secular clergy touching his ecclesiastical functions, in which he was
equally victorious, and several tracts remain in manuscript in the dean and
chapter's library; weapons hung up in the church armory as memorials of his
polemical battles.

Finally, after fighting divers good fights for the honor of his priory, and
filling the abbot's chair for thirty years, he died, to use an ancient
phrase, "in all the odor of sanctity," in 1446, and was buried like a
soldier on his battle-field, at the door of the north aisle of his church,
near to the altar of St. Benedict. On his tombstone was an inscription in
brass, now unfortunately obliterated, which may have set forth the valiant
deeds of this Washington of the cloisters. [Footnote: Hutchinson's Durham,
vol. ii., passim.]

By this time the primitive stock of the De Wessyngtons had separated into
divers branches, holding estates in various parts of England; some
distinguishing themselves in the learned professions, others receiving
knighthood for public services. Their names are to be found honorably
recorded in county histories, or engraved on monuments in time-worn
churches and cathedrals, those garnering places of English worthies. By
degrees the seignorial sign of _de_ disappeared from before the family
surname, which also varied from Wessyngton to Wassington, Wasshington, and
finally, to Washington. [Footnote: "The de came to be omitted," says an old
treatise, "when Englishmen and English manners began to prevail upon the
recovery of lost credit."--_Restitution of decayed intelligence in
antiquities._ Lond. 1634.

About the time of Henry VI., says another treatise, the de or d' was
generally dropped from surnames, when the title of _armiger_,
_esquier_, amongst the heads of families, and _generosus_, or