show the hand of one who was
accustomed to study composition, and the result is very different from
the formal repetition of equal or lessening figures usual on mediaeval
brasses and Elizabethan tombs. The Latin inscription is partly
illegible, translated it runs:

Here lies Julian Nethermyl, Draper, formerly Mayor of this City,
who died the 11th day of the month of April in the year of our
Lord 1539 and also Joan his wife, to whose souls God be
propitious. Amen.

[Illustration: CHEST IN NORTH AISLE.]

A small brass on the wall to the memory of Mary Hinton, wife of a
vicar, who died in 1594, represents her kneeling at a faldstool, and
facing a row of four swaddled infants laid upon the floor.

Near by is the old Purbeck marble font, said to have been given by
John Cross, Mayor, in 1394.

As, however, the form, material, and shallow decoration are all quite
consistent with a thirteenth-century date there can be little doubt
that this one is the predecessor of that given by John Cross, which
was condemned and removed by the Puritans as superstitious. A small
brass, bearing a shield with four crosses, the ancient merchant mark,
is fixed upon it.

[Illustration: THE NETHERMYL TOMB.]

Beyond the west door is the north-east buttress of the tower,
strengthened by a mass of masonry, part of which formed part of the
old nave wall. The tower arch is high and very narrow, owing to the
narrowness of the old nave. The interior of the tower is very
effective, both from the height, which is almost 100 feet to the crown
of the vault, and the beautiful lighting of the upper stages. Each of
the large windows of the ground story is set in a recessed arch, and
between the two lantern stages is a range of panelling. The vertical
lines of the various stages are not continuous, a want of regularity,
which would probably not have occurred had it been built a century
later. Upon the floor of the tower are two small brasses, which mark
respectively the centre of the tower and the point below the apex of
the spire, showing that the spire has an inclination of 3 feet 6
inches towards the north-west. On the walls of the tower two very
large brasses record the names of the Vicars of the church since 1242,
and of the Bishops in whose Dioceses Coventry has been included from
the earliest times. Of the latter, four were Bishops of Mercia,
twenty-seven of Lichfield, six of Coventry, thirty-three of Coventry
and Lichfield, thirteen