The Father, Mother, Daughter, in one Grave, Lye slumbering here beneath the marble Stone; Three, one in Love, in Tomb, in hope to have A joyful sight of him that’s Three in One.
Farewell, vain world, I knew enough of thee, And now am careless what thou say’st of me, Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear, My soul’s at rest, my head lies quiet here. What faults you see in me, take care to shun, And look at home, enough’s there to be done.
With the abbreviations and spelling, as it was taken from the plate itself, June 28th, 1751.
I pye the Crysten man that hast goe to see this: to pye for the soulls of them that here buryed is | And remember that in Cryst we be bretherne: the wich hath comaundid eu’ry man to py for other | This sayth _Robert Midleton & Johan_ his Wyf. Here wrappid in clay. Abiding the mercy | Of Almyghty god till domesdaye. Wych was sutyme s’unt to s’ gorge hasting knyght | Erle of huntingdunt passid this tnscitory lyf, in the yere of our Lord god m cccc...... | And the......day of the moneth of ...... On whose soull Almyghty god have m’cy amen |
“This Inscription (says a writer in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, for 1751) was in _Gothic_ letters, on a plate of brass, in the middle aisle, on the floor near the entrance into the chancel. It contains six lines, the end of each is marked thus |; and it appears to have been laid down in the life-time of _Robert Midleton_, because neither the year, day, nor month are set down, but spaces left for that purpose. I observe, that the inhabitants of Islington want to make their church older than I presume it is, and quote this inscription as it is in _Strype_, 1401, in support of that notion, when it is plain 1500, and is all that it says; and Sir G. Hastings was not created Earl of _Huntingdon_ till the 8th of December, 1529, so that this inscription must be wrote after that time. The oldest date that appears anywhere about the church, is at the south-east corner of the steeple, and was not visible till the west gallery was pulled down, it is 1483; but as these figures are of a modern shape, it looks as if it was done in the last century; the old way of making these characters was in _Arabic_, and not as they are now generally made.”