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West Wall of the Unton Chapel

A large wall monument with twin arches, a heavy entablature and escutcheon above, some strapwork, a banded 'sarcophagus' with lions' heads and interesting supporters right and left of the inscription panels. One wonders if there are portraits missing from the blank recesses under the arches. At the bottom is this inscription in English:

Here lyeth Sir Edward Unton, Knight of the Noble Order of the Bathe, whoe married Anne Countess of Warwick, daughter of Edwarde Seymer Duke of Somersett and Protector of England, by whome he had ffive sonnes, whereof 3 died younge in the life of their father; Two, namelye Edwarde and Henry onely, survyved and succeeded him, the one after the other in their father's inheritance; and two daughters, Anne married to Sir Valentine Knightley, Knight, and Scissil married to John Wentworth, Esquire.

Sir Edward was the son and heir of Sir Alexander Unton (d. 1547) of Wadley House. Asthe inscription reveals, he married, at Hatford Old Church in 1555, Anne, Countess of Warwick. She was the eldest daughter of Sir Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, the Protector of England, and was the widow of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick who died s.p. in 1554, shortly after his release from the Tower of London. Sir Edward Unton was made a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1559. He travelled, in his youth, in Italy and Germany, was Sheriff of Berkshire in 1567 and M.P. for the County in 1573. He received Queen Elizabeth in 1574 at Wadley. In addition to Wadley, he held estates at Shellingford, Hanney, Wick (in Faringdon) and Hatford in Berkshire and certain others in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. The issue of his marriage was five sons and two daughters. Of the sons, three died in infancy, Edward and Henry (d. 1596) surviving. Anne, the elder daughter, married Sir Valentine Knightley (d. 1618), had issue and became heir to the estates of her brother Sir Henry Unton. Cecily (d. 1618, aged 57), the younger daughter, married, firstly in 1580, John Wentworth (d. 1613), Esquire of Gosfield (Essex), by whom she had issue, and, secondly, Sir Edward Hoby, Kt. of Bisham Abbey (Berkshire). Of the sons, Edward was M.P. for Berkshire in 1585 and 1586 and a Colonel commanding two hundred men of the County raised in defence against the Spanish invasion in 1588. He was slain abroad in 1589, having married, firstly, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Richard Knightley, Kt. of Norton (Northamptonshire). He married, secondly in 1581, Katherine, elder daughter of Sir George Hastings, Kt. of Leicestershire and appears to have had no issue.

Partly edited from P.S. Spokes' 'Coats of Arms in Berkshire Churches' in the Berkshire Archaeological Journal (1933).