Bridget Peck

Another early start Tuesday, over to The J's in Witham.  On my way home I stopped at St Mary's Church Little Sampford.

A very interesting little church in need of a good clean.  This Monument to Bridget Peck who died aged 31 in 1712 like everything is very dirty.

Bridget had 10 children by the time she died...

Enshrined beneath this marble iie ye mortal remains, to wit the beauty, grace & foremost elegant, noble & virtuous of Bridget, an excellent & singular example of womanhood. Her husband was William Peck, her father Morgan Randyll, both esquires, the latter of Chillworth, in the county of Surrey; the former of Samford Hall in the County of Essex. To them, while she survived she had been an exquisite ornament and delight, but now alas, long deceased, a woeful loss & cause for universal tears. Yet of her obsequies must be performed. with grief her thousand, nay more pleasing virtues, destin'd for an eternal existance will be rehearsed on the lips of all to whose ears their report has come, or some day yet, shall come. She was indeed endowed as if by heaven itself. her gifts most agreeably composed for the fulfilment of every duty, to God or neighbour or herself, who was daughter, spouse, parent, matron & all these to an excellent degree. She had, of marvel, a disposition without subterfuge or guile, & what rarer to be found in the weaker sex, a marvellour fortitude, which she displayed as often as some matter required in shaping the character of her offspring, she was a mother wise as SHE WAS FRUITFUL, INDEED AT HER DECEASE SHE LEFT 2 SONS & 8 DAUGHTERS, and to this task, she exercised herself with no little success, WHICH HAD TIME ALLOWED WOULD HAVE BECOME GREATER STILL (!!)l. In these pursuits engaged, neither desirous, nor yet fearful of the grave, only ripened for heaven and observant of its counsels being 31 years of age, she died on the 14th day of June in the year of Our Lord 1712.
That this monument should be forever sacred to the matchless virtues of this cherished form was the wish of her afflicted spouse"