when Henry son of that prince, who had behaved himself rebelliously
against his father, lying on his death bed, with great penitence
delivered to him, as to his most intimate friend, his cross to carry to
Jerusalem. He obtained from Richard the first on his first coming to
England after his father’s death, Isabel, daughter and heiress of
Richard, Earl of Pembroke, in marriage, and with her that earldom. He
died advanced in years at his manor of Caversham, near Reading, in 1219.
His body was carried first to Reading abbey, then to Westminster, and
last to the Temple church, where it was solemnly interred.
_Robert Lord Ros of Hamlake._
The most elegant of all the figures in the Temple church represents a
comely young knight, in mail, and a flowing mantle, with a kind of cowl;
his hair neatly curled at the sides, and his crown appearing to be
shaven. His hands are elevated in a praying posture, and on his left arm
is a short pointed shield, charged with three water-bougets, the arms of
the family of Ros. He has at his left side a long sword, and the armour
of his legs, which are crossed, has a ridge or seam up the front,
continued over the knee, and forming a kind of garter below the knee: at
his feet a lion.
This Robert Lord Ros was surnamed _Fursan_, and incurred the displeasure
of king Richard the first, but for what offence is not said. He was one
of the chief barons who undertook to compel king John’s observance of
the great charter. At the close of his life he took upon him the order
of the Templars, and died in their habit. He was buried in this church
in 1227.
_William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke._
The next figure but one to that of the Earl of Pembroke, may be for
William Marshall, eldest son of that Earl. It is a cross-legged knight
in mail, with a surcoat, his helmet round, surmounted with a kind of
round cap, and the mouth piece up, his hands folded on his breast, his
shield long and pointed, and now plain: a very long sword at his right
side; the belt from which his shield hangs studded with quatre-foils,
and that of his sword with lozenges.
This William Marshall died without issue in 1231, and was buried in this
church near the grave of his father.
_Uncertain Monuments in the Temple Church._
The five figures in the north group of this church are not ascertained
absolutely to whom they belong. Camden and Weever ascribe one of them to
Gilbert Marshall, third son of the first William, who on the death of
his brother succeeded to the whole of the paternal inheritance, and lost
his life at a tournament at Ware in 1241. His bowels were buried before
the high altar of the church of our Lady at Hertford, and his body in
the Temple Church, London, near his father and brother.
In the present state of these monuments it is almost impossible to
ascertain the property of more than one of the Marshall family. The two
effigies whose belts have the same ornaments were it is probable of one
family.
It may be observed that Magnaville, William Marshall, jun. and the last
figure in the north groupe have their legs crossed in an unusual manner.
They lie on their backs and yet cross their legs as if they lay on their
sides. So were those of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 1312, in old St.
Paul’s.
The spurs of all are remarkably short, and seem rather straps with
rowels. Not above two or three have the long pointed shoe, and two have
their surcoats exactly reaching to the knee, whereas the others are of
different lengths and fall more easily.
Weever informs us that sepulture in this church was much affected by
Henry the third and his nobility. Stowe has determined that four of the
cross-legged figures belong to the three earls of Pembroke and Robert
Ros: “and these are all,” says he, “that I can remember to have read
of.”
Mr. Gough relates, (he says from good authority,) that a Hertfordshire
baronet applied for some of these cross-legged knights to grace his
newly erected parochial chapel, but the society of Benchers, discovered
their good sense, as well as regard to antiquity, by refusing their
compliance.
TABLE TOMB.
To the cross-legged monument it is highly probable, says Mr.
Lethieullier, succeeded the table tomb, with figures recumbent upon it,
with their hands joined in a praying posture, sometimes with a rich
canopy of stone over them, sometimes without such canopy, and again,
some very plain without any figures. Round the edge of these for the
most part were inscriptions on brass plates, which are now too
frequently destroyed.
The table monument, however, came in more early than Mr. L. supposes.
