Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

e Holy Trinity,

ry, and was, like most of the great prelates of the age, a statesman as well, filling the State offices of ambassador to foreign powers and Lord Chancellor of the realm. He died in 1348. His brother Robert early became rector of Stratford-on-Avon, in 1319. He it was who first caused the town to be paved; not, of course, with pavements that would meet the approval of a modern town council or the inhabitants, but probably with something in the nature of cobbles roughly laid down in the deep mud in which, up to that time, the rude carts of the age had foundered. It was this mud that set a deep gulf between neighbours, and had led indirectly to the establishment in 1296 of the original Guild Chapel

n decided to replace the small original Norman church with a larger and much more ambitious building, in the Early English style, judging from traces of both those architectural periods discernable in the tower; but the Bishops of Worcester would not loosen their purse-strings suff

present loftier stone spire, which rises eighty-three feet above the roof of the tower. In 1332 he founded the chantry chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr in the church. There five priests were appointed to sing masses "for ever," for the good of the soul

himself and his relations, and included even the sovereigns of England, present and to be, and all future Bishops of Worcester. The priests, therefore, had their hands full, and shouldered some heavy responsibilities; for-not to go into individual cases, or s

nd, in 1351, three years after his uncle's death, built a house for them adjoining the churchyard. It was styled then and for centuries afterwa

ecorated clerestory, probably of circular windows, and taking down the walls to the crown of the nave-arcades; then building upon them the light and lofty clerestory we see at this day. He added choir-boys to the establishment, and further endowed the College, for their maintenance. These were the last works in the long history of the church. In 1547 the Reformation came and swept away John of Stratford's chantry and confiscated the endowments. The priests were scattered, and four years

aits for the visitor's sixpences; for you may not enter for nothing, unless perhaps at times of divine service, and even then are allowed but grudgingly by these clerical entrepreneurs, who suspect you have come not so much for worship a

with Shakespeare, grown or growing undecipherable. Some day Stratford will be sorry for neglecting them and their possible interest in the comparative study of Shakespeare and his fellow-to

r over four hundred years ago, that its walls have not fallen seriously out of plumb, like that of the north nave-arcade; especially when the rather daring slightness of the design is considered, consisting of vast mullioned and transomed windows with but little wall-space between. Th

on. The elms look down upon the stream, the rooks hold noisy

the good Late Perpendicular stone panelling is obscured, and the effect destroyed, by the extreme licence given in the placing of monumental tablets on

arlier. It appears on picture-cards without number as the "Sanctuary Knocker," and metal reproductions of it are to be had in the town; but there is nothing to show that this church was ever one of those that owned the pri

l of Shakespeare, with the broken bow of the old font at which he was baptised. Many years ago it was removed from the church, to m

e north. The symbolism of this feature in ancient churches is still matter for dispute; and it is really doubtful if it is symbolical and not the product of inexact planning, or caused by some old local conditions of the site which do not now appear; or whether it was tho

e is greatly out of plumb, and leans outwards; a result, no doubt, of Co

building, from which it is screened very slightly by a low pierced railing on one side, and on the south, looking into the nave, by the ornate stone screen erected by Sir Hugh Clopton, the founder of the family chapel and architect of his own fortunes. It is a

away, and the tomb is entirely without inscription or effigy; as perhaps it is well it should be, for, in spite of all these elaborate preparations, and although directing that he should lie here, Sir Hugh Clopton was, after all, buried in the Ci

followed him four years later, lies beside him in effigy, both figures with prayerfully raised hands. Above them, on the wall, quite by themselves, are represented the interesting family of this worthy pair, seven in all, sculptured and painted in miniature, in the likeness of so many big-headed

ether with that to her father and mother, was her handiwork, and she seems to have completely enjoyed herself in the progress of the commission. The Countess of Totnes and her husband are represented in full-length, recumbent effigies, sculptured in alabaster. The Earl is shown in armour and his wife is seen habited in a white fu

1719 he died, aged 80; and in course of time his own tomb became a candidate for repair. No Cloptons then survi

Charles the First's Secretary of War, and afterwards Garter King-of-Arms and military editor of Clarendon's History of

igy of a certain Amy Smith, who was for forty years "waiting-gentlewoman" to