and S. V. 123., May 8. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



369 



LONDON, SATURDAY. MAY 8. 1868. 



IZAAK WALTON AND HIS EPITAPH ON HIS WIFE 

 ANNE KEN. 



During my residence at Malvern in the summer 

 of last year, it was of course a very natural con- 

 sequence that I should more than once visit 

 Worcester Cathedral. There are so many features 

 of beauty and interest in this gracefully-venerable 

 edifice, and some of the most ancient parts of it 

 have been so well [)reserved, that it was especially 

 gratifying to me to witness the very judicious 

 manner in which the Dean and Chapter were 

 conducting the repairs of the building, under the 

 direction of their able architect, Mr. Perkins. In 

 my examination of those repairs, I was accident- 

 ally attracted by observing a monument erected 

 against the east angle of the north wall at the 

 extremity of the Lady Chapel, to the memory of 

 Anne Ken, the wife of Izaak Walton. As I re- 

 membered that the pious old angler himself was 

 interred in the south transept of Winchester 

 Cathedral, and that Ken was of a Hertfordshire 

 family settled in London, and became Bishop of 

 Bath and Wells, — I was at a loss to know how it 

 came to pass that she was buried in this place ; 

 but on turning to the Life of Bishop Ken, by the 

 Rev. W. L. Bowles, and to Sir N. Harris Nicolas's 

 elaborate Life of Walton, — which I supposed to 

 be the best authorities on the subject, — I col- 

 lected those particulars which I have transmitted 

 to you, for the purpose of stating what I have 

 ascertained relating to Mrs. Anne Walton and her 

 monument, and of requesting farther information 

 from any of your readers and correspondents. 



The monument consists of an oval cartouche, 

 within which the following inscription is engraved 

 in the Italic writing character of the seventeenth 

 century : — 



" Ex Terris 



M.S. 



Here ^eth buried so much as 



could dye of ANNE, the Wyfe of 



IZAAK WALTON, 



Who was 



a Woman of remarkable Prudence, and of the Primitive 



Piety, 



her greate and generall Knowledge being adorned with 



such true Humillitie, and blest with so much Christian 



Meeknesse, 



as made her worthy of a more memorable 



Monument. 



She dved (alas that she is dead) 



the 17th of April, 1662, aged 52. 



Study to be like her." 



The excellent woman who is thus commem- 

 orated was the eldest daughter of Thomas Ken, 

 an attorney in the Court of Common Pleas. She 

 was born about the year 1610 ; and Rachel Floud, 

 the first wife of Izaak Walton, having died Au- 



gust 22, 1640, some six years afterwards he mar- 

 ried this Anne Ken, the sister of Thomas Ken, 

 who long afterwards became the eminent and 

 patriotic Bishop of Bath and Wells. In the Me- 

 moir of this prelate published by Mr. Bowles in 

 1830, are several very interesting notices of the 

 family of Izaak Walton, derived from his own 

 manuscript entries in his Common Prayer-book, 

 then in the possession of Dr. Herbert Hawes, Pre- 

 bendary of Salisbury. One of those entries sup- 

 plies the reason for the erection of the monument 

 which I had noticed at Worcester. 



" Anne Walton," says this record, " dyed the 17th of 

 April, about one o'clock in that night, and was buried in 

 the Virgin Marj''s Chapel in the Cathedral in Worcester, 

 the 20th day." 



" It must not escape observation," adds Sir N. 

 H. Nicolas, after inserting this extract, — 



" That Dr. Morley was Bishop of AVorcester at the time 

 when Mrs. Walton died in that city; and as neither 

 Walton nor herself appear to have had any relations there, 

 it is reasonable to suppose that they went on a visit to 

 him. — Dr. Morley was, however, regularly, and, almost 

 daily, in the House of Lords, from December 1661 to the 

 middle of May, 1662: but the Waltons probably con- 

 tinued at the palace whilst the Bishop attended his par- 

 liamentary duties." 



It is, perhaps, still more probable, that the 

 Bishop had sent them thither for the benefit of 

 Mrs. Walton in her last illness ; but no par- 

 ticulars of her decease are known, and it is cloubt- 

 ful how far her husband was prepared for her loss 

 by any previous invalid condition. 



There cannot be a question that he was tenderly 

 attached to her, nor that he himself composed the 

 pathetic epitaph in Worcester Cathedral, the ori- 

 ginal draught of it being also contained in his 

 Prayer-book. The variations which it shows are 

 remarkable and curious ; as may be seen by the 

 interesting facsimile of the manuscript published 

 by Mr. Bowles. The commencement " Ex Terris 

 D. M. S." is not in the original, and was probably 

 supplied to Walton by Bishop Morley. Mr. 

 Bowles then observes, that — 



" The epitaph, as first written, appears with the words 

 ' q/" primitive piety,' instead of ' the primitive pietj' ; ' the 

 words ' the primitive ' appear as corrections ; it seems to 

 me designedl}-, to imply that her piety was that primitive 

 piety which the Church of England professed, and there- 

 fore the correction was important." 



At the close of the epitaph, the original words 

 were " Alas ! Alas ! that she dyed ; " and though 

 Walton himself altered the passage to " that she 

 is dead," he still retained both the exclamations 

 of sorrow. It is also worthy of notice that in the 

 manuscript draught, after the words " she dyed " 

 is a line of imperfect marks which nearly form 

 letters, but are still quite illegible in the fac- 

 simile, though it is possible that an acute ob- 

 server might decypher them in the original 

 writin":. 



