_Separation of the Sexes at Church._--Many of your correspondents have
taken up the separation of the living at church, but none have alluded to
the dead. I extract the following from a deed of the 34th of Elizabeth:--
"But also in the two severall vawtes or towmbes in the sayd chappell,
and in the sowthe syde of the same, and in the wall of the sayd church,
ffor themselves only to bury in; that is to say, in the upper of the
same, standing eastwards, to bury the deade bodyes of the men, being
ancestors of the sayd A. B.; and in the lower, standing westwards, to
bury the deade bodies of the women, being wyves or children female of
his, the said A. B.'s ancestors."
Perhaps some of your correspondents can tell us whether such separate
vaults were customary?
_Vox Populi Vox Dei_ (Vol. i., p. 370.).--Your correspondent DANIEL ROCK
states these words to have been chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Simon Mepham, as his text for the sermon he preached when Edward III. was
called to the throne; and in your Notices to Correspondents, Vol. iii., p.
254., you repeat the statement.
The prelate by whom the sermon was preached was not Simon Mepham, but his
predecessor, Walter Reynolds, who was Archbishop of Canterbury when the
second Edward was deposed, and when Edward III. was crowned, on February 1,
1327. This Walter Reynolds died on November 16, 1327, and Simon Mepham was
appointed his successor on December 11, 1327. John Toland, in his _Anglia
Libera_, p. 114., has this reference to the sermon which was preached by
the Archbishop Reynolds on the occasion of the king's coronation:
"To Edward I. succeeded his son Edward II., who growing an intolerable
tyrant, was in a parliament summoned by himself formally accused of
misgovernment, and on his own acknowledging the truth of this charge,
solemnly deposed. When his son, Edward III., was elected with universal
consent, Walter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached the coronation
sermon, and took these words for his text, "_Vox populi Vox Dei_, the
voice of the people is the voice of God,"--so little did they dream in
those days of the divine right of monarchy, or that all power did not
originally derive from the people, for whom and by whom all governments
are erected and maintained."
Sir Harris Nicolas in his _Synopsis of the Peerage,_ and Dugdale in his
_Monasticon_, give the name of this Archbishop as Walter Reynolds. Sir
Richard Baker, in his _Chronicle_, describes him as Walter Reginald; and in
Hume's _England_ he is called Walter de Reynel.