Location York

If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps.-Much Ado About Nothing. Shakespeare.

THE Tudor and early seventeenth century monuments, which follow those of the Gothic period, show a complete change in style ; there seems to be no connecting link. They belong to another age, and are of a totally different design with a new symbolism. The Cross disappears; the Saints of the Catholic Church are discarded, and replaced by symbols derived from classical sources. The urn with a lid represents death; the urn with flames-immortality. The Death's head is often introduced; cherubs' heads and the pyramid as symbols of immortality and eternity respectively; flowers and fruit have been from classical days emblems of the after life-these are more prevalent in the earlier than in the later memorials.

The Renaissance memorials erected in the first half of the seventeenth century are mostly in alabaster and are coloured. The style came to us from Northern
Protestant Europe, and not direct from Italy. The greater number are in the Minster,
where they form an interesting group, distinct from anything preceding or succeeding them. Many of the figures are portrayed kneeling, and show the full or side face, not looking heavenwards, like the recumbent statues of the Gothic period. Some have elaborate backgrounds, with Renaissance as distinct from Gothic ornament; the Archbishops wear a cap, not a mitre.

The nineteenth-century writers are very scornful. Britton, writing in 1812, says: " It will be here sufficient to say that these tombs, notwithstanding the labour and expense profusely lavished in erecting them, display examples of every fault which should be avoided in monumental sculpture and architecture." Glutton Brock considers "they are remarkable only for ugliness." They are not always placed with due regard to the Gothic decoration of the walls against which they are built so as to form part of the design like those that preceded them. In any case, they will offend the Gothic-minded, but the present-day taste and its reaction against the more florid Gothic will find considerable satisfaction in these Renaissance memorials. The figures of the men and women of this period with their ruffs and the formal rows of children underneath the main statues are delightful.

The large monuments are decorated with an elaborate cartouche, containing the arms of the person for whom it was erected; they are mostly of alabaster and painted.

The Minster contains nine monuments decorated with figures, and two without
them, that fall within the years 1588-1664. There are three others in the Parish Churches, and three in the adjacent village of Nether Poppleton. With the exception of the Anne Bennett and Belassis monuments, Mrs. Esdaile thinks they are all the work of York sculptors.

The earliest is the small mural tablet to Archbishop Piers (left), without any figures; he died in 1588. The epitaph is an interesting one-" He was so hospitable," it reads, " that his expenses were always equal to his revenues and sometimes exceeded them." "John Bennett, his heir, has erected this monument for a memorial of his piety and gratitude, not of his inheritance." The note of disappointment in the last sentence has some force, coming from Sir John Bennett, as he afterwards became, for he seems to have been an avaricious man, and was convicted in the Star Chamber for misappropriating money intended for pious uses, was imprisoned and heavily fined.

Drake gives his epitaph, and in a note says that most of it is the same as that on his predecessor, Archbishop Sandys, but, " being put up in different churches, the writer did not imagine they would ever come together." 

A very similar tablet is that to Lionel Ingram (Right), the date of whose death is not recorded. " He died in tender age "; he was a son of Sir Arthur Ingram, who built Temple Newsam. The pathetic epitaph reads:

" On account of the extraordinary endowments both of mind and body was the hope and joy of his father, the care, the employment, the delight and principal satisfaction of his mother. Such was his demeanour before he arrived at six years of age that he seemed to have been educated in a court. After his second year he was sometimes seen to weep, scarce ever heard to cry . . . Having shone upon the world like a propitious star for about six years and three months, he withdrew himself and calmly went to rest in the Lord."

One of the most charming of these memorials is the bust of Anne Bennett, wife of John Bennett, who erected the tablet to Archbishop Piers; her bust is shown under a canopy flanked by winged female figures with bird feet, taken from the Syrens of Roman art, one of whose duties was the escort of souls to Heaven. The whole is supported by a little naked boy and two more of the bird women. A mural tablet in alabaster and black marble, it is the work of Nicholas Stone, 1586-1647, mason and statuary, who is stated by Vertue to have been the son of a " quarry man." He was trained by Henrik de Keyser, master mason and sculptor to the City of Amsterdam, and married his daughter, but returned to England in 1613, and commenced practice in London in Long Acre. In 1619, he was appointed master mason in charge of the erection of the New Banqueting House, Whitehall, under Inigo Jones, and executed a large number of monuments and commissions for alterations to Royal and other buildings under James I and Charles I. This is the earliest work of Stone still complete, and perhaps the most attractive he ever did; in 1615 he received £35 for it.

The Walpole Society has published his Note and Account books which, fortunately, have survived, and give a full account of his work and the different prices obtained for it.

The small tablet to William Palmer (Left), who died in 1605, with its cornice carrying the coat of arms decorated with the Pyramids, is a simple form of the more elaborate tablet to Sir William Ingram.

