Title:

Armiger

First Name:

Thomas

Last Name:

Packington/Pakington

Memorial Type:

Funerary monument - other

Does the monument still exist?

No

Installation Date:

Contemporary (pre-1500)

Inscription:

Packington (Pakington) was the Earl of Northumberland’s sword-bearer (or armiger). The antiquarian John Weever recorded his funerary inscription there:- “As a young man I rushed furiously with a sword. I was then the sword-bearer to a count of the north called by the surname of Percy. As I perished, my sword, oh the sorrow, took away the crossing of the stadium: peace be to it and to me. I was called Thomas and Pakington.” (With many thanks for this translation to Professor Timothy Barnes, who points out that the opening turn of phrase is an oblique reference from the Roman writer Ovid). Another antiquarian, Robert Shrimpton, had a variation on the Latin inscription which he said had been written by Abbot Wheathampstead himself and which - loosely translated - ran, “See me prostrate buried under this stone, but thus perished a very great Lord, to whom I was shield and sword bearer: peace be to me called Thomas and Pakington”. Weever described the tomb as a marble slab with an inscription and it was in one of the transepts. It was last mentioned in 1728, but would have been lifted and smashed up in 1799 even had it survived until then.

Allegiance:

Lancastrian

Condition Description:

Smashed up for hard core in 1799.

Memorial Notes:

The inscribed tombstone was installed shortly after the First Battle of St Albans at the start of the Wars of the Roses in May 1455. Packington was killed in the space now outside the Museum + Gallery alongside the Earl of Northumberland, probably both trying to cross the space to reach and protect Henry VI.