The Reredos and SaUshurij Chapel. 141 



Mary, to whose Son the Wise Men are offering their presents. 

 Such is the screen, and had the execution been equal to the 

 design, it would have been the finest in England. The carving 

 seems, however, never to have been finished, and certainly in 

 parts only to have been roughly cut by some inferior hand, and 

 never to have received the last touches of the master-artist. 

 Even now, in its present condition, it stands before those of 

 Winchester and St. Alban's, inferior only to that of St. Mary's 

 Overie.* 



Passing on we come to the Lady Chapel, with its traceried 

 roof. Under the east window are the remnants of another rich 

 screen. The high altar, too, with its slab of Purbeck marble 

 cut with five crosses, remains, whilst two recessed altar tombs 

 to Sir Thomas West and his mother stand in the north and 

 south walls. 



But what we should especially see, both for its beauty and 

 its interest, is the Chantry Chapel, built for her last resting- 

 place by Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, mother of Cardinal 

 Pole. It stands in the north choir aisle, its roof rich with 

 arabesque tracery and carved bosses, telling a curious story in 

 our English history. Attainted of treason the Countess was 

 confined two years in the Tower before she suffered. When the 

 day of execution came, she walked out on the fatal Tower Green ; 

 and still firm — still to the last resolute — refused to lay her head 

 on the block. " So should traitors do," she cried, " but I am 



* I know nothing equal to this last screen in the delicacy of its carving, 

 seen in bracket, and canopy, and the flights of angels ; in the deep feeling 

 especially manifest in the central bracket, with the Saviour's head crowned 

 with thorns, but surrounded with fruit and flowers, typical of His sutterings 

 and the world's benefits; and in the grave humour, not out of place, as 

 allegorical of the world's pursuits, which peeps forth in the figures over the 

 two doorways. 



