Abbot Foche's Grace Cup

" •„•' *vm Grace-cup of John Foche, last Abbot of St. Austin's, Canterbury ( 123 ) ABBOT EOGHE'S GRACE CTTP. BY THE REV. R. U. POTTS, P.S.A., BUE8AB OF ST. ATTGUSTINE'8 COLLEGE, CANTEBBTJEY. Through the generous gift of Mrs. "W. C. Randolph of Tate House, Tate, Gloucestershire, the College has become possessed of the Grace Cup of John Eoche, or Essex, the last Abbot of this House, who on July 30th, 1538, signed the Deed of Surrender to the King of all the possessions of the Abbey (per me Johannem Essex, abbatem ibidem), and was allowed to retire to the Manor of Sturry on a pension of £133 a year, and probably died some time before February 1541, when his name no longer appears on the list of pensioners. The cup is described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, December 14th, 1893, when it was exhibited by Mr. George Payne, E.S.A., being then in the possession of Mrs. Eielding of Rochester:— " The Cup is made out of a cocoa-nut and is mounted in silver-gilt, with the following inscription round the run: ' Velcom 0 ze be § dryng § for Q Charite/ The base and stem are of plainly turned wood and of modern date. Upon the top of the stem is rivetted a collar of metal, 1£ inch in • diameter. This collar spreads out into a frill of feathers bound round by a cable. The frill forms a bed for the cup, which is 3 inches in height and 3£ inches in diameter, the diameter of the rim of the wooden cup being nearly 2\ inches. Upon this rim rests a collar of feathers pointing downwards, with a band above, ornamented with a row of four dots in the form of a square with a dot in the centre, the pattern- being repeated all round the rim. The mouth of the cup here widens to 124i ABBOT POCHE'S GRACE CUP. a diameter of 3£ inches, the band being an inch in height— in the centre of this band occurs the inscription ; the letters are slightly over a quarter of an inch in length. Above and below the inscription are plain bands a quarter of an inch wide; above the upper one is a band with the dot pattern before described, surmounted by a rebated band forming the rim. The band round the rim is united to the collar in base by three elegant foliated straps, each having a cable down the centre." The tradition, handed down through several generations of Eagges, is that the cup was the Grace Cup of the last Abbot of St. Augustine's Monastery, Canterbury—John Essex, who was descended from the Eoche family. Hasted (Hist, of Kent, 8vo ed., xii., 211) says: " This Abbot's family name was Eoch, his brother Henry was of Ripple in this County." The Eagge family is maternally descended from the Foches. A certain Henry Eoche, Vicar of Higham, died in 1731, and was buried under the altar in Higham old Church. John Eoche, of Upper Delce Farm, was buried at Higham in 1736. Mrs. Eielding of Rochester, a daughter of Sir John Eagge, 6th Baronet, found the following entry relating to the cup in the manuscript book of her mother, Lady Fagge: " Copy of a memorandum in the handwriting of my father, Daniel Newman, at the bottom of a curious cup belonging to his ancestors : ' A description of this cup is to be found in the Gentleman's Magazme, vol. 29, p. 271, 1759, by Samuel Pegge, Vicar of Godmersham m Kent.' N.B.—Given by my mother to her grandson, Sir John Fagge; said to be the Grace Cup possessed by the last Abbot of St. Augustine's Monastery, Canterbury." This inscription in Mr. Newman's writing is still at the bottom of the cup. The account in the Gentleman's Mugaxine oceurs in a letter signed Paul Gemsago, an anagram for Samuel Pegge. The writer, after some fantastic remarks on the derivation of the word " Bumper," proceeds: