ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the Ashburnham monuments and explores how the design of the second one challenged the existing forms and discursive possibilities for the genre as it had developed in East Sussex since the Reformation. It argues that there was a telling shift from the verbal expressed in different thematic paradigms to the figural. Some tombs addressed matters of state and were used as public signs of loyalty to the prince, while others addressed questions of devotional orthodoxy. The literate minority may well have paused over the prominent monumental inscription, incised in English on the chamfered top edge, which emphasises Browne's loyalty to his prince and confirms his high status in the immediate orbit of the king. It is not known how the money he left to bring émigré Catholic youths from France to study in England was spent and the monument does little to catch attention except to deploy a memento mori skull at the spectator's eye level.
