The Tombs of the Kings and Archbishops in St Austin's Abbey

( 97 ) THE TOMBS OE THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. (Based on a Lecture given by request of the Dean in the Cathedral- Chapter Mouse, Canterbury, on Thursday, July 9th, 1925.) BY THE REV. R. TJ. POTTS, M.A., E.S.A., BUKSAB OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S COLLEGE. THE following is an attempt to give a brief collective account of the tombs of the Kings and Archbishops in St. Augustine's Abbey, both of those of which some remains have been found,' and of those of which a record is preserved in writing. How the bodies of the Kings and Archbishops came to' be buried in St. Augustine's is explained in Bede's description of the founding of the Abbey.* After mentioning the' founding of the Cathedral within the city, he goes on:— " He (i.e., Augustine) also built a monastery not far from the' city to the eastward, in which by bis advice Ethelbert erected from the foundation the church of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul,- and enriched it with several donations: wherein the bodies of the same Augustine and of all the bishops of Canterbury and of the Kings of Isent might be buried." The foundation of the monastery, according to the' Augustinian Chronicle, was begun in 598, though the churchwas- not completed at the death of Sfc. Augustine in 605. It was consecrated, according to Bede, by Augustine'ssuccessor, Laurence. Its distinct function as the home of the monks and the royal and episcopal burial-place is described at some length by Gotselin,t the monk who lived at the end of the eleventh century and has left us his History of the Translation of St. Augustine, of which he was an eye-witness in 1091. After saying that Ethelbert * Bede, Hist. Feci., I, 33. f Hist. Trans. S. Aug., ii., 38. VOL. XXXVIII. H 98 TOMBS OE THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS reigned in his metropolis hard by but rested here, he proceeds :— " So also Augustine, his father in the faith, there had his seat, here his resting place, there his throne, here his bed : under Christ he was the head of either church, but there he rested, here he had his dwelling place; there he presided, this was his own possession, there he strove, here he triumphed : there he ran his race, here he received .his crown, there he struggled, here as conqueror he ascended the heavenly stair . . . . there he went from strength to strength, here he beheld the God of Gods in Sion." The earliest narrative of the death and burial of Augustine in 605 is in Bede* :— " After this (i.e., the Consecration of Mellitus and Justus) the beloved of God. Father Augustine, died and his body was deposited without, close by the church of the Apostles Peter and Paul, above spoken of, by reason that the same was not yet finished, nor consecrated, but as soon as it was dedicated the body was brought in and decently buried in the north porch thereof, wherein also were interred the bodies of all the succeeding archbishops except two only, Theodorus and Berthwald, whose bodies are within that church because the aforesaid porch could contain no more. Almost in the midst of this church (? porch or chapel) is an altar dedicated in honour of the blessed Pope Gregory, at which every Saturday their service is solemnly performed by the priest of that place. On the tomb of the said Augustine is written this epitaph— (Here rests the Lord Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury who being formerly sent hither by the blessed Gregory, bishop of the city of Rome, and by God's assistance supported with miracles, reduced King Ethelbert and his nation from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ, and having ended the days of his office in peace, died the 26th day of May in the reign of the same King.'" We have no description of the original church in the chronicles, but from its remains, which we have found, it is possible to describe it. It was nearly square, about 53 feet in length and breadth within, with an apse of unknown dimensions at the east end. It consisted of a nave 27 feet wide, with a " porticus " f or aisle on either side, and a narthex * Bede, Hist. Eccl., ii., 3. f Porticus may mesn att entrance porch or any adjunct to the main building,' such as an aisle or side chapel. