Alabaster effigy of Thomas Welshe (1628-1639) in Alverdiscott Church
English: Alabaster effigy on chest-tomb of Thomas Welshe (1628-1639) in Alverdiscott Church, Devon, inscribed on a tablet on the base: "Here lyeth the body of Thomas Welshe, Gent, the sonne of James Welshe Esq., and Jane his wife the daughter of S(i)r Thomas Windham, Knight, who departed this life to the life everlasting in the Kingdome of Glory the 22 (?) daye of Aprill 1639 in the eleaventh yeare of his age". On top of the chest tomb is an alabaster recumbent effigy of Thomas Welshe described by Pevsner as: "touching, life-size effigy in Van Dyck dress" (Pevsner, Nikolaus & Cherry, Bridget, The Buildings of England: Devon, London, 2004, p.126). James Welsh of Barnstaple and Alverdiscott, Devon, was according to the Devon historian Tristram Risdon (d. 1640), a "counsellor of law".[1] He purchased the manor of Alverdiscott from the Bellew family, heirs to the Fleming family of Bratton Fleming. James Welsh (alias Walshe) married four times,[2] firstly to a daughter of the Ridgeway family;[3] secondly at Ashton in 1604 to Anne Pollard, a daughter of Sir Hugh II Pollard of King's Nympton by his wife Dorothy Chichester.[4] A small mutilated monumental brass survives in St Peter's Church, Barnstaple, in memory of Anne Pollard, second wife of James Welsh, showing within a strapwork surround an escutcheon displaying the arms of Welsh (six mullets 3, 2, 1) with a crescent in chief for difference impaling Pollard (four-quarters, much worn); the text is as follows: "Here lyeth the body of Anne late the wife of James Welshe Esqr. and daughter of Sr. Hugh Pollard, knight. She depart(ed)... this world to the Kingdome of Heaven ... seaventeenth day of March A(nn)o MD... Blessed are the dead w.ch dye in the...".[5] Anne Pollard's sister was Susanna Pollard, the second wife of John Northcote (1570–1632), of Hayne, Newton St Cyres, Sheriff of Devon, whose splendid standing effigy exists in Newton St Cyres Church. He was the grandfather of Sir Arthur Northcote, 2nd Baronet, the subject of the present article. James Welsh married thirdly at Barnstaple in 1623 to Lucy Reynell, 4th daughter of Sir Thomas Reynell (d. 1621) of East Ogwell.[6] Fourthly he married Jane Windham, a daughter of Sir Thomas Windham (possibly a member of the Wyndham family of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset[7]), by whom he had a son[8] and heir apparent Thomas Welsh (1629–1639), who died aged 10,[9] whose chest tomb with alabaster effigy survives in Alverdiscott Church. James Welshe's heir thus became his daughter (from which marriage is unknown), Elizabeth Welsh, the wife of Sir Arthur Northcote, 2nd Baronet. The marriage produced two sons and one daughter, described on Sir Arthur's ledger stone of 1707 in King's Nympton Church as "deceased". The side of the chest tomb displays the felief-sculpted arms of Walsh: Azure, six mullets or (tinctures worn away). These arms are visible on the monument to Lord Edward Seymour (c.1528–1593), son of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, in Berry Pomeroy Church, Devon, who married Margaret Walsh, a daughter and co-heir of John Welsh (alias Walshe etc.) of Cathanger, Fivehead, Somerset, Justice of the Common Pleas in 1563.