n the left, as you enter this Chapel, is a monument erected for Lady Cecil, a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth, and daughter of Lord Cobham, who having married Sir Robert Cecil, son of William Lord Burleigh, Treasurer of England, died in childbed two years after, viz. in 1591.
Next is a monument on which a long inscription in English is fairly written, setting forth the descent and marriage of Lady Jane Clifford, youngest daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and wife of Charles, Lord Clifford and Dungarvon, who died Nov. 23, 1679, aged forty-two.
On a small tablet is this inscription, with the motto—“Esperance de Dieu. Isabella Susannah, wife of Algernon Percy, Earl of Beverley, died Jan. 24, 1812, aged sixty-one.”
On a gravestone in front of this monument, engraved on brass, is the figure of Sir Humphrey Stanley, knighted by Henry VII., for his gallant behaviour under his cousin, Lord Stanley, at the battle of Bosworth Field. He died March 22, 1505.
Near this is the monument of Ann, Duchess of Somerset, wife of Edward, Duke of Somerset, brother of Henry VIII.’s third wife, Queen Jane Seymour, and uncle to Edward VI., and sometime Regent during his minority, but afterwards disgraced; accused of treasonable and felonious practices against the King and Council, tried by his Peers, acquitted of treason, but condemned of felony in levying armed men contrary to law, for which crime he was sentenced to be hanged; but, in respect to his quality, was beheaded on Tower Hill, Jan. 22, 1551. She died April 16, 1587, at Hanworth, aged ninety.
On the right, Sir George and Lady Elizabeth Fane, who are represented kneeling on each side a desk. She was the daughter of Robert, Baron Spencer, of Wormleighton, and wife of Sir George Fane, of Buston, in Kent, remarkable, says her inscription, for her ancient descent, but more for her own virtues. She died in 1618, aged twenty-eight.
Beneath this is an ancient monument placed over Nicholas, Baron Carew, and the Lady Margaret, his wife, daughter of Lord John Dinham, and, it is thought, mother of Sir Nicholas Carew, beheaded in Henry VIII.’s time, for holding a correspondence with Cardinal de la Pole. He died December 6, 1470, she December 13, the same year.
In the front of this is a pyramid erected to the memory of Nicholas Bagenall, a child of two months old, overlaid by his nurse, the 7th of March, 1688.
Next to this is one of the most magnificent monuments in the Abbey, erected by the great Lord Burleigh to the memory of Mildred, his wife, and their daughter Lady Ann, Countess of Oxford. On this tomb is a Latin inscription, explaining the figures, and setting forth their respective virtues and accomplishments, particularly those of Lady Burleigh, who, says the inscription, “was well versed in the sacred writers, and those chiefly of the Greeks, as Basil the Great, Chrysostom, Gregory, Nazianzen, &c.” She gave a scholarship to St. John’s College, in Oxford, legacies to the poor of Romford, where she was born, and to those of Cheshunt, where she lived, and left money at both places to be distributed every year to poor tradesmen. She died, after being forty years married, April 4, 1589, aged sixty-three. Her daughter Ann married, at fifteen, Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, and died June 5, 1588, seventeen years after, leaving three daughters.
Next to this is a monument to the memory of William de Dudley, alias Sutton, son of John, Lord Dudley; he was Archdeacon of Middlesex, Dean of Windsor, and, in 1476, Lord Bishop of Durham. On the tomb was inlaid a brass figure, in episcopal vestments. He died in 1483.