Septembris die viceno, hei perit illa Atq. secundo, ut aiunt, mors tua vis nimia est, Immo non periit sed olympica regna petiuit Mon mors est, quam nos sagimus * * * mortem vocam Against one of the pillars in the chancel, stands a very handsome antique monument, which appears from the inscription to have been erected to the memory of lady Barbara Crompton. "Heire of Richard Hudson, Doctor of Lawe and late wife of Sir Thomas Crompton Judge of the High court of Admiralty of England, Advocate for Queen Elizabeth, and kinge James of piouse memory; Vicar Generall to the Arch-bishopp of Can⚫terbury, and Chancellor to the Bishopp of London. Whose body lyeth interred in the P'ish church of St. Gregory, by St. Paules London. She lived his Widdow three and thirty yeeres and departed this life fourth day of March 1641 aged 72." Below this part of the inscription appears a recital of the names of her children, and the different families into which they were married, but we omit it as too long for insertion here. Besides these there are a variety of other monuments in this church; bnt neither they nor the numerous gravestones, which form the pavement of the chancel, merit particular description. The church of St. Mary's in the times of Popery was collegiate. King Stephen bestowed it on the bishop and chapter of Lichfield and Coventry some time previous to the year 1136, but the precise year is not known. In 1445 the patronage of this church, having somehow or other reverted to the crown, was granted by Henry the sixth, to Humphrey duke of Buckingham. At the time of the dissolution, in the reign of Henry the eighth, it consisted of a dean and thirteen prebendaries, L112 daries, as is stated in Dr. Tanner's Notitia. The living is now a rectory in the gift of the king. Westward from the church, at a very short distance, there formerly stood a very ancient building, which Mr. Pennant supposes to have been the dean's house; and most likely his opinion is correct. In a MS. (penes me) it is said to have been "evidently the nave of a church, (with the north aisle remaining) consisting of five plain circular arches or circular columns; the window and door at the west end were pointed." This building, however, whatever might be its original destination, does not appear to have been ever set apart for divine worship. It had long, previous to its demolition, been occupied as a Free School, and its materials were upon that event chiefly employed in rebuilding another on the site of the old Gaol. The other church of Stafford, which is dedicated to St. Chad, is a very old structure. Its architecture is an imitation of the most ancient Saxon plan, which assigned one half of the whole dimensions, to the nave, one quarter to the tower, and the remainder to the chancel. About seventy or eighty years ago this church was cased with brick. Some portion of the perpendicular buttresses of the old building, however, can still be seen. The north side of the chancel exhibits the only fragment of Saxon architecture now extant in this ancient borough. It consists of two small circular headed windows, supported by projecting facia about five inches deep; the beads being about one inch in diameter. The tower is in the latest pointed style, and would be a handsome object, but for the circumstance of the stone being so extremely friable that its ornamental parts are rapidly going to decay. In this tower there is now only one bell; the other four having been sold for the repair of the church. St. Chad's parish is extremely small, not comprehending within its boundaries more than twenty houses, the rents of which are chiefly paid to the dean and chapter of Lichfield cathedral. From these and other circumstances it is conjec tured tured in the MS. several times already mentioned that this church is of much older institution than that of St. Mary's, but we must confess the conclusion does not appear to us clearly warranted by the premises. Besides the churches belonging to the establishment there are several places of worship appropriated for the meetings of Quakers, Independents, Presbyterians, and Methodists, of which sects the two last are by far the most numerous. Stafford, previous to the dissolution, contained a variety of monastic institutions. At the north end of the walls stood a house of Franciscan or Grey Friars, which Erdeswick tells us was founded by Sir James Stafford of Sandon. Henry the eighth granted this cell to James Leveson, in the thirty first year of his reign, when its annual revenue was valued at 351. 13s. 10d. Here was likewise a Priory of Black Canons, founded according to some authors by Richard Peche, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, about the year 1180, but according to others by Gerard Stafford, who thought proper to compliment the bishop with the title of founder, because it was built upon a portion of his Lordship's property. Which of these accounts is true we cannot determine; but this much is certain, that the bishop always manifested a strong partiality for this house. Upon resigning his see, indeed, he entered himself one of its religious, and continued in that situation till his death. It was dedicated, as appears from the Anglia Sacra, to St. Thomas Becket exactly ten years after his death. The number of its religious was limited to seven, whose revenues were 1981. a year. After the general dissolution the king granted it to Row. land bishop of Lichfield. This house was very pleasantly situated close to the river Sow, about two miles to the east of Stafford. Its chief remains consist of a building with two circular doorways, and oblong square headed windows, a few pilasters of half columns in the boundary wall, an arch way and two fossils in the garden, two foliated L113 |