[Illustration: HEREFORD FROM THE WYE.]

                          HEREFORD FROM THE WYE.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._





The Cathedral Church Of Hereford

A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See
By A. Hugh Fisher

London
George Bell and Sons

1898





GENERAL PREFACE.


This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the great
English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide-books at a
popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work compiled
with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to the student of
Archæology and History, and yet not too technical in language for the use
of an ordinary visitor or tourist.

To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each case
would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the general
sources of information which have been almost invariably found useful
are:—(1) the great county histories, the value of which, especially in
questions of genealogy and local records, is generally recognised; (2) the
numerous papers by experts which appear from time to time in the
Transactions of the Antiquarian and Archæological Societies; (3) the
important documents made accessible in the series issued by the Master of
the Rolls; (4) the well-known works of Britton and Willis on the English
Cathedrals; and (5) the very excellent series of Handbooks to the
Cathedrals, originated by the late Mr. John Murray; to which the reader
may in most cases be referred for fuller detail, especially in reference
to the histories of the respective sees.

                                                           GLEESON WHITE.
                                                       EDWARD F. STRANGE.
                                                  _Editors of the Series_.





AUTHOR’S PREFACE.


In addition to the well-known books mentioned in the General Preface, the
"Monastic Chronicles" and many other works named in the text, some dealing
especially with Hereford have been of valuable assistance to me in
preparing this little book. Amongst these are the various careful studies
of the Rev. Francis Havergal, Dean Merewether’s exhaustive "Statement of
the Condition and Circumstances of the Cathedral Church of Hereford in the
Year 1841," and "The Diocese of Hereford," by the Rev. H.W. Phillott.

My best thanks are also due to the Photochrom Company for their excellent
photographs.

                                                           A. HUGH FISHER.





CONTENTS


GENERAL PREFACE.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
CHAPTER I. - THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.
CHAPTER II. - THE CATHEDRAL - EXTERIOR.
CHAPTER III. - THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL.
CHAPTER IV. - HISTORY OF THE SEE.





ILLUSTRATIONS


HEREFORD FROM THE WYE.
HEREFORD CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.
A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.
THE AUDLEY CHAPEL.
THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).
THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.
THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
BISHOP BOOTH’S PORCH AND NORTH TRANSEPT.
GENERAL VIEW, FROM THE WEST.
EXTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.
THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.
THE NORTH PORCH.
THE NAVE.
THE CHOIR SCREEN.
SECTION THROUGH TOWER AND TRANSEPTS.
NORTH ARCH OF CENTRAL TOWER, SHOWING MASONRY ERECTED ABOUT 1320.
THE NORTH TRANSEPT.
THE CANTILUPE SHRINE.
EAST WALL OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT.
THE LADY CHAPEL.
SECTION THROUGH LADY CHAPEL AND CRYPT.
ARCH DISCOVERED AT ENTRANCE OF LADY CHAPEL.
SEAL OF JOHANNA DE BOHUN.
THE CRYPT.
VIEW BEHIND THE ALTAR, LOOKING NORTH. AFTER A DRAWING BY W. H. BARTLETT,
1830.
COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, EXTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.
COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.
EAST END OF THE CHOIR IN 1841.
EARLY ENGLISH WINDOW MOULDING.
THE REREDOS.
ANCIENT RELIQUARY IN THE CATHEDRAL.
MONUMENTAL CROCKET.
EARLY ENGLISH BASEMENT MOULDING.
A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.
TOMB OF BISHOP THOS. CHARLETON.
A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.
A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.
BYE STREET GATE. FROM AN OLD PRINT.
PLAN OF HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.






         [Illustration: HEREFORD CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]

                 HEREFORD CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.


_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._





HEREFORD CATHEDRAL





CHAPTER I. - THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.


The early history of Hereford, like that of the majority of cathedral
churches, is veiled in the obscurity of doubtful speculation and shadowy
tradition. Although the see had existed from the sixth century, it is not
till much later that we have any information concerning the cathedral
itself.

From 755 to 794 there reigned in Mercia one of the most powerful and
important rulers of those times,—King Offa. He was a contemporary of
Charles the Great, and more than once these two sovereigns exchanged gifts
and letters. Under Offa Mercia became the first power in Britain, and in
addition to much fighting with the West Saxons and the Kentish men he
wrested a large piece of the country lying west of the Severn from the
Welsh, took the chief town of the district which was afterwards called
Shrewsbury, and like another Severus made a great dyke from the mouth of
the Wye to that of the Dee which became henceforth the boundary between
Wales and England, a position it has held with few changes to the present
day. In church history Offa is of no less importance than in secular, for
as the most powerful King in England he seems to have determined that
ecclesiastical affairs in this country should be more under his control,
or at least supervision, than they could possibly be with the Mercian
church subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 786, therefore, he
persuaded the Pope to create the Archbishopric of Lichfield. Although
Canterbury regained its supremacy upon Offa’s death when Lichfield was
shorn by a new Pope of its recently acquired honours, the position gained
for the latter see by Offa, though temporary in itself, must have had
lasting and important influence. Offa is generally held responsible for
the murder, about 793, of Æthelberht, King of the East Angles, who had
been promised his daughter, Æthelthryth, in marriage.

Had Æthelberht been gifted with a knowledge of future events (which would
not have been a more wonderful attribute than many of the virtues which
were ascribed afterwards to his dead body), he could hardly have desired a
more glorious fate. His murder gained for him martyrdom with its immortal
glory, and he could scarce have met his death under happier auspices.
Visiting a king’s residence to fetch his bride he died by the order of a
man whose memory is sullied by no other stain, a man renowned in war, a
maker of laws for the good of his people, and eminent in an ignorant age
as one who encouraged learning.

Legend and tradition have so obscured this event that beyond the bare fact
of the murder nothing can be positively asserted, and the brief statement
of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "792. This year Offa, King of the Mercians,
commanded the head of King Æthelberht to be struck off," contains all that
we may be certain of.

One writer speaks of a hired assassin, and others lay the crime at the
door of Cynethryth, Offa’s Queen, who is said to have insinuated that the
marriage was only sought as a pretext to occupy the Mercian throne.
Finding her lord’s courage not equal to the occasion, she herself arranged
the end of Æthelberht. There is talk of a pit dug in his sleeping-chamber
and a chair arranged thereover, which, with an appearance of luxurious
comfort, lured him to his fate. The body was, according to one writer,
privately buried on the bank of the river "Lugg," near Hereford.

"On the night of his burial," says the Monkish Annalist, "a column of
light, brighter than the sun, arose towards heaven"; and three nights
afterwards the figure (or ghost) of King Æthelberht appeared to Brithfrid,
a nobleman, and commanded him to convey the body to a place called
"Stratus Waye," and to inter it near the monastery there. Guided by
another column of light, Brithfrid, having placed the body and the head on
a carriage, proceeded on his journey. The head fell from the vehicle, but
having been discovered by a "blind man," to whom it miraculously
communicated sight, was restored by him to the careless driver. Arrived at
his place of destination, then called "Fernlega" or "Saltus Silicis," and
which has since been termed Hereford, he there interred the body. Whatever
the motive for the crime, there is ample evidence of Offa’s subsequent
remorse.  In atonement he built monasteries and churches, and is even said
by some to have gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, though this rests on slight
evidence.

The miracles worked at the tomb of the murdered King were, according to
Asser, so numerous and incredible that Offa, who had appropriated
Æthelberht’s kingdom, was induced to send two bishops to Hereford to
ascertain the truth of them, and it is generally agreed that about A.D.
825 Milfrid, who was Viceroy to the Mercian King Egbert after the death of
Offa and of his son Egfrid, expended a large sum of money in building
"_Ecclesiam egregiam, lapidea structura_" at Hereford, which he
consecrated to the martyred monarch, and endowed with lands and enriched
with ornaments.

Although one of the old chroniclers calls it a church of stone, it is
quite uncertain what were the materials, size, or architectural character
of this edifice. It seems, however, that by 1012, when Bishop Athelstan
was promoted to the see, it had fallen into sheer ruin, or, at any rate,
sufficient decay to necessitate his beginning a new building. Of this no
clearer account has been handed down to us than of Milfrid’s church. Soon
after it was finished Algar or Elfgar, Earl of Chester, son of the Earl of
Mercia, was charged with treason at a Witan in London, and (though his
guilt is still disputed) was outlawed by Edward the Confessor. He hired a
fleet of Danish pirate ships from the Irish coast, joined King Gruffydd in
Wales, and marched with him into Herefordshire, determining to make war
upon King Edward. Here they began with a victory about two miles from
Hereford over the Earl of that shire who was a Frenchman, and tried to
make his men fight on horseback in the French fashion, which they did not
understand,—the English way being for the great men to ride to the field
of battle, but there to dismount and fight with their heavy axes on foot.
Earl Ralph, the Frenchman, turned his horse’s head and fled the field, and
the English, encumbered with their long spears and swords, followed helter
skelter. After killing some five hundred, Ælfgar and Gruffydd turned to
Hereford and came upon the church which Bishop Athelstan had caused to be
built. There they met with a spirited resistance: amongst other victims
seven of the canons were killed in an attempt to hold the great door of
the minster; but, ultimately, the church and town were burned.

Earl Harold, son of Earl Godwin, himself, when it was too late, came with
half of his army to Hereford, and with his usual predilection for peace
(notwithstanding his valour) soon after removed the outlawry from Ælfgar,
and quiet was restored.

In 1056, the year following this disaster, the worthy Bishop Athelstan
died at Bosbury. He had been blind for thirteen years before his death,
and a Welsh bishop had acted for him. His body was interred in the church
which he had "built from the foundations," and we may therefore suppose
that the "minster" was not entirely destroyed.

In 1057, on the death of Earl Ralph, the Frenchman, so important was
Herefordshire, through its position on the Welsh borders, and, since it
had been strengthened by Harold, such an important military post was the
town of Hereford, that it became part of his earldom.

