I have long wanted to see the church at Warkton which houses the tombs of the Dukes of Montagu:-

Yesterday was my chance as it was open for a concert by the Venice Music Project. We only caught the tail end of the concert – two pieces by Vivialdi and Pergolesi’s Quando corpus morietur’ – but were then blown away by the scale and magnificence of the monuments which completely dominate the chancel, added to the local medieval church following the death of John, 2nd Duke of Montagu in 1749 instead of constructing a family mausoleum in the grounds of Boughton.

The second duke wasn’t much liked by his mother-in-law, the Duchess of Marlborough, but she probably wasn’t the easiest of mothers-in-law. She wrote that ‘All his talents lie in things only natural in boys of fifteen years old, and he is about two and fifty.  To get people into his gardens and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country houses, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and twenty such pretty fancies like these’. But he certainly got a good send-off from his wife who commissioned Roubiliac to design his monument. He produced two small terracotta models which survive in the V&A-

Charity unveils a plaque of the Duke while down below the Duchess is shown weeping.

This is the monument in situ:-

And some details:-

The Duchess died two years later in 1751. Her daughter, Mary, then commissioned Roubiliac to design a companion monument, equally fine, with the three fates, Clotho, Atropos and Lachesis, mourning her loss:-

Lady Mary got a more neoclassical, but equally fine monument, by Peter Mathias van Gelder to a design by Robert Adam:-