They had followed the guide into another small chapel, which bore the name of Henry VII. upon the door.  Surely they were great builders and great designers in those days!  Had stone been as pliable as wax it could not have been twisted and curved into more exquisite spirals and curls, so light, so delicate, so beautiful, twining and turning along the walls, and drooping from the ceiling.  Never did the hand of man construct anything more elaborately ornate, nor the brain of man think out a design more absolutely harmonious and lovely.  In the centre, with all the pomp of mediaeval heraldry, starred and spangled with the Tudor badges, the two bronze figures of Henry and his wife lay side by side upon their tomb.  The guide read out the quaint directions in the king’s will, by which they were to be buried ’with some respect to their Royal dignity, but avoiding damnable pomp and outrageous superfluities!’ There was, as Frank remarked, a fine touch of the hot Tudor blood in the adjectives.  One could guess where Henry the Eighth got his masterful temper.  Yet it was an ascetic and priest-like face which looked upwards from the tomb.

They passed the rifled tombs of Cromwell, Blake, and Ireton—­the despicable revenge of the men who did not dare to face them in the field,—­and they marked the grave of James the First, who erected no monument to himself, and so justified in death the reputation for philosophy which he had aimed at in his life.  Then they inspected the great tomb of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as surprising and as magnificent as his history, cast a glance at the covering of plucky little George the Second, the last English king to lead his own army into battle, and so onwards to see the corner of the Innocents, where rest the slender bones of the poor children murdered in the Tower.

But now the guide had collected his little flock around him again, with the air of one who has something which is not to be missed.  ‘You will stand upon the step to see the profile,’ said he, as he indicated a female figure upon a tomb.  ’It is the great Queen Elizabeth.’

It was a profile and a face worth seeing—­the face of a queen who was worthy of her Shakespeares upon the land and her Drakes upon the sea.  Had the Spanish king seen her, he would have understood that she was not safe to attack—­this grim old lady with the eagle nose and the iron lips.  You could understand her grip upon her cash-box, you could explain her harshness to her lovers, you could realise the confidence of her people, you could read it all in that wonderful face.

‘She’s splendid,’ said Frank.

‘She’s terrible,’ said Maude.

‘Did I understand you to say, sir,’ asked the American, ’that it was this lady who beheaded the other lady, Queen of Scotland, whom we saw ‘way back in the other compartment?’

‘Yes, sir, she did.’

’Well, I guess if there was any beheading to be done, this was the lady to see that it was put through with promptness and despatch.  Not a married lady, I gather?’