MR. URBAN, Camberwell. I HEREWITH forward you some particulars in the Life of Sir Edmund Verney, Knight Marshall and Standard-bearer to King Charles the First, who bore the royal banner at the battle of Edge Hill; in the hope that a character so excellent may find some further illustration, through the exertions of your valuable Correspondents. Of this person, who might be termed, in all save erudition, the archetype of the accomplished Falkland, it is a matter of surprise and of regret that so little has been recorded. He was the second son of Sir Edmund Verney, Knight, of Middle Claydon, in the county of Buckingham, and of Penley, in Hertfordshire, by his third wife,t Mary, daughter of John Blackney, Esq., of Sparham, Norfolk, and was born in London on the 7th of April, 1590. Bred at Court, he stood pre-eminent for virtue where virtue is so seldom found, inasmuch that it became a common saying that he was the only courtier against whom no venality could be alleged; and Charles, in after times, was frequently heard to remark that the family of Sir Edmund Verney was the fairest model for imitation in the kingdom. In 1616, Sir Edward Herbert, afterwards Lord Herbert of Cherbury, was appointed ambassador to France, and with this celebrated nobleman, Sir Ed For a pedigree of this ancient family, deduced from Ralph Verney, living in the 7th of John, see Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, Part I. p. 178. + Dr. Lipscomb, (History and Antiquities of Buckingham, Part I.) has endeavoured to shew that he was the son of his father's second wife (Awdrey, daughter of William Gardiner, Esq., of Fulmer, who died in July, 1588, and relict of Sir Peter Carew, Knight), for the sole purpose, I imagine, of submitting to the idle tradition, "That he was neither born or buried" -a tradition grounded, he tells us, on the belief that he was brought into the world by the Cæsarian operation, his mother dying durante partu; and from the circunstance of his body never having been found. But this conjecture is any thing but fortunate, as on an inquisition held after his father's death, at Missenden, 15 May, 42 Eliz., and cited by the learned Doctor, he was found to be ten years old and upwards, which age agrees with the date above. mund Verney visited the court of Louis XIII., and two years after he attended Sir Henry Wotton in his embassy to Venice. In 1621, or the following year, he accompanied John Lord Digby, to Spain, and here, in his zealous opposition to the machinations of Popery, he narrowly escaped falling into the power of the Holy Inquisition. Going one day, in the August of 1623, to visit Mr. Washington, page to the Prince of Wales, who lay sick of a calenture, which terminated his life, he chanced to encounter, on the stairs, a Romish priest of the name of Mallard, who had been endeavouring to seduce the dying man to the tenets of his religion. Words grew high between the parties, and blows succeeded words. -Howell's Letters. It is said by Lloyd, but with little semblance of probability, that this occurrence in some measure determined the Prince and Buckingham on their return to England. Immediately on the accession of Charles to the throne, we find him rewarding his esteemed and faithful servant-for he appears from his own conversation to have followed the prince for many years-with the office of Knight Marshall of his Horse and Verge-an office that could not be intrusted to a more efficient person, and which he retained till his death. It would scarcely have been in accordance with the spirit of the age, or with the then education of an accomplished gentleman, if the subject of this sketch had suffered his sword to slumber in virginity; and accordingly, under the Lord Goring, he served some time in the Low Country, but whether before or subsequently to his travels, I am not prepared to state. In 1628 he represented the borough of Aylesbury in Parliament, from which time till 1639 I have no information respecting his proceedings. In this year he attended the King to Berwick, from whence, on the 6th of June, he was sent to the Scottish camp with the Earl of Dunfermline, the bearer of an answer to the petition presented by that Earl; and on the 30th of the same month he was commissioned, with Sir John Burroughs, to see the royal declaration read by Lyon King-at-arms, in the hostile camp. In February, 1640, being then member for Chipping Wycombe, I find his : name among the Committee for abolishing superstition and idolatry and on the 3d of May, the following year as member for the same borough, among the members who took the oath of Protestantism. The year now ensuing, brought with it the memorable impeachment of the five members, the increased unpopularity of the King, and his subsequent flight from London. It brought with it a Sovereign and his people divided and in arms, a powerful rebellion, and the consequent subversion of established principles. In this turn of affairs, it was not to be supposed that Sir Edmund would rest a passive spectator; and therefore, in right of his office, he unfurled the banner of his King in a cause that his honour led him to espouse, though firmly convinced in his mind of the injustice of its origin. It was on the 25th of August, 1642, that Charles erected his Standard, the open signal of anarchy and domestic