The most ancient monument of this kind that is extant, in England at
least, of the sovereigns of this kingdom, is that of king John, in the
choir of Worcester Cathedral.[64] His effigy lies on the tomb, crowned;
in his right hand he holds the sceptre, in his left a sword, the point
of which is received into the mouth of a lion couchant at his feet. The
figure is as large as life. On each side of the head are cumbent images,
in small, of the bishops St. Oswald and St. Wulstan, represented as
censing him.—This monarch died in the year 1216. His bowels were buried
in Croxton abbey, and his body, which was conveyed to Worcester from
Newark, was according to his desire, buried in that Cathedral.
GRAVE STONES.
At the same time came in common use the humble grave stone laid flat
with the pavement, sometimes with an inscription cut round the border of
the stone, sometimes enriched with costly plates of brass, as every
person who has examined our cathedral and parish churches cannot fail to
have observed. But either avarice, or an over zealous aversion to some
words in the inscription, has robbed most of these stones of the brass
which adorned them, and left the less room for certainty when this
fashion began. Earlier than the fourteenth century very few have been
met with, and even towards the beginning of that century it is thought
they were but rare. Mr. Lethieullier says that one was produced at a
meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, dated 1300.[65] Weever mentions
one in St. Paul’s for Richard Newport, anno 1317, and gives another at
Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, which he by mistake dates 1306, the true
date being 1356. Upon the whole, where we have not a positive date, it
is hardly probable that any brass plate met with on grave stones can be
older than 1350, and few so old, but from about 1380 they grew into
common use and remained so even to the time of king James the first.
Only after the reign of Edward the sixth we find the old gothic square
letter changed into the roman round hand and the phrase _Orate pro
anima_ universally omitted.
Towards the latter end of the fourteenth century a custom prevailed
likewise of putting the inscription in French and not in Latin. These
inscriptions are generally from 1350 to 1400, and very rarely
afterwards. John Stow has indeed preserved two, which were in St.
Martin’s in the Vintry, dated 1310, and 1311.
The late editor of the Antiquities of Westminster affirms (from what
authority he does not say) that stone coffins were never or rarely used
after the thirteenth century.[66] If this assertion had been correct we
should have had an æra from whence to go upwards in search of any of
those monuments where the stone coffin appears, as it frequently does,
but there is reason to doubt the accuracy of this author’s statement.
As Grecian architecture had a little dawning in Edward the sixth’s time,
and made a further progress in the three succeeding reigns, we find, in
the great number of monuments which were then erected, the small column
introduced with its base and capital, sometimes supporting an arch,
sometimes an architrave, but every where mixed with them, may be
observed a great deal of the Gothic ornaments retained, as small spires,
ill carved images, small square roses and other foliage, painted and
gilt, which sufficiently denote the age which made them, though no
inscriptions are left.
HERALDIC SYMBOLS.
Some knowledge of heraldry is very necessary in monumental researches, a
coat of arms, device, or rebus, very often remains where not the least
word of an inscription appears, and where indeed very probably there
never was any.
Armorial bearings seem to have taken their rise in this kingdom in the
reign of king Richard the first, and by little and little to have become
hereditary; it was accounted most honourable to carry those arms which
the bearers had displayed in the Holy Land, against the professed
enemies of Christianity, but they were not fully established until the
latter end of the reign of king Henry the third.
King Richard the first after his return from his captivity in Austria,
had a new great seal made, on which seal he first bore three lions
passant guardant for his arms, which from this time became the
hereditary arms of the kings of England.
The arms assigned or attributed to the kings of the Norman dynasty,
namely _gules_, two lions passant guardant, _or_, Mr. Sandford, in his
Genealogical History of England, says he could not find had ever been
used by those Princes, either on monuments, coins, or seals, but that
historians had assigned or fixed them upon the Norman line to
distinguish it from that of their successors the Plantagenets, who bore
_gules_, three lions passant guardant, _or_.[67] According to the
opinion of modern genealogists, king Henry the second, who bore two
lions for his arms, in the manner before mentioned, added, on his
marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the arms of that dutchy, namely
_gules_, a lion, _or_, to his own, and so was the first king of England
who bore three lions; but for this there is no better proof than for
those assigned to the Norman dynasty, for the arms of king Henry the
second upon his monument at Fontevraud in Normandy, are on a shield of a
modern form, and on the same monument are escutcheons with both
impalements and quarterings which were not used till a hundred years
after his death.
