The Sussex Coast - online book

A Literary & Historical travel guide to the Sussex Coast

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112                   THE SUSSEX COAST
each. There is a fine old stone pulpit, and the roofs are plain timber, mostly modern. Some original frescoes remain.
The Fitzalan Chancel has been carefully and beautifully restored by the Duke; its roofs are wooden vaults resting on carved stone corbels ; its east window is of seven lights, the side ones, including those of the clearstory, are of four each; there are miserere stalls and a magnificent series of monuments, recumbent effigies on altar-tombs, some surmounted by canopies, several with carving in most intricate detail, some have brasses. The general effect of the chancel is exceedingly rich and striking. Under one of the three arches that separate chancel from aisle is an alabaster monument to Earl John Fitzalan; it is an open altar-tomb; above he is represented as an armed knight, below as an emaciated corpse, according to a disgusting custom not unusual in the fifteenth century. Earl John died in 1435 and was buried originally in the Grey Friars Church at Beauvais, so that the tomb at Arundel was always believed to be cenotaph till a reference in the will of one Fooke Eiton, who died in 1454, having previously brought the Earl's bones from France, caused a search to be made in 1857, when the body was duly found. The most conspicuous of the monu­ments stands in the centre of the chancel and commemorates Earl Thomas Fitzalan (d. 1415) and his wife Beatrix, daughter of a Portuguese king. On a most ornate altar-tomb are the two effigies with curious and large canopies.
The massive tower of the church has a tall lead roof and was used by Waller to mount guns during his siege of the castle, but without suffer­ing very serious damage. By the river there still
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