Elizabeth Franklin brass, 1622
The above brass is displayed on the wall of St Cross Church. It shows Mrs Elizabeth Franklin, aged 35, sitting up in bed in her home, which was the King’s Arms on the corner of Holywell Street and Parks Road, where her husband Thomas was landlord.
On the bed coverlet are four dead babies, three bundled in shrouds and one wrapped in swaddling clothes, with the words “of such / are the / kingdome / of heaven” written alongside them. Elizabeth has her hands together in prayer, and the words, "Thy will be done" are coming from her mouth and rising up to heaven. From three winged figures in heaven float back the reassuring words: "Thy prayere is heard"; "Receave thy crowne"; and "Thy patience is tri'd". She died and joined her four dead children on 31 July 1622.
The inscription on the brass reads:
Here lyeth Eliza: Franklin third wife of Mr Tho: Franklin who dangerously
escaping death at 3 severall travells in childe-bed, died together wth
the fourth July 31: Aetat: 35: 1622
If heavens inheritors on earth be tride,
that thou art one of them, thou need’st not feare
What thou indur'dst these dead have testify'd
and thus being try'de a crowne deserv’st to weare
Lett then thy husbands children cease their woe
thou left’s them only to thine owne to goe
The surviving Holywell parish registers only date from 1653, so this family does not appear in them. It is clear from the inscription that the third Mrs Franklin had been looking after children whom her husband had had by either or both of his first two wives.
Thomas Franklin of the King's Arms
A licence was granted to “Thomas Francklyn of Holywell, dwelling at a house called the Augustyn Friers, which is very fit for an inn” to set up an inn there with the sign of the King’s Arms on 18 September 1607. This is the present King’s Arms at the north-west end of Holywell Street. The following year, there was plague in Oxford, and it may have struck at this inn, for the council record on 30 July 1608 states:
It is agreed that some two women shalbee procured to goe into Francklin’s howse to bury the mayde that is now dead, and that they shalbee kept with sufficient dyet and mayntenaunce either in that howse or in some cabin that shalbee buylt; and moreover that order shalbee taken for erecting of cabins as necessitie shall requier in place conveinent as may bee gotten.
Picture of the former Augustine Friary on Parks Road