abide the issue
of his conscientious opposition to the king's wishes, as if he felt that
the tomb should then be prepared.

[4] Faulkner, in his history of Chelsea, adheres to this opinion, and
says that the tomb in that church is but "an empty cenotaph." His
grandson, in his Life, says, "his body was buried in the Chapel of St.
Peter, in the Tower, in the belfry, or, as some say, as one entereth
into the vestry;" and he does not notice the story of his daughter's
re-interment of it elsewhere.

[5] The Ropers lived at Canterbury, in St Dunstan's-street. The house is
destroyed, and a brewery occupies its site; but the picturesque old
gateway, of red brick, still remains, and is engraved above. Margaret
Roper, the noble-hearted, learned, and favorite daughter of More resided
here with her husband, until her death, in 1544, nine years after the
execution of her father, when she was buried in the family vault at St.
Dunstan's, where she had reverently placed the head of her father. The
story of her piety is thus told by Cresacre More, in his life of his
grandfather, Sir Thomas: "His head having remained about a month upon
London Bridge, and being to be cast into the Thames, because room should
be made for divers others, who, in plentiful sort, suffered martyrdom
for the same supremacy, shortly after, it was bought by his daughter
Margaret, lest, as she stoutly affirmed before the council, being called
before them after for the matter, it should be food for fishes; which
she buried, where she thought fittest." Anthony-a-Wood says, that she
preserved it in a leaden box, and placed it in her tomb "with great
devotion;" and in 1715, Dr. Rawlinson told Hearne the antiquary, that he
had seen it there "inclosed in an iron grate." This was fully confirmed
in 1835, when the chancel of the church being repaired, the Roper vault
was opened, and several persons descended into it, and saw the skull in
a leaden box, something like a bee-hive, open in the front, and which
was placed in a square recess, in the wall, with an iron-grating before
it. A drawing was made, which was engraved in the _Gentleman's Magazine_
of May, 1837, which we have copied in our initial letter; Summerly, in
his Handbook to Canterbury, says: "In the print there, however, the
opening in the leaden box, inclosing the head, is made oval, whereas it
should be in the form of a triangle." We have therefore so corrected our
copy.

[From Hunting Adventures in S