LECTURES. 65 



ooe. Henry III. and his Queen, Eleanor, were there, and with them 

 three hundred nobles, innumerable ecclesiastics, and an enormous 

 multitude of commoner folk. In the presence of this vast concourse 

 of people, thirteen bishops said Mass at the thirteen altars of the 

 Abbey Church. In 1256, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was elected 

 King of the Romans. In 1261, Sanchia, his Queen, sister of the 

 Queen of England, was buried near the High Altar. Henry of 

 Almaine, Richard's eldest son, who had been foully murdered in a 

 Church in Italy, was also interred in the Church, in 127 1. As was 

 the custom then, they boiled the flesh off the body, and buried that 

 in Italy, but the heart was interred in the shrine of Edward the 

 Confessor at Westminster, and the bones buried at Hailes in front 

 of the High Altar. Soon after, Richard himself died, and was also 

 buried in Hailes Church by the side of Queen Sanchia. During 

 the recent excavations, traces of a grave were found in front of the 

 High Altar, and this was thought to be the one in which Henry had 

 been buried, for although it had been desecrated, there was a piece 

 of a leaden coffin in it of Italian thirteenth century workmanship. 

 Richard's coffin, we are told, was of go'.d, but as he was buried in 

 the Church " on high," his coffin was probably not beneath the floor, 

 but in a raised tomb above the floor level. This was probably carried 

 off either when the Monastry was dissolved, or during one of the 

 times when the buildings were on fire. 



In 1271 came the first fire, which was fatal to the Church, and 

 Richard paid for the rebuilding of it, and in 1277 it was reconsecrated. 

 Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, gave to the Abbey a vase containing 

 some of the blood of Christ. This at once attracted pilgrims from 

 all quarters and up to the dissolution of the Monastries in 1539, 

 Hailes became the centre to which thousands of people came to 

 worship, and to have miracles worked on them and their diseases 

 cured. A large number of buildings must now have been built round 

 the Abbey to accommodate the pilgrims. Edmund also gave a piece 

 of the Cross to the Abbey. In 1300 he died, and Edward I., his 

 executor, summoned all the neighbouring Abbots to his funeral. 



The records of the Abbey cease from this time till the sixteenth 

 century. In 147 1, after the Battle of Tewkesbury, many of the 

 refugees took sanctuary in the Church of Didbrook, near Hailes, but 

 their pursuers came in after them and slew them inside. The de- 

 secrated Church was rebuilt by William Whitchurch, Abbot of 

 Hailes, and he lies buried in the Nave. In the middle of the 

 fifteenth century plague and fire had made a ruin of the Abbey and 



