Tudor Tombs: The colourful monuments at St. Lawrence’s, Snarford

At Westminster Abbey survive some fascinating examples of Royal funeral effigies from the 13th Century onwards, among them effigies of Henry VII, Mary I and a replica of the original funeral effigy of Elizabeth I. Funeral effigies were an important part of Royal funerals in the Middle Ages in England. They were carried on top of the coffin during the funeral procession and were often exhibited to the public even after the funeral. They were colourful, lifelike and full of symbolism and royal regalia to create a moving image of the monarch and to reinforce royal status. Before the reformation they also functioned as a focus for prayers, as the idea was that praying for someone’s soul shortened their time in purgatory. 

This idea of an image of the deceased being used to elicit prayers for their soul also applied to tomb effigies, which according to expert Dr. Jean Wilson, were often placed in the chancel or inside side chapels with altars to be as close as possible to where prayers were said regularly. Just like monarchs, members of the nobility also wanted to make sure their high status was remembered after they had passed, and aristocratic families often used their tomb monuments to show their status and pedigree. Funerary monuments have a language of their own, and there are even examples of monuments being utilised to legitimise contested claims to lands or property. This function may have saved many tombs from the iconoclasm that swept Britain following the Reformation. In 1560 Elizabeth I issued a proclamation outlawing the destruction of tombs for placing ‘the true course of inheritance’ in danger (Elizabeth Norton, 2014). Thus, tombs continued to be built relatively undisturbed until the English Civil War brought on another wave of iconoclasm, but their function had shifted from religious importance to a more secular utility. 

The appearance of monuments and effigies also changed alongside tastes in art and architecture. English tomb effigies evolved from little more than grave-slabs bearing a likeness of the deceased in low relief in the 13th Century over recumbent effigies raised on increasingly lavishly decorated and sometimes canopied chest tombs to cadaver tombs in the 15th Century. In the 16th Century funerary monuments became increasingly influenced by the Renaissance, including allegorical figures, memento mori and a lifelike and vivid depiction of the deceased often surrounded by family members. 

This is evident in the excellent memorials at St. Lawrence’s Church in Snarford, Lincolnshire. The monuments in this church commemorate the influential St. Paul family, who acquired the manor of Snarford in about 1400 through marriage of John St. Paul to Elizabeth Snarford, heiress of the previous owners. The Tudor reformation brought the St. Pauls good fortune and lands confiscated from monasteries in Lincolnshire. The church contains three particularly notable monuments, which detail the swift rise and demise of the St. Paul family. 

The earliest is the monument to Sir Thomas St. Paul and his wife, Lady Faith Grantham. Sir Thomas was a zealous protestant, knighted by Queen Elizabeth I, MP for Grimsby and twice Sheriff of Lincolnshire. He died in 1582, and his tomb is ablaze with heraldry illustrating his family connections, even though a somewhat ironic inscription informs the reader that ‘God is the fount and origin of honour’. The tomb itself takes the form of an impressive six-poster canopied chest tomb with recumbent, praying effigies of Sir Thomas and Lady Faith, surrounded by their 8 children of whom only four survived infancy. Their son and heir, Sir George St. Paul, is also depicted as an adult on his own lavish tomb, which is the second monument of note in this church.

Sir George was the most influential of the St. Pauls. His monument rests against the north wall of the chancel and shows a change in fashion – both in regard to clothing and in regard to monuments – from the tomb of his Elizabethan parents to his own Jacobean monument. Whereas Sir Thomas is depicted in Tudor armour and gold chain and Lady Faith wears a ‘French Hood’ typical of the first half of the 16th Century, Sir George is dressed in Jacobean armour and his wife, Frances Wray, wears the dark gown and wide ruff popularized by Queen Anne of Denmark. They are propped up on their elbows and lying on their sides, rather than being portrayed recumbent and are surrounded by memento mori style symbolism. The memorial also includes an effigy of their only daughter, Matthatia, whose tragic death in infancy spelled the end of the line of Snarford St. Pauls. Sir George died in 1613 and left his widow, Frances, a very wealthy woman. 

Frances, described by a contemporary as ‘a person of shining conversation and eminent bounty’ was soon pursued by Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, who was by all accounts not a very nice man. Despite being even wealthier than Frances, he sought to enrich himself further through this marriage. However, his efforts were frustrated by the clever Frances, and after nine months of marriage it was reported that Rich was ‘near crazed... to see himself so overreached by his wife, who hath so conveyed (managed) her estate that he is little or nothing the better by her’. He subsequently purchased the Earldom of Warwick to console himself, then died in 1619 and left Frances a wealthy Countess, who lived on at Snarford, undisturbed by further husbands, until her death in 1634. Buried beside her second husband, theirs is the final monument of note in this remarkable church. A wall tablet, simple in comparison to the other tombs, but equally colourful, records their likenesses, heraldry and epitaph.