File:JohnStowell 1661Dedication ViewOfTorreAbbey byWenceslausHollar.PNG

English: Dedicatory canton on a bird's eye view of Torre Abbey in Devon drawn by Wenceslaus Hollar, engraving published in 1661 in Monasticon Anglicanum by William Dugdale, vol. 2, London, 1661. The then owner of Torre Abbey was John Stowell (1625-1669) of Parke in the parish of Bovey Tracey, Devon, to whom the artist's dedication is addressed (Rhodes, Michael, Devon's Torre Abbey: Faith, Politics and Grand Designs, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2015, pp.60,65) Latin inscription: Ut prisca majorum pietas memoretur posuit Johannes Stowell de Bovy Tracy in com(itatu) Devon(iensis) Armiger ("In order that the ancient piety of our forefathers should be remembered, John Stowell of Bovey Tracey, Esquire, placed this"). The arms of Stowell (Gules, a cross lozengy argent) above appear to show a martlet, the difference of a 4th son. John Stowell died in 1669, aged 44, and was buried on 9 February that year; his third son John died 29 January 1674-5, aged 20 and was buried 11 February: the small mural monument in Bovey Tracey Church was erected by the only surviving son, William, and displays arms: Gules, a cross lozengy argent. (George Oliver & John Pike Jones, Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Devon: Being Observations on Several Churches in Devonshire, Exeter, 1840[1]) He should not be confused with his distant kinsman Sir Wikipedia:John Stawell (or Stowell) (29 August 1600 – 21 February 1662) of Cothelstone in Somerset, Member of Parliament and Royalist governor of Taunton during the English Civil War, who bore the same arms.