St. Edmund's Chapel was therefore chosen as meeting all requirements. It lies on the south side of the Abbey, and is only separated from the Confessor's Shrine and the tombs of the kings by the ambulatory. Of all the tombs of that period in the Abbey, John of Eltham's is considered one of the most remarkable. He must have been the very pattern of a gallant young knight. His effigy of white alabaster impresses you at first with a sense of profound repose. Then when you look more closely you begin to see what a striking figure it is; and you picture to yourself the young Earl of Cornwall riding with his young brother, the king, at the head of their troops through the bleak north-country, over the wild wastes of the Border, up to fair Perth lying on the Tay, where the fishermen draw in nets full of silvery salmon, and the moors--covered with pink and brown heather and swarming with plump grouse--roll up to the mountains of the Highlands. We can see the very clothes he wore, for his effigy as a specimen of military costume is most interesting and valuable. He is clad in plate armor, and wears the _cyclas_, a curious garment cut much shorter in front than behind; "beneath it, the _gambeson_; then the coat of mail; and lastly the _haqueton_." The Prince's sword-handle, ornamented with lion's heads, is beautifully sculptured; and the shield has three splendid lions on it--the English royal arms--bordered with the French fleur-de-lis. Round his helmet is a coronet, which is remarkable as the first of the kind known. It is of the ducal form with greater and lesser trefoil leaves alternately, instead of the usual circlet.
The tomb is surrounded by small, finely executed alabaster statues representing mourning kings, queens, and relations of the dead prince. Terribly broken though they now are--some are destroyed altogether, and all are headless--enough of them remain to show that they were sculptured with wonderful grace and spirit.
[Illustration: ANCIENT CANOPY OF THE TOMB OF JOHN OF ELTHAM.]
But the worst loss that the monument has sustained is in the exquisite Gothic canopy of carved stone which once surmounted it. It was highly colored and gilded, with an angel on a small spire crowning the centre.