Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/80

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Devon Notes and Queries. 51 almshouses. The Earl was buried in old St. Paul's, London, his royal wife, who describes herself as ** the Daughter, Sister, Mid Aunt of Kings,'^ with great funereal pomp in their Chapel attached to the chancel of Tiverton Church, wherein her son, the unfortunate Marquis of Exeter, placed a magnificent monument with their effigies in alabaster to their memory. This chapel was subsequently ruthlessly demolished, and the monuments destroyed, not a trace being left scarcely ; but the beautiful mausoleum of the lowly-born Merchant and his wife -still survives, their effigies with prayerful hands, covering the inanimate dust entombed below, and although the surrounding l^end of identification has disappeared, and no children were given him to perpetuate his race, still in the building of his chapel and foundation of his Almshouses, wherein ** he hath Aspersed and given to the poor," his name *' shall be in ever- lasting remembrance." Contemporary with John Greneway aforenamed, the wealthy wool merchant of Tiverton, who, with his good wife, Johanna, flourished there toward the end of the fifteenth and in the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries, there lived in the not distant town of Cullompton, another eminent Merchant of the Staple, and who was apparently chiefly engraged in pursuit of the same branch of business, as an importer and exporter of wool and its products, ^Obtt XfltlC by name, and his help-mate tCbOmaSlne. Similarly to Greneway, he appears also to have risen from the humbler class of workers engaged in the trade, and by his industry and foresight apparently acquired a like prosperous condition of life, evidenced at his death by leaving a corres- pondingly striking memorial of himself and wife as Founder of the beautiful Chapel he erected and attached to the noble parish Church of St. Andrew, of Cullompton. Concerning this fine edifice, with its beautiful roof and screens, and com- manding tower, it is needless to enlarge, being so well known and admired. The Chapel erected by John Lane, and dedicated to Our Lady, is of considerable size, forms a second south aisle, and opens to the church by five arches, lit by a corresponding series of windows opposite, and others at the east and west ends. The vault is of rich fan-tracery (almost exactly similar in design to that of the contemporary Dorset Chapel at