Church of St Mary, Tenby, Pembrokeshire

This window fulfils the dual functionality of a tender memorial to Lieut-Col H.M. Henderson yet one that ‘lives’ thus imbuing the church with light and hope.^[1] Redeeming the unknown, and in all probability, unpleasant nature of the soldier’s premature death, Parsons creates a window riffing on the themes of promise, resurrection and paradise.

Parsons has used all four lights to create a wide range of images framing a Crown of Life scene. Spanning the central two apertures, the principal scene depicts a youthful and crowned Christ in profile, leaning from the steps of a rather grand enclosure raising his right hand in blessing. Henry, kneeling diagonally below him, as befits theological hierarchy, is dressed in the armour of a medieval knight and is seen also praying in profile. A sapphire blue angel, head turned in deference to Christ, with beautiful acid etched gown, crowns Henry’s fiery halo. From Christ’s benediction gesture emanates a diagonal beam of glass showing the sanctification that the soldier receives. Above and behind the three key players is a winding country road, fringed with trees, escorting towards the stately buildings of Jerusalem. The grass beneath the knight and Jesus are studded with tulips. Directly below this image is a biblical quote – Well done thou good & faithful servant: enter thou into the joy of the Lord.

In the traditional space of an altarpiece predella, directly below Christ and Henry, is a smaller scene showing three women and an angel at the empty tomb with the explanatory legend ‘HE is risen!’ The allegories of Hope, to the right, and Fortitude flank the central scene in the outer lights.^[2] Hope, chained in a prison-like cell, receives another blessing beam and, clutching a blossoming branch, turns her head towards Henry. A helmeted Fortitude bears a Resurrection flag-covered shield offering protection from the fiery arrows of life and is backed by sinuous flames leaping above her.

Parsons adds two mandorlas, or vesica piscis, above the allegorical figures. In the left hand light is the crucified Christ; the other bears a standing Virgin and child. Four tiny angels, with fiery haloes, pray in the tracery either side of a minute central light with a trinitarian repetition of Holy referencing Isaiah 6:3. By using the top five tracery lights to form a semi-circle, Parsons depicts the radiant beams of the sun, symbolising God the Father, emanating onto the scenes below.

Memorials were also used as substitute graves: and the unveiling of them as surrogate funerals. The prominent position of the window – on the northern wall at eye level near the porch – would have rendered it immediately obvious to all who entered. Henry’s memory would remain alive and become, in the words of Neil Moat, a ‘repository of memory’ for the lost son.^[3] Through the new image showing the next part of Henry’s life, not only was his old life remembered and validated and his manner of dying legitimised, relatives would have both physical space and spiritual hope; thus new and positive memory making was facilitated.^[4]

^[1] Alan Borg explains that many war memorials were designed as ‘living’ memorials – to recall for current and future generations the sacrifice of war in  Alan Borg, War memorials : from antiquity to the present (London: Leo Cooper, 1991). 84

^[2] Fortitude is sometimes described as Courage and certainly this iconography has been known under that name. Parsons himself called her Fortitude so it seems sensible to use his terminology.

^[3] Neil Moat, First World War Memorial Stained Glass in Britain, 2006, BA Dissertation, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 9-10

^[4] Thomas Kupper, “Amateur Stained Glass in English Churches, 1830-80,” 19: Interdisciplinary studies in the long nineteenth century 2020, no. 30 (2020), https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.2895.