St Michael's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral: a Lancastrian Mausoleum

ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM MARK DUFFY St Michael's Chapel in the south-west transept of Canterbury Cathedral, also known today as the Buff's or Warriors' Chapel, was built in the 1430s to house the tomb of Margaret Holland (d.1439) and her two husbands: John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (d.1410) and Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence (d.1421), Henry V's younger brother. Margaret Holland played a leading role in the commissioning of the triple tomb and the rebuilding of the chapel. Despite the frequency of remarriage by the English aristocracy, fifteenth-century triple tombs are unusual. What is equally exceptional is its location in a separate chapel within England's pre-eminent church, testimony to Margaret Holland's wealth and the status of her husbands. The new chapel, the work of Richard Beke, combined Canterbury and West Country designs in a way that maximised space for the tomb and presented a unified heraldic programme commemorating three generations of the LancasterBeaufort family that dominated English politics during the first half of the fifteenth century. Margaret Holland was born around 1385, the daughter of Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent ( d.1397), and Alice Fitzalan ( d.1416), daughter of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel ( d.1376). 1 In 1397 she married John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, the eldest son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Margaret and John had four sons: Henry Beaufort, second Earl of Somerset (d.1418), John, first Duke of Somerset (d.1444), Thomas, Count of Perche (d.1431), and Edmund, Marquess of Dorset and second Duke of Somerset (d.1455). From 1405 John Beaufort suffered from recurring illness and he died at the hospital of St Katherine-by-the-Tower on 16 March, 1410.2 In 1412 Margaret Holland married Henry IV's second son, Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Aumerle. On 21 March 1421 Clarence was killed at the battle of Bauge; the marriage was without issue. After Clarence's death the duchess withdrew from public life. In 1428 Pope Martin V granted her permission to live in 309 MARK DUFFY the precincts of the Bridgettine house at Syon, responding to her wish to 'lead a celibate life putting aside worldly pomps' .3 Margaret Holland died at the Cluniac priory at Bermondsey on 30 December 1439.4 There was nothing unusual about a fifteenth-century English heiress marrying twice. What is exceptional about Margaret Holland is that she formed the link between three different generations of the Lancaster family that dominated English politics between 1399 and 1455. The Beaufort children of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford were legitimised in 1397;5 although excluded from the succession in 1407, their three sons - John, Henry and Thomas - were leading protagonists in the establishment and continuity of the Lancastrian regime.6 John Beaufort was made Captain of Calais, Admiral of the North and West, and Chamberlain of England. His Canterbury obit refers to him as Henry IV's 'specialissimus frater' .1 Clarence commanded Henry IV's Armagnac expedition of 1412, and was heir-presumptive to the English throne from 1413 until his death in 1421. He supplied the largest retinue of the English lords for the French expedition of 1415. In 1418 Clarence led an army to the gates of Paris, and in 1420 was made Lieutenant of France and Commanderin- Chief of the English army in France. Henry V' s instructions for his brother's funeral hearse refer to him as 'Treschier et Tresfame'. 8 'The epitaph recorded by Weever in the early seventeenth-century suggests that Clarence's military reputation was more formidable than the assessment of later historians where it is invariably eclipsed by that of his elder brother: Hie iacet in tumulo Tho., Dux Clar., nune quasi nullus Qui Juit in hello Clarus, nee Clarior ullus. 9 The Lancastrian connection did not end with Margaret Holland's husbands and their brothers. Two of her sons, John and Thomas, were captured at Bauge fighting in Clarence's retinue. John later commanded the abortive Normandy expedition of 1443. Margaret Holland's fourth son, Edmund, was made lieutenant-general in France in 1448 and died commanding Lancastrian forces at the battle of St Albans in 1455. Edmund's three sons, Henry, Edmund and John, all died fighting for Henry VI. Margaret Holland's link with the English crown, however, was more enduring: her granddaughter, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was the mother of Henry VII. 10 According to a fifteenth-century list of the burial-places of Christ Church priors, John Beaufort was buried at Canterbury to the north of Thomas Becket's shrine. 11 The Canterbury burial is confirmed by an early sixteenth-century list of Canterbury obituaries, which records 310 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM the date of interment as around 10 April 1410, together with the Canterbury sacrist' s accounts which record the use of twelve candles during the funeral.12 John Beaufort's will of 1410, made on the eve of his death and with the earl 'languens in extremis et prope mortem', gave no instructions for his place of burial, and it was probably Henry IV who chose his step-brother's burial-place. 13 Henry's will, dated the previous year, instructed his own burial at Canterbury, and it was in the bay immediately to the north of Becket's shrine that he himself was interred on 18 June, 1413. Clarence's will, dated 10 July 1417 instructed that be should be buried at the feet of his father, suggesting that he was interred in the bay to the east of Henry IV's tomb, i.e. in the position now occupied by the tomb of Nicholas Wotton (d.1567).14 Clarence is unlikely to have instructed a position already occupied by another grave, suggesting that Somerset had been interred in the bay to the west of Henry IV's tomb. The duke's will provided £40 p.a. for chantry masses at Canterbury for himself, his parents, Margaret Holland, his ancestors and 'all faithful souls'. It also provided 40 marks p.a. for chantry prayers at the Lancastrian mausoleum of St Mary-in-the-Newark in Leicester for himself, his parents, his ancestors and Margaret Holland.15 It was not until 20 July, four months