at the same time sacrificed alike, in the immethodical and wasteful arrangement of the high, deep, and unsightly pews: for pewed appropriately, examples for which are still discernable among the later panelling the building would doubtless accommodate an addition of at least one half to the number it is now competent to receive. There is one fair object amid the accompanying disproportion and confusion, upon which the admirer of ancient architecture will fix his gaze. This is a chantry, communicating with the southern aisle by a lofty archway with deep and panelled soffits; a beauteous fan-roofed construction of the time of Henry the Eighth. But what will be his amazement and regret to behold it, not merely filled below with modern sittings, but even faced and lined above with an added gallery of pews? And how will these emotions be augmented, when he is informed that within this sanctuary is laid the “mortal coil" of Clement Lichfield; the mitred architect who reared that farfamed tower which constitutes the proudest feature in the surrounding landscape-and who, with pious care, prepared this mortuary enclosure during life, as his last earthly resting-place! In the chantry before us, the designer has employed a style somewhat objectionable when compared with that of his other erections. He here apparently satisfied himself with adopting the current fashion of the period, at a time when the pointed style had far degenerated from what it long had been. His comparative inexperience,-he being at that time prior, as indicated by the monogram in a shield upon the ceiling-may possibly account for this single error: since he afterward proved by his erection of the adjoining tower, that he well knew how to value and to employ the style of a much chaster period. The chapel is a parallelogram. It is lighted by elongated windows obtusely pointed, retaining vestiges of the solemn-colored glass with which they once were filled; it is ceiled with three pair of fans, locked together by catharine wheels between them, in lieu of pendants; and is paved with glazed armorial tiles -as far as the lowest floor of pews allows us to distinguish. Between two of these cumbrous intrusions there yet may be discerned a portion of the lowly stone that covers the body of the founder. It still presents indications of the sepulchral brasses with which it was inlaid; but these, the love of pelf and plunder has long ago CL removed. Mr. Abingdon thus describes the inlaid effigy and inscriptions, as he found them in the reign of Charles the First. "His resemblance is vested for the altar, in prayer. On his right hand is, Deus in nomine tuo salvum me fac; and on the left, Et in virtute tua judica me; and below on the one side, Quia in inferna nulla est redemptio, and on the other, Miserere mei Deus et salva me; and under his feet, Orate pro anima Domini Clement Lichfield sacerdotis, in cujus tempore nova turris Eveshamic edificati est."Ignorant as ruthless, must that violator have been, who could wrench from the grave of his fellow, these solemn, these searching petitions of trembling humanity. Had this abbot inscribed above his grave, an anathema on him who should disturb his bones-like Shakspere in after-times—it would not perhaps now stand on record, that—" This tomb was carefully opened in the summer of 1817." 403 Respecting such unwarrantable disturbance of the sanctity of the grave,—in the instance too of a character so universally and deservedly respected-we cannot but exclaim with the high-spirited and intellectual Hamlet, "Say Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws To cast thee up again! Say, why is this? Wherefore? What hast thou done?' But, as has truly been observed, it seems to be the lot of greatness to be persecuted and poverty-stricken during life, and after death to be disentombed. Abingdon, in his manuscript observations, describes several coats of arms at that time emblazoned in the windows of this church, all of which have at present disappeared. In the east window of the chancel there were, gules six martlets ermine; in the chapel at the north, standing in the position of a transept and called by him the Derby Chapel, 404 there were, in the north window, gules, three legs conjoined and armed, argent, this coat was repeated thrice; in another pane, azure, three arms conjoined argent, armed with swords; in the middle pane, Mortimer, within an inescutcheon, argent; in the next pane on the right, argent two bars gules; in that on the left, or, two bends gules, Sudeley; in the last pane, gules a fess and 402 Good frend for Jesvs sake forbeare Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones -Gravestone in Stratford Chancel. 403 Short Account of the Antiquities of Evesham, by E. J. Rudge, esq. 404 We are unable to find further notice of this transept as "the Derby Chapel :" but in the endowment of Stourbridge Grammar-school two chantries within this parish dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. John are thus noticed :-"Ac omnia illa messuagia, terras, et tenementa in tenuris 3 tenentium existent. in Evesham prædict. ac nuper cantariæ B. M. et S'ti Georgii in parochia Omnium Sanctorum, in villa de Evesham."