Freke sisters

Three daughters of Ralph Freke (died 1684) are buried in Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth and Judith are buried in the nave, and Frances in the south choir aisle. His other daughters were Cicely and Philippa.

Elizabeth was born on 1st January 1642 in Westminster and married her kinsman Percy Freke (died 1706), lawyer, first secretly in 1672 and then publicly at St Margaret’s Westminster in 1673. Their only child Ralph was created a baronet. She died on 7th April 1714 (her age is given as 69 on the monument but 73 on her coffin plate). Her diaries are at the British Library.

Judith married Robert Austen or Austin and she was buried on 24th May 1716.

Frances was born in Oxford on 22nd May 1644 and married firstly Sir George Norton (died 1715), secondly, at the Chapel Royal in Whitehall, Colonel Ambrose Norton (died 1723), her husband's cousin, and thirdly William Jones (who predeceased her). By Sir George she had three children, George and Elizabeth who died young, and Grace who married Sir Richard Gethin. She died aged 90 on 20th February 1731. In her day she was known for her religious and literary writings, including a volume of poems composed and worked with a needle on chairs and stools.

Monument

A marble monument, put up by Frances, is in the south choir aisle and shows portrait reliefs of Elizabeth and Judith, with skulls beneath each. The inscription reads:

Near this place lyes all that is mortal of ELIZABETH and JUDITH daughters of RALPH FREKE of Hannington in Wiltshire, Esq. by CECILIA his wife, daughter of Sir THOMAS COLEPEPER of Hollingbourn in Kent. ELIZABETH was marry’d to PIERCY FREKE, of West Bilney in Norfolk Esq, and was ye mother of Sir RALPH FREKE Bart. deceased, the father of a flowrishing posterity there. She was of excellent life, frugal to be munificent, a lively Christian pattern of charity & self-denial. She dyed Aprill 7th 1714 aged 69 years. JUDITH was the wife of ROBERT AUSTIN of Tenterden in Kent Esq. and ye mother of a very considerable and hopefull famely in that county. She dyed ye 19th May 1716, aged 64 years. They were both great examples to theyr sex, the best of daughters, the best of wives, & the best of mothers. Frances Lady Norton widdow of Sir George Norton of Abbots Leigh in Somersetshire, theyr mournfull sister, has in the year of our Lord 1718 erected this monument of her love & recommends the imitation of the virtue of her dear sisters to theyr descendants for ever. Which said Lady Norton has ordered by her will, her executor to bury her near this place by her daughter Lady Gethin’s monument.

The lozenges of arms are: "sable, two bars, and in chief three mullets or" for Freke, and "or, a chevron gules between three lions gambs erased sable" for Austin.