after Clarence's death, that Henry V instructed Hugh Spenser, captain ofLillebon, to provide ships to transport the body to England together with Margaret Holland and her retinue. The delay was probably explained by the need to secure Maine and Anjou before a potentially dangerous progress north.16 The body arrived at Sandwich on 9 August, and proceeded to Canterbury, the coffin carriage drawn by horses from the duke's stable at Holderness, and escorted by twenty-four torch-bearers. Clarence Herald visited Archbishop Henry Chichele at Canterbury and South Malling to discuss the position of the duke's burial. The coffin arrived at Canterbury on 14 August but another month elapsed before the burial. The funeral hearse with forty-six candles was supplied by 'Simon', a London wax-chandler, at a cost of £85. This was almost certainly the Simon Prencot who had supplied Henry IV's funeral and first anniversary hearse. The grave occupied the London cementarius John Warlowe and five others two days and nights, for which they were paid 26s. 8d. Clarence was finally interred on 25 September, six months after his death. 17 There is no record, however, that Clarence or Somerset had a tomb. The apparent absence of individual monuments may be explained by the priority given to the tomb of Henry IV and Joan of Navarre; a more likely explanation is that Margaret Holland had already decided to erect a triple tomb for herself and her two husbands (Plate I). 311 MARK DUFFY PLATE I Tomb of Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Margaret Holland and John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral) 312 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM The decision to locate the tomb at Canterbury is explained by practical considerations - Somerset and Clarence were already buried there. The choice of Canterbury, however, had broader ramifications: the positioning of a triple tomb in the Trinity Chapel would have dwarfed the smaller scale monuments of Edward the Black Prince, and Henry IV and Joan of Navarre; a triple tomb required a new location. Margaret was interred in St Michael's Chapel on 8 January 1440. 18 On 27 January Henry VI instructed the exhumation of the bodies of Somerset and Clarence and their reburial according to the duchess's prior instructions: Trusty and well beloved in God ... forasmuche as we be enformed that our Aunte the Dutchesse of Clarence ordeyned in hire lyve for the lyeng of the bodyes of our Oncle the Duk of Clarence and of our Cosyn therl of Somersete, hire husbands, in a certayn Chapelle ordeyned therfor within Christescheurche, wher hit is avised the said bodyes to be entered in al goodly haste ... ye wil doo your diligence to see that the said bodies be exhumed and, in the place therefore disposed, entered after thentent and ordinaunce of our said Aunte ... 19 St Michael's Chapel was the lower of an eleventh-century, two-storey structure standing to the east of the Canterbury south-west transept; the upper chapel was dedicated to All Saints. The rebuilding of the chapel to house the triple tomb was probably suggested by the rebuilding of the south-west transept, completed around 1428.20 The starting point for the work is not recorded, but Stone's Chronicle credits the rebuilding of the chapel to William Molashe, Christ Church prior from 1428 to 1438.21 There are no references to St Michael's Chapel in the surviving Molashe accounts for 1436-7.22 The appearance of his image in a roof boss of the new upper chapel is inconclusive; the bosses also depicted his predecessor, John Woodnesborough (1411-1428) and most probably his successor, Thomas Goldstone (1449-68).23 St Michael's Chapel was dedicated by William Wells, Bishop of Rochester, on 18 December 1439, twelve days before Margaret Holland's death. 24 According to a fifteenth-century history of the reign of Henry VI the rebuilding of the chapel was financed by Margaret Holland herself: ... obiit Margareta, ducissa Clarencie, apud Bermesey, viz in octava die Januarii et apud Cantuariam in capella Sancti Michaelis ... quam ipsa fabricari fe cit ... tumulatur . . . 25 The duchess is recorded as contributing to priory funds around 1435, 313 MARK DUFFY when Molashe was forced to 'put away' his masons because of defaults in farm rents.26 Margaret Holland was a wealthy widow. She was dowager in the Clarence estates and co-heiress to the earldom of Kent following the death of her brother, Edmund, in 1408. From 1421 to her death in 1439 she administered the estates of her second son, John Beaufort, during his captivity in France. Margaret inherited Clarence's claim to the I 00,000 ecus promised by the Armagnacs for the cancellation of the English expedition of 1412, and held the Henry crown given to Clarence as surety for war loans made between 1415 and 1417. 27 Such was Margaret's status as a dowager that she had the unusual distinction of having a ship named after her: La Margarete de Clarence. The executors of Margaret Holland's will included her two surviving sons, John and Edmund, and her daughter Margaret, Countess of Devon. The will set aside 1,000 marks for the completion of the duchess's 'Terements and Sepulture', the payment of which was secured before the executors were called on to advance the extraordinary sum of £1,200 to Margaret Holland's heir, John, together with a loan of 3000 marks made to the crown. 28 The provision of 1,000 marks for the completion of the monument may be compared with the £464 3s. 8d. spent on the chantry tomb of Clarence' s younger brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and hints at the scale of the Canterbury project.29 It was Margaret Holland's wealth and status that explains the exceptional commissioning of a triple tomb for a woman and two husbands, and the rebuilding of a chapel to house it. 30 St Michael's Chapel was the work of Richard Beke, master-mason at Canterbury from 1435 to 1457. Beke's contract gave him responsibility for all works in Canterbury and the priory estates.31 Two other prestigious two-bay chapels were built at Canterbury during Beke's tenure of office: Henry IV's chantry, dedicated I March 1440, and the new Lady Chapel in the north-west transept, consecrated in 1455.32 A series of stylistic similarities suggest that Beke was responsible for all three, as well as the Pulpitum.33 He was also responsible for the upper south-west tower and the (lost) Brenchley chantry, consecrated