Ancient funerall monuments within the vnited monarchie of Great Britaine, Ireland, and the islands adiacent with the dissolued monasteries therein contained: their founders, and what eminent persons haue beene in the same interred. As also the death and buriall of certaine of the bloud royall; the nobilitie and gentrie of these kingdomes entombed in forraine nations. A worke reuiuing the dead memory of the royall progenie, the nobilitie, gentrie, and communaltie, of these his Maiesties dominions. Intermixed and illustrated with variety of historicall obseruations, annotations, and briefe notes, extracted out of approued authors ... Whereunto is prefixed a discourse of funerall monuments ... Composed by the studie and trauels of Iohn Weeuer.

Saffron Walden.

So called of the great plentie of Saffron growing in the fields round about the Towne, a commoditie brought into England in the time of King Ed∣ward the third. But I digresse, and am quite off my Subiect; being out of the Parish Church wherein Sir Thomas Audley, knight of the Garter, Baron Audley of this Towne, sometime Sergeant at Law, Attourney of the Duchie of Lancaster, and Lord Chancellour of England, lieth entombed; with this seeli Epitaph.

* 1.1The stroke of deaths ineuitable dart; Hath now, alas, of life bereft the hart, Of Sir Thomas Audley, of the Garter knight: Later Chancellor of England vnder our Prince of might. Henry the eight, worthie of high renowne, And made by him Lord Audley of this Towne. Obijt vltimo Aprilu, Ann. Dom. 1544. Henrici 36. Cancel∣leriatus sui 13. aetatis 56.

* 1.2Haue mercy good Lord on the soul of Thomas Holden, That hit may rest wyth God good neyghbors say Amen. He gave the new Organs wheron hys name is set; For bycause only yee shold not hym forget; In yowr good preyers: to God he took hys wey, On thowsand fyve hundryd and eleuin, in Nouembyr the fourth dey.

Hic iacet his stratus West Matheus tumulatus, * 1.3Qui fuit hic gratus vicarius ciueque natus. M. Dominiter C . . . . terris sit remeatus Huic . . . . . .: existit propiciatus.

* 1.4Of yowr cherite prey for the soulys of Ion Nichols, Alys, Ione, Alys, and Ione his wyfs.

Iohannes: Pater Noster miserere nobis. Alisia: Fili redemptor mundi miserere nobis. Ioanna: Spiritus sancte miserere nobis.

Alisia. Sancta Maria miserere nobis. Ioanna. Sancta dei genetrix, virgo virginum, miserere nobis.

Here lieth interred vnder an ancient monument very ruinous, the body of one Leche, a great benefactor to this Church, as appeareth by this his broken Epitaph.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quo non est,* 1.5 nec erit, nec clarior extitit vllus; .... clausum hoc marmore .... habet Huic Lech nomen erat, diuine legis amator Huius quem Templi curam habuisse palam est. Iste huic multa dabat sacro donaria Fano Inceptique operis sedulus Author erat. Pauperibus fuit inde pius, pauit miserosque, Et me qui temere hec carmina composui. Sit Huius ergo anima ..... celum .... vt altum Huc quiades instanti pectore funde preces.

Prey for the soul of Katerin Semar, Walter Coke, Roger Pirke, and Thomas Semar, husband to the seyd Katerin, principall founder of the preest which singeth before the Trinity. For thees soulys sey a Pater noster and an Aue of cherite.

Who so hym bethoft,* 1.6 ful inwardly and oft. How hard tis to flit, from bed to the pit. From pit vnto peyne, which sal neuer end certeyne, He wold not do on sin, al the world to win.

Orate .... Hugonis Price Abbatis Monasterij de Conwey Cicestrens. or∣dinis,* 1.7 Assauens. Dioces, qui ab hac vita migrauit ad Christum viii. Iulij M.ccccc.xx.viii.

Conditur hoc tumulo corpus Chynt ecce Iohannis,* 1.8 Doctrine speculum plebi qui fulfit in annis. Istius Ecclesie regimen contraxerat ipse, Atque cacumine Doctorali vixit ille. M. C quater anno sexagenoque secundo, Martini festo decessit ab orbe molesto.

Autor Sophie suffragia facta Marie Per te Magdelena sint mihi remedia.

Vicarius gratus Robertus Wylde vocitatus▪* 1.9 Hic iacet, et mundus, prudens fuit, atque facundus▪ Pacem seruauit, et oues proprias bene pauit, Et residens annis bis denis plus quoque trinis; Anno milleno sic C quater octuageno Quarto, lux dena septena fuit sibi pena. Ianuar. . . . . cuius celo sit amena.

