Here lieth interred John Brooke, Esquire, the son of Robert Brooke,
Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (which said Robert
assisted the illustrious Queen Mary in obtaining her rights to the
crown in opposition to the violent factions of that time, and
published an excellent Commentary on the English Law in several
volumes), and of Elizabeth the daughter and heir of Francis Waring,
Esquire. After he had lived, distinguished for his knowledge in the
Science of Law and other learning, being of an extensively liberal
mind, and universally beloved, he made a pious and Christianlike end,
Oct. 20th, in the year of our Lord, 1598, in the 60th year of his
age.
Here lieth Arm, the wife of John Brooke, Esquire, descended from the
very ancient and renowned family of the Shirleys. She had by her
husband two sons, Basil and Francis, and also three daughters,
Dorothy, Priscilla and Milburga. She was a lady of strict
discipline, a rigid adherent to her ancestral faith, and as a wife
and mother most exemplary in the discharge of every duty. She died
September 19th, in the year of our Lord 1608, in the 70th year of her
age, and in the 10th year of her widowhood.
Sacred to the memory of Basil Brooke Knight, the son of John Brooke,
Esquire, and Ann, his wife, who was the daughter of Francis Shirley,
of Staunton Harold, in the County of Leicester, Esquire, and the
grandson of Robert Brooke Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas. He had two wives, Etheldreda the daughter and sole heiress of
Edmund Brudenell, of Dean, in the County of Northampton, Knight, and
Francis, the daughter of Henry, Baron Mordaunt, and the sister of
John, Earl of Peterborough. He departed this life the 31st of
December, in the year 1646.
Here lieth Etheldreda, the wife of Basil Brooke Knight. She was the
daughter and sole heiress of Edmund Brudenell Knight—a woman not only
well-skilled in the knowledge of the Latin, Italian, French, and
Spanish languages, and in the science of music, but also exemplary
for piety, faith, prudence, courage, chastity, and gentle manners.
She left to lament her loss an husband with an only son, named
Thomas, and five daughters—namely Ann, the wife of William
Fitzwilliam, Esquire, the grandson of Anthony Fitzherbert Knight,
Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, eminent for his Commentary on
the Laws. Mary, the wife of Thomas More, Esquire, a descendant of
that renowned and upright character, Thomas More, formerly Lord High
Chancellor of England, a man in his life and death universally
esteemed. Also Dorothy, Agatha, and Catharine, of dispositions the
most motherly, the best of all. She died in the year of our Lord . .
(the date is defaced).