in 1448.34 In rebuilding St Michael's Chapel, Beke retained the eleventhcentury north wall adjoining the choir aisle, but replaced the apse with a flat east end. The old chapel stood parallel to the main church, but the east-west axis of the new structure was rotated eight degrees south to accommodate a broad, five-light, east window. Beke later rebuilt the north-west transept chapel using the same ground plan, thereby preserving the symmetry of the Romanesque transept chapels.35 Like its predecessor, St Michael's Chapel is a two bay 314 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM space; the tracery of the tall, four-light windows to the south is repeated on the blind north wall. The tracery designs of the east and so,uth windows were later repeated in the new north-west transept chapel. The windows of the upper chapel are markedly plainer and feature three lights with Y-shaped mullions, a design used for Henry IV' s chantry and also appearing in the crypt windows to the east of the south-west transept. St Michael's Chapel has an almost flat, lierne vault sprung from clusters of slender responds with miniature bases, and with minimal intrusion into the central space occupied by the tomb. The windows are framed by extensions of the responds that are also repeated on the face of the mullions. The window tracery, the responds and their decorative extension to the window frames and mullions are all found in Henry IV's chantry and the Lady Chapel. The exterior buttresses with concave sided gablets appear on Henry IV' s chantry, and the gab lets on the upper sections of the Canterbury south-west tower. Beke was drawing on a range of designs here, some of them his own. The b.ases is St Michael's Chapel are a miniature version of the double, rounded bell with polygonal basement introduced in the Canterbury nave in the 1370s and adopted with variation in the cloisters and the south-west transept in the 1390s, and the south-west transept in the 1420s.36 The dado combination of cusped, blind arcading, foliate bosses and crenellated cornice is copied from Mapilton' s south-west transept. The decision to retain the upper chapel probably explains why St Michael's Chapel has a lierne vault with triple ridge ribs, rather than a fan vault such as the ones employed for Henry IV's chantry and the Lady Chapel, both single storey structures. Triple ridge ribs had precedents among West Country vaults, such as those of the Gloucester choir (c. 1360) and north transept (c. 1374). The chapel appears to have been glazed by 1442 at the latest. The inscription Morteyne recorded in the south-west window of St Michael's Chapel during the sixteenth century referred to Margaret Holland's youngest son, Edmund Beaufort, who was made count of Mortain in 1427, but elevated to the title earl of Dorset in 1442.37 However, Edmund was titled earl of Dorset as early as 1440 suggesting that the chapel may have been glazed before 1442.38 Two other Beauforts were buried there: Margaret Holland's third son, Thomas (d.1431), who had earlier been buried at Canterbury in the monks' cemetery, and Isabella (d.1453), the daughter of Margaret Holland's fourth son, Edmund.39 Neither appears to have had a monument, although Thomas was commemorated by heraldic glass. The tomb of Margaret Holland, Somerset and Clarence stands in the 315 MARK DUFFY centre of St Michael's Chapel and features alabaster effigies and Purbeck marble tomb-chest. Margaret Holland's effigy lies in the centre of the tomb with Somerset's to the left and that of Clarence in the senior, dexter position. Margaret's effigy has a ducal coronet, jewelled crespine and shoulder-length veil, together with the formal robes of tunic, surcote and mantle (Plate II). The narrow headdress is conservative compared with those adopted for other contemporary effigies, such as that of Beatrix, Countess of Arundel (d.1439), in the Fitzalan Chapel, as well as the broad crespine with flowing veil shown in the image of Margaret herself in her book of hours.40 The absence of a collar of esses is problematic given Margaret's status as a senior Lancastrian; the effigies of Somerset and Clarence have prominent collars. Hollar's engraving shows Margaret's effigy with a collar of esses and a necklace, and holes in the side and front of the effigy neck suggest that it had a separate collar or necklace, most likely removed in the seventeenth or eighteenth century.41 Metal effigies, including that of the Edward, Prince of Wales at Canterbury, were inlaid with real or fictive jewels, but the attachment of jewellery to a stone effigy appears to have been unusual. The effigy of Joan Neville, Countess of Arundel in the Fitzalan Chapel (c. 1485) has a deep recess in the neck suggesting that it was decorated in a similar way. Clarence and Somerset are depicted wearing armour, tabard and a collar of esses. The armour is anachronistic: it is contemporary with the tomb rather than the deceased. The great basinet, double bevor, tassets and fluted, mitten gauntlets date the carvings to around 1440. John, Lord Roos was killed with Clarence at Bauge in 1421, and his effigy at Bottesford (Leics.) features glove gauntlets with gadlings, circular poleyns and couters, and a hip-belt typical of the period 1400-1425. The reinforcing plate on the right hand gauntlets suggests that the Canterbury carvings were modelled on an English suit of armour or its pattern.42 The two effigies are similar, but they are clearly identified by their heraldic footrests - Somerset has an eagle and Clarence a greyhound - together with points of detail: Clarence wears a ducal coronet, and Somerset a jewelled version of the orle. Somerset's effigy is slightly shorter, and the face more lined; Clarence' s effigy has a collar of esses anft tiret, while Somerset has a collar with tiret and ring pendant, a design repeated for the effigy of his son John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (d. 1444) at Wimborne Minster (Dorset). Instead of a great helm, the more conventional headrest of knight effigies, the Canterbury figures have twin pillow headrests with angel supporters, possibly explained by the spatial limitations of a triple tomb. The placing of the supporters' hands on 316 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM PLATE II Effigies of John Beaufort, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Margaret Holland; and Clarence (profile) 317 