war, upon the castle hill of Nottingham. Attended by a small train he ascended that eminence with Sir Edmund, who in affixing the royal banner in the earth, observed that, "By the grace of God," his usual asseveration," the man who wrested it from his hand should first wrest his soul from his body”—an assertion that he was shortly doomed to verify. Clarendon, in his History of this Rebellion, has preserved a melancholy and affecting memorial of his feelings at this period, and of the causes whereby he was influenced in the conduct he pursued. "My condition," said he to the noble author, whom he met at Nottingham, and congratulated on the cheerful countenance he was able to preserve in so momentous a crisis, "is much worse than yours, and different, I believe, from any other man's, and will very well justify the melancholy that I confess to you possesses me. You have satisfaction in your conscience that you are in the right; that the King ought not to grant what is required of him and so you do your duty and your business together. But for my part, I do not like the quarrel, and do heartily wish that the King would yield and consent to what they desire; so that my conscience is only concerned in honour and in gratitude to follow my master. I have eaten his bread, and served him nearly thirty years, and will not do so base a thing as to forsake him; and choose rather to lose my life, which I am sure I shall do, to preserve and defend those things which are against my conscience to preserve and defend; for I will deal freely with you; I have no reverence for the Bishops, for whom this quarrel subsists."* The first battle that was fought between the hostile parties, was at Keinton or Edge-hill, (23d Oct. 1642,) and here Sir Edmund, who rode with the King's own regiment of guards, determined to emancipate himself from the thraldom of his overwrought feelings, by bravely dying on the field. Adventuring his person into the thickest of the fight, he drew around him the bravest of the enemy. Many fell beneath his hand, and Lloyd mentions the almost incredible number of sixteen gentlemen who that day crimsoned his sword. To the repeated offers of life, if he would resign his charge, his reply was, "That his life was his own, and he could dispose of it; but the standard was his and their Sovereign's, and he would not deliver it while he lived." A single arm when opposed to thousands, must fail; and at that time, when Sir Wm. Balfour's reserve fell upon the King's Foot, he met the death he sought; and Lyonell Copley, Muster-Master to the Earl of Essex, is said to have wielded the weapon under which he fell.† His body was never discovered; but on the field, among the slain, a hand was found, and recognised by a ring as that which had so lately and so well upheld the honour of England—an incident that told in itself of the devotion of Sir Edmund, the manner of his death, and of the capture of his charge.‡ Rebellion, vol. iii. p. 285. The standard itself is said to have been "first taken" by Ensign Young, of Sir William Constable's regiment. Vide Special News from the Army at Warwick, &c. 1642. Tradition points out Penley as the place where this hand was buried; but as that estate had been alienated to Sir Richard Anderson before the year 1608, by Sir Edmund's half-brother, Sir Francis, Thus gloriously perished, in the fifty-first year of his age, a victim to his stern unbending virtue, one of the brightest ornaments both of the court and camp of his unhappy master. On the south side of the chancel of Middle Claydon church, may be seen a very high and curious monument ornamented with many arms, and the busts of Sir Edmund and his Lady. On this monument, among others, is the following inscription : "Sacred to the memory of the everhonoured Sir Edmund Verney, who was Knight Marshall 18 years, and Standard-bearer to Charles I. in that memorable battayle of Edge-hill, wherein he was slayne on the 23d of October, 1642, being then in the two and 50th year of his age. "And in honour of Dame Margaret his wife, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Denston, of Hilleston, Knight, by whom he had six sons and six daughters. She died at London on the 5th, and was buried here on the 7th of April, 1641, in the 57th year of her age." Of his sons, the eldest, Sir Ralph, was created a Baronet, 16th March 1661. He was father of John first Viscount Fermanagh, and ancestor of the Earls Verney. Captain Thomas, the second, died vita patris. The third, Sir Edmund, a Colonel under Charles, was massacred, with Sir Arthur Aston, at Drogheda; and Henry, the fifth, held the same rank in the Royal army; whilst of John and Richard nothing has been related. His daughters were all married; of whom Carey, the fourth, had to her first husband, Captain Sir Thomas Gardiner, who fell near Abingdon, in July 1645. In Middle Claydon House, the seat of the Verney family, is a three-quarter length portrait, by Vandyck, of Sir Edmund, who is represented with a melancholy countenance and loose and as his Lady was buried in the church of Middle Claydon, not much reliance is to be placed upon it. A ring, supposed to be the same Sir Edmund wore at Edge-hill, is still preserved by the representative of the family. It is of fine gold, and formed for the little finger, and has, beneath a small oval