By Ellie Jones (with thanks to Diane Walker)
Research often takes us in unexpected directions. One day this week, whilst looking into the spectacular wedding of Bishop Cecil’s daughter, Eve, in 1929 we accidentally took a detour down a path which led back to Gloucester in the 17th century (you can expect to hear more about the Cecil wedding and other events at the Cathedral during the 1920s in the coming weeks, as we gear up for the ‘Exeter in the 1920s’ festival celebrations).
A newspaper report from May 1929 quoted an epitaph, supposedly from a tomb in Exeter Cathedral:
“Here lies the body of Captain Tully,
Aged a hundred and nine years fully;
And threescore years before as mayor,
The sword of this city he did bear.
Nine of his wives do with him lie,
So shall the tenth when she doth die”.
It hardly seemed possible that we could have missed an epitaph like that if it were in the Cathedral today, so the matter called for some investigation.
The first port of call for all things connected to memorials at Exeter Cathedral is Revd Vyvyan Hope’s marvellous hand-written catalogue of monuments and memorials from 1956, “The Monumentarium”. No Tully in there. Monuments and ledgers do wear out and get moved, but still, surely it couldn’t have disappeared entirely? Or was it all just a big joke?
Several collections of epitaphs published between the 1890s and 2000s, newspapers from the 1720s, Gloucestershire Notes & Queries, and an edition of the Western Antiquary from 1884 lead us to the conclusion that Captain Tully was Mr Richard Tully, sword bearer to the Mayor of Gloucester, who died in March 1619. He was not buried at Exeter Cathedral, he was not a captain, he was not 109 years old, he was not the mayor, and he did not have 10 wives! Each time the epitaph has been repeated, some element of his biography seems to have altered slightly. His reputed place of burial moved from Gloucester in the 17th century to Coventry in the 18th, and eventually Exeter Cathedral in the 19th (where his name also changed to John). He seems to have had a few years added to his age (on top of an already impressive 103 years), gained as many as six wives, and been given a promotion!
Dr Thomas Nadauld Brushfield of Budleigh Salterton wrote in the ‘Western Antiquary’ in 1884 that the original epitaph (as recorded earlier that century on a gravestone at St Catherine’s church, Gloucester) read as follows:
“Here lyeth old Mr Richard Tully,
Who lived C and three years fully;
He did the sword of the city beare
Before the Mayor thirty-one yeare.
Four wives he had, and here they lie,
All waiting Heaven’s eternity.
He died March 1, 1619″
Sadly, it seems that there are no surviving parish registers from the time of Tully’s death, the church has since been demolished and rebuilt, and there appear to be no surviving memorials. What a pity!
If there are any readers in Gloucester who know more about Mr Tully and whether the gravestone is still out there somewhere, please let us know. Perhaps this is not the end of the story after all…