clothes, standing in her lap; behind her stands a man,
probably Joseph; and before her kneels one of the Wise Men offering
his gift of gold in the form of a plain tankard; on the right behind
him stand his two fellows, one carrying a pot of myrrh, the other
a boat-shaped vessel, probably intended for a censer containing
frankincense. On a bracket above the head of the kneeling Wise Man,
the shepherds kneel in adoration; nor are the flocks that they were
tending forgotten, for several sheep may be seen on a hill-top above
their heads. Thirty-two small figures may be counted in niches in the
buttresses dividing the compartments; crockets, finials, and pinnacles
decorate the various canopies over the carvings. This reredos is
apparently of late Decorated date, and therefore earlier than the
fifteenth-century choir. Possibly it was an addition to the Norman choir
before this was removed to make room for the existing one. Mr Ferrey
was of opinion that it may have once stood across the nave between the
second piers from the east, thus forming a reredos for the western part
of the nave, which was used as the church of the parish. Below the
presbytery is a Norman crypt, now converted into a vault for the
Malmesbury family. It has already been mentioned that there are doors
on either side of the altar, leading to a kind of gallery or platform
behind the reredos; these were designed to allow certain ceremonial
compassings of the altar, and it is possible that steps led down from
the platform to the ambulatory. On the east side of these doorways
there are corbel heads under the arches, and the walls of the platform
are panelled. Within the altar rails is a slab bearing the name of
Baldwin IV., the seventh Earl of Devon. On the south side is the
monument of Lady Fitzharris, who died in 1815; it is a statue by Flaxman
representing the Lady teaching her two sons from the Bible. Farther to
the east is the altar tomb of the Countess of Malmesbury, who died in
1877, occupying the place of the sedilia; and on the north the exquisite
chantry of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last bearer of the royal
name of Plantagenet, whose tragic fate and horrible execution is one
of the foulest stains on the memory of Henry VIII. She was the daughter
of "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence" and of the kingmaker's eldest
daughter Isabella, and was mother of the celebrated Reginald Pole who,
being ordained deacon at the age of sixteen, was appointed