MARK DUFFY the upper surface of the headrest is found on only a small group of fifteenth-century monuments, including the episcopal effigies of William Courtenay (d.1396) and Henry Chichele (executed in the 1420s) at Canterbury, Simon Langham (d.1376) at Westminster, and William Wykeham (d. 1404) at Winchester. One detail of the Canterbury knight effigies appears to be unique: the daggers are inverted (Plate Ill), a motif that may have derived from the funerary ritual of the Man of Arms who presented his master's achievements at the high altar bearing an inverted pole-axe.43 The effigies were also identified by the emblazoning of the tabards and Margaret Holland's robes, traces of which were recorded by Somerset Herald, John Philipot in 1624: In the midst of the sayd chapell a very fayre monument, the lower stone worke of grey marble with the figure of a Duches. betwene her two husbands. upon her robes the Armes of England with a border Argent ... she was remaried to Thomas Duke of Clarence ... who like wise !yes on her right syde in Armour with his Arms depicted on his brest ... 44 The arms appear to have been painted onto a gessoed flat ground rather than a pattern carved in low relief.45 By the 1660s the arms had disappeared.46 The effigies are characterised by fine detailing, such as the pins pleating the crown of Margaret Holland's veil, the armour rivets and buckling of the male effigies, and the attention shown to the male footrests. The carvings are also works of unconventional realism: the downward drapery folds of the tabard sleeves and Margaret Holland's mantle are contrary to the almost universal convention of contemporary effigy sculpture in which a horizontal effigy was detailed with vertical drapery folds. The tabards are draped downwards over the sword hilts in a bravura flourish that has no contemporary parallel. The most recent effigy commissions at Canterbury were those of Henry Chichele, completed by 1426, and Henry IV and Joan of Navarre, executed between 1413 and 1437; the effigies in St Michael's Chapel have no stylistic similarities with the royal pair, each of which i'n any case appears to have been carved by two different hands.47 Chichele's effigy has angel supporters with hands resting on the upper headrest pillow, but stylistic comparisons are restricted by extensive restoration work. The effigies of Somerset and Clarence have close similarities in style and detail with the effigy au vif of John Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (d.1435), in the Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel, including the design of the couters, poleyns and fluted mitten gauntlets with 318 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM PLATE III Hollar's engraving of the tomb c. 1665, in F. Sandford, A Genealogical History of the Kings of England (London, 1667). Effigy of Thomas, Duke of Clarence: inverted dagger 319 MARK DUFFY reinforcing plate, the downward folds of the tabard sleeves, the placing of the angel supporters' hands on the upper surface of the pillow headrest and the positioning of hoist holes in the effigy waist and legs. Like Chichele's tomb, the Arundel monument combines an effigy au vif with a cadaver figure enclosed within an openwork 'tomb-chest', but the Chichele and Fitzalan cadaver figures appear to have been carved by different hands. The Fitzalan tomb was probably completed in time for the translation of the earl's remains from Beauvais in 1437, and the carver of the upper effigy was almost certainly responsible for the Canterbury male figures, which may explain the anachronism of the Canterbury armour, i.e. they were executed using the same suit of armour or its pattern. The later effigy of Reginald Cobham (d.1446) at Lingfield (Surrey) features almost identical couters and poleyns. The buttoning of Cobharn's gauntlets above the dagger has no precedent in English fifteenth-century knight effigies and parallels the virtuoso draping of the Canterbury tabards. A Lancaster-Arundel-Cobham connection is not implausible. Margaret Holland's mother Alice, was the daughter of the second Fitzalan earl of Arundel. The fifth earl, Thomas, was one of Henry IV's leading supporters in 1399, and his brother, Thomas, was Henry's first archbishop of Canterbury. The fifth Fitzalan earl, Richard (d.1421), has a panelled, heraldic tomb-chest. Reginald Cobham' s mother, Eleanor, was the widow of John Fitzalan, Lord Arundel, and Cobham himself served in the retinue of the fifth earl in the French expedition of 1415.48 Cobham's daughter, Eleanor, married Clarence' s youngest brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, in 1428. The tomb has a Purbeck tomb-chest and plinth standing on a low Purbeck platform. The plinth motif of quatrefoils and tracery lancets appears on Henry V's tomb-chest plinth at Westminster, executed in the 1420s, and was later used for the Wimborne monument of Margaret Holland's eldest son and executor of her will, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. The panelled tomb-chest with octofoils was most likely inspired by that of Edward, Prince of Wales in the Canterbury Trinity Chapel, a design that was adopted for the basement of two Westminster regal monuments, that of Edward III, executed in the 1380s, and Richard II and Anne Bohemia, executed between 1395 and 1397. It was also used for the ambulatory platform supporting Henry V's tomb, and for a series of English tomb-chests throughout the fifteenth century, aristocratic and non-aristocratic alike, including that of Philippa Mohun, Duchess of York (d.1431) at Westminster. By the late 1430s the design was highly conservative, but it was later adopted for three senior Canterbury monuments, those of Archbishop John Kempe (d.1454), Thomas Bourchier (d.1486) and William Warham (d.1532). 