My many virtues moral and divine,
My liberal hand, my loving heart to mine,
My piety, my pity, pains and care,
My neighbours, tenants, servants, yet declare.
My gentle bride Sir Ambrose Jermyn bred;
My years lack five of half my grandsire’s thread.
IV.
Here, with his father, sleeps Sir Lyonel,
Knight, Baronet, all honours worthy well;
So well the acts of truth, his life exprest
His elders’ virtues, and excell’d their best;
His prudent bearing in his public place,
Suffolk’s high sheriff twice, in sixteen years space.
His zeal to God, and towards ill, severity;
His temperance, his justice, his sincerity;
His native mildness towards great and small,
His faith, his love to friends, wife, children all,
In life and death; made him belov’d and dear,
To God and man, happy in Heaven and here.
Happy in soul and body, goods and name;
Happy in wedlock with a noble dame,
Lord Crumwell’s daughter; happy in his heir,
Whose spring of virtues sprouts so young and fair:
Whose dear affection, to his founders debtor;
Built them this tomb, but in his heart a better.
[38] Hengrave is called in Domesday Book “Hemegretha.” In several ancient deeds it is variously spelt Hemegreth, Hemegrede, Hemegrave, and Hengrave.
[39] This information we condense, chiefly from a costly volume in quarto, published by the late John Gage, Esq., F.S.A., entitled “The History and Antiquities of Hengrave.”
[40] His portrait, by Holbein, is among the family portraits at Hengrave. It is that of a fine portly citizen, with a stern, but intellectual, countenance. He was Sheriff of London in 1533 having been previously knighted. His mercantile transactions were principally carried on “at the cloth fairs or staples holden at Antwerp, Middleburg, and other places in Flanders, by the Merchant Adventurers, to which company he belonged.” His wealth must have been enormous, for he purchased estates in the counties of Suffolk, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, and Nottingham.
[41] It is said that Sir George Trenchard, Sir John Gage, and Sir William Hervey, each solicited at the same time the hand of the wealthy heiress; and that, to keep peace between the rivals, she threatened the first aggressor with her perpetual displeasure; “humorously telling them that, if they would wait, she would have them all in their turns—a promise which the lady actually performed.” Her first husband was Sir George Trenchard, her second Sir John Gage, and her third Sir William Hervey. She left issue only by her second husband.
[42] Several documents relative to “the raising of Hengrave” are still preserved. Among others, is the contract with John Eastowe, the mason, to “macke a house at Hengrave of all manor of mason’s worck,” &c. &c. “The said John must have for ye sayd worck, and finishing thereof, iic. li. (£200), to be paid, x li. when he begins the foundacyon thereof, and afterwards always as xx li. worth of worke is wrought by estymacion.” The plasterer’s contract is for £116 “of lawful money of Ingland.” Among other items are these—“For a lode of tymber, vi s.;” “The glasyar, for making of all the glass wyndowes of the manour place, with the solar, and for xiii skuttchens with armes, iiii li.” (four pounds.)