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 99 or ante-chapel on the west. The porticus and narthex were of almost the same width, 11 feet. There appears to have been one door in the centre of the west end with a little buttress on each side, and it was built of the thin so-called Eoman bricks. The porticus were not of the same length: the northern one, in which was the altar of St. Gregory, seems to have been 26 feet long; the southern one, which had an altar of St. Martin, was only 22 feet long. The entrances to the porticus were from the nave, and a wall ran across the western ends of each. There appears to be no trace of a western apse in this first church of Ethelbert. The eastern apse contained the altar of the Apostles Peter a,nd Paul, and, as at Reculver and St. Paneras, was separated from the nave by a triple arch divided by two columns. The floor was made of a hard red plaster. The church was consecrated in 613 by Archbishop Laurence* on his return from his mission to the Scots and Irish, as both Thorn and Thomas of Elmham tell us, in the presence of King Ethelbert and a great cencourse, and the body of St. Augustine was brought in and buried in the north porch. At the same time the bodies of Queen Bertha and her Chaplain, Bishop Letard, which also had been temporarily interred without, as the church was not consecrated at the time of their deaths, were brought in and buried in the south porch of St. Martin. Gotselinf tells us that St. Augustine was buried in the north porch in the south-east corner between the altar of St. Gregory, which was in the centre of the east wall of the little chapel, and the parti-wall which separated it from the nave; that his feet touched the eastern wall, and that at his head there was a small altar just east of the door in the south wall. Letard was buried on the north side of the southern porch of St. Martin, i.e., the side nearest to the nave, in the same relative position as St. Augustine, and a small altar stood at his head. The more honourable place opposite to * Thorn ool. 1767 ; T, of E., p. 131 (ed, Hardvrick). t Hist. Trans. S. Aug., i. 17 j ii., 28. H 2 1 0 0 TOMBS OE THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS him on the south side of St. Martin's altar was left for Ethelbert, and Bertha was buried in the south-west corner behind her husband's future tomb. Gotselin* describes how, when the fallen masonry wag removed in the course of Abbot Wydo's translation of the Saints in 1091, " there was visible the tomb of .St. August tine made of brick or tile, with a representation of Our Lord in glory with angels round him wonderfully wrought"; and a little further on,f when the tomb was opened, the body of the saint was found " intact lying in chasuble, alb, stole, with staff, sandals and other episcopal ornaments, looking as if he were still alive, touch only revealing his condition." The bodyj was removed with all honour to a place in front of the altar of the two apostles until a new resting place could be prepared. §Every particle of the original tomb was removed, but on the site was built one of the pillars of the northern arcade, made partly out of the bricks of which the original tomb was composed, this pillar being the third from the central tower. This -pillar, so ca,refully described for the benefit of posterity by Gotselin, and its position with regard to the other tombs, is the key to the whole story. In the new Norman church, || of which, Scotland had already built the eastern part, Augustine, as the master of the house, occupied the front or principal porticus (i.e., the, eastern apse) with Laurence on the north of him and Mellitus on the south, his head being just behind the altar of the Holy Trinity. The high altar of the church was dedicated (as may be seen in the picture in the Trinity Hall MS. of Thomas of Elmham) to the two Apostles aud St. Augustine, the altar in the central apse to the Holy Trinity, that in the northern apse to the Holy Innocents, and that in the south apse to the Holy Deacons, Stephen, Laurence and Vincent. For all these details connected with the Translation in 1091 Gotselin is a first-hand witness, but he does not relate a further * Hist. Trans. S. Aug., i., 3. t Ibid., i., 10. % Ibid., i., 11. • % Ibid, i., 29 || Ibid., i., 24. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 101 story which he may have known, but which could not be mentioned till long after. So we find it in Thorn,* who tells us how Wydo, who completed the new church which Scotland had begun, and translated the bodies of the Saints in 1091, on the 6th of September "translated the body of St. Augustine from the place where he had lain for 500 years, and laid to rest all his larger bones and head in a stone tomb, carefully fastened with iron and lead, bearing this inscription:— 'Here in the body lies Saint Augustine, the noble and holy patron of the English, and their glory on high.' And because of the constant inroads of the Danes and Northmen on the Kentish coast, which threatened to deprive not only Kent but all England