Against the wall above is a monument to the memory of Mary, Countess of Stafford, and of Henry, Earl of Stafford, her son, who died abroad in 1719, and was buried in this Chapel.
The next, representing a youth in Grecian armour sitting on a Greek altar, to the memory of Francis Holles, by John, Earl of Clare his afflicted father. This brave youth, after returning home from a campaign in Flanders, died August 12, 1622, aged eighteen. His epitaph is thus written:—
“What so thou hast of nature or of arts,
Youth, beauty, strength, or what excelling parts
Of mind and body, letters, arms, and worth,
His eighteen years beyond his years brought forth;
Then stand and read thyself within this glass,
How soon these perish, and thyself may pass:
Man’s life is measured by the work, not days;
Not aged sloth, but active youth, hath praise.”
—N. Stone, sculptor.
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.