On another.

Pray for the Soule of John Smith of Cunsby sometimes M’chant of the Staple of Calis, which died in the yeare of our Lord God 1470, & Jonet his Wife which died the 24th Day of November in the yeare of our Lord God 1461.

And all good people that this Scripture reade or see

For theire soules say a Paternoster, Ave-Maria, & a creed for Charity.

On another the pourtraytures of a man and his two wives on either side of him in brasse with this inscription vizt.

Pray for the soules of Richard Whetecroft of Coningsby M’chant of the Staple at Calice & sometimes Lieutenant of the same, & Jane & Margaret his Wives, which Richard deceased the 23d day of November, Ao. D’ni 1524.

All these Escocheons are in 2 Windowes, in which two Windowes also are these Verses:

Alme Deus cœli Croxby tu parce Johanni
Hanc ædem fieri benefecit sponte Jo. Croxby
Anno Milleno quater. c. L. x. quoq. terno.

Harleian MS. No. 6829. p. 179 to 182.

[54]  Harleian MS. No. 618.  Parliamentary Returns.

[55]  “In Badeburg h’b. h’b.  Vlf XII car. t’ræ ad g’ld.  T’ra x car.  Ibi h’t Gislebt v car. et XXI vill. et VI bord. et XX soch. et XVI bord. eor.  Int. om’s VI car, et I molin. VIII solid CXL ac’s silvæ pastil. T R E. val. X lib.  † mº. XII lib. Tallia in lib. De hoe t’ra VI car. in Soca.”  Domesday, folio 354.

[56a]  Burton’s Monast. Ebor. p. 215.

[56b]  The following arms and inscription, now gone, were in this church when it was visited by Mr. Holles.

Harleian MS. No. 6829, p. 177.

[57]  See Appendix, No. 1.

[58a]  Escheat Rolls.

[58b]  Cook C. Herald, MS.

[58c]  From the information of E. Turnor, Esq. F.S.A.

[60a]  Lodge’s Illustrations, vol. ii. 191.

[60b]  The windows were formerly embellished with the following heraldic bearings in stained glass, of which no vestiges are now existing.

Harleian MS. No. 6829. p. 140.

[62]  See Appendix, No. 1.

[63a]  For a description of the ceremony performed by the king’s champion at coronations, see “Sandford’s History of the Coronation of James the second;” also “Banks’s History of the Family of Marmyun.”

[63b]  In the forty-second and forty-third years of Henry the third, Philip Marmyon had grants of a market, fair, and free warren, at his manor of Scrivelsby.  In the ninth year of Edward the first, he showed that he had those rights, and that of gallows at Scrivelsby, with the other privileges incident to one of the great barons of the realm; and also right of free warren in the soke of Horncastle.

[64]  In this inscription Sir Robert Dymoke is, by mistake of the sculptor, styled knight and baronet, instead of knight banneret.

[69]  “Vir illustris in consilio, strenuus in prælio, princeps militæ in Angliæ, et in omni regno ornatissimus.”  Wever’s Fun. Mem. p. 366.

[71]  The MS. vol. of Church notes, so often before quoted, contains the following description of this castle:—

“The castle of Bullingbrooke was built by William de Romara Earle of Lincolne, and ennobled by the birth of King Henry the 4th, who from thence took his sirname.  Heretofore it was a famous structure, but now gone much to ruine and decay.

“The towne standes in a bottome, and the castell in the lowest part of it, compassed about with a large moat fed by springs.  It is most accessible on the south-west part, the rest being encompassed by the hills.

“As for the frame of the building, it lieth in a square, the area within the walls conteyning about an acre and a half, the building is very uniforme.

“It hath 4 stronge forts or ramparts, wherein are many roomes, and lodgings: the passage from one to another lying upon the walles, which are embattled about.  There be likewise 2 watch-towers all covered with lead.  If all the roomes in it were repayred, and furnished [as it seemes in former tymes they have bin] it were capable to receyve a very great prince with all his trayne.

