Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/167

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much to see the four inner arches of the church tower, which are Norman, as to inspect the wonderful tombs of the St. Poll family. The earliest is in the chancel, where Sir Thomas lies on an altar tomb in plate armour, with helmet under his head, bearing as crest an elephant and castle; he wears both sword and dagger, and holds in his hand a book. They seem to have been a literary family, for his wife, in a long flowing robe with girdle and a peculiar head-dress, also holds a book, and the side panels have a projection on each face also supporting a book. A son and a daughter are kneeling below; and a canopy supported on pillars and having a richly moulded cornice bears, over each pillar and between the pillars, kneeling figures—ten in all. Shields of arms enclosed in wreaths form further decorations, but both this, which is dated 1582, and the other large monument in the north chantry are much defaced, and the heavy canopies look as if they might fall and destroy the figures beneath them at any moment. It is no good shouting "police!" but where is the archdeacon? This north chantry has been boarded off from the church, which has an ugly effect. The monuments in it are first to Sir George St. Poll, 1613, and his wife Frances, daughter of Chief Justice Sir Christopher Wray of Glentworth, whom he married in 1583. This is very large, being eleven and a half feet in height and width. Sir George reclines on his elbow; he, also, is in armour, his wife is by his side; and below is their little daughter Mattathia, with cherubs weeping and resting their inverted torches on skulls. The wife, after putting up this monument, took for a second husband Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick; and opposite to the monument of herself and her first husband she re-appears as the Countess of Warwick, on a round tablet, with medallions of herself and the earl, her second husband, who died in 1618. His first wife was Lady Penelope Devereux, by whom he had two sons, Robert and Henry, and two daughters, Lettice and Essex. A brass on the south side of the chancel has a quaint Latin inscription, by the Snarford parson, telling us that Frances Wray, after marriage, was twelve years without issue, and then had a daughter who died before reaching her second birthday, "cut off while on her way to Bath." This was a terrible loss of a most precious treasure, and he mentions that he had christened her Mattathia, and goes on to tell us that the "mother passes no day without tears of poignant anguish," and ends with "How I wished,