Friesthorpe, and the church of St. Peter's, are now forever linked with one of two British families who suffered more than any other in the First World War.   One hundred years on, a new stained-glass window commemorates the Beechey brothers, five of whom were killed in 1914-1918, while a sixth was left partially paralysed by a sniper's bullet.

When Amy Beechey was presented to King George and Queen Mary as "the mother who gave five sons" and thanked for her sacrifice, she informed Her Majesty: "It was no sacrifice, Ma'am, for I did not give them willingly".

Amy Beechey's stalwart dignity amid unimaginable grief lives on in this memorial window, where blood-red poppies represent her five doomed sons:

Barnard or Bar, born on the 26th April 1877 in Pinchbeck, Lincolnshire was a Cambridgeshire Maths Graduate and taught at Dorchester Grammar School where he became Deputy Head.   He served as a Sergeant in the 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, who charged to his death at the battle of Loos and died on 25th September 1915.   With no known grave, he is remembered at Ploegsteert, in Belgium.  He was 38 years old, and the first of Amy's sons to die.

Frank,  born on the 12th October 1886 in Pinchbeck, became a school master at the Choir School in Lincoln.   He served as a Second Lieutenant in the 13th East Yorks.    He lost both legs as he threaded a phone line across No Man's Lane in 1916 after all his men had been killed or wounded.  He died of his wounds on the 14th November 1916 and is remembered at the Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery in Saulty, Pas de Calais in France.   He was 30 years old.

Harold, born here in Friesthorpe on 22nd March 1891 emigrated to Australia in 1910.   He served as a Lance Corporal in the 48th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force and was struck down by dysentery at Gallipoli and by shrapnel on the Somme, only to be patched up and send back to die on the Western Front, where he too, has no known final resting place.   Killed by a German shell at Bullecourt on the 10th April 1917, he is remembered at the Villers-Bretonneux Memorial on the Somme in France.  He was 26 years old.

Charles, or Char, born on the 27th April 1878 in Pinchbeck was a Graduate of St John's College, Cambridge, and became a schoolmaster.  He served in the 25th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and wrote home of the glorious flora and fauna in East Africa before a machine-gun bullet claimed his life on the 20th October 1917.   He is remembered at the Dar Es Salamm War Cemetery in Tanzania, and was 39 years old.

And Leonard, also born in Pinchbeck, was a Private in the 18th London Irish Rifles, gassed and wounded at Cambrai, who died from the agonising effects of tetanus in a French military hospital, far from his devoted, inconsolable wife on the 29th December 1917.   He is remembered at St. Sever Cemetery, Rouen in France, and was 36 years old.

Christopher, born 1st of June 1883 in Pinchbeck, he was a Private in the Field Ambulance.   Badly wounded while serving alongside Harold at Gallipoli, was invalided to the warmth of Western Australia, a sixth son that Amy would never see again.   He lived with the crippling scars of war until his death on 26th September 1968 and is buried in Kasrrakatta Cemetery, Perth, Australia at the age of 85.

Eric, born on the 28th April 1889 in Pinchbeck, he became an army dentist and was posted to Malta and Salonika.  He survived the War and died on 1st March 1954 at the age of 65.

Samuel was born on 13th August 1899 in Friesthorpe, who was still a teenager when he was sent out to face the guns for the last three weeks of war.  He survived, and died in 1977 aged 78.

Prince William and Amy also had six daughters:   Maud, who died of measles aged just 5.   Frances, Katherine, Margaret, Winifrede,  and Edith, the last surviving Beechey child, died in 1992.   Her ashes are interred in St. Peter's Churchyard.  Her name was added to the headstone commemorating her father, the Reverend Prince William Thomas Beechey, one-time Rector of Friesthorpe and Snarford, who died in 1912 and was spared seeing so many of his fine sons lay down their lives for King and Country.