Before Sir Thomas Barnardiston of Kedington, Suffolk and Great Cotes, Lincolnshire, died in 1503, he named his wife Elizabeth his sole executor and assigned her responsibility for arranging his funeral and building his tomb. Since the will itself has not survived and we know these facts from a subsequent Chancery case, we do not know where Sir Thomas asked to be buried. Nonetheless, Elizabeth was probably following his directions when she chose Great Cotes, Lincolnshire, where they had lived until around 1500, for his final resting place, rather than Kedington, Suffolk, to which they had recently moved. His tomb there was marked by a large brass showing a picture of the Resurrection, portraits of Sir Thomas and Elizabeth with inscription scrolls coming out of their mouths, and representations of their fifteen children. Sir Thomas's scroll read, “Jesus, have pity on me”; and Elizabeth’s, “Your will be done.” The inscription under the picture begged viewers for to pray for them: “In the worship of the Resurrection of Our Lord and the Blessed Sepulcher and for the soul of Sir Thomas Bernardiston Knight and Dame Elisabeth his wife and of your charity, say a Pater Noster [and] six credos. Ye shall have a hundred days of pardon to your name…” A second inscription around the margins of the brass also asked for prayers. The brass was exceptionally elaborate. Relatively few brasses contained images in addition to the effigies being commemorated or had scrolls with prayers coming from the mouths of the deceased. Nor did they usually beg for specific prayers from onlookers and promise a specific reduction in the time the latter would spend in Purgatory in return.

When Elizabeth Barnardiston herself died in 1526, she asked to be buried at Walsingham Priory and appointed the prior as her sole executor. In the event, however, she was interred at Kedington. A stone tomb chest there has effigies of her and her husband. A tablet facing the monument states explicitly that he was buried in Lincolnshire and she under the Kedington monument. Since the inscription left the date of Elizabeth's death blank, she probably had it built during her lifetime.