This Towne was famous in times past, (saith Clarentieux) for a Castle of the Magnauilles (which now is almost all vanished out of sight) and an Abbey adioyning,* 1.10 founded in a place very commodious, in the yeare 1136. wherein the Magnauilles, founders thereof, were buried. The principall and first founder hereof, was Geffrey Magnauile, or Mandeuill the first Earle of Essex, with Rohesia or Rose his wife, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, chiefe Iustice of England, who consecrated this their religious Structure to the honour of God, the blessed Virgin Mary, and Saint Iames the A∣postle, endowed it with large reuenues, and placed therein blacke Monkes; to which effect will it please you reade a few words out of his deed of Grant.

* 1.11Gaufridus de Mandeuilla comes Essex, &c. salutem. Ad vniuersitatis ve∣sire noticiam volo peruenire me fundasse quoddam monasterium in vsus Mo∣nachorum apud Waldenam, in honore Dei, et sancte Marie et beati Iacobi Apostoti, pro salute anime mee et omnium parentum, antecessorum & success∣sorum meorum, &c. To which by the same deed hee giueth the Churches of Walden, Waltham, Estrene, Sabridgworth, Thorley and others. This house was valued at the suppression, to be yearely worth, foure hundred sixe pounds, fifteene shillings and eleuen pence.

This place is now called Audley End, of Sir Thomas Audley Lord Chancelour, (of whom I haue spoken before) who changed the Abbey in∣to his owne dwelling house; whose sole daughter and heire Margaret, was second wife to Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolke, and mother of Thomas Lord Howard of Walden, Earle of Suffolke, lately deceased, who liued to finish here a most magnificent building, belonging at this present to that worthy gentleman Theophilus his sonne and heire, Lord Walden and Earle of Suffolke.

Geffrey de Mandeuill the founder aforesaid, a man both mighty and martiall, was shot into the head with an arrow, a quodam pedite vilissimo, saith Houeden, out of the Castle of Burwell in Cambridgeshire; of which wound, after certaine daies hee died, being at that time excommunicated. Lying at the point of death, ready to giue his last gaspe,* 1.12 (saith Camden out of the Register booke of Walden) there came by chance certaine Knights Templars, who laid vpon him the habit of their religious profession, signed with a red crosse, and afterwards when he was full dead, taking him vp with them, enclosed him within a coffin of lead, and hung him vpon a tree in the Orchard of the old Temple at London, in the yeare 1144. for in a re∣uerend awe of the Church, they durst not bury him, because he died ex∣communicated, so fearefull in those daies was the sentence of excommuni∣cation: a violent inuader he was of other mens lands, and possessions, and therefore iustly incurred (saith the same Author) the worlds censure, and this heauy doome of the Church: but I must leaue him, where buried, or where not buried, God knowes.

As the Church of this monasterie was honoured with the funerall mo∣numents of the Mandeuills, so was it with those of the Bohuns, Earles of Hereford and Essex, of which you may reade in the Catalogues of Nobi∣lity.

It was also honoured with the Sepulture of Humfrey Plantaginet, Earle of

Buckingham,* 1.13 (the onely sonne of Thomas Earle of Buckingham, and Duke of Glocester, commonly called Thomas of Woodstocke, the yongest sonne of King Edward the third) who (after the vntimely death of his father) was banished into Ireland by King Richard the second, and being recalled backed againe by King Henry the fourth, in the first yeare of his raigne, in his returne died of the plague in Chester, from whence, his mother Elianor daughter and coheire of Humfrey de Bohun Earle of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, caused his body to be conueyed to this Abbey, which shee sumptuously here interred, amongst his and her noble progenitors; his mother, the said Elianor, liued not long after him, but died the third of October in the same yeare, as in a French Inscription vpon her monument in Westminster you may reade; and scarce two yeares after the murder of her husband at Callis; of whose deaths thus writeth that old Poet Sir Iohn Gower Knight, in his booke intituled Vox Clamantis.

Interea transit moriens nec in orbe remansit, Humfredus dictus redit ille Deo benedictus. Defuncto nato cito post de fine beato Mater transiuit, dum nati funera sciuit. Primo decessit * 1.14 Cignus dolor vnder repressit: Matrem cum pullo sibi mors nec parcit in ullo.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Tho. Lord Audley.
• * 1.2

  Tho. Holden.
• * 1.3

  Mathew West. Priest Rector
• * 1.4

  Io. Nichols and his foure wiues
• * 1.5

  Lechec.
• * 1.6

  The like before in Feuersham.
• * 1.7

  Hugh Price Abbot.
• * 1.8

  Io. Chynt Priest Rector.
• * 1.9

  Robert Wyld Priest, Rector.
• * 1.10

  The foundati∣on of Walden Abbey.
• * 1.11

  In Arch. Tu••r. 〈◊〉〈◊〉.
• * 1.12

  Camd. in 〈◊〉〈◊〉
• * 1.13

  〈1 paragraph〉〈1 paragraph〉
• * 1.14

  The Duke of Glocester, be∣cause the Swan was his cognisance.