and with a conscious serenity of mind, by his two daughters ELIZA CADOGAN and SARAH STANLEY. On the east side of the base are these arms carved upon a shield: A sword in pale, the point downwards between two boars' heads couped, on a chief ermine a lion passant (Sloane). On an escutcheon of pretence, quarterly 1 & 4 arg. a cockatrice sa. (Langley) 2 & 3 arg. on a bend vert. 3 wolves heads erased of the field (Middleton). On the west side is the crest, a lion's head erased, or, collared with mascles interlaced, sa. It appears from the Vestry Minutes that this monument was not erected till 1763, in which year (September 21) the parishioners were asked to consent to "an alteration intended to be made in Sir Hans Sloane's monument," and they approved "an intimation from Doctors Commons for a vault and monument." Cole, the antiquary, notes that "In the Cambridge Chronicle of Saturday October 29, 1763 is this paragraph:-A magnificent monument is erected by Mr. Wilton the Statuary at the South East corner of the Churchyard at Chelsea to the memory of the late Sir Hans Sloane and his Lady." MSS. Add. 5832, fol. 213.) (Mus. Brit. CHAPTER V SIR THOMAS MORE No one has yet succeeded in throwing any certain light on the circumstances of More's settling in Chelsea. The date may be nearly guessed; for in the marriage licence of his daughter Margaret with William Roper, dated 2 July, 1521, she is described as of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, while in 1524 there are two purchases by More recorded in the "Feet of Fines" for Middlesex; one, of a messuage and seven and a half acres in Chelsea and Kensington for £20, the other of twenty-seven acres of land in Chelsea for £30. There is nothing in these records which serves to identify these premises, which were only a part of what he left in Chelsea;* and in determining the site of his house, of which no vestige now remains, we must be guided by its subsequent history. Even at the beginning of the eighteenth century the question was so much in doubt as to occasion a letter from Dr. King, the Rector, on the publication of Hearne's edition of "Roper's Life of More." Though time is the great devourer of all things in this world," he writes, " yet it is strange that in the course of two hundred years, a matter of this nature should be so much in the dark. As seven cities in Greece contended for the birthplace of Homer, so there are no fewer than four houses in this parish lay claims to Sir Thomas More's residence." * It is possible that the bulk of his property was that devised by Hugh Oldom, Bishop of Exeter, to Corpus College, Oxford; there being no further record of this college in Chelsea. The will was dated 16 Dec. 1518, and the property is described as "All such houses lands and tenements rents reversions with all other appurtenances lying in Chelsey which I bought of Sir Renold Braye." It is now generally admitted that "Beaufort House," whose site is now occupied by the middle part of Beaufort Street, may be identified with More's; but as some doubt still exists on the subject, it will be as well to follow Dr. King a little further. "In my opinion," he continues, "Beaufort House bids fairest to be the place where Sir Thomas More's stood; my reasons are these that follow :-First, his [great]. grandson Mr. Thomas [i.e., Cresacre] More, who wrote his life, and was born in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and may well be supposed to know where the most eminent person of his ancestors lived, says that Sir Thomas More's house in Chelsea was the same which my Lord of Lincoln bought of Sir Robert Cecil; now it appears pretty plainly that Sir Robert Cecil's house was the same which is now the Duke of Beaufort's; for in divers places [are] these letters R.C. and also R.CE. with the date of the year, viz., 1597. Which letters were the initials of his name and his lady's, and the year 1597 was when he new-built, or at least new-fronted it. From the Earl of Lincoln that house was conveyed to Sir Arthur Gorges, from him to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, from him to King Charles I.; from the King to the Duke of Buckingham; from his son since the restoration to Plummer, a citizen, for debt; from the said Plummer to the Earl of Bristol, and from his heirs, to the Duke of Beaufort; so that we can trace all the mesne assignments from Sir Robert Cecil to the present possessor.' Of More's share in the history both of the parish and of the Church I have already spoken. Of his life I feel no need to give any account in this place, except a few passages which, although probably familiar to most of my readers, I have collected out of the most authentic records of him, as being of the greatest interest to Chelsea. The most valuable account of More's private life is, unquestionably, that of William Roper. "I, William Roper," he writes in his preface "(though unworthy) his son-in-law by marriage of his eldest daughter, knowing no one man that of him and his doings understood so much as myself, for that I was continually resident in his house by the space of sixteen years and more, thought it therefore my part to set forth |