Stained Glass Windows of Nettlestead Church

^ ^ Mode r'n '®? 3 Oas "vZ>ja, Rr«£2>, -^ZZ>l3 ^5£27 i«» H (b).—France (modern) and England in a bordure compony argent and azure (BEAUFORT). The De Staffords were powerful barons from the time of the Conquest, but they became immensely more powerful by the marriage, in the reign of Edward III., of Ralph, Baron de Stafford, with Margaret de Audley, who was the heiress of the vast estates in Kent and in many other parts of the country of the De Clares, Earls of Gloucester. This Lord Stafford was advanced to an earldom, and he and his successors kept great state at Tonbridge Castle, which was the principal residence of the De Clares in the south of England. I t has been suggested by heraldic writers that the De Stafford shield, Or, a chevron gules, was derived, by a process of differencing familiar in early heraldry, from that of the De Clares, which was Or, three chevronels gules. But the cognizance of the De Staffords was borne by them for many generations before the marriage with the heiress of the De Clares. It is true that a previous alliance had taken place between the two families, for the first Baron de Stafford had married the daughter of the first Earl of Clare in the time of William the Conqueror. But coats-of-arms did not come into use until long after the Conquest, and when they did come into use there seems to have been no feudal or family connection between the two families. The resemblance between the shield of the De Staffords and that of the De Clares would appear to have been entirely fortuitous. The series of shields now under examination commemorates the marriages (1) of Edmund, Earl of Stafford, witli OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 18 1 Anne Plantagenet, the daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward UI . ; (2) of Humphrey, Earl of Stafford, and afterwards Duke of Buckingham, with Anne Neville, the daughter of Ealph, Earl of Westmoreland; and (3) of Humphrey, Earl of Stafford (son of the last-mentioned Humphrey), with Margaret Beaufort, daughter of Edmund Earl of Somerset. The first of these marriages is indicated by the ' impaled' shield B (a) and C (b), and also by the two 'aggrouped' shields G (a), G (b); the second is indicated by the impaled shield C (a) ; and the third by the ' aggrouped' shields H (a), H (6). I t may, perhaps, be well to remind the reader that the practice of impalement to indicate alliance by marriage originated in the latter part of the fourteenth century. By the time when the Nettlestead shields were erected it had long superseded the earlier practice of dimidiation, but it had not superseded—it would, perhaps, be accurate to say that it never has superseded—the practice of aggroupment, by which is meant the juxta-position of the shields of husband and wife in such a manner as to form a single group or achievement. It seems to have been entirely a matter of convenience which method should be resorted to. Some heraldic writers have indeed contended that impalement was originally confined to cases in which the wife was an heiress, but there is no real ground for this contention. The practice of displaying the wife's shield on a ' scutcheon of pretence' is as old. as the practice of impalement, and the distinction has always been clear that, whereas the former marshalling denoted alliance coupled with inheritance, the latter denoted alliance only. The scutcheon of pretence is, however, not very often found in early times in actual achievements. It had the disadvantage of obscuring the husband's shield, and in stained glass it added to the mechanical difficulty of the glaziers' art. In ordinary cases the husband was content to impale his wife's arms whether she was an heiress or not, and the fact is commonly only determined by the antiquary by ascertaining whether in the 182 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS next generation the impaled arms are displayed quarterly, or whether the single shield of the husband is resumed. In these Stafford shields we have both impalement and aggroupment to indicate matrimonial alliance, for there can be no doubt that the pairs of shields in the windows G and H respectively are the aggrouped achievements of husband and wife. I have described the combination of the Woodstock and Stafford shields a.s commemorating the marriage of Anne Plantagenet with an Earl of Stafford. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that it commemorates her marriage with two Earls of Stafford, for she did in fact marry two brothers. The story may be told in a few words. Thomas of Woodstock, to whom the heralds assigned for his shield the Boyal Arms of England differenced by a bordure argent, was still a youth at his father's death. Early in his reign King Bichard II. created his young uncle Earl of Buckingham, and advanced him subsequently to the dukedom of Gloucester. I t was customary to provide for the younger sons of royalty by marrying them to heiresses of the great baronial families; and Thomas of Woodstock had a handsome fortune found for him in this way. Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, Northampton and Essex, in whom had merged the titles and the wealth of the two great families of Bohun, died in 1372, leaving two daughters as co-heiresses of his immense estates. One of them, Eleanor de Bohun, was married to Thomas of Woodstock, and the other, Mary de Bohun, was married to Henry, Earl of Derby, eldest son of John of Gaunt and afterwards Henry IV. Thus Woodstock became brotherin- law to his own nephew. The De Bohun titles and estates were divided. Woodstock, in addition to the dukedom of Gloucester and the earldom of Buckingham, became also in right of his wife Earl of Essex and Northampton, whilst Henry, Earl of Derby, became Earl of Hereford in right of his wife, and was shortly afterwards advanced to the dukedom of Hereford. By his marriage with Eleanor de Bohun, Thomas of Woodstock had a son and three daughters, one of whom OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 183 was the lady who was twice united with the Stafford family. By way of further providing for the maintenance of his uncle Thomas, King Richard II. made him guardian of the heir, and custodian of the estates, of Hugh, second Earl of Stafford. This nobleman had died whilst still a young man, leaving four sons all under age. In accordance with feudal law the king became entitled to the ' wardship' of the heir with the revenues of his great estates in the interim, and also to the 'marriage' of the heir, by which was meant whatever profit could be derived from disposing of him in marriage. These advantages in whole or in part the king transferred to the Duke of Gloucester. The duke seems to have considered that the best way of profiting by the marriage of his ward was to marry him to his own daughter, and accordingly, when the young Earl Thomas came of age in 1391, he was married to the Lady Anne Plantagenet, then aged 9. This marriage was never consummated: the earl lived only two years after the ceremony, dying in the year 1393. He was succeeded by his brother William, then fourteen years of age, and the Duke of Gloucester was again appointed guardian. Two years later Earl William also died, and the title and estates descended to the next brother Edmund, who was aged fifteen. Gloucester was still continued in his office of guardian, and as Earl Edmund grew up the duke resolved that he should become the second husband of the Lady Anne. But a Papal dispensation was necessary, and before this was procured the duke died—or rather, as is generally supposed, was murdered, not without the complicity of King Richard—at Calais in the year 1397. The marriage, however, took place by royal licence and with due ecclesiastical sanction in the year 1399 shortly before the deposition of the king. At the time of the marriage there seemed no probability that Anne would be an heiress, but within a year she lost her mother and her brother.* In * Her brother was known by his father's second title of Earl of Buckingham. He died in the service of Henry IV., who was about to restore hon to all thq honours of the late duke. 184 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS the following year her sister Joan, who had been betrothed to Lord Talbot, also died, and thereupon (as her remaining sister had sometime previously taken the veil) she became solely entitled to all the estates of her father and mother and to all their dignities except the dukedom of Gloucester, which was not permitted to descend in the female line, but was reserved by the new king for his own son Humphrey. This exalted lady was therefore not only doubly Countess of Stafford, but also in her own right Countess of Buckingham, of Northampton, and of Essex. Her second union was not of much longer duration than her first, for Edmund, Earl of Stafford, was slain at the battle of Shrewsbury valiantly fighting on behalf of King Henry IV., leaving her with a son, Humphrey, about a year old. I have described the ' aggrouped' shields of Woodstock and Stafford and the shields in which the same arms are impaled as commemorating the marriage of Edmund, Earl of Stafford, and the Lady Anne Plantagenet. But I hesitate to follow those writers who describe this combination of arms (which is displayed in Canterbury Cathedral and many other places) as the achievement of the earl. I incline to regard it rather as the achievement of the Lady Anne. For it is a well known heraldic rule that whether alliance by marriage be indicated by aggroupment or by impalement the arms of the baron are placed on the dexter side and the arms of the feme on the sinister side. Here, however, the arms of Woodstock are given the precedence. It is true that some ancient examples occur, principally in seals, in which the arms of the wife are given the place of honour; and in order to explain the occurrence of this anomaly some heraldic writers have contended that, by way of exception to the general rule, the arms of the wife may be placed on the dexter side if they are of greater dignity than those of the husband. But the best authorities have not allowed the validity of this exception, and have regarded the cases in which arms have been displayed in the manner referred to as ' unheraldic' There is, however, one case in which, according to the most approved practice of heraldry, even in OE NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 18 5 modern times, precedence is given to the arms of the wife. A peeress in her own right, married to a peer who is of lower rank in the peerage, is entitled to marshal her own arms on a lozenge to the dexter with her husband's arms on a shield to the sinister, the lozenge and the shield being aggrouped tqgether.* This 'group,' it is to be observed, constitutes properly the achievement of the wife and not of her husband. And the practice does not in modern times apply to impalement. The lozenge, it is to be remembered, was not used in early heraldry. As we have seen, the Lady Anne Plantagenet was trebly a peeress in her own right, and the earldom of Buckingham, as a royal earldom, was considered to have precedence over the earldom of Stafford. The aggroupment of Woodstock and Stafford in window G (a) and (b) might therefore be regarded, in accordance with modern heraldic practice (allowing for the use of a shield instead of a lozenge for the arms of Woodstock), as a proper method of displaying her arms. In the comparatively early days of impalement it is not surprising that the same principle should have been applied to arms displayed in that method, as it apparently was in B (a) and C (b). In the window B it is to be observed that the shield (b) on the sinister side of the window is that of Stafford simply; and this may be taken as aggrouped with the impaled shield (a) on the dexter side, indicating perhaps some uncertainty as to the correct method of marshalling in such a case. I venture to think that some at any rate of the other cases in which a wife's arms are found marshalled to the dexter of her husband's are to be explained in the same way, as representing the achievements of peeresses in their own right.f * If a peeress in her own right is married to a commoner her arms ou a lozenge are placed to the dexter, and the husband's shield to the sinister bears her arms on a scutcheon of pretence. f The case of John of Gaunt must be considered altogether anomalous. On his marriage with his second wife, Constance, the daughter and heiress of Peter, King of Castile and Leon, he assumed a shield on which her arms were impaled on the dexter side. He is said to have done this in defiance of heraldic practice in order to indicate his claim to the succession to the throne of Castile and Leon. But it is not clear why this purpose would not have been equally well accomplished by displaying his wife's arms on a soutcheon of pretenoe. 186 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS But even if I am wrong in supposing that the shields of Woodstock and Stafford as displayed in Nettlestead Church represent the achievement of the Countess Anne rather than that of her husband, it may, at any rate, be stated with some confidence that her husband never in his lifetime impaled his arms with those of his wife in this way. And this is a matter which it is easy to test; for the earl died in 1403, and it was not until 1405 that Prance 'modern' replaced Prance ' ancient' on the Boyai Arms of England. It is on record that his shield was blazoned in one of the windows of the great church of the Greyfriars in London. And there Stafford impaled Woodstock, that is, the Stafford arms were on the dexter side of the shield. In the quartering of the Woodstock coat the arms of Prance are described as Prance semee. This shield must therefore have been erected in the lifetime of the earl or within two years of his death. On the other hand, though there are numerous examples in which the impaled shield is displayed, as at Nettlestead, with Woodstock on the dexter side, I have not found Prance quartered as ' ancient' in any of them. Prom the year 1403, when Edmund, Earl of Stafford, was killed, until December 1423, when his son Humphrey came of age, the Stafford estates were again in the hands of the Crown. But this did not affect the dower of the countess out of these estates; and apart from her dower she was exceedingly wealthy, as heiress of her father and coheiress of the great Bohun estates.* A few years after her second husband's death she married a third husband, Sir William Bourchier, Earl of Eu in Normandy. By the Earl of Eu, who died in 1420, she had four sons, of whom the most celebrated was Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. The eldest of the four succeeded to the barony of Bourchier, was created Viscount Bourchier, and afterwards Earl of Essex, and married Isabel Plantagenet, sister of Richard, Duke of York, and aunt of Edward IV. * Although she enjoyed half the revenues of these estates from the date of her mother's death, they were not actually divided until 1421, when they were partitioned between Henry V., as the representative of Mary Bohun, and herself, aa the representative of Eleanor Bohun. OE NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 187 The young Earl Humphrey married Anne NeviUe, daughter of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland, and this union is the second of the three Stafford marriages recorded in the windows of Nettlestead Church. His shield appears at C (a). On the dexter side are the arms of Stafford, on the sinister gules, a saltire argent, for Neville. The marriage cannot have taken place before 1424, and probably did not take place until the following year. The young earl whilst a mere boy took part in the French wars of Henry V. In 1422, shortly before the death of that King, which took place in August of that year, having then attained the age of nineteen he bound himself to serve abroad with ten menat- arms for a further period of eighteen months.* In December 1423 he came of age, and returning to England took possession of his estates. It is not likely, however, that his marriage took place immediately after that event, though it was no doubt arranged whilst he was still a minor. As in the case of his father's marriage it was found that there were ecclesiastical difficulties to be overcome. The Earl of Westmorland had married as his first wife Margaret Stafford, Earl Humphrey's aunt. His second wife was Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt. Anne Neville was the child of the second marriage. She was therefore Earl Humphrey's second-cousin; for they were both great-grandchildren of Edward III. This relationship, remote according to our notions, was considered by the clergy in those days too near to admit of marriage without a Papal dispensation. The delay involved in procuring one probably postponed the marriage until the end of 1424 or the beginning of 1425. I think it may have been this shield which led Mr. Winston to fix 1425 as the earliest date to which the glass in the windows of Nettlestead Church could be assigned. Eor * Just before his death Henry "V. made a verbal promise to the earl that notwithstanding his nonage he should have immediate possession of his estates. The government of Henry VI. would have carried this promise into effect, but it was found impossible to do so, for reasons which I have recounted in The Antiquary, vol. ii., p. 16, in an article ou " Old Heraldio Glass in Brasted Church." 