Visits to Fields of Battle, in England, of the Fifteenth Century: to which are added, some miscellaneous tracts and papers upon archæological subjectsBrooke, Richard
History
Visits to Fields of Battle, in England, of the Fifteenth Century: to which are added, some miscellaneous tracts and papers upon archæological subjects
Brooke, Richard
Battlefields -- England; Great Britain -- History -- Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485
The tower of Saxton Church appears to have been rebuilt after the
Reformation, and, as is said, between two hundred and fifty and three
hundred years ago. Several representations of crosses have been cut upon
slabs or stones which are built into the tower, and which have evidently
been carved in memory of some of the slain, who were buried there; most
probably, some Yorkist knights or leaders. Several of the crosses have
been transposed and altered, when the tower was rebuilt; and parts of the
shafts and pedestals of two or three of those crosses are still visible,
and are now placed in different layers of the stone, or in the reverse
way to the heads of the crosses, and are imperfect, parts of them having
disappeared, and probably they have been cut and been removed. On the
south side of the tower there is one of these crosses perfect, or nearly
so, and also part of another; on the west side there is one perfect
cross; and on the north side, including an imperfect part of one on the
adjoining buttress of the tower, there are five imperfect parts of
crosses cut upon the stones; there probably are others which have since
been built inwards into the wall, and are, consequently, not visible.
They have been four or five feet long, and the two which are nearly
perfect, owe their preservation apparently to their having been cut on
stones of unusual size, and to their not extending, like some others,
upon more stones than one. The heads of those two crosses are handsome,
and a good deal ornamented. There is a sufficient resemblance amongst
the crosses, to show that they were probably all coeval in point of date;
but they are certainly not, as Dr. Whitaker supposed, all alike.
Sir John Neville, commonly called John Lord Neville, is said not to have
been buried there, but at the chapel of Lead, which is about half a mile
from Saxton, and in the parish of Ryther; but there is not any monument
to his memory.
At the period when Drake wrote (in 1736), Lord Dacre’s tomb was much
defaced, and the inscription was imperfect; he has, however, given it, as
follows:—
HIC JACET RANULPHUS DS. DE DAKEE ET —— MILES
ET OCCISUS ERAT IN BELLO PRINCIPE HENRICO VI° ANNO DOM.
MCCCCLXI. XXIX DIE MARTII VIDELICET DOMINICA DIE PAL-
MARUM. CUJUS ANIME PROPITIETUR DEUS. AMEN. {125a}
Dr. Whitaker, however, who had Drake’s work before him when he wrote,
gives the following, as the correct inscription, with the defects
supplied; and states that less than thirty years before the time when he
was writing, he retrieved much more of it, than would have been then
possible:—
HIC JACET RANULPHUS DOMINUS DE DACRE ET GREYSTOCKE VERUS MILES QUI
OBIIT IN BELLO PRO REGE SUO HENRICO SEXTO ANNO MCCCCLXI. VICESIMO
{125b}
DIE MENSIS MARCII VID’LT., DOMINICA PALMARUM CUJUS ANIME PROPICIETUR
DEUS. AMEN. {125c}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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