320 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM The design was fundamentally heraldic, with the octofoils framing armorials, either carved in stone or, in the case of the Edward, Prince of Wales's tomb and those of Kempe and Bourchier, enamelled latten shields. The triple tomb-chest was extensively restored in the 1940s; there are no traces of heraldry on the surviving fifteenth-century panels, and none appears on Hollar's engraving of the tomb made around 1665 (Plate IIl).49 Armorials were a fundamental feature of English tomb-chests from the late thirteenth century, and their absence here would have been exceptional, not least for subjects of royal status. It would also have been ironic given Clarence' s prominent role in the codification of English heraldic practice. so The most compelling evidence for the lost armorials is the panelled design itself, which would have been meaningless without them. The description of the tomb made in 1635 as 'a faire and rich Monument' can hardly have referred to the effigies alone.s1 The most likely explanation is that the tomb-chest had enamelled latten shields that were stripped during the desecration of Canterbury monuments by Parliamentarian troops in 1642/43. The prominent alabaster sill raised around the effigies was designed to contain an extended epitaph; traces of the fastenings for a latten fillet survive on the west side. The fillet had disappeared by 1631 when Weever recorded Clarence's epitaph, citing a Cotton MS 'Liber Sawler' .s2 The Canterbury tomb records are lost, as are those of the Arundel and Lingfield monuments. The involvement in tomb production of former Canterbury masons such as Henry Yevele, Stephen Lote and Thomas Mapilton suggests that the triple tomb-chest may have been the work of Beke himself, using what was, by the 1430s, a conventional court design.53 John Massingham, who supplied a pattern for the effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in 1450, was appointed Chichele's master carver at All Souls in 1438, and was working in Canterbury the same year when he was paid for an image 'pro le syne at Sonne'. 54 Massingham has been linked on circumstantial grounds with Chichele's tomb, Henry V's chantry sculpture and the later Canterbury Pulpitum figures. 55 It is possible that he worked on a commission as senior as the triple tomb, with Chichele, as archbishop and a leading proponent of the Lancastrian regime, providing the link in patronage. The All Souls foundation deeds give a prominent place to Clarence in the dedication of the college.56 The triple tomb displaced the sarcophagus of Archbishop Stephen Langton (d.1228) that had stood before the altar of the Romanesque chapel, its ragstone coffin interred beneath the chapel floor and Purbeck marble lid raised above it.57 The replacement of the apse by a flat east end had the effect of shifting the chapel's altar westwards, 321 MARK DUFFY while the altar steps prevented the reinterment of Langton' s coffin in its original position. The coffin was placed instead beneath the altar; an arched cavity in the east wall allows it to lie half inside the chapel and half out, where it is enclosed by a low, masonry surround. The positions to the north and south of the altar were occupied by the graves of two Canterbury priors: Richard Oxenden (d.1338) and Robert Hathbrand (d.1370). The translation of Langton's coffin to another part of the church must have been considered, and the adoption of an unorthodox solution to maintain its original position is testimony to the enduring regard shown by the Christ Church monks to the man closely associated with the translation of Becket's relics to the Trinity Chapel two hundred years earlier. The chapel vault has three primary bosses positioned along the longitudinal ridge rib depicting the arms of Margaret Holland and her two husbands, each set within a large rose; Somerset's arms stand to the west, those of Clarence to the east in the position of seniority above the altar. The arms in the centre of the chapel are those of Margaret Holland impaled by Clarence, framed by smaller bosses depicting their respective badges: the white hind and the white greyhound. The split rose bosses filling the rest of the vault are a decorative device that had been used earlier in the Canterbury cloisters, completed around 1420. However the large rose bosses lining the ridge rib between the armorials, together with the setting of the armorials within a rose had no precedent at Canterbury and anticipate the systematic use of the rose badge by Lady Margaret Beaufort and Henry VII. 58 Most of the chapel's fifteenth-century glass is lost. The east window contains a post-1945 version of a Victorian memorial to the Kent Regiment losses in the Crimean War. The surviving fifteenth-century glass comprises fragments of armorials together with quarries and roundels in the south-east window, and fragments in the tracery lights of the south-west window. The roundels in the south-east window include binds, greyhounds and eagles, the badges of Margaret Holland, Clarence and Somerset. The roundels depicting the Bourchier knot and oak leaves, together with the arms of Isabel Plantagenet, Countess of Essex (d.1460), appear to have come from the Canterbury Lady Chapel. The original glass can be partly reconstructed from sketches made by the arms painter and genealogist, Richard Scarlett in I 599.59 In the east window Scarlett recorded the following arms: i. Quarterly France Modern and England, a label three points, impaling England with a bordure argent, i.e. the arms of Thomas, Duke of Clarence impaling Kent, the latter adopted 322 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM by Margaret Holland as daughter of Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent and co-heiress to the Kent earldom. Clarence's arms were differenced by a label of three points ermine each charged with a canton gules, which does not appear in Scarlett's record. ii. Quarterly France Modern and England, a label three points, i.e. Thomas, Duke of Clarence. iii. Gules, three lions passant guardant or a bordure argent, i.e. Margaret Holland. iv. Quarterly France Modern and England, with a bordure gobony argent and azure, i.e. John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset. v. lost, but most likely Kent impaled by Somerset. This five-fold combination of individual arms and those recording her two marriages also appears in Margaret's own book of hours.60 In the south-east window Scarlett recorded two Beaufort arms as Somerset, together with the inscriptions: 'Earl of Somerset' and 'John, count of Somerset', i.e. the arms of Margaret Holland's first two sons: Henry Beaufort (d.1418) and John Beaufort (d.1444), who bore the same arms as earl and duke of Somerset respectively. In the south-west window, Scarlett recorded two further Beaufort arms, the first with a bordure fleury and the second with a bordure ermine, together with the inscriptions: ' .... rd of Perches' and ' ... Morteyn'. The arms are those of Margaret Holland's third and fourth sons: Thomas, who was made count of Perche in 1427, and Edmund, who became count of Mortain the same year. The glass also appears in a late sixteenth-century record of Canterbury heraldry, but the arms of Thomas Beaufort are recorded twice.61 The east window, therefore, contained the arms of Margaret Holland and her two husbands, and the south windows the arms of her four sons, two of whom, Henry and Thomas, were already dead by the time the chapel was glazed. This was, however, more than a family grouping. Writing in the 1540s Leland described the glass in the south windows as 'every one with the King armes', suggesting that the four light windows contained two Beaufort arms and two royal arms (Fig. 1). 