From 1055 to 1079 the minster is said to have been in ruins. At the latter
date Bishop Lozing (Robert de Losinga) began to rebuild the cathedral, and
there are vague accounts that it was in the form of a round church in
imitation of a basilica of Charlemagne which had been built at
Aix-la-Chapelle between 774 and 795. If such a form ever existed it must
have been completely destroyed, as the work of the Norman period that
remains is clearly English both in treatment and in detail. If this could
be proved to be Lozing’s work, then it had no similarity to the Roman
style. The building begun by him was carried on by Bishop Raynelm, who
held the see from 1107 to 1115, and placed on a more regular basis the
establishment of canons living under a rule. These prebendaries or canons
did not live in common like the monks, but in separate houses near the
church. Whether he completed the building or not, Bishop Raynelm
undoubtedly made many additions and alterations.

We may here quote an interesting account of the duties of the cathedral
treasurer, which were probably settled about this time. They throw a
curious and suggestive light on the ceremonies of the period. "At
Hereford," says Walcott, "he found all the lights; three burning day and
night before the high altar; two burning there at matins daily, and at
mass, and the chief hours on festivals; three burning perpetually, viz.,
in the chapter-house, the second before S. Mary’s altar, and the third
before the cross in the rood-loft; four before the high altar, and altar
on "_Minus Duplicia_," and five tapers in basons, on principles, and
doubles, at mass, prime, and second vespers, four tapers before the high
altar, five in the basons, thirteen on the beam, and seven in the
candelabra; the paschal and portable tapers for processions. He kept the
keys of the treasury, copes, palls, vestments, ornaments, and the plate,
of which he rendered a yearly account to the dean and chapter. He found
three clerks to ring the bells, light the candles, and suspend the palls
and curtains on solemn days. He found hay at Christmas to strew the choir
and chapter-house, which at Easter was sprinkled with ivy leaves; and on
All Saints’ day he provided mats."(1)

The next great changes were made under Bishop William de Vere (1186-1199).
His work was of transitional character, and bears much resemblance to the
beautiful transitional work at Glastonbury. He removed the three Norman
apsidal terminations at the east end, doubled the presbytery aisles, thus
making two side chapels in each transept which have since been replaced by
the Lady Chapel with its vestibule.

In a paper read before the Archæological Institute in 1877, Sir G. G.
Scott suggests that the central apse projected one bay beyond the sides;
but this is merely conjecture. A curious feature in De Vere’s work was his
putting columns in the middle of the central arch. It is probable that the
part of the presbytery we now have was but the beginning of a larger
scheme never carried out, which included building the presbytery and
dividing the eastern wall into two arches instead of one as at Lichfield
and Exeter.

According to Sir Gilbert Scott’s theory, the Early English Lady Chapel was
an extension of the work of Bishop de Vere: it is especially interesting,
and an unique example of its date in being raised upon a crypt.

At the Bishop’s palace was a splendid hall of which it seems likely De
Vere was the builder,—at any rate he must have been the first or second
occupier. It was of noble dimensions, being 110 feet in length, consisting
of a nave 23 feet broad, with aisles 16 feet wide, independently of the
columns. This was divided into five bays by pillars supporting timber
arches formed of two pieces of curved oak. Nearly the whole of the present
Bishop’s palace is included within the space occupied by this grand hall.

In 1188 when Archbishop Baldwin made pilgrimage into Wales on behalf of
the crusade, he was entertained in this hall by Bishop de Vere, and
doubtless some of those who devoted themselves to the work were Hereford
men.

The central tower of the cathedral, that fine example of decorated work,
covered with its profusion of ball-flower ornament, was built by, or at
any rate during the episcopate of, Giles de Braose (1200-1215), an ardent
opponent of King John.

The remaining examples of decorated date are the inner north porch (as
distinct from the addition of Bishop Booth) and what remains of the
beautifully designed chapter-house, a decagon in plan, each side except
the one occupied by the entrance being subdivided into five seats.

During the term of office of Bishop Foliot (1219-1234), a tooth of St.
Æthelberht, whose remains had been almost entirely destroyed by Ælfgar and
Gruffuth in 1055, was given to the cathedral. The donor of this precious
relic was Philip de Fauconberg, Canon of Hereford and Archdeacon of
Huntingdon.

The next Bishop, Ralph de Maydenstan, 1234-1239, presented some
service-books to the cathedral.

In 1240 Henry III., with his wonted preference for foreigners, appointed
to the Hereford bishopric, Peter of Savoy, generally known as Bishop
Aquablanca, from Aqua Bella, his birthplace, near Chambéry. He it was who
rebuilt the north transept. He was one of the best hated men in England,
and not content with showering benefices upon his relations, he
perpetrated one of the greatest frauds in history in order to raise money
to aid the annexation schemes of Popes Innocent IV. and Alexander IV. Of
these, however, full particulars will be found in a chapter on the
Diocese.

While he was absent in Ireland collecting tithes, attended by a guard of
soldiers, Prince Edward, coming to Hereford to resist the encroachments of
Llewellyn, King of Wales, found there neither bishop, dean, nor canons
resident. For this they earned the severe reprimand of the King, and the
Bishop returned to Hereford. Shortly after, he was seized within the
cathedral precincts by the insurgent barons of Leicester’s party, together
with all the foreign canons (who were his own relations). They were
carried to Eardisley Castle, where the spoil they had just brought from
Ireland was divided among the insurgents.

Bishop Aquablanca died soon after these events, in 1268. He was endowed
with a character full of contradictions, extreme aggressiveness, mingled
with remarkable tact.

When he got the better of the Hereford citizens, after their attempt to
encroach upon his episcopal rights, he remitted one full half of their
fine and devoted the other to the cathedral building. While he was showing
in his life a disgraceful example to the clergy of the country, at the
same time he gave liberally to the cathedral foundation in books,
ornaments, money, and land, left a rich legacy to the poor, and a lasting
monument in the rebuilding of the north transept of the cathedral itself.

With the exception of the arches, leading into the aisles of the nave and
choir, the Norman work of the transept was altogether demolished, and
replaced by another consisting of two bays with an eastern aisle. Over the
latter was built a story now used as the cathedral library, which is
approached from the north aisle of the presbytery by a staircase turret.
His tomb is one of the finest in the cathedral. Under it, together with
those of his nephew, a Dean of Hereford, are his own remains, except the
heart, which, as he had wished, was carried to his own country of Savoy.

In 1275 the Chapter of Hereford elected to the bishopric Thomas de
Cantilupe, one of the greatest men who has ever held that office, a man
whose life was in almost every way a remarkable contrast to that of his
predecessor, Bishop Aquablanca. It is said that the Bishop of Worcester,
his great-uncle, asked him as a child as to his choice of a profession,
and that he answered he would like to be a soldier. "Then, sweetheart,"
his uncle is said to have exclaimed, "thou shalt be a soldier to serve the
King of Kings, and fight under the banner of the glorious martyr, St.
Thomas." Regular attendance at mass was his custom from earliest years.
Both at Oxford and Paris he distinguished himself, gaining his degree of
M.A. at the Sorbonne, and on his return accepted, at the request of the
university of Oxford and with the consent of the King, the office of
chancellor. In this capacity he showed singular courage and determination
in repressing a brawl between the southern scholars and those of the
north, in which we are told he escaped with a whole skin, but not with a
whole coat.

He was chosen to fill the post of Chancellor of England under Simon de
Montfort, at whose death, however, he was deprived of the office. It was
some years after this that he became Bishop of Hereford, and was
consecrated at Canterbury, September 8th, 1275. No Welsh bishop attended
the consecration.

After he became a bishop he still wore his hair-shirt and showed ever
intense devotion in his celebration of divine service. He was remarkable
in the steadfastness and ability he displayed in maintaining the rights of
the see. Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, claiming a certain "chace"
near Malvern Forest, whence came the Bishop’s supply of game, found a
relentless opponent in Bishop Cantilupe. The Bishop was prepared with the
customary "pugil" or champion (who received 6s. 8d. per annum), though his
services were not required. The Earl was excommunicated, and appealing to
the law in a trial Bishop Cantilupe eloquently maintained his right to
capture "buck, doe, fawn, wild cat, hare, and all birds pertaining
thereto," and as a result of the verdict being in his favour, caused a
long trench to be dug on the crest of the Malvern Hills as a boundary
line, which is still traceable.

Llewellyn, King of Wales, was made to restore three manors of which he had
obtained unlawful possession; and Lord Clifford, for cattle-lifting and
maltreating the Bishop’s tenants, was compelled to walk barefoot to the
high altar in the cathedral, while the Bishop personally chastised him
with a rod.

Many cases did he fight out successfully, but his greatest struggle was on
a question of testamentary jurisdiction with Peckham, Archbishop of
Canterbury, by whom he was ultimately excommunicated and obliged to leave
the country, attended by Swinfield, his faithful chaplain.

He obtained a decree in his favour from Pope Martin IV., but died on the
homeward journey on August 25th, 1282. He was buried in the church of St.
Severus, near Florence; but his bones having been divided from the flesh
by boiling, were later carried to England and solemnly placed in the Lady
Chapel of the cathedral. It is said that the Earl of Gloucester, with whom
Bishop Cantilupe had had the dispute about the chace, attended the
ceremony, and that blood began to flow from the bones when he approached
the casket containing them; upon which the Earl immediately restored the
property he had taken unjustly from the church.

Forty years later Bishop Cantilupe was canonised. It is said, amongst
other evidences of his saintliness, that he never allowed his sister to
kiss him. Three hundred sick people are said to have been cured at the
place of his interment, and so many candles were presented by the crowds
of visitors that Luke de Bray, the treasurer of the cathedral, had a
dispute with the prebendaries as to the value of the wax, two-thirds being
finally assigned to the treasurer and one-third to the prebendaries.

After five years Bishop Cantilupe’s bones were removed to the Chapel of
St. Katherine, in the north-west transept, on Maundy Thursday, April 6th,
1287, in presence of King Edward I. They were again twice moved in the
sixteenth century to the Lady Chapel and back again to the north-west
transept.

The building of the chapter-house may have spread over some part of
Cantilupe’s episcopate, and probably part of the cloisters were erected
about this time.

The miracles said to have been wrought at the shrine of St. Cantilupe are
both many and various. More than sixty-six dead people are said to have
been restored to life. The saint’s intervention appears to have been
extended even to animals, as we find that King Edward I. twice sent sick
falcons to be cured at this tomb. So great was the reverence for the saint
that the See of Hereford was allowed by the Crown to change its armorial
bearings for the arms of Cantilupe, which all its bishops have since
borne.

