Each register, or row, in the main window consists of four panels depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The two central panels in each row can be viewed as a single scene, with attendant figures on either side watching on. From the bottom row up, they are –

Bottom row The Nativity. The Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus attended by three angels; flanked on either side by St Bartholomew and St James Major.

Middle row The Agony in the Garden. Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane; with watching angel. He is flanked by St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist

Top row The Resurrection. Christ emerges from the tomb at daybreak; flanked on the left by the much-reproduced image of the Angel Uriel and, on the right, St Michael.

Whall employed a newly-developed type of slab glass, that its inventor, William Prior, called ‘Early English’. The glass has a veined appearance, with streaks of colour running through it. Whall was able to employ a palette of vibrant, transparent colours, quite unlike anything seen previously. His windows have an jewelled, luminescent quality to them.

Whall originally created two windows for Canterbury, though the glass in St Andrew’s Chapel, off the North Choir aisle, was unfortunately shattered by bomb damage during World War II. Whall’s original drawings for the lost window can be seen in the V&A museum in London.

The dominant feature in the centre of the chapel is the triple tomb of Lady Margaret Holland, Duchess of Clarence, and her two husbands. The Duchess was a member of the powerful and influential Beaufort family – the Lancastrian dynasty that controlled English politics and the succession to the throne from 1399-1461 and again, after a Yorkist gap that ended with the Battle of Bosworth Field, from 1485 onwards, through Henry VII and the Tudors.

Lady Margaret commissioned and paid for the demolition and rebuilding, between 1436-1440, of the Norman (c.1085) St Michael’s Chapel and made it known that she wished to be buried in the chapel, together with her late husbands John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset (d.1410) and Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence (d.1421). The Duke was the second son of Henry IV, and younger brother of Henry V. The Duchess died only 11 days after the completion of the chapel and the Earl and the Duke, who had been temporarily interred in the Trinity Chapel, were reburied alongside her.

The Purbeck marble tomb, designed by master mason Richard Beke is topped by three alabaster figures. The Duchess lies in the middle, in rich robes, covered by a mantle, a wimpled coronet on her head and with dogs at her feet. On her left, the lesser ranking John, Earl of Somerset, in full armour with a falcon at his feet. On her right, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, also in full armour, with a hound at his feet.

Archbishop Stephen Langton (1207-1228) is a key figure in the politics of the early thirteenth century and, though his tomb is now hidden from view by the Holland monument, it has a fascinating story attached to it.

During the remodelling of the chapel in 1439, several lesser tombs and monuments were moved to make way for the tomb of Lady Margaret Holland and her two husbands. Perhaps because of his status, Langton’s tomb was spared, but the squaring-off of Lanfranc’s Romanesque apse to accommodate a large Perpendicular-style, stained-glass window, left the Archbishop with his head inside the chapel and his feet sticking out through the east wall. The foot-end of Langton’s tomb can be clearly seen from outside. This seems a rather unfitting memorial for a man of many accomplishments, including dividing the the Bible into its now standard arrangement of chapters, for writing the hymn Veni, Sancte Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit), which scholars consider one of the great masterpieces of Latin poetry and, most notably of all, for producing the first draft of the Magna Carta.

 The life and times of Stephen Langton

The east window of St Michael’s Chapel, The Buffs’ Window, installed in 1959, replaced a 19th century Crimean War Memorial window, destroyed in an air raid during World War II. The top of the central panel features the “Sun of Splendour” emblem from the Regiment’s early colours, “1572” – the date the Regiment was raised – and the arms of Queen Elizabeth I. Below that, the Royal Arms of Denmark, representing the Regiment’s Danish link since 1869. Also, the Regimental Dragon, the Royal badge awarded by Queen Anne in 1707, reflecting its Tudor origin.

The remaining coats of arms in the window are those of Colonels of The Buffs from 1665 to 1953, together with royal personages, associated with the Regiment, and the arms of the Cities of London and Canterbury.