Stall-work on S. side: and a Miserere from N. side (enlarged scale). Details (solleret and gauntlets) from Tomb of Sir Reginald and Lady Cobham. chiefly love sonnets and ballads addressed to some real or imaginary mistress; but there are also several passages in which the writer bitterly laments his captivity, and expresses a passionate desire once more to revisit his "Belle France." Of these, the following may serve as an example : "Je dois être un saison Est de vous servir et amer, Or m'ayderey a finer En bons termes ma matière." In 1431, Sir Reginald Cobham, conjointly with his second wife, founded the college of Lingfield adjoining the church, for a provost or master, six chaplains, and certain clerks of the Carthusian order, and the church was thereupon constituted a collegiate church. He endowed it with lands in this neighbourhood and elsewhere, which at the Reformation were valued at £75 per annum. Amongst these estates was included an inn, called "The Green Dragon," in Southwark, probably the same as is alluded to in the will of Joan Cobham, as her inn or hostel. It would seem that when the college was founded, the parish church was almost or entirely rebuilt, and stalls were placed in the chancel for the provost and chaplains. These are still remaining, and are embellished with the armorial bearings of Cobham and Bardolf. This Reginald died in the year 1446, in the same year in which, as it is believed, his son-in-law, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, was murdered, at Bury St. Edmunds, by the procurement of the queen, the Earl of Suffolk, and Cardinal Beaufort. By his will, dated 12th August, 1446, he directed his body to be buried in the collegiate church of Lingfield, before the high altar, appointing that a tomb of alabaster should be placed there for his monument; also that £40 should be allowed for his funeral expenses, and for his Trental and alms to poor people at those solemnities. To Anne, his most dear wife, he thereby disposed of all his household goods within his castle at Sterborough at the time of his decease, appointing that during her life she should have the use of all the furniture of his chapel in that castle, and after her death to remain to the master of the collegiate church of St. Peter, at Lingfield, then newly by him founded, and to the priests therein and their successors for ever; and he also gave £80 to buy books and vestments for the college, and appointed his son, Sir Thomas Cobham, Knight, one of his executors. The injunctions contained in this will as to the tomb were religiously followed by his widow and son. In the chancel of the church may yet be seen the lofty and wellproportioned tomb of alabaster, of which engravings are here given, and upon it are laid full-length effigies of the knight and his second wife. The first wife, as already stated, rests in a much more humble grave. It may be noticed as another proof, how little pains have been taken hitherto to compile our county his |