of its treasure, as soon as the ceremonies of the translation had been finished and all the people had gone home, the venerable Abbot, with some of the older brethren, went secretly by night to the tomb of St. Augustine, and after removing the cover, which was not yet perfectly fixed, they lifted out the body of St. Augustine with the head, leaving only some few little bones and part of the ashes, and hid the aforesaid body in a stone coffin prepared for this purpose in the wall under the eastern window near his shrine. Only a few of the brethren knew of this, and they concealed it with such great secrecy that when some had died the memory of what was done almost perished with them. There the venerable body lay. hid, unknown to all for about 130 years, till the time of Abbot Hugh III. in the year 1221. And lest the people flocking together to venerate him should be defrauded of their hope and desire, the aforesaid Abbot Wydo enclosed the remainder of the bones, though small, and his ashes in a leaden vessel and buried it in the lowest part of the stone liase of the shrine. But on the top of the silver shrine in a quite small leaden vessel he placed again a particle of flesh ifot yet entirely reduced to dust, but like dust moistened with clotted blood." * Col. 1793-4. 102 TOMBS OP THE KIN&S AND ARCHBISHOPS " I n the year 1168,* on the day of the beheading of. St. John the Baptist, the greater part of the church was burnt, and the shrines of St. Augustine and of many other Saints were sadly disfigured." "In the year 1221,f on the 27th of April, John Marsh, Prior of St. Augustine of Canterbury, with the seniors of the house, desiring to know where the body of the Blessed Augustine, the apostle of the English and his patron, had been laid, after fasting and vigils with prayer and mortification, on the advice of certain brethren to whom a revelation had been made thrice, ordered the wall to be broken near the altar of St. Augustine in the eastern part under the middle window, and there was found the stone coffin, carefully sealed with iron and lead, bearing the inscription given above. On the morrow after solemn service, as was fitting,, after compline at the bidding of the Prior, the silver shrine was removed by some of the brethren, and the altar and all the stone work on which the shrine stood was broken up with the view of improving and beautifying it. In the middle of it in the lowest part of the stone base was found a great leaden vessel nearly 7 feet long, with thisinscription:— ' Here is contained part of the bones and ashes of St. Augustine, Apostle of the English, who was of old sent by St. Gregory and converted the English race to the faith of Christ.' His precious head and larger bones Guido. the Abbot honourably translated in another stone coffin, as a leaden inscription placed with these bones shows, in the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord 1091. The stone coffin containing the head and larger bones was solemnly taken in procession by the Abbots of Battle and Langdon, and the Priors of St. Edmund's, of Eaversham and of St. Radegund's, to the high altar, and there watched continuously by. four monks, until the return of Abbot Hugh III. from an embassy to King Louis VIII. of France. On his return the remain^ were, "by divine inspiration," again buried with all honour * Col. 1815. f Col. 1876. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 103 in three separate places, but the relative positions were changed. The greater part, which had been formerly conr cealed in the wall, was now put on high in a silver shrine strongly bound with iron and carefully sealed with lead. The second part, .the lesser bones which had been in the base of the tomb, were now put under a marble tomb, and the third part (presumably the leaden vessel which had been at the top of the shrine) was now put under the centre window in the eastern part of the church, where, through the merits of the Saint, a boy once received his sight.