THE two fonts represented in this plate are remarkable for their beautiful covers made of oak, and embellished in the richest style of Gothic ornament.
The first of these, in Ufford church, described in Archaeologia, vol. X. P.206, was probably the gift of the UFFORD family, which was settled in that parish from the reign of Henry III. and gave several earls to the county. Robert, grandson of the first Robert who occurs here, was advanced to the dignity and title of Earl of Suffolk, II E. III. and distinguished himself by eminent achievements till his death, which happened 1368, 42 E. III. He was succeeded by his second son William, who also took an active part in our foreign wars, and died suddenly 1382, 5 R. II. without issue; and this manor, with others was assigned to his issue Isabel for her life, which ended 1416, 4 H. V.1. To one of these two noblemen may be ascribed this monument of ancient magnificence, which bears their arms, S. A cross engrailed O.
The other font is in the church of St. Gregory at Sudbury, in the fame county of Suffolk; and though it bears no arms whereby its donors may be ascertained, it may not be an improbable conjecture to refer to the munificence of archbishop Sudbury, who was a native of this town, and having, when bishop of London, with his brother John, purchased this church of the nuns of Eaton Warwickshire 1374, and next year proceed the fame to be made collegiate, and founded, in the place where his father’s house stood, a goodly college for the six secular priests, one of whom was to be warden or master2, the bishop built the chapel or upper end of the church, as appeared by inscription in the window in Weever’s time3.
Orate pro domino Symone Theopold, alias Sudbury, qui istam capellam fundavit A. D’ni MCCCCLIV, in commemoratione omnium animarum dat, dicat, consecrat. [Pray for lord Simon Theopold, alias Sudbury, who founded this chapel in the year of our Lord 1454, [which] in commemoration of all souls he gives, dedicates, consecrates.]
In the same chapel Weever saw “a marble stone four yards Lon and two broad, sometimes “inlayd all over with brasse, under which the inhabitants say that Theobald, alias Sudbury, leyeth interred, which may be true, for howsever he hath his tombe in the cathedral church, Canterbury, of which he was archbishop; yet may be perhaps only his cenotaph, or honorarie funerals monument.”
Whether this tomb belonged to the archbishop, or any of his family (archbishop Chichele’s family were buried under the handsome brasses still ramianing in Higham Ferrars church), it is certain that his head is still preserved here in a grating in the said chapel, and supposed to bear the marks of the violet death which he suffered from Was Tyler’s mob 1381.
Admitting these conjectures to be well founded, these two font will nearly coaeval. The style of the archbishop’s monument Canterbury is peculiarly light and airy, and not unlike that of the cover of the font at St. Gregory’s4.
Such covers to fonts seem to be confined to the Eastern counties.
1 Dugdale, Baronage, II. 47-49. 2 Tanner, Not. Mon. p. 509.
3 Fun. Mon. 743. 4 Dart’s Canterbury, 154.