NOTES ON
ST. DAVID'S CHURCH, MUCH DEWCHURCH by
Hubert Reade (1936)
Part 6 : LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR? The Pyes of the Mynde vs. the Bodenhams of (old) Bryngwyn
Another memory of the Bodenhams is
connected with the tombstone of Robert Pye, which lies at the foot of the
chancel steps.
Robert Pye was the grandson and
heir of Sir Walter Pye of the Mynde, who had been one of the chief confidants of
tie famous George Villiers, D
Catholicism was still represented
amongst the Herefordshire gentry, and amongst these who remained faithful to the
ancient church were, as has been said, the Bodenhams of Bryngwyn, who had
suffered severely under the burden of the Penal Laws. The Quarter sessions
accordingly ordered John Bodenham, the then owner of Bryngwyn to appear before
them in January 1681 to take the oath of allegiance and, thus practically to
abjure the Catholic church.
Bodenham refused, and Pye
determined to arrest him with his own hand. he found him cutting a hedge in
front of his house, but Bodenham refused to surrender and rushed at him with a
billhook, striking him several furious blows. Pye was rescued by some farm
labourers who rushed up at the sound of the affray, and carried him back to the
Mynde, where he died of his injuries on January 30th 1681. Pye's funeral was the
occasion of a great Protestant demonstration and a long pamphlet recounting the
martyrdom of this servile hero was published by a
The walnut tree under which Pye
fell is flourishing today near the bridge
over the moat which surrounded Bodenham's old home, and it is even now
believed that on the anniversary of the assault the two combatants may be seen
struggling under it in mortal combat.
The Bodenhams are still flourishing, but the Pyes died out
before 1716, and the remains of the Mynde Estate were sold eventually about 1736 to the Symons who held the lands until
1928
when they passed by bequest to Capt. H.A. Clive.
It sounds almost ironical to add that the head of the Pye
family followed James II into exile at St. Germains, where he received
from his exiled master the empty honour of Baron Kilpeck, and died there in poverty, being now represented by
another branch of Sir Walter Pye’s family - the Pyes of Long Whittenham in
Sir Walter Pye's monument, the work of Nicholas
Janssen - the elder brother of the Gerhard Janssen who carved the bust of
William Shakespeare at Stratford on
Avon - stands behind the Pulpit * to the right of his grandson’s tomb.
The Pyes were a middle-class Welsh family who, in the middle of the
Fifteenth Century, had acquired the estate of the Mynde - lying at the foot of
the Orcop range - by marriage with the heiress of the Andrews who, a century
earlier, had. married the last heiress of the de la Mynds who had built a
fortified manor house.
In Henry the Eighth's time the head of the family had been a Justice of
the Peace who had, however, had to purchase his life from his sovereign to
escape the penalty for attacking his neighbour Walter Court's home at Dewsall
Court and plundering it of its contents, but who
was perhaps more widely known for the size of
his family, which numbered no less than sixty-five, scattered over the South of
Herefordshire, as was until lately recorded with some pride on his
tombstone, which, in deference to
modern squeamishness has lately been removed. The old gentleman
is seen lying in a pilgrim's gown, with clasped hands and
a long scraggy forked beard on an altar tomb to the left of
the pulpit. Beside him is his son - a burly warrior who had
fought in the wars of Queen
NOTE:
*
pulpit has been moved recently. (H. Smith 8.7.65)
Next
month - part 7 - Much Dewchurch man at court.