It's always interesting to me, to discover at least some of the history of a person who has been remembered with an heraldic memorial.
But I often find myself spending a lot of time trying to learn more about them -- going down a veritable rabbit hole, if you will -- and sometimes not finding out very much more than what is inscribed on the memorial plaque.
And sometimes, because the plaque is at least partly indecipherable, even less.
Take the case of an armorial memorial in Westminster Abbey to Miss Mary Peters. Her monument, erected by her mother, states that she died 15 Sep. 1688, aged twenty-two. So she was born in or about 1666. (And what was familiar to me about that year? The Great Fire of London raged from September 2-6, 1666.)
The inscription is, however, somewhat worn and some of the words are difficult to make out. Here's the best that I can do, even after closely studying the two photographs that I took as well as another marginally more readable one on the website of the Abbey.
The memorial plaque is surmounted at the top with a coat of arms, and supported at the base by a cherub's head.
The inscription is, however, somewhat worn and some of the words are difficult to make out. Here's the best that I can do, even after closely studying the two photographs that I took as well as another marginally more readable one on the website of the Abbey.
Near this place lyes interred ye body of Mis Mary Peters Whoes most Affectionate Deportment to her RELATIONS HIGHLY MERITED and was most entirely beloved By Them.
And in Memory of her Pa__e_s O____ This Was Erected by her Mother. Shee departed this Life the 15th of September 1688. Aged 22 yeares.
The memorial plaque is surmounted at the top with a coat of arms, and supported at the base by a cherub's head.
Per Burke's General Armory, these are the arms of Peters (London). Gules on a bend or between two escallops argent a Cornish chough proper between two cinquefoils azure.
Yes, I know that the cinquefoils here are not the classic cinquefoil, but neither are they the classic rose, but rather something of a hybrid between the two. This is something not uncommonly found in older heraldry, and indeed, in the earliest days of the art, the two charges seem to have been interchangeable.
Annoyingly, though, for all the time I spent in researching this monument and its coat of arms, I have been unable to find out anything else about the young Mary Peters, who her parents were, or how this coat of arms came to be carved onto her memorial.
Next time, maybe I'll go down some other rabbit hole, with perhaps (I hope, anyway!) more informative results.
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