* .But at the instance of the great personages present and to kindle the devotion of the people, Abbot Hugh had the head kept outside the shrine, and enclosed at his own cost in a reliquary of gold and silver and precious stones wonderfully wrought." On 30 July 1300 Abbot Fyndon restored and added to the inscription on the tomb. In 1526 Cardinal Wolsey gave King John of Portugal some relics of St. Augustine, viz., the chin-bone and three teeth, which in 1628 were taken to the Cistercian church of St. Salvator at Antwerp. What happened to the shrine at the Dissolution we do not know. In the excavations prior to 1907 some bones were discovered on the site of the chapel of the Holy Trinitj', but there was no clue to their identity, and they" were reburied in the Tudor Lady Chapel. In the Letters and Papers of the reign of Henry VIII.) arranged and catalogued by Dr. Gairdner and Mr. Brodie (vol. xviii., part 2, p. 30), there is an interesting entry about the shrine as follows, taken from a MS. (No. 128) iu the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, quoted in Arch. Cant., XXVL, 841. At the Visitation at Chilham the Vicar, named Dr. Willoughby, and one of the King's Chaplains, was asked:— . ''Why he. having special commandment by the King's letters from Hull doth yet keep in his church a certain shrine gilted * Could this at some later time before the Dissolution have been removed and buried in a chapel on the south, of the nave, where we have dug up a stone' euolosing a leaden cylinder with some unknown substance within ? 104 TOMBS OE THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS named St. Austin's shrine; which shrine was conveyed from St. Austin's in Canterbury unto the parish church of Chilham at f;he suppression of the Monastery of St. Austin's." On p. 319, xi., a paper headed by Cranmer '^Dr. Wil- Joiighby " gives the answer:— " My lord as concerning the schryne I had never commandment to pull hit down, and also hit his bot anente thenke [it is but an empty thing] ; bot Master Thwattes had it at Sent Astens and gave hit to the cherche." Dr. Willoughby was the chief instrument in what Burnet and Strype call the conspiracy against Cranmer in 1543, which came to nothing. It looks as if Dr. Willoughby had brought away the shriue to preserve it for better times, but when questioned had removed the bones and declared it was only an empty thing. He would never have set up a mere empty shrine, so possibly the bones may be somewhere at Chilham. Queen Bertha's place of interment has been already stated. She predeceased her husband, who at his death desired to be buried near her. Her epitaph as given by Weever was: " Here lies the blessed Queen Bertha, admired for her character, pleasing to God and well beloved of men." The exact date of Letard's death is unknown, but, as has been said, Gotselin tells us exactly where his grave was in the porticus of St. Martin. King Ethelbert himself, as Bede* tells us, died on the 24th day of February 616, twenty onef years after he had received the faith, and was buried in St. Martin's porticus within the Church of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, where also his queen Bertha was buried. His epitaph, -which is preserved by Thomas of Elmham, has a strange jingle, which is difficult to reproduce in intelligible English. Weever translates it thus— " King Ethelbert lieth here, closed in this polyander (i.e., cemetery). For building churches, sure he goes to Christ without meander." * Bede, Hist. Eccl., ii., 5. t Sic, there is a doubt as to the figures, which are wrong. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 105 We have no other record of any other burials in this porticus of St. Martin, for Edbald and his successors were first buried in St. Mary's Church. What happened to this porticus in 1091 we cannot say. There were relics of Ethelbert and Letard above the high altar, but we know no more. Laurence, the second archbishop, who had consecrated the church of St. Peter and St. Paul and had reconverted Edbald the son of Ethelbert, who had seized his father's second wife and abjured Christianity, died on 2 February 619, and, as Bede* says, was buried in the church and monastery of the Holy Apostle Peter close by his predecessor Augustine. Gotselin tells us how he was on the north side of the altar of St. Gregory parallel with Augustine, and that St. Gregory was like a Roman patrician at his own table with his two eldest sons on either hand. Laurence's tomb, which was out of the line of the later Norman foundations, has been happily left for us, showing where at the south-west corner his body was removed in 1091 to be placed in his new shrine on the north of Augustine's. Mellitus, the third archbishop, who succeeded Laurence after being Bishop of London, consecrated Edbald's church of St. Mary, and after reigning for five years was buried, as Bedef says, in the monastery and church of the most blessed prince of the apostles on 24 April 624. Gotselin tells us how his grave was immediately to the west of his predecessor Laurence, and it is there to be seen with the hole in its southern side, whence the body was taken in 1091. Justus, Bishop of Rochester, succeeded, and after consecrating Paulinus as Bishop on 21 July 625 to accompany Ethelburga, the daughter of Ethelbert, to Northuinbria to marry King Edwin, he died on 10 November 627 and was honourably buried, as we know from Gotselin, immediately west of Mellitus, with his head against the west wall of the porticus, where we have found his grave. As on the south of him Honorius and Deusdedit. were buried afterwards, in * Bede, Hist. Eccl,, ii., 17. •)• Ibid., ii., 7. . 