[Illustration: THE ANCIENT CHAIR AND THE "SHARP-POINTED STONES."] THE ANCIENT CHAIR AND THE "SHARP-POINTED STONES."--Both are in the Priory Church, the former within the altar rails, the latter just outside. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: THE EFFIGIES IN THE PRIORY CHURCH.] THE EFFIGIES IN THE PRIORY CHURCH.--Traditionally regarded as representing the founder of the Flitch custom and his wife, and the "Fair Matilda" poisoned by King John. There is no doubt that the knight is one of the Fitzwalters, and that the female figure lying by itself represents a member of the same house. An interment in 1627 recorded in the Register of the Church is described as "next to the tomb of Matilda." --------------------------------------------------------------------- Then the King of France (Newcourt goes on) also began to waste his (King John's) dominions, but a day of reconciliation being appointed between the two Kings, King John passed over into France, and the two Armies were parted by an arm of the sea. Then an English knight went out and challenged any to break a spear for his mistress's sake. Robert Fitzwalter came over, and, encountering with his great Lance, overthrew both the Knight and the Horse, and so returned to the King of France. Then said King John, by God's Troth, he were a King indeed who had such a Knight in his Retinue. His friends, hearing this, knelt before the King and said, Sir, he is your Own Knight, and ready at your command, Robert Fitzwalter. The next day he restored to him his Barony with all appurtenances, and the two Kings were reconciled by the interposition of Robert, and all the banished persons were recalled, with leave to rebuild their castles. "The death of Robin Hood with the lamentable Tragedie of Chaste Matilda, his faire Maid Marian poisoned at Dunmowe by King John," printed in 1601, is one of two plays on the subject, and is reprinted by Hazlitt. Michael Drayton wrote poetical accounts of the story, and in 1639 Robert Davenport produced a third play, "King John and Matilda." CHAPTER VI The Jury of Spinsters The last Prior of Dunmow was Geoffry Shether.* After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the duty of giving the Bacon seems to have passed to the Lords of the Manor of Little Dunmow. They held their Courts--as they have been held within living memory--at Priory Place, formerly a farmhouse and now four cottages. In a parchment book belonging to a former Lord of the Manor, the Rev. James Hughes-Hallett, and now in the possession of Mr. de Vins Wade of Great Dunmow, the present Lord of the Manor, there is an account of the Bacon ceremonies which was written in 1737. * See Appendix.