Beneath Lie Dust

So we come at last to Sawbridgeworth's parish church which is called Great St Mary's, though no one seems to be sure where the "Great" comes from, there being no other St Mary's churches nearby. At first sight it seems to be a largish but unremarkable building.

Inside however is an outstanding collection of memorials to the great (meaning "rich") men and women of the past. For this unassuming little town stands in some of the most fertile agricultural land in the country and much of it was given at various times to those who served the royal family.

There are at least three ways in which these memorials can be viewed:

          - you might see them, as I always used to, as symbols of the power of the local aristocracy who grabbed all the wealth of the area, to the detriment of the hard-working and less fortunate.

         - or you can concentrate on their historical value as they document everything from changing fashions of dress to the very different attitudes to death and the hereafter in past times.

          - and, thirdly, you can simply view them as works of art, some being the efforts of local craftsmen while others were commissioned from the great sculptors of the day.

                             

Here we have the brasses to John and Joan Leventhorpe who departed this life as long ago as 1488 and 1448 respectively. The brasses would have once been affixed to a large stone slab on the floor of the building, underneath which the couple were interred. The brasses are now mounted on boards hung in the church. They are pictured in their burial shrouds and holding their hearts in their hands. Underneath is a rather gruesome epitaph in Latin which can be translated as:

Beneath lie dust, decay, entrails and gnawing worm

Death's lackey now he is, as life is his no more,

He nothing has, nor knows, nor are his virtues seen,

Look - meaner than the mire, the terror, horror, stench,

Disgrace of all the world, and common refuse he,

Here, brother, see thyself and breathe a prayer for me.

I hope you weren't eating breakfast as you read that!

Here, still in place on the floor of the church, are more Leventhorpes, John and Elizabeth (1435). He was a trusted servant of Henry IV and Henry V, a man of political cunning and influence who became one of the most powerful men in the country and managed to amass a sizeable personal fortune. She is dressed in the fashion of the day, while he is dressed in a suit of armour even though he was not a military man.

Yet another John Leventhorpe, this time Sir John Leventhorpe and his wife. He died in 1625 and by this time a huge alabaster memorial was thought more appropriate. Underneath them are depicted their mourning children, 6 boys and 8 girls.

By the 1640s, when Sir William and Lady Elizabeth Hewyt were commemorated, the style had become less formal. I love the gentle way in which he is supporting his wife's hand, while maintaining a firm grip on his sword. In all these memorials it's worth noting that it was important to record a reasonable likeness, perhaps a little enhanced, of the dead. While photographs are displayed on graves in some cultures today, representations of the dead never occur in Britain these days.

This rather fine bust is the work of John Bacon, the leading British sculptor of the day, and depicts Robert, 1st Viscount Jocelyn. It looks very realistic, though having been carved some time after the Jocelyn's death, must have been based on paintings. Although he served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland he was recorded by those who knew him as a man of simple tastes who was much amused that both his chaplain and his house steward were often mistaken for him as they had a much grander manner than he did.

The grandest of all though is this magnificent memorial to George, Viscount Hewitt of Gowram.

His statue is flanked by marble columns and, outside them, are great stashes of weaponry suggesting a man with a military career. In fact he was nothing of the sort being a famous dandy known as Beau Hewitt, who spent a lot of his time fighting, not great battles, but a series of rather tame duels over various women. 

It's tempting, when confronted by memorials that so misrepresent their subject, to accuse the person as being vain and hypocritical, though of course these works were usually commissioned by their descendants who wanted to present their ancestor rather differently to the way the rest of the world might have seen them. 

Here, on the other hand, is a memorial to a real military man, Joseph Vick, a corporal in the Light Dragoons, who was one of the six hundred who took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade. His simple plaque, paid for by his fellow citizens in Sawbridgeworth, stands in stark contrast to the ostentatious statues of others.

One day I'll take you to see the monument to a man who was a murderer, torturer and liar - but, never mind that, he has a very fine statue. 

Take care.