John Maunsell

Date of Brass:

1605/6

Place:

Haversham

County:

Buckinghamshire

Country:

Number:

Style:

Southwark

Description

May 2024

John Maunsell was born on 22 September 1539, the second son of Richard Maunsell and his wife Margery Fairfax. His will, proved in March 1605/6, a few weeks after his death, shows him to have been a man of considerable means. He left five hundred marks to each of his five younger sons, Tobias, John, Ralph, Thomas and Francis when they reached twenty-four years (or twenty-five in John’s case), and another five hundred marks to his daughter Mary on her marriage. He had previously at the request of his wife given six hundred marks to his daughter Dorothy on her marriage to Robert Haselwood. He now wished his wife to repeat that additional sum for each of his other children should his estate at his death be sufficient. 

After smaller bequests to his sister and her children, the poor of Haversham, each of his servants and his daughter Dorothy, the remainder went to his wife Dorothy and his eldest son Samuel. They were also to be his executors, and were to deduct from John’s five hundred marks the cost of procuring a fellowship for him at Magdalen College, Oxford. The additional year John was to wait for his money was presumably linked to this plan for his future.

The will names four overseers: Ralph Smith of Milton; his cousin John Maunsell of Chicheley; his son-in-law Robert Hasselwood; and John Farnell of Loughton. They were to receive twenty shillings apiece. Smith was perhaps his brother-in-law, his wife Dorothy being the daughter of Samuel Smith. His cousin John, who was also one of the witnesses of the will, represented a branch of the family in Chicheley, where he himself had been born. 

The form of John’s brass was unusual: his skeleton is shown in an open coffin as if viewed from above. Nothing in the wording of his will shows that he wished to be portrayed in this way.

The inscription plate in Roman capitals gives his exact age to the day, and asks us to follow his Christian life and Godly end. As Sally Badham has demonstrated (‘Post-Reformation cadaver and skeleton brasses’, M.B.S. Bulletin 146 (Oct 2021)), skeleton brasses are far from plentiful at this period, and John Maunsell’s is out of the ordinary even within that number.

Maunsell’s will asked his children to be dutiful and obedient to their mother.

The inscription reads: 

HERE RESTETH THE BODY OF JOHN MAVNSELL GENT:
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 25TH OF IANVARYE
1605 WHEN HE HAD LIVED LXVI YEERES FOWER
MONETHS AND FIVE DAYES WHOSE CHRISTIAN LIFE
AND GODLY END GOD GRAVNT VS ALL TO FOLLOW

John and his family have left relatively little mark beyond his brass. His eldest son Samuel acquired an interest in Cosgrave, Northamptonshire, where his descendants lived, while his son John, after taking his BA at Magdalen College, received his MA from Trinity College, Cambridge and became rector of Calverton in Buckinghamshire in 1609 and of Herstmonceux, Sussex in 1616. John was buried at Calverton in 1640.

Copyright (text and photo): Jon Bayliss