In middle Clayton church is a monument to the ever honored Sir Edmund Vernie, standardbearer to Charles I. In the memorable battle of Edgehill.
Sir Edmund Verney (1590 -1642) was knighted by King James I in 1611. And under Charles I was appointed night Marshall. He had had a long association with Charles, from before he came to the high throne, but was also a Puritan MP frequently opposed to Charles’s policies. Nevertheless, when the Civil War broke out, though his family was divided/his older brother and eldest son fighting for parliament, while his two younger sons fought for the King/Bernie stood by Charles, explaining, I have eaten his bread and served him near 30 years, and will not do so based things as to forsake him.
Bernie was appointed royal standard-bearer, but was killed at the battle of Edge Hill Warwickshire on 23rd October 16 for the two, two months later. When the parliamentary troops bad him surrender the standard and live, he answered that his life was his own, but the standard was the Kings, and he would not deliver it while he lived. The royal banner was seized and care it off by a parliamentary incident, but recaptured in a daring rescue by Capt. John Smith, of Lord Granderson’s horse. Opinions differ as to what happened to Sir Edmund’s body.
According to a Buckinghamshire proverb., Sir Edmund was neither born nor buried, and Murray’s handbook for box 1860 says quote his body was never found, but there is a tradition that one of his hands was discovered among the remains of the slain on the field of battle, and identified by a ring.” This is accepted as true by some authorities: the national portrait Gallery’s website, for example, says concerning a portrait of Sir Edmund circa 1640 by Van Dyke, his hand was later found still grasping the standard but his body was never recovered.
That the body was never found appear certain. Sir Edmund’s eldest son, Ralph, sent messages to the armies of both sides to find out whether or not his father had died. A little later, he wrote in a letter, last night I had a servant from my lord of Essex army, but tells me there is no possibility of finding my dear father’s body. The servant had been assured by the Army’s leaders that he was never taken prisoner, neither were any of them ever possessed of his body; but that he was slain by an ordinary trooper. Ralph then sent his man to the ministers of parishes with those slain in battle had been buried, but none could get further information. However, they had Tallies of the bodies they buried/they amount to near 4000, writes Ralph/and one said that men of good quality had been buried with the rest.
As to the severed hand, in memoirs of the Verney family 1892, Francis Parker note Verney reports that was evidently the family tradition:
the standard was taken in, and rounded staff still clung the hand which should grasp that, faithful in death. On one of the fingers was the ring given to Sir Edmund by the king, and containing his miniature. For 200 years he’s just calling his disconsolate ghost wandered about the old house at Claydon searching for his hand; the ring still exists and the war meet in effigy of Sir Edmund’s hand – and if any should to speak the truth of the story, are they not to be seen a cleat into this very day?
Claydon is Clayton house, south of middle Clayton Sir Edmund’s former home. Anthony D. Hippisley Coxe in haunted Britain 1973 suggests that it may be certain Edmunds goes that is seen on the red stairs. Other 20th century authors claim that Sir Edmund appears at the house in times of national crisis, and imitation, perhaps, of the better-known national portent of Drake’s drum.
It is now also said that servants claim to see an apparition of the battle of Ed Schill on the lawns of Claydon house at dusk on every anniversary of his death. This no doubt derives from the contemporary report of a reenactment at Edge Hill by phantom armies in the days following the battle. In response to rumors concerning the apparition, King Charles the said in the pamphlet a great wonder in heaven 1642 to have dispatched gentlemen of credit to investigate, who heard and saw the aforementioned prodigies distinctly knowing divers of the apparitions by their faces and that of Sir Edmund Varney, and others that were slain.