Before we close our account of the Bonville and Grey memorials, we propose to include—from its uniqueness of example—another remembrance to a presumed second-cousin of the Lady Cicely, that we discovered among the fine series of bench-ends in a visit to the little church of Barwick, near Yeovil, on our way back from Limington. It is one of a pair in the chancel, almost alike, the only difference being—and here note the evident purpose conveyed in all mediæval symbolism—that one shield, the earliest in the succession is suspended by a guige from a hawthorn tree in blossom, and the later one from a hawthorn tree in fruit. The arms on the first are, dexter, quarterly of four:—1 and 4. On a chief a fleur-de-lys, in base a mullet pierced (Rogers).—2 and 3. Fretty, and a chief (Echyngham); impaling,—In chief quarterly, 1 and 4, six roundels, 2 and 3, three camels; in base, guttée (——?). On the second bench-end are Rogers and Echyngham, quarterly as before, impaling Courtenay and De Redvers quarterly.
BENCH-ENDS. BARWICK CHURCH, SOMERSET.
[View larger image]
"The family of Roger or Rogers," says Mr. Batten, "whose chief seat was at Bryanstone, Dorset, held Barwick for six generations, extending to the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth." John Rogers married Anne, daughter of Thomas de Echyngham, Lord of Echyngham in Sussex. His grandson Sir John, married presumably—for singularly her name does not as yet appear to be identified in the pedigree—Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, who died in 1512, by his wife Cicely, daughter of Sir John Cheney of Pinhoe.
Sir William Courtenay's mother was Margaret Bonville, daughter of Lord William Bonville, and so great-aunt to Cicely Bonville, and Elizabeth Rogers of the Barwick panel, was her second cousin.
They were buried at Bryanstone, and on the floor of the chancel of that church, without the rails, says Hutchins, "on the gravestone are the brass effigies of a man and a woman kneeling and their hands elevated. Over are the arms of Rogers and Echyngham quarterly, and under the woman, Rogers impaling Courtenay, and this inscription:—
Of your charitie pray for the soules of John Rogers esquyer and Elizabeth his wyfe which John decessed the day of in the ye'r mdc and Elizabeth decessed the first day of October in the ye'r of our Lord m dc xviii on whose soules J'hu have m'cy
on other bench-ends at Barwick are the initials W. H. and date 1533, probably for William Hooper, patron of the benefice at that time. The date of the Limington bench-ends is almost contemporary."
A round-about digression, you will say, gentle reader, but how interesting is it, thus in our little pilgrimage, to connect the relationship of these old sculptures, and make their personal history live again; verily, if there be any charm belonging to these researches into the past, herein it is found.
Of the early inheritances of the Bonvilles, Wiscombe, and Shute, on the attainder of the Duke of Suffolk both fell to the Crown, and Queen Mary granted them to her Secretary, Sir William Petre.