Heptonstall

Street Chapel

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Monumental Inscriptions on Yorkshiremen.

LUTTERWORTH CHURCHYARD, LEICESTERSHIRE.

(Transcription of Epitaph on John Wicliff.)

Sacred to the memory of John Wicliff, the earliest champion of ecclesiastical reform in England. He was born in Yorkshire in the year 1324. In the year 1375 he was presented to the Rectory of Lutterworth, where he died on the 31st of December, 1384. At Oxford he acquired not only the renown of a consummate schoolman, but the far more glorious title of the Evangelic Doctor. His whole life was one perpetual struggle against the corruption and encroachments of the Papal Court, and the impostures of its devoted auxiliaries, the mendicant fraternities. His labours in the cause of spiritual truth were crowned by one immortal achievement, his translation of the Bible into the English tongue. This mighty work drew on him, indeed, the bitter hatred of all who were making merchandise of the popular credulity and ignorance. But he found an abundant reward in the blessings of his countrymen of every rank and age, to whom he unfolded the words of eternal life. His mortal remains were interred near this spot, but were not allowed to rest in peace; after the lapse of many years (forty-one) his bones were dragged from the grave and consigned to the flames, and his ashes were cast into the waters of the adjoining stream."

ST. MARY-THE-VIRGIN, OXFORD. On a Tablet in the floor of the nave, near the Organ screen: John Radcliffe, M.D., died Nov. the 1st 1714. In the 65th year of his age.

This celebrated physician was buried with great pomp in the above church on December 3rd, 1714. In 1819, Dr. Radcliffe's coffin was accidentally discovered whilst alterations were being made, deposited under the pavement, no stone or tablet marking the spot where this munificent benefactor to the University was buried. The above inscription has subsequently been placed over the grave. T. SEYMOUR, Grandpont, Oxford.

LAMBERT. This family is of very remote origin, and appears in Yorkshire at a very early period. Mr. Lodge shews a migration into Yorkshire from the Lincolnshire family, but most of the printed pedigrees are more or less incorrect, as I have proved from the Records, after years of research.

All the Lamberts of Yorkshire do not spring directly from the same common ancestor. Even the Visitations vary from one another in minor details, especially in cases where father, son, and grandson bore the same christian name.

General Plantagenet Harrison's pedigree of the family is so full of errors, that it resolves itself into pure imagination, for the Maidenbradley Lamberts, as shewn in my "Minster in Kent," sprang from entirely different ancestors than those shewn by the General.

The William he shews as of Maidenbradley died sine male prole, and the Manor of Maidenbradley called Lambert's Manor, afterwards (25 H. VIII.) called Lambert's Court, passed to William's brother Thomas, and not son as stated by the General, as proved by William's Inq, P.M.

The Maidenbradley Lamberts bore the same Arms as the Lamberts of Tickhill in Yorkshire. The latter sprang from the Lamberts of London and Herts, as proved from the following evidence :

i. The de Banco Roll, 15 Edw. IV. has John Lambert late of Tickhill, Yorkshire, gentleman, alias the said John Lambert, late of London, gentleman. He appears to have been son and heir of William Lambert, of Tickhill, who held lands there.

ii. John Lamberd, (father of next testator), of St. Olave, in Silver Street, London, citizen and mercer there, by his will of 24 Sept., 1487, mentions John Lamberd, of Tickhill, Yorkshire. This testator had estates in London, Herts., and Kent.

iii. John Lamberd, (son of above), of Hensworth, Herts., who held lands in Kent and Herts., by his will dated 20 April, 1508, mentions his cousin John Lamberd, senior, of Tickhill, Yorkshire.

John Lamberd, of Tickhill, and Alice his wife, however, appear in the Poll Tax Collection for 1379, besides many others of the surname in the immediate neighbourhood.

The origin of the surname has been defined, and it is said that Lambert is locally pronounced at the present day in Yorkshire, as Lambherd, the old form of spelling. Being derived from a herd or minder of lambs, distinguishable from Herd a general minder of cattle, sheepherd or cowherd (coward) minder or herd of sheep or

Cows.

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Lanbert, spelled with an n, was a tenant of Fleming, and a vassal of Drogo de Beurere, and held a Manor at Sutton in Holderness, at the time of the Doomsday Survey.

Almost any branch of the family can be followed from recorded documents noted. HENRY W. ALDRED.

181, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, S.E.

Enterber Cottage.

Amidst the grand mountain scenery of Swaledale, with its famous moors and grouse attracting the notice of Earl Fitzwilliam and other noblemen;-amidst stupendous hills, with Nature, in all her wildest and rocky majesty, where a thousand storms and floods of water have rolled and rushed down its glens and vales, amidst scenes the most wild and picturesque, the childhood of poet Close was spent.

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At the age of ten, Mr. Close's father came to dwell at a solitary house called Enterber Cottage," about a mile north of KirkbyStephen; in this same cottage, under the poet's bedroom, was a small room used as a pantry, This he had converted into a study and cut