Memorial to a Wife by Her Sister

Our next armorial memorial in York Minster has a bit of a story to tell: Though it has on its face the marital arms of a woman, it was not erected by her husband, but by her younger sister. (Who, based on her marriage, may have had more funds available to her to erect this monument.)

Dorothy Langley, née Willoughby, who died April 13, 1824, has this lovely memorial with an intricately carved gothic canopy over it:

Dorothy, as the inscription on the monument tells us (though in less detail), was the oldest daughter of Henry Willoughby, 5th Baron Middleton, and his wife, Dorothy, née Cartwright.

Dorothy (the daughter) married Richard Langley of Wykeham Abbey in 1784.

Dorothy's younger sister, Henrietta, had married Richard Lumley-Saunderson, 6th Earl of Scarbrough, and it was Henrietta who erected this monument to her sister, and not, as we more commonly expect to see, by Dorothy's husband Richard Langley. (But then again, the wife of an Earl may have had more funds available to her than a "mere" Esquire.)

No matter. Immediately below the canopy, we find the marital arms of Dorothy (Willoughby) Langley.

The blazon is: Quarterly: 1 and 4, Paly of six argent and vert a canton gules; 2 and 3, Or a fess between three crescents gules (Langley); impaling Quarterly: 1 and 4, Or fretty azure; 2 and 3; Vert on two bars or  three water bougets sable (Willoughby).

Burke's General Armory gives the arms for Langley of Wikeham Abbey, Malton, county York, with the fess and crescents in the first and fourth quarters, and the paly -- without the canton -- in the second and third quarters. But he also cites several Langleys bearing Paly of six argent and vert (without the canton), including Langley of Langley, county Durham and Sheriff Hutton, county York, so that would appear to indicate that the paly quarters are the pronomial arms of this Langley family, which would normally properly be placed in the first and fourth quarters.

The Willoughby, Baron Middleton, arms may also be seen (carved but not painted) on the memorial to Henry, 5th Baron Middleton in St. Leonard's Church, Wollaton. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Willoughby,_5th_Baron_Middleton

Burke does not give these colors for the second and third quarters of the Willoughby arms, citing them as: Or on two bars gules three water bougets argent. I do not know how to account for this difference in the colors. Is Burke incorrect? Possibly (see the Langley arms above). Did the painter of the arms on this memorial make an error? Possibly. (I have seen paintings of heraldry where it looked like the painter had a limited pallet, and so used the colors he or she had to hand rather than the correct ones.)

Still, it's a lovely memorial, and well worth sharing with you.

It's Sad to See Someone Die So Young

Our next armorial memorial is to a young wife to died far too early, at the age of 22, when she had been married for just a year and three months.

This is the armorial memorial of Lady Mary Hore, née Howard.

She was the daughter of Ralph Howard, 1st Viscount Wicklow, and his wife Alice Forward, the daughter and heiress of William Forward of Castle Forward, County Donegal. Following the Viscount's death, in December 1793 Alice was created Countess of Wicklow.

Lady Mary was the wife of Rev. Thomas Hore, the second son of Walter Hore of Harperstown, whom she married in 1797.

The inscription on the monument gives the particulars of her relations and the circumstances of her young death.

Finally, of course, we come to the relief-carved coat of arms near the top of the monument.

Sable a double-headed eagle displayed within a bordure engrailed argent, in chief a martlet for difference (Hore); impaling  Gules a bend between six crosses crosslet argent (Howard). The crest is A demi-eagle displayed [azure?], The motto is Constanter (With constancy).

It really is a lovely monument in a neo-Classical style. It's so sad that it is to the memory of a young wife, only 22, married for just over a year, whoe died here in York on her way to Scarborough "for the recovery of her health".

Well, This One Turned Out to Be Frustrating to Properly Identify

I mean, really, I've been researching heraldry for a long time now, and particularly for something like quartered arms, attached to a family of a not terribly common surname, and accompanied with an inscription that helpfully gives the person's name, you'd think I would be able to track down the arms and its colors fairly readily.

Alas, no.

The armorial memorial in question is that of Ranulph or Randolph Hurleston, who died in 1587. He was, as the little information I could find about him explains, a member of the Council of the North.

There is a two-sentence description in A Guide to the Heraldry of York Minster that gives the above information. He does not appear in the Dictionary of National Biography, and an internet search simple repeats the information in the Guide. The inscription on his marker adds very little to that information:

"The bodi of Ranulph Hurleston, Esquier, one of the honorable councel in these north parts lieth here in hope of ioiful resurreccion who adorned with great gifts of lerning, gravitie, wisdom ioined with rare godliness: was alwais careful for advancing of the sincere doctrine of Christe, and of that æquitie which everiwhere ought to be observed, never ceasing his faithful labours to profite this church and common welth: until it pleased our gracious God merciful (in a veri short moment, without ani, or with the least, dolors of death) to ende all the labors of his faithfull servant and to translate his sowle into his æternal rest. XIII Aprilis Anno Christi Incarnati 1587. All the daies of his peregrinacon were LXII years for whose godli life the Anointed Saviour be praised for ever. Amen."

