page_title: St Mary's Church, Watford
section_title: The Essex Chapel
hierarchical_section_title: St Mary's Church, Watford / Architecture & Memorials / The Essex Chapel
caption_attribution_description: English: Tomb of Sir Charles Morrison the elder (1549-1599) in the Essex Chapel, St Mary's Parish Church, Watford, Hertfordshire
context_page_description: St Mary's Watford is a Church of England church in Watford, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom. It is situated in the town centre on Watford High Street, approximately 25 kilometres outside London. St Mary's is the parish church of Watford and is part of the Anglican Diocese of St Albans. Thought to be at least 800 years old, the church contains burials of a number of local nobility and some noteworthy monumental sculpture of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
context_section_description: St Mary's Watford was the parish church to the nearby Cassiobury Estate and served as a burial place for the nobility of Watford. The north chancel chapel is known as the Essex Chapel, or the Morison Chapel, containing the burials of the Earls of Essex, along with the tombs of Morison and Capel families. This chapel was founded in 1595 by Bridget, Dowager Countess of Bedford and widow of Sir Richard Morison, and Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford and is noted for its outstanding monuments. Two table tombs originally stood in the middle of the chapel, one for Countess Bridget (who died in 1600) and one for Lady Dame Elizabeth Russell (died 1611), the wife of William Lord Russell; these tombs were removed in 1907 to the Bedford family chapel in the Church of St Michael, Chenies, Buckinghamshire. In 1916 the chapel was restored by Adele, Dowager Countess of Essex, in memory of her husband, George Capell, 7th Earl of Essex.
  The most striking memorials in the chapel are two large wall monuments executed by the sculptor Nicholas Stone, described by Pevsner as "the chief glory of Watford Church". On one side is the tomb of the politician Sir Charles Morison (1549-1599), son of Dowager Countess Bridget, which features a reclining effigy of Sir Charles in white marble, depicted with a Van Dyke beard and wearing armour and a large Elizabethan ruff round his neck. Morrison is surrounded by an ornate canopy of twin segmental arches supported by two pillars of coloured marble, the family coat of arms,  and at either end figures of his son and daughter kneel under sculpted fabric baldacchinos. A long Latin inscription describes his numerous virtues and states that he was the founder of the chapel.
  Opposite this is the tomb of his son, Sir Charles Morrison, 1st Baronet, who died in 1628, designed in a similar style with semi-reclining figures of Sir Charles and his wife Mary sculpted in marble. Sir Charles is depicted wearing armour, resting on his elbow, with a skull under his hand, raised above the recumbent figure of his wife; she represented reclining on a cushion, wearing a richly embroidered dress of the period and ruff. The figures are enclosed in a four-poster canopy and below them at either end are the kneeling figures of a youth, a boy and a young lady kneeling. The Latin inscription at the bottom describe how their daughter, Elizabeth, married Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (in 1627).
  Among the other memorials in the chapel is a mural monument to George Capell-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex (1757–1839), which bears a finely sculpted coat of arms;  a memorial to Harriet, daughter of the 5th Earl, who died in 1837, aged 29;  a simple marble memorial to Arthur Algernon Capell, 6th Earl of Essex (1803-1892); a memorial to his son, Arthur de Vere Capell, Viscount Malden (1826–1879); a memorial to Caroline Janetta, wife of the 6th Earl and daughter of the Duke of St. Albans (died 1862); and a brass tablet to Randolph, second son of Janetta and the 6th Earl of Essex, who served in the naval brigade in the Crimean War at the Battle of Inkerman and the Siege of Sebastopol, and died at Rio de Janeiro, in 1857, aged 25, "much lamented, soon after he had reached that place." Also buried here is Lady Mary Capell (1722–1782), the daughter of William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex and wife of the Royal Navy officer John Forbes.
  A smaller wall monument depicting a female figure kneeling between two marble pillars has been identified as that of Lady Dorothy Morrison (d.1618), wife of Sir Charles Morrison the elder.
caption: Tomb of Sir Charles Morison the elder (1549-1599) by Nicholas Stone
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