Francis Yonge

Date of Brass:

1533

Place:

Edgmond

County:

Shropshire

Country:

Number:

I

Style:

Coventry 3

Description

August 2026

The county of Shropshire has relatively few monumental brasses in its churches but a quarter of the dozen dating from between 1465 and 1565 were products of Coventry workshops, reflecting n ot only the economic ties that the county had to Coventry but also that the northern half of the county was in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry.

The brass in St Peter’s church at Edgmond commemorating Francis Yonge of Caynton, esquire, was presumably ordered by his heir John after Francis’ death on 31 March 1533. The effigy of Francis is the only surviving shrouded figure from the Coventry workshops. The outline of the shroud is distinctive and a slab with two indents of very similar shrouded figures survives at Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, demonstrating that more did exist.

Although the figure of Francis is in a shroud, the figure of his wife Anne is not despite having died, according to the inscription, as early as 24 August 1507. Anne can never have experienced wearing the gathered undersleeves that she is depicted in, a fashion of the 1520s onwards, but the hood with long lappets would have been familiar to her. The skirt raised on one side is often a feature of Coventry-made female effigies. As with other Coventry brasses of the 1520s and 1530s, the slab into which the brasses are set is Lincolnshire ‘marble’, as shown by the fossil remains of sea urchin spines visible on the surface.

The brass was repaired in 1910 and the missing inscription, the missing scroll over Anne’s head and the missing daughter at the right-hand side of her sisters replaced by new pieces, as indicated by ‘renewed’ being engraved on all three with the date on two. Mill Stephenson’s illustration (reproduced here) shows the central shield as an indent although the shield of the five wounds of Christ is not marked ‘renewed’. It was present in the eighteenth-century, when a drawing of the brass was made showing the other three renewed pieces were already lost. The engraving of the inscription is impressive but its reproduces of a London style script rather than that used on Coventry style 3 brasses. This is most noticeable in the capital E of esquire for which the Coventry 3 workshop had adopted a roman capital by this date. The reproduction of the brass in its current state in W E Gawthorp’s The Brasses of our Homeland Churches (1923) suggests that the repair was one of the many made by Gawthorp.

The inscription reads:

Of y^r charity y^e shall pray for y^e soulls of ffrancis Yonge sometymes of Caynton

Esq^r sone & heire of Sr Will Yonge k^t & dame marg^tt his wife doughter of Nich Eyton

Esq^r w^ch ffrancis depted this world y^e last day of march y^e yeare of our lord m°ccccc°xxxiij°

& for y^e sol of Ane late wife to ffrancis doughter of Rich chorlton of Appley Esq^r

& Elisabet his wife doughter to Will Maynwaryng of Ightfeld Esq^r w^ch Ane deccessed y^e

xxiiij day of August y^e yeare of our Lord m°v^cvij on whos souls Ihu have mercy

The heraldry of the two shields of arms shows Yonge quarterly with Helstow, Caynton and Benarton impaling Eyton quartering Pantulf over Francis' figure and Charlton quartering Zouch impaling Mainwaring quartering Warren over Anne's head.

Copyright: Jon Bayliss (text & photographs)