*

is described by Lipscomb as "of octagon shape on a "pedestal of the same form, decorated with trefoiled "arches. On the panels round the basin are carvings "in relief of a shield, vine leaves, an ancient casket or charity box, four leaves conjoined by their four stalks in "the centre, a rose, a shield with a device, viz.: in the ❝fess point a roundel, two roundels at the superior angles "and another at the point in base mutually conjoined by "labels passing from each to the other, four leaves with a rose in the centre between them within a quatrefoil "enclosed by a circle."

Sir Edward Coke says, "When the question was "whether the sacred building was ecclesia aut capella pertinens ad matricem ecclesiam, the issue was whether "it had baptiserium et sepulturam, for if it had the "administration of Sacraments and sepulture it was in "law judged a church," + and Sir Robert Philimore in his "Ecclesiastical Law" thus writes: "Hence at the "first erection of these chapels, while they were designed. "to continue in subjection to the mother church, express 66 care was taken at the ordination of them that there "should be no allowance of font or bells or anything that "might be to the prejudice of the old church; and again, "the performance of baptisms, marryings, and "burials in chapels existing from time immemorial might 'possibly be presumptive evidence of consecration and "of a composition, aliter as to a chapel the origin of "which is ascertained." I We may, therefore, conclude that the Church of St. Mary was immemorially a parochial chapel for Stoke Mandeville, dependent on the mother church of St. James Bierton; but whether there was a chapel here when the whole of the district was dependent on the superior church of Aylesbury I am not prepared to say, though St. Mary's was of Norman foundation.

I will make a short reference to the name of the village. Stoke would, of course, represent the area or

"History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham," vol. ii., p. 449.

+ See second part of "The Institutes," by Sir Edward Coke, p. 363.

See "The Ecclesiastical Law of the Church of England," by Sir Robert Phillimore, pp. 1825, 1826.

spot enclosed, but I am unable to account for the additional name of Mandeville. The name of Stoke Maundewyl occurs as early as 1276. A fine of messuages, lands and rents having been granted by William Gene of Stoke Clerk, and Master Richard Gene, of the same, for life (Rot: fin: V. Edward I.).

I find that the Manor of Quarrenden was at the time. of the Norman survey in the hands of Geoffrey de Mandeville, and it is possible that the Manor of Stoke may have been at one time in that family. Lipscomb, in his History of Buckinghamshire, expresses the difficulty of giving any continuous history of Stoke Mandeville, as the accounts of the place in the national records are for the most part detached notices of its ancient possessions -very insufficient documents from which an authentic history of the manorial possessions of the place can be obtained. Stoke, however, was one of the Manors of the Bishop of Lincoln at the time of the Norman survey.

I have referred to the interesting Brudenell monument in the Church of Stoke Mandeville, which has been happily rescued by mere accident, through the attention called to its condition by a comparative stranger to the county, but for many years it has been known that the monuments to the Lee family in the desecrated chapel of Quarrenden, another of the daughter chapels to Bierton, present, as Britten says in his "Beauties of England and Wales," "a sad picture of neglect and dilapidation." Lipscomb gives an account in 1817 of the chapel "as affording a melancholy object of contemplation, not merely from "its dilapidated condition, but from the mutilation of the monuments of the ancient proprietors of the contiguous "estate."* Of these monuments that adorned the chapel, is one to Sir Henry Lee, Knight of the Garter, a conspicuous figure in the court of Queen Elizabeth, famous for his valour and gallantry, and on its walls is, or was till recently, a tablet which preserves an account of the merits and renown of this Knight.

66

66

JOHN PARKER.

* Lipscomb. "History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham," vol. ii., p. 407.

THE INTRA-MURAL MONUMENTS AND OTHER INSCRIPTIONS OF GT. MARLOW CHURCH.

TRANSCRIBED BY ALFRED HENEAGE COCKS.

THE following few pages give a transcript of the monumental inscriptions and records of benefactions now or formerly existing in All Saints' Parish Church, Great Marlow, with the very important omission of the ancient brasses mentioned by Lipscomb, which, when the old Church was pulled down in 1832, were sold by the workmen for old metal. Fortunately, rubbings of three of them very beautiful examples-exist in the Craven Ord collection at the British Museum, and in the late Sir Wollaston Franks's unique collection of rubbings, which he presented to the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Mill Stephenson has very kindly given me photo-lithographs of two of these, and has kindly promised a fully illustrated note on all three in next year's RECORDS. Another omission is all the slabs on the floor of the old Church, except four, because, of the others, not a trace remains beyond the pages of Langley and Lipscomb.

I much regret that pressure of other work has prevented me from offering more than a mere bald transcript of these monuments; but I have to express my great indebtedness and warmest thanks to Mr. Henry Gough (Honorary Member of this Society), who has most kindly looked through the proof-sheets, and has corrected and added notes on the heraldry.

The inscriptions recording benefactions are copied from a MS. book belonging to the Church, written just before the old Church was demolished. Those from the existing Church were added to the book by Mr. H. W.

*The same two brasses are briefly noted in Haines's Manual of Monumental Brasses, 1861.