The Churches of Coventry Part 4

The other bra.s.s, of 1609, has a portrait of Ann Sewell in Jacobean costume, kneeling, with an epitaph in which she is described as "a worthy stirrer up of others to all holy virtues."

A doorway leads to a priest's chamber over the porch, sometimes incorrectly spoken of as the Cappers' Chapel. It is still used for the annual meeting of the Company, but is inaccessible to the public.

The next chapel eastwards is St. Thomas', belonging until 1629 to the Cappers' and Feltmakers' Company. In 1531 they were a.s.sociated in its maintenance with the Woollen Cardmakers who had founded it in 1467 and had after declined in importance. Leland, as we have seen records also the decay of the Cappers' industry. A large eighteenth-century monument conceals the original doorway from the porch. The eastern part of the south aisle as far as the screen formed another chapel as the dilapidated piscina in the south wall shows. The organ is now placed in the first bay of the chancel aisle, the whole aisle having once formed the Mercers' Chapel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SWILLINGTON TOMB.]

Where the altar once stood are now steps descending to the sacristies.

On the right of the window is the statue of St. Michael brought hither from the tower (p. 32). The finely carved corbel on which it stands was discovered among rubbish in the recess below. Three altar tombs now stand against the south wall. The eastern has the rec.u.mbent effigies of Elizabeth Swillington and her two husbands. The inscription (translated) runs: "Pray for the soul of Elizabeth Swillington, widow, late the wife of Ralph Swillington, Attorney General of our Lord King Henry VIII, Recorder of the city of Coventry, formerly the wife of Thomas Ess.e.x Esq: which said Elizabeth died A.D.

15..." She died after 1543. The side and ends have arcaded panelling containing shields of arms. At the west end is a realistic representation of the Five Wounds. The effigy of Thomas Ess.e.x is in armour, that of the Recorder in official robe and chain. The head of each rests on a helmet, and the lady wears the "pedimental" headdress of Tudor fashion. The arcading is purely Renaissance in detail though the general treatment is mediaeval. The figures are in dignified repose, wholly free from the later affectations of the Elizabethan school yet evidently individual portraits. The second tomb dates from 1640. The top is far too heavy for the little Ionic pilasters below.

The third, traditionally called Wade's tomb, probably belongs to John Wayd, a Mercer, who lived in Coventry in 1557, but no inscription remains.

There are seven shields of arms on the side, nearly all defaced, a motto "Ryen saunce travayle," and nine images in low relief which present quaint studies of early sixteenth-century costume.

The matrices of bra.s.ses are still visible in several parts of the church. Sir James Harrington, writing in the reign of James I, tells a curious story of their loss:

The pavement of Coventry church is almost all tombstones, and some very ancient, but there came in a zealous fellow with a counterfeit commission, that for avoiding superst.i.tion, hath not left one pennyworth nor penny breadth of bra.s.s upon all the tombs, of all the inscriptions, which had been many and costly.

The last monument that need be mentioned is upon the wall over "Wade's tomb." Twenty-six verses of eulogy follow these opening lines:

An Elegicall epitaph, made upon the death of that mirror of women Ann Newdigate; Lady Skeffington, wife of that true moaneing turtle Sir Richard Skeffington, Kt., and consecrated to her eternal memorie by the unfeigned lover of her vertues, Willm.

Bulstrode, Knight. (She died in 1637, aged 29).

The present organ was built by Henry Willis and erected in 1887. It is a four-manual and pedal instrument and has fifty-three stops.

The old organ on which Handel played more than once, stood on a raised platform at the west end. It was the work of Thomas Swarbrick of Warwick, a German by birth, in 1733. He also built those of Trinity Church, St. Mary, Warwick, Lichfield, St. Saviour Southwark, Stratford-on-Avon, and Amsterdam.

The best of the ancient gla.s.s now remaining has been collected into two windows, one on either side of the apse. Much was brought from the clearstory where six windows on the south and all save one on the north side still have panels made up of a mosaic of fragments with portions here and there of which the subject is intelligible. From what remains in the tracery we may gather that there was a row of eight angel figures filling the s.p.a.ces immediately over the lights. Some of these or similar ones, are now in the apse. They are represented as covered with feathers and standing on wheels and each holds a scroll over the head with inscriptions in very contracted Latin. A few less fragmentary pieces may be found, _e.g._, in the north window, Judas giving the traitor's kiss, in the north clearstory the arms of Trenton and Stafford, mentioned and figured by Dugdale, in the south, the figure of a man in a red gown kneeling with a scroll inscribed "deo gracias" and over his head "groc(er) de london"--doubtless a donor. Of modern gla.s.s there is a great amount but little worth mentioning save on account of the persons commemorated. One window in the Lady Chapel is a memorial of the Prince Consort and one in the Mercers' Chapel is of interest as a deserved memorial to Thomas Sharp the Antiquary to whose labours all later historians of the city are so deeply indebted. He died in 1841.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALMS-BOX.]

