Page:Mediaevalleicest00billrich.djvu/115

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Within the church were tombs, thus described by Leland: "There lieth on the north side of the high altar Henry, Earl of Lancaster, without a crownet, and two men children under the arch next to his head. On the south side lieth Henry, the first Duke of Lancaster, and in the next arch to his head lieth a lady, by likelyhood his wife. Constance, daughter to Peter, King of Castile, and wife to John of Gaunt, lieth before the high altar in a tomb of marble, with an image of brass (like a queen), on it." (A grant of Henry IV recites that the Duchess Constance, his step-mother, his wife Mary Bohun, and his brothers lay buried in the church.) "There is a tomb of marble in the body of the choir. They told me that a Countess of Derby lay buried in it; and they make her, I wot not how, wife to John of Gaunt, or Henry IV. Indeed Henry IV, while John of Gaunt lived, was called Earl of Derby. In the chapel of St. Mary, on the south side of the choir, lie buried two of the Shirleys, knights, with their wives; and one Brokesby, an esquire. Under a pillar in a chapel of the south cross aisle lieth the lady Hungerford, and Sacheverell, her second husband. In the south side of the church lieth one of the Blunts, a knight, with his wife. And on the north side of the church lie three Wigstons, great benefactors to the College. One of them was a prebendary there, and made the free grammar school."

Six Chantries were founded in this church.

1. Simon's chantry was founded by Simon Symeon in 1381-2, "for the soul of Duke Henry, for the healthful estate of John of Gaunt, his son, Henry, earl of Derby, Simon Symeon and Elizabeth his wife, for their souls after death and the souls of the fathers and mothers of Simon and Elizabeth and all the faithful departed." On the day of Simon's obit, the office and mass of the dead were to be sung, and one of the canons was to say mass at the altar which Simon had constructed in the north part of the church, and three masses were to be said daily at the same altar.

2. There was also a chantry of one chaplain, founded in 1401 by a clerk in the household of John of Gaunt, known as

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