omnibus diebus vitæ tuæ; interficiens de semine tuo quousque Regnum
tuum transferatur in Regnum alienum, cujus ritum et linguam Gens cui
præsides non novit; nec expiabitur nisi longa vindicta peccatum tuum,
& peccatum matris tuæ, & peccatum virorum qui interfuere consilio
illius nequam: Quæ sicut a viro sancto prædicta evenerunt; nam
Ethelredus variis præliis per Suanum Danorum Regem filiumque suum
Canutum fatigatus et fugatus, ac tandem Londoni arcta obsidione
conclusus, misere diem obiit Anno Dominicæ Incarnationis MXVII.
postquam annis XXXVI. in magna tribulatione regnasset."[2]

Certainly in this latter terrible epitaph, it cannot be said that the
maxim _de mortuis_ was observed. But it speaks the truth.

Of a much later date is a royal monument, not indeed of a king, but of
the son and father of kings, namely, John of Gaunt. He died in 1399,
and his tomb in St. Paul's was as magnificent as those of his
father in the Confessor's Chapel at Westminster, and of his son at
Canterbury. It was indeed a Chantry founded by Henry IV. to the memory
of his father and mother, Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. She was
Gaunt's first wife (d. 1369), and bore him not only Henry IV., but
Philippa, who became wife of the King of Portugal, and Elizabeth, wife
of John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon. It was through Blanche that Gaunt
got his dukedom of Lancaster. She died of plague in 1369, during his
absence in the French Wars, and was buried here. Before his return
to England he had married (in 1371) Constance, daughter of Pedro
the Cruel, and hereby laid claim to the crown of Castile, as the
inscription on his monument recorded. Their daughter married Henry,
Prince of the Asturias, afterwards King of Castile. Constance died in
1394, and was also buried in St. Paul's, though her effigy was not on
the tomb. In January, 1396, he married Catharine Swynford, who had