out how banded mail was made, and only five sculptured examples are known in England, this being one of them.1

In a letter to the Rev. T. Kerrich, in the writer's possession, dated December 22nd, 1813, Mr. C. A. Stothard speaks of this effigy as follows:-" Among other curious things I have met with is a figure called by mistake Lord Wenlock, at Tewkesbury, which has some remarkable points about it, but for the discovery of which I devoted a whole day in clearing away a thick coat of whitewash which concealed them. The mail attached to the Helmet was of that kind so frequently represented in drawings and of which you have had doubts whether it was not another way of representing that sort we are already acquainted with. I am sorry that I know no more of its construction now than before I met with it, the lowest row of rings finish in the way I have represented, without the band or cord. I must advertise you that the original is but a coarse representation. I have an impression of a small portion where I found it sharpest. The cuisses of the same figure are remarkable."

The armorial bearings on the surcote, a chevron between three leopards' faces, seem to be those of "Monsire de Lughtburgh," whose name and arms occur in a Roll of Arms2 of the time of Edward III.-" Monsire de Lughtburgh, de gules, a une cheveron d'argent, entre trous testes de leopardes d'or," but there is no record connecting this man with Tewkesbury.

The effigies of Hugh Despencer, who died in 1349, and his wife Elizabeth Montacute, lie under a magnificent canopy on the north side of the altar. The effigy of the man is tenderly sculptured in white alabaster, and shows him in a round bascinet which is not characteristic of this period. His widow married Guy de Bryan, and died 1359.

The figure of Edward Despencer, died 1375, represents him kneeling on a cushion, under a curious open canopy, on the top of the Trinity Chapel. This figure is quite

11. Tewkesbury, engraved in Stothard's Monumental Effigies; 2. Tollard Royal, Wilts, in Bowles' History of Chalk; 3. Newton Solney, Stafford, in Archaological Journal, v. vii, p. 360, paper by, Hewitt; 4. Kirkstead Lincolnshire, in

Archaeological Journal, v. xl, p. 296, paper by A. Hartshorne; 5. Dodford, Northamptonshire, in Monumental Effigies of Northamptonshire, by A. Hartshorne.

2 Edited by Nicholas Harris Nicolas, 1829.

unique, and it is extremely valuable because it is painted all over to the life, and gives the back of the man as carefully finished as the front. With the exception of "Brass Beauchamp" at Warwick there is no other medieval monumental effigy that does this. We gather one good piece of information from this figure, namely, that there was no hook or like support at the back to keep the baudric from slipping over the hips. These belts must, therefore, have been sewn on to the jupon, which, in this instance is beautifully painted, both back and front, with the arms of Despencer. The fields of the quarters are diapered. The latter decorations have not often been spared for us, because, being usually only painted, they have generally been washed off by the process of church cleaning. The double picture of arms on a jupon was the precursor of the four-fold representation in knightly tabards. The Trinity Chapel has further high interest in the painted fresco over the altar, representing the Holy Trinity flanked by angels swinging censers with graceful ease, while Edward and his wife Elizabeth are shown kneeling in adoration below.

The effigy of Guy de Bryan, died 1390, has some features in the armour that are rarely seen in English effigies. The mail hose covering the legs is strengthened and protected by strips of steel laid upon it, or imbedded in it, after the oriental fashion, The mail of the upper part of the arms shows a number of iron pegs taking the outline of a demi-brassart. They appear to have held in place actual brassarts of iron or cuir-bouilli. The fore-arm remaining shows a defense in parallel strips, gilded and silvered alternately. On both sides of the leg strips are wooden pegs at regular intervals, which have either held some decorative covering of the splints, or fastened horizontal bands at those points. It is a very curious example of mixed armour, and is rather a German than an English suit. The whole of the mail, which is of three sizes, the rings in the camail being the largest, has been worked in gesso, and the field of the arms diapered in the same way. Stothard has recorded that the armour, plate and mail has been covered with leaf silver; the effigy has also been painted, as well as gilded in parts. The vaulting of the canopy has trefoil-arched, instead of plain cells, which give an appearance of great intricacy.