188 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS before the marriage of Earl Humphrey with Anne Neville there was, of course, no such shield in existence. I am inclined to think that this shield may also have furnished Mr. Winston with the latest as well as with the earliest date of the period to which he ascribes the windows of the nave. Earl Humphrey's mother, the Lady Anne Plantagenet, died in October 1438 ; he thereupon inherited the title of Earl of Buckingham; and he immediately assumed this title in preference to that of Stafford, because, as he said, it marked his royal descent. At the same time, as it is put by Sandford, " He left off his paternal coat and assumed the Woodstock shield in right of his mother" (Genealogical History of the Kings of England). I am inclined to think that the expression used is too strong. The Stafford shield was not wholly abandoned. Humphrey and his descendants for several generations did indeed commonly use the Woodstock shield alone, but all of them also used a quartered shield of which Woodstock occupied the first quarter, the other three quarters being occupied by the two Bohun shields and the Stafford shield. The order of these three shields varied. The place next to Woodstock was always assigned to Bohun of Hereford, but the Stafford shield sometimes came before and sometimes after that of Bohun of Northampton. Moreover, I think it is clear from one example in these very Nettlestead windows that the Stafford shield pure and simple was used after this date by at least one member of the Stafford family. But I think it may be said with reasonable certainty that the shield of Stafford alone was never used after the year 1438 by the head of the Stafford family. If the shield C (a.) had been placed in Nettlestead Church after 1438, instead of Stafford impaling Neville it would have been Woodstock impaling Neville. The arms of Humphrey Stafford and Anne Neville may be seen thus marshalled, Woodstock impaling Neville, in the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral. The Earl of Buckingham, Hereford, Northampton and Stafford was created Duke of Buckingham in 1445. History tells of his valour as a warrior, of his influence as a politician, OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 18 9 of his enormous wealth, his magnificence, and his pride. His puerile dispute with Warwick for precedence necessitated the intervention of Parliament, which solemnly decided that the superiority should be accorded to each upon alternate days. Assuming as he did the demeanour of a prince of the blood it occasioned no surprise that he habitually bore the royal arms with no more than the Woodstock ' difference' of a bordure argent. The eldest son of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, was also named Humphrey, and upon his father's elevation to the dukedom he became known by the courtesy title of Earl of Stafford. He married Margaret Beaufort,* the daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt. This is the third of the Stafford marriages which are commemorated in the Nettlestead windows. It is indicated in the grouped arms H (a) and (6). The shield on the dexter side is that of Stafford, and that on the sinister is that of Beaufort, in which the royal arms are enclosed in a bordure compony argent and azure. Here we find the ancient shield of the house of Stafford, used singly, notwithstanding its supposed abandonment or relegation to the position of an inferior quartering. It was, no doubt, regarded as appropriate that the titular Earl of Stafford should use the shield so long and honourably associated with his name and dignity; and its use by him had the advantage that the son was thus provided with a distinct heraldic achievement from his father. There were two subsequent 'courtesy' Earls of Stafford. It would be interesting to ascertain whether they also used the Stafford shield alone during the lifetime of their fathers. I have not been able to discover the date of the marriage between Humphrey Stafford and Margaret Beaufort. It cannot, however, have * There were two Margaret Beauforts who were cousins and contemporaries, and who both married sons of the Duke of Buckingham. The Margaret Beaufort who married the elder son Humphrey was, as stated above, the daughter of Edmund, Luke of Somerset. The other Margaret Beaufort, who in 1464 married Humphrey's brother Sir Henry Stafford, was the daughter of John, Duke of Somerset, the elder brother of Edmund. This Margaret had previously married Jasper Tudor, Earl of Riohmond, by whom she was the mother of Henry, Earl of Riohmond, afterwards Henry VII. 190 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS been later than 1448,* and it may have been a few years earlier. Whatever may have been the case with regard to the other shields of this series, the arms indicating the Beaufort alliance cannot have been placed in Nettlestead Church between 1425 and 1439. Edmund, Earl of Somerset, Lord Stafford's father-in-law, was during a long period the principal minister of Henry VI. I t was the Duke of York's quarrel with him which was the immediate occasion of the Wars of the Roses. In the first battle of these wars, which was fought at St. Albans in 1455, both Somerset and Stafford were killed, and the Duke of Buckingham was wounded. In 1460 at the battle of Northampton the duke was killed, and his enormous property devolved upon his grandson Henry, a boy of eleven. Seven months later Edward IV. ascended the throne, and this young heir of the Lancastrian tradition passed under the guardianship of the Yorkist king. Edward regarded it as a matter of the first importance to attach the young duke to his own cause. He was committed to the care of the king's own sister, the Duchess of Exeter, and whilst he was yet a youth of seventeen he was married to Katherine Woodville, the king's sister-in-law. On attaining his majority he was placed in possession of all the estates and dignities of his grandfather with one exception. It seems that the earldom of Hereford and its revenues were withheld from him, perhaps on the ground that this earldom, pertaining as it did to Henry IV. and Henry V., had become annexed to the Crown and therefore incapable of being granted to a subject, as Henry VI. purported to have granted it to the first Duke of Buckingham. Duke Henry, however, dissembled any grievance which he might have felt on this score during the reign of Edward IV. Throughout that reign he lived in great prosperity, and was regarded as one of the main supporters of the dynasty. In the year 1474 the question of the use, by this duke, of the Woodstock shield ' singly ' was discussed by the College of Heralds, and a special rule was * The child of the marriage, Henry, second Duke of Buckingham, was about eleven years of age when he succeeded to the dukedom in 1460, OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 19 1 made in order to regularize what was plainly a glaring innovation in heraldic practice: "In the reign of our Sovereign lord King Edward IV., the 13th year of his reign it was concluded in a Chapter of the Office of Arms that where a nobleman is descended lineaBy hereditable to 3 or 4 coats and afterwards is ascended to a coat near to the King and of his royal blood, he may for his most honour bear the same coat alone and no lower dignity may be quartered therewith, as my lord Henry, Duke of Buckingham, Earl of, etc., is ascended to the coat and array of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and son to King Edward III., he may bear his coat alone. So concluded by Kings of Arms."* On the death of King Edward IV., Henry, Duke of Buckingham, threw in his lot with the Duke of Gloucester and was mainly instrumental in raising him to the throne. Shakespeare had historical justification for representing that Buckingham was led to take the part of Gloucester by the promise of the latter to restore to him the earldom of Hereford and the property which went with it. Once firmly seated on the throne, Richard declined to fulfil his promise; and Buckingham hastily summoned his retainers and took the field against the prince who had so cynically deceived him. This rising of the Duke of Buckingham was concerted with Morton, Bishop of Ely, and it was part of a movement for the restoration of the Lancastrian line in the person of Henry of Richmond. The duke was to raise his standard in Wales, and Richmond was to land in Devonshire. The plan, however, failed. Heavy floods prevented Buckingham from crossing the Severn. His army dispersed before a blow was struck. When Richmond landed he found the enterprise already at an end; and Buckingham, betrayed by his feudal dependant Bannister, in whose house he had taken refuge, was captured and beheaded without trial at Shrewsbury in the year 1483. * Genealogical History of the Kings of England. Sandford. The above note is stated to be taken, from a memorandum in the College of Arms Library. 192 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS The monument in Nettlestead Church to Elizabeth Stafford, who married Sir John. Scott, the heir of the De Pympes, invites us to follow for a few generations further the fortunes of this extraordinary house. The splendour of the Staffords culminated in the person of the third duke, Edward, the son of Henry the second duke. The story of his magnificence, of his enmity with Wolsey, and his fall is familiar to every student of history and to every reader of Shakespeare. It need only be said here that he added Penshurst to his many stately mansions and made it his principal place of residence, that he married Eleanor Percy, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, and that he perished on the scaffold in 1521, leaving one son Henry Stafford, who was born at Penshurst in 1501. In 1519 this young man, who before his father's execution, and the consequent "corruption of his blood" and forfeiture of his estates, bore the courtesy title of Earl of Stafford, was married to Ursula Pole, the daughter of the ill-fated Countess of Salisbury, and through her descended from the Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV. Her brother was the famous Cardinal Pole. Left almost destitute by his father's forfeiture, the earl, now Mr. Henry Stafford, was pursued by the relentless enmity of Wolsey, and for ten years, with his wife and children, endured much hardship. Without a home, he took refuge for a time with his family—presumably as 'paying guests'—in an abbey. He petitioned in vain for a restoration of his father's property. All he could obtain from Henry VIII. was the castle of Stafford and a few neighbouring manors of no great value, which were amongst the earliest possessions of his house. In 1547 Edward VI.'s Parliament passed an Act for his formal restoration in blood; and granted him, as it appears, by a new creation, the title of Baron Stafford, which had been borne by his ancestors ever since the days of the Conqueror. But no further restoration was made to him of his ancestral property. Edward's Parliament were no more disposed than Henry VHI. himself to re-establish this family in a position of dangerous pre-eminencer Lord Stafford OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 193 took some part in the politics of Edward VI.'s reign. He was a rather active Protestant, notwithstanding his near relationship to Pole, taking a particular interest in the dissolution of the monasteries. Possibly his own experience of residence in an abbey in the capacity of a lodger had left unpleasant recollections, or perhaps his zeal was stimulated by the hope of obtaining a share of the plunder. He did indeed petition for the lands of some dissolved houses, hoping to recoup himself out of the Church for the injuries which the State had inflicted on him, but it does not appear that he met with success. The policy of the Tudors was to endow a new nobility out of the spoils of the Church, not to restore the fortunes of the old. In Mary's reign Lord Stafford was protected by Pole, though some members of his family were obliged to fly to the continent. He died early in the reign of Elizabeth, leaving behind him a large family and a reputation for learning and religion. Before he died, however, he had to endure the sorrow of seeing his eldest son Thomas* fulfil the traditional career of his unhappy race. This young man went into exile upon the accession of Mary. To his militant Protestantism it did not appear extravagant to declare that Mary had forfeited her right to the crown by marrying Philip of Spain. He went further and asserted that he himself—after his father—was next heir to the throne; and surpassing the heraldic daring of his ancestors he assumed the arms of England without any ' difference' whatever. In the year 1557, with the aid of Prench gold, he equipped two ships and made a preposterous descent upon the coast of Yorkshire. He seized Scarborough Castle, but was speedily overpowered and captured by his own kinsman, the fourth Earl of Westmoreland; and a few weeks later he was put to death. It must have added to his punishment that even the axe was denied him': he suffered the ignominy of being hanged at Tyburn like a common * Thomas is sometimes referred to as Lord Stafford's second son, but this seems to be a mistake. VOL. XXVIII, 0 1 9 4 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS felon. But it is with Dorothy, the youngest daughter of Lord Stafford, that we are more immediately concerned, for she was the mother of Lady Scott. Dorothy married her distant kinsman Sir William Stafford, of the Grafton branch of the Stafford family. The ancestor of the Staffords of Grafton was a son of the Baron de Stafford who lived in the reign of Henry II. A long line of Sir Humphrey Staffords of Grafton had displayed the characteristics of the elder branch of their house, marrying heiresses, engaging with reckless activity in war and politics, and perishing on the scaffold or in the field. One of them was a favourite of Bichard III. and took a principal part in suppressing the rebellion which brought his far-off cousin Henry, Duke of Buckingham, to the block. Two years later he was himself executed as a traitor by Henry VII. The ancient seat of the family was at Grafton in Staffordshire ; another mansion was acquired at Chebsey in the same county; the Sir Humphrey who was the father of Sir William also owned Blatherwicke in the county of Northampton, and made that his principal residence. Sir William ultimately inherited the family property, but he began life as a younger son. Dorothy Stafford was his second wife. His first was no other than Mary Boleyn, the elder sister of Queen Anne Boleyn, and the widow of Sir William Carey. This marriage gave great offence to King Henry VIII. and to the Boleyns. Sir William must have been considerably younger than the bride, and he was a poor man; but the match was evidently one of affection. When reproached by her relations, Mary Boleyn replied with spirit, " I would rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen ever christened." And before very long she brought abundant wealth to her husband, for she became heiress of her father and succeeded to such of the family property as was not limited in tail male.'*' The principal of these were * This seems to have been the case. There is nothing to shew that King Henry seized any part of the property of the Earl of Wiltshire, or even that he claimed any share of it for his daughter Elizabeth. Upon the execution of Viscount Roohford the king seized his independent property, as forfeited, to. OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 19 5 the great Essex estates which came to Sir Thomas Boleyn through the Ormondes, comprising a dozen or more manors with Eochford Castle as a principal residence. After the death of his first wife in 1543 Sir William Stafford continued in possession of these estates during the remainder of his life;* and it was at Bochford and at Blatherwicke that he and his second wife Dorothy Stafford generally resided. Their daughter Elizabeth was born at Bochford. Sir William Stafford was a pronounced Protestant; and on the accession of Queen Mary he and his wife and daughter, the latter already married to her second husband, were driven into exile. He died, as recorded in Lady Scott's epitaph, whilst still in exile; but on the death of Queen Mary his wife and daughter returned to England, the former to become Mistress of the Robes to Queen Elizabeth, and the the Crown. But Lord Wiltshire had suffered no forfeiture. On his death Henry oertainly resumed possession of certain grants of land whioh he had made to the Earl for life, with remainder to his daughter Anne. And in this he was acting within his strict legal rights. The remainder of the Boleyn estates seem to have descended to the lawful heirs. The extensive Norfolk property around Bliokling had belonged to tho earl's father, Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, and had evidently been limited to him in tail male, for on the death of Lord Wiltshire it descended to the younger brother of the latter, Sir James Boleyn. The manor of Hever had also belonged to Sir Geoffrey Boleyn and was no doubt limited in the same way; for it likewise desoended to Sir James Boleyn, who sold it to the king, in the year following the Earl of Wiltshire's death. The Ormonde property, whioh was not limited in tail male, desoended in due course of law to Mary Boleyn, and so did property whioh the late earl had himself acquired, as for example the manor of Southt in Kent, and the manor of Henden, which adjoined Hever, and whioh consisted of portions of the parishes of Hever, Brasted and Chiddingstone. Henden was, however, in the year 1641 exchanged by Mary Boleyn with the king for a manor in Yorkshire. Mr. H. Avray Tipping, in a very learned and valuable article in Country Life, Oct. 12th, 1907, mentions a grant, reoorded in the Patent Rolls of 1B40, by the king to " Mary Boleyn, daughter and heir of Thomas Earl of Wilts, of all his lands in Hever;" and observes that this is perplexing inasmuch as the king in the same year granted Hever to Anne of Cleves. But there were certain lands in Hever, as there were also in Brasted, which, though detached from Henden manor, formed part of it, and should properly have passed with it. I understand the reoord in the Patent Rolls, alluded to above, to refer to these lands in Sever, and not to the manor of Hever, which, if conveyed, would have been so desoribed. * I cannot say whether this was as ' tenant by the courtesy ' or under the will of Mary Boleyn. In order to entitle the husband to tenancy by the courtesy, there must have been issue of the marriage. There was certainly no surviving issue, but there may of course have been a child or children who died in infancy, 0 2 1 9 6 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS latter a Lady of the Bedchamber. Elizabeth was singularly regardless of the memory of her own mother, but she seems to have held that of her aunt Mary in especial honour.