Ludlow Palmers
helping to conserve the fabric and treasures of St Laurence's
Edward Vaughan

This monument is situated on the south side of the Palmers' Window in St John's Chapel. The man commemorated is Edward Vaughan of Trawscoed near Aberystwyth who, like many of the Welsh gentry in the C17 and C18, had Ludlow connections. He was son of the Sir John Vaughan (1603-1674) a major landowner and lawyer who rose to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and his heirs became the Earls of Lisburne in the C18.

The baroque design is typical of its late C17 date in black and white marble with Corinthian columns and a heraldic crest. The particularly eulogistic epitaph is in Latin (denoting a man of letters) and may be translated thus:

Visitor, whoever you are, respect the glorious remains of the distinguished Edward Vaughan of Trawscoed, heir by descent of John Vaughan, famous knight, like his noble father in appearance. From boyhood to his dying day he devoted himself with enthusiasm to literature of all kinds and of every period; to render conspicuous service to prince and country; and he successfully achieved this aim and was welcome and popular everywhere and a most respected citizen in a turbulent era; that you may know that here is buried a man whom the ancients called a 'cubic' man (i.e. a man of great integrity) and also godlike. So great and of such character was he, that even his enemies wept, and his friends almost died with him, when the earth gladly and willingly received his body, and he departed to the realms of the blessed in the year of our Lord 1648 when he was 48 years old. To a husband and parent most dearly missed, his widow and children, grief-stricken, set up this mortal tomb. His own life is his immortal epitaph.

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