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The Garter banner of Geoffrey, 12th Earl Waldegrave, represented one of the earliest grants of arms in England: per pale, argent and gules. It has now been taken down from his stall in the Quire of St George's Chapel, Windsor, where it had hung since his installation as a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order in 1971. Lord Waldegrave was justly proud of his illustrious ancestry. The first and second Earls had been Knights of the Garter, and his own appointment by the Queen almost overwhelmed him because he also possessed the rare virtue of true humility. He was always a diffident man. His death this week, at the age of 89, concludes a remarkable chapter. He succeeded his father in 1936.
Perhaps the key to his inner personality was the fact that his father, the 11th Earl, was a Somerset parish priest. He grew up in a country rectory. All his life, he remained a thoroughly committed and sacramental Christian and a convinced Anglican. He had a deep faith and was a man of prayer. He cared about his parish church and the exercise of his duty as a patron. He loved the Book of Common Prayer.
He had a special love of the Cathedral Church of St Andrew in...