Entrance Porch or Vestibule.

SOUTH AISLE.

1. Lady Margaret Douglas, 1577. 2. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1587. 3. Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 1509. 4. Lady Walpole, 1737. 5. General Monck, Duke of Albemarle, 1670. In front of this Monument is the Old Royal Vault, containing Charles II., 1685, King William III., 1702, Prince George of Denmark, 1708, and Queen Anne, 1714.

Here is a handsome monument, on which lies a lady finely robed, to Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scots, by the Earl of Angus. This lady, as the English inscription says, had to her great-grandfather, Edward IV.; to her grandfather, Henry VII.; to her uncle, Henry VIII.; to her cousin-german, Edward VI.; to her brother, James V. of Scotland; to her son, Henry I. of Scotland; to her grandson, James VI.; having to her great-grandmother and grandmother, two Queens, both named Elizabeth; to her mother, Margaret, Queen of Scots; to her aunt, Mary, the French Queen; to her cousins-german, Mary and Elizabeth, Queens of England; to her niece and daughter-in-law, Mary, Queen of Scots. This lady, who was very beautiful, was privately married in 1537, to Thomas Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, upon which account both of them were committed to the Tower by Henry VIII., her uncle, for affiancing without his consent, and he died in prison; but this Margaret being released, was soon after married to Matthew, Earl of Lennox, by whom she had the handsome Lord Darnley, father of James I., whose effigy is foremost on the tomb, in a kneeling posture. There are seven children besides round the tomb of Margaret, of whom only three are mentioned in history, the rest dying young. This great lady died March 10, 1577.

Next is the magnificent monument to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, erected by her son, James I., soon after his accession to the English throne. This princess was born Dec. 7, 1542. She was daughter and heiress of James V. of Scotland, who, dying when she was only a week old, succeeded to the crown. Married first, April 28, 1558, at fifteen years of age, Francis, Dauphin of France; secondly, Henry, Lord Darnley, July 29, 1565; and thirdly, Bothwell. Her subjects becoming offended, she was compelled to resign her crown to her infant son, James, by Lord Darnley; she eventually sought refuge in England, but Queen Elizabeth committed her as prisoner to the Earl of Shrewsbury at his houses of Hardwicke and Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, where she remained seventeen years a captive. She was thence transferred to the custody of Sir Amias Paulet, and shortly afterwards tried and condemned for engaging in a treasonable correspondence with the Queen’s enemies. She was beheaded in the hall of Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, February 8, 1587. Her remains were first buried in Peterborough Cathedral; but James had her body privately removed to this Church, in Oct., 1612, under the superintendence of Neile, then Dean of Westminster, and buried in a vault beneath this monument.—Stone, sculptor.

Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I., born Feb. 19, 1593, and after giving great promise of a blessing to his country, died of a fever at St. James’s palace, Nov. 6, 1612, in the 19th year of his age, and was buried by the side of his grandmother.

In the same tomb are the remains of Arabella Stewart, four children of Charles I.: Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James I.; Prince Rupert her son; Ann Hyde, first wife of James II., and ten of his infant children; William, Duke of Gloucester, son of Ann, and seventeen of her infant children.

The next is the monument of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII., by Edmund Tudor, son of Owen ap Tudor, who married the widow of Henry V. of England, and daughter of Charles VI. of France. This lady was afterwards married to Humphrey Stafford, a younger son of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, and lastly, to Thomas Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby; but by the two last had no children. The inscription mentions the charities of this excellent Princess; such as giving a salary to two monks of Westminster; founding a grammar-school at Wimbourne, and two colleges, one to Christ, the other to St. John his disciple, at Cambridge. Of this lady’s bounty, forty poor women partake every Saturday afternoon, in the College Hall; each of them has twopence, one pound and a half of beef, and a fourpenny loaf of bread. She died in July, 1509, in the reign of her grandson, Henry VIII.—Torrigiano, sculptor.