62 Three of the four armorials now in the south-east window (Clarence, Kent and Beaufort) are versions of arms originally in the east window; Clarence's arms contain fragments of fifteenth-century glass. Some of the lost arms from the south windows may be among the heraldic glass installed in the Canterbury Water Tower in 1925 that includes two Beaufort arms as Somerset.63 The arms recorded by Scarlett in the east window are unusual 323 􀀂 0 a z - <.,:, 􀀁 I- Cl) < UJ □ [Lill [C] Li [[J] I ji ! 1! i 􀀅· j£ SOUTH WINDOWS 􀀄&!:-􀀅􀀆rt 􀀄Se_:􀀅􀀆□􀀂- 1-.- 􀀎􀀏-ufo􀀐rt 􀀑:..-d=􀀒l-· I Earl at Duke of Counl ot a11 Count of 5ome1Mt So- Percl>e Mortalr,eJ (d,1418) (d.1444) (d.1431) (k.1455) ··• tomb ............... ,. ._ .,._ ........- 1 Thomas, Duke of Clarence (d.1421) Margaret Holland (d.1439) John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (d.1410) ' .. -............................................, . ._ . .. ,, .......... .. ......... ,,,. . .. ...... .i Fig. I Reconstruction of fifteenth-century glass in St Michael's Chapel. ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM (Plate IV); they have the same supporters: Clarence's white greyhound (sinister) and Margaret Holland's white hind (dexter). John Beaufort's seal as earl of Somerset shows his arms suspended from the neck of an eagle, but his arms in the chapel windows also have greyhound and hind supporters. The aim here was to create a visual unity linking the occupants of the tomb, and one that adopted badges most closely associated with the crown. The white hind was a version of the white hart adopted by Richard II and the Holland earls of Kent, reflecting their common descent from Joan of Kent.64 Greyhounds appear on the great seals of Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI where they are positioned beneath the royal arms, but the animal seems to have had a more personal significance for Henry IV.65 Adam of Usk related how Henry had a livery collar of greyhounds and was nicknamed 'the dog' because he had returned to England during the dog days and chased away Richard II's treacherous harts. 66 The Dieulacres Chronicle records that when Henry returned to England as duke of Lancaster his retainers wore collars of greyhounds.67 Froissart recorded the symbolic moment in Richard II's arrest at Flint castle when the king's greyhound Math abandoned him for Bolingbroke.68 Clarence's adoption of the greyhound badge probably derives from its association with his father. Scarlett recorded greyhounds and binds in the south windows, but the figures are couchant, with the greyhounds leashed and the hinds collared and chained; the drawings probably recorded the heraldic roundels and quarries, some of which survive in the south-east window. The adoption of the greyhound as badge and supporter by Henry VII and later Tudors derives from its use by Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond (d.1456), who married Margaret Holland's granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, in 1453, but the glass and roof bosses in St Michael's Chapel provide evidence of its earlier use as a Lancastrian badge.69 The chapel windows are too large to have contained only heraldic glass. Fragments in the tracery lights of the south-west window depict scrolls inscribed with /hu Merci and hint at more extensive devotional imagery. The most likely design for the east window is the symmetrical depiction of male and female patrons flanking a central devotional figure, conventional imagery for fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury glass commemorating secular patrons, and one that was adopted for the east window of the Fitzalan Chapel, glazed around 1400, and the east window of the Beauchamp Chapel in St Mary's, Warwick, glazed in the late 1440s. 70 The five lights of the Canterbury east window suggest a symmetrical configuration in which Margaret Holland appeared twice, i.e. accompanying each of her husbands 325 MARK DUFFY PLATE IV Arms of Thomas, Duke of Clarence and Margaret Holland recorded in the east window of St Michael's Chapel by Richard Scarlett in 1599, BL Harley MS I 366, f. 2 (reproduced by kind permission of the British Library) 326 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRJAN MAUSOLEUM either side of the devotional image which would have been juxtaposed with Margaret Holland's arms in the centre light and Clarence's arms in the roof boss above. The heraldic display was continued around the east window which is framed by nine stone angel busts holding shields. The original arms are not recorded, but probably featured the royal arms and combinations of the Beaufort-Lancaster armorials recorded in the east and south windows.71 Despite the frequency of remarriage among the fifteenth-century English aristocracy, triple tombs were unusual and the Canterbury monument is the only one to feature a female patron and two husbands. What is equally unusual is the tomb's location i.e. a purposebuilt chapel within England's pre-eminent church, a privileged position explained by the status of its occupants. The tomb itself appears conservative compared with contemporary monuments, but this perception is influenced by the loss of its armorials, paintwork and epitaph. St Michael's Chapel lacks sculptural decoration compared with contemporary chantries and Beke's own later work in the Canterbury Lady Chapel, but this observation is equally a distortion. arising from the loss of its glass, sculpture, wall-painting and hangings, together with the intrusion of seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury wall monuments. The effigies are the work of a master carver and there is no reason to believe that the lost furnishings