Notice of Books

( 451 ) NOTICES OF BOOKS. The History of tlie Barisli Church of All Saints, Maidstone, with ten illustrations, by the Eev. J. CAVTS-BEOWJSTE, M.A., Vicar of Detling. Maidstone : G-. Bunyard, Week Street (270 pages), price 10s. 6d. Mr. Cave-Browne's books are always readable ; his style being good, lucid, and pleasing. The scope of this publication may be gathered from the headings of its eight chapters, viz.—i. The Church and its Architecture ; ii. the Chancel, Altar-tombs, and Sedilia; iii. the Sectors of j3t. Mary's Church ; iv. Archbishop Boniface's Hospitale; v. All Saints College, its Masters, etc.; vi. All Saints a Parish Church; vii. The Monuments; viii. The Eegisters; ix. Appendix of Documents extending over twenty-nine pages. This book contains much information that has not been printed before; although in traversing ground previously occupied by Newton, Beale Poste, Whichcord, and Gilbert, much that is well said by Mr. Cave-Browne cannot be new. . As to the date of the building, Mr. Cave-Browne, like many others before him, calls attention to the windows in the north wall as suggestive of patchwork in the architecture. He, however, has been bolder than others, and he says, on p. 9: " There is a marked difference between the arches of the chancel, and those of the nave. The broader four-centred spans of the former confirm the impression made by the glance at the exterior, and indicate fourteenth-century work: but the narrower two-centred arches, which give so charming an air of lightness to the nave, claim to be well nigh a century older." This means that while Archbishop Courtenay may have caused the chancel arcades to be erected, circa 1395, the nave arcades are well nigh a century older. • To this statement, probably, architects and all who are well acquainted with medieval styles will demur. Completely round the nave arches run those continuous mouldings, from the base of one pier to the base of the other pier, which are so characteristic. They occur, * around the whole of the arches, in the nave and in the chancel alike, and they will, by most judges, be thought to shew conclusively that the arcades are of the same date, both in chancel and in nave ; and that both are of the age of Courtenay or Arundel. A reader of the book can judge of this matter for himself, by consulting Mr. Cave-Browne's useful plates, opposite pages 9 and 10. Mr. Cave-Browne is extremely painstaking in his researches, and he furnishes abundant references to, and extracts from, original documents.' Sometimes, however, he gives loose rein to his imagination- These occasional ebullitions of fanciful generalization are, G G 2 452 NOTICES OE BOOKS. happily, few and far between ; but they may mislead the unwary. Of Nicholas de Knoville, who was Eector of Maidstone from December 1287 until his death in 1310, Mr. Cave-Browne erroneously says, on p. 66: " He had evidently been Eector of Faversham before coming to Maidstone." As a fact, he never was Eector of Eaversham. The truth is that he was Eector of Bocton, or Boughton, under Blean, and, in virtue of that office, he had in his patronage the vicarage of Bocton, and also that of Hernhill. Mr. Cave-Browne says that these vicarages were " benefices then in the patronage of the Eectory of Faversham ; " but when he looks closely at the entries in the Eegister of Archbishop Peckham, he will find that his imagination has misled him in this matter. Again, on p. 74, Mr. Cave-Browne tells the reader that " in 1387 Courtenay, then Bishop of London," did something. The fact is, that Courtenay had then been, for five years or more, Archbishop of Canterbury. Consequently the imaginative statement that meanwhile, between 1387 and 1390, Courtenay had " been raised to the Primacy " is misleading to the ordinary reader. This occurs in reference to a rector whom Mr. Cave-Browne calls Guido or Q-uy de Mone. This rector seems seldom to have affected the " de " as a prefix to his name, until after he had resigned the rectory of Maidstone. He was appointed as simply G-uido Mone, to be Eector of Bradwell in Essex, to be Prebendary of Cadington Major in St. Paul's Cathedral, and to be Treasurer of that Cathedral; also when collated to the rectory of Saltwood, in 1384, and to the rectory of Maidstone on the 15th of October 1390, he was styled Guydo or Guido Mone. I am not sure that even in the Letters Patent by which he was raised to be Keeper of King Eichard's Privy Seal * the "de" is inserted before his surname Mone. That prefix is, however, used in Archbishop Courtenay's will, whereof he nominated Guido de Mone to be an executor; a similar prefix I believe was used when he was appointed rector of Harrow—he was then styled Guido de Mons, or otherwise mis-described. When he became Lord High Treasurer of England, and Bishop of St. David's, he seems to have insisted upon the prefix de, and he is called Guy de Mona in the fists of holders of those dignities. That he was not a member of the family of " de Mohun" is testified by his episcopal seal, which bore the arms described by Papworth, in his Ordinary of British Armorials, p. 454a, as a " chevron engrailed . . . between three (? laurel) leaves . . . . GUT. JOB MONA, Bishop of S4 David's 1397-1407." These arms appear upon a Miserere stall in Maidstone Church, of which he was the rector, and are also carved upon the Font in Sevenoaks Church. I t was said of this Guy Mone, by Walsingham the chronicler, that while he lived he was the cause of many evils. Bishop Godwin, "De Brcesulibus," ii. 162, styles him " Guido de Mona, nonnullis Guido de Mohun." At Maidstone and Saltwood he was Guy Mone. Probably he is represented, as Bishop of St. David's, in the painting Rot. Pat. 2l Ric, IL, rot. i., memb. 23. NOTICES OP BOOKS. 