P. J. Mullin.
THE DE VERE MONUMENTS AT EARLS COLNE.
The following correspondence occurs in the Standard, Oct. 3:—
I.—Sir,—In the interests of archæology, and as a protest against the alienation of our Historic Monuments, I ask to be allowed to place before the public a statement in the hope that publicity may prove the means of causing to be restored to their proper resting-place in the Parish Church of Earls Colne, Essex, four effigies of that once all-powerful family—the De Veres, Earls of Oxford. I add a description of the monuments, taken from Murray’s Handbook of the Eastern Counties: “Three of the effigies are carved in alabaster and one in stone. They are supposed to commemorate Robert, the fifth Earl, who died in 1295; Thomas, the eighth earl, died 1371; Robert, the ninth earl, Marquess of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, died 1392; and his second wife, Lancerona Serjeaulx the joiner’s daughter (she wears the piked horn, or high head-dress, introduced by Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard the Second, to whom she had been Maid of Honour). This great Duke died at Louvain, and Richard the Second, by whom he had been banished, caused his body to be brought over, insisted that the coffin should be opened, so that he might once more see his favourite, and attended it himself in high procession to Earls Colne. John, the fourteenth earl, died 1426. At the dissolution of the Priory these effigies were removed to the Parish Church, where they remained undisturbed until a few years back, when for some reason (for which good cause should be shown) they were transferred to, and now help to decorate, the grounds of an adjacent landowner. Meetings of the Essex Archæological Society have been held in this parish. It would be interesting to learn whether any member was bold enough to enter a protest against this spoliation; it would be doubly so to know whether this transfer was done by power of a Faculty, the only legal mode of transfer.”
R. H. H.
2.—Sir,—With reference to a letter in the Standard of October 3, signed by R. H. H., I venture to think that the writer is not altogether correct in his facts, or, consequently, in his conclusions, concerning the effigies of the De Veres.
Twenty years ago I made measured drawings of these valuable memorials, and they were then adequately protected and properly cared for by the late Mr. Carwardine at Earls Colne Priory, a modern house occupying the site, or, at least, taking the place, of the ancient Priory. I believe I am right in saying that the Parish Church was not, and never has been, the resting-place of the De Vere Monuments, but that they originally stood in the Priory Church, where the De Veres were buried, and that they remained there after the Dissolution, and until they were removed for protection from the weather to the spot they now occupy by a former owner of the modern Priory. Had it not been for such timely care the Monuments would probably not have been in existence at all at the present day, for it is well known that, early in this century, the Church was not careful to extend any special protection to objects of this kind within or without its walls; they took their chance—usually a very rough one.
It is notorious, and a melancholy fact, that in our own day the recklessness and ignorance of church “restoration”—with its illegal, not to say wicked, destruction of monuments of all kinds—have not brought about much feeling of security with regard to those that remain within the walls of churches; and while it has been a question of protection rather than of “spoliation” at Earls Colne Priory, I for one am Philistine enough to be grateful to the Carwardine family for the respect they paid to the De Vere Monuments in their hour of need, and when we may assume the Church held out no helping hand.
It is no peculiar thing that monumental effigies should be in private hands—witness the examples in Furness Abbey, in the ruins of numerous Yorkshire abbeys, and elsewhere—and I would ask, Are there many instances of the care that has preserved for us, almost intact, effigies and “weepers” like those at Earls Colne?