Cylchgronau Cymru

CROES NAID (PLATES VII. 4-VII. 6) [In 1945, Mrs. Winifred Coombe Tennant, J.P., presented to the National Library of Wales and to the Dean and Canons of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, a set each of photostat facsimiles, transcripts, and translations, bound in volume form, of docu- ments at the Public Record Office relating to 'Croes Naid'. The National Library's volume is accessioned as N.L.W. MS. 6498. An incomplete and inaccurate version of one of these documents, the account of Richard of Grimsby for repairing Croes Naid, 1352, was printed in Y Cymmrodor, XLIII. Mrs. Coombe Tennant felt that the original version should now be made more generally available. As the Honorary Editor of Y Cymmrodor could not promise early publication in that journal it was agreed by the parties concerned that the account should be printed in The National Library of Wales Journal. The account is preceded by a survey by Mrs. Coombe Tennant of the history of 'Croes Naid'. This survey was first printed in the 1943 Report of the Society of the Friends of St. George's Chapel, and is here reproduced by kind permission of the Friends and of the Dean and Canons, who also lent the blocks of the illustrations which accompanied the survey. The translation into English of Richard of Grimsby's Account is by Mrs. Helen Suggett, B. Litt.-Editor.] In the easternmost bay of the south aisle of the quire of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, is a carved and coloured roof boss of rare beauty and great historic interest. It represents King Edward IV and Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, 1450- 81, Dean of Windsor from 1477-81, and Chancellor of the Garter, kneeling on either side of a Celtic cross which stands on a small mound. This is an effigy of the famous Croes Naid, once the palladium of the Princes of Wales, which formed part of the spoils handed over to Edward I at the close of his campaign against the Welsh in 1283. The cross was first taken to Westminster Abbey; later, in the reign of Edward II, it was kept in the Tower, and on, or soon after, the foundation of the Order of the Garter in 1348, and evidently by 1352, the cross was given by King Edward III to St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and was henceforth regarded as its chief relic. There it remained, a centre of pilgrimage and devotion, for some two hundred years, certainly up to 1534.2 The Chapel contains three further memorials of the relic: a carved and coloured boss in the roof of the nave, a carving of an angel holding a Celtic cross, on the south side of the east window of the quire,3 and an inscription below a niche in the stone screen on the south side of the high altar facing into the south aisle. The boss in the nave is the second from east to west: 'The famous Cross-Neyt, shown as a tall Celtic cross, jewelled, on an ornamental foot of steps, with a scroll on each side lettered: SCA CRUX SALUS' (Sancta Crux Salus. The Holy Cross is our Salvation). 4 The inscription beneath the niche in the stone screen on the south side of the high altar is of great interest. It begins: 'Who leyde this booke here-The Reverend ffader in God Richard Beauchamp Bisschop of this Dioceyse of Sarys- bury', and goes on to explain his object, namely, that priests saying 'theyr divyne