Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and CuriositiesAnonymous
History
Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and Curiosities
Anonymous
Westminster Abbey
Next are two tablets, one to the memory of the Right Honourable the Lady
KATHERINE KNOLLYS, chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth, and
wife to Sir Francis Knollys, Knt., Treasurer of her Highness's household.
She died January the 15th, 1568. This Lady Knollys and Lord Hunsdon, her
brother, were the only children of William Carey, Esq., by Lady Mary, his
wife, one of the daughters and heirs of Thomas Bulleyne, Earl of Wiltshire
and Ormond, and sister to Anne Bulleyne, Queen of England, wife to Henry
VIII., father and mother to Queen Elizabeth. What is farther remarkable,
Lady Knollys' only daughter was mother of the favourite Earl of Essex.
The other to Lady JANE SEYMOUR, daughter of Edward, Duke of Somerset, who
died March 19, 1560, aged nineteen.
On an altar sits, in a sleeping posture, the figure of Lady ELIZABETH
RUSSEL, daughter of Lord John Russel, in alabaster. She pricked her finger
with a needle, which is supposed to have caused a lock-jaw, and occasioned
her death. On the plinth of the pedestal is--"_Dormit, non mortua
est_"--(She is not dead, but sleepeth). Died 1601.
Lord JOHN RUSSEL, second son of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, and his
son FRANCIS, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, Knt., and widow
of Sir Thomas Hoby, Knt. He died in 1584. He is represented in a cumbent
posture, habited in his coronation robes, with his infant son at his feet.
His lady was esteemed the Sappho of her age, being well versed in the
learned languages, and an excellent poet; five of the epitaphs on this
tomb are of her composition, of which three are in Latin, one in Greek,
and the other in English, which is here transcribed as a specimen, the
rest being to the same purport:--
"Right noble twice, by virtue and by birth,
Of heaven lov'd, and honour'd on the earth,
His country's hope, his kindred's chief delight,
My husband dear, more than this world's light,
Death hath me reft. But I from death will take
His memory, to whom this tomb I make.
John was his name (ah, was! wretch, must I say?)
Lord Russel once, now my tear-thirsty clay."
Next is a very ancient monument, representing a Gothic chapel, and in it
the figure of a Knight in armour, in a cumbent posture, with his feet
resting on a lion's back. This was erected for Sir BERNARD BROCAS, of
Baurepaire, in the county of Hants, Chamberlain to Ann, Queen of Richard
II. But this Princess dying, and Richard falling under the displeasure of
his people, who deposed him, Sir Bernard still adhered to his Royal master
in his misfortunes, which cost him his life. He was publicly beheaded on
Tower Hill, January, 1399, and here buried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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