106 TOMBS OE THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS order to open his tomb in 1091 part of the north wall of the porticus was cut away, as may now be seen. Honorius, who succeeded him, was consecrated by Paulinus at Lincoln, and on 30 September 653 was buried to the south of Justus. His tomb was removed in 1091 to make way for the new big sleeper or foundation wall of the north arcade of the Norman church. South of him again lay Frithona, the first English archbishop, a Saxon from Wessex, who succeeded Honorius after a vacancy of eighteen months, and on his consecration by Ithamar, Bishop of Rochester in 655, took-the name of Deusdedit. Deusdedit and Erconbert, king of Kent, were both cut off on 14 July 664 by the yellow pestilence, and the See of Canterbury remained vacant four years—Wighard, one of Deusdedit's clergy who had been sent to Rome in 667 for consecration, having died there of pestilence, and Theodore only arriving in 669. Deusdedit's tomb, like that of Honorius, was removed for the Norman foundation wall in 1091. This completed the first series of interments in the porticus of St. Gregory: Augustine to the south of the altar, Laurence to the north ; behind Laurence, Mellitus ; behind. Mellitus, Justus; to the south of Justus, Honorius, and to the south of Honorius, Deusdedit, between whose feet and the altar at the head of Augustine was the opening into the nave of the church. When in 690 Theodore died, Bede* tells us he was buried in St. Peter's Church (i.e., the abbey), but he and his. successor Brithwald alone were buried in the nave, because the aforesaid porticus could contain no more. Thomas of Elmham adds that his grave was in the nave, only separated from that of Augustine by the internal wall. This probably was broken up with that of Augustine to make way for the new Norman work in 1091, as we have found no trace of it* Gotselinf tells us that at his translation his body, like that of Augustine, clothed in his monastic habit and wearing- * Bede, Hist. Eccl., v., 8; ii., 3. t Hist. Trans. S. Aug., ii., 27. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 107 the metropolitical pall, was found in perfect preservation. Brithwald, the abbot of Reculver, who succeeded him in 692, was Archbishop for 37 years,: and on his death in 731* was probably buried in the church behind Theodore and west of the door into the porticus. The south side of a tomb of Roman brick which we have found may have been his. He was succeeded in the same year 731 by Tatwin, a-- Mercian priest of Bredon in Worcestershire. He died on 31 July 735 and was buried, as Thomas of Elmhamf says, with his holy predecessors, but we have no clue to the exact site. It seems likely that he was buried in the nave along with his two predecessors, with whom, as Gotselin says, he~ was translated in 1091, but possibly to the west of the original porticus. Nothelm, arch-priest of St. Paul's, London, who had visited Rome and there gathered information for Bede, was the next primate, but after a short episcopate died on 17 October 740. Possibly on account of his visit to Rome and of the letters of St. Gregory which he brought out of the archives there,J he was buried under the altar of St. Gregory in the north porticus,§ whence, as Gotselin tells us,, he was translated in 1091. Then came a break. When Archbishop Cuthbert died in 758 the hitherto undisputed right of the abbey to be the burying-place of the Archbishops was challenged. Cuthbert, who had built to the south-east of his Cathedral an octagonal chapel of St. John the Baptist, desired to be buried in it> and on his death-bed called together his household and the monks of Christ Church and bound them by an oath not to ring the bells or hold the usual funeral services until his body had been some days in the tomb. This was done, and. it was not till the third day after his' death that it waspublicly announced and the bells rung. • When, therefore, Abbot Aldhun and his monks came to the cathedral to fetch the body of the archbishop for burial in the abbey, they * T. of E., p. 286; Bede, Hist. Eccl, v., 23. f- T. of E., p. 311. t Bede, Pref. § T. of E., p. 312; Hist. Trans. S. Aug., ii., 25. 108 TOMBS OP THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS had to return empty handed notwithstanding their vehement protests* Bregwin, the next Archbishop, followed Cuthbert's •example, but on his death in 762, when Jambert, the 10th .abbot of St. Augustine's, was preparing an appeal to Rome against this second infraction of the rule, he was himself elected Archbishop and the appeal dropped.f But though he took care that his own interment should be in the abbey where all his .sainted predecessors rested, he was the last archbishop to be buried there. He lived to the age of 94 •and was buried in 789, and Gotselin* tells us that so great was his humility that he judged himself unworthy to be buried in the church of the saints and in the company of such holy bishops as his predecessors, and ordered that he should be buried in the chapter-house of the brethren near his predecessor Augustine. (The word in the Latin is capitolio (i.e., capitulo), the chapter-house. Many of the later abbots were buried in the • later chapter-house, but we have no other mention of the pre-Conquest chapter-house. If we could read cemeterio instead of capitolio the position would then be clear, for just outside the porticus east of St. Augustine's tomb was the cemetery on which Wulfric built his work, but we have no authority for doing so, as the MS. has capitolio twice quite clearly.) This completes our record of the tombs in the original abbey church, but there are still the tombs of those royal personages afterwards included in it, who were first buried in the oratory or chapel of the Holy Mother of God, founded in 618 by Edbald in expiation of his sins and endowed with the royal manor of Northbourne. This chapel was a few yards to the east of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul and separated from it by the monks' cemetery. In this chapel was buried in 640 Edbald and his wife Emma, the •daughter of Theodebert, king of Lorraine; his son and .successor Erconbert and his wife Sexburga in 664; Ereonoert's eldest son Egbert in 673, and his younger son * T. of E., p. 317: • • t IMd., p. 318, j: Hist. Trans. S. Aug., ii., 26; T. of E., p. 33?. *: Royal Tombs in South transept. Royal Tombs in South transept against South wall. First on left Kdbald, next Lothaire, next Withred. and last, ashes of Multis ST. AUGUSTINE'S ABBEY. IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. 10£ Lothaire in 685; and Egbert's son Wihtred, .who succeeded his uncle Lothaire and died in 725. Wihtred left three sons, Eadbert, Ethelbert II. and Alric, as heirs of bis kingdom, of whom Thomas of Elmham* says that Ethelbert was buried in this church, and seems to imply that he was the last king to be buried there. There were also many abbots buried there, but they do not concern our present subject. Gotselinf tells us how, when Abbot Scotland demolished St. Mary's Church to make way for his new church, " there were also four kings with their royal consorts and childrenand a long string of descendants." Of these he particularizes four: Edbald, Lothaire, Mulus or Wulf, brother of Cad walla, king of the West Saxons, and Wihtred. A little further onj he describes how, " with the other bodies taken out of St. Mary's, which were removed in a solemn procession and temporarily laid in the western, tower of the minster before the altar of the Holy Mother of God until the new church was built and they could be buried again with new honours, were these four kings aforementioned, with their wives and descendants." So far the chronicle. The excavations continue the story. In the western tower we found seven graves, with some children's graves. The children's graves contained bones; but only in one of the full-sized graves, one within which was a child's grave, were there any bones. Were these the temporary graves ? Finally last year we found, as. was recorded in the papers, against the south wall of the south transept, one behind the other with little shafts between each grave, four graves. The easternmost had been pillaged and destroyed, and there was only the floor. The next, of which the floor and part of the back and sides remained, a very shallow grave, contained some bones not in order and a small leaden plate, 2-| in. by 2 in., bearing this inscription in Latin : "Here lies Lotharius, king of the English. He died on Feb. 6th in the year 685." As there. * T. of E., p. 327? t Hist. Trans. S.Aug., ii., 7. X Ibid., ii., X.3. ; 110 TOMBS OF THE KINGS AND ARCHBISHOPS was not quite enough room on the front of the plate, the •date of the year was continued on the back. In the third tomb, of which part of the front plinth and more of the "back and side remain, were more bones and another plate, a little larger, 3-| in. by 2T\- in., with this inscription, all on one side: "Here lies Wihtred, king of the English. He •died on April 24 in the year 725." The fourth grave, of which the plinth