Warwickshire: The Land of Shakespeare — John Shaqi
Warwickshire: The Land of ShakespeareHolland, Clive
History
Warwickshire: The Land of Shakespeare
Holland, Clive
Warwickshire (England) -- Description and travel
The great tomb of Richard Beauchamp, which represents such an
excellent example of the art of the period, is constructed of grey
Purbeck marble, with its sides divided in five compartments; each of
the latter holding a large canopied niche, referred to in the contract
as a “principall housing.” There is a similar niche above, and these
divisions are flanked by sunk panel–work, the decorative part of
which is beautifully carved. Underneath each of the principal niches
is a carved quatrefoil within a square, bearing a shield charged
with armorial bearings enamelled on copper. The principal niches,
numbering fourteen, contain a like number of images, called “weepers
and mourners”; these are made of latten, a variety of brass, and
are gilded. Of these figures seven are males and seven females, and
they represent persons of rank who were connected either by blood or
marriage to Earl Richard.
[Illustration: GUY’S CLIFFE MILL.]
The small niches, which number eighteen, contain images or angels cast
in the same metal, which was generally used for sepulchral brasses and
metal ornaments of tombs, and these also are richly gilt. They bear
scrolls in their hands on which are engraved the following words, “Sit
Deo Laus et Gloria, Defunctis Misericordia.” The metal–work of this
magnificent tomb was carried out by one William Austen, citizen and
brass–founder of London, who agreed to “cast and make an image of a
man armed, of fine latten, garnished with certain ornaments, to wit
with sword and dagger, with a garter, with a helme and crest under his
head, and at his feet a bear musled, and a griffon perfectly made of
the finest latten, according to pattern and layde on the tombe.” He
also agreed to supply and erect a “hearse.” This hearse was an open
metal canopy of bars and hoops, shaped very much like the rest used
in hospitals to prevent the weight of the bedclothes troubling the
patient, over which a pall was thrown, and that on the Earl’s tomb is
one of the very few now remaining intact.
This beautiful memorial is fortunately almost as perfect as the day on
which it was erected, more than four hundred years ago. On the moulded
verge of the tomb runs a long English inscription in raised black
letter characters, with the bear and ragged staff intermixed, setting
forth how the deceased had been buried, when and where he had died, and
his titles and accomplishments, and relating how his “bodye with great
deliberacon and ful worshipful conduit bi see and by lond was broght to
Warrewik the iiii day of October the yer aboueseid, and was leide with
ful solenne exequies in a feir cheste made of stone in this Chirche
afore the west dore of this Chapel according to his last will and
Testament, therin to reste til this Chapel by him devised i’ his lief
were made.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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