So we are left with the not especially well carved coat of arms:

Looking at quarters 1 and 4, Burke's General Armory gives us Hurleston/Hurlestone (both from Chester), with a blazon of Argent a cross of four ermine spots sable.

For quarters 2 and 3: There are three “[plain field] three garbs … within a [plain] bordure …” in Papworth:

Cummin/Cumming, Azure three garbs within a bordure or; 

Berkhead/Birkenhead/Brickbed/Brickhet, Sable three garbs or within a bordure argent; and

Berkhead/Brickhed and Segrave, Sable three garbs within a bordure or.

So it might be any (or, for that matter, none) of these.

In the fess point of the shield is a crescent for difference, the crescent being the cadency mark of second son.

Burke's gives the Hurleston crest as: An ermine passant argent. (What is carved here is pretty clearly a wolf statant.) Fairbairn's Crests gives a wolf statant as being borne by the following families, none of whom are Hurleston: Biddulph, Carden/Cardin, Dane, Iles, Knott, Lawley, and Preston.

The situation remains if we assume that the crest carved here is a fox; several families bearing a fox statant, none of whom are Hurleston.

Finally, the motto is, Virtus vitæ laus (Praise the virtue of life). It does not appear in my copy of Fairbairn's.

So, after doing all this research through the heraldry books, where did I end up?

Right where I began, with the two-sentence description in A Guide to the Heraldry of York Minster.

Well, sometimes that is both the attraction and disappointment of heraldry, and life, too, for that matter. Some you win, some you lose, and some (as here) you just break even.

It's Always Interesting to Run Across Some 17th Century Given Names

And some of those interesting forenames were not always necessarily borne by Separatists or Puritans, although they did seem to favor such given names (e.g., Increase, Praise God, Humiliation, or my current personal favorite: If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hads't-Been-Damned). But such forenames were not exclusive to the Puritans, as we will see looking at today's armorial memorial to an archbishop of York, Accepted Frewen.

Accepted Frewen was Archbishop 1660-1664, though as both the inscription on the memorial, above, tells us in part, and his entry in Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accepted_Frewen tells us more fully, he was also: President of Magdalen College, Oxford; Vice Chancellor of Oxford University; Dean of Gloucester; and Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry; in additon to being Archbishop of York.

His arms, shown at the top of the monument, consist of the See of York (modern) impaling Frewen (Ermine four bars azure a demi-lion rampant gules [Burke says "proper"] issuant in chief). The arms here are ensigned with a mitre, which we are told is a style typical of the Restoration.

On a side note, Burke notes that his family's motto was Mutare non est meum (It is not mine to change). Not exactly a tenet of the Puritans, despite their desire to return to the simplicity of the early church without all of the forms, rituals, etc. (see, "popery") that they believed had been added over the centuries.

Anyway, I found it interesting to find a given name like Accepted in a context that was clearly not strictly Puritan. And with heraldry, too!

I swear, sometimes it just doesn't get much better than this!

Is There Something About Marys and Martlets That I Don't Know?

Our next two memorials are to two wives, both named Mary, and whose memorials display heraldry which contains martlets.*

The first is that of Lady Mary Fenwick.

Lady Mary was the daughter of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, and the wife of Sir John Fenwick, Baronet.

At the top of the monument, surmounted by a knight's helmet (for her husband) and an earl's coronet (for her father), we see Per fess gules and argent six martlets counterchanged, the badge of a baronet (Argent a sinister hand appaumy couped gules) (Fenwick), impaling Gules on a bend between six crosses crosslet fitchy argent an escutcheon or charged with a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth with an arrow within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules, on the bend a mullet for difference (Howard, Earl of Carlisle).

Flanking the marital arms of Lady Mary are two more shields.

On the left, the arms of her father, Gules on a bend between six crosses crosslet fitchy argent an escutcheon or charged with a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth with an arrow within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules, on the bend a mullet for difference. No crest, but the coronet of an Earl surmounts the shield.

And on the right, the arms of her husband, Per fess gules and argent six martlets counterchanged, the badge of a baronet (Argent a sinister hand appaumy couped gules). Crest: A phoenix rising from flames proper gorged of a mural crown or.

Though this next monument memorializes several deceased children of Richard Sterne, the only one remembered armorially is his daughter, Mary, who married Rev. Thomas Pulleyn.

