[Illustration Poets' Corner Westminster Abbey]
In the _South Ambulatory_ are three chapels, dedicated to SS. Benedict, Edmund and Nicholas, all of which have interesting monuments which will be noticed later. We now enter _Henry VII.'s Chapel_, the most perfect example of the Perpendicular style at its best in the country. At the entrance are beautiful bronze doors covered with designs symbolical of the titles of the Royal founder. It is impossible to describe in words the richness and beauty of the interior of this noble chapel. Washington Irving wrote: "The very walls are wrought into universal ornament, encrusted with tracery and scooped into niches, crowded with statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb." The vault is very beautiful with fan-tracery. The banners of the Knights of the Order of the Bath hang over their stalls. The misereres are wonderfully carved, and are worthy of close examination. The black marble tomb of the founder is considered to be the best example of the Renaissance style in England. It was fashioned by Torregiano. Very numerous monuments are found here, which will be described later. The tombs of Mary Queen of Scots and of Queen Elizabeth have especial interest. Oliver Cromwell's body once lay in the most eastern chapel, but the Royalists at the Restoration wrought vengeance on his corpse, and on that of other regicides, and did not suffer them to remain in these hallowed precincts.
Returning we traverse the _North Ambulatory_, from which open the Chapels of SS. Paul, John Baptist, Erasmus and Abbot Islip. St. Erasmus was a Bishop of Campania, martyred in the time of the Diocletian persecution. His chapel has a fine, Late Decorated doorway. Abbot Islip died in 1532, and had previously adorned this chapel for his tomb, of which only the base remains. A curious eye will discern his rebus. In the upper chapel are preserved some remarkable wax effigies of deceased monarchs and others, which were used in ancient times in funeral processions. Charles II., Elizabeth, William and Mary, Anne, Duchess of Richmond, General Monk, and a few others have survived the wreck of time.