One of the finest of these monuments is an elaborate one to Archbishop Hutton (right), who died in 1605; he is reclining on his elbow in a very stiff position, and his three children, each with a ruff, are portrayed kneeling in an attitude of prayer underneath. Whilst the children are attractive, it must be admitted that there is not much grace about the Archbishop, but the memorial is redeemed by the decoration on the arches over the children. The combination of alabaster and coloured marble is pleasing. The design and decoration of the upper part of the monument surrounding the recumbent Archbishop is very similar to that of Archbishop Piers, and suggests the work of the same sculptor. The epitaph reads:

" You see here, reader, the effigy of his body; would you see also the image of his mind, think of Ambrose or of Augustine, for he possessed the genius and acuteness of the one, the accuracy and judgment of the other." 

The children, who are so like their father, are evidently good likenesses. There is a monument to the elder in Richmond Church and one to the younger in Poppleton Church near York, whilst the daughter, who was the first wife of Sir William Gee, is shown on his monument adjacent to that of the Archbishop.

Sir William Gee, secretary to James I, d. 1611 (left) ; unlike the Archbishop, he is represented with his wives as well as his " fair and hopeful progeny." The design is in alabaster and coloured marble, but not so elaborate as that of the Archbishop; the formal attitude of prayer of the knight and his wives is more attractive than the full-length effigy of the Prelate. Who could resist reading the courteous invitation on the epitaph which begins " Stay gentle passenger and read a sentence sent thee from the dead " ?

The memorial was erected by his second wife, Mary Gee, whose long Latin inscription tells us that:

" While they lived together, she was the companion of his enjoyment. After some years of widowhood she erected this ineffectual monument of tender affection and conjugal fidelity, desirous to perpetuate as long as possible what she wishes might endure for ever."
" And why this tomb! since from my sorrowing heart His dear remembrance never shall depart, Yet here, ev'n here his actions let me tell, And on his praise with mournful fondness dwell, I ask no more, then shall this marble prove Sacred at once to virtue and to love."

The figures of the memorials to officials of the Council of the North, like Sir William Gee, wear legal robes, not armour as do Sir Henry Belassis or Timothy Hutton. one of the kneeling figures at the base of his father's monument. 

The citizens of York have good cause to remember Sir Robert Watter (right), left them the beautiful gold chain worn by the Lord Mayor; he died in 1612. His monument was originally in St. Crux, but was erected in the Parish Room when the Church was pulled down ; it is in freestone, and, unfortunately, shows grave signs of decay. It represents the worthy knight, his spouse and their three children, two of whom died in infancy. The design surrounding the inscription has suffered from decay, but the figures of Father Time with the scythe, and Mercy with the civic mace, can still be made out-with the labels-Time, Justice, Mercy, and Fame. It is the most important of the monuments to civic dignitaries, but much inferior to the contemporary ones in the Minster. The inscription reads: 

" Here lye ye true portraiture of Robert Watter, Knight, Alderman, twice Lord Mayor of this Cittie, a father to the poor and a friend to ye common alike of this cittie, a good benefactor to their churches, who died May I2th, 1612, and of his wife Margaret, who died March 30th, 1608."

Of the larger tombs in the Minster of this period, the finest one is that to Sir Henry and Lady Belassis (left). The inscription tells us that Sir Henry, " mindful of mortality, erected this monument for himself and his beloved comfort, Ursula, eldest daughter of Thomas Fairfax of Denton." " Death is certain, the day of it uncertain, there is no dependence on the care of those that follow us, he is wise that prepares himself a tomb." For this he employed Nicholas Stone, the same sculptor who carved Anne Bennett; the entry on his diary states: 

" In February 1615, I took a tombe and chimney peces of Sir Henry
Bellasis, to be set up in York for the which I had well payed £150." He did not die until 1630, and his " chimney peces " have long disappeared. There is little decoration on this monument, save the charming figure of the little boy blowing bubbles, emblematic of the transitory nature of life. The young man at the base of the monument was created Lord Fauconberg, whose son married Oliver Cromwell's daughter.

In 1631 Nicholas Stone carved the table tomb of the Countess of Cumberland in black marble, with the arms and inscription inset in white marble-this is in Londesborough, Yorkshire. Drake gives a drawing of a similar one in the Minster to Frances Cecil Countess of Cumberland, who died in 1643. The heavy bulbous supports have since then been taken away, and the marble ledger laid upon the floor in the Lady Chapel (Right); this, too, is obviously the work of Nicholas Stone, but, as the account book goes no further than 1642, it is not recorded. The little figure of Nicholas Wanton, d. 1617 (Below Right), " in the posture of praying," has two heads at the base of the tablet similar to those below that of Sir William Ingram, which it resembles in other ways. His name was no indication of his character, according to his epitaph, which reads:

" Such was the soundness of his mind (and such his application to the study of virtues), that he passed his life in contemplation (superior to the temptation of the world) and exempt from the cares of wedlock that by this means, having spent his days in comfort he might finish them in peace."

The wooden tablet above Nicholas, one of two in the Minster, is to his brother William Wanton, who died in 1577.

Dr. Swinburne, d. 1624 (left), was a famous ecclesiastical lawyer, and is represented in his legal robes; his epitaph reads:

" The widow wanted not a husband, nor the orphan a father while Swinburne, the husband and father of his country, lived."

