Grubb Family Tree

Christopher Roper, 2nd Baron Teynham

The first Baron’s only son and heir, Christopher, succeeded as second Baron Teynham. He was knighted at Whitehall on 23rd July 1603. He married Catherine, daughter of John Seborne of Sutton St. Michael, Herefordshire, and died 16th April 1622. His widow caused the monument, standing on the north side of the Roper chapel, to be erected in the interval between her husband’s death and her own, which occurred on 2nd October 1625. She died at Lodge and was buried at Lynsted. Because she survived her husband, she is represented on the monument as still living, in widow’s hood, kneeling bolt upright, in prayer before a priedieu with an open book lying upon it. Outstretched beside her on the top of the tomb lies the effigy of her husband, wearing a suit of armour of the period, and over the armour his peer’s mantle.

As to the architectural features of the first Baron’s tomb, they are neither better nor worse than those of hundreds of other structures of its kind and epoch. Both monuments are surmounted by a heavy entablature supported in front by a pair of quasi-classic columns, and crowned by an armorial achievement. That of the first Baron rises out of a broken pediment; a corrupt device which is absent from the tomb of the second Baron Teynham. On the whole the second Baron’s monument is distinguished by an absence of florid display and by a dignified restraint, unusual at its date as it is pleasing.

The second Lord and Lady Teynham had issue two sons, John (who succeeded as third Baron) and William, and four daughters, Bridget, Mary, Catherine, and Elizabeth. Of these sisters, Mary afterwards entered religion and ended her days as Abbess of the English Nunnery in Ghent. In William Berry’s Pedigrees of Families of Kent (1803) the second Baron Teynham is credited with five daughters, an extra one, Margaret, being given in addition to the four above-named. In the bas relief group on the tomb are five female figures, of whom one, if not a daughter, may represent a nurse, or governess, or some near relative. All are depicted on the monument wearing secular dress. They occupy the left, or western panel of the southward front of the tomb, while the two sons are depicted on the right-hand panel. The panels are of alabaster, sculptured in low relief; and in the middle between them is a slab inscribed with the following epitaph:

“D.O.M.

Domino Christopher Rooper, Baroni, filio Johannis Domini Teynham, Viro ab infantia vitae innocentiae integerrimo. In fide ac religione Catholica constantissimo, Regi et patrae fidelitate nulli secondo, ob morum suavitatem omni hominum generi gratissimo, injuriarum patientissimo, patri pauperum, vitiorum hosti, optimo conjugi, qui mundi pertaesus, coelo maturus, piisime obiit Anno Domini MDCXXII AEtatis suae LX Die XVI April, Catherina uxor posuit.”