45 3 at the back of Dr. Wottou's tomb, in the south chancel of Maidstone Church. There is an episcopal figure inserted as a pendant to that of Archbishop Courtenay. Mr. Cave-Browne's description of the monuments is lucid and thorough. Especial care has been lavished upon the singular, we may almost say unique, memorials of the Astley family. On page 161, he acknowledges (in note 2) that he has been unable to trace the intermarriages of Susan Knatchbull & Alice Knatchbull, daughters of Thomas Knatchbull by his wife Eleanora Astley. We are glad to be able to supply the information, which Mr. Cave Browne has vainly sought. Susan, third daughter of Thomas and Eleanor Knatchbull, was married on the 22nd of April, 1622, to Christopher Allen of Maidstone. Their shield, upon the tomb, is the second on the sinister side of the central shield; it bears the arms of Allen of Grove near Maidstone (see Papworth's Ordinary, p. 386b), or, a chevron sable, between three bloodhounds passant, as the second, armed gules and collared of the first; impaling the arms of Knatchbull and Astley quarterly. Susan Allen died without issue before 1653. The last shield, on the sinister side of the central shield, commemorates the marriage of Alice Knatchbull, the fourth daughter, to John Cage, of Maidstone. He died in 1664, leaving three children, Eleanor (born 1644, married her first-cousin Eobert Cage), Alice, and Eobert. Their shield shews the arms of Cage (see Papworth's Ordinary, p. 1059b), per pale gules and azure a saltire or, with a crescent for difference, impaling the arms of Knatchbull and Astley quarterly. This chapter, in which Mr. Cave-Browne recites epitaphs upon the monuments, adding copious annotations to each, will be found extremely useful, and is highly to be commended. The very curious monumental brass (a plate of copper) erected by Thomas Beale, about A.D. 1600, in memory of six generations of his ancestors is well represented and described at pages 144—146. Mr. Cave-Browne will be interested in hearing (if he does not already know) that the gentleman who put up this remarkable monument, Thomas Beale, lived until 1606. The brother John, who is named on the monument, and is represented as kneeling behind Thomas, became a London merchant, and had a son, John Beale, who in 1660 was created a Baronet. Sir John Beale was married, in May 1655, at Aylesford, by a Justice of the Peace, George Duke, Esq. The bride was Ann, daughter of Sir William Colepeper, Baronet, of Preston Hall in Aylesford, and sister of Sir Eichard Colepeper, Baronet, who " gave her away,'' on this occasion. • Her cousin Thomas Crispe, of Dover, gentleman, was also present. Sir John Beale purchased Chillington House (now the Maidstone Museum) and West Court in Detling, but he also bought Farningham Court, in Kent, and resided there. His first wife died without issue in 1657. By his second wife, Jane, daughter of Eichard Duke, Esq., of Maidstone, he had four daughters, but no son ; so the baronetcy expired with, him, in 1684. Ambrose Beale, a younger brother, whose name and figure also 454 NOTICES OE BOOKS. appear upon the monumental brass, was twice Mayor of Maidstone in 1624 and 1637. In the List of Incumbents on pp. 139-140, the date 1392, against the name of Guido de Mone, is a misprint for 1390; and the date 1559, against Eobert Carr's name, is an error, caused by Mr. Carr's signing a fair copy of the Parish Eegisters, which was made towards the close of the century, when he was actually the incumbent. Antiquarian Jottings relating to Bromley, Hayes, Keston, and West Wichham, by GEORGE CLINCH, of the British Museum, and of Addiscombe, Surrey: 1889, pp. 191, with twelve woodcuts. (To be obtained of the Author.) This is an unpretentious book, which contains a good deal of information respecting the churches of the four parishes of which it treats, including careful transcripts of the epitaphs upon the monuments within them. The description of West Wickham Church, and of the flint implements found in that parish, has, to a great extent, already appeared in Archceologia Cantiana, Vols. XIV. and XVL, and the woodcuts from those volumes have been lent by our Society's Council to Mr. Clinch for use in his book. Eespecting Hayes Place, as well as several other estates, and the Clergy Widows' College in Bromley, Mr. Clinch has given interesting information. He also narrates his investigations of Pit-dwellings on Hayes Common. He has not discovered the dedication of Keston Church. This is one of the very few Kentish churches of which the dedication is unknown. Kentish Brasses, collected by War. DOUGLAS BELCHES (Architect), Vol. I . : Sprague and Co., 22 Martin's Lane, Cannon Street, London, E.C, 1888. This is a valuable volume, and quite unique. The purchaser obtains for 21s. excellent photo-lithographs of 225 monumental brasses which are found in seventy-five churches of Kent. In time Mr. Belcher will issue another volume to complete the work. No one has ever previously endeavoured to reproduce every monumental brass in Kent. Ccesar m Kent, cm account of the landing of Julius Ccesar, and his battles with the Ancient Britons, by the Eev. FBANCIS T. VINE, Eector of Eastington. Second Edition. London: Elliot Stock. 1887. Mr. Vine wrote this book while he was Vicar of Patricksbourue, near Canterbury. In the second edition, two very useful maps are inserted; one shews Mr. Vine's notion of Julius Cesar's route; the other indicates the position which he supposes the British and Eoman armies to have probably occupied when Caesar returned to Barham Downs, after repairing his shattered fleet at Deal.