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The Dering Brasses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

R. H. D'Elboux
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Extract

There is, in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, part of the Franks bequest, an illustrated manuscript by Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden in Pluckley, Kent, of monuments (mainly brasses) and heraldry in various Kent churches noted by him from 1628 to 1634. The Surrenden copy of Philipot's 1619 Visitation of Kent, in Sir Edward's handwriting, was sold, with other manuscripts from Surrenden, at Sotheby's in 1865, the first dispersal of the Dering library having occurred in 1811. J. J. Howard possessed a copy of it which has recently come to rest, as part of the Elgood bequest, in the library of the Kent Archaeological Society at Maidstone. Some pedigrees have been maintained to about the date of this church visitation, and from the note under Robert Master of Willesborough ‘vid: booke of Monuments in Churches’ (he is duly entered in 1628 on folio 28), it is possible that the whole of Philipot's visitation was copied at about that date. Some of the drawings from this Book of Monuments were illustrated in volumes i and ii of Archaeologia Cantiana, at the instigation of the Rev. Mr. Lambert Larking, from facsimiles made of the whole manuscript by Mr. Herbert Smith. The Society of Antiquaries' manuscript is Smith's copy, and his notes on folio 5 and 5a establish the fact; in all his published illustrations, however, there are minor but obvious differences from the manuscript.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1-2 , April 1947, pp. 11 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1947

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References

page 11 note 1 Since the writing of this the Society has purchased at a recent sale of Phillips's books Dering's original manuscript. It proves Sir Edward to have been a fine draughtsman, much superior to Dugdale, and makes Smith's facsimiles but poor showing. The illustrations in this article are all from Smith's work.

page 12 note 1 It was privately reprinted by the late R. Griffin and inserted in his offsets of Monumental Brasses in Kent, M.B.S. Trans, vii, 200–3, with the details of the arms, named only in the Dering MS., ascribed to Weever.

page 12 note 2 Weever's MS. of his Collections (Soc. Antiq. MS. 27) contains only the following entries under Pluckley: Sr Willm Ju g et misericor … Willūs Pluck-Pluckley ley miles… ds… qui ob. …

The armes of this knight are engraven upon all or most of ye pillars of this church.

John Dering & Julia his wyfe

Here lieth John Dering and Julia his wyfe wch John / deced this life 1517 & Julia 1526.

Malmains Here are monuts of the Malmains.

page 12 note 3 Hasted, fol. ed. ii, 229, comments' that he died in extreme poverty, having been forced, for many weeks before he died, to drink only water'.

page 13 note 1 Elizabethan Arms, fo. 58, 19, penes W. Hemp, Esq., F.S.A., has for Dering, gu, a bend between 2 stags heads couped [or] quartering Haut, Surrenden, Pluckley, and Bettenham.

page 14 note 1 It was read by Hasted as Hayt, as Dering possibly intended it to be, to explain the holding of the manor of Heyton in Stanford (see Griffin, , Archaeologia, lxvi, 511, no. 351Google Scholar).

page 14 note 2 The font in its present condition shows no trace of these erasures. In this manuscript, he assigns a quatrefoil still on the font to Bellamont, but by 1632 Sir Richard St. George accepts Dering's private evidences that his gules a quatrefoil or, the arms of Roe of Roecumbe in Pluckley, and allows it to Sir Thomas Roe of Bulwick, co. Northants. (See Harl. Soc, Miscellaneous Grants of Arms, 179–81.)

page 15 note 1 Hasted (ii, 391 (d) ) quotes a deed of 1494 concerning the Trinitarian Priory of Mottenden in Headcorn; in it occurs Surrenden Dering, but it was in the Surrenden library, and was, I suspect, Sir Edward's work.

page 17 note 1 Testamenta Contiana, 427, 428, quotes from the will of Cristyn Dreyland 1482 (A. 3. 26) her desire to be buried in the south porch of the church of Plukle beside her father, and a donation from her of £6. 13s. 4d. towards the further building of the Lady chapel there.

page 21 note 1 It is shown lodged, behind the standing figure.