ambulatory of which his splendid monument is still to be seen. The
Despensers in turn passed away, the last heiress marrying in
succession two cousins, each named Richard Beauchamp. Of her second
marriage were born two children--a son, who married the sister of
Warwick the king-maker, and a daughter, who became the wife of the
Earl of Warwick himself. The king-maker's two daughters were
unfortunate in their husbands, one of them having been married to the
luckless Duke of Clarence, and the other to the young Prince Edward,
who fell in 1471 at the battle of Tewkesbury. Of these noble patrons
of the Abbey from the first Tewkesbury De Clare to the time of the
ill-fated Duke of Clarence, all save two, _i.e._, the second Richard
Beauchamp and the great king-maker, Richard Neville, who are both
buried at Warwick, found their last resting-place in Tewkesbury.

[Illustration: TILE SHOWING THE ARMS OF FITZ-HAMON AND THE ABBEY
IMPALED.]

[Illustration: _Photo. D. Gwynne._
TEWKESBURY ABBEY, FROM THE NORTH.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The original stone is in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

[2] Mr. Blunt, in his "Tewkesbury and its Associations," assigns the
northernmost chapel to St. James, and the one between it and the choir
aisle to St. Nicholas, but in his plan he reverses them. The plan in
the _Builder_ of December, 1894, follows Mr. Blunt's plan in so naming
the two chapels. Some have thought the present Northern Chapel to be
that dedicated to St. Eustachius.

CHAPTER II.

THE EXTERIOR.

One of the most characteristic views of the exterior is to be got from
the iron gates which give admission to the churchyard. The view thus
obtained presents to us, with the exception of the windows and the
pinnacles on the tower, features almost entirely Norman.

As it is impossible to make a complete circuit of the church, it is as
well to begin at the north transept. Here a wall will be found
projecting from the north-east corner, of which the western face is in
a very dilapidated condition. This wall contains a good Early English
pointed arch, which is now filled up with stonework and contains a
modern window. At the sides of the arch are Purbeck marble shafts with
a central shaft of the same, which divides it into two subordinate
arches, with an opening in the spandril between them. The base of the
dividing shaft is a block of marble, curiously carved, representing
four cats playing round the column. Each of the