Fig. 106. Elbow-piece and Bourchier knot, from the brass of Sir Humphrey Bourchier (ob. 1471) in Westminster abbey church.
Fig. 107. Alabaster tomb and effigy of Edward Stafford earl of Wiltshire (ob. 1498) in Lowick church, Northamptonshire.
Mention has been made above of the rebus. This was invariably a badge or device forming a pun upon a man's surname, and at one time was exceedingly popular. It no doubt originated in the canting or allusive heraldry of earlier days, like the boars' heads of the Swynburnes, the trumpets of the Trumpingtons, the hammers (Fr. martel) of the Martels, or the scallop shells of the Scales. The ox crossing a ford in the arms of Oxford, and the Cam and its great bridge in the arms of Cambridge are also kindred examples. A large number of rebuses on names ending in 'ton' are based upon a tun or barrel, like the lup on a ton of Robert Lupton provost of Eton 1503-4, or the large church (kirk) and ton of abbot Kirkton on the deanery gate at Peterborough (fig. [108]), or the beacon rising from a ton of bishop Thomas Beckington at Wells (fig. [109]). The gold wells of bishop Goldwell and the harts lying in water of bishop Walter Lyhart in their cathedral church at Norwich are well known, as are probably the eye and the slip of a tree which form, together with a man falling from a tree (I slip!), the rebuses of abbot Islip at Westminster (fig. [110]). An ox, the letter N, and a bridge make the rebus of canon John Oxenbridge in his chantry chapel at Windsor, while an eagle and an ox with ne on his side gives the name of prior John Oxney at Christchurch, Canterbury. Two large hares with a spring or well rising between them crouch at the feet of bishop Harewell's effigy at Wells; and dean Gunthorpe's oriel window in the deanery there is decorated with guns (fig. [111]). Sir John Pechey's arms (azure a lion ermine with a forked tail and a gold crown), in a window in Lullingstone church, Kent, are encircled by a wreath of peach-branches, with peaches charged with the letter e for the final syllable of his name (fig. [112]).
