Hic jacent Gualterus Mildmay, miles, et Maria uxor ejus. Ipse obiit ultimo die Maii 1589. Ipsa 16 die Martii 1576. Reliquierunt duos filios et tres filias. Fundavit Collegium Emanuelis Cantabrigiae. Moritur Cancellarius et Sub-Thesaurarius Scaccarii et Regiae Majestati a Consiliis.
(= Here lie Walter Mildmay, Knight, and Mary his wife. He died the last day of May, 1589. She the 16th day of March, 1576. They left two sons and three daughters. He founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He died Chancellor and Sub-Treasurer of the Exchequer, and a Member of Her Majesty's Council.)
There is a commendable absence of eulogy in the epitaph, and, instead of any direct quotation from scripture, the motto, _Mors nobis lucrum_ is given, as an adaptation of Phil. i, 21. The tomb is surmounted by three classical urns and the escutcheon of the deceased, with the legend, _Virtute non vi_. Sir Walter was one of the Royal Commissioners appointed in 1586 for the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Fotheringhay Castle.
There are numerous other monuments in the church, and there were formerly many more than now remain, but those selected for description are the most important and the most interesting for their artistic merit.
The first rector of the parish, Sir John Deane, is commemorated in a modern brass (1893) let into the pavement of the ambulatory on the southern side of the chancel. It was inserted by the pupils of the Witton Grammar School, Northwich, founded by Sir John in the year 1557.
#The Lady Chapel# is a restoration of that built about the year 1410. At the Dissolution it passed into the hands of Sir Richard Rich, who converted it into a dwelling-house, and in more modern times it was occupied by a fringe manufacturer, as related in our historical sketch. The building was recovered by purchase in 1885, and the reconstruction begun, which was completed eleven years later. There are signs of an earlier chapel on the site, which was considerably altered, or entirely rebuilt, in the fourteenth century, as appeared from the architectural remains of that period discovered within the fifteenth-century fabric--itself in a frightful state of dilapidation--when the restoration was taken in hand.