henry IV. and his second queen, Joan of Navarre; in 1832 the tomb was opened, and the body of the King found in strangely perfect preservation: “the nose elevated; the beard thick and matted, and of a deep russet colour; and the jaws perfect, with all the teeth in them except one fore-tooth.” Hard by is the small chapel founded by the King, “a chauntre perpetuall with twey prestis for to sing and prey for my soul”; but their voices are hushed.
Here also are the monuments of Odo Coligny, brother of the famous admiral, and of Archbishop Courtenay (1381-96); he gave munificently to the building and its adornment; he was the judge before whom Wiclif was arraigned, and found no pity in his heart for the reformer’s disciples.
Fortune has spared for us three of the interesting thirteenth-century windows in this chapel, and they well repay study. The rest were smashed amid the ruinous havoc decreed by Henry VIII., which is described elsewhere. The pictures are of scenes connected with the miracles wrought by the dead saint, with representations of his first tomb in the crypt below and of his later shrine in this very chapel.