{"id":16603,"date":"2025-04-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=16603"},"modified":"2025-08-19T13:36:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T12:36:38","slug":"shropshire-church-of-kinlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/04\/10\/shropshire-church-of-kinlet\/","title":{"rendered":"The story of a manor in memorials: the early tombs in the Shropshire church of Kinlet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Shropshire church of Kinlet stands isolated in parkland, the village it once served re-sited in the early-eighteenth century on the building of the still-extant Kinlet Hall. It contains a fine series of memorials, the two earliest of which mark the end of one Kinlet dynasty, the Cornwalls, and the beginning of another, the Blounts. The first commemorates an early-fifteenth century heiress of the manor, Elizabeth Cornwall.  A descendant, in an illegitimate line, of King John, she inherited the manor in 1414 on the death of her father, Sir John, MP for Shropshire in 1402 and 1407. It has one notable and unusual feature, namely the effigy of a swaddled infant at the side of the effigy, implying that Elizabeth died in childbirth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tomb was probably commissioned by her husband, Sir William Lichfield, a veteran of Agincourt, whose friendship with her father had enabled him to marry above his birth rank. Although, however, one of the couple\u2019s children died with her, Elizabeth, aged in her early thirties on her death in about 1422, left two young daughters as her coheiresses. Her inheritance was thus destined to pass through the female line for a second successive generation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Effigy of Elizabeth Cornwall, wife of Sir William Lichfield and heiress of the manor of Kinlet, with swaddled baby at her side. St John the Baptist Church, Kinlet, Shropshire. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That descent, however, for reasons that are unclear, did not follow predictable lines.  One of her daughters survived to have a daughter of her own, and the Cornwall inheritance should eventually have passed to this daughter, Margaret, the wife of Humphrey Stafford of Halmond\u2019s Frome (Herefordshire), but it did not. Instead, it came to Humphrey Blount, to whose memory, and that of his wife, Elizabeth Winnington, the second tomb was erected. He was a descendant of the Cornwalls in the female line, the great-nephew of Sir John, and was quickly and unexpectedly able to establish title after the death, in 1446, of Lichfield, who had lived at Kinlet, as tenant by the courtesy (a husband\u2019s life interest in the lands of his deceased wife), since Elizabeth\u2019s death. Blount, from the least wealthy of the two surviving branches of an ancient family, now found himself a man of account. He moved to Kinlet from his ancestral manor of Balterley in Staffordshire, and with this move came, both geographically and tenurially, significant new connexions. Kinlet was held of Richard, duke of York\u2019s lordship of Cleobury Mortimer, and, in the civil war of 1459-61, Humphrey put his new gains at hazard by committing himself to the duke\u2019s cause. He was in his ranks at the rout at Ludford Bridge, and his Yorkist credentials were further confirmed in the following autumn, when he was named as sheriff of Shropshire after Yorkist victory at the battle of Northampton. This support explains his election for the Shropshire borough of Bridgnorth, about nine miles north of his home at Kinlet, to the first Parliament of the new reign. He no doubt sought the seat because he was excluded as sheriff from representing the county.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Effigy of Sir Humphrey Blount, showing his Yorkist collar of suns and roses with lion pendant. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Blount\u2019s active loyalty to the house of York was to be made further manifest in the crisis of 1470-1.  He fought for Edward IV at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, where he was knighted.  This, however marked the highpoint of his career.  At his death a few years later, he was only in his mid-fifties. By 6 September 1477, when he made his will, he had moved, perhaps due to ill-health, from Kinlet to Worcester. It was, however, at Kinlet that he was interred, and he bequeathed to the church there a velvet gown for the making of a cope and a gold chain to be sold for the support of a chaplain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blount was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Winnington.  She had played an important part in his elevation, and her career is as interesting as his own. Her early marital life had been troubled.  In 1426, at the age of only four, she had been contracted in marriage to Richard, the ten-year-old son and heir-apparent of Sir John Delves, a match that represented an alliance between two leading Cheshire families. Sir John, however, died in 1429, and his friend, Ralph Egerton, saw this as a means of advancing one of his own daughters at the expense of the young Elizabeth.  