crystal, a painted portrait of the martyred Sovereign. GENT. MAG. VOL. II. sandy hair. His left hand reposes on an helmet, placed on a table, whilst in his left is a gilt staff with enamelled ends. Returning to the Royal Banner. After the death of its gallant bearer, it was entrusted, by Copley, to one Chambers, secretary to the parliamentary general, who, guarded by an escort of three cuirassiers and as many arquebusiers on horseback, endeavoured to carry it off the field. As they were thus making their way, Captain John Smith-a soldier of note and Captain Lieutenant to Lord John Stewart's horse, attended by one Chichley, groom to the Duke of Richmond, rode by, but conceiving the banner, which was rolled up, to be merely one of the ordinary colours of the King's Life Guard, and that so strongly guarded, he was willing to avoid an encounter. Whilst pondering on what step he should pursue, a boy on horseback called out that the enemy were carrying off the Standard. This intimation to a man of Smith's established gallantry, was not thrown away, and shouting "Traitor, deliver the standard," he immediately attacked the Secretary, who was on foot, and wounded him in the breast. Bending over to follow up his thrust, a cuirassier struck him on the neck with his poleaxe through the collar of his doublet, when at the same time his companions discharged their pistols at his face. The death of the cuirassier, by the hand of the Captain, terminated this unequal contest, for on his fall the rest presently fled, leaving the subject of contention in the hands of their gallant victor, who shortly afterwards delivered it to Mr. Robert Hatton, a gentleman of Sir Richard Willys' troop, who carried it to his Majesty.* The next morning, in the open field, Captain Smith (who was brother to Sir Charles Smith, of Wootten-wavers, afterwards created Lord Carrington) received the honour of Knighthood, and seldom has this favour been won in so memorable a manner. He was slain at Alresford, 29th March, 1644. G. STEINMAN STEINMAN. * Britannica Virtutis Imago, &c Oxford, 1644. F Mr. URBAN, I NOW conclude my remarks on the antiquities of Devonshire. Having in my preceding letter drawn largely upon the architectural treasures of Collumpton Church, I will now close the subject, though without exhausting it, by a description of one of its richest embellishments. The Lane Chapel on the south side is a very magnificent building. Its windows are highly adorned with tracery, and its buttresses, turrets, and parapets, share the ornaments which have been liberally bestowed on every part of the design. An inscription on the wall immediately under the windows, is not the least interesting object among the enrichments which claim attention : "In honour of God and his blessed mother Mary. Reme'b' the saulis of Jhon Lane Wapent' Cust' et Lanarius, and the sawle of Tomsyn his wiffe, to have in memory with all other ther Childryn and fr'ndis of your awne Charyty, which were fownders of this chapell, and here lyeth yn cepulture, the yere of ower Lorde God I thowsant fyve hondreth syx and twynti. God of his grace on ther borth sawles to have mercy and fynally bryng them to the eternall glory." The interior is light, lofty, and elegant; it is rich in ornament, but not overloaded, and the decorations are mostly in good taste, and spread uniformly over every part of the design. The roof is groined in stone: its whole surface is covered with a beautiful pattern of tracery springing from the walls and pillars, which latter are remarkably light and graceful, and strengthened by buttresses standing in the church, panelled and embellished with whole-length figures in several tiers. The Grenaway Chapel at Tiverton, is an adjunct in precisely the same taste. There is in both examples, but more particularly in this, a flaunting mien, which seems to result from an exuberance of ornament of a bold and prominent character. The architecture of these chapels does not harmonize with that of the churches to which they are attached. Something less than half a century divides the period of their erection, but they are separated by their character much more distinctly and distantly: they may be viewed as caskets of rare cost and most curious workmanship, but they are empty caskets, and it is certain that they never contained jewels in the shape of sepulchral monuments and sculptured effigies, commensurate with their beauty and their external claims to admiration. At Collumpton the founder's monument consists of a humble gravestone on the common level in the centre of the floor, where it has remained undisturbed, though not uninjured, ever since the day of its deposit. It is seven feet one inch in length, and three feet one inch in width, and has been embellished with the effigies of a male and female in brass, and four lozenge. shaped panels, two at the head, and as many at the foot, once filled with armorial devices. The brasses have been wholly destroyed, but the inscription engraved on the border of the stone, remains perfect : "Hic jacet Joh's Lane M'cator hui' qe capelle fu'dator cu' Thomasia uxore sua qi dict' Joh'es obijt xvo die februarij anno d'ni mill'o CCCCCXXVIIJ." I find the kind of sepulchral monument here described as marking the spot in the pavement of the chapel, beneath which repose the ashes of