"'_Here lies_ John Oxenham, _a goodly young man, in whose chamber, as he was struggling with the Pangs of Death, a Bird with a white brest was seen fluttering about his Bed, and so vanished_. "'_Here lies_ Mary Oxenham, _the sister of the said_ John, _who died the next day, and the same Apparition was seen in the Room_.' "Then another sister is spoke of. Then:-- "'_Here lies hard by_ James Oxenham, _the son of the said_ John, _who dyed a Child in his Cradel a little after, and such a Bird was seen fluttering about his head, a little before he expir'd, which vanish'd afterwards_.' "At the bottome of the Stone ther is:-- "'_Here lies_ Elizabeth Oxenham, _the Mother of the said_ John, _who died sixteen years since, when such a Bird with a white Brest was seen about her bed before her death_.' "To all these ther be divers Witnesses, both Squires and Ladies, whose names are engraven upon the Stone. This Stone is to be sent to a Town hard by Exeter, wher it happen 'it."[22] [22] _Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ_, 5th edition, p. 232. London, 1678. There are several suspicious points about the story. No such a monument exists or has existed in South Tawton Church, nor is one such known to have been set up in any other in the county. The stone was of marble, and therefore not for the graveyard, but for the interior of the church. According to the registers there was a John Oxenham, _senior_, died, and was buried May 2nd, 1630, but not one of the others mentioned. There were two John Oxenhams in the parish: John, son of James and Elizabeth, born in 1613; and John, son of William and Mary, born in 1614. Mary was the sister of the latter, and their father was the village doctor. But it was Elizabeth, according to Howell, who was the mother. No James, son of John, was baptised at the time at South Tawton. Elizabeth, the mother, according to Howell, died about 1616. No such a person was buried at South Tawton at any date near that. The persons named in the tract of 1635--three years after Howell's letter--are also four, but they are of Zeal Monachorum. But the name of Oxenham does not occur at all in the registers of that parish, and in the tract, apparently, South Zeal has been mistaken for Zeal Monachorum.[23] In the first edition of Howell's epistles there is no date to the letter; that was supplied later, probably by the publisher. Now it is curious that in 1635 the name John Oxenham does occur as having been buried at South Tawton on July 31st, aged twenty-one. He was baptised July 10th, 1614. But there are no entries of Thomasine, wife of James, nor of Rebecca, aged eight, either baptised or buried; nor of Thomasine the babe.