* Her fondness for the Careys is well known; and she extended her affectionate regard not only to Sir Wi l l iam Stafford, who was her uncle by marriage, but also to Dorothy Stafford whom she made her intimate friend. All that need be said about Elizabeth Stafford the daughter of Sir William and Dorothy Stafford is recorded in the quaintly-worded epitaph on her monument in Nettlestead Church. Her figure is sculptured in the attitude of prayer; and beneath it we read:— " Here lieth the body of Elizabeth Stafford daughter to "William Stafford of Blatherwicke in the County of Northampton Knight and to dame Dorothy y° daughter of Henry Lord Stafford eldest sonne to Edward yD last Duke of Buckingham. She was first married to Sir William Drury of Haisted in yc County of Suffolke, Knight, by whom she had two sonnes & foure daughters; and afterwards to Sr John Scot of Nettlestead in yB County of Kent, Knight. In ye time of Quene Mary she lived in exile with her mother in Geneva (where her father died) and after at Basel, for ye gospell's sake. At her return she was made a lady of y° bedchamber & privy chamber to Quene Elizabeth. She dyed y° 6 of February in y° yeare of her redeemer 1598 and in y° 42 yeare of her adge." Above her effigy sculptured in stone is the full shield of Scott, quarterly of twelve, impaled with the full shield of Stafford of Grafton, quarterly of six. This achievement was fully blazoned; the colours have to a great extent worn away, but the different coats may still be deciphered. On the dexter side of the shield the arms of De Pympe appear * The statement often made that Mary Boleyn was once the mistress of Henry VIII. ought, I think, to be dismissed as the mere scandal of an age whose gossip was even more licentious than its morals. The strongest argument adduced in support of the charge is that it was asserted in a letter addressed by Cardinal Pole to the king, and not contradicted hy the latter. That it was not in fact contradicted is not beyond doubt. But apart from this, the failure to repudiate an allegation is very unsatisfactory evidence of its truth; and certainly it is not upon such evidence that the honour of any lady ought to be impugned, even though she may have been dead for centuries, OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 197 (as has been already stated) in the third quarter. On the sinister side, the first quarter is occupied by the arms of Stafford of Grafton, which consist of the Stafford shield, Gules, a chevron or, with a canton ermine for difference. Beneath the inscription there is another shield bearing the Stafford arms without any difference. Lady Scott was not, of course, entitled to bear those arms; but the shield is placed there to mark her descent from the proud family to which, during so long a period, the lords of the manor of Nettlestead had owed allegiance. Lady Scott's mother, Lady Stafford, survived until 1604, and was buried at St. Margaret's, Westminster. Thirtythree years later the barony of Stafford descended to her nephew Roger, who on account of his extreme poverty was pursuaded by Charles I. to resign* the peerage for a sum of .£800. He died in 1640 and his family sunk into obscurity. I I I . I proceed to notice the shields in the lower row in the windows B, C, and the two shields in the window E. B (1).—Sable, three pelicans per pale argent (PErussHAM). * This resignation seems to have been without any legal validity. But poverty was undoubtedly regarded in anoient times as a good ground for depriving a man of his peerage. Thus in the reign of Edward IV. George Neville, Duke of Bedford, was degraded by Aot of Parliament to the rank of a commoner on aooount of the impoverishment of his estate. 198 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS This is heraldically one of the most interesting shields in Nettlestead Church. The pelican is not common as an heraldic charge, and when employed it must usually be regarded as a pious emblem. In the case of the Pelhams, however, who bore the well-known arms of Azure, three pelicans argent, vulning themselves proper, this device was undoubtedly suggested by the first syllable of the family name. The heraldic pelican was generally—early heraldic writers say always—conventionally represented 'vulning herself,' and with her wings 'indorsed,' i.e., raised as though for flight; and as the pouch of the beak, which is the bird's characteristic feature, was difficult to accommodate to the operation of 'vulning,'* the heraldic artist ignored it, and represented the beak as comparatively short and dagger-like. Apart from this shield I know of only one casef in which a pelican is heraldically represented otherwise than with wings indorsed, and none in which the bird is not engaged in vulning herself. But in this shield the pelicans are quite natural. The pouch—possessed by no other bird—is distinctly drawn, the wings are folded, and the beak projects. This charge was, no doubt, assigned to the Pepleshams in the same allusive way as it was assigned —displayed in a different manner—to the Pelhams ; for the name Peplesham is sometimes found in the form PeZasham, and it is very likely that this spelling represents the local pronunciation of the name of the Sussex manor of which the de Pepleshams were lords. It was probably because the pelicans on the Peplesham shield were represented more or less correctly, and in a natural attitude, that the fact that they were intended for pelicans was lost sight of. In the early ordinaries the birds on the Peplesham shield have become "shovellers," and later they are described as " coots " or " sea-mews," or simply as " three birds." The Pepleshams were of Peplesham Manor in Sussex, not far beyond the Kentish border. They intermarried with * ' Vulning,' i.e., wounding by pecking the breast. t The arms of Pelham are displayed with the wings folded on a sculptured shield at Loughton in Sussex. (See Lower's "Curiosities of Heraldry," p. 76.) OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 19 9 Kentish families, and some of them settled in Kent. This shield most probably commemorated Simon Peplesham, whose only daughter and heiress, Margaret, married first Robert Cralle, and secondly Sir William Batisford [see infra X (1)]. By her first husband she had one daughter, who became the wife of Bichard Cheney of Shurland, the ancestor of Sir William Cheney [C (5)], and of Sir John Cheney [B (3)], and by her second husband she had three daughters, who married respectively Sir William Eiennes, the father of Lord Saye and Sele [C (3)], Sir William Brenchley [X (2)], and Sir William Etchingham [X (4)]. These four ladies became coheiresses of the Peplesham estates, and the three daughters of the second marriage became also coheiresses of their father, Sir William Batisford. I am not aware whether Simon Peplesham possessed any residence in Kent, but there is room for the conjecture that either he or some other member of the family lived at Wateringbury. In this village, at a distance of about two miles from Nettlestead Church, there still stands an ancient mansion, now used as a farm-house, which bears the name of " Pelicans." This name can only have been given to the house with reference to the heraldic emblems of its owner, which may have been sculptured on the porch or gates. The ancient family of Codd resided at Pelicans from Tudor times; but in the reign of Henry VI. the Codds were of Yalding. I have not been able to ascertain who preceded them at Wateringbury. Another heiress of the Peplesham family married into the well-known Kentish family of Pinch, and the Pinches thereafter quartered the Peplesham arms, as is shewn by monuments in Brabourne Church. One of the Scotts of Scot's Hall, an ancestor of the Scotts of Nettlestead, married one of the Pinches, and on his tomb at Brabourne the arms of Scott are shewn impaling quarterly Pinch and Peplesham. Another tomb bears a shield displaying quarterly : 1. Clifton, 2. Pinch, 3. Peplesham, 4. Clifton. A coheiress of one of the Pinches married Sir Dru Drewry, and carried the Pinch and Peplesham quarterings 200 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS into the shield of that ancient family. The arms of Sir Dru, impaled with those of his wife, are or were to be seen in Linstead Church. The Pinch Hattons, Earls of Winchelsea, are of this same family of Pinch. In the quarterings of the arms of Pinch and Dru Drewry the birds on the Peplesham shield are always described and delineated as shovellers. it A * B (2).—Argent, between three mullets sable a chevron gules ( WABNEE). These are the arms of John Warner, Lord of the Manor of Pootscray and Sheriff of Kent in the year 1441. The name Warner, which is an abbreviation of Warrener, is not indicative of aristocratic origin. This family had, however, long ranked amongst the gentry of Kent. The Warners held lands in Sheppey, where they intermarried with the Northwoods. Either through them, or more directly, they would appear to have become allied with the Cheneys, as the Warner shield appears in the church of Minster-in- Sheppey along with those of the Cheney family. The manor of Pootscray came into the possession of the Warner family by the marriage of an ancestor of John Warner with Alianore, the heiress of the Vaughans, who had possessed it during many generations. The arms of Warner impaling Vaughan formerly appeared in the church of Pootscray. Isabel Warner, the daughter of John Warner, married William Islay. [See X (10).] OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 20 1 I * 0 i- I J. i, t J t : t : t : t : t t:x i t:t Z t l J I t ^ a.^ r i : ? : t : i B (3). B (4). B (3).—Azure, six lioncels rampant argent, on a canton ermine an annulet gules (CHEITEY). B (4).—Ermine, a chief or and gules per pale indented, on the dexter chief a rose gules (SHOTTISBBOOKE). These arms together commemorate the marriage of Sir John Cheney of Shurland Castle in Sheppey with Alianore Shottisbrooke, the daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Shottisbrooke. I have pointed out that in two cases in the upper tier of shields the arms of husband and wife are aggrouped instead of impaled. This is the only case of the kind in the lower tier. I can suggest no reason for distinctive treatment of this particular marriage. In the Cheney shield the only remains of the annulet gules are two tiny concentric circles outlined in black. The red colour has been painted on the glass (as the charge was too small to be leaded in), and has completely worn away. In the reign of James I. the annulet gules was still clearly apparent, for it is shewn on the ' trick' of this shield in the Harl. MS. 3917; and the existence of this minor charge is by no means unimportant, for it is evidently a mark of cadency, and, as Sir John Cheney was an eldest son, it proves that the shield was erected during the life of his father, Sir William Cheney, whose arms are displayed in C (5). I need hardly remind the reader that the rules for the use of marks of cadency which now obtain were not formulated until long 202 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS after the period with which we are now dealing. In the earliest days of heraldry cadency was expressed by ' differencing,' often of a very conspicuous character; but already by the beginning of the fifteenth century it had become the prevalent practice for sons to difference their fathers' shield by adding some diminutive charge. This mark of cadency had no fixed place, but it is most commonly found on the upper part of the dexter side of the shield. On the death of his father, the eldest son of course abandoned the use of this distinctive mark; the younger sons as a rule either retained their mark of cadency or effected some other and permanent modification of the paternal arms. If by the death of his father Sir John Cheney had become the head of his family, it would have been an absurdity for him to have used a mark of cadency, and therefore, as I have indicated, we may conclude with certainty that "this shield was erected before the death of Sir William Cheney, which occurred about 1440. The history of the heraldic bearings of the Cheney family at different periods is somewhat interesting. The original Cheney shield was Ermine, on a bend sable three martlets or. But Sir Alexander Cheney, who was a person of distinction in the reign of Edward I., after his marriage with Agnes, the daughter of William, Lord Saye, adopted the shield of that family—Quarterly or and gules differenced by a label purpure. Agnes Saye was not an heiress, and Sir Alexander's assumption of the Saye arms seems to have been intended only to mark, after the fashion of the day, feudal alliance with the powerful family of his father-in-law. A number of other Kentish families of that period adopted the Saye shield with various modifications for the same purpose, and some of them permanently retained the cognizances thus assumed [see B (6)]. The Cheney family, however, do not appear to have used the differenced Saye shield after the death of Sir Alexander. His son and successor, Sir Robert Cheney, married the heiress of Sir Robert de Shurland of Sheppey, and assumed the arms of the Shurland family, viz., Azure, six lioncels rampant argent, a canton OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 20 3 ermine.* Sir Robert Cheney was succeeded by his son Richard, who had two sons. The former and his descendants, who inherited the Shurland estates, used the Shurland shield alone; the latter and his descendants, who settled at Cralle in Sussex, bore a quartered shield with the ancient Cheney shield. Ermine, on a bend sable three martlets or, in the first quarter and the Shurland shield in the second. Sir John Cheney, whose shield is represented in B (3), was the grandson of Richard. Sir John's children and grandchildren all bore the same Shurland arms quartered with Shottisbrooke. The ancient arms of the family were not, however, abandoned: they appear on the monument of Sir Thomas Cheney, K.G. (grandson of Sir John), in the church of Minster-in-Sheppey, and Sir Thomas's son and successor in the family estates, Thomas Lord Cheney of Tuddenham, actually resumed them, after the lapse of seven generations, as his principal coat. The marriage of Sir John Cheney to Alianore Shottisbrooke must have taken place, I think, before 1415. This union linked the Cheneys with the fortunes of the house of Lancaster and ultimately with those of the house of Tudor; for Margaret Stourton, who was Alianore's uterine sister, became the wife of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and the mother of Margaret Beaufort, who became the mother of Henry VII. It may perhaps have been in consequence of this connection with the house of Lancaster that Sir John was appointed Esquire of the Body to Henry V., and attended him in that capacity on the field of Agincourt. But Sir John was not entirely stedfast in his adherence to the Lancastrian cause; for he took part in the insurrection of Jack Cade, which was avowedly in sympathy with the pretensions of the Yorkist party, and which preluded the Wars of the Roses. Many gentlemen of high position in the county of Kent participated in this rising, but Sir John Cheney was the only one of knightly rank. In 1449, the * The original shield of the Shurlands, however, as appears by many monuments in Kent, bore, On a canton gules a mullet or, instead of the canton ermine. 204 THE. STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS year before the insurrection, he had represented the county in Parliament together with William Crowmer. William Crowmer was now sheriff, and his father-in-law, Lord Saye and Sele, was Lord-Lieutenant. Both of them were highly unpopular; so also were the new Knights of the Shire, William Islay and John Wavershed. The alleged extortion and corruption of these and other public men were put forward by Cade as a justification of his rebellion. Behind this no doubt lay a feeling of national humiliation at the surrender of Anjou and Maine, resentment at the peculiar loss which accrued to Kent from the loss of the French possessions of the Crown, and a general distrust of the king's advisers. Whether Sir John was influenced by public and dynastic considerations or by local and personal animosities, at any rate he seems to have taken a prominent part in the rebellion. Under his influence the men of Sheppey rose in considerable numbers, and Queenborough was the scene of a severe skirmish. Sir John was, however, pardoned for his share in this work, apparently without undergoing any punishment; and his restoration to the good graces of the Lancastrian government may be inferred from the fact that in the troublous year 1455, which saw the commencement of the Civil Wars, he was appointed Sheriff of Kent. He died in the year 1468, leaving one daughter and nine sons, of whom Sir John Cheney, K.G., was the second.* Sir John Cheney, K.G., was a distinguished soldier. King Edward IV. appointed him Master of the Horse. He accompanied this king on his expedition to Prance, was one of the few persons present at the meeting between Edward and the French king which resulted in the Treaty of Pecquigny, and with Lord Howard became a hostage for the evacuation of Prance by the English Army. Sir John * The Hxtinct Peerages and all other books of reference to which I have had access describe Sir John Cheney, K.G., as the eldest son. Two genealogies in the Harl. MSS., which bear internal evidence of having been compiled in the reign of Henry VII., prove that William Cheney, Esq., was the eldest son, and Sir John Cheney, K.G., the second son, of Sir John Cheney the elder. See also Streatfeild MSS. under "Minster." • , OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 205 Cheney supported the claim of Henry of Bichmond to the throne, and took part in the battle of Bosworth, where, after having felled the king's standard-bearer, he was in turn felled by King Richard himself. He was a great favourite of Henry VII., who created him a Knight Banneret and a Knight of the Garter. In 1488 he was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Cheney. But like many other barons in early times he is commonly referred to by contemporaries under his knightly designation, and, as I have already said, it appears probable that when John de Pympe, by his will in 1496, directed that the arms of " Sir John Cheney and his wife " should be placed in Nettlestead Church, he was referring to this second Sir John, the K.G. I can, however, find no record of the marriage of Sir John Cheney, K.G. He died without issue in 1496, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, of which one of his younger brothers, Edward Cheney, was dean. The Shottisbrookes are sometimes described as "of Kent," but I cannot find that they ever possessed any lands in this county. The family was originally seated at Shottisbrooke, near Maidenhead, in Berkshire, but in the fourteenth century the house seems to have been divided into two main branches, one settled in Oxfordshire and the other in Buckinghamshire. Sir Robert Shottisbrooke was of the latter branch, and resided at Burcote, near Wing. I think the idea that the Shottisbrookes were connected with Kent has arisen solely from the fact of this marriage of the heiress of the family with Sir John Cheney, and the consequent quartering of the Shottisbrooke arms upon a shield which was once familiar throughout the county, and which is one of the best known in Kentish heraldry. I append a genealogy of the Cheneys from the time of Edward I. Sir Alexander Cheney, ob. 1296=j=Agnes, dau. of William, Lord Saye. William, ob. 1885=, . . . Robert, ob. 1863=p. . . . dau. of R. de Shurland. 206 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS Richard=i=Margaret Cralle (coheiress of Simon Peplesham). I Sir William, ob. circa 1440=p. . Simon. {Ex quo CHENEY OF CEALLE AND HIGHAM.) Sir John, M.P.^=Alianore, dau. of Sir Richard=f=. . 1449; Sheriff 1455; ob. 1468. Sir R. Shottisbrooke. A dau.=pThomas at I Toune. I Eliz.=John de Pympe. Eliz.=W. Sondes. I I I II I I I I I Edith=f Sir W. Sands. William. Sir John, K.G., Edmund. Sir Roger. I =j= ob. s.p. 1495. — — I I Edward, Dean Sir Alexr. Lord Sands. Sir Thomas, K.G. of Salisbury. — =j= — Humphry. I Sir Robert. — I Geoffrey. Thomas, Lord Cheney of Tuddenham. B (5).—Quarterly : 1 and 4, Argent, on a chevron sable three crosscrosslets ermine; 2 and 3, Sable, six lioncels rampant argent ( A T TOUNE). These are the arms of Thomas at Toune, the second of that na me settled at Throwley, quartering the arms of Detling. The prefix at is less aristocratic than the territorial de. It is descriptive of the locality of a man's residence, OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 20 7 but does not connote the ownership of land.* The At Tounes had, however, for a very long period before the fifteenth century taken rank amongst the principal landed gentry of Kent, and had intermarried with the Shurlands, the Auchernes, and the Ellises. They were settled at Kennington and at Aldington, and possessed large estates in the neighbourhood of Charing. The important manor of Throwley was acquired by Thomas at Toune the elder by his marriage with Benedicta de Detling. In three successive generations this manor had passed in the female line. It was long the property of the De Denes, whose heiress Benedicta de Dene brought it in marriage to John de Shelving. Their daughter and heiress, Joan de Shelving, married John de Detling; and their daughter and heiress was Benedicta de Detling. I think that both the marriage of this lady to Thomas at Toune and the death of her father must have taken place before 1381, because amongst the true bills found at the Maidstone assizes of that year against persons concerned in the rebellion of Wat Tyler there was one in which a certain John Hildswell was charged with having put John Hil in seisin of lands of " Thomas de Toune " at Throwley, and with having compelled him to deliver up the rents of the manor of Throwley. In the same year " Thomas de Toune" was appointed Constable of the Hundred of Throwley. It was probably this Thomas at Toune who built the mansion at Throwley known as Toune Place. He died in the year 1403. His widow married again in 1405, but had no issue * The prefix at is used in conjunction with what are, striotly speaking, common nouns, e.g. At Wood, At Well, At Hall. It is not, I think, found in connection with proper names—the names, that is, of particular villages or manors. It is as though those who originally obtained designations with this prefix only required surnames for striotly looal use. Thus, John at Well was the man who lived near the well, a sufficient description for any one living in his village, but no description at all beyond it. It is rather ourious that the alternative and Norman form of at was de la or del. Thus, At Sea is found both in the form De la mare and Delsee or Delsey. It need hardly be said that the word Toune or Towne had no urban signification; on the contrary it is distinctly rustio, for it meant " the farm enolosure," This name is found in the shape of Deltoune. Occasionally the Thomas at Tounes are found desoribed by the name of De Toune; but this is simply a courteous tribute to their position a.s landowners, 208 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS by her second marriage. His son, also named Thomas, married a daughter of Sir William Cheney. It is the shield of this second Thomas at Toune which appears in B (5), the Detling arms being quartered in right of his mother. The second Thomas at Toune died in 1446, and his three daughters succeeded as coheiresses to his large estates. One of these daughters, Elizabeth at Toune, married William Sondes, and on the division of the At Toune property the manor of Throwley fell to her share. The Sondes family had been long settled just outside the boundary of Kent at Lingfield in Surrey; and William Sondes was doubly, though distantly, related to his wife, for his mother was of the De Dene family, and his mother's mother was a Cheney of Manwood. Toune Place continued to be the residence of the Sondes family for many generations.' In the time of the Commonwealth, however, Sir George Sondes abandoned it in favour of a far more splendid dwelling which he caused to be erected at Lees Court, from the designs of Inigo Jones. Sir George had fought gallantly on behalf of the king during the Civil Wars, and had been heavily fined as a malignant, but he was still a man of great wealth. A melancholy incident in connection with this new mansion caused an extraordinary sensation throughout Kent, and, indeed, throughout the country, and led to the transmission of Throwley Manor once again in the female line. Hardly was the building finished when Sir George's second son Freeman, a morose and ill-conditioned youth of 17, in a fit of temper killed his elder brother George, in the new mansion. Freeman Sondes was tried for murder, at Maidstone assizes, and hanged. Many sermons were preached and many tracts written upon this frightful event, which the Puritans of the day were disposed to regard as a judgment of heaven against Sir George Sondes for his malignancy, and also for having, as it was alleged, discontinued his support of a grammar school at Throwley upon leaving Toune Place for his new seat. The poor man replied to these Job's comforters somewhat after the manner of Job himself, in a OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 209 strain of mingled humility and self-vindication. His only other son had died in childhood, and his remaining family consisted of two daughters. On the Bestoration he was created Baron Throwley, Viscount Throwley, and Earl of Faversham. His estates passed to his two daughters in succession, from the younger of whom they were transmitted to the present Earl Sondes, who bears the second title of Viscount Throwley. The De Detlings were a family of renown in the early history of Kent. They were one of ten, or perhaps a dozen, Kentish families who bore with varied tinctures the six lioncels rampant, which are believed to have been originally derived in each case from feudal connection with the preeminent house of Leybourne. t ... * , . * , * , * , * . * »' I y , L x,. x . t X, X , t , X I * xlx ,i,j. j J J J T:*:J B (6).—Ermine, a chief quarterly or and gules (PECKHAM). The arms of the great family of De Saye were quarterly or and gules; and the adoption of this cognizance in chief by the De Peckhams has been held to indicate feudal dependence on the De Sayes. The St. Nicholas family bore the same arms; and the Parrocks bore them also, with the sole difference that the tinctures were quarterly gules and or, instead of or and gules; and in these cases also feudal dependence on the De Sayes is believed to have been indicated. In the early days of heraldry, when 'arms of dominion' were commonly adopted, no doubt a number of the lesser families of Kent derived their shields from that TOii. xxvm, P 210 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS of De Saye, just as others derived theirs from the lioncels of Leybourne. Sir Alexander de Cheney, as I have mentioned in a previous note, on his marriage with a daughter of Lord de Saye, assumed the arms of that family differenced by a label purpure, but in this case the family arms of De Cheney were resumed in the succeeding generation. The De Peckhams took their name from the original estate of the family at West Peckham. They became extensive landowners in Sussex, as well as in Kent. The Kentish Peckhams resided during many generations at Yaldham in Wrotham, where their fine manor-house long remained to attest their former prosperity. One of the Peckhams accompanied Bichard I. to the siege of Ascalon ; another became Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Edward I. The importance of the family is said to date from the days of Archbishop Peckham, who no doubt was able to add considerably to its wealth. Sir James Peckham of Yaldham, who was sheriff of Kent in the years 1377 and 1389, increased his already considerable possessions by his marriage with Lora, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Morant of Morant's Court, Chevening. Their son James Peckham married an Islay (probably the sister of that Boger Islay who succeeded to the Parningham estates), and died in 1435. In the same year Reginald Peckham, who was either his brother or his son, it is not clear which, represented Kent in parliament. The shield B (6) was probably intended to commemorate James Peckham, whose alliance with the Islays connected him with the De Pympes. A later James Peckham, the grandson of Reginald, also married an Islay, viz., Anne, the sister of Sir Henry, who was executed for his participation in the Wyatt rebellion. From a record in Harl. MS. 3917 of the armorial glass formerly in the windows of Yaldham House, it appears that an ancestor of the Peckhams had married a member of the family of De Shurland. By this union the Peckhams were connected with the Cheneys. OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 21 1 I I C (1).— Gules, two bars gemelles between three annulets argent (BVKHIIJL) ; impaling, Argent, an eagle displayed sable armed or (BUCKLAND). These arms are tricked as above in the Harl. MS. 3917—40, but since Philipot's time the bars gemelles have disappeared. They were probably ' flashed' in the red glass instead of being ' leaded in,' and the glass, being thus weakened, tended to fracture along the lines of the flashing. The glass has evidently fractured, and has been repaired with a piece of new glass on the dexter side; on the sinister side repairs effected with thick leaded lines shew where the bars formerly appeared.* The comparatively small size of the annulets and the way in which they are spaced shew that there was originally some charge between them. The Buckland shield also betrays the ravages of time; the gold on the beak and talons has disappeared. It was probably painted on the glass instead of stained, and the ' flux' has worn away. This shield is that, I think, of John Bykhill of Eslingham, or Frindsbury as it is now called, second son of Sir William RykhiU, the famous judge whose shield also appeared formerly in Nettlestead Church [see X (3)]. William Rykhill, the eldest son of Sir William, was Knight of the Shire for Kent in 1420, and died in the year 1433. His shield, impaling one which I have not identified, formerly appeared in Northfleet Church. * Writing in 1879 Streatfeild desoribes the bars as sable, whioh would of course he an impossible tincture on a field gules. V 2 212 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS As the shield C (1) has no mark of cadency, it is probable that it was erected after the year 1433. John RykhiU was Knight of the Shire for Kent in the year 1423. The impalement indicates his alliance with a lady of the family of Buckland of Luddesdon. Thomas Buckland, who died in the reign of Henry VI., left an only daughter and heiress, who married a Polhill of Detling, and thus the arms of Buckland appear in the second quarter of the Polhill shield. I think the lady whom John Bykhill married was a sister of this Thomas Buckland. In Tunstal Church there is, or was, amongst the monuments of the Crowmers, one to the memory of Margaret Crowmer, the " wife of John Bycils, heir of Eslingham, who died 1496." This John Bycils was probably the grandson of John Bykhill, M.P. Thomas Rykhill sold the Eslingham estate in the reign of Henry VHI. I t will be seen from my notes on Sir William Rykhill infra, that through his mother John Rykhill was allied in blood to the Etchinghams, the Brenchleys, the Batisfords, the Pepleshams, the Fiennes, and the Cheneys. C (2).—Azure, three winnowing fans or (SEPTVANS). The family of Septvans was eminent in Kent during many generations. The name, which is often spelt Sevaunz or Sevannce, is perhaps derived from the Norman village of Sept Vents (see Lower's Patronymica Britannica). The arms are allusive to a supposed derivation. Originally the shield of the Septvans family bore seven winnowing fans., OE NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 213 but, as happened in the case of many early shields which bore numerous charges, later heraldic usage reduced them to three. The winnowing-fan was of basket-work; through the handle which appears on each side there was thrust a stout stick: holding this at both ends the winnower waved the basket rapidly from side to side, thus producing a current of air which separated the wheat from the chaff. It is in this manner that the peasantry in certain parts of France perform the operation of winnowing at the present day. Vanne is, of course, the French for basket,* and the word was formerly in use in this country. Our basket-makers were called 'vanniers' or 'vanners,' and are so described in early charters and trade regulations. It would seem that the lady's 'fan,' which is waved backwards and forwards to produce a current of cool air, owes its English name to the use of the wicker-work vanne in winnowing. The family of Septvans was connected with that of De Pympe by the marriage of Sir William Septvans, about the year 1300, with Elizabeth daughter of Philip de Pympe of Nettlestead. The grandson of this Sir William Septvans was the Sir William Septvans who was Knight of the Shire for Kent in 1380, and who was Sheriff in the following year, when he took a prominent part in suppressing Wat Tyler's insurrection. He died in 1407. His son, also named William, married Elizabeth Peche, and died in the year 1448. I think the shield C (2) probably commemorates the lastnamed William Septvans; but it may perhaps commemorate his contemporary, John Septvans, who was descended from the second son of Sir William Septvans and Elizabeth de Pympe. This John Septvans was of the body-guard of Henry VI. In the year 1450, however, in common with Sir John Cheney and many other Kentish gentlemen, he joined in the insurrection of Jack Cade. His name appears in the list of those who received pardon for this offence. He died in the year 1458. The Septvans estates lay principally in the neighbourhood of Ash-by-Sandwich and Chart- The etymology of the word " basket" seems to be unknown. 214 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS ham. Moland, an estate near Ash, long the home of the Septvans family, came, it is said by ' marriage,' into the possession of Sir John St. Leger [see infra C (6)]. I have, however, failed to trace the connection of the two families. .• C (3).