The arms are painted on a cartouche:

Azure on a bend cotised or [Burke says "argent"] three escallops gules on a chief or three martlets sable [Pulleyn/Pullein/Pullen], impaling Or a chevron between three crosses patonce sable (Sterne).

So, as it turns out, there is nothing connecting "Mary" with "martlet", as all nine of the martlets on these two memorials belong to their husbands' coats of arms.

Still, it was an interesting juxtaposition, and I had to research it and report back to you!

* For those very few of you reading this blog who don't know what an heraldic martlet is, J.P. Brooke-Little's An Heraldic Alphabet defines it this way:

"Martlet. A very common charge which resembles a house martin but has no shanks or legs, just tufts of feathers. It may have originally been a swift, as these apparently legless birds were to be found in large numbers in the Holy Land at the time of the Crusades."

So now you know.

The Gibson Girls

But in this case, it's not the well-known personification of the feminine ideal of physical attractiveness as portrayed by the pen-and-ink illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson the turn of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

No, these memorials in St. Stephen's Chapel, York Minster, are about about the Gibson sisters, Ann, Joanna, and Penelope, daughters of John Gibson of Welburn, and Ann's husband, Samuel Terrick. 

First, let's look at Samuel Terrick's monument:

He was, in addition to being the husband of Ann Gibson, chaplain to Archbishop John Sharpe, among other ecclesiastical offices which are given (in Latin) on the face of the monument. Samuel Terrick died on January 2, 1718/19, aged 51.

Atop the monument are the relief-carved and painted arms of Terrick impaling Gibson:

Gules three lapwings or, impaling Barry of six ermine and sable a lion rampant or. The crest is: A lion salient or.

(I have to admit, I really like the way the helmet is carved and decorated!)

A little further along, and we come to the two memorial to Joanna Gibson and Penelope Gibson:

According to the insriptions, Joanna Gibson died in 1733, and her sister Penelope in 1715.

Each bears the arms of their father, John Gibson, on a lozenge, as is appropriate.

Again, the blazon of these Gibson arms is: Barry of six ermine and sable a lion rampant or.

The carving on each of these monuments is so very well done, and the painting of the arms is, too.

Another Comparatively Simple Armorial Memorial

In keeping with our theme from the previous post, today we visit another fairly straightforward and uncomplex armorial memorial.

This pyramidal monument is that of Thomas Lamplugh, son of Thomas Lamplugh, and grandson of of Thomas Lamplugh, Archbishop of York, and his (that is, Thomas Lamplugh III's) wife, Honor Chaloner. He (as we are told on the monument) was Rector of Bolton Percy and a Canon of York Minster. She was the daughter of William Chaloner of Gisborough. They had six children, one son and five daughters.

The pyramid monument is topped with a carved and painted coat of arms and crest. The arms are: Or a cross flory sable (Lamplugh), impaling Sable a chevron between three cherubim's heads or (Chaloner). The crest is: A goat's head erased argent attired and bearded or.

All in all, I think it a lovely piece of work, a fitting memorial, and topping it all, a nice bit of heraldry!

Or, You Could Go For Something a Little Less Overstated

After looking at the very ornate, freestanding memorial to Thomas Watson-Wentworth last time, today we're going to see an armorial memorial nearby that is somewhat less overstated.

This is the memorial of William Pearson, LL.D (1662-1715). He was Archdeacon of Nottingham from 1690 to 1715.

The son of Rev John Pearson, Rector of Great Orton in Cumberland, he was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating MA in 1688. In 1689 he was appointed to the Prebend of Ampleford in York Minster, and the following year to the Prebend of Sariston in Southwell Minster. He also held the livings at Barton, Bolton Percy and Wheldrake. He was also Subdean of York, and Chancellor of the diocese.

His coat of arms, too, is not so ornate as the one in our previous post.

Argent a chevron gules between three roses gules barbed and seeded proper. (Barbed and seeded refers to the sepals and the seeds of the flower; the sepals are green and the seeds yellow per heraldic convention.) These arms could also be blazone a bit more succinctly as: Argent a chevron between three roses gules.

The vessel issuing flames above the shield is not a crest, but rather a somewhat stylized "eternal flame" in memory of the deceased, most often used to commemorate a person (for example, the eternal flame at the grave of U.S. President John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia) or event (the eternal flame at the Kremlin in Moscow memorializing Russian losses in World War II).

Armorial Memorials: Go Big or Go Home

No, really!

Sometimes I feel like some people feel they need to prove their status amongst the local peerage by having a larger, more ornate, more artistically carved, etc., etc., etc., memorial than their peers (if you will pardon the pun. Or even if you won't).

And extra points if you they can get a standing marble effigy carved by one of the best Italian sculptors of the day!

