her sorrowing husband, and immense sums were spent on her
funeral. For asking to go away before the ceremony was completed, the
Earl of Arundel was struck on the head with a cane by the king, and
brought to the ground with his blood flowing on to the Abbey pavement.
The affair caused so much delay, that darkness came on before all was
over. The tomb that covers her remains was intended by her husband for
both, but whether Richard II. sleeps in the tomb that bears his name or
not must remain a matter of doubt. Henry IV. brought a corpse from
Pontefract to Langley, and Henry V. transferred it to this tomb; but few
believed it to be really the body of the murdered king.

England had never seen a grander royal funeral than that of Henry V. He
died at Vincennes, and with great pomp his body was brought by Paris to
London. At every stage between Dover and London, and again at St.
Paul's, and at the Abbey, funeral services were performed. The closing
scenes were very impressive, as the funeral car, amidst a blaze of
torches borne by hundreds of surpliced priests, and followed by his
three favourite chargers, came up the nave to the altar steps. Room for
the tomb was made by clearing away the holy relics behind the
Confessor's shrine. Here was placed the magnificent piece of
workmanship, which we now behold, a tomb below, and above a chantry, in
which for a year thirty poor persons were to read the Psalter of the
Virgin and special prayers for the repose of Henry's soul. At the back
of the chantry hung the king's indented helmet (in all probability the
one worn at Agincourt), his shield, and his saddle. In the arch beneath
lies the headless effigy of Henry, the silver head having been carried
off when Henry VIII. was robbing the churches.

Henry VI. was very fond of the Abbey. He chose a place for his tomb, and
even paid the first instalment for its erection, in readiness for his
own demise. But the civil wars hindered its completion; and I have
already told you how Henry VII. meant to raise a special chapel for him
and altered his mind.

We will pass on now into the Chapel of Henry VII., the grand mausoleum
of a race of kings, who looked back (as Stanley points out) not to
Saxon Edward, but to British Arthur, as their great ancestor. A gloomy
porch conducts us into a blaze of splendour. Walls, ceilings, and arches
are richly decorated; the "stone seems by the cunning labours of the
chisel (says Washington Irving) to have bee