n robbed of its weight and
density, suspended aloft as if by magic." Nobody seems to be quite sure
who was the architect of this beautiful piece of workmanship. The king
lavished vast sums of money on the costly edifice, and left plenty with
the abbot for its completion after his death. And in the stalls monks
were to sing masses for the repose of his soul, "while the world lasts."

In April, 1509, Henry died, and was placed beside his Queen, Elizabeth
of York, in the great vault beneath the chapel floor. His mother,
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, was brought here three months
afterwards, of whom it was said, "Everyone that knew her loved her, and
everything that she said or did became her." She endowed charities,
founded colleges, ended the civil wars by marrying her son to Elizabeth
of York, and protected Caxton in his early labours.

At the Reformation there was a carrying off of relics, a rifling of
tombs, and a temporary disturbance of the Confessor's bones. But the
royal tombs saved the Abbey from destruction, although Protector
Somerset was on the point of pulling it down to build his new palace in
the Strand. Edward VI. was buried here, and Anne of Cleves, and then, in
1558, came Queen Mary, the last English monarch interred with Roman
Catholic solemnities. In the same tomb reposes her sister Elizabeth, at
whose funeral the national mourning was intense. An old chronicler tells
us that, as her coffin was borne through the streets crowded with
spectators, "there was such a general sighing, groaning, and weeping, as
the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man; neither doth
any history mention any people, time, or state, to make like lamentation
for the death of their sovereign." The tomb was raised above the two
sisters by James I. He also raised the monument to his mother, Mary
Queen of Scots, in the south aisle, and had her body removed to it from
Peterborough. Devout Scots visited this tomb, as the shrine of a saint,
and many miracles were said to have taken place here.

In the north aisle of this chapel, beside two infant children of James
I., are the remains of the murdered princes brought from the Tower. In
the south aisle lies Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, of whom such high
hopes were entertained. Two thousand mourners swelled his funeral
procession, but no monument marks his resting-place. Three years later
the corpse of Arabella Stuart, the king's cousin, whom some would have
put in h