—Azure, three lions rampant or (DE FIENNES). These arms are historically more interesting than any others now or formerly in Nettlestead Church, for they are those of Sir James de Fiennes, the Lord Saye and Sele of Shakespeare's Henry VI., Part 2. John de Fiennes, or de Fieules as the name was originally written, was a kinsman of the Conqueror. As a reward for his services in the invasion of England he was created Constable of Dover Castle, and this office was continued in his descendants during several generations. But Sir James de Fiennes was only collaterally descended from this John de Fiennes. His more immediate ancestor was Faramus de Fiennes, who was the nephew of Maud, wife of King Stephen, and accompanied her to England upon her marriage. The family of De Fiennes was associated principally with Suffolk and Sussex. Sir William de Fiennes, the father of Sir James, became a Kentish landowner by the purchase of the manor of Sele, now written Seal; but he resided in Sussex, and died at Hurstmonceaux in 1402. This property of Hurstmonceaux had then recently devolved upon him as the heir of his grandmother, Maud de Monceaux ; and upon his death he left it to his eldest son Boger, whilst he left the manors of Kemsing and Sele, with other property, to his younger son James. The mother, as well as the grand-*- OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 215 mother of Sir William, was an heiress, or rather a coheiress, for the ancient barony of Saye was in abeyance between herself and her sister; and to carry out what seems to have been a family tradition, Sir William himself married an heiress, Elizabeth Batisford, the daughter of Sir WiUiam Batisford. The marriage of this William Batisford with Margaret, daughter of Simon Peplesham, is commemorated in the shield X (1). After the death of his father, Sir James de Fiennes fixed his residence at Knole, adjoining his manor of Sele. That part of this famous mansion which is of fifteenth-century architecture is usually ascribed to Archbishop Bourchier; but it is probable that Bourchier only altered and enlarged an earlier building erected by De Eiennes. Sir James took an active part in the French Wars of Henry V. and Henry VI., and obtained the reputation of a sagacious commander. He became deeply engaged also in the troubled politics of the earlier part of the reign of Henry VI. Appointed esquire of the body to that king, he rapidly rose to high office. Like his collateral ancestor, the companion of the Conqueror, he held the post of Constable of Dover Castle. He was also Warden of the Cinque Ports; and as Lord Treasurer of England he became, during several years, one of the principal ministers of the Crown. In the year 1437 he served the office of sheriff of Kent, and represented the county in Parliament in the years 1442 and 1447. In the year last mentioned he was created Lord Saye and Sele and Lord-Lieutenant of Kent. His peerage was expressed to be conferred in consideration of his services to the Crown, and because his grandmother, Joan de Saye, was sister and coheiress of William the last Baron de Saye. The old title was revived with an addition, but he was not properly successor to the ancient barony. If that had been called out of abeyance, Richard, the son of his elder brother Sir Roger de Fiennes, would have had a prior claim to it, to say nothing of the equal pretensions of Lord Clinton, who was descended from Idonea, the elder sister of Joan de Saye. The new Lord Saye and Sele, however, obtained a 216 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS grant of the ancient arms of the Barons de Saye, together with the title. These arms, like nearly all those of the most ancient families, were extremely simple—quarterly or and gules—but the right to bear this elementary scutcheon was regarded by the new peer, in accordance with the prepossessions of his day, as a matter of the first importance. And on November 1st, 1447, within a few months of his elevation to the peerage, Lord Saye and Sele obtained from Lord Clinton a 'confirmation and quit claim' recognizing his exclusive right to the cognizance in question. From this date the new peer entirely abandoned the arms of the Fiennes family and used the shield of De Saye. I think it may therefore be inferred with certainty that the shield of De Fiennes in Nettlestead Church was placed there not later than the early part of 1447. The career of James de Fiennes as Lord Saye and Sele was brief and unfortunate. The Commons held him responsible with the Duke of Suffolk for the surrender of Maine and Anjou, as the price of the king's marriage, and Henry was compelled to dismiss him from the treasurership. The Kentish insurrection under Jack Cade in 1450 had its origin in the unpopularity of his ministry, and its ostensible justification was the alleged extortion practised by Lord Saye and Sele in his capacity of Lord-Lieutenant, by his son-in-law, William Crowmer, who was Sheriff, and by other officials of the county. When the rebellion broke out Lord Saye and Sele was placed in the Tower of London for safety; but the rebels broke into the tower, and after a mock trial he was beheaded at the Standard in Cheapside. Lord Saye and Sele has obtained fame as a patron of learning principally on the strength of the charges against him which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Jack Cade:— Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a Grammar School; and . . . . thou hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the King, his crown, and his dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.—Henry VI. Second Part. Act iv., Scene vii. OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 217 The Grammar School alluded to has been supposed to be that of Sevenoaks, but Lord Saye and Sele had nothing to do with its erection, or as far as can be ascertained with that of any other school. Printing, it need not be said, was not "used " so early as 1450; and although the first papermills in England were built in the valley of the Darenth, in which Sevenoaks stands, they were not built until a much later date. In his speech to the rebels Lord Saye and Sele is made to sustain the part ascribed to him:— Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks, Because my book preferred me to the King. But the diligence of historians and antiquaries has failed to prove that his lordship was the possessor of learning, any more than that he was its patron. He was probably able to speak French, as indeed many soldiers and statesmen must have been during the English occupation of France. Beyond this accomplishment he was probably no better educated than the great majority of his lay contemporaries. Lord Saye and Sele's elder brother, Sir Roger de Fiennes, resided principally in Sussex, and occupied himself between 1422 and 1440 in rebuilding Hurstmonceux Castle on a scale of great magnificence. The new castle was remarkable as being the first building of any importance in the south of England which had been constructed of brick since the time of the Romans, and its ruins afford an interesting example of the transition between the Edwardian castle and the Tudor mansion. Sir Roger served the office of Sheriff of Surrey and Suffolk in 1522, and was for a time Treasurer to King Henry VI. He married Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Etchingham [see X (4)], and widow of Sir Goddard Oxenbridge. On his death in 1445 he was succeeded by his son Richard, who married Joan d'Acres, the heiress of Lord Dacre of the South, and in the year 1457 obtained that title in her right. The family of Fiennes were connected with the Etchinghams through the Batisfords, as weU as by the marriage of Sir Roger. Through the Batisfords they were also allied with the Brenchleys, the Rykhills, and the Cheneys. 218 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS With the Cheneys they were also distantly allied through the Sayes, for, as we have seen, Sir Alexander Cheney, the ancestor of Sir William, had married Agnes, the daughter of one of the Barons de Saye. Although he was a second son, Sir James de Fiennes does not appear to have differenced his paternal arms, the reason probably being that his elder brother assumed the Monceaux arms, on his accession to the estates of that family. J f I I IJ I .1 ? I ui i J C (4).—Ermine, a bend gules (DE FKEMINGHAM). This shield, often encountered in the heraldry of Kent, has been sometimes mistaken for that of Islay. But that it is the shield of Fremingham is certain (see Streatfeild's Excerpta Cantiana, p. 8). The Islays bore Ermine, a fesse gules, and after their inheritance of tbe Fremingham estates they quartered the two shields. This quartered shield may still be deciphered on the brasses of Sundridge Church, where many of the Islays were interred. The Freminghams took their name from Farningham, formerly Fremingham,* where they were lords of the manor. They were also the lords of the manor of Sundridge. Their principal residence was at Farningham. Sir John Fremingham, however, who was the last of his name, and whom this shield is no doubt intended to commemorate, # Fremingham was undoubtedly the earlier form of this name. The wovdfreni in Saxon means ' foreign,' and Fremingham was probahly a settlement of foreigners (? Danes) who had found their way from the Thames along the valley of the Darent. OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 219 lived chiefly at Lose in East Farleigh. He was lord of this manor as well as of the neighbouring manor of West Barming. He was therefore a near neighbour and adjoining landowner to the De Pympes, both at Nettlestead Court and at Pympes Court. He was connected by marriage with both the De Pympes and the Islays. Joan de Fremingham, the sister of his grandfather (also Sir John), had married John Islay of Sundridge. His own sister married Reginald (I) de Pympe. Sir John Fremingham died in 1412 without issue, leaving his manors of Farningham and Sundridge to Roger Islay (the grandson of the John Islay above mentioned) in tail male, with remainder to John (I) de Pympe and his heirs. Conversely he devised his manors of Lose and West Barming to John (I) de Pympe in tail male, with remainder to Thomas and Ralph, the sons of Sir Thomas Salmans [E (2)] in tail male respectively, with remainder to Thomas de Pympe (the brother of John de Pympe) in tail male, and finally with remainder to Roger Islay and his heirs. The De Pympes never profited by their remainder to the Farningham and Sundridge estates; but, on the other hand, the descendants of Roger Islay did ultimately succeed to the manors of Lose and West Barming. Within about a hundred years from the date of Sir John de Fremingham's will, the male issue of the two De Pympes and of the two Salmans had become extinct, and the ultimate remainder in favour of the line of Islay took effect early in the reign of Henry VIII. Sir John de Fremingham was one of the founders of the chapel which formerly stood on the old bridge at Bochester. Masses were said in this chapel for the souls of Sir John and his wife Alice, and of other benefactors, amongst whom were Sir WiUiam Rykhill, the judge [X (3)], and William Makenade [X (6)]. Sir John de Fremingham was Sheriff of Kent in 1379 and again in 1394. 220 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS t i t J J I >\ C (5).—Azure, six lioncels argent, a canton ermine (CHENEY). I cannot doubt that this is the shield of Sir William Cheney, the father of Sir John Cheney, whose shield with that of his wife I have already noticed [B (3) and B (4)]. The difference for cadency, traces of which still appear upon Sir John Cheney's shield, shew that when it was erected his father was living, and it is most likely that the two shields were placed in the church at the same time. The only other person to whom this coat of arms could with any plausibUity be ascribed is Sir Richard Cheney, the younger brother of Sir WiUiam and the father of the wife of the last John de Pympe. But as a younger brother Sir Bichard would not, either before or after Sir William's death, have used the Cheney arms without some mark of cadency. Sir William Cheney of Sheppey has often been confounded with Sir WiUiam Cheney, the eminent judge of the Court of King's Bench, who was his contemporary and distant kinsman. In the year 1436 writs were issued demanding loans from weU-to-do subjects of the nation. The record of these writs shews that Sir WUliam Cheney of Sheppey was required to lend £40, and Sir William Cheney the judge 100 marks. Foss, in his Lives of the Judges, professes his inability to trace to what branch of the Cheney family the judge belonged. But the clue is, I think, supplied by one of the bequests in his wiU.* He leaves to his "kinsman" WUliam * The Rev. Thomas Streatfeild erroneously supposed this will to be that of Sir William Cheney of Sheppey. See his MS. notes to Hasted under " East Churoh." OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 221 Sondes a sum of money, and to his wife a ring. The grandmother of William Sondes was a Cheney of Manwood, and it is plain therefore that Mr. Justice Cheney belonged to that family. It is interesting to recall that the wife of William Sondes, to whom the judge left a ring, was the daughter of his namesake Sir William Cheney of Sheppey [see B (5)]. A monument to Sir William Cheney, the judge, and his wife formerly existed in the church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf; and monuments to his son John, his daughter Joan, and some other members of his family, in the church of St. Alphage, Cripplegate Street. C (6),—Azure fretty argent, a chief or (ST. LEGEK). The family of St. Leger took their name from a village of that name in Normandy. Sir Bobert de St. Leger " came over" with the Conqueror, and according to tradition supported his hand when he stepped on shore in England. His descendant, Ralph St. Leger, was one of the companions of Richard I. in his crusading exploits. A long line of St. Legers resided at Hlcombe, acquired wealth, intermarried with the chief families of Kent, and frequently served the office of sheriff, and represented the county in Parliament. I think this shield commemorates Sir John St. Leger, who was Sheriff of Kent in 1431, and who died in 1442. His wife, Margerie Donnett, is buried beside him in Hlcombe ' Church, Philippa de Pympe, the second wife of John (II.) 222 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS de Pympe, was, I think, the sister of this Sir John St. Leger. His sons are described by John (III.) de Pympe as " cousins." Sir John St. Leger had four sons. Of these the eldest, Ralph, succeeded him at Ulcombe, and served the office of sheiiff in 1469. The second son, Bartholomew, married Blanche, the daughter of Lord Fitzwalter. The third son, Sir Thomas, married Anne, sister of Edward IV., and widow of Holland, Duke of Exeter. It was this Duchess of Exeter who was appointed by King Edward to be the custodian of Henry Stafford, second Duke of Buckingham, during his minority. She died in 1475, and was buried in a chantry at St. George's, Windsor, which Sir Thomas erected for her. Taking part with the De Pympes in the Duke of Buckingham's insurrection against Bichard III. in the year 1483, Sir Thomas St. Leger was executed for treason. After the accession of Henry VII. his remains were placed beside those of his wife at Windsor. The only child of this marriage was a daughter, who married Sir George Manners, Lord Boos, and became the ancestress of the Dukes of Butland. The fourth son of Sir John St. Leger was Sir James, who married Anne, the daughter and coheiress of Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond, and from this marriage descended the St. Legers of Devonshire. Bartholomew, Sir Thomas, and Sir James St. Leger are the three "cousins," whose shields, together with those of their respective wives, John de Pympe desired to be placed in the windows of Nettlestead Church. Sir Aubrey St. Leger of Ulcombe, the descendant of Sir John, who married a niece of Archbishop Warham, was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland by Henry VIII., and was continued in that office by Edward VI. and Queen Mary. His son, Sir Warham, was Chief Governor of Munster under Elizabeth. Sir William St. Leger, the son of Sir Warham, bore the title of Lord President of Munster. He sold the estate of Hlcombe, which had been so long in the possession of his house; and thenceforward the elder branch of the family became wholly Irish in residence and in interests. The present head of the family is Viscount Doneraile. OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 22 3 E (1).— Gules, on a chevron or three lioncels rampant sable (COBHAM) . The shields E (1) and E (2), with supporting angels, appear in spaces in the tracery immediately above the central light of the east window. Their contiguity sugg-ests aggroupment, and one would expect to find that they represented the arms of husband and wife. The shield on the dexter side, E (1), is that of Cobham of Cobham; and as Margaret Cobham, who is believed to have been the daughter of John Lord Cobham, Admiral of the Fleet in 1335, was buried beneath the altar immediately below the window in the year 1337,* it is natural to suppose that this achievement was erected to her memory. But her husband, Sir William de Pympe, is also buried beneath the altar. It would be singular if one of the pair was commemorated in the window and not the other. The wife's arms, one would say, ought surely to have been on the sinister side, and her husband's on the dexter. We learn from the Harleian MS. 3917 that the arms of De Pympe impaled with other arms [see X (5), X (6), X (7) infra'] remained in the glass of Nettlestead Church in Philipot's time; but it is unlikely that the arms of the family of the lords of the manor should not have appeared in a separate achievement in the church which they rebuilt and adorned at so much expense. The east window, immediately above the tomb of one of the most distinguished members of the family, a position at once the most sacred and the most * See " Note to De Pympe pedigree " infra, p. 248. 