Historic%20Yorkshire

THE STORY OF A TAX. 123
worthy to be the final repositoryof the ashes of a good
and brave warrior, who diedrather than disobey the commands
ofhis king.
In the chapelat the present day there is but littleof its
former splendour. The stained glass is all gone, excepting
a fragment in the east window. There are some
delicate remains of sculpture, and the altar tombof grey
marble yet exists, with its compartments and decorated
buttresses. It is said that the compartments of this altar
were formerly filled with silver images. The word
" Esperance " (hope), the motto of the family, is an
inscription on the wall above the tomb, while a date,
1494, is inscribedon the floor.
The window to the north of the chapel is the only
instance in Beverley Minster of a flat-topped perpendicular
window. There are references to the Percy family
throughout the Minster, notably in the Percy shrine.
There is another altar tomb in the great north transept to
a Percy,while the misereres, or seat-carvings ofthe choir,
contain numerous allusions to the Percy arms, proving
that regard for the family had a deep root in the heart of
of the people.
Henry Percy, the fourth Earl of Northumberland,fell
by the hands of his plebeian self-appointedexecutioners,
on the day of the Feast of St. Vitalis, the martyr, April
28th, 1489.
Skelton, the poet laureate to King Henry VIL, and
who seems to have felt the deepest sympathy for the
Earl's unworthy fate, records the occurrence in the
following terms: —
Trusting in the noblemen that were withhim there;
But all they fled from hym for falsehode or fere,
He was envyronde about on every syde
With his enemys that were stark mad and wode;
Yet whils he stode he gave them woundes wyde.
Alas for wathe! What touche his mynde wer good,
His courage manly; yet ther he shed his blode,
All left alone, alas;he fawtein vayne,
For cruelly amonge them ther he wasslain.