Christopher Martyn’s brass is engraved on a rectangular plate. The lower half is occupied by the inscription; above it kneels the figure in conventional armour, with a tabard bearing arms over. A scroll comes from the mouth, bearing, in abbreviated form, the prayer, “Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis, et omnes iniquitates meas dele.” Two shields, one low on the right side of the figure, another high above the left shoulder, bear the well-known Martyn arms; and above the former, the All Father sits on a throne, with two fingers of the right hand raised in blessing, and the left hand holds between the knees a Tau-shaped cross, on which the Son is nailed. There is, however, no dove, so that it cannot be regarded as a complete representation of the Trinity. At Bere Regis there is a matrix of an enthroned figure of almost identical outline.
The memorial to Nicholas Martyn and his wife belongs to the other type of brass. In the centre, indeed, are two rectangular plates, one bearing the heraldic shield (Martyn impaling Wadham), the other the inscription; but the other plates are cut round the figures, and have little background. On the right or dexter side, the husband, clad in armour, but not wearing a helmet, kneels, with hands clasped in prayer, before an altar covered with a fringed cloth, on which lies an open book; behind him kneel his three sons, wearing cloaks, with ruffs around their necks. On the left-hand side, Margaret, his wife, kneels before a similar altar and book; behind her are her seven daughters, all engaged in prayer. They all wear Elizabethan costume—hoods, large ruffs, long bodied peaked stomachers and skirts, extended by farthingales of whalebone.
Thorncombe.—The brasses to Sir Thomas and Lady Brooke, of Holditch and Weycroft, are two of the most distinguished to be found of the fourteenth century. He was sheriff of Somerset, 1389, and of Devon, 1394, and is shown clad in a long gown with deep dependent sleeves, guarded with fur around the skirt, and pulled in at the waist by a belt studded with roses; within the gown a second garment appears, with four rows of fur around the skirt. His hair is short, and his feet rest on a greyhound couchant, collared. Lady Brooke wears a long robe, fastened across the breast by a cordon with tassels, over a plain gown; her hair is dressed in semi-mitre shape, and confined by a richly jewelled net, over which is placed the cover-chief, edged with embroidery and dependent to the shoulders. At her feet is a little dog, collared and belled. Sir Thomas and his wife each wear the collar of SS.; their arms are in tightly-fitting sleeves, and the hands are raised in prayer. The inscription around the effigies has been restored, and plain shields inserted in place of originals, which would have shown Gules on a chevron argent a lion rampant sable; Brooke with, among others, Cheddar, Mayor of Bristol, 1360-1, and Hanham.
Wimborne Minster.—The Ethelred effigy here is only half length. The king is represented, in part, in priestly vestments. (“As kings by their coronation are admitted into a sacred as well as a civil character, the former of these is particularly manifested in the investiture with clerical garments.”) Though the brass commemorates a king of the West Saxons, it dates only from 1440. The inscription is on a copper plate, and the king’s death is said thereon to have occurred in 873, two years too late. A brass plate on which the date is correctly given is preserved in the Minster Library. It is supposed that the figure and the plate bearing the inscription were removed from the matrix and hidden for safety in the time of the Civil Wars, and that the plate could not be found when the figure was replaced, so that the copper one now on the slab was engraved to take the place of the one lost, which, however, was afterwards found, but not laid on the stone. It is a noteworthy fact that the effigy is fastened to the stone with nails of copper, not of brass; doubtless these are contemporary with the copper plate which bears the inscription. The Ethelred brass is the only brass commemorating a king that is to be found in England, and is so illustrated in Haines’ Manual, p. 74.
Wraxall.—Elizabeth Lawrence, wife of Mr. William Lawrence, 1672. A six-line verse and an impaled coat of arms.
Yetminster.—This brass, one of the finest in Dorset, was at one time loose at East Chelborough Rectory, but it has now been fixed to a slab on the south wall of the church. It was originally laid on a large stone in the floor of the chancel. John Horsey is represented in full and very richly ornamented armour; his wife is in a graceful gown and mantle, with dependent pomander, and fine head-dress.
SHERBORNE
By W. B. Wildman, M.A.
HERBORNE, as far as we can tell, owes its existence as a town to the fact that it was chosen in 705 to be the site where the bishop-stool was fixed of St. Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Western or Newer Wessex. Sherborne, like its daughter-towns Wells and Salisbury, is a Bishop’s town; but, unlike them, it was also, from 998 to 1539, the seat of a Benedictine Monastery. Thus Sherborne has suffered two distinct shocks in its career; the first came upon it when it lost its bishop in 1075; the second, when its Abbey was dissolved in 1539.