centres also produced slabs with incised figures to compete with the taste for flat memorials. During the alabaster period, freestone effigies continued to be made, especially in the south-west, but the average performance throughout England was an imitation of the fashionable medium, which continued to hold undisputed sway until the Suppression.

As Speed quaintly put it in his book on the county, "Cheshire is the seedplot of the gentility of England." Taking this statement at its face value, we naturally look for their innumerable memorials scattered in the churches of the county. In this we are disappointed, and we may be permitted to seek for the reasons; first, the seedplot was none of the earliest, for the north-western side of England lingered far behind the times. The prosperous early life of England was gathered round the counties touching the eastern and southern coasts and (by the close of the fourteenth century) the Cotswolds, where the wool trade flourished and money was fairly plentiful. It is shown by the records that the wool-staplers practically financed Edward III in his various wars.

The Isle of Corfe was remote; there were no good roads along which such heavy blocks of stone could travel, water being the only way, and thus Cheshire can boast of no effigy in Purbeck marble. Another reason is to be found in the civil wars. The earlier Wars of the Roses do not seem to have interfered materially with everyday life, nor were they prodigal in destruction, but this cannot be said of the great Civil War, in which Cheshire played an important part, including the sieges of Chester and Nantwich and the garrisoning of such churches as Middlewich, Acton, and Barthomley. To this reason I suppose we may also attribute the absence of a single effigy in Chester Cathedral.

Of course the Reformation destroyed quantities of medieval art, and no doubt such abbeys as Vale Royal,

Combermere, Norton, and the rest contained many beautiful memorials. In addition, the iconoclastic zeal displayed in the destruction of inscriptions containing alleged superstitious invocations, led not only to the tearing up of brasses but the wanton destruction of tombs. The indifference displayed to medieval art and architecture in Post-Reformation years accounts for more; for we read of the destruction, due to indifference, of such wonderful tombs and effigies as those to the Troutbecks which once graced the church of St. Mary, Chester. When monuments were not actually destroyed they were often allowed to fall into ruin, as the Whitmore tomb formerly in the church of Holy Trinity, Chester. Others were turned out into the churchyards to decay, as the effigies to the Davenports at Marton, or were used as foundation stones to towers as at Rostherne. Some have found an asylum in private residences and museums, as the effigies from Grappenhall and Bowdon,

Modern restorers of churches cannot be allowed credit for much sympathy with old work, although I know nothing in Cheshire to compare with the wilful destruction of the splendid series of alabaster tombs which once adorned the church of Greens Norton, Northants. Still we are not blameless, for at Farndon during some repairs, three valuable old effigies were found carefully buried beneath the floor of the chancel, two being promptly ground up and sold for white sand. Another instance is recorded at Middlewich, where the effigy of a monk was destroyed in 1809 by being cut up to make a mantelpiece.

The record of destruction since the time when the various Randle Holmes visited the churches of the county is sufficiently grievous, accounting as it does for twenty effigies and twelve brasses. Well might old bishop Horne write: "To save the opulent from oblivion, the sculptor unites his labours with the scholar or the poet, whilst the rustic is indebted for his mite of posthumous renown to the

The structures of

carpenter, the painter, or the mason. fame, are, in both cases, built with materials whose duration is short. It may check the sallies of pride to reflect on the mortality of man. But for its complete humiliation, let it be remembered that epitaphs and monuments decay."

Still, in spite of all this destruction, purposeful and otherwise, there are a fair number of effigies of PreReformation date, principally the production of the alabaster centres of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; over thirty effigies in fair condition and five brasses, together with one or two incised alabaster slabs.

THE EARLIER Effigies.

Examples of early effigies in the county are few in number and much decayed, owing to the soft quality of the stone from which they were cut, neglect, and so-called restoration. The collegiate church of St. John in the city of Chester makes the largest contribution towards this section of our subject, comprising a knight, a priest, and a lady, all in red sandstone. The effigy of the knight (1) is broken away at the knees and is further mutilated; his head rests upon two cushions, and he is dressed in a coif of mail with a shirt of the same material, over which is a surcoat. He grasps a sword-hilt with his right hand, his shield being held by a strap going over the shoulder. The shirt of mail covers the arms, the hands being encased in mail mittens. The surcoat is loose, without sleeves, and is open back and front below the waist for convenience when riding. The sword is hung from a narrow belt passing obliquely round the body, and is buckled in front; the date may be assigned between 1270 and 1290.

A knight of the same period lies in the church at Grappenhall; (2) this effigy lay for several years in the museum at Warrington in a decayed state. It has been restored both in itself and to the church, but is now unreliable