page_title: St Boniface's Church, Bunbury
section_title: Sir George Beeston (d.1601)
hierarchical_section_title: St Boniface's Church, Bunbury / Architecture / Monuments / Sir George Beeston (d.1601)
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Effigy of Sir George Beeston in the chancel of St Bonifice's Church, Bunbury, cheshire, England
context_page_description: St Boniface's Church stands prominently in the village of Bunbury, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. The church dates mainly from the 14th century. Its features include the Ridley chapel, the alabaster chest tomb of Sir Hugh Calveley and the tomb of Sir George Beeston. Raymond Richards, author of Old Cheshire Churches, considers it is architecturally one of the most important examples of its period in Cheshire. Alec Clifton-Taylor includes it in his list of 'best' English parish churches. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Malpas. Its benefice is combined with that of St Jude, Tilstone Fearnall.
context_section_description: In the north wall of the sanctuary is the tomb of Sir George Beeston who was the commander of Dreadnought when it fought against the Spanish Armada.  At this time he was reputedly aged 89, and his memorial states he died at the age of 102,
  The Latin inscription is as follows, translated into English:
  
  "Here lies buried George Beeston, knight, a promoter of valour and truth; having been brought up from his youth in the arts of war he was chosen one of his company of pensioners by the invincible King Henry the Eighth, when he besieged Boulogne [1544]; he merited [the same] under Edward the Sixth in the battle against the Scots at Musselburgh [1547]. Afterwards under the same King, under Mary, and under Elizabeth, in the naval engagements as captain or vice-captain of the fleet, by whom, after that most mighty Spanish fleet of 1588, had been vanquished, he was honoured with the order of knighthood; and now, his years pressing heavily on him, when he had admirably approved his integrity to princes, and his bravery to his adversaries, acceptable to God, and dear to good men, and long expecting Christ, in the year 1601 and in the ... of his age, he fell asleep in Him, so that he may rise again in Him with joy. And together with him rests a most beloved wife, Alice, daughter of [Thomas] Davenport of Henbury, esquire, a matron most holy, chaste, and liberal to the poor, who, when she had lived in matrimony 66 years, and had borne to her husband three sons, John, Hugh, and Hugh, and as many daughters, Ann, Jane, and Dorothy, passed into the heavenly country in the year 1591 and in the [refer below] year of her age, with Christ for ever to live. The dutifulness of their son Hugh Beeston, esquire, the younger, Receiver General of all the revenues of the Crown as well as in the county palatine of Chester as in the counties of North Wales, set up this monument to parents most excellent and beloved."
  His daughter Dorothy (d.29 July 1601) became the wife of John Copleston Esq. (d.1606), of Eggesford, Devon, and their sole daughter Anne Copleston (1588–1616) married Edward Chichester, 1st Viscount Chichester (1568–1648) Governor of Carrickfergus and Lord High Admiral of Lough Neagh, in Ireland. Under the semi-circular tomb arch and above Sir George Beeston's effigy in armour a further inscription, when translated, reads:
  
  "Hugh Beeston, knight, son of George Beeston, knight, mindful of mortality, and in certain hope of rising again in Christ, placed this monument to his parents, himself, and George Beeston an only son, of the same knightly order, a youth, alas! snatched away by a too early death. Hugh, the father, died in the year of our salvation, 1627, but George, the son, 1611."
caption: Tomb of Sir George Beeston
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