“The entrance into it is very stately over a faire draw-bridge.  The gatehouse a very uniforme, and strong building.  Next within the porter’s lodge is a payre of low stayres, which goe downe into a dungeon, in which some reliques are yet to be seene of a prison-house.  Other 2 prisons more are on either side.

“The building itselfe is of a sandy stone hewen of a great square out of the rockes thereby, which though it abide the weather longe, yet [in processe of tyme] it will moulder, especially if wett gett within it, which hath bin the decay of many places of the wall where the roofe is uncovered.

“There be certaine roomes within the castle, [built by Queen Elizabeth of freestone] amongst which is a fayre great chamber with other lodgings.

“In a roome in one of the towers of the castle they usually kept their auditt once by the yeare for the whole Dutchy of Lancaster, having ever bin the prime seate thereof, where all the recordes for the whole countrey are kept.

“The constable of the castle is Sir William Mounson Lord Castlemayne, who receaveth a revenue out of the Dutchy lands of £500. per annum, in part of payment of £1000. yearely given by the king to the Countesse of Nottingham his lady.

“One thinge is not to be passed by affirmed as a certaine trueth by many of the inhabitants of the towne upon their owne knowledge, which is, that the castle is haunted by a certain spirit in the likenesse of a hare; which att the meeting of the auditors doeth usually runne betweene their legs, and sometymes overthrows them, and soe passes away.  They have pursued it downe into the castleyard, and seene it take in att a grate into a low cellar, and have followed it thither with a light, where notwithstanding that they did most narrowly observe it [and that there was noe other passage out, but by the doore, or windowe, the roome being all close framed of stones within, not having the least chinke or crevice] yet they could never finde it.  And att other tymes it hath been seene run in at iron-grates below into other of the grotto’s [as their be many of them] and they have watched the place, and sent for houndes, and put in after it; but after a while they have come crying out.”

Harleian MS. No. 6829, p. 162.

[73]  The following arms and inscriptions were in the windows of this church when it was visited by Mr. Holles.

Harleian MS. No. 6829. p. 163.

[74]  “In Bolinbroc h’b Stori II car. t’ræ ad g’ld.  T’ra II car.  In soca I car. de hac t’ra.  Ibi h’t Iuo modo II car. et XII vill. et VIII bord. et XII soch. cu. III car.  Ibi æccla et mercatu. novu. et III molini X solidos et LXX ac. p’ti.  T R E. val. XXX lib. mº. XL. lib.  Tailla q’ter XX lib. cu. omnib’s adjacentib’s.”  Domesday folio, 351.

[76]  See the Charter in Dugdale’s Monasticon, vol. i. p. 822.

[79]  Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum, p. 28.

[81]  Dr. John Taylor of Norwich was one of the earliest ministers appointed by Mr. Disney.  He held his appointment from about 1715, for 18 years, and at this place composed his justly valued “Hebrew Concordance,” in two vols. folio.

[86a]  Itinerarium, p. 162.

[86b]  Gough, and others who have copied from him, erroneously state this tower to be two hundred feet in height.

[90]  The principal part of the stained glass taken from this church was placed by the Earl of Exeter in the church of St. Martin, Stamford Baron, with some other richly stained glass, procured from the churches of Snape in Yorkshire, and Barnack in Northamptonshire.

[91a]  Joan Lady Cromwell was one of the daughters of Sir Richard Stanhope, and niece and co-heiress of the Lord Treasurer Cromwell.  She married Humphry Bourchier, third Son of the Earl of Essex, who was created Lord Cromwell, in the first year of Edward the fourth.

[91b]  Matilda Lady Willoughby was the other daughter of Sir Richard Stanhope, and niece and co-heiress of the Lord Treasurer Cromwell.

[92a]  Gough in his “Sepulchral Monuments,” vol. ii. gives a description of the arms contained in these shields, as well as in those which were attached to the figures of the Lord Treasurer and his wife.  His description however differs widely from that given by Mr. Holles in his MS. vol. of Lincolnshire Church Notes.