The design of this monument is so similar to that of Sir Thomas Hutton, d. 1620 (below right), in Nether Poppleton Church, and Dorothea Hughes (below left) in St. Dennis, that they are obviously by the same sculptor; the spandrels all have the same dove with the vine or olive foliage. The emblems of death and the grave on the pilaster in the Hutton monument are replaced by two figures in that of Dr. Swinburne, and by Faith, Hope, and Charity beside Dorothea Hughes.

The figure of Charity over the arch in Dr. Swinburne's monument is replaced by a heraldic shield over Dorothea; the one over Sir Thomas Hutton has gone, as also the two that probably were over the pediment. It is interesting to see, in the figure of Sir Thomas Hutton, the younger of the two kneeling boys below the reclining figure of the Archbishop. The design is repeated in a simpler form in the small alabaster mural tablet to Annabella Wickham, d. 1625 (below left), in the North Aisle Choir:

" Upon whom indulgent nature had bestowed every internal and external ornament. The sweetest temper, the softest manners, the most exquisite beauty." 

The figures on the monument to Sir William Ingram, d. 1625 (below right), are superior to those on that of Dr. Swinburne; it is surmounted with two pyramids, symbolical of eternity, and a swag of drapery hangs well above the heads of the shrewd old knight and his lady.

There is a similarity in the design of the Ingram and Wanton memorials to that of Archbishop Monteign, d. 1629, at Cawood; in all three the figures are facing the spectator. The memorials to the Archbishop and Sir William Ingram are crowned with the pyramid and have little heads supporting the monument; they share these features with the very delightful wall monument of Mrs. Matthews, d. 1628 (2nd below right), in the Lady Chapel:

" A bishop was her father, an archbishop her father-in-law, she had four bishops her brethren, and an archbishop her husband "
-a truly episcopalian lady. 

This is the most charming of these early seventeenth-century monuments, though it may be objected that drawn curtains should not be represented in stone. It is very far removed from those beautiful pieces of sculpture of the ancient world- the mourning figures erected on the road from Athens to Eleusis. But it represents the art of another age and another faith, and is worthy, as the epitaph says, of

" A woman of exemplary wisdom, gravity, piety, bounty, and indeed in other virtues not only above her sex, but the times."

The donor of over 3,000 books to the Minster Library, the epitaph goes on to say she was:
'
" A rare example that so great care to advance learning should lodge in a
woman's breast."

In the Lady Chapel there is the recumbent figure of Archbishop Matthews (right), who died in 1629; a drawing in Drake shows the complete monument before its destruction in the Minster fire. It is fortunate that the figure of the Archbishop has been preserved, but the tomb upon which he rests has no resemblance to the one destroyed in the fire. This figure has recently been painted; it has brought the Archbishop back to life in a remarkable degree. 

The wall tablet to Lady Elizabeth Sheffield, d. 1633 (below right), in St. Martin's, Coney Street, has, unfortunately, been damaged in the 1942 raid; it has two finely carved busts of Lady Elizabeth and Sir William Sheffield, with the figures of Charity and Mercy, and is the finest of the monuments of this period in the York Parish Churches.
The two boys on Archbishop Button's monument were each provided with an estate by their father.

The eldest, Sir Timothy Hutton, d. 1629, lived at Marske, near Richmond. His monument-erected in St. Mary's, Richmond (below left)-is not unlike that to the Sheffields in St. Martin's. He was charged by his father-the Archbishop-" Always to keep a Levite in his house." 

The Archbishop's second son, Sir Thomas Hutton, d. 1620, was given an estate at Poppleton, near York; the church at Nether Poppleton contains his monument (see above) and also that of his wife and son.

Sir Thomas's niemorial is in alabaster, but, unfortunately, has been covered with whitewash. His wife, Dame Anne Hutton, lived until 1651 (below right); she was the daughter of Anne Bennett, whose memorial by Nicholas Stone is in the Minster.
Sir Thomas's son, Richard Hutton, d. 1648 (below left), married first Dame Ursula, daughter of Sir William and Lady Sheffield, who died in childbirth; then Dorothy, daughter of Ferdinando Viscount Fairfax; he is shown with both his wives at Nether Poppleton Church-neither of these two monuments is equal to that of Sir Thomas Hutton.

The small wall tablet to Mrs. Hodgson, with that of Archbishop Frewen, d. 1664 (below right), show that the style is changing, growing more akin to the second half of the century. The two are not unlike each other in design, except that the Archbishop's monument has his recumbent statue: " He rests in the hopeful expectation of the last trumpet." The monument was restored after the fire, the book shelves are shown with the leaves facing as in the old libraries, and the same treatment is seen in that of Roger Bellwood's memorial in St. Crux (below middle), who died a few years later (1694). The most attractive of the smaller monuments of this period, as indeed it should be, is that to Mrs. Hodgson, d. 1636 (above middle), in the South Aisle Choir of the Minster, who died at the age of 38, for the epitaph tells us that this remarkable lady was

" The best of wives, who, having blest her husband with a numerous
progeny of both sexes, at last in her twenty-fourth labour-she fell like a sentinel
on duty with the most perfect steadiness and tranquility of mind, in so early a
period of life and such unfaded bloom of beauty that she had the appearance
rather of a virgin than of the mother of so many children."