ABSTRACT
Throughout the introductory discourse to his Ancient Funeral Monuments, John Weever bewailed the destruction that befell the English church during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Of all the damage, “the foulest and most inhumane” in his view was the violation of funeral monuments. He noted in despair that even Elizabeth I’s proclamation against the “breaking or defacing of monuments of antiquity … for memory, and not for superstition” did not stem the fury of the “willful sectaries”, who continued to destroy and deface them. 1