224 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS central, was the appropriate place for the family scutcheon, and it may be conjectured with confidence that the arms of Sir WiUiam de Pympe and Margaret his wife were formerly placed side by side in this window. And this is rendered all the more probable because a close examination of the Cobham shield shews that, with its supporting angel, its original position was in the space now occupied by the Salman shield, that is, on the sinister side, instead of on the dexter; and because it is evident, even from the floor of the church, that the Salman shield does not correspond in size or shape with the Cobham shield, and cannot have been its original companion. The Cobham shield is much smaller and better proportioned than the shields in the nave, whilst the Salman shield is uniform with them. There can be no doubt, I think, as to the change which has been effected in the position of the Cobham shield. As it now appears it is, like the Woodstock and Stafford shield [B (a)], turned the wrong way out. This is evident because, as it is now placed, the lioncels on the chevron are facing towards the sinister, whereas they ought to turn towards the dexter; and because, on examining the glass at close quarters, it is seen that the flux or colouring matter is on the exterior, instead of on the interior surface. The glass both of the shield and its supporting angel is weather-worn on both sides, shewing that it was formerly fixed in the proper way, that is, with the coloured surface towards the interior of the church. When fixed the right side out, the shield with its supporting angel could not have occupied the opening it now occupies, for this opening is not entirely symmetrical; but it would have exactly fitted the opening to the sinister, which corresponds to, and balances, that on the dexter. I think it may therefore be accepted as practically certain that the Cobham shield, with its supporting angel, originally occupied the space in the sinister side. And I do not doubt that the angel supporting the Salman shield (which is also weathered on both faces) occupied the dexter side. When it was in this position however it assuredly did OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 225 not support the Salman shield, but one of the same size and shape as the Cobham shield, and bearing on it the arms of De Pympe. According to the inscription noted by Winston, the east window was glazed in the year 1465, and it may be thought strange that the commemoration of a lady who died in 1337, and of her husband who died in 1376, should have been so long delayed. But there is strong reason for believing that the Cobham shield and its original companion, the De Pympe shield, were in the window before 1465. I have already remarked upon the artistic beauty of the chancel glass, and the texture of the glass is as remarkable as its colouring. It is so admirably made, that not one piece belonging to the ' Crucifixion' in the principal lights shews any signs of decay. The material of the nave glass is far inferior, and is everywhere much worn. The tracery of the east window is all of the same excellent glass as the ' Crucifixion,' except in the two spaces in which the shields appear. Here the glass is of the same kind as that in the nave, and is badly weathered. It is clearly either contemporary with or earlier than the nave glass. I t seems to me most probable that the shields of De Pympe and Cobham were placed in the east window of the original chancel of Nettlestead Church as a memorial to the knight and his lady buried immediately below. When the chancel was rebuilt, at a somewhat later date than the nave, these two shields, with their supporting angels, were preserved out of regard to their mortuary character. When the glazing of the window was renewed in 1465, they were still retained for the same reason; and they continued in their place of honour until the date of the great storm, which destroyed the greater part of the south windows of the nave and lamentably damaged the east window. It must be supposed that in this storm the De Pympe shield was shattered, that it was replaced by the Salman shield, which was saved from the debris of the south windows, and that in repairing the east window the angels with their burdens were reversed and put in one another's places. VQI,, XXVIII, Q 226 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS B (2).—Argent, on an eagle displayed double-headed sable a leopard's head or (SALMAN). The shield E (2) is only perceived to have any heraldic character at all, upon inspection from the distance of a few feet. The two-headed eagle is almost obliterated, and the glass of the shield has been so fractured that from the floor of the church it bears the appearance of having been made up of non-heraldic fragments of greenish glass. The leopard's face has altogether vanished. The name of Salman, often written Saleman, is said to indicate the person who had charge of the salle or hall (see Lower's PatronymAca Britannica), and who was therefore a kind of upper servant. But if this family was plebeian it rose at an early period to the rank of country gentry. In the reign of Edward III. Roger Saleman was lord of the derivative manor then, and afterwards, known as Salemans or Salmans at Caterham in Surrey, on the borders of Kent. A little later the family resided at Penshurst, upon an estate also called Salmans. The Salman family seem to have been related in some way to the De Freminghams. Sir John Fremingham [C (4)], who died without issue in 1412, left his estates at Lose and West Barming, as we have seen, to his nephew John (1) de Pympe in tail male, with remainder to Thomas and Ralph, the sons of Sir Thomas Salman, in tail male respectively, with remainder to Thomas de Pympe in tail male, and on failure of aU these remainders to his cousin Roger Islay in fee simple, to whom he also devised his far more important manors of Farhingham' and Sundridge, OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 227 It seems hardly likely that Sir John Fremingham would have interposed remainders to mere strangers in blood between his devise to John de Pympe and the ultimate remainder to the Roger Islay. But I have not been able to trace the connection between the famUy of Fremingham and that of Salman. The Islays came into possession of the estates of Lose and West Barming early in the reign of Henry VIII., so that by that time the issue of Thomas Salman and Ralph Salman in the male line must have become extinct as well as that of John de Pympe. During the early years of the reign of Henry VI., William Salman, probably the son of Thomas or Ralph, above-mentioned, resided at Salmans in Penshurst. In the year 1434 the estate passed to a family of the name of Rowe, but whether by purchase or devise or inheritance I have not been able to ascertain. It seems likely that the shield E (2) was intended to commemorate this WilHam Salman. The shields which have been described up to this point are all which now remain in Nettlestead Church. Those which are now to be described were formerly in the church, as appears by the Harleian MS. No. 3917. No doubt they occupied places in the lower row in the windows G and H, but as there is nothing in Philipot's notes to indicate their positions I have numbered them X (1)—X (10), for the sake of convenience of reference. These ten shields would stUl leave two vacant spaces in the lower row of the windows in question. I entertain no doubt that one of these spaces was occupied by the Salman shield now at E (2). As the window D in the chancel contains no shields, it may be presumed that the corresponding window F never contained any. The blank scutcheons in the Becket window A have certainly never been filled up, and it was Mr. Streatfeild's opinion, in which I concur, that there were no coats-of-arms in the window J. q % 228 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS IV. X (1).—Argent, two crescents sable, a canton gules (BATISEOKD) ; impaling, Sable, three pelicans per pale argent (PEPLESHAM) . The arms of Batisford are usually found with the crescent gules and the canton sable. The tinctures of the charges may perhaps be counter changed by way of difference for cadency. The Batisfords, originally of Suffolk, settled in Surrey and Sussex. Sir William Batisford, however, seems to have resided at Benenden in Kent and to have owned land there by inheritance from his mother. This shield commemorates his marriage to Margaret, the daughter and heiress of Simon Peplesham [see B (1)]. Margaret Peplesham had previously married Bobert Cralle of Cralle in Sussex, by whom she had one daughter, Margaret. By Sir William Batisford she had three daughters, Elizabeth, Joan, and Alice. The marriages of these daughters are set forth in the following table:— Robert Cralle (l)=j=Margaret Peplesham=f:(2) Sir W. Batisford. Margaret=Rich. Eliza-=Sir W. Joan=Sir W. Alice=j=Sir W. Cheney. beth. Fiennes. Brench- Etohingley. ham. Joan=Sir W. Rykhill. The Peplesham inheritance was divided between the four daughters of Margaret Peplesham, and the Batisford inheritance between her three daughters bj^ her second husband. Thus, the alliance indicated by this shield brought an accession of wealth to several families whose arms appear hi the windows of Nettlestead. Sir William Batisford and his wife must have died before the beginning of the fifteenth century, and their shield can only be supposed to have been placed in the church as the record of a connecting link between the families above referred to, OP NETTLESTEAD CflURCH. 229 X (2).—Azure, a cross potent engrailed or (BEENCHLET) ; impaling, Argent, two crescents sable, a canton gules (BATISEOBD). These are the arms of Sir WiUiam Brenchley and his wife Joan, the daughter of Sir William Batisford [X (1)]. Sir WiUiam Brenchley was a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas (see Foss's Lives of the Judges, vol. iv., p. 36) [X (3)]. By his marriage he became connected, as shewn above P^ (1)L with the families of Cheney, Fiennes, and Etchingham ; and his colleague Sir William Rykhill married Lady Brenchiey's niece, Joan Etchingham. Through the Cheneys, Brenchley was connected with the De Pympes, but there may have been some other connection. For the mansion called Moatlands in Brenchley, together with the manors of "La Case" and "Le Mote," which belonged to Sir William de Pympe and after him to Beginald de Pympe, passed on the death of the latter in 1438 to John Brenchley, the son of the judge, but whether by purchase or otherwise I cannot say. Sir William Brenchley resided in Brenchley; and in the church there the arms of Brenchley impaling Batisford formerly appeared, as also those of his father-in-law and mother-in-law (Batisford impaling Peplesham), and those of his brother-in-law and sisterin- law (Etchingham impaling Batisford). Sir William died in 1406, and his wife forty years later. They were buried in the same grave in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral. The arms of Brenchley appear in the cloisters of the cathedral. X (3).—Gules, two bars gemelles between three annulets argent (ETKHILL). These are the arms of Sir William Rykhill, who was a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in the reigns of Richard II. and Henry IV., and the father of John RykhUl, M.P. [C (1) ] . Sir WUliam is described by Coke as a native of Ireland (Foss's Lives of the Judges, vol. iv., p. 74), by which is no doubt meant that he belonged to an English family settled within the pale. On the Bench of the Court of Common Pleas he was the coUeague of Sir William Brenchley 230 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS [X (2)], with whose famUyhe became allied; for he married Joan, daughter of Sir William Etchingham and niece of Lady Brenchley. By this marriage he also became connected with the families of Cheney and Fiennes [see X (1)]. I t was probably owing to his association with Sir William Brenchley that Bykhill was led to purchase first the manor of Bidley and next the manor of Eslingham, both of which are within easy distance of Brenchley. Eslingham, now known as Frindsbury, was his place of residence, and it was associated with the singular incident which has given his name a place in the political history of his time. In referring to the fortunes and misfortunes of the Stafford family, mention has been already made of the murder of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Towards the end of the reign of Richard II., Woodstock was the leader of a reforming party who strove to check the king's misgovernment. The movement was suddenly arrested by the arrest of Woodstock and his removal to Calais, where he was closely imprisoned. At this juncture Sir William Rykhill, who was then the oldest judge on the Bench, was awakened in the dead of night at his manor-house at Eslingham by a King's Messenger, with a writ requiring him to start off immediately for Calais with the Earl of Nottingham, the Captain of that town, and to do as the earl should order. On arriving there he found that he was required to take an examination of the imprisoned duke. It is satisfactory to note that even in those days an EngUsh judge, though acting under the coercion of his sovereign, declined to place himself in the position of a juge d'instruction. He insisted on two witnesses being present at his interview with the duke, and, instead of interrogating the royal prisoner, Sir WiUiam simply requested him to put in writing anything he might wish to say, and to keep a copy of what he wrote. The duke complied, and delivered to Rykhill a document which he requested might be laid before the king, at the same time asking the judge to return next day in case there should be anything which he wished to add. But next day Sir WiUiam was Refused admittance; during the night the OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 23 l duke had been murdered, by whom or by whose instigation has never been satisfactorily explained. Some extracts from the document drawn up by the duke, garbled into a " confession," were brought before the House of Commons, and by a retrospective sentence the murdered duke was condemned to death as a traitor. This was in the year 1397. In 1399 the first Parliament of Henry IV. summoned Sir William RykhiU before them to give an account of his conduct in obtaining the duke's so-called confession. His ingenuous narrative of his visit to Calais secured for him not only acquittal, but also general commendation. He was retained in his position on the Bench, and did not retire until 1407. The date of his death is not known. X (4).—Azure, fretty argent (DE ETCHINGHAM). These are the arms of the baronial family of De Etchingham of Etchingham in Sussex, not far from the Kentish border. They held extensive estates in Kent as well as in Sussex, and their name is to be found in the lists of the leading gentry in both counties during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Their principal Kentish estates lay in Brenzett in Romney Marsh, where they possessed a noble residence. Sir WUliam de Etchingham married Alice, the third daughter of Sir WiUiam Batisford [X (1)], and thus became brother-in-law of Sir William Fiennes, Sir William Brenchley, and Richard Cheney of Sheppey. His daughter, Joan de Etchingham, married Sir William RykhiU. This shield may commemorate Sir WiUiam de Etchingham, or more probably it may be intended to represent his son, and the last of his name, Sir Thomas de Etchingham, who left two daughters and coheiresses. The elder, Margaret, married first WiUiam Blount, by whom she had no children, and secondly Sir John Elrington. The second daughter, Elizabeth, married first Sir Goddard Oxenbridge and secondly Sir Boger Fiennes, the eldest son of Sir William Fiennes and the brother of Lord Saye and Sele. 232 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS X (5).—Gules, semee de larmes, afess nebulee argent (DBEYLONDES) ; impaling, Barry of six or and gules, a chief vair (DE PYMPE). The name Dreylondes is also written Dryland. The shield is whimsically allusive. The field gules may be supposed to represent the parched land refreshed by tear drops (larmes) issuing from a cloud, for which the fess nebulee does duty. The Dreylondes were seated during many generations at Cooksditch in Preston-next-Paversham. Rather oddly another residence of the family, at Selling, was named Oven's Court. They were near neighbours of the Makenades [X (6)] of Macknade, and probably intermarried with them. Philipott notes (Harl. MS. 3917) that in the parlour of Cooksditch there appeared in his day the above ar m s °f Dreylondes singly, and also impaling argent six lioncels sable, shewing an alliance with some branch of the ancient Kentish family of Savage. I think it is most probable that the Dreylondes who married into the family of De Pympe was Richard, who was resident at Cooksditch in the reign of Richard II. In Faversham Church there was formerly a monument upon which the above arms—Dreylondes impaling De Pympe—were blazoned, and this monument is stated by Philipott (Harl. MS. 3917) to have been erected to the memory of Elizabeth Withiot, who died in 1402 and was the wife of a Faversham merchant. Inasmuch as the arms on the dexter side of the shield are certainly those of Dreylondes, it may be reasonably conjectured that this lady was the widow of Richard Dreylondes, and that Withiot was her second husband. John Dreylondes, the son of Richard, and presumably of Elizabeth de Pympe, was Knight of the Shire for Kent in the year 1427. Richard Dreylondes, son of John, was the occupant of Cooksditch at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIL His daughter and heiress, Constance Dreylondes, married Sir Thomas Walsingham, and carried the Cooksditch property and the blood of the De Pympes into that famous famUy. OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 233 X (6).