The pulpit is of bra.s.s and wrought iron, the work of Frank Skidmore a native of Coventry who made also the choir screen of Hereford Cathedral and the metal work of the Albert Memorial at Kensington. It was placed here in 1869. The bells, ten in number, now hang in the octagon. They were cast in 1774 and weigh nearly seven tons. The first peal was hung in 1429 and a clock existed in 1467. In 1496 an Order of Leet ordained that "all manner of persons that will have the bells to ring after the decease of any of their friends, shall pay for a peal ringing with all the bells, _2s._ and with four bells, _16d._, and three bells _4d._"

The six bells were cast into eight in 1674 and the present tenth has the same inscription as the heaviest of the old peal:

I am and have been call'd the common bell To ring, when fire breaks out, to tell.

The chimes, which existed as early as 1465, were restored in 1895, after a silence of ten years, in memory of Lieut.-Col. Francis William Newdigate. Electric lighting has been introduced throughout the church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: _See_ Fuller's "Worthies of England." In 1428 an Act of Leet ordered that no person should dye any wool or cloth with "a deceitful colour called Masters or Medleys brought into Coventry by a Frenchman."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOLY TRINITY FROM THE NORTH.

_From a lithograph--about 1850_.]

HOLY TRINITY CHURCH

CHAPTER I

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

Although the first mention of this church which the indefatigable Dugdale could find was its appropriation to the priory in 1259-1260, it is tolerably certain that its foundation was much earlier. As before said, it is reputed to be older than St. Michael's and its position close to the monastery suggests that it had been built, as often happened, for the parishioners by the monks who disliked their intrusion within the priory church. The appropriation at this time may have been rather of the nature of a confirmation of the rights of the priory than the inst.i.tution of a new condition of things. As, in 1391, the chancel had to be rebuilt being "ruinated and decayed" we may conclude that it was probably older than the present north porch which is certainly not later than 1259. It was at the same time lengthened by twenty-four feet, the convent giving one hundred shillings per annum for eight years and six trees, the parishioners finding all other material and workmanship. The convent and parish also agreed to support and keep it in repair at their joint charges.

From 1298, when Henry de Harenhale was appointed, the list of vicars is complete, but in a cartulary of the priory mention is made of Ralph de Sowe, vicar of Trinity, as giving a tenement in Well Street, for the celebration of his anniversary.

There are but few landmarks in its history, and dates affecting the structure can generally be a.s.signed by internal evidence alone. The nave arcades had already been rebuilt before the chancel was touched, and a piece of work of the same period is to be seen in the five-light Decorated window, in the Consistory Court which now opens into the large chamber over the porch. We have no record of the building of the clearstory and roof of the nave. The resemblances between this clearstory, and that of St. John's chancel, raise the question of priority. The fuller development at St. John's of the peculiar treatment of the angles points to its being a little later but probably both fall within the second and third quarters of the fifteenth century.

For a church of this size the chapels, altars and chantries were very numerous, there being probably fifteen altars in all. In 1522 the establishment of clergy consisted of a vicar, eleven parochial priests and two chantry priests. Dugdale enumerates six chantries so that it is evident that here as often elsewhere some of the parochial priests derived the whole or a part of their support from their performance of the duties of chantry priests.

Many chantry priests on the other hand had other duties and took part in other services than the daily ma.s.s for which the chantry was founded.

So much that is of interest in the religious life of the period is connected with the chantries that it is worth while recording some of the scattered notices that have come down to us.

