This window depicts St Ursula and in the panel below Visiting the Sick. It was installed in Gordon Chapel around 1889 in memory of Frances Harriet Duchess of Richmond and Gordon.
St Ursula (Fifth Century) was born in Britanny, the daughter of a Christian King. According to legend she was endowed with great beauty and high intelligence. She refused to be married and only did so after Prince Conon, son of Agrippus, King of England, agreed to her extreme demands, not least that he and all his court should become Christians, for she refused to marry a heathen, and that before marriage she be allowed three years to visit the shrines of the Christian saints.
Conon joined her on the pilgrimage to Rome and on the return journey they found the city of Cologne being besieged by the Huns. All of Ursula’s party, including the eleven thousand maidens in her retinue, were slaughtered. The leader of the Huns offered to spare her if she became his bride and when she refused, he drew his bow and drove three arrows into her body.
The window was installed as a memorial to Frances Harriet Duchess of Richmond and Gordon (1824-1887), the wife of the 6th Duke of Richmond and 1st of Gordon.
The Inscription at the bottom reads:
Frances Harriet Duchess of Richmond
died march viii mdccclxxxvii
Frances Harriet Greville was born on March 8th, 1824, the elder daughter of Algernon Frederick Greville, Bath King of Arms and his wife, Charlotte Maria Cox. Her father belonged to the family of the Earls of Warwick.
Frances Harriet married the Earl of March (laterthe 6th Duke of Richmond and 1st of Gordon) at St George’s, Hanover Square on November 28, 1843. They had four sons, Charles (later the 7th Duke), Lord Algernon (Algy) Gordon Lennox, Lord Francis Gordon Lennox, Lord Walter Gordon Lennox and two daughters, Caroline and Florence.
The Duchess was immensely popular locally because of her genuine interest in welfare of tenants and her help for the poor. She died at Goodwood on March 8, 1887 and is buried in Chichester Cathedral.