The love that dared to speak its name

As you went into the tower door of the church at Marsh Baldon (Oxon), there used to be two wall-tablets. One was to the relations of Sir Christopher Willoughby, who died in 1808, and the other was

To the Memory of Friends,

listed as John Lane, Elizabeth Lane, Phanuel Bacon, Margaret Bacon and Ann Barton. About which, 30 years ago, there seemed to be little to note, except that it was ‘unusual’. But why? Given the high value we still set on friendship and the tendency of some Britons to advertise themselves through their connections, such mementoes ought to be quite usual; if not in churches, then in fields and gardens and town squares. But they aren’t. Squires tend to be immortalised like Sir Christopher’s successor at Baldon, not through friendships, but because his

useful talents were always exerted in the cause of truth and justice for the correction of error or the enforcement of sound principle;

which nowadays seems a terrible thing to say about anyone.