s; the upper part was built with stone
brought from Clipsham in Rutlandshire in 1477. A third kind, from Weldon
in Northamptonshire, was used for the vaulting of the choir and
ante-chapel, executed in 1512 and the following years. The north and
south porches were vaulted with a magnesian limestone, more yellow in
colour, from the Yorkshire quarry of Hampole.

The outside measurement of the chapel from turret to turret is 310 feet,
the said turrets being 146 feet high. The four westernmost buttresses on
the south and five on the north side are ornamented with heraldic
devices, crowns, roses, and portcullises, while on the set-offs
separating the stages are dragons, greyhounds, and antelopes bearing
shields.

[Illustration: THE SCREEN FROM WEST END]

Inside, the chapel is 289 feet long, 40 feet wide from pier to pier,
and 80 feet high from the floor to the central point of the stone vault.
The _tracery_ of the roof is a fine specimen of the fan-vault which is
rarely to be found in Continental architecture, but is the peculiar
glory of the English style. It can truly be said that stone seems, by
the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and
density and suspended aloft as if by magic, while the fretted roof is
achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
Similar roofs appear in Bath Abbey (the architect of which was Dr.
Oliver King, a member of King's), in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in
Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster, in Sherborne Minster, and in the
ambulatory of the choir of Peterborough; but the earliest example of
this kind of vaulting is the cloister of Gloucester (1381-1412), of
which the late Dean Spence speaks in the following lines:

"Old Gloucester's peerless cloister, once the haunt
Of mitred Abbot and of monk in cowl.
Above we see the long fan-traceried arch;
Beneath are letter'd stones and human dust."

The same words can be applied to this chapel, for here we have the long
fan-traceried arch, and beneath are stones and human dust, for many
members of King's and others are buried within its walls.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Henry was born at Windsor in the year 1421. When Henry V was
informed that Catherine had borne him an heir he asked: Where was the
boy born? At Windsor was the reply. Turning to his Chamberlain, he gave
voice to the following prophetic utterance:

"I Henry born at Monmouth,
Shall small ti