An Arundel Tomb

The tomb monument in Chichester Cathedral is now widely, though not quite certainly, identified as that of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (d. 1376) and his second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster (d.

By the 19th century, the Arundel effigies had become badly mutilated, and also separated from one another, being placed against the north wall of the northern outer aisle of the Cathedral, with the woman at the feet of the man.

[2] An additional detail that may have been Richardson's own choice was to depict the knight's empty right-hand gauntlet held in his left hand: he may have found precedents in several hand-joining monuments elsewhere, such as that of c. 1419–20 to Ralph Greene and his wife Katherine Clifton at St Peter's church, Lowick, Northamptonshire.

[9][10] The monument is not inscribed, and it is likely that Larkin's reference to "the Latin names around the base" was inspired by a card label placed by the cathedral authorities – which probably, in accordance with the thinking of the time, misidentified the couple as Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel (d. 1397) and his countess.

[12][13] There were close connections between these patrons – Eleanor and Blanche of Lancaster, for example, were aunt and niece – and it is likely that all were fully aware of one another's burial choices.

[12] Although many modern observers have – like Larkin – read the linking of hands as a sign of romantic love and affection, it seems more likely that the gesture's primary meaning was to signify the formal, legal, and sacramental bonds of matrimony.

[1][15][16] He later claimed to have been "very moved" by the monument;[17] while in an audio recording of the poem, he stated that the effigies were unlike any he had ever seen before, and that he had found them "extremely affecting".

In a letter to Monica written while the poem was still in progress, he identified his "chief idea" as that of the two effigies "lasting so long, & in the end being remarkable only for something they hadn't perhaps meant very seriously".

[21] Andrew Motion describes him "using the detail of the hands as the focus for one of his most moving evocations of the struggle between time and human tenderness".

[20] Larkin himself wrote at the end of the manuscript draft of the poem: Love isn't stronger than death just because statues hold hands for six hundred years.

whose renovating hand, Guided by talent, skill, and taste refined, Hath given to the eye of cultured mind This relic of a by-gone age to stand In all its pristine beauty [...][35]