York Guides

LATER in the century, in the post-Restoration period, fashion again changes, and the coloured alabaster figures give way to those in white, with severe grey marble backgrounds, more restrained and less elaborate than the preceding florid Renaissance style. There is a series of fine monuments in the Minster erected during this period carved by the best sculptors of the day. Archbishop Sterne, d. 1683 (left), was the grandfather of Lawrence. In the long epitaph we are told: " He attended the martyr William of Canterbury as his chaplain on the fatal scaffold, with whom he had the courage even to have died for he dared to be good amongst the worst of men."

This monument was recently removed to its present position bereft of its background, but, fortunately, this has been re-assembled, re-erected and restored as originally designed, flanked by the two cherubs, shedding their marble tears. Mrs. Esdaile attributes it to Grinling Gibbons

The monument to Archbishop Dolben, d. 1688 (right), is probably by Jasper Latham, author of the magnificent, but now much damaged, monument of Archbishop Sheldon of Canterbury, erected at Croydon in 1676. Not only does the style suggest his hand, but Mrs. Dolben was Sheldon's niece, and, as she erected the tomb, she is almost certain to have employed the sculptor who had so deeply impressed his contemporaries by the tomb of another Archbishop only a few years before.

The epitaph on Archbishop Dolben tells us he

" Carried the royalist standard in the battle of Marston and was dangerously wounded in the defence of York, and consecrated with his blood the place where he was afterwards to die."

An engraving in Drake shows the whole of the monument as it was before being injured by the fire; fortunately most of the background has recently been found by the Dean, who intends to assemble and re-erect it when the material to replace the missing portion is available.

Archbishop Lamplugh, who died in 1691 (left), is carved standing, appropriately grasping the pastoral staff that he finally secured by making his views agree with those in power as each change took place-he was a veritable Vicar of Bray. Drake quotes the French proverb: " To lie like an epitaph," and it might well be applied to the one on this monument, which reads:

 " At length, though he had solicitously declined that dignity, he was promoted to this metropolitical see in the month of November, 1688."

The receipt for the Archbishop's monument is signed by Grinling Gibbons and is in the Bodleian. It cost £100, and was erected by the Archbishop's son, whose monument is also in the Minster (below right). The device by which two marble curtains are drawn aside to show the figure of the Archbishop, whilst two cherubs are perched on the top of the monument, is typical of Gibbons's work. Gibbons came to York at the age of 15, as apprentice, it would seem, to the elder John Etty (below left), and his work is of especial interest to the City.

Each of the Archbishops is shown wearing a mitre; the earlier ones are represented as wearing college caps.

There are three wall tablets of this period with similar decoration. That to Maria Raynes, d. 1689 (below left), in the Minster is in alabaster. We are told she  "lived distinguished by her virtues, and expired amidst the unspeakable tortures of a cancer, which she endured with astonishing patience."

One to Roger Bellwood, d. 1694 (below), is in St. Crux Parish Room:

" Sergeant at Law, a learned man, much experienced and judicious in Law and Equity especially."

 His books are shown, like those of Archbishop Frewen, with the leaves facing the spectator.

The little mural tablet to John Wood, d. 1704 (below left), in coloured marble, in St. Michael's, Spurriergate, is very similar in design to that of Maria Raynes of a few years earlier.

The Earl of Strafford, d. 1695 (below left), is shown wearing a full-bottomed wig, and the Countess in the flowing dress of the period; both are standing attended by cherubs. Strafford married twice, his second wife, the one represented on the monument, was a member of the French family of La Rochefoucald. In the Belfrey Church there is a similar monument to Robert (d. 1707) and Priscilla Squire (d. 1711) (below right) of the same period. Both of these figures are standing under a marble curtain, with attendant cherubs, but they are somewhat obscured by the modern pews which come close up to the fine wrought-iron railings in front of the monument. The Strafford monument is certainly by John Nost, principal assistant to Gibbons's partner, Arnold Quellin, whose widow Nost married; he carried on Quellin's business, employing as his principal assistant one Andrew Carpenter, author of the statue of Queen Anne erected by Thoresby's cousin Milner at Leeds. His style resembles Nost's, but betrays stylistic differences which suggest that the Squire monument is the work of both artists, Nost, in Mrs. Esdaile's opinion, executing the effigy of Robert Squire, Carpenter that of his wife Priscilla.