King Edward the first was the first son of a king of England that
differenced his arms with a file, and the first king of England that
bore his arms on the caparisons of his horse.
Margaret of France, second wife of king Edward the first, was the first
queen of England that bore her arms _dimidiated_ with her husband’s in
one escutcheon, that is, both escutcheons being parted by a
perpendicular line, or _per pale_, the dexter side of the husband’s
shield, is joined to the sinister side of the wife’s, which kind of
bearing is more ancient than the impaling of the entire coats of arms.
King Edward the third, in the year 1339, having taken upon him the title
of king of France, was the first of our kings who quartered arms,
bearing those of France and England, quarterly, and so careful were the
kings, his successors, in marshalling the arms of both kingdoms in the
same shield, that when Charles the sixth, king of France, changed the
semée of fleurs de lys into three, our king Henry the fifth did the
like,[68] and so it continued till the union of Great Britain with
Ireland in 1801, when the arms of France were relinquished.
The first example of the quartering of arms, is found in Spain, when the
kingdoms of Castile and Leon were united under Ferdinand the third, and
was afterwards imitated, as above described, by king Edward the third.
Eleanor of Castile, his queen, introduced this mode of bearing arms into
England, in which she was followed by the king, her husband.
Until the time of king Edward the third, we find no coronets round the
heads of peers. The figure upon the monument of John of Eltham, second
son of king Edward the third, who died in 1334, and is buried in
Westminster abbey, is adorned with a diadem, composed of a circle of
greater and less leaves or flowers, and is the most ancient portraiture
of an earl, says Sandford, that has a coronet. For the effigies of Henry
Lacy, earl of Lincoln, on his tomb in Old St. Paul’s, had the head
encompassed with a circle only, and that of William de Valence, earl of
Pembroke, half brother of king John, who died in 1304, and is buried in
St. Edmund’s chapel, in Westminster abbey, has only a circle, enriched
and embellished with stones of several colours, but without either
points, rays, or leaves.
John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, who died in 1375, was the first subject
who bore two coats quarterly.
Richard the second was the first of the English kings, who used
supporters to his arms.
Henry the sixth was the first of our kings who wore an arched crown,
which has been ever since continued by his successors.[69]
Henry the eighth was the first king of England that added to his shield,
the garter and the crown, in imitation of which, the knights of the
garter, in the latter end of his reign, caused their escutcheons on
their stalls at Windsor, to be encompassed with the garter, and those
who were dukes, marquesses, or earls, had their coronets placed on their
shields, which has been so practised ever since.
Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign who used in her arms, a harp
crowned, as an ensign for the kingdom of Ireland.
King James the first was the first of our monarchs, who quartered the
arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in one shield.
The number of princes of the blood royal of the houses of York and
Lancaster, may easily be distinguished, by the labels on their coats of
arms, which are different for each, and very often their devices are
added.
Where the figure of a woman is found with arms both on her kirtle and
mantle, those on the kirtle are always her own family’s, and those on
the mantle, her husband’s.
The first instance of arms on sepulchral monuments, in England, are
those on the tomb of Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex, (so
created in 1148,) in the Temple church, in London. Armorial bearings
were used in France, on monuments, forty years before we find them in
England.
Very intimately connected with the ornaments and devices upon sepulchral
monuments are the figures and dresses of our early monarchs found on
their great seals, and of the principal nobility of those times on their
seals. King Henry the third was the first English sovereign who wore
upon his helmet a crown, and he is also the first king who is depicted
upon his great seal as wearing rowels in his spurs in the manner in
which they are now used, all the former kings using spurs with a single
point or spike from the heel.
Sandford, in his Genealogical History of England, says, that the arms
upon the seal of John, Earl of Morton, (afterwards king John,) namely,
two lions passant, are the first which he had seen upon any seal of the
royal family. This was in the reign of king Henry the second.
MONUMENTS FOR ECCLESIASTICS.
