TOMBS OF SIR WILLIAM ARUNDEL AND OTHERS IN ROCHESTER CATHEDRAL. BY WILLIAM BRENCHLEY RYE. The Provost of Oriel (Dr. Hawkins), in Vol. XI. of Archæologia Cantiana, calls attention to a nameless monument at the east end of Rochester Cathedral, immediately behind the new reredos. It was unavoidably disturbed during the recent restoration of the choir. When the large stone slab, which had contained effigies in brass, was removed, a leaden coffin, and the body of a woman closely wrapped in lead, became visible. The brasses had been torn from their slab, but the matrix clearly shewed the figure of a knight in armour, holding the hand of a lady by his side. Dr. Hawkins adds: "No record, nor trace, nor tradition has yet been discovered by which we may identify the remains of this knight and his lady. Their names have been utterly lost." On reading the Provost's interesting Notes, from which the above extracts are taken, I referred to my Rochester collectanea, and found therein good cause to believe that this tomb contains the remains of Sir William Arundel, and Agnes his wife. Sir William was a Knight of the Garter, and Governor of the Castle and City of Rochester. In his will, dated London, August 1, 1400, he says:-" My body to be buried in the Priory at Rochester, at the back of the high altar. . . The lxxx' which King Richard promised me, and I was indebted to Rochester [Priory ?], I will be paid, at the discretion of my Lord of Canterbury." He died in the same month of August, 1400. His widow, in her will, dated Sept. 6, 1401, directs that her body shall be buried * Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, i., 150; Collectanea Topog. et Geneal., vi., 16, etc. in the Priory of St. Andrews in Rochester, under the tomb where my husband and me are pictured."* Sir Richard Arundel, Knight, brother of the above named Sir William, would also appear to have been buried in the Cathedral. By his will, dated July 8th, 1417, he directs his body to be buried in the "Chapel of our Lady in the Abbey of Rochester." Sir Richard obtained the grant of the Castle, as Constable, on his brother's death; the patent being dated 4 Sept., 1 Hen. IV. His name occurs among the knights who distinguished themselves at a tournament in Smithfield, held in honour of the coronation of Isabel of France, after her marriage with Richard II; and we find him entering the lists with a Lombard, in the 3rd year of Henry IV, in another tournament at Smithfield, at which the king was present. Sir Richard Arundel died June 3, 1419. In the transcripts of the Accounts of the Rochester Priors, ranging from 1384-1432, which are among the MSS. left by Dr. John Thorpe to the Society of Antiquaries, mention is made of a tenement in Rochester called Arundel House. Sir William Arundel bore the arms of Arundel [a lion, rampant] and Maltravers [sable a fret, or], quarterly, with a crescent for difference; and as crest a gryphon's head (without the wings) issuing from a coronet. Sir Richard bore the same arms, but as crest a gryphon's head between the wings, not issuing from a coronet (Coll. Topog. et Geneal. vi. 20.) Mention is made of a Writ directed to Sir William Arundel, as Constable of Rochester Castle, bearing date 20 April, 18 Ric. II, 1395, for repairing a defect of the New Tower, near the bridge, in Rochester Castle.+ And in the same year, I have found among the Additional Manuscripts (No. 15,664) in the British Museum, a mandate directed to him, for paving the High Street of Rochester. "The King to his dear and faithful WILLIAM ARUNDEL chevalier, Constable of his Castle of Rochester, and to his lieutenant there, greeting, WHEREAS we have for certain understood that the pave *This is interesting, as shewing that a brass was sometimes laid down in the lifetime of the person represented on it. + Devon's Issues of the Exchequer. ment of the High Street which leads through the middle of the town of ROCHESTER, for default of the reparation and amendment of the same, is become so decayed and broken up, that great perils and grievances have frequently before these times happened there, as well to people of the same town as to strangers passing that way, and greater in process of time will likewise follow unless remedy be in this behalf speedily applied; WE willing to promote the credit of the Town aforesaid and the quiet of our liege people and others aforesaid, and to prevent as much as we can such dangers and grievances, command you, firmly enjoining that, ceasing every excuse, you compel by all lawful ways and means that you