Andrew Carpenter must not be confused with the York statuary, Samuel Carpenter, 1660-1713, who took up his freedom in 1684. He was buried in St. Lawrence; his wife (d. 1731) in St. Dennis.

Thoresby records meeting him in York, and he commissioned him to execute the bust of his father for Leeds Parish Church, which, like that to Thoresby's friend Thomson in St. John's, Leeds, is, unfortunately, no longer there; there are engravings of it in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodonensis.

Snaith Church contains a mural monument to Lady Elizabeth Stapleton, d. 1683(left), which is signed "Samuel Carpenter of York, carver fecit"; Mrs. Esdaile's discovery of this signature is therefore of the highest interest to the historian of Yorkshire. Underneath the bust are two cherub heads which are identical in design to a small cartouche (below right) in St. Mary's, Bishophill Senior, which must certainly have been carved by Carpenter. Doubtless there are other contemporary memorials of his work in the York churches. He was a friend of John Etty, sen., the architect, to whom Grinling Gibbons was apprenticed, and his cherubs bear a remarkable resemblance to Gibbons's work in wood.

There are three interesting statues on the facade of a house in Petergate, which is the reputed birthplace of Guy Fawkes. They are eighteenth-century work and may be by Samuel Carpenter.

Similar to this is the remarkable work in black and white marble in the North Aisle, a composite memorial to Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle, d. 1684 (below), his daughter Lady Mary Fenwick, d. 1708, and Sir John Fenwick, d. 1697. The Earl's bust stands above the monument. He had been Governor of Jamaica, and ambassador extraordinary to the Czar of Muscovy. " He was not more distinguished by the nobility and antiquity of his family, than he was by the sweetness and affability of a natural and charming temper, which, being improved by the peculiar ornaments of solid greatness, courage, generosity and a public spirit, made him a great blessing to the age and nation where-in he lived."

The monument was erected by Lady Mary Fenwick, whose husband, Sir John, was executed for taking part in a Jacobite plot in the reign of William III; it has lost the canopy represented in Drake's plate, where it is shown raised from the ground by a series of steps, the whole surrounded by a beautiful wrought-iron railing.

The monument in the Minster to Dean Finch, d. 1728, and Canon Finch, d. 1737 (right), is by John Michael Rysbrack, the son and brother of artists, a Fleming by birth, and, according to Horace Walpole, " The best sculptor that has come to these islands since Le Soeur." In Mrs. Esdaile's opinion he was a greater sculptor where portrait busts are concerned, but the Finch monument is perhaps the least pleasing he ever executed, and, with the exception of a statue of Lord Strafford at Wentworth, appears to be the only example in the county of his elsewhere abundant work; his pyramidal monuments are simply not represented. The back­ground to this monument is curved. A view by Prout shows its original position attached to one of the columns in the Lady Chapel. There is no mistaking the family likeness of Dean Finch and his brother Canon Finch, sons of the Earl of Nottingham, who are represented on the same memorial. The Dean's wife seems only to be com­memorated by an adjacent tombstone. The faces of the two brothers have the self-satisfied air of prosperous men, although the writer of the epitaph to Henry Finch tells us that " The majesty, the grace and spirit of his countenance indicated the dispositions and accomplishments of his mind." The authorship is known from Vertue's list of the busts he saw in Rysbrack's studio, 1732 (Walpole Society, Vertue III, p. 56), and from the existence of the terra-cotta model at Burley-on-the-Hill.