As to monuments for the several degrees of churchmen, as bishops,
abbots, priors, monks, &c. or of religious women, they are easily to be
distinguished from other persons, but equally difficult to assign to
their true owners. Among these, as among the before-mentioned monuments,
for the most part the stone effigies are the oldest, with the mitre,
crosier, and other proper insignia, and very often wider at the head
than feet, having, indeed, been the cover to the stone coffins in which
the body was deposited.
When brass plates came in fashion they were likewise much used by
bishops, &c. many of whose grave stones remain at this day, very richly
adorned, and in many, the indented marble shews that they have been so.
In Salisbury cathedral, says Mr. Lethieullier, I found two very ancient
stone figures of bishops, which were brought from Old Sarum, and are
consequently older than the time of king Henry the third. In that
church, likewise, the pompous marble which lies over Nicholas Longespee,
bishop of that see, and son of the, Earl of Salisbury, who died in the
year 1297, appears to have been richly plated, though the brass is now
quite gone, and is one of the most early of that kind which has been met
with. Frequently, where there are no effigies, crosiers or crosses
denote an ecclesiastic. The latter have been met with, but with little
difference in their form, for every order from a bishop to a parish
priest.
THE SKELETON MONUMENT.
One sort of monument more may be mentioned, which is somewhat peculiar;
this is the representation of a skeleton in a shroud, lying either under
or upon, but generally under a table tomb. A monument of this kind is to
be met with in almost all the cathedral and conventual churches
throughout England, and scarcely ever more than one, but to what age the
unknown ones are to be attributed, we have no clue to guide us, since
there is one in York cathedral for Robert Claget, treasurer of that
church, as ancient as 1241, and in Bristol cathedral, Paul Bush, the
first bishop of that see, who died so late as 1558, is represented in
the same manner, and some of these figures may be found in every age
between.
These skeleton monuments represent the figure of a man emaciated by
extreme sickness, or taken immediately after death; they are usually of
ecclesiastics, and placed with another figure of the same prelate, as a
contrast to his pride, in pontificals. The art of the sculptor is more
apparent in the first mentioned, because much anatomical accuracy was
required.
One of the earliest monuments of a warrior so contrasted is that of John
de Arundel, slain in the French wars, under the Duke of Bedford. It
remains in the sepulchral chapel of that noble family at Arundel, and is
finely sculptured in white marble. The dead figure, is indeed a masterly
performance, and has every appearance of having been originally modelled
from nature.
In Exeter Cathedral there is an altar tomb, upon which lies the effigy
of bishop Marshall, who died in 1203, dressed in his episcopal robes,
with a mitre on his head, his right hand lying upon his breast, with the
palm upwards, the fore finger, ring finger, and thumb extended, and the
other fingers closed. Near this monument in a low niche, lies the figure
of a skeleton, cut in free stone, with the following inscription over
it:—“Ista figura docet nos omnes premeditari qualiter ipsa nocet mors
quando venit dominari.”
The tomb of bishop Beckington in Wells Cathedral, who died in 1464, has
his effigy in alabaster, habited in his episcopal robes; and underneath
is a representation of his skeleton.
Footnote 59:
In the centre of the nave of Wells Cathedral there is a large stone
that had formerly upon it an effigy in brass, which was generally
ascribed to king Ina, the founder of that church.
Footnote 60:
This is one of the earliest specimens we have of the cross-legged
monument. It is made of Irish oak, as well the table part, as the
effigy. On the pannels are the arms of several of the worthies, and at
the foot the arms of France and England, quarterly, which shews these
escutcheons to have been painted since the reign of king Henry the
fourth. This monument stood entire until the parliamentary army,
during the Cromwell usurpation, having garrisoned the city of
Gloucester against the king, the soldiers tore it to pieces, which
being about to be burned, were bought of them by Sir Humphrey Tracy,
of Stanway, and privately laid up until the Restoration, when the
pieces were put together, repaired, and ornamented, and again placed
in their former situation by Sir Humphrey, who also added a wire
screen for their future preservation. There is an engraving of this
monument in Sandford’s Genealogical History, page 16, which Rudder,
(_History of Gloucester_, p. 126.) calls a noble representation of it.