the founder, to have been in common use, at least in Devonshire, till after the commencement of the 17th century. The effigies and ornaments in brass were discarded, but the brief and intelligent inscription in old English characters, deeply engraven within a border on the verge, was retained; and often a coat of arms neatly cut, added to the value of the modest memorial. I select a specimen of one of these slabs from among several in the churchyard at Mamhead. It is elevated upon a plain tomb, and is thus inscribed: "Here lyeth the body of John Atwill, gent. of Kenton, who, for the love he bore unto this parrish, was here buried, the 12th of July, in 1600." Arms-A pile and a chevron, counterchanged. The possessors of architectural treasures, so rich and valuable as the chapels and screens above noticed, are not altogether without pride on account of the noble distinction these objects confer upon their churches. They bestow care and even expense to maintain their beauty and perfection, but less care and less expense would sometimes accord better with our notions of correct taste, than the skill of modern carvers, or the pigments of modern blazoners. But let us render justice to the motive; it is entitled to the warmest eulogy. In the shape of the clustered columns and the singular form of the capitals, very little variety is to be observed. The former are lozengeshaped. The capitals resemble broad bands on their summits; these are richly and sometimes very curiously ornamented. The design commonly possesses more merit than the sculpture, which is often coarse and inelegant. In Alphington Church the mouldings of the arches and columns correspond. The intervening capitals, which are broad at the top, and slope to meet the astragal, where they set on the pillars, are composed of four angels issuing from clouds, with expanded wings, and holding shields; between them are some handsome representations of foliage. One of the capitals on the south side exhibits a difference of pattern. The figures correspond with the rest, but their arms are connected by ribbons or scrolls very gracefully folded. The capitals of the columns in Broad Clist Church are very highly finished specimens of sculpture, mostly composed of heads and foliage. One on the south side has a rope issuing from the mouths of figures, and coiled round its circumference. Though the merit of extreme delicacy in point of execution, can rarely be allowed to belong to the sculptured ornaments which enrich the prevailing style of architecture in this county, yet numerous very beautiful specimens occur in many of the buildings. In some instances the excellence of the workmanship falls short of the design, and the profusion of ornament surpasses the beauty of its arrangement. Occasionally too, coarseness and neatness are so closely associated in the same object, that we can scarcely suppose that the chisel was guided by the same hand in its execution. But I do not observe that the ancients ever forgot the rule, or remembering never neglected it, that, though they appropriated foliage, fruit, and flowers in all their varieties to the service of architecture, servility of imitation was to be avoided; and that with the choicest models before them, the sculptors were free to exercise their taste and discernment in the use of them. Since exact copies were deemed unnecessary, it was thought no error or anomaly to combine whatever objects were suggested by fancy. In fine, the sculptors of antiquity exercised a licence in their art, which the imitators in these days would do well to consider with more attention than their works prove they deem necessary. The ancients were perfect masters of sculpture. Their buildings accordingly exhibit, in the majority of instances, admirable beauty both in the design and execution of this branch of their art, the best qualities of which are combined in the patterns of foliage which contribute so much to the beauty of the choir screen, and the brackets which sustain the pillars of the roof, both in Exeter Cathedral and in that which adorns the superb cornice of the roof of the Hall of Weare Giffard. The former were executed early in the fourteenth century, and the latter towards the end of the fifteenth century, in the reign of Edward IV. The oak leaf is one of the most common patterns among ancient foliage, and its representations in these examples is admirable; but the grouping of the foliage is so skilfully managed, and the imitation so graceful and unaffected, the application so judicious, and the material in which it is executed so well considered, that the result of the taste and skill of those who designed and wrought these excellent sculptures, is the most perfect and beautiful effect. It is evident that detail has not been overlooked, but the general appearance of the ornaments, in regard to the superior features of architecture with which they were incorporated, was duly considered; and the combinations of their various groups were formed with justness and elegance. The labour of undercutting, as seen in the examples just named, must have been very considerable, but a group of foliage was intended to be looked at as a group or assemblage of leaves, tendrils, and flowers, designed as a corbel, a boss, or a capital for use, to which ornament was subordinate; and |