In a message dated 15/11/2009 19:33:09 GMT Standard Time, rikki@ruken39.wanadoo.co.uk writes: I am told that there is a monumental inscription in Monkwearmouth church (I assume St. Peter) to Mary Lee, wife of Edward Lee, who died 25th May 1617: she was Mary Delaval and the couple were married at Tynemouth about 5 years earlier. Could someone transcribe this for me, please? Melvyn: I quote Robert Surtees' "History of the County Palatine of Durham", Sunderland Section, Chapter on Monkwearmouth (page 73): "On a small marble tablet, on the North chancel wall. Here under lyeth the body of Mary Lee, daughter of Peter Delavale, late of Tynemouth, Gent. Shee died in child-bed, 25 May 1617. Happy is yt soule yt here On earth did live a harmlesse lyfe; & happie Mayd yt made Soe chast an honnest Wife Below, the portrait of a fair woman, evidently pregnant, her head resting on a cushion, wings springing from her shoulders." Surtees has an excellent reputation, and as he was writing in the 1820s, he was a lot closer to the date of the monument than we are - although it was still some 200 years old in his time. Nevertheless I see no reason to doubt his transcription. He doesn't actually say that the portrait is of Mary Lee, but the implication is that it was. I don't know whether it still exists - perhaps someone else can tell you - or whether it was on canvas or wood, in oils or in some other form. I don't know about the Lee family but I expect you already realise that the Delavals were amongst the most prominent of Northumbrian families in their day. Having said that about the Lees, I must add that Surtees gives a pedigree of them on page 78 of the same volume. To sum it up, Mary had married Edward Lee of Monkwearmouth Hall, whose father, Robert, was from Stafford, Robert's father being from Bridgenorth, Salop (Shropshire). Surtees quotes the Wills of Edward Lee and of Peter Delaval of Tynemouth, Mary's husband and father, respectively. Surtees does not at this time take the pedigree any further down than the children of Edward and Mary, but one of them, Mary, married Anthony Shadforth of Tunstall, and there is a reference to the pedigree of Shadforth of Houghton le Spring for her issue. The eldest son of Edward and Mary was Edward Lee of Clyborne Hall, Westmoreland, who was aged 50 on 21 March 1664, on which date his details were given in at Dugdale's Visitation of Westmoreland, and who seems to have sold their Sunderland porperty (Lee's Close and Chapel Close) to the Robinsons of Herrington in 1670, 1672 etc. It is stated, referring to the MI, that Mary and Edward m arried at Tynemouth on 3 Feb 1611/12 and Mary died in child-bed 25 May 1617. One has to assume that the Delavals of Tynemouth were related to the Delavals of Seaton Delaval, the subjects of a popular book, "Those Delavals!", published some 40 (?) years ago, and about whom a great deal could be said. Seaton Delaval Hall, recently the home of Lord Hastings, is currently in the process of being handed over to the National Trust - I am not sure how far things have got but the last I heard there was an appeal to raise the necessary funds. Geoff Nicholson