Gibbon has left us the following account of this prince, (Rom. Hist.
vol. 11. p. 32)—“Robert, Duke of Normandy, one of the chiefs of the
first crusade, on his father’s death was deprived of the kingdom of
England, by his own indolence and the activity of his brother Rufus.
The worth of Robert was degraded by an excessive levity and easiness
of temper; his cheerfulness seduced him to the indulgence of pleasure,
his profuse liberality impoverished the prince and people; his
indiscriminate clemency multiplied the number of offenders; and the
amiable qualities of a private man, became the essential defects of a
sovereign. For the trifling sum of ten thousand marks (the one
hundredth part of its present yearly revenue) he mortgaged Normandy
during his absence in the first crusade, to the English usurper; but
his behaviour in the Holy War, announced in Robert, a reformation of
manners, and restored him in some degree to the public esteem.”
There is an engraving of Robert, Duke of Normandy, in Ducarel’s
Anglo-Norman Antiq. Plate 5.
The monument of William, Earl of Flanders, son of Robert, Duke of
Normandy, as also two of his seals, are engraven in Sandford’s
Genealogical Hist. p. 17.
Footnote 61:
The monument of Edmund Crouchback has been very lofty; it was painted,
gilt, and inlaid with stained glass. The inside of the canopy has
represented the sky with stars, but, by age, is changed into a dull
red. On the base, towards the area are the remains of ten knights,
armed, with banners, surcoats of armour, and cross-belted,
representing, undoubtedly, his expedition to the Holy Land, the number
exactly corresponding with what Matthew Paris reports, namely, Edmund
and his elder brother, four earls and four knights, of whom some are
still discoverable, particularly the Lord Roger Clifford, as were
formerly in Waverly’s time, William de Valence and Thomas de Clare.
Footnote 62:
These rules are extracted from the Antiquarian Repertory, vol. ii. p.
124; and from the Introduction to Gough’s “History of Sepulchral
Monuments,” p. 115.
Footnote 63:
This account of these monuments is extracted from Gough’s “History of
Sepulchral Monuments.”
Footnote 64:
This monument was asserted by Green, in his History of Worcester, to
have been a cenotaph, and accordingly the Dean and Chapter had
determined on its removal, intending to place it over the supposed
remains of the king in the lady chapel. But on opening the tomb on
Monday, July the 17th, 1797, the royal remains were found therein in a
stone coffin, the internal measure of which from the feet to the top
of the excavation hollowed out for the head, was 5 feet 6 inches and a
half. The body was doubtless originally placed in the coffin, nearly
in the same form, and arrayed in such a robe as the figure on the
tomb, with his sword in his left hand, and booted, but it was so much
deranged as evidently to shew that it had been disturbed, and that
perhaps at its removal from the place of its first interment in the
lady chapel, if ever that event had taken place, which seems to have
been a controverted point with historians. The most perfect part of
the body seemed to be the toes, on some of which the nails were still
distinguishable, but of what the dress had originally been composed,
could be only matter of conjecture. The influx of people, eager to see
the royal remains after an interment of nearly 600 years, was so great
as to be the cause of the tomb being closed on the following day.
Footnote 65:
The monument of Walter de Langton, Dean of York, who died in 1279, was
the first in that Cathedral that had an inscription upon it. It was
destroyed by the Puritans during the Cromwell Usurpation.
Footnote 66:
Coffins formed of a single stone, hollowed with a chissel, are an
improvement which has been attributed to the Romans. Sometimes they
were of marble. Some contained two or more bodies, others only one, in
which case, it was not unusual for them to be made to fit the body,
with cavities for the reception of the head and arms, and other
protuberances.
The solid stone or marble coffin, often curiously wrought, was in use
among the first christians in England, who, in all probability, copied
the customs of the Romans, after those conquerors had quitted our
island.—Stone coffins were disused in the fifteenth century. None but
opulent persons were interred in coffins of this description; the body
was wrapped in fine linen, attired in the most honourable vestments,
and laid in spices. The coffin was placed no deeper in the ground,
than the thickness of a marble slab, or stone to be laid over it, even
with the surface of the pavement. The coffin shaped stones which are
frequently seen in churches at the present day, have, in general, been
the covers of stone coffins.