ROSE WINDOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1938, Page 5

ROSE WINDOW.

MEMORIAL TO KING. ! • \ BRITAIN’S TRIBUTE. ' 1 ALBERT OF BELGIUM. < ] (Special.—By Air Mail.) I YPRES, May 20. 1 Ypres Cathedral, white and new, was full of the murmur of English voices and the clatter and- small metallic 1 sounds of British swords and soldiers’ equipment. Above the lines of Inniskilling Dragoon Guards and the trim detacii-| ment of the Royal Air Force seated in the south aisle glowed the great circle of the rose window, which, in memory of a King and a fellow soldier, Albert of Belgium, the fighting forces of the British Empire have placed in the rebuilt cathedral of St. Martin. As they waited for King Albert’s son and successor, the youthful Leopold 111., to accept this gift to Belgium and to unveil the plaque which recites its purpose, a sense of strangeness grew on the veterans of the Ypres League and on all men who crept about the ruined city a ‘ score of years ago. i Father and Husband. I To sit secure and quiet in this great •church, “the very cathedral of death itself,” as Kipling wrote, astonished the nieniorv snid moved the spirit. King Leopold, on his way to the canopied throne set for him in the choir, lifted his glance to the red,. blue and yellow shine of the British window. During the service both he and Queen e Elizabeth, a fragile figure on whom sorrow still obviously presses, looked often ;.and intently at the memorial which 1 recalls to the one a father, and to the ] other a husband, who was both kind . t and brave. r Despite the glittering, unfamiliar e vestments of Belgium’s high c erg , i despite the brilliant uniforms of the Belgian Court and Army, and despite a

dense- congregation of the good people of Ypres, the service seemed wholly to belong to Britain. The 90 children from the school across the cathedral square took charge of the hymns and made the church resound with fresh English singing. Then the King and Queen Elizabeth left their thrones and stood beneath the [rose window. The Reveille. To an adjacent pillar is affixed a panel of sycamore wood bearing the crests of Belgium, of the British Army, .and of the Fifth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, together with the inscription: “To the Glory of God and in Honoured Memory of Albert 1.. King of the Belgians, Knight of the Garter. Field Marshal of the' British Army and Colonel-in-Chief of the sth Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, the Rose Window in the South Transept is giver to Belgium by the British Army and the Royal Air Force.” At a touch from Ring Leopold’s hanc 1 the covering Union Jack fell aside, and ! strong and unfaltering, the Inniskillinf ’ trumpeters made the Reveille search am - sound through the cathedral spaces. ! The tall figure of the King; the ! Queen-Mother, with veiled and downcast head; the cluster of British officers; and 1 the rich capes and mitres of the sur- , rounding clergy made a memorable ) group —a picture that binds Britain and - the city of Ypres still closer Wether in s the minds, of all who lieheld it. 1 From the cathedral the King went to i pav his homage at the Menin Gate that broad-arched monument “To the Armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914-1918,” and to the afi.ooo who t lie in unknown graves in the Salient. Ii Ex-Servicemen fell in l>ehind the 1 Royal Fusiliers* hand ami max' I '"'’. as “f old. through the Flanders rain: and - after the King had laid a wreath on the -. British memorial he warmly shook them 1 by the hand.