act
for the construction of the monument at Warwick to Richard Beauchamp,
the fifth earl, who died in 1439, it is provided that an effigy of the
deceased noble should be executed in bronze gilt, with all possible
care, by the most skilful and experienced artists of the time; and the
details of the armour and the ornaments of the figure are specified with
minute precision. It is remarkable, however, that the effigy itself is
described only in the general and indefinite terms--"an image of a man
armed." There is no provision that the effigy should be "an image" of
the earl; and much less is anything said as to its being such a
"counterfeit presentment" of the features and person of the living man,
as the contemporaries of Shakespeare had learned to expect in what they
would accept as true portraiture. The effigy, almost as perfect as when
it left the sculptor's hands, still bears witness, as well to the
conscientious care with which the conditions of the contract were
fulfilled, as to the eminent ability of the artists employed. So
complete is the representation of the armour, that this effigy might be
considered actually to have been equipped in the earl's own favourite
suit of the finest Milan steel. The cast of the figure also was
evidently studied from what the earl had been when in life, and the
countenance is sufficiently marked and endowed with the unmistakable
attributes of personal character. Possibly such a resemblance may have
been the highest aim in the image-making of the period, somewhat before
the middle of the 15th century. Three-quarters of a century later, a
decided step towards fidelity in true portraiture is shown to have been
taken, when, in his will (1510 A.D.), Henry VII. spoke of the effigies
of himself and of his late queen, Elizabeth of York, to be executed for
their monument, as "an image of our figure and another of hers." The
existing effigies in the Beauchamp chapel and in Henry VII.'s chapel,
with the passages just quoted from the contract made by the executors of
the Lancastrian earl, strikingly illustrate the gradual development of
the idea of true personal portraiture in monumental effigies, during the
course of the 15th and at the commencement of the 16th century in
England.

Study of the royal effigies still preserved must commence in Worcester
Cathedral with that of King John. This earliest example of a series of
effigies of which the historical value has never yet been duly
appreciat