The "founder's chapel" is plainer but contains the tomb with the matrix of a military brass, of the usual form, of the first years of the fifteenth century.

The chapel of Isabel, Countess of Warwick, has two stories with fan vaulting, and a very rich canopy. It appears probable that the upper story sustained two kneeling figures in wood looking towards the high-altar. This would have been an idea taken from the monument of Edward Despencer.

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The monument attributed to Abbot Wakeman, last Abbot of Tewkesbury (1531-1539) must be a century earlier. The lively picture of death" has reptiles crawling over it, which is a very unusual, if not a unique feature; it reminds us, rather too rudely, of our kindred with corruption.

There are several plain tombs of Abbots; and three canopied ones, side by side in the south aisle, show admirably the gradual growth of such memorials during about a hundred years. All the Tewkesbury tombs and chapels would require a thick volume to properly describe.

Happily, safe in two glass cases, are some beautiful fragments of small figures in armour, and other details, which are worthy of very close study. They apparently formed part of the decorations of the high altar.

The painted glass in the choir is quite unsurpassed for its brilliancy, and it is rendered still more interesting by the eight military figures contained in it. They stand under rich canopies, and all carry lances and wear ailettes. The mixture of mail and plate in their harness fixes the date of these effigies to the early part of the second quarter of the fourteenth century, the most important period of military costume. All the figures can be clearly identified by the heraldry on their surcotes; we have Robert, Earl of Gloucester, Fitz Hamon, four De Clares, a Zouche, and a Despencer.

The four effigies of De Clares are the memorials of the immediate ancestors of the widow of Hugh Despencer "the younger," namely,-Gilbert De Clare, died at Penros, in Brittany in 1230; Richard De Clare, died at Eschmersfield in Kent, in 1262; Gilbert De Clare, died in Monmouth Castle, in 1295, and Gilbert her father slain at Bannockburn in 1314-all were buried in the choir of Tewkes

bury. The figure with the Zouche arms represents William la Zouche, of Mortimer, and that which exhibits on the surcote the arms of Despencer impaling De Clare certainly represents Hugh Despencer "the younger," slaughtered with such shocking barbarity at Hereford in 1326. His mangled remains were gathered up and brought for burial to the abbey church;-as the Register has it-" Enormiter, pertitiose et crudeliter sine judicio et responsione, suspensus, distractus, et in quatuor partes divisus fuit; et in nostra ecclesia diu postea sepultus." No doubt these striking and precious memorials were put up by Eleanor, eldest daughter of the last Gilbert De Clare, widow of Hugh Despencer "the younger," and wife of William la Zouche of Mortimer.

OPENING ADDRESS OF THE HISTORICAL SECTION.1

By the VERY REV. THE DEAN OF GLOUCESTER.

Gloucester-Its name and many coloured memories sends us back to the early years of the Christian Era. During the Roman occupation it was an important Frontier City. I have been taken over "the Gloucester of the last decade of the xix century" by a distinguished local antiquary, with the sole aid of Viollet le Duc's sketch map of the Praetorian camp at Rome, for Roman Gloucester was strictly laid out on the same plan. Saxon (English) Gloucester-the city of Alfred's daughter, Æthelflaed, somewhile Lady of the Mercians, the city of Athelstan and of Harthacnut, the home so often lived in by the saintly confessor king and his great Theigns such as Godwine Leofric and Harold-was built exactly on the same lines as the old fortified camp. The streets of mediæval and modern Gloucester, one and all still follow the lines of that great fortified camp of Claudius and Hadrian built upon the banks of the Severn waters over against the wild and turbulent tribes of the Silures of Southern Wales, that great place of arms which so soon became the chief city and emporium of all the fair Severn lands.

The Roman city is with us still, beneath our feet, a spade or pickaxe can, at this moment, be scarcely used for a few minutes in our city without disclosing the mighty wall built by the Italian conqueror, the vast substructure of a temple, or of a great municipal building, or the scarcely discoloured mosaics of a pavement, where once, stranger Italian wanderers worshipped, worked, and walked.

With this cultured many sided life, in which men and women, boys and girls of an old world shared-men and 1 Read at the Annual Meeting of the Institute, at Gloucester, August 14th, 1890.