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MORTIMER. 341
ever, she has passed to a juster tribunal than ours. Requiescat in pace.
Strange choice She was buried, by her own request, at the Grey Friars,
!
London, by the side of Mortimer, with the heart of her murdered husband
on her breast ;
and tradition says that at the same time the body of
Joanna, Queen of Scotland, who had died in Hertford Castle, where she
had lived since her separation from her husband (1360), was brought for
burial, and that the funeral processions of the two Queens, one from the
eastern and one from the northern road, entered the church by opposite
doors at the same time. The royal biers met before the high altar, and
there, after a separation of thirty years, the bodies of the evil mother and
holy daughter were united in the same funeral rite.
But the Monastery of the Grey Friars, Newgate, has long passed
away. Originally, it was one of the most important buildings in London ;
and was founded by the first Franciscans (who came over to England
in the days of Henry III.) on a plot of ground next to St. Nicholas
Shambles, given by John Ewin, a pious and generous mercer, who
eventually became a lay brother.
Its buildings were raised by the charity
of various pious benefactors, and its glorious church was in a great
measure built by Margaret, second wife of Edward I., who gave in her
lifetime 2,000 marks, and by will 100 marks, towards building the choir.
It became, perhaps for this reason, a favourite burial-place of the queens
of England, as well as the usual place of interment for the foreign
attendants of the Plantagenet queen's consort. " The Grey Friars church,"
says Penhant, "was reckoned one of the most superb of the conventual
"establishments of London." "In 1429 the immortal Whittington built the
"library, 129 feet long and 31 feet broad, with 28 desks and 8 double
" settles. He gave about ,400 for books, and Dr. Thomas Winchilsey, one
"of the friars, ^150 more, adding 100 marks for the writing out the works
" of Dr. Nicholas de Lyra, in two volumes, to be chained there. Amongst
" other benefactors, John Dreux, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond,
" gave 300 towards the church buildings, besides jewels and ornaments.
"Mary, Countess of Pembroke, sent ^70 and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of
;
" Gloucester, twenty great oak beams, from his forest at Tunbridge, and 20.
"The good Queen Philippa gave 62, and Queen Isabel, 70."*
Here was buried the heart of Queen Eleanor, mother of Edward I.,
who was married to Henry III. thirty-seven years, survived him nineteen
years, and died 1291, at Ambresbury, where her body was laid, a nun.
Beatrice, her second daughter, wife of John de Dreux Duke of Brittany,
in France, and Earl of Richmond, in England, father of the benefactor
" She died," says Augustus Hare, " when
above, was also buried here.
"she came over to the coronation of Edward I., 1272."
U 2
* Walks About London, Hare. Thornbury, &c.