Archbishop Sharp, d. 1714 (left), came from Bradford; the long and eulogistic epitaph tells us that: " This preacher of Apostolic truth and imitator ofApostolic fortitude by the Royal favour of William and Mary, and with the applause of all good men was promoted to the highest dignity of the Church."

The recumbent statue of the Archbishop is in the Lady Chapel of the Minster on the South side of the altar, and is a documented work by Wren's favourite sculptor, Francis Bird, who did the pediment and other stone carvings of St. Paul's, and the apostles on the roof, as well as the pretty tablet of Wren's daughter, Jane, in the crypt there.

There is an important monument in the Minster to Thomas Watson Wentworth, d. 1723, and his widow (below). This has been moved to its present position, and the pyramidal background has been taken away. The illustration in Dean Purey-Cust's Walks Round York Minster shows how the design has suffered in consequence. It was carved by an Italian sculptor, Guelfi of Bologna, who was brought to England by, and worked for, Lord Burlington and his friends before his return to Italy in 1734. He calls himself Romanus on the base of the statue, in reference to his training in Rome under Cavaliero Rusconi. His work is rare, this being the most important monument; the unfortunate destruction of the background some years ago is a needless mutilation which we all deplore; the pyramid has been from classical times the emblem of eternity, and this was one of the very earliest examples in England. The epitaph reads:

" His virtues were equal to his descent. By abilities he was formed for Publick by inclination determined to private life."

One of the most interesting tombs in the Minster is one of the same family, that of Charles, Marquis of Rockingham, buried in the Strafford vault. Had his life been spared, his statesmanship would probably have averted the war with the American Colonies. We have a superb portrait of him in the Mansion House by Sir Joshua Reynolds, but no memorial in the Minster, though there is a fine one in the Mausoleum in Wentworth's Park.

Knowles tells us that: In 1755 a monument was erected conjointly by Mr. Mitley and Mr. Harve, statuary for the late Mrs. Ramsden, d. 1745 (left), which was erected at Adlingfleet Church, near Howden. Mrs. Ramsden left her property to St. Catherine's Hall, Cambridge, which had this monument erected in her honour at Adlingfleet, where she lived, as there was not room for it in the College Chapel. Mitley carved a statue of George II in 1739, which was placed over the Market House in Thursday Market; he received the freedom of the City from the York Corporation as payment in 1745. When the House was taken down, the statue was moved to the entrance to the Guildhall, but, unfortunately, it has since disappeared.

A rectangular Copartment in St. Michael le Belfrey to Catherine and Christian North (right) bears his signature and that of Edward Raper, who is described in the freeman's roll as a mason. Mitley is called a carver and free working mason. He was employed by the Dean and Chapter in 1741 to carve the pulpit made by Leonard Terry.

 He and his brother-in-law, William Carr, built Cumberland Row in New Street in 1746; his daughter married William Peckitt, the glass painter. His death in 1758 at the age of 53 is recorded on a cartouche in St. Cuthbert's (below).

There is in the Minster a large and beautiful memorial to Henry Medley, d. 1747 (below), vice-admiral of the Blue and commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, with the bas-relief of the fleet. It may well be, according to Mrs. Esdaile, an early work by a much-neglected sculptor, William Tyler, a foundation member of the Royal Academy. Many of the details strongly resemble Tyler's signed work; though active in 1750, he survived till 1803, and also practised as an architect.

Busts-the earliest in the Minster that on the Fenwick monument, the next on the Finch monument-steadily advanced in public favour after 1750; but in admiring Admiral Medley's, we must not overlook the charming figures of the weeping cherubs with their marble tears, or the delightful bas-relief of his ships at sea, underneath his portrait, and the interesting swag of sea-shells.

There is so much similarity in design between the lower part of the monument and that done by the local sculptor, Robert Avray, as to suggest that the latter based this portion of his design upon the larger memorial erected a few years before.