History of Madeley: including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport — John Shaqi
History of Madeley: including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and CoalportRandall, John
History
History of Madeley: including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport
Randall, John
Madeley (Shropshire, England) -- History
Mailed and full-length fine stone figures of this highly-distinguished
family, who lived here, and shed a lustre on the place, formerly reposed
in the church, to whose sacred keeping they bequeathed their dust.
Equally vain, however, were their bequests and hopes, for when the
originals were no longer able to put a copper on the plate their very
tombs were destroyed, and their stone effigies ruthlessly turned out of
doors, and placed in niches outside the church, where, shorn of a portion
of their limbs, they still do penance in pleading attitudes, and look as
though they implored a bit of paint to prevent the inscriptions beneath
from being lost for ever. The stone in one case has lost its outer
coating, and the artifice of the sculptor in tipping nose and chin with a
whiter material has been disclosed, and thick coats of paint are peeling
off the defaced epitaphs which set forth the merits of their originals.
The inscriptions are in Latin, but the following is, we believe, a free,
if not an exact, translation:—
“Here lieth interred John Brooke, Esquire, the son of Robert Brooke,
Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was a zealous and
loyal subject of Queen Mary, and assisted her in securing her rights
in opposition to the violent factions of the time. He published an
excellent commentary on the English Law in several volumes. After a
study of jurisprudence and science, being of an extensively liberal
mind and universally beloved, he made a Christian-like end, October
the 20th, in the year of our Lord, 1598, in the 62nd year of his
age.”
The following is another:—
“Here lieth the remains of Etheldreda, the wife of Basil Brooke,
Knight, a woman not only well-skilled in the knowledge of the Latin,
Italian, French, and Spanish languages, and in the science of music,
but also exemplary for piety, faith, prudence, courage, chastity, and
gentle manners. She left to lament her loss a husband, with an only
son, named Thomas, and five daughters, namely—Anne, the wife of
William Fitzherbert, Esquire, the grandson of Henry, Lord Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, eminent for his commentary on our laws;
Mary, the wife of Thomas More, a descendant of that renowned
character, Thomas More, formerly Lord High Chancellor of England, a
man in his life and death universally esteemed; Dorothy, Agatha, and
Catherine, all of whom were of amiable dispositions. She died in the
year of our Lord —” (the date is defaced).
The original is in Latin. The pillared arches and backs of the recesses
are elaborately carved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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