— (MAKENADE) ; impaling, Barry of six or and gules, a chief vair (DE PYMPE). This shield is noted in the Harl. MS. 3917 by name only—MAKENADE and PYMPE in pale—whereas all the other shields in the Nettlestead notes are tricked without name. After much search I have been unable to find what arms were borne by the Makenade family. The Makenades or De Makenades were settled during many generations in Preston-near-Faversham, where they owned the manor of Makenade or Macknade, as it has been corruptly designated in later times. I hesitate to say that they took their name from this place; for although- philological experts rightly insist upon the general rule that famUy names are derived from the names of places, and not vice versa, there are innumerable instances in which derivative or subsidiary manors have taken their names from their owners; and when a hamlet has grown up around the manor-house it has become known by the same designation. I think this was the case in this instance ; for whereas Makenade bears the appearance of a Norman name (connected perhaps with Machin), it seems difficult to suggest any derivation by which it could be accepted as an indigenous place name. A fragment of a genealogy of the Makenades in the Harl. MS. 1245, fol. 52, bears the heading " Makenade alias Magimot,'? which seems to connect this family with that of the famous companion of the Conqueror, whose name is variously spelt Mamimot, Mamingot, Magminot, and Magimot, and upon whom large estates in Kent were bestowed in return for the feudal service of performing castle ward at Dover. The " Mamimot Towers," on the west side of the keep of Dover Castle, long preserved the memory of this warrior. The fragment in question does not, however, shew the descent of the Makenades from the Magimots, nor have I found any confirmation of it. It is, of course, just possible that Makenade is a corrupt form of the more ancient name of Magimot: still stranger transformations are found in the history of English patronymics. But sueh references to the 234 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS Magimot family as I have been able to discover assert, or imply, that they died out in Plantagenet times; and of the Makenades it can only be said with certainty that, from the time of Edward II. at any rate, they resided at Makenade in Preston, and owned besides that manor considerable property in Selling, Bocton, and Faversham. The most eminent member of the family was William de Makenade, a barrister, of whom we know that, during the insurrection of Wat Tyler in 1381, the rebels invaded his manor of Makenade and grievously assaulted him; and that in the year 1392 he was appointed Recorder of London. WiUiam de Makenade was succeeded by his son Peter; and I think that this Peter was the Makenade commemorated by the shield in the Nettlestead window, and the husband of a daughter of Reginald (I.) de Pympe. There was another and later alliance between the families of De Pympe and Makenade. Peter Makenade was succeeded by his son William, who left two children, a son also named William and a daughter, who married a Bryanston or Brumpston. The child of this marriage was John Bryanston or Brumpston, who married Margery de Pympe, the only child of John (II.) de Pympe by his first marriage. On the death of William Makenade the younger without issue, his nephew John Brumpston was the next heir to the Makenade estates; but according to a note in the Streatfeild MSS. his wife Margery became the owner of those estates as devisee, whether under the will of the last WiUiam Makenade or his father is not stated. John Brumpston and his wife Margery, as we have seen, laid claim to the Nettlestead estates and brought a lawsuit against John (III.) de Pympe, which was ultimately settled by arbitration, in the main in favour of the defendant. X (7).—Barry of six or and gules, a chief vair (DE PYMPE); impaling, Azure, two bars wavy argent (DELSEY). I think this shield can only be ascribed to John (I.) de Pympe, who fought at Agincourt and died prematurely in 1421. I can, however, find no record of his marriage. - The OE NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 238 name and the arms of the Delseys are alike interesting. The original form of the name is At Sea: it is one of those patronymics which were derived from the situation and not from the designation of the residence of the person who originally bore it. I have already pointed out [B (5)] that designations of this character imply comparatively plebeian origin. The landowning aristocracy took territorial names with the prefix de. At or Atte became in some cases abbreviated into a, as in a Becket, and in some cases changed into del, as in the case of At Toune, which, as I have remarked above, assumed the form of Deltoun or Delton. In Kent the At Seas of Heme retained that name at least as late as the reign of Elizabeth, though they are sometimes described as Sea, or See, without any prefix. In other parts of the county the name appears as Delsey or Delce, and that from so early a period that at least three subsidiary manors, which became their property, received from that circumstance the name of Delce, which they still bear. Two of these manors are far inland, and the origin of the name was so far forgotten that their owners in later times were frequently described as De Delce. The arms of the Delsey family, however, bear witness to the origin of the name. In heraldry the ' wavy' line is almost always found to be allusive. Families with names such as Delamere, Rivers, Brooks, most commonly bear arms with charges which are either wavy, or nebulee, or dancettee. The charge, which is heraldicaUy known as the "fountain," consists of a small circle barry wavy argent and azure. The argent and azure are naturaUy the favourite tinctures in blazonry which is allusive to water; but they are not the only tinctures so employed. The At Seas of Heme bore " Barry wavy of six or and gules," with a lobster or charged upon the alternate bars. The Delseys bore Azure, two bars wavy argent, as emblazoned on the shield now under discussion. What branch of the Delsey family it was which intermarried with the De Pympes must remain, I fear, a matter of conjecture. But I think we are in a position to make a plausible guess, 236 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS for a Delsey purchased an estate in Brenchley in the reign of King John; and his descendants were near neighbours to the De Pympes during several centuries.* X (8).—Quarterly ; 1 and 4, Or, fretty sable, a label of three points ermine; 2 and 3, Azure, two bars wavy argent (HARRINGTON). The charge Or, fretty sable, seems never to have been borne by any famUy except that of the Harringtons. The shield was differenced in various ways to distinguish the several branches of this house, and the label of three points ermine is to be found in heraldic authorities as one of the differences so employed. The Harringtons were a Cumberland family; but their descendants settled in many parts of England. In the fourteenth century John Harrington, son of Sir Robert Harrington, married the daughter and heiress of Thomas Culpeper of the well-known Kentish family. The Harrington commemorated at Nettlestead was probably his descendant. In this shield the arms of Harrington are quartered with those of Delsey; and this gives the clue to the connection of the family with the De Pympes, for, as we have seen [X (7)], one of the De Pympes, probably John (I.), married a Delsey. It may be supposed that this lady's brother had a daughter and heiress who married a Harrington. The son of the marriage would become entitled to quarter the arms of Delsey with his own, as is the case here. I t seems probable that this Harrington is referred to in a passage which has already been cited, in part, from a document accompanying the will of John (III.) de Pympe. The testator notes that when he was " in St. Martyn's Sanctuary for the King's sake " one William Brent, who was surety for him for a certain payment due to John Brumpston, was sued by the latter and compelled to make payment. Of the sum so paid, however, he adds, " Heryndon has repaid 20 marks." * The Cymric equivalent of At Sea is Morgan. A Welsh monk of the name of Morgan literally translated his name into Pelagius, and became the originator of the Pelagian heresy. It is curious that whilst the English At Seas have become extinct, and the Delseys or Dolseys only survive here and there, the Welsh Morgans should have spread all over the English-speaking world. OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 237 In the orthography of the time Heryndon may very well stand for Harrington, and the financial assistance which seems to have been afforded is such as would be likely to be rendered by a kinsman. X (9).—Sable, a cross argent (DE LA MORE); impaling, Gules, on a chevron or three fleurs-de-lis sable (COBHAM OE BUNDALE). The arms, Sable, a cross argent, were borne by several ancient families besides the De la Mores. In ascribing them to De la More I follow a lead-pencil note, which I think is in the handwriting of Mr. Streatfeild, in the margin of his annotated copy of Hasted, under Nettlestead (Streatfeild MSS., vol. v.). According to this note the person commemorated by this shield is Sir William De la More, who fought at the battle of Poitiers in 1356. The presence of his arms in Nettlestead Church is accounted for by his marriage with a Cobham of Bundale, for Sir Thomas Cobham, Lord Rundale, married Matilda de Pympe, the daughter of Sir William de Pympe (who had himself married a daughter of the Cobham family as his first wife). It may be conjectured that the lady who married Sir William de la More was the daughter of Matilda de Pympe. The heraldic history of the Cobhams affords typical illustration of the methods of differencing for cadency in early times. The Cobhams of Cobham bore Gules, on- a chevron or three lioncels rampant sable [see E (1)]. The Cobhams of Rundale replaced the lioncels "by fleurs-de-lis* the Cobhams of Sterborough by three estoiles, the Cobhams of Blackburgh by three eaglets displayed, the Cobhams of Chafford by three cross-crosslets, and the Cobhams of Beluncle by three crescents. The tinctures of the shield were the same in each case (see Dering on Differences, Lower's Curiosities of Heraldry, Appendix, p. 301). The Cobhams of Rundale are indeed said to have abandoned their shield for that of the great famUy of Pencester, whose estates they inherited. Henry de Cobham, the first Baron Rundale, married Joan de Pencester, and * According to Dering and some other authorities the Cobhams of Rundale were the elder branch, and the three fleurs-de-lis the original charge. 238 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS through her acquired extensive property. His son Stephen certainly bore the Pencester arms, Gules, a cross argent, as his principal shield, and so did his successors who inherited the Pencester lands; but the shield, Gules, on a chevron or three fleurs-de-lis sable, was also retained in use, and was, I believe, commonly borne by cadets of the family: it was borne, for example, by Matilda de Pympe's brother-in-law, John Cobham de Hever,* in Hoo. No other branch of the Cobham family, except that of Rundale, appears to have ever adopted the charge of the three fleurs-de-lis. X (10).—Ermine, a fess gules (DE ISLAY). The Islays bore also, at a later date, Ermine, a fess sable. The arms, Ermine, a bend gules, have been wrongly attributed to them, but these were the arms of De Fremingham, and were borne by Roger Islay and his successors as the second quartering of their shield [see C (4)]. The name Islay, or De Insula, as it is written in ancient charters, may indicate that they were originally settled in the Isle of Wight or in the Isle of Ely. They resided, however, from a very early period in Sundridge. From the similarity of the arms of the Islays, the De Freminghams, and the Apulderfields, it has been thought that they must have been connected either by blood or by feudal alliance from the earliest times of heraldry. However this may be, the Islay family rose to wealth and eminence in the county through the marriage of John Islay with Joan de Fremingham. Sir John de Fremingham, who died without issue in 1412, devised the estates of Farningham and Sundridge, with other property, to his cousin Roger Islay, the grandson of the John Islay above referred to. Before this time the Islays, though of gentle, were not of knightly rank. But Boger Islay became Sir Boger shortly after he attained the position of lord of the manor in which his ancestors had so long resided. His arms (quarterly Islay and Fremingham),. * Not to be confused with Cobham of Hever, near Edenbridge, who was a cadet of the family of Cobham of Sterborough. In the parish of AH Saints, Hoo, there was an estate named Hever, OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 239 impaling Or, a fess ermine between six mascles, may stUl be seen on his brass in Sundridge Church, where he was buried in 1429. Sir Roger Islay was connected with the De Pympes through the De Freminghams, and the shield in Nettlestead Church may commemorate either him or, more probably, his son Sir WUliam Islay, who was Knight of the Shire in 1442, sheriff in 1447, and again Knight of the Shire .in 1450. This last year was that of Cade's insurrection, and one of the causes put forward to justify this rebellion was the extortion practised by Sir William Islay in his capacity as Member of Parliament for the county. Sir WiUiam Islay died in 1465. His arms (quarterly Islay and Fremingham) formerly appeared in Sundridge Church impaling Argent, between three mullets sable pierced a chevron gules. His wife was Isabel Warner of Footscray [see above, B (2)]. Sir William died without issue, and was succeeded by his nephew John, who died in 1483, leaving a son Thomas, who married Elizabeth Guildeford, daughter of Sir Bichard Guildeford and Anne Pympe. The son of this marriage was that Sir Henry Islay who took a prominent part in Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion, and was executed at Maidstone as a traitor. His estates were forfeited to the Crown, but they were shortly afterwards restored, and the family maintained through several succeeding generations a position of importance in the county. . V. The series of shields which I have endeavoured to annotate brings before us an interesting group of Kentish gentlemen of olden days. Apart- from the Stafford shields, and allowing for repetitions, and taking account of impalements, the series relates to some thirty-five different families. Nearly all of these are Kentish, and most of them resided within a radius of about twenty-five miles from Nettlestead. The majority belonged to the ancient Norman stock of the landed gentry. A few—the Warners, the At Tonnes, the 240 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS Salmans, and the Delseys—were of less aristocratic origin, but they too were landowners of long descent. I have been at some pains to shew how these families were inter-related by marriage, and it is certain that there were more alliances between them than I have been able to trace. They may be said, moreover, to have belonged to the governing class of the county, for with few exceptions they furnished Kent with sheriffs and knights of the shire in successive generations. And having regard to the connection of military service with the tenure of land, there can be little doubt that this series of shields was a memorial of companionship in arms, as well as of family alliance, friendship, neighbourhood, and association in county business. The examination of these shields was undertaken with the particular purpose of deriving from them, if possible, some precise demonstration of the age of the glass in the windows in which they appear. As might have been expected, few of them afford any intrinsic evidence of date. The manner in which the shields which remain are heraldically ' displayed,' and the tinctures of the glass, shew them to be of fifteenth-century workmanship. But even when the owner of a shield has been identified, and when the outlines of his career are ascertained, there is usually nothing to shew whether the shield was erected in his lifetime or after his decease. But in a few cases, which I will here recapitulate^ a definite clue to date does seem to be afforded. Thus, in the Stafford shields which occupy the upper row, the arms of Stafford impaling Neville cannot have been erected before 1425, the date of the marriage commemorated, or after 1438, when, on the death of his mother, the Earl of Stafford assumed the title of Buckingham and the arms of Woodstock. On the other hand, if, as I suppose, the arms of Stafford, in juxtaposition with those of Beaufort, commemorate the marriage of Humphrey Stafford the younger with Margaret Beaufort, these shields, or at any rate the Beaufort shield, cannot have been erected before about 1446—8. And from this it appears that the shields were not all erected at the same time, a period of seven or eight years, at least, OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 241 having elapsed between the date of the two achievements referred to. In the lower row of shields there are only three which