Bishop Cantilupe was succeeded by his devoted chaplain, Richard Swinfield,
an excellent preacher and a man of agreeable manners. Bishop Swinfield,
like his predecessor, stoutly vindicated the rights and discipline of his
diocese, once against a layman for taking forcible possession of a vacant
benefice, another time against a lady for imprisoning a young clergyman in
her castle on a false charge, and also against the people of Ludlow for
violating the right of sanctuary, and in many cases against abuses of all
sorts. On one occasion Pontius de Cors, a nephew of Bishop Aquablanca, who
had obtained from the Pope the provision of the prebend of Hinton,
interrupted the installation of Robert de Shelving appointed by Bishop
Swinfield, gained admission to the cathedral with an accomplice, and was
formally installed by him in spite of the remonstrance of the Chapter. He
held his place by force of arms during that day and the next, but later
submitted to the Bishop.

Bishop Swinfield was probably the builder of the nave-aisles and of the
two easternmost transepts. This amounted to a remodelling of the work of
De Vere. The bases of his piers and responds were retained and may still
be seen, and upon the former octagonal columns were erected to carry the
vaulting. The windows were altered throughout. It was in his time that the
"_Mappa Mundi_," the curious map of the world designed by Richard of
Haldingham of Battle in Sussex, a prebendary of Hereford in 1305, now
preserved in the cathedral, came into possession of the Chapter.

Richard Haldingham was a great friend of Bishop Swinfield, and when it was
necessary for him to send representatives to a provincial Council in
London, A.D. 1313, Haldingham was deputed to attend with Adam of Orleton,
a place belonging to the Mortimers of Wigmore in the north-east of
Herefordshire.

Three years later (1316), on the death of Bishop Swinfield at his chief
residence, Bosbury, Adam of Orleton succeeded him in the bishopric.

King Edward II. was not jubilant over the appointment of a friend of Roger
Mortimer to this important position, and, failing to persuade Adam to
decline the bishopric, he appealed to the Pope, begging him to cancel the
appointment, but with no more success. The fortunes of the Bishop of
Hereford became identified with the Queen, whom he joined on her return
from France with her eldest son. It was at Hereford that this youth, then
fourteen years of age, was appointed guardian of the kingdom under the
direction of his mother.

The King, who had sought refuge in Wales, was captured at Neath Abbey, and
the great seal taken from him by Bishop Adam Orleton, while the
Chancellor, Hugh Despenser, was conveyed to Hereford, where he was crowned
with nettles and dressed in a shirt upon which was written passages from
Psalm lii. beginning, "Why boastest thou thyself, thou tyrant: that thou
canst do mischief." Amid the howlings of a great multitude who mocked his
name by shrieking "Hue!" he was finally hanged on a gallows 50 feet high
and then quartered. Among the prisoners were two wearing holy orders, and
these the Bishop of Hereford claimed as his perquisite.

  [Illustration: A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.]

          A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.


Bishop Adam, wary, unscrupulous, but at the same time vigorous and of
unusual ability, played a great part in politics to the end of the
wretched King’s life. Some historians still believe that he recommended
the murder; he certainly supported the deposition in Parliament, and went
to Kenilworth as one of the commissioners to force the King’s resignation.
If thus interested in secular politics, he was no less watchful and
vigilant in the affairs of his bishopric and the cathedral.

The great central tower, destined centuries later to be a source of such
anxiety and a problem of such difficulty to the restorer, was even at this
early date showing signs of dilapidation, and Bishop Orleton obtained from
Pope John XXII. a grant of the great tithes of Shenyngfeld (Swinfield) and
Swalefeld (Swallowfield) in Berkshire, in answer to the following
petition:—"That they, being desirous of rebuilding a portion of the fabric
of the Church of Hereford, had caused much super-structure of sumptuous
work to be built, to the adornment of the House of God, upon an ancient
foundation; which in the judgment of masons or architects, who were
considered skilful in their art, was thought to be firm and sound, at the
cost of 20,000 marcs sterling and more, and that on account of the
weakness of the aforesaid foundation, the building, which was placed upon
it now, threatened such ruin, that by a similar judgment no other remedy
could be applied short of an entire renovation of the fabric from the
foundation,—which, on account of the expenses incurred in prosecution of
the canonisation of Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, of blessed
memory, they were unable to undertake." The "sumptuous work" alluded to
was evidently the central tower and the north transept; which latter had
been built, as mentioned before, for the remains and shrine of Bishop
Cantilupe.

When Mr. R. Biddulph Phillips, some sixty years ago, was examining the
confused and unsorted mass of charters and grants in the possession of the
cathedral, he found a parchment (which bore the two beautiful episcopal
seals of Bishop Roger le Poer of Sarum and Bishop Adam de Orleton of
Hereford) that acknowledged and confirmed this grant of tithes to the
sustentation of the fabric of the cathedral, which still forms the
backbone of the fabric fund. In 1328 Bishop Orleton was translated to
Worcester.

During the ensuing war with France, the church walls echoed with prayers
for the King’s success, and, while the war-cloud still darkened the
political sky, orisons louder and more heartfelt filled the cathedral. It
is said that when the "Black Death" reached Hereford in 1349, to retard
its progress in the city the shrine of St. Thomas de Cantilupe was carried
in procession.

About this time, and possibly not unconnected with the calamity of this
terrible plague, Bishop Trilleck issued a mandate prohibiting the
performance of "theatrical plays and interludes" in churches as "contrary
to the practice of religion." The exact character of these performances is
doubtful, and the prohibition may have referred to some kind of secular
mumming. The mystery play survived long after Bishop Trilleck’s time in an
annual pageant exhibited in the cathedral on Corpus Christi Day, to assist
in which some of the city guilds were obliged by the rules of their
incorporation.

The quarrels between the townspeople and the Bishop about his rights of
jurisdiction continued with more or less frequency. It must certainly have
been irritating to good Bishop Trilleck "_gratus, prudens, pius_" as the
mutilated inscription on his effigy describes him, when one William Corbet
forced his way into the palace, carried away the porter bodily, shut him
in the city gaol, and took away the keys of the palace.

On the second visitation of the "Black Death," 1361-2, it is said that the
city market was removed from Hereford to a place about a mile on the west
of the town, still marked by a cross called the "White Cross" bearing the
arms of Bishop Charleton.

If Bishop Orleton was deeply concerned in the deposition of King Edward
II., a later Bishop of Hereford, Thomas Trevenant, who was appointed in
1389 by papal provision, was no less active in the deposition of King
Richard II., and was sent to the Pope with the Archbishop of York by Henry
IV. to explain his title to the Crown and announce his accession.

In 1396, during the episcopate of Bishop Gilbert, the priest vicars of the
cathedral were formed into a college by Royal Charter, and the first
warden or "_custos_" was appointed by the King to show that the right of
appointment was vested in the Crown. The college was to have a common
seal, and to exercise the right of acquiring and holding property, but to
be subject to the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral. Its members were the
priests of the chantry chapels in the cathedral, at this time apparently
twenty-seven in number.

In 1475 the college was moved from Castle Street to its present site, so
that the vicars should be able more comfortably to attend the night
services. An order was also made about this time concerning the
celebration of mass at the altar of St. John Baptist in the cathedral, an
arrangement which shows that then as now the parish of St. John had no
church of its own outside the cathedral walls.

About 1418, the cloister connecting the Bishop’s palace with the cathedral
was begun by Bishop Lacy, who took great interest in the cathedral
although he never visited his diocese. It was upon this work of the
cloisters that 2800 marks were expended by Bishop Spofford, 1421-1448, in
whose time the great west window was erected by William Lochard, the
precentor. The richly panelled and vaulted chapel of Bishop Stanbury,
approached from the north aisle of the presbytery, was added between 1453
and 1474.

In 1492 Edmund Audley, the Bishop of Rochester, was translated to
Hereford, and during his episcopate founded the two-storied chantry chapel
south of the Lady Chapel and near the shrine of St. Thomas of Cantilupe.
The upper story was probably intended as a private oratory for the Bishop
himself. Bishop Audley also presented to the cathedral a silver shrine.

                    [Illustration: THE AUDLEY CHAPEL.]

                            THE AUDLEY CHAPEL.


The next important alteration was the lengthening of the great north porch
which bears the date 1519 and the shields of Bishop Booth and his
predecessor, Bishop Mayo. It is a very fine piece of Perpendicular work,
somewhat similar in design to the porch in the middle of the west front of
Peterborough Cathedral. At his death Bishop Booth left various books to
the cathedral library and some tapestry for the high altar, together with
silver and gold ornaments for the Cantilupe Shrine. The tapestry displayed
the story of David and Nabal. He also bequeathed, amongst other things to
his successor, the gold ring with which he was consecrated, but
notwithstanding his forethought in specifying that these articles were not
to be taken away with such successor in case of his translation, they have
disappeared. Little could Bishop Booth have imagined, in the enthusiasm of
his building operations, the changes to follow so closely upon his death.
Yet the papal supremacy had been abolished in this country in 1534, and
though the church services remained unaltered, the amended Primer had been
published. On September 26th, 1535, was consecrated at Winchester, to the
See of Hereford, one of the most "excellent instruments" of the
Reformation, Edward Foxe, and in the following year the suppression of the
monasteries began in serious earnest. Still the chantry chapels were to be
spared for some time. Of these chantries and chapels there were then no
less than twenty-one in the cathedral.

In 1553, commissioners were appointed to visit the churches, chapels,
guilds, and fraternities all over the kingdom and take inventories of
their treasures, leaving to each parish church or chapel "one or two
chalices according to the multitude of people." In Hereford Cathedral,
amongst other valuable ornaments, was a chalice of gold weighing 22 lbs.
9-1/2 oz., two basins weighing 102 oz., and an enamelled pastoral staff in
five pieces of silver gilt weighing 11 lbs. 7 oz. 3 dwts. troy. It is not
possible to learn the value of the goods appropriated in the cathedral
alone, but the jewels and plate of the whole country were estimated at
4860-1/4 ounces, in value about £1213, 1s. 3d.

