Maritus. When changeless Fate to death did change my life I prayd it to bee gentle to my wife.
Vxor. But shee who hart and hand to thee did wedd Desired nothing more then this thie bedd.
Fatvm. I brought ye soules that linckt were each in either To rest above ye Bodies here togeither.
BENCH-END, SAMPFORD BRETT; SUPPOSED TO ALLUDE TO THE LEGEND OF LADY FLORENCE WYNDHAM.
It was in 1563, the year following her marriage with John Wyndham, that Florence Wyndham, in the words of Collinson, the historian of Somerset, “having in a sickness lost all appearance of life, was placed in her coffin and mourned as one dead.” Fortunately, as the sexton was about to close the family vault, he imagined he heard a noise proceeding from the coffin. Another man might have fled in terror, but there are few superstitious fears left to sextons who have been long at their work, and this one approached and listened more carefully. The noise proceeded from the coffin and was that made by the supposedly dead woman, who had awakened from what had been merely a trance, and was trying to get out. Another, and a more scandalous, version tells us that it was the act of the sexton, repairing secretly to the vault for the purpose of stealing her rings, and cutting her finger, that restored her to consciousness. The story is a familiar one in many localities, but as told here, of Florence Wyndham, is more circumstantial than others. Happily rescued from this dreadful situation, she soon afterwards became the mother of Sir John Wyndham, and lived happily for another thirty-three years. The old manor-house of Kentsford, now a farmhouse, still stands, three fields away from the church of St. Decuman. Some versions of the story declare that Florence Wyndham was the mother of twins shortly after the narrow escape narrated above, and the countryfolk point to one of the Wyndham monuments on which, amid flaming urns, are two conventional marble cupids in tears, as proof of the story, but the monument in question is at least a hundred years later in date than that lady. Three miles away in the little church of Sampford Brett, formerly on the Wyndham lands, among the sixteenth-century carved bench-ends, is an exceptionally notable example, both for its large size and unusual design, which represents a woman surrounded by conventionalised Renaissance fruit and flowers: two little cupid-like figures blowing trumpets below. This is generally thought to be an allusion to this singular incident in the family history, and the merely decorative cupids are pointed out as the twins. It should be remarked that the lady’s brain development, as shown on the carving, appears to be singularly poor.
The Wyndhams were ever loyal folk, as their monuments in St. Decuman’s church clearly show, and that they did not always gain by their allegiance is shown by the querulous epitaph upon one of them, Sir Hugh, of whom it is written:
Here lies beneath this rugged stone
One more his prince’s than his own,
And in his martyred father’s wars