is perfect, had no bones, but only a few ashes in the gravel with which, like the others, it had been filled. This may well have been the ashes of Mulus, the West Saxon king, who, after ravaging the country, was •defeated in battle, surrounded in a wooden hut, in which he had taken refuge, by the men of Kent, and burnt alive. We know from the " Saxon Chronicle" that Ina, king of Wessex, exacted a heavy blood fine, and probably also insisted on due funeral honours being rendered to his kinsman, which may be the reason why his ashes were buried with the kings of Kent. The emphasis laid by Gotselin on these four kings, the •character of the two inscriptions and of the bases of the 3iitle shafts dividing the tombs, seem to warrant the conclusion that the other two graves are those of Edbald and of the ashes of Mulus, and that we have in them the final resting places of these four kings buried first in St. Mary's, then in the eleventh century temporarily removed to the western tower, and then &nally buried in the south transept in the early twelfth century. There is in the centre of the south transept the base of a flbig table tomb with apparently no grave below. Whose it may be we cannot say. There are also three tombs in a row in the north-west corner of the transept. There is also in the centre of St. Anne's chapel to the west of the south transept, beside Juliana de Laybourne's tomb on the north ;side of the chapel, a double grave, one above another, but to this, too, we have noclue. Where were Bertha and Ethelbert and Letard finally transferred ? Some relics of the two latter were above the high .altar, but where were their graves ? Could they also have IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. Ill been in the south transept, the centre of the royal burial chapel ? A heraldic Visitation of Kent, 1530-31, printed in 1923 in London, gives some further information as to the royal tombs in the south transept. Under "St. Augustine's Monastery, Canterbury," is the following note:— " Saynte Ethelbert, ffurste ffownder of the Monasterye of Saynt Augustyne's in Canterbury, lyeth Buryede on the high Auter in the said Monasterie, his sone King Edbalde and his wife lyeth in Saynte Jones Chappell in the Sowth syde of the said Churche and withowte the said chapell dore lyeth kynge Erconbert, wich eausyd lente to he kepte, King Lothary lyeth next and then Kynge Mawle and then Kyng "Wytthred; also Julian Layborne, Counties of Huntyngdon, lyeth buried in Saynt Anne's chapell. In the churche aforesaide the same Saynt Ethelbert was also furst fownder of thys churche of Canterbury and also fownder of Eochester Abbey and fi'urst ffownder of Powlles in London." This description, written less than ten years before the dissolution of the monastery, is particularly interesting. We know from Thorn (col. 1769) that Edbald and his wife Emma were finally bui'ied near the altar of St. John. Thorn also (col. 1783) tells us that Elmer the Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Sherborne, who, on becoming blind, resigned his See and came back to end his days in his old monastery, was buried opposite the altar of St. John, and the Augustinian Chronicle, in noting his election to the See of Sherborne in 1022, adds: "He lies in a tomb outside the enclosure (clausura) of the altar of St. John." This altar may well have been that in the apse on the east side of the south transept. There is remaining a partiwall which may have formed part of the clausura running a few feet across the transept, and the big foundation just to the north of it may have been the tomb of Erconbert and his wife Sexburga, and somewhere near may have been that of Bishop Elmer. But it seems clear that the southern part of the south transept formed the chapel of St. John. The Visitation account, which is obviously not yery exact, puts the four graves in a different order, viz., Edbald and 112 TOMBS IN ST. AUSTIN'S ABBEY. Emma, Lothaire, Mawle, and then Withred. We found the space of Edbald's grave empty; then came Lothaire, with his bones and tablet; then Withred, with his bones and tablet, and finally some ashes and no tablet. The presence of the tablets in the graves, which had not been previously disturbed, is stronger evidence than the herald's note. The original inscriptions' on the tablets, of which photographs are given, are as follows:— HIC BEQVIES CIT IOTHARI$ BEX: ANGLOU': VI1I-IDVS . EEB : OBIIT : AN . DC Continued on the reverse ANN . DC LXXX . V HIC EEQVIESCIT WIHTUEDVS : HEX ANGLOE' : vm-KLD: MAI . OBIIT . ANNO . DCC . XX . V . $WQ£3d8ml&< Coffin plate of King Lothaire (obverse and reverse) «WK *TT, Collin Plate of Kin,' Withred. ST. AHUUSTTNE'S AHHEY.