On August 22nd or 25th, 1642, the Royal Standard was set up at Nottingham,
and the clouds of the Great Rebellion burst over the country. Bishop Coke
of Hereford had been one of the twelve churchmen most active against the
Bill for excluding the bishops from Parliament, passed in the Commons in
May 1641, and was one of the ten bishops committed to the Tower by the
joint sentence of the Lords and Commons on charge of treason.

The "popishly inclined" county of Hereford was at one with its Bishop, but
so unprepared for war that Lord Stamford, with two troops of cavalry and a
single infantry regiment, entered Hereford under the orders of the Earl of
Essex and quartered himself in the Bishop’s palace. Here he remained till
December 14th without, however, any serious plundering in the town itself.
In April 1643, Waller took the city for the second time, and again without
much resistance, a condition of the surrender being the immunity of the
Bishop and cathedral clergy from personal violence and plunder. On his
leaving Hereford the place was retaken by the Royalists, and became an
asylum for fugitive Roman Catholics. So it went on, being held first by
one side and then by the other. In the autumn of 1645 Hereford was
besieged by Lord Leven with the Scottish army, who were driven off by
Colonel Barnabas Scudamore with heavy loss.

The cathedral at this time suffered considerable injury during the siege.
The defenders used the lead from the chapter-house roof to cover the keep
of the castle, and possibly also to make bullets. Finally, on December
18th, through the treachery of Colonel Birch, the governor of the city,
Hereford was once more taken, and this time the whole place was overrun by
a rabble of plundering soldiery.

No doubt much damage had been done in the cathedral during the
Reformation, but despite the protests of an antiquarian captain, one Silas
Taylor, far greater mischief was perpetrated in this military loot. "The
storied windows richly dight" were smashed to bits, monumental brasses
torn up, the library plundered of most valuable MSS., and rich ornaments
stolen.

Some while after the Restoration, an appeal was made by the cathedral
clergy to the nobility, baronets, knights, esquires, and gentry of the
county for help towards restoring the cathedral, though it is not known
with what welcome the appeal was received.

Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century much harm was done to the
cathedral by the zeal of Bishop Bisse, one of those irritating people who
mean well but act abominably. He spent much, both on the palace and the
cathedral, employing in the alterations of the former the stones of the
chapter-house, which had been doubtless much injured but not irreparably
so. In the cathedral itself he erected a mass of masonry intended to
support the central tower, which was, however, nothing but a hideous
architectural blunder. In itself it was ugly to behold, and actually
weakened by lateral pressure that which it was intended to support. He
also presented an elaborate altar-piece and Grecian oak screen with scenic
decoration above, boards painted to represent curtains, and wooden
imitations of tassels which hung immediately over the heads of the
ministering priests as they stood at the altar. These were found later on
to be hung on rusty nails by twine "little better than pack thread."

           [Illustration: THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).]

                   THE WEST FRONT (FROM AN OLD PRINT).


During the episcopate of the Hon. Henry Egerton, 1723-1746, an ancient
building of early Norman date used as a chapel for the palace was pulled
down. It consisted of an upper and a lower portion, the lower a chapel
dedicated to St. Katherine and the upper one to St. Mary Magdalene. Part
of one wall still remains. It was during the next episcopate, on Easter
Monday 1786, that a terrible calamity occurred,—the fall of the great
western tower. Directly and indirectly this was the worst accident that
has happened to Hereford Cathedral. The west front was utterly destroyed,
and a great part of the nave seriously injured, while the injudicious
restoration begun in 1788 by the Dean and Chapter, with James Wyatt for
architect, did nearly as much to ruin the cathedral as the fall of the
tower.

         [Illustration: THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.]

                 THE NAVE AFTER THE FALL OF THE WEST END.

_From a drawing by T. Hearne_, 1806.


Already, at Salisbury, Wyatt had been busy with irreparable deeds of
vandalism, but at Hereford he surpassed his previous efforts in this
direction. He altered the whole proportion of the building, shortening the
nave by a bay of 15 feet, erected a new west front on a "neat Gothic
pattern," and availed himself of the chance of removing all the Norman
work in the nave, above the nave arcade substituting a design of his own.

One of the strangest items in his scheme was a plaster hod moulding round
each of the arches above the arcade. These eccentricities were removed not
long since, but the roughened lines for adhesion of the plaster still
remain. Inside the west front may also still be seen large spaces of wall
painted to represent blocks of stone, but no more so in reality than the
wall of any stucco residence.

It should not be forgotten, while condemning the meaningless insipidity of
Wyatt’s work, that it was enthusiastically approved in his own day, and
that the public generally were as much to blame as himself.

The old spire was taken down from the central tower, and in order to give
it apparent height the roofs of both nave and choir were lowered in pitch,
its parapet was raised, and some pinnacles were added.

At the same time the churchyard was levelled and new burying-grounds
provided for the city elsewhere.

In 1837, Dr. Thomas Musgrave was promoted to the See of Hereford. He was a
man of sound judgment and of much practical ability, and it was during his
episcopacy that a serious competent and thorough repair of the cathedral
was at last undertaken at a cost of £27,000, to which no one devoted more
loving care or more untiring energy than Dean Merewether.

"Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses and this house
lie waste?" he quotes in the beginning of his exhaustive "Statement of the
condition and circumstances of the Cathedral Church of Hereford in the
year 1841." In this statement he shows the lamentable state of decay in
the eastern end of the Lady Chapel, the bulging of its walls and the
dangerous fissures, which, on the removal of whitewash and plaster, became
visible in the soffit of each of the window arches.

In early times the walls were very much thicker, composed of hewn stone,
making a kind of casing at each side, called ashlar, the interval being
filled with rubble masonry cemented with lime and loam. This stuffing
having deteriorated the weight above had split the outer wall, though most
fortunately the interior face was perfectly sound and upright.

To trace the cracks thoroughly, it was necessary to remove the oak
panelling fitted to the wall below the windows, and the heavy bookcases
filling up a great part of the area were taken away with the lath and
plaster partition from the sides of the pillar at the west end of the
chapel.

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH
                                CENTURY.]

   THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.


By this clearing the beauty of the chapel so long obscured became again
manifest: its symmetrical proportions, the remains of its ancient
painting, the disclosure of two most interesting monuments, two aumbries,
a double piscina, the chapel of Bishop Audley, but more important than
all, two of the most beautiful specimens of transition arches to be found
anywhere, Early English in form, but ornamented in their soffits with the
Norman moulding and the zigzag decoration, corresponding with the
remarkable union of the Norman intersecting arches on the exterior of the
building, with its pointed characteristics.

The further examination by Dean Merewether and Mr. Cottingham, the
architect, showed that the great central tower of the cathedral was in
imminent danger of falling, and might at any moment entirely collapse.

Above the Grecian altar screen of Bishop Bisse they were struck by the
traces of Norman mouldings, whilst on traversing the clerestory gallery
the remains of Norman ornaments were everywhere to be found, the gallery
itself being still existent at each side, returned behind the wooden
coverings, up to the splays of the eastern windows.

The whole incongruous covering of the east end of the choir shown on p. 77
was then removed, and the change effected was most striking. It was
evident that long before the introduction of the Grecian screen in 1717,
the original arrangement had been disturbed by the insertion of a
Perpendicular window, to support which the low circular arch in the centre
had been constructed; on either side of this window were now to be seen
the mouldings and featherings of the original early decorated lights, on a
level with the lateral clerestory range; below these the Norman arcade,
based upon a string course of nebule ornaments.

"But below," says Dean Merewether, "the beauty of beauties was to be
traced,—the thickness of that part of the wall is 8 feet; on either side
of the arch, 24 feet in span, were portions of shafts, corresponding with
the pair of Norman shafts exposed to view seven years ago. The bases of
these (standing on a sort of plinth, which was continued through those
already referred to), as well as the capitals, of most curious detail,
were perfect, and upon them were visible as far as the level of the window
above, the remaining stones which formed the architecture of the exterior
arch, from which it was evident that its crown must have risen to the
height of 30 feet. By cautious examination of the parts walled up, it was
discovered that the capitals were all perfect, and that this exquisite and
grand construction, the mutilation and concealment of which it is utterly
impossible to account for, was, in fact, made up of five arches, the
interior and smallest supported by the two semi-columns already described,
and each of the others increasing in span as it approached the front upon
square and circular shafts alternately, the faces of each arch being
beautifully decorated with the choicest Norman ornaments. Of the four
lateral arches, the two first had been not only hidden by the oak
panelling of the screen, but were also, like the two others, closed up
with lath and plaster, as the central arch; and when these incumbrances
and desecrations were taken away, it is impossible to describe adequately
the glorious effect produced, rendered more solemn and impressive by the
appearance of the ancient monuments of Bishops Reynelm, Mayew, Stanbury,
and Benet, whose ashes rest beneath these massive arches, of which,
together with the noble triforium above, before the Conquest, Athelstan
had probably been the founder, and the former of those just mentioned, the
completer and restorer after that era."

Under Mr. Cottingham many improvements were made, though it cannot be said
that all the work he did was good either in design or execution. The
beautiful lantern of the central tower, with its fifty-six shafts, was
satisfactorily strengthened and thrown open to view. At the time of Dean
Merewether’s death in 1850 much still remained to be done, and in 1857 a
further scheme was set going under the financial management of Dean
Richard Dawes, and the architectural direction of Mr., afterwards Sir
Gilbert, Scott, who restored the north transepts, the north porch, the
choir, and Lady Chapel. He also erected the large metal screen and fitted
up the Lady Chapel as a church for the parish of St. John the Baptist.

Altogether in these two works of repair about £45,000 was expended, and
the cathedral was opened for service on June 30th, 1863.





CHAPTER II. - THE CATHEDRAL - EXTERIOR.


Artistic unity is certainly not the chief characteristic of Hereford
Cathedral, but it is doubtful whether the absence of that quality dear to
a purist is not more than compensated for by the fine examples of
different periods, which make the massive pile as a whole a valuable
record of historical progress. And surely it is more fitting that a great
ecclesiastical edifice should grow with the successive ages it outlasts,
and bear about it architectural evidence of every epoch through which it
has passed.

