After the death of lhs first wife he was twice married, but the tomb presents no indication of these subsequent alliances, a fact which appears clearly to intimate that it was erected by him before his second marriage.
He was the great grandson of Ralph Reynes above-mentioned, and having succeeded to the family property about A.D. 1394 on the death of his unmarried elder brother, he died A.D. 1428, as recorded on a brass bearing his effigy with an inscription to his memory, and probably lying over the place of his interment.
The tomb was doubtless built after his succession to the manor in A.D. 1394. Allowing therefore as many years as may reasonably be reckoned for his second and third marriages, and for the evident difference between the sculptured effigy on the tomb and that on the brass, we may with great probability fix the date of the tomb at about A.D. 1400. It certainly is a fine specimen, both in design and execution, of that period. It has received rather rough treatment, especially at the sides, where two or three of the small effigies have been literally defaced, but on the whole it is in good preservation. Not many years ago these curious monuments were thickly covered with coatings of whitewash, and the dust and dirt that had long been accumulating about them. Perhaps this caused Lipscomb to consider them as scarcely worthy of notice, for he describes them in the most cursory manner and does not give a single illustration of them, while his History contains numerous representations of other memorials of comparatively slight importance.
Since his account of the parish was published, the Rev. Thomas Evetts, now Incumbent of Prestwold, near Missenden, Bucks, was for a short time curate of Clifton, and while there, he restored, at his own expense, the church, and very carefully removed the crust which disfigured the sepulchral monuments. The oaken effigies may now be examined with advantage, and they will perhaps be found equal to any examples of such memorials in the kingdom.[1] W. HASTINGS KELKE.
- ↑ The representations of the effigies above described have been supplied from the sketches by Mr. Slater, architect, who kindly visited Clifton Reynes for the purpose of preparing drawings.
Sepulchral effigies of oak or chestnut wood, are comparatively rare, but several examples are described by Gough, Sep. Mon. See also Bloxham's Monum. Archit. p. 142; "Notes and Queries," vol. vii. pp. 528, 607; vol. viii. p. 255; vol. ix. pp. 17, 457. These statues are often found to be hollowed out and charred internally to preserve them from decay.