-Nash's Worcestershire, vol. ii. page 215. two mullets of six points in chief, or, Poher. In the windows of the north aisle were the arms of the Abbey, and of Beauchamp quartering Warwick and including Despenser. In the windows of the south aisle those of the see of Exeter, and Gloucester Abbey ; together with the white rose of York, often repeated. The church still presents vestiges of having once contained several monumental brasses; there being even at present-notwithstanding the universal wreck of ancient gravestones-six slabs in different situations within the pavement, retaining the indentions where brasses were originally inlaid; but, with the exception of one small inscribed plate, these have all been shamefully plundered; and the very stones, which surely ought to be exclusively appropriated to the original occupants of the grave beneath, have in more than one instance been used to record the death of some recent intruder. Thus, piece by piece and time after time, the churches here have been alike divested of ancient and interesting memorials. The devastators of "the great church," at its abandonment to ruin, overwhelmed the sculptured effigies abounding there in one vast and mingled ruin and in a few years afterward the humbler portraits upon intagliated brasses here, placed by the townsmen-as also by the last of their abbots-upon their several graves, were basely pillaged by mercenary or malicious hands,-the hands of some, we fear, who once were even neighbours, or acquaintance. Among the brasses that remained entire at Mr. Abingdon's visit, he notices in the north transept a tomb inlaid with brass, exhibiting the effigies of "Master John Sadeler," one of the latest catholic chaplains of this parish, who died in 1502-in the central aisle, the effigies of Robert Wyllys and wife; near these, that of John Okley, merchant in Evesham, who died in 1586; a stone indented for a graduated cross, to the memory of John Feckenham, considered to be of the same family as Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul's-of whom we have yet to write further: in the south aisle, the inlaid effigies of Elianor, and her two husbands; she, with the first of these, Thomas Jordan who died in 1526, were special benefactors to this church." "405 There were also here two other 405 "Orate pro animabus Thomæ Jordan et Elianoræ uxoris ejus, qui huic ecclesia præcipui erant benefactores: qui Thomas obiit A.D. 1526, die vero mensis Augusti connubial effigies inlaid, but without date or inscription, then remaining. In our Appendix, numbered XI. will be found a list of all the gravestones and tablets at present within this church, compiled with some pains immediately from the originals. The only monument of particular interest-excepting abbot Lichfield'snow remaining, is that of Robert Wyllis, chaplain here about the time of the Dissolution. There are grooves upon the slab, which mark the outlines of his own effigy and that of his wife, which were inlaid as kneeling; and underneath them both is still preserved in its original situation the small brass plate which implores the passer-by in the latin language and church character, to "pray for the souls of Robert Wyllys and Agnes his wife upon whose souls may God have mercy." The font is at the west end of the north aisle, and the style of its sunken quatrefoils and floral ornaments appropriates it to the fourteenth century. In the same aisle, there are against the eastern pier some vestiges of the screenwork that formerly partitioned off the adjoining transept or Derby Chapel. Near the entrance to the nave may still be seen the oaken lectern on which a copy of Cranmer's bible was originally chained for the use of the parishioners: round which, upon its first introduction into our churches, groupes were wont continually to gather from morn till eve; reading or listening to the full-tide of holy doctrine, from whence bare portions only had hitherto been doled forth by their priests. A black-lettered copy of Fox's Martyrology is at present fettered to this stand, as well as another protesting volume, the date of which is 1563. The chapelry of All-saints, like that of St. Lawrence, was formerly in the peculiar jurisdiction of the abbey of Evesham; though now in the archdeaconry and diocese of Worcester, but exempt from the archdeacon's visitation. It stands as a discharged vicarage in the king's books, valued at £10 168. Od; and is in the gift of the crown. The Terrier of its rents and profits, as delivered in 1585, we have copied from the registry of the Consistorial Court at Worcester, and append beneath the queries, however, do not appear, for the reason we have already given in connection with St. Law xvii et pro anima Willielmi Yver, primi mariti Elianoræ, et pro animabus filiorum et filiarum eorundem. Quorum animabus propitietur Deus." |