Almost in the midst of the city the sturdy mass of the cathedral building
reposes in a secluded close, from which the best general view is obtained.
The close is entered either from Broad Street, near the west window, or
from Castle Street; the whole of the building lying on the south side of
the close between the path and the river. The space between the Wye and
the cathedral is filled by the Bishop’s Palace and the college of the
Vicars Choral.

On the east are the foundations of the castle, which was formerly one of
the strongest on the Welsh marches.

The cathedral is especially rich in architecture of the Norman, Early
English, and Early Decorated periods.

The work of the Norman builders, found chiefly in the interior, survives
in the exterior aspect rather in the "sturdy" quality remaining through
the subsequent building being imposed upon the old foundations. The side
apses of the original triple eastern termination were converted into the
present eastern transept; an operation, the result of which helps to
produce an intricate outline already irregular through the projections of
the porch of Bishop Booth.

The *Central Tower*, a splendid example of Decorated work, is of two
stages above the roofs, with buttresses at the angles. It is covered with
a profusion of ball-flower ornament, which, except in the south nave aisle
of Gloucester Cathedral, is nowhere else so freely used.

         [Illustration: BISHOP BOOTH’S PORCH AND NORTH TRANSEPT.]

                 BISHOP BOOTH’S PORCH AND NORTH TRANSEPT.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


Pershore Abbey is not far from Hereford, and from the disposition of the
upper windows of the central tower and the style and position of the
dividing pilasters and bands of ornament, it seems likely that the earlier
lantern of Pershore is partly responsible for its design.

In old prints of the cathedral the great central spire which formerly
existed is shown. It was a timber erection, covered with lead. When this
was taken down at the time of the great repairs and rebuilding of the west
end, a stunted, squat appearance was given to the building. In the year
1830 Canon Russell presented a sum of money to the Dean and Chapter to
build four appropriate pinnacles at the angles.

The tower which formerly stood at the west end was similar in design to
the central one, but rose only one stage above the leads of the nave. This
seems to have been used as a belfry; whereas the central tower was a
lantern.

The large projecting *North Porch*, completed in 1530 by Bishop Booth, is
Perpendicular, and somewhat resembles, though it is later in date, the
porch in the centre of the west front at Peterborough. The front entrance
archway has highly enriched spandrels and two lateral octagonal staircase
buttress turrets at the angles. These have glazed windows in the upper
portions, forming a picturesque lantern to each. This outer porch consists
of two stories, the lower of which is formed by three wide, open arches,
springing from four piers at the extreme angles, two of which are united
with the staircase turrets, the others with the ends of the old porch. The
upper story, containing an apartment, is sustained on a vaulted and
groined roof, and has three large windows, with elaborate tracery.

In the north transept the massive buttresses with bevelled angles, of
which those at the angles are turreted, with spiral cappings, the
remarkable windows, tall without transoms, and rising nearly the whole
height of the building, show to great advantage. The clerestory windows,
like those in the outer wall of the triforium in the nave of Westminster,
are triangular on the exterior.

On the eastern side of this transept, which has an aisle, is an unusual
architectural feature. The windows of the triforium have semi-circular
arched mouldings, enclosing a window of three lights of lancet-shaped
arches. Beneath the aisle window is a pointed arched doorway, which was
probably an original approach to the shrine of Cantilupe.

In the angle is a staircase turret, which is circular at the bottom and
polygonal above; and this probably was an access to a private apartment
for a monk over the aisle of the transept containing the sacred shrine.

Continuing an examination of the north side of the cathedral one notices
the buttresses of the north-east transept, the Stanbury Chapel, the
windows, parapet, and roof of the aisle, the clerestory windows with
arcade dressings to the walls, and the modern parapet above the whole.

               [Illustration: GENERAL VIEW, FROM THE WEST.]

                       GENERAL VIEW, FROM THE WEST.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


The style of the arcade and window, and also the blank window or double
arch, with two smaller arches within the clerestory wall, claims especial
attention, as well as the ribbed roof rising above the Norman triforium.

We now come to the Early English work of the *Lady Chapel*, the east end
of which is especially noticeable, with its bold angular buttresses rising
from immense bases. The numerous and large base mouldings running round
the wall of this building, its tall lancet-shaped windows, arcades, and
ovolar and lozenge-shaped panels, are so many interesting peculiarities of
design.

The Audley Chapel projects on the south side. The angular, embattled
parapet at the end is a modern addition.

The south side of the cathedral is not easily examined by the public,
being shut within the walls of a garden between the Bishop’s and the
Vicars’ Cloisters.

The *Bishop’s Cloisters* consist of two walks only, or covered corridors,
though that on the west, which was pulled down in the reign of Edward VI.
to make room for a pile of brick building appropriated to the Grammar
School, and in its turn demolished in 1836, is now in course of
restoration.

It does not appear that the cloisters ever had a walk on the north side
against the cathedral.

These cloisters are of Perpendicular date, and between a continued series
of buttresses are windows of large dimensions, with mullions and tracery.

The vaulting of the roof is adorned with numerous ribbed mouldings, at the
intersections of which are shields charged with sculptured figures,
foliage, arms, etc. These ribs spring from slender pillars between the
windows and corbels heads on the other side: over the exterior of the
windows are carved grotesque heads, of which we give some illustrations.
The south walk of the cloisters is the more richly groined. At the
south-east corner is a square turreted tower containing a small chamber,
which has been carefully and completely restored. It has always been
called the "Ladye Arbour," although no one has been able to discover the
origin of this name or the use to which the chamber was put; many
antiquarians suggest a possible reference to the Virgin.

  [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.]

          EXTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.


The entrance doorway to the *Chapter-house* from the east walk still
remains, but is walled up. It consists of a pointed arch under a lofty,
richly ornamented pedimental moulding, having clustered shafts on the
sides, with foliated capitals. The archway is divided by a slender pillar
into two smaller openings. The once elegant chapter-room to which this
doorway communicated, whether or not they fell, as Britton asserts,
"beneath the fanatic frenzy of the Cromwellian soldiers," was certainly
neglected; and then, as long as any material could be got from it, treated
as a stone quarry by Bishop Bisse and his successors. This chapter-house
appears to have been a beautiful piece of design of the rich Decorated
period. It was decagonal in plan, with a projecting buttress at each
angle. Each side, except the one occupied by the entrance, was sub-divided
into five panels or seats. Remains of three sides only are left, and these
only as far as the window-sills.

Against the south wall of the cloisters, towards its east end, are some
remains of two Norman chapels, one above the other. The lower was
dedicated to St. Katherine and the upper to St. Mary Magdalene.

"The form, excepting a portico and choir (_i.e._ chancel) was an exact
square; four pillars in the middle, with arches every way, supported the
roof; the portico was composed of a succession of arches retiring inwards,
and had a grandeur in imitation of Roman works; two pillars on each side
consisted of single stones. There was a descent of a few steps to the
lower chapel, which had several pillars against the walls made of single
stones, and an octagonal cupola on the four middle pillars. The walls were
much painted, and the arched roof was turned with great skill, and
resembled the architecture which prevailed during the declension of the
Roman Empire (see Stukeley, Havergal, etc.).

Mentioning the existence of the doorway and two small windows in the
remaining north wall, the author of _The Picturesque Antiquities of
Hereford_ proceeds to say: "These are extremely interesting, as they
pertained to an edifice which once stood on the south side of this wall,
and is believed to have been the original church of St. Mary, the patron
saint of the cathedral before the translation of the body of St.
Ethelbert. It was the parish church of St. Mary, to which the residences
in the cathedral close belonged. Transcripts of registers of marriages
there solemnised so late as the year 1730 are existent in the Dean’s
archives."

A second cloister, known as the *Vicars’ Cloister*, connects the Vicars’
College with the south-east transept. The arrangement here may be compared
with that of Chichester, as showing the most probable plan of the latter
before the destruction of the south walk and its connection with the
cloister of the Vicars Choral.

In the area of the Bishop’s Cloister was formerly a preaching cross, which
fell into a decayed state during the latter part of the last century.
Beneath it was a dome of masonry which closed the aperture to a well of
considerable depth, which had been formed with great exactness. This well
still exists beneath a plain square stone. Another well was (according to
Stukeley) situated between the College and the Castle Green, with a
handsome stone arch over it.

         [Illustration: THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.]

                 THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


Building operations are still in progress at Hereford, and it was proposed
to mark the year of Her Majesty’s Jubilee by a special restoration,
dealing principally with the west end and central tower.





CHAPTER III. - THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL.


The Cathedral is usually entered from the north-west through the beautiful
parvise porch of Bishop Booth. The lower stage of this porch is formed by
three arches with octagonal turrets at their outer angles. These turrets
are each capped by a lantern. The second stage has three fine
Perpendicular windows. The doorway, which actually opens into the church,
belongs to a smaller porch within this outer one. The inner porch is of
the Decorated period. There is some particularly good iron-work on the
doors, made by Messrs Potter from designs by Mr. Cottingham, junior.

Hereford has a smaller area than either of the other two sister
cathedrals, being only 26,850 feet in extent.

                     [Illustration: THE NORTH PORCH.]

                             THE NORTH PORCH.


The *Nave*, which is separated from the aisles by eight massive Norman
piers (part of the original church), of which the capitals are worthy of
notice, has somewhat suffered by restorations at the hand of Wyatt. The
triforium, the clerestory, the vaulting of the roof and the western wall
and doorway are all his work; and it must not be forgotten that he
shortened the original nave by one entire bay. Walking to the west end,
from which the best general view is to be obtained, one is impressed by
the striking effect of the great Norman piers and arches and the gloom of
the choir beyond. Through the noble circular arches, which support the
central tower and the modern screen on the eastern side of it, we see the
eastern wall of the choir, pierced above by three lancet windows and below
by a wide circular arch receding in many orders. A central pillar divides
this lower arch, two pointed arches springing from its capital and leaving
a spandrel between them, which is covered with modern sculpture. In the
far distance may be distinguished the east wall of the Lady Chapel and its
brilliant lancet lights.

Throughout the Cathedral the Norman work is remarkable for the richness of
its ornament as compared with other buildings of the same date, such as
Peterborough or Ely.

