By Gillian Ashley-Smith

There is a monument, with an inscription entirely in Latin, on the south wall of the chancel, just in front of the altar rail. The first line mentions ‘Edvardi Nicolas’, Edward Nicolas, curate of St Peter’s in the early 1740s. Edward Nicolas was also chaplain to the Lord of the Manor, which at that time was held jointly by the three Bentley sisters, who lived in Little Kineton. (The Manor House in those days stood somewhere near the Yew trees on the bend of the present road from Kineton, not where the ‘Mansion House’ stands today.)

Edward’s family seems to have been quite well connected, and the family seat was in Southampton, somewhere under the present airport! Why he came to Kineton is not clear, but his brother also appears to have come to Warwickshire, and was resident in Butlers Marston. Harriet Nicolas, age 5, who was either Edward’s young niece, or possibly his baby sister, also lived with the Bentley sisters. Edward became engaged to Grace, one of the three heiresses.

One day in 1744, the little girl, Harriet Sophia Nicholas, was left at the house with the cook while the rest of the family went to church. The coachman decided this was the moment for him to steal some of the fine silver plate owned by the Bentleys. He entered the house, murdered the cook, and took what he wanted of the plate. The little child, when she saw the cook attacked, fled in terror and hid herself.
On their return from church the family were greatly shocked at discovering the theft and the accompanying murder; they were still more alarmed, for they could not find the child. They searched in every direction, but in vain. At last they found her. She had taken refuge in the back kitchen, in the large furnace under the big copper. There she was sitting quite contently, amusing herself with a pack of cards, one of them being in her hand.

Whether the shock of all this led to Edward Nicolas’ death I don’t know, but the church memorial records his sudden death in 1745, and rumour had it that Grace died of a broken heart soon after. In about 1830, Thomas Ward, a local antiquarian, wrote an account of the monuments of Kineton church. In it he describes how Edward Nicolas and Grace Bentley were buried in the same grave in the chancel, and that their memorial stones faced each other. Edward’s is there to this day, but at some time Grace’s stone was removed and presumably destroyed. Were it not for Thomas Ward, we should have no way of knowing the truth of this romantic tale. In elegant Latin it said

Here lies
Edward Nicholas.
Do not wonder, reader,
That under the same stone
Lie buried the remains of
Grace Anne Bentley.
For the afore-mentioned Edward,
When the marriage torch was almost lit,
was snatched away by unjust fate.
Grieving most wretchedly for seven years
She herself at last yielded to fate.
And being all but his wife
She wanted to rest here.
The fifth daughter of
Charles and Elizabeth Bentley,
Lamented by many she died 9th April AD1752
Age 35 years

It is also said that the little girl died soon after, and is buried with the two lovers.

© Gillian Ashley-Smith 2008