were not of similar quality. Beke drew on Canterbury, West Country and his own designs to create a mausoleum commemorating three generations of a family that dominated English politics in the first half of the fifteenth century. Much of that imagery is lost, but the heart of the chapel is unchanged: the tomb of Margaret Holland and her two husbands. Intimate in life, they lie together still in death, gazing up at their apotheosis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The starting point for any discussion of the architecture of St Michael's Chapel is F. Woodman, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1981 ), and for the triple tomb and chapel glass, Dr C. Wilson, 'The Medieval Monuments', in P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (eds), A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford, 1995), 504-6. This account draws extensively on both. The writer is grateful for Dr Wilson's comments, and those of Margaret Sparks, Dr Paul Crossley, Dr Tim Ayers, Dr John Lowden, Dr John Goodall, Christopher Gravett, Dr Sebastian Strobl, Dr 327 MARK.DUFFY Gerald Harriss, Lisa Garland, Emily Howe, and Kate Heard, together with the suggestions and kind assistance of Cressida Annesley and the staff of the Canterbury Cathedral Archives. ENDNOTES 1 A writ of inquisition post mortem relating to Margaret Holland's brother, Edmund, Earl of Kent dated 18 September 1408 gives her age as '22 and more', Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, XTX, 7-14 Henry IV (1405-1413) (ed.) J.L. Kirby (London, 1992), 222. For the Hollands, see M.M.N. Stansfield, 'The Roland Family, Dukes of Exeter, Earls of Kent and Huntingdon, 1352-1475' (University of Oxford D.Phil thesis, 1987). 2 Lambeth MS 20, f. 173v. 3 Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, viii (London, 1908), 63-64. 4 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 417 f. 24, printed as The Chronicle of John Stone (ed.) W. Searle (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Series, 34, 1902), 26. 5 Calendar of Papal Letters 1362-/404 (London, 1902), 545; and Calendar of Patent Rolls 1396-9 (London, 1909), 86. 6 For the careers of the early Beauforts, see G.L. Harriss, Cardinal Beaufort (Oxford, 1988). 7 Lambeth MS 20, f. 173v. 8 T. Rymer, Foedera, Conventiones, Literae, et cujuscunque generis acta publica, inter Reges Angliae (ed.) G. Holmes (20 vols, London, 1704-35), x, 145. 9 J. Weever, Antient Fune rail Monuments (London, 1631 ), 211. An account of Clarence's heroics at the siege of Caen in 1417 is found in Thomas Walsingham's, Ypodigma Neustriae (ed.) H.T. Riley (London, 1876), 481. 1° For the argument that Margaret Beaufort's husband, Edmund Tudor, may have been the son of Edmund Beaufort, see R. Griffiths, Cardinal Beaufort (Oxford, 1988), 178 n. 11 Chronicle of John Stone, 26 (see note 4): 'lsti supradicti domini sepulti fuerunt ad feretrum Sancti Thome ex parte Boriali ... '. According to a late fifteenth-century chronicle Somerset was buried in the 'Abbeye of the tour hille', a claim repeated by Leland. See An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI (ed.) J. S. Davies (Camden Society, Old Series, 64, 1856), 37, and J. Leland, De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea (ed.) T. Hearne (reprinted London, 1970), ii, 486. 12 Lambeth MS 20, f.173v: and C.E. Woodruff, 'The Sacrist's Rolls of Christ Church, Canterbury', Archaeologia Calltiana, 48 (1936), 49. 13 A collection of all the wills, now known to be extant of the kings and queens of England (ed.) J. Nichols (London, 1780), 208-10. 14 Ibid., 230: 'ad pedes alte memorie domini et patris nostri .. '. 15 Ibid., 230-231. 16 Foedera (see note 8), x, 131, 146. 17 Clarence's funeral accounts are contained in part in Westminster Abbey Muniments 12163, published in Household Accounts from Medieval England (ed.) C.M. Woolgar, Records of Social and Economic History, New Series, 17-18 (Oxford, 1992-3), ii, 679-681. 18 'Allno xix obiit Margareta, ducissa Clarencie, apud Bermesey. viz. Jn octava die Januarii et apud Ca11tuariam in capella Sancti Michaelis, australi parte ecclesie, 328 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM quam ipsa fabricari f ecit ... tumulatur ', BL Royal MS 13 C. l , ff. 79v, printed in C.L. Kingsford, English Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), 340. 19 DCc Register S, f. 135, printed in J.B. Sheppard (ed.), Literae Cantuarienses (3 vols, Rolls Series, 1887-9), iii, 170. 2° K. Blockley, M. Sparks and T. Tatton-Brown (eds), Canterbury Cathedral Nave (Canterbury, 1997), 34. 21 CCCC MS 298, f. 120: . 'Wille/mus Molassch ... fecit cape/lam Sancti Michaelis, et ilia partem atrii ecclesie perfecit '. 22 Canterbury Cathedral Archives, DCc, Prior's Accounts 7, 1436-7. 23 C. Woodruff and W. Danks, Memorials of the Cathedral and Priory of Christ in Ca11terbury (London, 1912), 202-3. For the identification of the third boss as Thomas Chillenden (Christ Church Prior 1449-1468) see Blockley et al., op. cit. (see note 20), 139. 24 Chro11icle of John Stone (see note 4), 26. 25 BL Royal MS 13 C. I. f. 79v, printed in Kingsford, op. cir. (see note 18), 340. 26 See the letter to Molashe from the chamberlain John El ham printed in J.B. Sheppard (ed.), Christ Church Letters (Camden Society, New Series 19, 1877), 7-9. The writer is grateful to Margaret Sparks for the dating of the letter. 27 Foedera (see note 8), ix, 284. Loans totalJing £6,000 had not been repaid by 1430 when the Privy Council requested the return of the crown. See J.N. Nicholas, Proceediligs and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 1429-36 (Record Commission, 1835), 42-4. For Margaret Holland's estates see PRO C l 39/101/73, and for the Clarence estates, C139/8/88. 28 Rotuli Parliamentorum (6 vols, London, 1767-77), v, 22. 29 BL Cotton MS Claudius A. viii, f. 198. Humphrey's monument, however, lacks a tomb-chest and effigy. 30 Two other fifteenth-century triple monuments are those of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland (d.1425), Margaret Stafford (d.1396) and Joan Beaufort (d. 1440) at Staindrop; and John Holland, Duke of Exeter (d.1447), Anne Stafford (d.1432) and Anne Montagu (d.1442) in the church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, formerly at St Katherine-near-the-Tower. Both commemorate a husband and two wives. 31 DCc Register S. f. 118 printed in L.F. Salzman, Buildings in England (Oxford, 1952), 590-1. 