Work of Freemasons
IT may be that some of my readers are members of the Masonic body. Mr. John Proctor Carter, sometime Fellow of King's and Eton, in writing a history of the chapel, published in 1867, writes thus: "So many learned authors have been at fault when they have ventured into the obscurity which envelops the history of the Freemasons, by a gang of whom this chapel, in common with, at all events, a large number of mediaeval buildings were erected, that to say a word upon the subject may seem presumptuous. The theory of a traditional science, confined entirely to the members of a secret society that had ramified over the whole of civilised Europe, and to whom developments in architecture were due, has been pushed to extremity by some writers. By a natural reaction others have been led to discredit altogether the existence of such a society, and to consider the masonic fraternity merely as one of the various trade corporations or guilds whose relics have descended to our own day. But apart from the argument drawn from universal belief, there is probably sufficient evidence to show that the Freemasons were distinguished to some extent from other guilds, partly by the possession of peculiar secrets, and partly by their religious character. They seem to have been as it were the knight-errants of architecture, and to have travelled from city to city and country to country in the exercise of what they must have deemed a half sacred profession."
Ample proof has been adduced that Henry VI was not only a Mason himself (having been admitted a member of the fraternity in 1450), but did a good deal for the craft; and Freemasonry has much to thank him for. In a history of Westminster Abbey, written by the late Dean Farrar, is to be found the following: "Even the geometrical designs which lie at the base of its ground plan are combinations of the triangle, the circle, and the oval." Masons' marks are to be found in various places on the walls in chapel.
The Windows
AS I have previously mentioned, the building was begun in 1446, but, owing to the long Civil Wars, it dragged on until 1515; and it was in that year that a contract was entered into with one Barnard Flower, to glaze the windows "with good, clene, sure, and perfyte glass, according to the old and new lawe," or, as we should put it, the Old and New Testament. Barnard Flower died between July 25, 1517, the date of his will, and August 14, 1517, the date when the will was proved, having completed only four windows, one of which is generally believed to be that over the north door, while a second faces the organ on the same side. He describes himself as "Barnard Floure, the Kinges glasyer of England, dwelling within the precynt of Saint Martin hospitale, in the Burgh of Southwark, in the county of Surrey." In 1526 two contracts were entered into with other firms to complete the rest of the windows, which was done in 1531. Among the names of those who entered into the last contract were two Flemings. Windows of a similar kind, although smaller, are to be found at Fairford in Gloucestershire; these date from about 1490.
The windows of the Chapel contain the finest series in the world of pictures in glass on a large scale. The tracery is filled with heraldic devices. At the top of the centre light are the Royal Arms as borne by Henry VII, and the rest of the badges are Roses, Crowns, Portcullises, Hawthorn bushes and Fleur-de-lys, being all appropriate to Henry VII. There are also the initials H. E. (Henry VII and Elizabeth of York) and H. K. for Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon as Prince and Princess of Wales. These badges run all round the side windows. In each side window there are four subjects, two side lights above and two below the transom or crossbar, while in the centre light are four figures, men and angels alternately, "Messengers," as they are called, because they hold scrolls or tablets (in Latin) descriptive of the pictures at the sides. All the side windows, except the easternmost window on the south side, are carried out in a similar manner.