Legend of Sir Richard Baker, surnamed Bloody Baker

I one day was looking over the different monuments in Cranbrook Church in Kent, when in the chancel my attention was arrested by one erected to the memory of Sir Richard Baker. The gauntlet, gloves, helmet, and spurs were (as is often the case in monumental erections of Elizabethan date) suspended over the tomb. What chiefly attracted my attention was the colour of the gloves, which was red. The old woman who acted as my cicerone, seeing me look at them, said, "Aye, miss, those are Bloody Baker's gloves; their red colour comes from the blood he shed." This speech awakened my curiosity to hear…