The main arches of the nave are ornamented with the billet and other
beautiful mouldings, and the capitals of both piers and shafts are also
elaborately decorated. The double half shafts set against the north and
south fronts of the huge circular piers are in the greater part
restorations.

Over each pier arch there are two triforium arches imitated from the Early
English of Salisbury. They are divided by slender pillars, but there is no
triforium passage.

During the Late Decorated period the nave-aisles were practically rebuilt,
the existing walls and windows being erected upon the bases of the Norman
walls, which were retained for a few feet above the foundations. The
vaulting of the roofs of the nave-aisles and the roof of the nave itself
were coloured under the direction of Mr. Cottingham.

*The Font*, of late Norman design, probably twelfth century, is in the
second bay of the south aisle beginning from the west.

The circular basin is 32 inches in diameter, large enough for the total
immersion of children. Beneath arches round the basin are figures of the
twelve Apostles. These, however, with one exception, have been much
broken. The most curious feature of this interesting font is the base with
four demi-griffins or lions projecting therefrom. The whole is protected
by a mosaic platform.

*Monuments in the Nave.*—The first monument on the south side as we walk
from the western end is the fine effigy in alabaster of Sir Richard
Pembridge in plate and mail armour with his greyhound. This monument was
formerly at the Black Friars Monastery, but was removed here at the
Suppression. Sir Richard Pembridge was a Knight of the Garter (53rd of
that order) at the time of Edward III., and was present at Poitiers. He
died in 1375. There are still traces of colour on this monument and gold
remains on the points of the cap to which the camail is fastened, as also
on the jewelled sword-belt. A sheaf of green coloured leathers is
separated from the tilting helmet, on which the head rests, by a coronet
of open roses. When the effigy was brought here it had but one leg left,
and that the gartered one. A wooden limb was carved, and the workman
showed such accuracy in duplicating the stone leg that the Knight was
adorned with a pair of garters for many years until Lord Saye and Sele,
Canon Residentiary, presented the Cathedral with a new alabaster leg, and
the wooden one was banished to a shelf in the library.

                        [Illustration: THE NAVE.]

                                THE NAVE.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


Under a foliated Decorated arch in the wall in the fifth bay is the carved
figure of an unknown ecclesiastic. The effigy is headless and otherwise
much mutilated.

In the sixth bay is another mutilated and headless figure, under a
foliated arch, which is crowned by a bearded head wearing a cap. It is
thought to be the monument of a former treasurer.

In the fifth bay a quaint door leads from the aisle to the Bishop’s
Cloister. This has a square heading which rises above the sill of the
window over it. There is an interesting series of heads in the hollow
moulding, which are said to be copies of earlier work in the same
position. The iron-work of the door itself is modern by Potter. A lofty
Norman arch leads from this aisle into the south transept.

The north aisle of the nave is similar in style to the south. It contains
six memorial windows to Canon Clutton and his wife, with subjects by
Warrenton from the life of St. John the Baptist.

In the sixth bay from the west of the north wall of the nave is the effigy
and tomb under which is buried Bishop Booth (1535), the builder of the
large projecting porch which bears his name. The recumbent figure of the
Bishop is fully vested with a _mitra pretiosa_ with pendent fillets. He
wears a cassock, amice, alb, stole, fringed tunic and dalmatic, and
chasuble with orfrays in front. On his feet are broad-toed sandals; his
hands are gloved; a crozier (the head of which has been broken) is veiled
on the right. At this side is a feathered angel. The original inscription,
cut into stone and fixed above the effigy, remains uninjured:


    "Carolus Booth, episcopus Herefordensis cum 18 annos, 5 menses et
    totidem dies Ecclesiæ huic cum laude prefuisset, quinto die Maii
    1535 defunctus sub hoc tumulo sepultus jacet."


The iron-work in front of this tomb is the only specimen in the Cathedral
which has not been disturbed, although Mr. Havergal says "most of our
large ancient monuments were protected by iron railings." It is divided
into six square panels, having shields and heraldic ornaments.

The beautiful wrought iron *Screen*, an elaborate example of artistic
metal-work, painted and gilt, executed by Messrs Skidmore of Coventry,
from designs by Sir Gilbert Scott, stands between the eastern piers of the
central tower, a little towards the nave. The first great piece of
metal-work of this kind executed in England in modern times was the choir
screen at Lichfield, designed and carried out by the same artists as the
Hereford screen; though the latter and subsequent production transcends
that of Lichfield, both in craftsmanship and beauty.

It has five main arches, each subdivided into two sub-arches by a slender
shaft. The central arch is larger and higher than the others, is gabled
and surmounted by a richly jewelled cross. This forms the entrance, and on
either side, to a height of 4 feet, the lower part of the arches are
filled with tracery in panels. The spandrels between the heads of the
arches are enriched with elaborate ornament in flowing outline.

                    [Illustration: THE CHOIR SCREEN.]

                            THE CHOIR SCREEN.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


A variety of foliage and flowers has been worked in thin plates of copper
and hammered iron, in imitation of natural specimens, and throughout the
screen the passion flower is prominent in the decoration. It is composed
of 11,200 lbs. of iron, 5000 lbs. of copper and brass, 50,000 pieces of
vitreous and other mineral substances in the mosaic panels, and about 300
cut and polished stones. There are also seven bronze figures, three single
figures, and two groups. Of these the _Times_, May 29, 1862, well said:
"These figures are perfect studies in themselves. Every one can understand
them at a glance, and from the centre figure of Our Saviour to those of
the praying Angels, the fulness of their meaning may be felt without the
aid of any inscriptions beneath the feet to set forth who or what they
are."

           [Illustration: SECTION THROUGH TOWER AND TRANSEPTS.]

                   SECTION THROUGH TOWER AND TRANSEPTS.


The eastern side of the screen, though without statuary, is no less worthy
of inspection. Over the gates the large oval space is filled with the
sacred monogram I.H.C. The base consists of polished Devonshire marble.
The diversity of tint of the metals used is in itself a source of colour,
but the whole of the hammered iron-work of the foliage has been painted
with oxides of iron and copper, while the colour scheme is further carried
out in the mosaics.

The whole effect is certainly beautiful, and the screen is perhaps the
best example of this kind of work produced in modern times. The cost of
the screen was £3000, though the sum paid by the Chapter in accordance
with their agreement was only £1500. The same firm, the Skidmore Art
Company, who made it, also supplied the large corona and gasfittings.

A brass eagle presented by the Misses Rushort to the Cathedral, is placed
near the south-west corner of the screen; it was designed by Cottingham.

*The Central Tower.*—Immediately above the four great arches of the
central tower, the interior walls are, says Professor Willis in his report
on the Cathedral, "Of a very singular construction; twelve piers of
compact masonry on each side, beside angle piers, are carried up to the
height of 26 ft., and connected half-way up by a horizontal course of
stone, in long pieces, and by an iron bar, which runs all round
immediately under this bonding course. Upon these gigantic stone gratings,
if I may be allowed the expression, the interior wall of the tower rests,
and they also carry the entire weight of the bell-chamber and bells.

The whole space is now completely open from the floor of the Cathedral to
the wooden floor of the bell-chamber, which is painted underneath in blue
and gold. From this floor hangs, the handsome corona of wrought iron.

Before Mr. Cottingham’s restoration was commenced in 1843, however, the
whole appearance of the central tower was different, and the beautiful
lantern with its many shafts was hidden from view by a vault of the
fifteenth century, which rose above the great arches and completely
concealed the upper portion of the tower.

In his specific report of the condition of the central tower in
particular, which he was instructed to deliver in writing, Mr. Cottingham
said:

"To enable me to form the opinion which I have now the honour of
reporting, I have carefully examined the construction of the four great
piers which support the tower; they are of Norman workmanship, and
sufficient in bulk to carry a much greater weight than the present tower,
had the masonry been more carefully constructed; they consist of a series
of semi-circular columns attached to a thin ashlar casing, which surrounds
the piers, and the chambers or cavities within are filled with a rubble
core, composed of broken stones, loam and lime grouting; this was
undoubtedly sufficient to carry a low Norman tower, but when the great
Early English shaft was added on the top of this work the pressure became
too great for such kind of masonry to bear. The ashlar and semi-columns,
not being well bonded and deeply headed into the rubble cores, split and
bulged, and the cores, for want of a proper proportion of lime, diminished
and crushed to pieces. To remedy these defects, a second facing of ashlar
has been attached to the piers, in some places by cutting out a part of
the old ashlar, and in others by merely fixing long slips of stone round
the pier with iron plugs, run in with lead,—these most unsightly
excrescences have destroyed the beauty of the original design, without
adding any strength to the masonry. The same unskilful hands blocked up
all the original Norman arches, except one, connected with the tower piers
and communicating with the aisles, choir, and transepts, leaving only a
small passage-way in each.

"The first triforium arches in the choir and east side of the south
transept, abutting against the tower, have also been closed up with
masonry, so as to leave scarcely a trace of the rich work which lies
concealed behind it. These injudicious performances have tended to weaken
instead of strengthen the tower. The interior walls above the main arches
of the tower, up to the bases of the fifty-two pillars, which surround the
bellringers’ chamber, are in a very ruinous state, particularly at the
four angles, where rude cavities, running in a diagonal direction, have
been made large enough for a man to creep in,—these unaccountable holes
have tended very much to increase the danger, as all the masonry connected
with them is drawn off its bond, and many of the stones shivered to pieces
by the enormous pressure above. The stone-work, also, above the pillars,
is drawn off at the angles just below the timber-work of the bell floor.
On the whole, I never witnessed a more awful monument of the fallibility
of human skill than the tower of Hereford Cathedral at this moment
presents."

In addition to the report of the architect the Chapter availed themselves,
on recommendation of the Bishop, of the opinion of Professor Willis, of
Cambridge. This gentleman, after the most minute scrutiny and
indefatigable labour, produced his elaborate and well-known report. He
essentially corroborated the architect, especially as to the general state
of the tower; and, under the strenuous exertions of Dean Merewether, the
great work of restoration was commenced. The tower contains a fine peal of
ten bells in the key of C. A new clock was erected in 1861, which strikes
the hours and quarter-hours.