He persuaded Richard to disavow his intended bride. Years of uncertainty followed before, in July 1439, William Heyworth, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, confirmed the validity of Richard\u2019s marriage to Elizabeth.  The match, however, proved childless, with Richard dying in 1446. Lichfield died in the same month, enhancing Blount\u2019s prospects and hence his qualifications as her suitor. For her part, Elizabeth had, as a result of her troubled marriage, a life interest in the caput honoris<\/em> of the Delves family, the manor of Doddington. Her marriage to Blount, contracted soon afterwards, had obvious advantages for both bride and groom. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Effigy of Humphrey Blount and his wife, Elizabeth Winnington, widow of Richard Delves. St John the Baptist Church, Kinlet, Shropshire. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Elizabeth was probably responsible for commissioning their fine tomb, for she survived her husband by some 25 years.  It is a commemoration not only of herself and her late husband, but also of their many children. The long side of the tomb appears to commemorate the three sons of the marriage, all of whom are mentioned in Sir Humphrey\u2019s will, and the short side, at the effigies\u2019 feet, their three daughters (the other two sides are blank).  This was a fitting to memorial to one who had elevated his family into the front rank of the Shropshire gentry, acquiring, seemingly against the odds, an inheritance to which his claim was far from unchallenged; and, early in the civil war of 1459-61, committing himself to what proved the winning side. He was unfortunate not to receive greater recognition from Edward IV.  He established a dynasty that survived at Kinlet in the male line until the death of a prominent parliamentarian, his great-grandson, Sir George, in 1581.  The most notable of the family, however, was George\u2019s sister, Elizabeth, mistress of Henry VIII and mother of Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tomb chest, St John the Baptist Church, Kinley, Shropshire. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.
The three sons of the Blounts, three in military clothing, portrayed between the Virgin Mary and an angel. The two figures either side of the sons, the one with hand raised in apparent benediction, may be intended for saints.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

E. Norton, \u2018The Depiction of Children on the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Tombs in Kinlet Church\u2019, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society<\/em> 87 (2012), 35-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A biography of Sir Humphrey Blount will appear in The Commons, 1461-1504<\/em> and those of Sir John Cornwall, Sir William Lichfield and Sir George Blount are in The Commons, 1386-1421<\/em>, ii. 661-3; 1422-61, v. 275-8 and 1509-58, i. 445-7 respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Shropshire church of Kinlet stands isolated in parkland, the village it once served re-sited in the early-eighteenth century on the building of the still-extant Kinlet Hall. It contains a fine series of memorials, the two earliest of which mark the end of one Kinlet dynasty, the Cornwalls, and the beginning of another, the Blounts. The first commemorates an early-fifteenth century heiress of the manor, … Continue reading The story of a manor in memorials: the early tombs in the Shropshire church of Kinlet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255143695,"featured_media":18422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[687860035,189179080,54004,81480,48731,375808],"tags":[774276084,774276083,774276082,774276080,435590,774276081],"class_list":["post-16603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-commons-in-the-wars-of-the-roses","category-15th-century-history","category-local-history","category-medieval-history","category-religious-history","category-social-history","tag-family-history","tag-george-blount","tag-humphrey-blount","tag-kinlet","tag-shropshire","tag-william-lichfield"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/St_John_the_Baptist_church_Kinlet_-_effigy_of_Lady_Lychefield_-_geograph.org_.uk_-_3422575.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QYNW-4jN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17629,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/08\/04\/the-derbyshire-blounts\/","url_meta":{"origin":16603,"position":0},"title":"From Lancaster to York and back again: the political evolution of the Derbyshire Blounts","author":"Simon Payling","date":"August 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr Simon Payling, of our\u00a0Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the fortunes and shifting loyalties of one gentry family in Derbyshire during the Wars of the Roses. 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