142 The N'cw Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



none ; " and the headsman was obHged to butcher her as best he 

 could.* 



In the same letter before quoted from the Commissioners for 

 the Suppression of Monasteries, dated from Christchurch, occurs 

 this passage : — " In thys churche we founde a chaple and monu- 

 met curiosly made of cane [Caen] stone jSparyd by the late 

 mother of Raynolde pole for herre buriall, wiche we have causyd 

 to be defacyd, and all the armys and badgis clerly to be delete." t 

 To this day the vengeance of Henry's commissioners is visible, 

 her arms being broken, and the bosses defaced, though her 

 motto, " Spes mea in Deo est," can still be read. 



At the end of this aisle, under the east window, lie the 

 alabaster effigies of Sir John Chydioke and his wife. The 

 knight, who fell in the wars of York and Lancaster, wears 

 his coat of mail, his head resting on his helmet, and his hands 

 clasped together in prayer. At the western end, adjoining the 

 north transept, stand two oratories with groined roofs, enriched 

 with foliated bosses, whilst the capitals, from which the arches 

 spring, are carved with heads. | 



In the south choir aisle stand more monuments, amongst 

 them the mortuary chapel of Robert Harys, with his rebus 



* Lord Herbert's Life and Reyne of King Henry VIII., p. 468. 1649. 

 See, however, Froude: History of England, vol. iv. p. 119, foot-note. 



f The year, as was generally the case, is not given to this letter, but 

 simply December 2nd. From internal evidence, however, it Avas certainly 

 written in 1539 ; for we know that the Priory was surrendered Nov. 28th 

 of that year. Why, then, two years before her death, the commissioners 

 should speak of the " late mother of Raynolde pole " I know not. 



J Below the north transept, part, perhaps, of Edward the Confessor's 

 church, is a vault, which, when opened, was stacked with bones, like the 

 carnary crypts at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and of the beautiful church at 

 Rothwell, in Northamptonshire— the "skull houses," to which we so often 

 find reference in the old churchwardens' books. 



