Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Per L&M Companion:
(c. 1604 - 79) William Ashburnham was Cofferer of the Household to both Kings, and Commissioner of Monmouth’s household from 1665. His house in Westminster is now part of Westminster School.
The brother’s, John and William, represented to Pepys an impressive type of courtier — rich and worldly-minded, but also touchingly faithful to their royal masters …
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William and Jane Ashburnam’s tomb by John Bushnell, c 1630 - 1701, erected 1675, the first English sculptor to display any knowledge of the Baroque. “Ashburnam kneels, his hands thrown out in a gesture of grief, at the feet of his wife, who is shown in reclining posture, being crowned by a flying putto. Behind are curtains , held back by two more putti, while at the sides are coronet and plumed helmet, a shield and a burnt out lamp. The dramatic toomb, wit its intense expression of grief and direct appeal to the spectator , was certainly a novelty in England; so too is the fact that both the figures wear loose classical draperies. But unfortunately the distincetion of the conception is matched rathr by the beauty of the epitaph which records ho William, ‘coming from beyond see, where he was bread a soldier, married her and after lived almost five and forty years most happily with her’ for ‘she was a very great lover’, than by the quality of the sculpture …”
Margaret Whinney, rev. John Physick, ‘Sculpture in Britain 1530-1830’, 1968 (2nd. rev. edn.) pp. 97 - 100.
For illustration:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSmid=46790899&GRid=17001490& -
Other images of William Ashburnham’s monument:
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/search/results.html?qs=Ashburnham
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Cofferer of the King’s Household