(Vol. viii., p. 245.)
It is most likely that Q., who inquired relative to a picture of Sir
Anthony Wingfield, may occasionally meet with an engraving of this worthy,
though the depository of the original portrait is unknown. The tale told
Horace Walpole by the housekeeper at the house of the Nauntons at
Letheringham, Suffolk, is not correct. Sir Anthony was a favourite of the
monarch, and was knighted by him for his brave conduct at Terouenne and
Tournay. A private plate of Sir Anthony exists, the original portrait from
which it was taken being at Letheringham at the time the engraving was
made. The position of the hand in the girdle only indicates the fashion of
portraiture at the time, and is akin to the frequent custom of placing one
arm a-kimbo in modern paintings.
The Query of your correspondent opens a tale of despoliation perhaps
unparalleled even in the days of iconoclastic fury, and but very
imperfectly known.
The estate of Letheringham devolved, about the middle of the last century,
upon William Leman, Esq., who, being obliged to maintain his right against
claimants stating they descended from a branch of the Naunton family who
had migrated into Normandy at the end of the preceding century, was placed
in a position of considerable difficulty to defend his occupation of the
house and lands. I will not say by whom, but in 1770 down came the
residence in which the author of the well-known _Fragmenta Regalia_ had
resided, and, what is far worse, the Priory Church, which, after the
Dissolution, was made parochial, and which was filled with tombs, effigies,
and brasses to members of the family--Bovilles, Wingfields, and
Nauntons--was also levelled with the ground. It was stated at the time that
the sacred edifice had only become dilapidated from age, and that the
parishioners were therefore obliged to do something. What _was done_,
however, was no re-edification of the fabric, but its entire destruction,
and the erection of a new church. Fortunately, Horace Walpole saw the
edifice before the contractor for the new building had cast his "desiring
eyes" upon it, and has recorded his impressions in one of his letters. More
fortunate still, the late Mr. Gough and Mr. Nichols visited it, and the
former employed the well-known topographical draughtsman, the late James
Johnson of Woodbridge, Suffolk, to copy some of the effigies, which were
afterwards engraved and inserted in the second volume of the _Sepulchral
Monuments_. The zeal of Johnson, however, led him to preserve, by his
minute delineation, not only _every_ monument (only two, I think, are given
by Gough), but also the interior and exterior of the church, with the {300}
position of the tombs. The interior view may be seen among Craven Ord's
drawings in the library of the British Museum; and I am happy to say I
possess Johnson's original sketches of all the monuments, and of the
exterior of the building. A fair idea of the extent of the destruction may
be gained by the mention of the fact, that six hundred-weight of alabaster
effigies were beaten into powder, and sold to line water-cisterns. Some of
the figures were rescued by the late Dr. W. Clubbe, and erected into a
pyramid in his garden at Brandeston Vicarage, with this inscription:
"_Fuimus._ Indignant Reader, these monumental remains are not (as thou
mayest suppose) the ruins of Time, but were destroyed in an irruption
of the Goths so late in the Christian era as the year 1789. _Credite
posteri._"