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Fulke Greville’s mysterious ‘Monument without a Tombe’

The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick. The small chapter house has seats for 8 canons and the Dean of St Mary's, but it is hard to see the canopied seats properly because the chamber is filled almost to the ceiling by the monument built by Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. The monument is quite plain, with a large black marble sarcophagus and pillars. It is unusually aligned North/South.

The tombe's inscription reads:
Folk Grevill
Servant to Queene Elizabeth
Conceller to King James
Frend to Sir Philip Sidney
Trophaeum Peccati

Extracts from The Master of Shakespeare:

STRATFORDIAN PROFILE 8

In one of the strangest references in the First Folio poem, Jonson referred to his friend as ‘a Monument without a tombe’. As [John] Michell pointed out; the line, ‘if taken literally, implies that the author was still alive in 1623’. Literal interpretation of Jonson’s words dictates the next line of the profile: The man of Stratford had a monument without a tomb

GREVILLE PROFILE 8

It is an extraordinary fact that in 1623, the Recorder of Stratford-upon-Avon did have a ‘monument without a tomb’. Greville had built this ‘monument’ (consisting of a huge black marble ‘double bed’) in St Mary’s Church, Warwick, and it has been called ‘a document’ and ‘a history’. The only inscription reads: ‘Folk Grevill, Servant to Queene Elizabeth, Concellor to King James, and Frend to Sir Philip Sidney. Trophaeum Peccati’. It is generally agreed to represent ‘a double monument’ to Greville and his beloved friend, Sir Philip Sidney. Greville had originally planned to ‘immortalize’ the legendry friendship between himself and Sidney in ‘a magnificent tomb in St Paul’s to house Sidney’s body and his own’. His ‘mysterious monument’ in St Mary’s does not contain a tomb. Greville is buried in the family vault in the room beneath it. Greville fits the First Folio profile: Greville had a monument without a tomb.

Note 68, page 253
It is possible that the monument in St Mary’s Church, Warwick, contains the remains and/or memorabilia of Sir Philip Sidney.

Epilogue, page 232
Greville’s monument has long been regarded as ‘very mysterious’ and it must be wondered what secrets it may hold.

AWL Saunders’ theory on Fulke’s monument
 

The scarcophagus

The theory that Sir Philip Sidney might have been secretly buried in Fulke Greville’s monument without a tomb in St Mary’s Church is as follows:

• A letter written by Fulke Greville to his friend and assistant (Sir) John Coke in 1615, shows that Greville was outraged that his famous friend, the great Sir Philip Sidney, was ‘in pawls church wher he lyes open.’ Following the first state funeral for a commoner, held in St Paul’s and attended by the Queen, Sidney’s body had been buried into a hole in the wall and marked with a small wooden plaque. Within a short time the plaque fell off. The letter makes clear that Greville had ‘long promised’ that his ‘brother’ Philip would be reburied in a magnificent tomb and that Greville would be buried with him. Greville describes the tomb he would build as a ‘sepulchre’ with himself lying below with Sidney lying above him, like bunk-beds:

I send you herewith the inscriptions fyer hotte, for philips long promised tombe ... Touching the form and matter of the sepulchre it is shortl thus. Two dainty large stones of touch delicately furbished, borne up, one above another, by 4 pillars of brass 3 foot and a half high and double gulyt; the upper most worthily his, the other myne ... my purpose is to encompasse the sepulchre round and inclose with a high grate of Iron. 

• Greville never built the tomb for Sidney and himself in St Paul’s but he did build a magnificent monument with a black marble sarcophagus in St Mary’s Church, Warwick, which bears the name ‘Sir Philip Sidney’ and Fulke Greville is buried in the crypt directly beneath it.

Two questions must be posed:
 

1) Would Greville have left Sidney’s body in an unmarked grave in St Paul’s or would he have kept his promise and made sure that he was buried in a magnificent tomb?
 

2) Would he have spent huge sums of money to build an empty tomb in St Mary’s?

• It is one thing to be sure that Greville made a promise to build a magnificent monument for Philip Sidney, but it is quite another thing to show that he had the means to keep that promise. After all, he would have needed several priests as ‘placemen’ to allow him to remove the body from St Paul’s and then rebury it in St Mary’s. It seems impossible to believe that Greville could have done such a thing without at least the tacit consent of powerful churchmen including, obviously, the Dean of St Paul’s and the Dean of St Mary’s Church, Warwick.

• Professor Rebholz’s Life of Fulke Greville, shows that John Overall, Dean of St Paul’s, was one of Greville’s ‘placemen’:
  
  Greville’s influence with her [Queen Elizabeth] grew radically between March of 1601 and her death. He became more powerful at court than he had ever been ... Elizabeth’s delight in his presence ... as Cecil reported, ‘ ... he cannot for his life get down now from the Queen ... she will now not let him go from her’ ... The earliest sign of Greville’s new standing with Elizabeth was his securing the Deanship of St Paul’s for John Overall in May 1601.

• In the years 1604-1628, Fulke Greville was the dominant influence in Warwick. Greville spent huge sums of money at St Mary’s Church, Warwick, and the Dean granted him an entire room in the church so that he could build the monument. Presumably Greville and his builders and servants had constant access to the chancel while the monument was built. It seems reasonable to say that Greville would have had the opportunity to put a body into the sarcophagus with or without the agreement of the Dean of St Mary’s.

The monument carved in marble

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