flights of angels sang him to
his rest;" the other took religious clothing and retired to a
hermitage, where, after living "a full holy life for a yere and two
moneths, he passed out of this world."

But wide as is the range of the Romances of the "Round Table," they
form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne
and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which
another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for
another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of
fictitious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were
likewise woven around the mangled remains of classic heroes.

"The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn'd not such legends to prolong;
They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme;
And Dryden in immortal strain,
Had raised the 'Table Round' again."

The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII. are
preserved in the British Museum.[94]

These are some of them re-copied from Warton:--

In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient
seat of our monarchs, there are recited, Godfrey of Bulloign; the
Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of
Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of
Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the
Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke
Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the
Riche History of the Passion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son;
King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of
Maccabee.

At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical
Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the
Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.

At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the
Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.

At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.

At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.

At the More, a palace in Hertfordshire, King Arthur, Hercules,
Astyages, and Cyrus.

At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.

Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes, Romulus and Remus,
AEneas, and Susannah.

Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich,
Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which