best and most speedily can, all and singular having tenements or rents on either part of the way aforesaid, to wit, every of them well and competently to repair and amend, and if it be necessary, to newly pave the pavement opposite their tenements or rents; and this under our heavy indignation and the penalties incumbent thereon, you will in no wise omit. Witness the Guardian [Custos] aforesaid* at Westminster, the 224 day of April." Dr. Hawkins, in his interesting paper, speaks of other stately old monuments, and of burials in the Cathedral. The following notes may be considered as supplementary. On the 3rd of August, 1611, Otto, Prince of Hesse, arrived at Rochester, on his return from London. He put up at the "Golden Crown," and attended divine service in the Cathedral. His secretary, the author of the unpublished Journal of his Travels, written in German, took notes of several of the inscriptions and mottoes upon monuments therein. "Vita janua mortis; mors janua vitæ." "Hodie nos, cras vos." "Sunt nisi præmissi, quos periisse putas."+ "Volentes ducit, nolentes trahit." [A death's head with wings, with an hour-glass above.] "Fidelitate et prudentia." "Vivit Redemptor noster, nosque in illo." "Come swete Jesu, come quickly," "Dies mortis vitæ æternæ æqualis." "Omnes hic viventes quasi semper migrantes." Edmund, Duke of York, Guardian of England, Richard II being at this time in Ireland. From the Somer monument? See Arch. Cant., XI., 5. "Vult Deus, obsequimur, lex vendicat omne redemptum." "Nil prosunt fletus, obsunt: surgent et amabunt." "Est hominum similis florenti gloria faeno, Nascitur hæc quasi flos, hæc quasi flosque cadit Pastor erat verboque simul, vitaque docebat "Oderit ut nullos adumârit amabilis omnes.' "Thomas Willo Waeg,† qui etiam aliquando fuit in Germania exul." In 1558, Cardinal Pole's coffin rested one night in the Cathedral. The fact is thus recorded in Holinshed's Chronicle, 1587, iii., p. 1489: "Cardinal Poole died the same daie wherin the Queene [Mary] died, the third hour of the night . . . His bodie was first conveyed from Lambeth to Rochester, where it rested one night, being brought into the Church of Rochester at the West doore, not opened manie yeres before. At what time myselfe, then a yoong scholer, beheld the funerall pompe thereof, which trulie was great and answerable both to his birth and calling, with store of burning torches and mourning weedes. At what time his coffin being brought into the Church was covered with a cloth of blacke velvet, with a great crosse of white satten over all the length and bredth of the same, in the middest of which crosse his Cardinal's hat was placed. From Rochester he was conveied to Canterbury, where the same bodie (being first before it came to Rochester inclosed in lead) was, after three daies spent in his commendations set foorth in Latine and English, committed to the earth in the Chapell of Thomas Becket." I have spoken,§ in a previous volume, of the burial in Rochester Cathedral of the Transylvanian Prince, Cossuma Albertus, who was murdered on Gad's Hill, in October, * Walter Phillips, the last Prior, and first Dean. †Thomas Willoughby, Dean, died 1585. i.e., Francis Thynne, Lancaster Herald. He was born in 1545, and was perhaps educated partly at Rochester, partly at Tonbridge. The year before (1557) he saw King Philip and Queen Mary at the Crown Inn in Rochester, and he was present at the entertainment in Cobham Park, given to Queen Elizabeth in 1559. He contributed much to Holinshed's Chronicle. § Archæologia Cantiana, Vol. VI., 71. 1661. The funeral of another foreign notability is thus described by Evelyn in his Diary, under the year 1672: "May 31.-I receiv'd another command to repaire to the seaside; so I went to Rochester, where I found many wounded, sick, and prisoners newly put on shore after the engagement on the 28th, in which the Earl of Sandwich, that incomparable person and my particular friend, and divers more whom I loved, were lost . . . June 2. Trinity Sonday I pass'd at Rochester, and on the 5th there was buried in the Cathedral Mons. RABINIÈRE, Reare Admiral of the French Squadron, a gallant person, who died of the wounds he received in the fight. This ceremonie lay on me, which I perform'd with all the decency I could, inviting the Mayor and Aldermen to come in their formalities; Sir Jonas Atkyns was there with his guards, and the Deane and Prebendaries: one of his countrymen pronouncing a funeral oration at the brink of his grave, which I caus'd to be dug in the quire." VOL. XIII. L |