[92b]  Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii. p. 179.

[92c]  The MS. volume of Lincolnshire Church Notes, notices all the foregoing inscriptions, though not in a very correct manner.  It also contains the following account of inscriptions and arms, in this church, which are now gone:

In the upper ende of the Chancell.

Next under another fayre monument of blew marble [as the former] the picture of one also inlayd in brasse, adorned rounde about with a border of curious workemanship in brasse, with the pictures and names of some prophets in the Old Testament, and of other saintes, and some Saxon kinges, as Edmund, Edward, Etheldred, Ethelbert, there is noe inscription, onely this ensuing escocheon upon either side of him.

Shield

On the North Side under a Marble.

Orate pro a’ia M’ri Joh’is Gigur baccalaur.  Theologiæ custodis hujus collegii, ac etiam . . . Collegij Marton in Oxonia qui obijt 12º. die

On the Wood Worke in the lower ende of the Quire, curiously carved in capital l’rs this,—

Ad honorem & gloriam Dei opt. Max. & decorum domus ejus hoc opus factum est Anno D’ni 1424.

In Fenestris.

The history of the passion depainted.  In another Hell’s torments, where are divers creatures bound together in a chayne; amongst whome one with a crowne, another with a mytre on his head, the divell tormenting them, and under them is written—

‘Sic affiguntur pœnis, qui prava sequuntur.’

The history of Hermogenes that raysed up devills, and of Guthlake [the saint of the fens] and of Catherina, who cast them into the sea, that Hermogenes and Philetus raysed.

The history of Cosdre with his decollation.

Gravestones in the Church.

Hic jacet Thomas Gibbon Artium Liberalium M’gr. Rector nuper de Wiberton Socius & precentor hujus collegij qui obijt 16º. die mensis Januarij An’o D’ni 1506 cujus &c.

Another.

Orate pro a’ia D’ni Henr. Porter capti quondam Socij Collegij de Tateshall, ac præcentor ejusdem Eccl’ie, qui obijt 12º. die Martij An’o D’ni 1519.

Another.

Hic jacet Edwardus Okey nup. unus sex clericorum hujus Collegij qui obijt 29 die January An’o D’ni 1519, cujus &c.

In Insula Australi.

Hic jacet Ric’us English artium liberalium Mgr. socius ac p’centor huj. Collegij & Vicarius Eccl’iæ de Burwell qui obijt 27º. die Martij A’o D’ni 1522.

Another.

Orate pro a’ia M’ri Rob’ti Sudbury sacræ Theologiæ Baccalaureus nuper Rector . . . ac quondam p’centor & socius hujus Collegij qui obijt 19º.  Decembris An’o 1482.

Under the arched worke of the Partition betw. the Chancell and the body of the Church, this,

Orate pro a’ia Rob’ti de Whalley . . . hujus collegij qui hoc opus fieri fecit A’o D’ni 1528. cujus a’ie p’pitietur Deus.  Amen.

Within a Chapel on the North side, a fayre flatt Marble, on which this Epitaph,

Have mercy on the soule [good Lord] we thee pray
Of Edward Hevyn, lay’d here in sepulture,
W’ch to thine honour this chappel did array
With ceeling, desk, perclose and pourtrayture,
And paviment of marble long to endure.
Servant of late to the excellent Princesse
Mother to King Henry, of Richmond Countesse.

Harleian MS. No. 6829. p. 184–189.

[97]  “One of the Cromwelle’s builded a preaty turret caullid the Tour of the Moore; and thereby he made a faire greate ponde or lake, brickid about.  The lake is commonly caullid the Synkker.”  Leland’s Itinerarium, vi. 58.

[100a]  By some called Bind, by others Clunch Clay.

[100b]  At Donington, 103 yards; and at Kirkstead, 150 yards.  A succinct account of the boring at Donington may be seen in the Transactions of the Geological Society, vol. 3.