Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/506

 308 EFFIGIES OF THE DE SULXEYS. examples is not uiifrequent.^ The sword and dagger of our knight have been broken away, but a portion of the dagger- cord is still found on the right side, looped over the knightly belt. The remains of colour are too slight to give any clear notion of the orioinal illumination. The figures above-noticed were in the church in Lysons' time. In his " History of Derbyshire," p. ccxxvij, he says, " In the church of Newton Solney are two ancient monuments of the Solney family ; one of them, being the effigies of a knight in mail and surcoat, his feet resting on two foliated brackets, with his left hand on his breast, his right hand on his sword, carved in stone, has hQQii removed f) om the nave into a lumber- room on the N. side of the chancel. The other is under an arch in the north wall of the chancel, being- the effigies of a knight in plate-armour, with mail gorget, carved in alabaster, with angels supporting his pillow, and a lion at his feet." Since that period, a third effigy has been discovered, and is now placed at the w^est end of the south aisle. There can be little doubt that this fio-ure also commemorates a De Sulne}^ It is armed in the mode of the second half of the thirteenth century, and in its essentials bears a close resem- blance to the statue of Crouchback, in Westminster Abbey (Stothard, pi. 42). As in the case of Crouchback, the mailing was, no doubt, expressed by composition ; but, from long burial, this impressed jDaste has entirely disappeared from the Newton figure. The whole surface of the stone, indeed, is much pei'ished, and the lower part of the effigy has suffered great mutilation. Neither colorir nor carving gives us the smallest heraldic information. The family of De Sulney appear to have held this manor of Newton under the Earls of Chester. According to a pedigree in Harl. MS., 1537, fol. 5 b, the succession of knights was as follow^s : Sir Normannus, Sir Alured, Sir William, Sir Alured,^ and Sir John, who died, s. j). about the 15th of Richard 11. This pedigree, however, is in error when it makes Margaret and Alice, who carried the property into the families of Lonoford and Stafford, to be the nieces of Sir John. The^^ were clearly the sisters, as is proved by an indenture of feoffment among the Chadwick deeds at Mavesyn - See also the figure of St. George, at Dijon, Archa?ologia, vol. xxv., .572. •^ A pedigree in Egcrton MS., 996, fol. 71, mentions this Sir Alfred as living in the times of P.O Ed w. III.