(translated) runs: "Pray for the soul of Elizabeth Swillington, widow,
late the wife of Ralph Swillington, Attorney General of our Lord King
Henry VIII, Recorder of the city of Coventry, formerly the wife of
Thomas Essex Esq: which said Elizabeth died A.D. 15..." She died after
1543. The side and ends have arcaded panelling containing shields of
arms. At the west end is a realistic representation of the Five
Wounds. The effigy of Thomas Essex is in armour, that of the Recorder
in official robe and chain. The head of each rests on a helmet, and
the lady wears the "pedimental" headdress of Tudor fashion. The
arcading is purely Renaissance in detail though the general treatment
is mediaeval. The figures are in dignified repose, wholly free from
the later affectations of the Elizabethan school yet evidently
individual portraits. The second tomb dates from 1640. The top is far
too heavy for the little Ionic pilasters below.

The third, traditionally called Wade's tomb, probably belongs to John
Wayd, a Mercer, who lived in Coventry in 1557, but no inscription
remains.

There are seven shields of arms on the side, nearly all defaced, a
motto "Ryen saunce travayle," and nine images in low relief which
present quaint studies of early sixteenth-century costume.

The matrices of brasses are still visible in several parts of the
church. Sir James Harrington, writing in the reign of James I, tells a
curious story of their loss:

The pavement of Coventry church is almost all tombstones, and some
very ancient, but there came in a zealous fellow with a counterfeit
commission, that for avoiding superstition, hath not left one