This impressive alabaster monument commemorates Sir Henry Knollys (d.1583) and his wife Margaret Cave (d.1600), and stands as a fine example of Elizabethan funerary sculpture. The design combines classical symmetry with personal intimacy, presenting the couple in quiet devotion within a shallow arched recess of veined alabaster.

Sir Henry is depicted in full armour, lying on a rolled mat with hands joined in prayer, his features rendered with restrained realism. Below him, Margaret reclines on her side, her head resting on a cushion, her ruff and gown finely detailed. Their two daughters kneel in mourning at either side of the tomb chest, the black of their gowns contrasting with the pale alabaster of the figures above.

Traces of original colour and gilding survive, enhancing the monument’s sculptural depth and sense of presence. The framing arch and entablature, with its central inscription panel and carved devices, lend the monument a dignified architectural setting, characteristic of the late 16th century.

Sir Henry Knollys’ tomb reflects his standing within the Tudor court circle. A soldier and courtier, and brother of Lettice Knollys, Countess of Essex and later wife of the Earl of Leicester, his monument at Stanford-on-Avon is both a memorial of family piety and a statement of enduring loyalty to the Tudor dynasty. Henry was the brother-in-law, by way of his sister Lettice, to Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and was part of Devereux party in Ireland in 1574. He was most likely part of the massacre of Brian MacPhelim O’Neill of Clandeboye, his wife and 200 clansmen in Belfast.1

Stylistically, the tomb belongs to the regional tradition of alabaster work centred in the East Midlands, where skilled craftsmen supplied memorials to the gentry and court-connected families. The use of warm, veined alabaster with painted highlights recalls the monuments at Stowe Nine Churches and Warkton, which share similar compositional clarity and refinement of costume detail. Though less elaborate than the great workshop pieces of Southwell or Burton-on-Trent, the Knollys monument embodies the restrained dignity and balanced proportion characteristic of Northamptonshire funerary art in the later 16th century.

• 1.
  
  Black, J.B The Reign Of Elizabeth Oxford History Of England Second. Oxford History Of England Oxford Clarendon Press 1936.

  p475.