Earls Colne's Early Modern Landscapes by Dolly MacKinnon

Author:Dolly MacKinnon [MacKinnon, Dolly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781317147251
Google: nKoWDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-29T16:14:55+00:00

The Harlakendens’ Descendants

The monuments erected to the Harlakenden family and their relatives and descendants dominate the chancel of St Andrew’s and by the late eighteenth century spilled both into the nave and churchyard at the eastern end of the chancel. Richard Harlakenden, following the directions of his father Roger’s will of 1602/03, erected ‘a convenient tomb to be made there in the wall at the right hand of the door coming into the said chancel’.12 Harlakenden’s kneeling figure, representative of Protestant prayer, the head of a godly family, is depicted with his four wives, as befitting the resident manorial family within the village. There was some delay in the monument’s construction, for in the spring of 1605 the monument was still not completed. The Consistory Court of London called Richard Harlakenden into question ‘for not paving the chancel of the church’, to which he answered that ‘the chancel is not paved in one place where he is to make a tomb for his father that tomb he saith he cannot do until the summer.’13 The cold weather conditions may have prevented building work that required the use of lime mortars. Roger’s body had already been committed to the earth under the chancel floor, and by 5 May 1606, Harlakenden certified that the chancel was tiled.14 Made of alabaster with black marble inlay, the wall monument, with its figures, was painted.15 Harlakenden’s will instructed that the inscription was to mention all of Roger’s wives and children/heirs, which it did. The memorial depicts Roger Harlakenden and behind him his four wives, also kneeling and praying, with five family coats of arms, four of which are displayed immediately above the heads of the figures.16 Harlakenden ‘was the second husband to all four’ wives: Elizabeth Hardres (with whom he had four children, Roger, Richard, Thomas and Mabel), Elizabeth Blatchenden, Jane Kelton widow and Ann Dewhurst. Harlakenden made a habit of marrying well-connected widows.17 The inscription declares Harlakenden’s descent from ‘ye ancient Families of Harlakenden in Wood Church in ye county of Kent’, and the commemoration to be found there.

Harlakenden’s monument at Earls Colne was building on commemorative practices of the Harlakendens of Woodchurch, Kent, who had erected two monumental brasses in the parish church during the second half of the sixteenth century. A brass dated 1558 was erected to Thomas Harlakenden and his two wives, Elizabeth Watno and Margaret, showing three kneeling figures, with Thomas in military costume and his wives in civil dress. The second brass, dated 1584, commemorated Martin Harlakenden and included his shields with coats of arms. These monuments may have been exemplars to Roger Harlakenden in the construction of his memorial as the first of his name to reside at Earls Colne, since he was explicit in his will with regard to his intentions:

I bequeath my soul to almighty god trusting that through the death passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ my only saviour mediator and redeemer I shall rise again to immortality and everlasting joy with the elect children

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.