'She first deceased, he for a little tried, to live without her, liked it not, and died.' John and Margaret Whiting (died 1681 & 1680) St. Bartholomew the Great, EC1

 

John and Margaret Whiting lived a stone’s throw away from the church of St Bartholomew the Great, in Long Lane. We don’t know what he did for a living but he was well to do; he paid rates of £44 a year in 1661 for a house with seven hearths. The Whitings ‘lived lovingly together in holy wedlock’ for 40 years and had 12 children, all baptised at the church. When Margaret died in 1680 the Burying in Woollen Acts of 1666, 1678 and 1680 (passed to boost the struggling English wool industry) were very much in force, requiring the dead to be buried in woollen shrouds in coffins with woollen linings. The act allowed the destitute to be buried naked but otherwise an affidavit was required from a Justice of the Peace to confirm that the law had been complied with before the parish sexton could allow a body to be interred. Failure to comply with the law drew a fine of £5. Despite this Margaret was buried in a linen shroud on 15th April 1680, presumably upon payment of the £5 penalty. John died at the age of 74 the following year and was buried on the 20th July, also in a linen shroud, for which his executors paid £2 10s. to the churchwarden for the use of the poor.

The Whitings have a marble monument in the centre bay of the north ambulatory of the church. The tablet is inscribed;

Neare this place lye buried the bodies of
John Whiting and Margaret his
wife who lived lovingly together
in holy wedlock in this parish 40
yeares and upward and dyed in peace
the said Margaret dyed on Easter
day 1680 in the 61st yeare of her age and He
dyed the 16th day of July 1681 being 74 yeares
old having had issue 12 children John
Rebecca and Sarah onely surviving.
Johannes in memoriam optimorum parentum hoc monumentum posuit.

The last two lines of the inscription are the most famous:

Shee first deceased, Hee for a little Tryd
To live without her, likd it not and dyd.

The lines are an adaption of an epitaph written by the poet Sir Henry Wotton for his nephew’s widow, though never used and printed in 1654 in the Reliquiae Wottonianae under the title Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife;

He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.

What Sir Henry did not know at the time he penned this homage to female fidelity was that his nephew’s widow was, a mere two months after her husband’s death, already planning to remarry, to Sir Edward Harwood an English army officer of the Puritan persuasion.  Only her own death prevented the new match.