*The North Transept.*—Passing through the north arch of the tower we come
into some of the most interesting parts of the Cathedral. The transept
beyond was entirely rebuilt for the reception of the shrine of Bishop
Cantilupe, when his body was removed from the Lady Chapel in 1287, after
the miracles reported at his tomb had already largely increased the
revenues of the Cathedral. The unusual shape of the arches and the fine
and effective windows of this transept render it one of the most
distinguished English specimens of the style.

[Illustration: NORTH ARCH OF CENTRAL TOWER, SHOWING MASONRY ERECTED ABOUT
                                  1320.]

     NORTH ARCH OF CENTRAL TOWER, SHOWING MASONRY ERECTED ABOUT 1320.


On the north is a window with triple lights on each side of a group of
banded shafts, the tracery above being formed of circles enclosing
trefoils. The heads of the lights are sharply pointed.

The west side has two lofty windows recessed inside triangular-headed
arches, which completely fill the two bays. They have three lights each,
and are exactly similar to the windows on the north side of the transept.

Surrounded by alternate shafts of sandstone and dark marble, a clustered
pier divides the eastern aisle of the transept into two bays. These shafts
have foliated capitals, and the bases have knots of foliage between them.

With the exception of one string of dog-tooth ornament the mouldings of
the main arches are plain.

Above is the interesting triforium stretching across the Norman arch
opening to the choir-aisle beyond the transept itself. There are in each
bay two pointed arches, each containing three smaller arches with foiled
headings surmounted by three open quatrefoils. The spandrels between the
arches are diapered in low relief with leaf ornament. Above, far back in
the clerestory arches, are octofoil windows with sills of over-lapping
courses, which incline forward to the string course above the triforium.

The shafts of all the windows are ringed at the angles, and the triangular
arches are of an unusual stilted shape, similar to those in the clerestory
of Worcester Cathedral on the south side of the nave. These are, however,
of later date, and may have been imitated by the Worcester architect.

The restoration of the north transept by Sir G. G. Scott was
satisfactorily carried out, and certainly improves the general effect.

*Monuments in the North Transept.*—The great north stained-glass window by
Hardman was placed there as a memorial to Archdeacon Lane-Freer who died
in 1863. Underneath this window, which is described later on in the
section devoted to stained glass, is the stone effigy of Bishop
Westfayling (died 1602). The canopy was removed by Wyatt, and the effigy
is now leaning on its side against the wall. There is an undoubted
original half-length portrait of this bishop in the Hall of Jesus College,
Oxford. There are monuments to other members of the family in the church
at Ross.

In the pavement near the choir-aisle is a brass to John Philips, the
author of _The Splendid Shilling_ and of _Cyder_, a poem endearing him to
Herefordshire. His family belonged to this county, although he himself was
born in Oxfordshire. There is also a monument to Philips in Poets’ Corner,
Westminster Abbey. He died in 1708, at the early age of 32.

                   [Illustration: THE NORTH TRANSEPT.]

                           THE NORTH TRANSEPT.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


The next monument in the north transept is the effigy of Bishop Thomas
Charlton, treasurer of England, 1329. This effigy and its richly decorated
alcove or canopy was most luckily not touched by Wyatt.

Here are stained-glass windows to Captain Arkwright, lost in an avalanche;
Captain Kempson, and Rev. S. Clark, Headmaster of Battersea College.

In a line with the central pier of the eastern aisle is the most important
monument in the north transept, viz.:—the pedestal of the celebrated
shrine of St. Thomas de Cantilupe, 1282, who died at Civita Vecchia, near
Florence, on his way to Rome, August 25th, 1282. His heart was sent to
Ashridge in Buckinghamshire, part of the body was buried near Orvieto; and
the bones were brought to Hereford and deposited in the Lady Chapel.

The pedestal is in shape a long parallelogram, narrower at the lower end.
It is of Purbeck marble, and consists of two stages, the lower having a
series of cinquefoiled niches and fourteen figures of Templars in chain
armour in different attitudes, for Bishop Cantilupe was Provincial Grand
Master of the Knights Templars in England.

All the figures are seated with various monsters under their feet. The
filling of the spandrels between these niches and that of the spandrels
between the arches of the upper stage is especially noteworthy. It belongs
to the first Decorated period, and while the arrangement is still somewhat
stiff or formal, the forms are evidently directly copied from nature.

The slab inside the open arcade, which forms the upper stage, still bears
the matrix of the brass of an episcopal figure having traces of the arms
of the See (_i.e._, the arms of Cantilupe).

By the dedication of the north transept especially to Bishop Cantilupe was
avoided the secondary part which his shrine must have played if it had
been placed in the usual post of honour at the back of the high altar. The
shrine of St. Ethelbert was probably already there, and wisely enough a
distinguished position was specially created by rebuilding the north
transept for the purpose. There is a similar state of affairs at Oxford
Cathedral with the shrine of St. Frideswide, and in the south transept of
Chichester Cathedral with that of St. Richard de la Wych.

We note also a brass to Dean Frowcester, 1529; and another to Richard
Delamare and his wife Isabella (1435).

Near the Cantilupe shrine is a bust of Bishop Field (died 1636), and on
the floor is an effigy of John D’Acquablanca, a Dean of Hereford (died
1320), and nephew of Bishop D’Acquablanca, whose beautiful monument is
close to it, between the north choir-aisle and the eastern aisle of the
transept. Beholding the exquisite grace of this tomb we are reminded of
the more elaborate and equally beautiful chantry of the same period (1262)
in the south choir transept of Salisbury to Bishop Giles de Bridport.

Over the effigy, which is a most interesting example of minute
ecclesiastical costume, delicate shafts of Purbeck marble support a gabled
canopy, each gable of which is surmounted by a finial in the form of a
floriated cross.

This monument once glowed with rich colour, and in 1861 a feeble attempt
was made to restore it, which was, however, not carried out. Bishop
Aquablanca, Peter of Savoy, had been steward of the household to his
relative, William of Savoy, the Queen’s uncle. His preferment was one of
the noteworthy instances of Henry III.’s love of foreigners, and as Bishop
of Hereford he was especially unpopular. The King made him his treasurer
and consulted him on all matters of state. At his death, says the Rev. H.
W. Phillott,(2) "He was probably little regretted in his cathedral city,
whose citizens he had defeated in an attempt to encroach on his episcopal
rights. But he used his victory with moderation, for he forgave them one
half of their fine and devoted the other half to the fabric of the
cathedral, probably that noble and graceful portion of it, the north-west
transept, which contains the exquisitely beautiful shrine, probably
erected by himself, under which repose the remains of his nephew, John,
Dean of Hereford, as well as his own, his heart excepted, which, with a
pathetic yearning of home-sickness, he desired should be carried to the
church which he had founded in his own sunny land at Aigue-Belle, in
Savoy. Yet, though his memory has received no mercy at the hands of
historians and song-writers of his day, though his example did much to
swell the tide of ill-repute in which many of the clergy of all ranks were
held (for the laity, says the song-writer, are apt to pay less attention
to the doctrine than to the life of their teachers), we ought not to leave
out of sight that he did much to improve the fabric of the Cathedral, and
bequeathed liberal gifts to its foundation in money, books, ornaments, and
land, and also a handsome legacy to the poor of the diocese."

                  [Illustration: THE CANTILUPE SHRINE.]

                          THE CANTILUPE SHRINE.


In the north transept is a doorway leading to the tower.

*South Transept.*—Crossing the Cathedral in front of the Skidmore screen
it is a relief to turn from the nave with its sham triforium to the south
transept with its fine three stage Norman east side. The groining,
although incongruous, is still beautiful, and does not irritate in the
same way as Wyatt’s abominations in the nave. This transept contains
several disputed architectural points, and opinions are divided as to
whether it may not be the oldest existing portion of the Cathedral. "At
any rate," says G. Phillips Bevan,(3) "this transept seems to have been
the happy hunting-ground of successive races of builders, who have left
the side-walls in admired confusion."

Though it underwent great alteration in the Perpendicular period much of
the Norman work remains. The east wall is in the best preservation, and is
certainly entirely Norman with the exception of the groining. It is
covered with five series of arcades, which may be divided into three
stages. In the middle stage is a notably good triforium passage of very
short Norman arches. All the other ranges of arcades, except those at the
level of the clerestory, are blocked. On this side the transept is lighted
from the clerestory by two Norman windows.

In both east and west walls there is a very fine Norman moulded double
arch.

In the west wall Perpendicular windows have cut into the Norman work, and
a large Perpendicular window nearly fills the south wall with panelling
round it of the same period.

*Monuments in the South Transept.*—There is an interesting altar-tomb of
Sir Alexander Denton, 1576, of Hillesden, Co. Bucks, Esq., and his lady
and a child in swaddling clothes, toward the south-east angle of the
transept. The effigies are in alabaster, and retain considerable traces of
colour. They are in full proportion, and the knight wears a double chain
and holds a cross in his hands. The Dentons were ancestors of the Coke
family, now Earls of Leicester. The swaddled body of the child lies to the
left of its mother, its head resting on a little double pillow by her
knee, and a part of the red cloth on which she lies wraps over the lower
part of the babe.

To the right of the knight, balancing the child in the composition, lie
his two gauntlets or mail gloves, which have been much scratched with
names.

The head of the knight rests upon his helmet.

Round the verge of the tomb is this inscription:


    "Here lieth Alexander Denton, of Hillesden, in the County of
    Buckingham, and Anne his wife, Dowghter and Heyr of Richard
    Willyson of Suggerwesh in the Countie of Hereford; which Anne
    deceased the 29th of October, A.D. 1566 the 18th yere of her Age,
    the 23rd of his Age."


"But," says Browne Willis, "this was but a cænotaph, for Alexander Denton,
the husband, who lived some years after, and marry’d another lady, was
bury’d with her at Hillesden, Co. Bucks; where he died January the 18th,
1576."

Under the south window is an effigy of Bishop Trevenant (1389-1404), the
builder of the Perpendicular alterations in this transept. The effigy is
unfortunately headless and has lost its hands. The feet are resting on a
lion.

There is a brass to T. Smith, organist of the Cathedral (1877).

The remains of an ancient fireplace may be noticed on the west side of the
south transept.

They consist of a rectangular recess with chimney vault behind. This was
doubtless cut away when the Perpendicular window was placed above on this
side.

