File:Monument WilliamDennis Died1701 PucklechurchChurch Gloucestershire.xcf

English: Church of Saint Thomas à Becket, Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire, mural monument to William Dennis (1644-1701) lord of the manor of Pucklechurch, Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1689. Arms at top: Dennis (Gules, three leopard's faces or jessant-de-lys azure over all a bend engrailed of the last) impaling Cotton (Ridware) (Azure, an eagle displayed argent). Latin text:

M(emoriae) S(acrum) Gulielmi Dennis Armigeri ob ingenii facilitatem ... fidem.. charitas... qui obiit 26 die Aug(usti) Anno Dom(ini) 1701 Anno Aet(atis suo) 46 duas filias relinquens antiqui generis et .. superstites. Et Mariae Dennis eiusdem Gulielmi charissimae genetricis Nath(anielis) Still de Hutton in agro Somerset Armigeri filiae et cohaeredis quae annis et virtutibus plena ex hac luce migravit 18 die Aug AD 1698. Et Johannis Dennis filii Gulielmi et Dorotheae quem vix semestrem immatura mors abripuit 30 die Julii AD 1681. Monumentum hoc Dorothea filia D(octoris) Johannis Cottoni de Cunnington in agro Huntington Baronetti et Dorotheae unigenitae et haeredis Edmundi Anderson de Eyworth in com(itatu) Bedfordiae Arm(igeri) vidua nurus et mater maerens posuit

Which may be translated as:

"Sacred to the memory of William Dennis, Esquire, (of great intelligence, faith, charity) (illegible) ..... who died on the 26 day of August in the year of Our Lord AD 1701, in the year of his age 46, leaving two daughters .... surviving. And of Mary Dennis the most dear mother of the same William, a daughter and co-heiress of Nathaniel Still, Esquire, of Hutton in the county of Somerset, who full of years and virtues migrated from this light on the 18th day of August AD 1698. And of John Dennis, the son of William and Dorothy whom barely aged six months, an unripe death snatched away on the 30 day of July AD 1681. Dorothy, a daughter of Doctor John Cotton, Baronet, of Conington in the county of Huntingdon and of Dorothy only child and heiress of Edmund Anderson, Esquire, of Eyworth in the county of Bedford, widow, nurse and mourning mother, placed this monument".

The two daughters and co-heiresses of William Dennis (d.1701) were Mary Dennis (ob.s.p. 1739 buried at Puckl.) and Elizabeth Dennis, co-heiresses of the manor of Pucklechurch. Mary, married (as his 2nd. wife) Col James Butler of Ireland, great-great-grandson of 9th. Earl of Ormond, and Elizabeth married (as his 2nd. wife) Sir Alexander Cuming, 1st Baronet, of Culter, Aberdeen. Cuming became an ignominious bankrupt and was the father by his 1st wife of Sir Alexander Cuming the extraordinary adventurer and eccentric who exhibited such personal charisma as to be proclaimed Emperor of the Cherokee Indians, and virtually a living god. He attempted to use the connection to gain the Cherokees as allies of the English against the French, but the English establishment and King refused to reward his efforts, seeing him for the unstable visionary and egotist he probably was. He died in penury. Cuming and Elizabeth still held the Essex manor of Purleigh, until her death, bequeathed by w:Hugh Denys (d.1511), groom of the stool to King Henry VII, about which an Act of Parliament had been procured after the Dissolution of the Monasteries to divert the income derived from it (originally settled by Hugh Denys on Sheene Priory then transferred to Syon Monastery) to found a Dennis Scholarship at Magdalene College, Cambridge. The Scholarship still exists today nominally, although consolidated into the General Scholarship Fund. It yields only a peppercorn income, having been eroded by centuries of inflation.