Burne-Jones in Hatfield

Maybe more accurately ‘after Burne-Jones’  for this is a window to his designs in Hatfield parish church, adjacent to the Cecils’ mansion Hatfield House. 

 

The four-figure group of Martyrs was installed in 1894, commemorating the widow of Charles Drage, a London physician buried in the churchyard.  It thus post-dates Morris's active involvement in the Firm's commissions.  And if his refusal to install new glass in old churches had not of itself  denied Hatfield this window, one feels his political convictions would have blocked any dealings with a church so closely linked to the imperial prime minister Lord Salisbury.




 

On the opposite wall is an angelic trio, who represent Suffering and Charity flanking the Sun of Righteousness, which was a post-WWI memorial to three Cecil scions.   These splendid figures were the work of Christopher Whall.

 

 

Though Burne-Jones had no such political qualms about mixing with Tories, it is unlikely that  he visited Hatfield.  If he had, with his liking for 'bogie' images, he might have been delighted by two older tombs with memento mori motifs:  one with the recumbent effigy of the first Earl supported by four sturdy Virtues - Justice on right in photo - and suspended over a tremendous marble skeleton:

 

 

 

and another with two wonderful Jacobean women from the Brocket family reclining uncomfortably together, over a skull.