afford anything like a positive date. The shield of Sir John Cheney is shewn by the mark of cadency (now almost wholly obliterated) to have been erected in the lifetime of his father, Sir William Cheney, who died about 1440. The shield of Sir James Fiennes must have been erected before 1447, for in that year he was created Lord Saye and Sele, and assumed the arms of Saye; and there is ground for supposing that the shield of John Rykhill was erected after the year 1433. These three cases carry the matter no further. And of the remaining shields the utmost that can be said is that all of them may have been erected before 1439, and that in many cases it seems more likely that they were erected before that date than after it. For Reginald (I.) de Pympe, who was the rebuilder of Nettlestead Church, died in 1438 at an advanced age, and some of the persons whose shields occur, though likely to have been well known to him, cannot have been personally known to his grandson and successor. Thus Beginald (I.) de Pympe must have known Sir William Rykhill and Sir William Brenchley, and it is very probable that he knew Sir William Batisford. Sir WiUiam Cheney was his contemporary. Sir John Fremingham was his near neighbour and near relative. In these cases there can be no more doubt as to the person than as to the family commemorated. Again, the De Pympe alliances which are recorded, if I have rightly placed them, are all alliances which Reginald (I.) de Pympe would naturally have desired to record. I t does not appear to me to be necessary to prove that all the shields in the nave were erected between 1425 and 1438, in order to justify Mr. Winston's opinion that the ' Apostle' windows as a whole belong to that period. If it can be shewn that any shield in an Apostle window must necessarily have been erected before 1439, it is a fair inference that the principal lights of that window also date before 1439, and as the Apostle windows were certainly all of the VOL. XXVIII, R 242 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS same character, what is true of one may safely be taken to be true of all. I think the probability is that these windows were erected by Reginald (I.) de Pympe as part of the decoration of his newly-built nave, and that most of the shields, probably nearly all, were also blazoned by him. His grandson John (II.) de Pympe, who was in possession of the property from 1438 to 1454, must be supposed to have blazoned the Beaufort shield, and perhaps some other scutcheons left blank by his grandfather in the Apostle windows. I do not think any of the shields in the nave are later than his time. A few words remain to be said with regard to the principal lights of the Nettlestead windows and the figuresubjects which they contain. The only glass remaining in the principal lights of the window A is contained in the foiled heads. But this is worthy of some notice, for it is of that brilliant silvery whiteness which is characteristic of the best canopy work of fifteenth-century glass, and which has never been successfully imitated by modern art. It is only in the fragments which remain in this window that the canopy-work remaining in Nettlestead is satisfactory in colour. It is to be noted that in the westernmost light, instead of the ordinary tabernacle-work, the pinnacles of the canopy are fashioned into the semblance of a church. This device is not wholly unfamiliar in glass of this period. But the central tower of this church proclaims it to have been intended to represent Canterbury Cathedral, and therefore appropriate to the Becket window. Looking down from the tracery of the middle light there is a tiny female figure wearing a crown, which is presumably intended for the Blessed Virgin. The figure of St. Thomas a Becket probably occupied this central light, whilst the Becket groups which have been transferred to the window E occupied parts of the two outer lights. The windows B, C, G, and H were unquestionably Apostle windows. Each of their twelve lights was occupied by the figure of an apostle, with a scroll proceeding from his mouth containing one of the articles of the Creed. The original figures have disappeared entirely exOF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 243 cept from the window B. This window remains substantially in its original condition; the heads of the two outer apostles have, however, been renewed, and so has the lower part of the head of the apostle in the central light. The canopywork has been considerably patched, and is nowhere strikingly good, but the total effect of this window with the eight emblazoned shields above and the three canopied figures below, suffused with scintillating colour, is extremely rich and splendid. The window C has no ancient glass in its principal lights except what is contained in the foiled heads. The windows G and H retain, as has been seen, two shields apiece in the tracery, together with some other fragments of old glass. In the principal lights the foiled heads alone remain. In J there is no stained glass at all in the principal lights, and the tracery is chiefly occupied by uniform repetitions of the Stafford ' nave' or ' burning cart-wheel' surrounded by the Stafford knot. Turning to the chancel, the window D is worthy of prolonged study. The emblematical figures in the tracery—one of them a representation of St. John with the head of an eagle—are marked by delicate drawing and refined colour. The figures in the principal lights are those of St. Stephen and St. Laurence. At the foot of each is the figure of a monk, drawn on a much smaller scale, from whose mouth proceeds a prayer. I have already remarked upon the gracefulness of outline and the simplicity of colouring which characterize this window. It will afford satisfaction to some lovers of antiquity to observe that such new glass as has been introduced by way of reparation, whilst not distressingly out of harmony with the old, can be distinguished from it at a glance. The window E, the east window of the church, was evidently of exactly the same character as the window D. Quarried background, brackets, and border precisely correspond. In the central light was the figure of Our Lord crucified. In the two outer lights there still remain the figures of St. Mary the Virgin and St. John. The faces have disappeared and the figures are mutilated, but enough remains to shew that they were of the same » 2 244 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS graceful outline and simple colouring as the figures in D. The central light and the lower part of the other two lights have been filled up with fragments, chiefly from the Becket window. The two principal fragments consist of groups representing respectively, as Mr. Charles Winston demonstrated, the reception of <\ Becket upon his return from exile, and the visit of pilgrims to his shrine. Mr. Winston has done justice to the design of these groups, but hardly to their colouring and execution. He was not, perhaps, altogether in a position to do so, for recent cleaning operations have disclosed the fact that at some period, probably anterior to his first inspection of them, they have actually been ' touched-up' with common oil-paint. The simple process of cleansing has revealed unsuspected excellencies. The drawing is full of spirit and animation; the detail has all but the minuteness of an illumination; and the colouring, though rich, is restrained and pure. There is a refinement about this work which is not found in the old glass remaining in the nave; the fabiic of the glass itself resembles that of the Crucifixion fragments and of the window D. Mr. Winston believed the Becket groups to be of the same date as the Apostle windows; but having regard to the style of the workmanship and the quality of the glass, it is impossible to escape the conviction that they must be ascribed to the same period and to the same hand as the chancel windows; and the marked excellence of the canopy woi-k in the foiled heads of the principal lights in window A supports this view. When these two groups are seen, as it is hoped they may be soon, restored to their old place in the Becket window, with the dirt of ages and the daubings of some Philistine painter in oil-colours wiped away, it will probably be acknowledged that they are equal to any groups in stained glass which were produced in any part of the fifteenth century. Other fragments in the east window, which appear to have belonged to the Becket window, are two bearded figures, which evidently represent the first and second persons in the Trinity. There is some glass in the east window which, whilst it evidently does not belong to its original OP NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 24 5 design, as evidently does not come from the Becket window. Much of this consists in repetitions of the Stafford badge, uniform in size with those contained in window J. In E and J together there are ten or eleven of these badges. I t may be conjectured that all of them were once in J,* and that they formed the background for some memorial figure. This was a fashion in stained glass towards the latter part of the fifteenth century. In the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral white roses and suns form a background to the kneeling figure of Edward IV.; and ostrich feathers, repeated in monotonous pattern, form a background to the kneeling figure of his elder son. If the window J contained a figure of one of the De Pympes, a bold diaper of Stafford badges would no doubt have seemed an entirely appropriate background. Mr. Winston's opinion that the glass in the chancel of Nettlestead Church is of later date than that of the nave was corroborated by the historical evidence derived from the armorials of the nave windows. It did not depend wholly upon that evidence. A study of the figure-subjects alone led him to the same conclusion. But it must not be assumed that the simplicity of line and colour, which is the characteristic of the original chancel windows, is in itself the mark of a later period than that of the nave windows. The history of fifteenth-century glass is even now imperfectly understood, but it certainly did not develop from elaboration to simplicity. The simplicity of the chancel windows at Nettlestead is not that of ignorance, but that of technical skUl. Stained glass of this character betrays no decadence; it may, on the contrary, indicate a higher degree of artistic skill than the delicate shading and opulent detail of the windows of the nave. • But on the other hand it does not indicate an historical development. There is much glass in England certainly belonging to the earlier part of the fifteenth century, which is of the same style as that in the chancel of Nettlestead Church; whilst, on the other hand, * That these Stafford badges were all in the window J in the year 1829 may be inferred from Mr. Streatfeild's MS. notes of that date. 246 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS there is much glass certainly belonging to the latter part of the century, which is of the same style as that in the nave. The Fairford glass, for example, comprises a series of Apostle windows resembling that in the nave of Nettlestead. At Fairford the shading is, if anything, more finished than at Nettlestead; the detail is more minute; the blaze of colour more pervasive. Yet none of the windows at Fairford were made before the last years of the fifteenth century. The difference, then, is not one of date but of concurrent styles. The experienced eye of Mr. Charles Winston detected evidences in the nave windows of earlier date than that of the chancel windows, but whatever those evidences were, they did not depend upon the difference of style which has been adverted to. He was guided, perhaps, in part by differences in technique, but principally, I think, by the fabric of the glass itself. The difference between the two concurrent styles of glasswork in the fifteenth century is most likely explained by a difference in the nationality of the glaziers. The glass of the Apostle windows of the nave of Nettlestead betrays foreign influence. It was probably either brought from beyond the seas, like the glass of Fairford, or made in England by foreign artificers. On the other hand, the glass of the chancel, and of the Becket window, is characteristically English in design and execution, and may be ascribed with confidence to English handicraft. I must not close these notes on the ancient glass in Nettlestead Church without adding a few words with regard to the modern glass. The window F is entirely fiUed with glass which was placed there in the year 1862, and which is justly valued as a memorial of the Rev. William Francis Cobb, M.A., who was Curate and Rector of Nettlestead for many years, and who was the father of the present venerable Rector. It is characteristic of its period, and does not invite comparison with fifteenth-century work. The principal lights of the window 0 are also filled with modern glass, which, however, must be placed in a very different category. An inscription states that "the renewed work" of this window OE NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 247 was executed in the year 1894. In fact, all the glass in the principal lights, with the exception of the foiled heads, is new. But the imitation is so close, the colouring is so well matched, the very irregularity of ancient work and the wear and tear of time are so cleverly simulated, that the casual observer is inevitably misled into supposing that the window is throughout of the same antiquity as that which stands by its side, and even an experienced critic might be deceived. This " renewal " is less an imitation than a forgery—using that word in no offensive sense. In fact, the new window was designed and executed with the old window at hand as a guide and pattern. The principal Ughts of the window B had to be taken out for the purpose of the comparatively small repairs to which allusion has already been made, and advantage was taken of this to make the new lights in window C almost a facsimile of them, with some necessary counter-changing of colours and variation of posture and expression. Here and there the modern character of the work can be detected. Where blue occurs in the backgrounds it is obviously not the blue of the fifteenth century; the beautiful ' azure' of the shields above has a very different tone. And again, although the canopy-work of window B is not of the best colour, that in the " renewed " window is perceptibly less silvery and more greenish in hue. But after making allowance for these defects, the counterfeit must be pronounced to be extremely successful. And if the aim of art, in modern stained glass, is to produce an admirable counterfeit, it must be admitted that this window is as near an approach to perfection as is likely to be attained. Indeed, from the point of view of decorative effect, and apart from ethical considerations as to ' falsification' in architecture and art (as to which I express no opinion), I do not know how the window C could have been better fiUed—if it was thought necessary to fill it—than it has been. Anything less completely imitative would have struck a discordant note. 248 THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS NOTE TO THE DE PYMPE PEDIGREE. Since writing this article, happening to visit Cobham Church, I saw there what purports to be the tomb of Margaret Cobham who married Sir WiUiam Pympe, and whom I have described as buried in Nettlestead Church. The date of decease is given as 1375, whereas I have stated that she died in 1337. The tomb referred to is surmounted by a brass which bears the foUowing inscription:— "Ici gist dame Margarete de Cobeh'm jadis feme a Will' Pympe Chiualier qe, morust le iiij jour de Septembre Ian de grace mil ccclxxv de gi alme dieu pur sa pite eit mercy. Amen." A part of the effigy of this brass and the entire inscription are, however, a ' restoration.' And, according to Mr. Waller {Arch. Cant., XL, 49), the restoration was based upon Glover's MS. in the College of Arms, collated with the Lansdowne MS. 874 (Collection of Nicholas Charles). The Glover MS. is said by Mr. Waller to be dated 1574. I have not, of course, had access to it. I have, however, inspected the Lansdowne MS. 874. In it Nicholas Charles states that he visited Cobham Church in 1557, and he gives a sketch of the brass of Margaret, and a copy of the inscription as it existed at that time. The inscription corresponds verbatim et literatim except in one important particular—the name of Will' Pympe does not appear in it. The space for the name of the lady's husband is left blank, evidently because it was undecipherable. And if it was undecipherable in 1557, it must have remained so in 1574. The Glover MS. cannot therefore be supposed to supply the missing name by the testimony of anyone who had seen the complete inscription. I t may perhaps be assumed that this MS. was of assistance to the restorers of the tomb solely as containing some record of the fact that a Margaret Cobham did marry a Sir William Pympe. OF NETTLESTEAD CHURCH. 249 On the other hand there is clear evidence that the Margaret Cobham who married Sir William Pympe died in 1337 and not in 1375, and that she was buried in Nettlestead Church and not in Cobham Church. Philipot, writing in the seventeenth century {Villare Cantianum, p. 242) describes, as existing in his day, a tomb in Nettlestead Church bearing the following inscription :— " Hie jacet Domina Margareta de Cobham quondam uxor "Willelmi Pimpe Militis qui obiit 4 Septembris 1337." I t seems certain, notwithstanding the coincidence in the Christian name and in the month date of the death, the tombs at Cobham and Nettlestead commemorate different members of the same family.