To begin with the Chapel of Our Lady, the earliest mention we have of it is in 1364 while in 1392 the Corpus Christi Gild endowed a priest there to sing ma.s.s for the good estate of Richard II, Anne his queen, and the whole realm of England, to be called St. Mary's priest. The indenture sets forth that "he is to be at Divine service on Sundays and double Feasts in the chancel and at Matins, Hours, Ma.s.ses, Evensong, Compline and other offices used in the said church and also daily at _Salve_ in our Lady's Chapel unless hindered by reasonable cause." The records of the Dissolution of the Chantries show how much town property must have been held by them, while from these and other sources we learn the extent of their belongings in tenements, messuages, rent charges and the like. Thus in 1454 Emot Dowte gave several tenements to this altar and in 1492 Richard Clyff "late parson of St. George in London," left a house in Well St. to the church "to the intent that the ma.s.s of Our Lady may be observed the better." In 1558 (the year of Elizabeth's accession) William Hyndeman, alderman and butcher, directs that his body be buried in the Lady Chapel "as aldermen are wont to be buried, towards the charges whereof I give twenty n.o.bles to be levied of my quick cattle and if it be too little then I will that Sybil my wife shall lay down _20s._ more." He also orders an obit to be kept after the death of his wife "yearly for ever;" a form of words that must surely have sounded unreal after the changes of the last two reigns.

Perceye's chantry again, which Dugdale considered the oldest (though he does not give the date) was endowed in 1350 with six messuages, one shop, six acres of land and 40s. rent, all lying in Coventry, to which in 1407 William Botoner and others, added a messuage and twenty-four acres of land in the city for another priest.

Then the chantry of the Holy Cross (1357) founded for two priests to sing daily a ma.s.s for the good estate before death and for the souls after of the royal family, and for the founders and the members of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross, was endowed with seven messuages, fourteen shops and sixteen acres of land in the city.

Dugdale enumerates also four others, Cellet's, Corpus Christi, Lodynton's and Allesley's, to which should probably be added Marler's, a.s.signed by him to St. Michael's. The first two are doubtless the same foundation, for in 1329 land and tenements were granted to the priest of Corpus Christi Chapel for the health of the soul of William Celet and others.

It was almost certainly situated in the south transept, on the upper level over the vaulted pa.s.sage. The position of Lodynton's chantry (1393) is not known; Allesley's, founded in the reign of Edward I, was sung at St. Thomas's altar.

Richard Marler stipulates in his will that his priest is to have the "stypend or wagis of nyne marks by yere so long as he shall be of good and prestly conversacyon and demeanor, wt' a p'vyso that yf the seyde prest be ffounde otherwyse, after monyc'on and reasonable warnyng to hym geven, he to be removed."

Much of the later history of the church relates to the destruction of its fittings and furniture or to restorations almost as grievous. In 1560 _2s. 6d._ was paid for taking down the carving about the high altar, while the Mayor bought the panelling of the altar for _33s.

4d._, the vail for _5s._, the "thing that the sacrament was in over the altar _1s._," the "peyre [pair of candlesticks?] that was upon the altar _5d._" Perhaps he thought that all these things would be wanted again ere long. In 1547 a quant.i.ty of costly vestments and banners had been sold and we find in the accounts a number of such items as these: "Sold the 6 day of Jennery 5 copps of red teyssew to Mr.

Roghers, now mayre (and 4 other persons) pryce of the sayd copps, _10l._ To Bawden Desseld one cope of red velvet, _5l._ Mr. Schewyll a grene velvet cope, _30s._"

But before Mary's death we have a lengthy inventory of copes, vestments, albs, banners and the like, some of which may have come back to the church from the buyers at the sale eleven years before.

The church must have looked like a builder's yard in 1643 when the Committee and Council of War pulled down divers houses outside Bishop's and Spon Gates and stacked the materials here, while the changes of government are indicated by the payment in 1647 of _3s.

6d._ "to Hopes for defacing the King's Arms" and in 1660 of _6s._ to "Hope for the King's Arms."

Five years after this the spire, which had caused much anxiety and expense for many years, was blown down in a gale, falling across the chancel and causing much destruction. All was restored and the spire rebuilt in three years. Reference has been made to the existence of a vaulted pa.s.sage through the south transept. This was made necessary by the position of an ancient building known as Jesus Hall which adjoined the transept and thus blocked the way from "the Butchery" in this direction. The Hall had probably been long used as the residence of the priests attached to the church but nothing is known of its origin.

It was destroyed in 1742. Only in 1834, when the exterior of the church was recased was the pa.s.sage blocked and the floor of the upper chapel removed.

The Register records the marriage of Sarah Kemble with William Siddons on 25th November, 1773.