On the wall of the north aisle is a painted board bearing the Royal Coat-of-Arms of Queen Elizabeth I. From the time of Henry VIII it was common for churches to display the coat of arms of the reigning monarch. It may seem surprising that this example survived the iconoclasm of Cromwell’s day, but in fact it is an 18th century re-painting. Elizabeth’s coat of arms differs from that of our present Queen Elizabeth – being supported not by the lion and the unicorn, but by the lion guardant of England and the red dragon of Wales. An attached panel bears the text:
This mighty Queene is dead and lives,
And leaves the world to wonder,
How she a maiden Queen did rule,
Few Kings have gone beyond her.
Below this we find a Berkhamsted connection with Scottish nobility marked with a modest Neoclassical marble tablet, which commemorates Mark Lord Somerville, one of the Somervilles of Drum House, Gilmerton, near Edinburgh, who died in Berkhamsted in 1842.
