The chantry of King Henry was less ornate than this screen, but it was nevertheless very beautiful. You must look at the pattern of the open work on the iron grating which is round the tomb gates, and pick out the fleur-de-lis, the emblem of France, claimed by Henry as his inheritance. The figure of the king was the special gift of his widow, and was carved of the best English oak, with a head of silver, and its value made it too great a temptation to some "covetous pilferers about the latter end of Henry VIII., who broke it off and conveyed it clean awaie."
Over the chantry you will see a helmet, shield, and saddle; and though the helmet is certainly not the one which Henry kept hidden from all people at the Agincourt festival, it is certainly as old as the funeral day, and was probably made for that occasion.
In the year 1878, Katherine of Valois, who had first been buried in Henry III.'s chapel, then left for more than two hundred years in a rudely made coffin, open to the public gaze, by her husband's tomb, and afterwards laid in a side chapel, was at last buried under the altar slab in the Chantry Chapel of Henry V., and here within the calm shelter of Edward's shrine were carried the remains of two other queens, Eadgytha, the wife of Harold, and good Queen Maude, the wife of Henry I. Here, too, rest two tiny royal children, Margaret of York, the baby daughter of Edward IV., and her niece, Elizabeth Tudor, the three-year-old child of Henry VII. and Elizabeth. Their little marble tombs are plain and bear now no name. One other royal prince is buried here, Thomas of Woodstock, the uncle and for some time the adviser of Richard II., who certainly suffered heavily for any advice he gave, good or otherwise, for he was smothered to death at Calais with Richard's consent. And one man not of royal birth lies here--John of Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, for whom this same Richard II. had so great a liking, that, defying every one, he ordered him to be laid among kings, close to the tomb of the Confessor.
I wonder if by now you know thoroughly that chapel which holds our earliest and some of our greatest kings and queens? Does that stately tomb in the centre call to your mind Edward, the dreamer and the builder, the dramatic ending of his life, the splendid ceremony of his burial within these walls, when he was honoured not alone as king of England or founder of the Abbey, but as a saint of the Church? Does the tomb of Henry III., with its remains of soft coloured marble and gilt mosaics, tell you of Westminster's second great builder, a lover of beauty and religious observances, but withal weak and extravagant, and incapable of rising to his great responsibilities? Does the rugged, undecorated monument of Edward I. show you the man, strong, stern, and steadfast, or the tomb of his beloved Eleanor speak to you of his wonderful love for her and of her sweet goodness? And when you look at the resting-place of Edward III. and Philippa, does it not call up to your mind the days of chivalry and the feats of English soldiers, the victories of Poitiers and Crecy, the siege of Calais and the compassionate pleading of the kindly queen? You stand by the tomb of Richard and Anne, united at last, and do not you think, "Oh, the pity of it," when you remember how Richard might have been strong and brave, had only he kept true to his best self? And then, do you not turn with a thrill of pride to the lofty chantry which encircles the grave of Henry V., the best loved king England ever had, the king who set a glow of patriotism alight in his realm, who rose above his failings and his faults, and gave to his people the fine example of a man who was victor over himself as well as victor over his foreign foes? Worthily I think does Henry's chantry crown the Confessor's shrine.