CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES and crossed legs; his lady is shown with a tightly-fitting gown and loosely-robed mantle over. This baron fought at Crecy and died three years afterwards. On another tomb is a fine alabaster effigy of John the second Baron, who took part in the battle of Poictiers; he is also represented in full armour, with his head resting on a helmet, and diminutive figures of monks support, or adorn, this tomb. There are also other fine tombs to older warriors, but of less interest; one huge monument has a very curious carved statue of a wild man on it, the meaning of which is not very apparent. It used to be an accepted tradition that when an ancient warrior was shown in effigy with his legs crossed, he had been a Crusader, but Dr. Cox, the eminent archæologist and antiquary, declares that this does not follow. "It is a popular error," he says, "to suppose that cross-legged effigies are certain proofs that those they represented were Crusaders. In proof of this many well-known Crusaders were not represented as cross-legged, and the habit of crossing the legs was common long after the Crusades had terminated." I am sorry to find that such a poetical tradition has no foundation in fact, and must therefore share the fate of so many other picturesque fictions that one would fondly cling to if one could. Sometimes I wish that learned antiquaries, for the sake of old-world romance, would keep their doubts to themselves. Romance is not religion; one takes a legend with a grain of salt, but there is always the bare possibility that it may be true, unless shown
