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The little niches around the tombs, in which usually stood figures of saints, were called "hovels." It is amusing to learn this to-day, with our long established association of the word with poverty and squalor. Henry VII. left directions for the design of his tomb. Among other stipulations, it was to be adorned with "ymages" of his patron saints "of copper and gilte."
Henry then "calls and cries" to his guardian saints and directs that the tomb shall have "a grate, in manner of a closure, of coper and gilte," which was added by English craftsmen. Inside this grille in the early days was an altar, containing a unique relic, a leg of St. George.
Torregiano's contract read that he should "make well, surely, cleanly, and workmanlike, curiously, and substantially" the marble tomb with "images, beasts, and other things, of copper, gilte." Another craftsman who exercised his skill in this chapel was Lawrence Imber, image maker, and in 1500 the names of John Hudd, sculptor, and Nicolas Delphyn, occur.
It was a spirited picture of the royal baby with his gold rattle in his chubby little fist, such as might have delighted a father less doting than Henry VIII., whose return gift is recorded: "To Hans Holbyne, paynter, a gilte cruse with a cover, weighing x oz. 1 quarter."
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