"_Ut Rosa flos florum, Sic est Domus ista Domorum._"
["As the Rose is the flower of flowers, so is this House the chief of Houses."]
[Illustration The Ladye Chapel Herbert Railton 1899]
The _Choir-Screen_, erected in 1500, is good Perpendicular work, and has figures of kings from William I. to Henry VI. The rebus of the master-mason, Hyndeley (a hind lying) occurs in the capitals. The canopies are richly carved. There is an ogee pediment, and a niche with angels on each side, with censers. The Tudor flower is used as an ornament, and plaster angels by Bernasconi were added in 1810. The organ was erected in 1632.
_The Choir and Lady Chapel._--The Lady Chapel, occupying the four east bays, was built in 1361-1405, the choir in 1407-1420. The style is Perpendicular, though it follows the design of the nave; yet the builders endeavoured to improve upon the earlier work and remedy its defects. They were eminently successful, and produced one of the most stately and magnificent choirs in England. The roof is made of wood, like the nave, and has a large number of foliated bosses. A disastrous fire in 1829 destroyed all the old carved stalls and _misereres_, and the modern substitutes are fairly successful. The altar-screen is a good reproduction of the ancient one, and the reredos was designed by Street, with reliefs by Tinworth. The lectern was given by T. Cracroft in 1686. The differences in the style of the clerestory windows in the east and west portions will be readily noticed. Only in the western part is the Perpendicular style fully developed. The east window is the largest window in England, retaining its original glazing, but in actual size it is surpassed by that at Gloucester. Its height is 75 feet, and breadth 32 feet, and each compartment is a yard square. The artist of the glass was one Thornton, of Coventry.
The Altar of the Virgin stood under this window, and here was a chantry, founded by the Percys. There is a curious ancient carving, much mutilated, of the Virgin and Child. Archbishop Bowet's Chantry (1407-1423) was at the east of the south aisle, and his tomb is here, the finest in the Cathedral, though much mutilated. There are many monuments in the choir, which are too numerous to mention--the second son of Edward III. (d. 1344), Archbishop Savage (d. 1507), Archbishop Sterne (1689), Archbishop Scrope, beheaded by Henry IV., to whose tomb there was great resort by pilgrims.