ders.

The first to be seen on entering the nave from the west is that of
Wykeham, whose faith in the solidity of Norman building was so great
that he did not hesitate to cut away more than a third of the two nave
pillars between which it is placed. Within the chapel, said to have been
built on the site of an altar to the Virgin, is the effigy of the
bishop-builder, with flesh and robes coloured "proper", as the heralds
say; and at his feet are the figures of his three favourite monks, to
whom he left an endowment for the celebration of three masses daily in
his chantry, while each was to receive one penny a day from the prior.
The effigy lies on an altar tomb, in episcopal attire, the head-pillow
supported by two angels. Five bays farther on is Edington's chantry, but
without effigy, as also are those of Fox and Langton. Of the seven
chantries those of Fox and Beaufort are usually considered the most
beautiful.

The proud Cardinal Beaufort, founder of the "Almshouse of Noble Poverty"
at St. Cross, is represented by Shakespeare as dying in despair:

"Lord Cardinal, if thou think'st on Heaven's bliss
Hold up thy hand: make signal of thy hope.
He dies, and makes no sign!"

Dean Kitchin writes: "One cannot look at his effigy, as it lies in his
stately chantry, without noting the powerful and selfish characteristics
of his face, and especially the nose, large, curved, and money-loving.
The sums Beaufort had at his disposal were so large that he was the
Rothschild of his day. More than once he lent his royal masters enough
money to carry them through their expeditions."

The mortuary chests are certainly among the most interesting things
possessed by any English cathedral. They are supposed to contain the
bones of Kings Eadulph, Kinegils, Kenulf, Egbert, Canute, Rufus, Edmund,
Edred, Queen Emma, and Bishops Wina and Alwyn. They no doubt got much
mixed up when removed from the crypt by Henry de Blois, and again when
the chests were broken open by the Parliamentarians, so that a detailed
identification has been made impossible. It is now generally
acknowledged that the bones of Rufus are in one of these chests, and
that the so-called Rufus tomb in the retro-choir is the burial place of
some great ecclesiastic. Such at any rate is the opinion of Dean
Kitchin, who has done so much to elucidate the past history of the city
and its Cathedral.

When one of these boxes was taken recently out of its enclosing ch