32 Chronicle of John Stone (see note 4), 26. 33 F. Woodman, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1981 ), 176-90, which first identified Beke as an architect of importance. 34 Blockley et al., op. cit. (see note 20), 126, 139, 143. 35 H.A. Strik, 'Remains of the Lanfranc Building in the Great Central Tower and the North-West Choirrrransept Area', in Medieval Art and Architecture at Canterbury before 1230 (British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 1979), 22-3. 36 Blockley et al., op. cit. (see note 20), 34, 134. 37 BL, Harley MS 1366, f. 3; and C. Wilson, 'The Medieval Monuments', in P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (eds), A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Ol\ford, 1995), 504-6. 38 For the letter patent dated 28 August I 442 confirming the title, see Calendar of Charter Rolls, 1427-1516 (London, I 927), 34. 39 Chronicle of John Stone (see note 4), 20 and 58. The date of Thomas Beaufort's reburial is not recorded. 40 Sotheby's Sale, June 19 1989, Jot 3018 ('The Clarence Hours'), f. 65v. 329 MARK DUFFY 41 F. Sandford, A Genealogical History of the Kings of England from the Conquest anno I 066 to I 677 (London, 1677), 302. The loss would explain Richard Gough' s description of the effigy neck as covered by a ' kind of neckerchief'. See Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, ii, Part 2 (London, 1796), 127. 42 The writer is grateful to Christopher Gravett of the Royal Armouries for the dating. 43 For the Man of Arms ritual at the funerals of Edward IV, Arthur Prince of Wales and Henry VII, and the Fotheringhay translation of Richard, Duke of York in 1476, see BL Additional MS 45131, fols 23v-24, 27v-29, 37-41 and 48-54. As early as the thirteenth century Matthew Paris had used inverted arms to mark obits. 44 BL Egerton MS 3310A, f. 25 and Wilson, op. cit. (see note 37), 504n. 45 The Canterbury effigies were cleaned in the late 1940s, but photographs taken before 1939 show no signs of low-relief heraldic carvings. The effigies of John Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (d.1435) at Arundel and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury (d. 1460), now at Burghfield, are examples of senior aristocratic effigies with tabards emblazoned in low-relief. 46 The arms do not appear in Hollar's engraving of the tomb. See Sandford, op. cit. (see note 41 ), 302. 47 Wilson, op. cit. (see note 37), 476n, 502 and n. 48 J.H. Wylie and W.T. Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth (3 vols, Cambridge, 1914-1929), ii, 67n. 49 Sandford, op. cit. (see note 41), 302. 50 A. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages (London, 1956), 60-4. For a sixteenth-century copy of Clarence's ordinances, see BL Lansdowne MS 285, ff. 207-9. 51 'A Relation of A Short Survey of the Westerne Counties', (ed.) L.G. Wickham Legg (Camden Miscellany, 16, Camden Society, 1936), p. 15. 52 Antient Funerall Monuments (see note 9), 211. 53 Ye>1ele and Lote collaborated on the tombs of Archbishop Simon Langton, Richard II and Anne of Bohemia during the l 390s and probably that of Edward III in the 1380s. Lote was contracted to execute a tomb for Edward, Duke of York (d.1415), a commission he later bequeathed to Mapilton. See J. Harvey, English Mediaeval Architects (London, 1987 edn), 188. 54 BL Additional MS 28564, f. 267, and E.F. Jacob, 'The Building of All Souls College', in Essays in Honour of James Tait (eds) J.G. Edwards, V.H. Galbraith and E.F. Jacob (Manchester, 1933), 130. Harvey, Mediaeval Architects, p. 200, quoting Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Kent C3, f. 149. ss For the possible attributions, see Wilson, op. cit. (see note 37), 479; L. Stone, Sculpture in Britain: The Middle Ages (London, 1955), 206; and A. Gardner, English Medieval Sculpture (Oxford, 1951 ), 232. 56 Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford (ed.) E.A. Bond (3 vols. Oxford, 1853), i, 11. 57 BL Harley MS 636, f. 204v: and Wilson, op. cit. (see note 37), 458n. 58 J. Ashdown-Hill, 'The Red Rose of Lancaster?', The Ricardi an, 133 ( 1996), 417, states that the Canterbury tomb 'shows no signs of heraldic roses', but ignores the extensive display in the chapel vault. 59 BL Harley MS 1366, ff. lv-3, and Wilson, op. cit. (see note 37), 504n. 60 Sotheby's sale 19 June, 1989, lot 3018, ff. 15 (Kent), 33v (Clarence/Kent), 57 (Somersel/Kent), 75 (Clarence) and I 06 (Somerset). 61 Society of Antiquaries MS J 62, f. 35v, and Wilson, op. cil. (see note 37), 504-5n. 330 ST MICHAEL'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY: A LANCASTRIAN MAUSOLEUM 62 John Leland's Itinerary in England and Wales (ed.) L. Toulmin-Smith (5 vols. London, 1964 edn), iv, 39. 63 B. Rackham, The Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1949), 138-9, nos. IV 2 and V 5. 64 J.H. and R.V. Pinches, The Royal Heraldry of England (London, 1974), 45. 65 A.B. and A. Wyon, The Great Seals of England (London, 1887), no. 63, Edward Ill' s fifth or Bretigny seal, introduced in 1360; and nos. 65, 67, 71, 77 and 79 which are all versions of it. The design was abandoned for Edward IV's third seal introduced in 1471 which positions the royal arms beneath a rose and sun-in-splendour. 66 '/ste dux Henricus, secundum propheciam Merlini iuxta propheciam, pullus aquila, quia filius Johannis. Sed secundum Bredlintoun merito canis, propter liberatem collarium leporariis conveniencium; et quia diebus canicularibus venit, et quia infldos cervos, 1/beratem scilicet regis Ricardi in cervis excistentem, penitus reg110 affugavit', Chronicon Adae de Usk, A.O. 1377-1421' (ed.) E.M. Thompson (London, 1904 edn.), 25. 67 Gray's Inn MS 9, f. 145: 'unde creditur quod armigeri ducis Lancastrie deferenies collistrigia quasi leporarii ad destrue11dum invise bestie a/bi cervi per annum presig11ati sunt quodam presagio futorem', printed in The Deposition of Richard JI (eds) M. V. Clarke and V.H. Galbraith (Manchester, 1930), 51. 68 Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of England, France a11d the Adjoining Cou11tries (trans. and ed.) T. Johnes, iv (Hafod Press, 1805), 657-8. 69 Pinches and Pinches, op. cit. (see note 64), 127. 7° For Withie's drawing of the lost Arundel glass made in 1640 see BL Harley MS 1076, ff. 224v-225. 71 The shields were repainted by Tristram in I 948 with the royal arms and those of the first eight colonels of the Kent regiment. 331