Anyway, here is the memorial in question:

This is the memorial of Thomas Watson-Wentworth, the third (second surviving) son of Edward Watson, 2nd Baron Rockingham (1630-1689). His mother was Anne Wentworth, only daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1593-1641) and heiress of her childless brother William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1626-1695) of Wentworth Woodhouse.

Thomas Watson-Wentworth m. Alice Proby, a daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Proby, 1st Baronet.

 He died in 1723, aged 58. 

Their oldest son was Thomas Watson-Wentworth (1693-1750), raised to the Peerage as Baron Malton, later Earl Malton, and afterwards 1st Marquess of Rockingham, KB, Privy Council of Ireland. He was a Whig politician who in 1725 rebuilt Wentworth Woodhouse as the palatial building surviving today.

Alas, his son, the 2nd Marquess, Charles Watson-Wentworth, died without issue in 1782, and all of his honors became extinct.

The reason for raising this monument is literally "carved in stone" on the face of the monument itself:

His justly afflicted relict and son

Thomas Lord Malton,

To transmit the memory of so great worth to future times,

Erected this monument.

But, of course, it's the heraldry (and wonderfully done heraldry it is, too!) that attracted us to this monument:

The arms are blazoned: Quarterly: 1 and 4, Argent on a chevron engrailed azure between three martlets sable three crescents or, in chief a crescent gules for difference (Watson); 2 and 3, Sable a chevron between three leopard's faces or (Wentworth); overall an inescutcheon Ermine on a fess gules a lion passant or (Proby).

The crest is: A griffin passant argent beaked and forelegged gules collared vairy ermine and azure.

Oh, and that Italian sculptor I mentioned? The monument was carved by Giovanni Battista Guelphi (1690–1736).

All in all, maybe a little over the top, but it's a wonderful thing to see!

A Mother, a Father, and a Daughter Memorialized

In a contrast to the last two armorial memorials we looked at in York Minster, this next memorial has a lot more text and a lot less heraldry on its face.

It is the memorial to husband and wife Rev. Richard and Anne (Clarke) Thompson and to one of their two daughters. Thompson was a Prebendary of York Cathedral and Rector of Kirkdeighton (of which church we will have more later, because we took the opportunity to visit it!).

The inscription reads:

Sacred to the Memory

of

Anne, the Lamented Wife of the Revd Richd Thompson

Prebendary of this Cathedral, & Rector of Kirkdeighton

Who Departed This Life May the 29th Anno 1791, Etatis 76.

The Utmost Benevolence of Heart,

A Strong & Cultivated Understanding,

Uncommon Sweetness of Temper,

With the Most Kind & Affectionate Manners,

Form'd the Basis of Her Character.

Throughout a Long Life

Her Conduct Was So Truly Good & Amiable,

That Humanity Will Drop a Tear,

Not For Her,

But For Those of Her Family Who Have

The Misfortune of Surviving Her.

Near This Place Are Also Deposited

The Remains of the Said Revd Richard Thompson

(In Pious and Affectionate Memory of Whom,

This Tablet Is Subjoined

By His Only Surviving Daughter, Anne Thompson)

He Departed This Life Janry 30th, 1795,

Aged 75.

And Also the Remains of the Above

Mentioned Anne Thompson,

The Daughter of the Said Revd Richard Thompson,

Who Departed This Life April 6th, 1835,

Aged 88.

Richard Thompson, M.A. of Merton College, Oxford, was ordained priest at Bishopthorpe, August 19, 1744, and on the 22nd of the same month was instituted to the vicarage of Holy Trinity, King's Court. This he ceded for the rectory of Kirk Deighton (just a few kilometers west of the city of York), to which he was instituted April 20, 1747, on the presentation of William Thompson of York. On February 18, 1747/48 he was collated to the stall of Langtoft at York, which he held until his death.

He was the eldest son of Jonas Thompson, Esq. of Kilham, Lord Mayor of York in 1731 (grandson of Jonas T. of Kilham, elder brother of Sir Henry Thompson of Escrick and Sir Stephen Thompson of Kirkby Hall, aldermen of York), by Anne, daughter of William Justice, attorney, York, and sister of Henry Justice, Esq. barrister-at-law, lord of the manor of Rufforth in the Ainsty. By his wife Ann he had two daughters, Ann, who died unmarried in 1835, and Frances, wife of the Rev. Robert Tripp of Rewe, co. Devon, who died before her sister.

The arms on the memorial, painted rather than carved, are:

Per fess argent and sable, a fess embattled counter-embattled between three falcons close all counter-changed (Thompson); overall an inescutcheon, Vert three escallops in pale or between two flaunches ermine (Clarke).

The crest is: An arm embowed in armour proper grasping a tilting-spear or.

So, maybe not quite as "showy" as the memorials in my last two posts, but beautifully elegant in its own way, and clearly deeply meaningful to the younger Anne Thompson.