In preferring in Marriage such Maids born in this Parish as have lived and behaved themselves well for seven Years in any one Service, and whose friends are not able to do it.
To dispose of the surplus to such Poor as by Sickness, Age, a great Family of Children, or otherwise, shall be in Danger of coming under the common relief of this Parish.
The "danger of coming under the common relief" of the parish was evidently felt to be real—a strange dislike forerunning the hatred which the modern English villager feels for "the House." When Louise Michel, the leader of the pétroleuses of the French Revolution, was shown over one of the great London Unions not long before her death, she was filled with wonder and admiration. "If we had had that in France," she said, "we should have had no revolution." The Englishman leaves legacies to enable poor parishioners to escape from the danger.
Slyfields Manor, picturesque though it is, is still only a remnant. Only one side of what was once a quadrangular building remains, but the solid symmetry of its red-brick walls and ivied gables, and the hugeness of its ornate and lichened barns and granaries, make it as imposing as any farmhouse well could be. Curiously enough, like the older Crowhurst Place, the other side of the county, a farmhouse it still remains.
The Slyfields and the Shiers lie in Great Bookham church. Another church stands not half a mile away from the house, in a smooth and green garden on the banks of the Mole. Stoke D'Abernon church contains one of the great possessions of Surrey—the oldest brass in England—a monument which, besides being the oldest of its kind, is the very knightliest memorial an English gentleman could have. A plain slab of brass, on which has been elaborately engraved the figure of a soldier in full chain mail, with his six-foot lance and its fringed pennon, his long prick-spurs, and his great two-handed sword, it has lain in an English church for nearly six centuries and a-half. The Lombardic lettering which runs round the brass is half illegible, but the form of the old inscription, perfect in its simple dignity, is clear enough:—
SIRE : IOHAN : DAUBERNOUN : CHIVALER : GIST : ICY : DEV : DE : SA : ALME : EYT : MERCY.
By Sir John D'Abernon's brass lies that of his son, and between the dates of the two brasses are fifty years—1277 and 1327. The D'Abernons were a knightly family, but they never provided an English king with a great soldier, or a great politician, or with anything much more than the quiet services of a country gentleman. The founder of the family in England was Roger de Abernun, who in Domesday Book is a tenant of Richard de Bienfaite, son of Gilbert Count of Brionne. The first Sir John D'Abernon, whose brass lies in Stoke D'Abernon church, was the most distinguished of the family. Like Edmond Slyfield, he was Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex.
Edmond Slyfield, dead three hundred years before our day (we can see his brass in Great Bookham church), perhaps often stared at the brass of Sir John D'Abernon, dead three hundred years before him. Perhaps, little guessing that within thirty years the Slyfield manors would belong to a stranger, and the Slyfield name be half forgotten, he reflected comfortably on the misfortunes of his predecessor in office. For Sir John was a most unlucky Sheriff, and lost a large sum partly by robbery and partly in the law courts. The story of his loss is a strange medley. One William Hod, of Normandy, in the year 1265 shipped to Portsmouth ten hogsheads of woad. Robbers seized the woad at Portsmouth and carried it off to Guildford; Hod, pursuing, recaptured his hogsheads and lodged them in Guildford Castle. Immediately appeared Nicholas Picard and others from Normandy, demanding the woad in the name of Stephen Buckarel and others. If the woad was not given up, they threatened to destroy the whole of Guildford by fire the next morning. The under-sheriff, whose family lived in the neighbourhood, at once gave up the woad, whereupon Hod instituted proceedings against Sir John D'Abernon the Sheriff, and won his case. Sir John had to pay as damages six score marks—about equivalent to £900 of our money.
Stoke D'Abernon church holds a number of other interesting monuments and brasses; indeed, for its size, it is fuller of valuable work and memorials than any other Surrey church. One of them, placed to the memory of "Sir Richard the Little, formerly parson of this church," has a haunting note of personal loss. It is a pleasure to puzzle out the old Norman-French:—
SIRE RICHARD LE PETIT IADIS PERSONE DE CEST EIGLISE ICI GIST RECEYVE LA ALME IESU CHRIST.