on the block. "So should traitors do," she cried, "but I am none;" and the headsman was obliged to butcher her as best he could.[1]
In the same letter before quoted from the Commissioners for the Suppression of Monasteries, dated from Christchurch, occurs this passage:—"In thys churche we founde a chaple and monumet curiosly made of cane [Caen] stone pparyd by the late mother of Raynolde pole for herre buriall, wiche we have causyd to be defacyd, and all the armys and badgis clerly to be delete."[2] To this day the vengeance of Henry's commissioners is visible, her arms being broken, and the bosses defaced, though her motto, "Spes mea in Deo est," can still be read.
At the end of this aisle, under the east window, lie the alabaster effigies of Sir John Chydioke and his wife. The knight, who fell in the wars of York and Lancaster, wears his coat of mail, his head resting on his helmet, and his hands clasped together in prayer. At the western end, adjoining the north transept, stand two oratories with groined roofs, enriched with foliated bosses, whilst the capitals, from which the arches spring, are carved with heads.[3]
- ↑ Lord Herbert's Life and Reyne of King Henry VIII., Ed. 1649, p. 468. See, however, Froude's History of England, vol. iv. p. 119, foot-note.
- ↑ The year, as was generally the case, is not given to this letter, but simply December 2nd. From internal evidence, however, it was certainly written in 1539; for we know that the Priory was surrendered Nov. 28th of that year. Why, then, two years before her death, the commissioners should speak of the "late mother of Raynolde pole" I know not.
- ↑ Below the north transept, part, perhaps, of Edward the Confessor's church, is a vault, which, when opened, was stacked with bones, like the carnary crypts at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and of the beautiful church at Rothwell, in Northamptonshire—the "skull houses," to which we so often find reference in the old churchwardens' books.
