“The people about Whitby,” says Sir Hugh, owe a particular obligation to her memory, their manners being much improved and refined under her influence. For she was very courteous and affable, and many of the best in the country desired to have their daughters in service with her.” From their mother, who had been bred up in the court of Queen Elizabeth, she had inherited great taste and skill in needlework. Much of the bedding and the blankets were made by her own hands; and there was a suit of green cloth hangings with flowers of needlework, wrought by herself and her maids, which her husband much esteemed and prized, as he also heartily wished his posterity might do, desiring his children, for her sake, to preserve the hangings with extraordinary care. Her chief delight, however, was in her books, and very well versed was she in history. Though by constitution inclined to melancholy, she was generally pleasant and loved mirth. She was, moreover, as true a friend as was in the world.
By way of foil to set off all these perfections, Sir Hugh says, “she was passionate and soon provoked to anger, saying at times what she did not intend or think. But it was quickly over, and then she would be sorry for it.” She was, also, much troubled at evils which could neither be prevented or remedied. “And now,” says her husband, “having laid open her imperfections, which may be reckoned rather frailties than faults, and considering how much her virtues overbalanced them, I hope posterity will have the memory of her in great honour and veneration, as I am sure all have that knew her, but especially myself, who best knew her virtues and have the greatest loss of her.”
Her death took place on the 17th April, 1665, being Easter Tuesday. Singularly enough, her birth, marriage, and death, had all fallen upon the same day in the week. Before she became ill she had been exceedingly well in health, and although in her fifty-fifth year, she did not look more than forty. She only kept her chamber a week, and the physicians thought her in no great danger even a few hours before she died. On Lady Katharine Moor advising her to send for a divine but mentioning only such as were Presbyterians, Lady Chomley replied, “she needed them not.” At last her son-in-law, Mr. Stephens, asked if he should fetch her the Bishop of Armagh. She answered, “With all my heart, I pray you do.” He arrived just two or three hours before her death, and knowing her to be well prepared, he said he was come to marry her to the Lord Jesus. To which she answered, “Blessed day that I am to be married to my Saviour, the Lord Jesus.” These words were thenceforth never out of her mind, or scarce out of her mouth, for she often repeated them till she died, a true daughter of the Reformed Church of England. Though she often asked for her husband during her illness, she said, “she saw that it could not be, and therefore submitted to God's pleasure.”
In conclusion we may mention that in some nursery gardens at Whitby, there is still preserved a memorial of Sir Hugh and Lady Chomley. A stone in the boundary wall bearing the following inscription :--
I, Sr. Hugh Chomley, Kt. And Barronet,
And
Elizabeth, My Deare Wife,
Daughter To Sr. Will. Twisden Of Great Peckham, In Ye County Of Kent,
Kt. And Barronet,
Built This Wall And Planted This Bech.
Anno Domini, 1652.
Under these lines there is a shield bearing the arms of the families of Chomley and Twisden. Beneath the shield are these two lines,--
“Our handy worke, like to ye frutefule tree,
Blesse Thou, O Lord; let it not blasted be.”
Elizabeth Gaskell, Some Passages From the History of the Chomley Family
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