From this transept a beautiful side view is obtained of the lantern
arches.

             [Illustration: EAST WALL OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

                     EAST WALL OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


The *Organ*, which occupies the first archway on the south side of the
choir, contains work by Renatus Harris. Mr. Phillips Bevan(4) writes of
it, "It was the gift of Charles II., and was very nearly destroyed by the
fall of the central tower. It has twice been enlarged since, once by Gray
and Davidson, and lastly by Willis. It has 16 great organ stops, 11 swell,
7 choir, 7 solo, 8 pedals, with 2672 pipes. A great feature in Willis’s
improvements is the tubular pneumatic action, which does away with
trackers and other troublesome internals. Sir F. Gore Ouseley having been
precentor of the Cathedral, it goes without saying that he made everything
about the organ as nearly perfect as possible, and, for the matter of
that, no lover of music should omit to hear the _Unaccompanied_ service
usually held on Friday morning."

In the south wall of the south choir-aisle are four Decorated arched
recesses containing four effigies of bishops, belonging to the
Perpendicular period. These effigies have been attributed, beginning from
the west, to R. de Melun, 1167; Robert De Bethune (died 1148), the last
Norman builder; Hugh Foliot (died 1234) or Robert Foliot (died 1186); and
William De Vere (died 1199).

On the north wall under an arch opening to the choir is the tomb of Bishop
De Lorraine or Losinga (died 1095), who superintended the building of the
fine west front of the cathedral so unfortunately destroyed. This effigy
also belongs to the Perpendicular period. The large size of the ball
flower and fine wood-carving of the Decorated period on these tombs is
noticeable.

Between the two eastern piers of the choir is the fine effigy and brass to
Bishop Mayhew, of Magdalen College (1504-1516). The effigy is wearing a
mitre, and is fully vested. In front of the monument are panels filled
with figures of saints, and over the effigy is an elaborate canopy, which
has been restored.

In the last bay to west of the south choir aisle a door gives access to
two Norman rooms, used as vestries or robing rooms, to enter which you
pass beneath the bellows of the organ. Exhibited in cases in one of these
rooms are some of the treasures of the cathedral, ancient copies of the
Scriptures, chalices, rings, etc., described in detail towards the close
of this section. A two-storied eastern chamber was added to the Norman
work in the Perpendicular period, and was used as the cathedral treasury.

Before leaving the south choir aisle the old stained glass windows with
figures restored by Warrington should be noticed, and the celebrated *Map
of the World* is well worth some study. It was discovered under the floor
of Bishop Audley’s Chapel during the last century, and appears from
internal evidence to have been probably designed about 1314 by a certain
Richard of Haldingham and of Lafford (Holdingham and Sleaford in
Lincolnshire).

    "Tuz ki cest estorie ont
    Ou oyront, oy luront, ou veront,
    Prient à Jhesu en deyté
  De Richard de Haldingham e de Lafford eyt pité
    Ki l’at fet e compassé
    Ke joie en cel li seit doné."

Prebendary Havergal says: "It is believed to be one of the very oldest
maps in the world, if not the oldest, and it is full of the deepest
interest. It is founded on the cosmographical treatises of the time, which
generally commence by stating that Augustus Cæsar sent out three
philosophers, Nichodoxus, Theodotus, and Polictitus, to measure and survey
the world, and that all geographical knowledge was the result. In the
left-hand corner of the map the Emperor is delivering to the philosophers
written orders, confirmed by a handsome mediæval seal. The world is here
represented as round, surrounded by the ocean. At the top of the map is
represented Paradise, with its rivers and trees; also the eating of the
forbidden fruit and the expulsion of our first parents. Above is a
remarkable representation of the Day of Judgment, with the Virgin Mary
interceding for the faithful, who are seen rising from their graves and
being led within the walls of heaven.

"The map is chiefly filled with ideas taken from Herodotus, Solinus,
Isidore, Pliny, and other ancient historians. There are numerous figures
of towns, animals, birds, and fish, with grotesque customs, such as the
mediæval geographers believed to exist in different parts of the world;
Babylon with its famous tower; Rome, the capital of the world, bearing the
inscription—_’Roma, caput mundi, tenet orbis frena rotundi’_; and Troy as
’_civitas bellicosissima_.’ In Great Britain most of the cathedrals are
mentioned; but of Ireland the author seems to have known very little.

"Amongst the many points of interest are the columns of Hercules, the
Labyrinth of Crete, the pyramids in Egypt, the house of bondage, the
journeys of the Children of Israel, the Red Sea, Mount Sinai, with a
figure of Moses and his supposed place of burial, the Phœnician Jews
worshipping the molten image, Lot’s wife," etc.

*Bishop’s Cloisters.*—At the eastern end of the south nave aisle a door
opens to the cloisters connecting the cathedral with the episcopal palace.
In the cloister is placed a monument and inscription to Colonel John
Matthews of Belmont, near Hereford, who died 1826. The subject, "Grief
consoled by an Angel," is carved in Caen stone.

Other monuments are:—one to the Hon. Edward Grey, D.D., formerly Bishop of
Hereford, 1832 to 1837. He died July 1837, and is buried beneath the
bishop’s throne. A monument to Bishop George Isaac Huntingford, D.D., 1815
to 1832. He died in his eighty-fourth year, April 1832, and was buried at
Compton, near Winchester. Also a monument to Dr. Clarke Whitfield, an
organist of the cathedral.

The following inscription, on an ancient brass, affixed to a gravestone
near the west part of the cathedral, which, being taken off, was kept in
the city tolsey or hall for some time until it was finally fastened to a
freestone on the west side of the Bishop’s Cloisters:—

  "Good Christeyn People of your Charite
  That here abide in this transitorye life,
  For the souls of Richard Philips pray ye,
  And also of Anne his dere beloved wife,
  Which here togeder continued without stryfe
  In this Worshipful City called Hereford by Name,
  He being 7 times Mayer and Ruler of the same:
  Further, to declare of his port and fame,
  His pitie and compassion of them that were in woe,
  To do works of charitie his hands were nothing lame,
  Throughe him all people here may freely come and goe
  Without paying of Custom, Toll, or other Woe.
  The which Things to redeme he left both House and Land
  For that intent perpetually to remain and stand.
  Anne also that Godlye woman hath put to her Hand,
  Approving her Husband’s Acte, and enlarging the same,
  Whyche Benefits considered all this Contry is band
  Entirely to pray for them or ellis it were to blame.
  Now Christe that suffered for us all Passion, Payne, and Shame,
  Grant them their Reward in Hevyn among that gloriouse Company.
  There to reigne in Joy and Blyss with them eternally!
          Amen."

*The South-east Transept*, lying between the retro-choir and the
chapter-house, into which it opens, is in the main Decorated, though its
window tracery is perhaps somewhat later, being almost flamboyant in
character. It was altered from the original Norman apse, and in the walls
bases of the earlier work remain. It has an eastern aisle, separated from
it by a single octagonal pillar.

Before the aisles were added the now open window looking into the Lady
Chapel formed part of the outside wall of the chapel, and was glazed.
There is a lovely view from this transept, looking slantwise into the Lady
Chapel. In this transept are a number of fragments of brasses, mouldings,
stone, etc. The chief monument is that to Bishop Lewis Charleton, 1369.
His effigy lies under the wall dividing the transept from the vestibule of
the Lady Chapel. Above it is a fine monument, restored in 1875, to Bishop
Coke, died 1646. This bishop was brother to Sir John Coke, Secretary of
State to Charles I. His coloured shield is borne by two angels.

A black marble slab, in excellent preservation, marks the spot where the
remains of Bishop Ironside were laid on Christmas Eve, 1867, in presence
of the dean, archdeacon, and praecentor, in a vault specially prepared for
them; and there is a small brass on the wall. Gilbert Ironside, D.D.,
Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, was Vice-Chancellor of the University in
1687, when James II. seized upon the venerable foundation of Magdalen
College and sent his commissioners to Oxford to expel the Fellows.

In his replies to the king, Dr. Ironside showed a firm and resolute spirit
in defence of the rights of Oxford. His refusal to dine with the
commissioners on the day of the Magdalen expulsion is described thus by
Macaulay:—"I am not," he said, "of Colonel Kerke’s mind. I cannot eat my
meals with appetite under a gallows."

The brave old Warden of Wadham was not left to "eat his meals" much longer
in his beautiful college hall. William III., almost immediately after his
accession, made him Bishop of Bristol, whence he was translated to
Hereford, and, dying in 1701 at the London residence of the Bishops of
Hereford, in the parish of St. Mary Somerset, was buried in that church.

It was at the instigation of the Warden and Fellows of Wadham College that
the Dean and Chapter of Hereford consented to the proposal that the
remains and marble slab should be removed to the precincts of their
cathedral.

St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street, was the first church closed under the
Bishop of London’s Union of Benefices Act, and when it was dismantled and
the dead removed from their vaults in the autumn of 1867, the remains of
Bishop Ironside were found encased in lead only, all the outer coffins in
the vault having been previously removed or stolen.

For the purpose of identification the lead coffin was opened by the Burial
Board authorities, "and," says Mr. Havergal, "so perfect were the remains
that the skin was not broken, and the features of the placid-looking
bishop were undisturbed." In a square recess on the east wall is a bust
which has been taken by various critics to be Hogarth, Cowper, Garrick,
and others, but is in reality a portrait of a Mr. James Thomas, a citizen
of Hereford, who is buried near this place. Under it is a brass to Sir
Richard Delabere, 1514, his two wives and twenty-one children; the
inscription is as follows:—

"Of your Charitie pray for the Soul of Sir Richard Delabere, Knight, late
of the Countie of Hereford; Anne, daughter of the Lord Audley, and
Elizabeth, daughter of William Mores, late sergeant of the hall to King
Henry VII., wyves of the said Sir Richard, whyche decessed the 20th day of
July, A.D. 1513, on whose souls Jesu have mercye. Amen."

The north-east window contains stained glass to the memory of Bishop
Huntingford. There is also an old effigy supposed to represent St. John
the Baptist.

*The Lady Chapel.*—The elaborate and beautiful Early English work of this
chapel, which dates from the first half of the thirteenth century, about
1220, was twice under the restorers’ hands, the eastern end and roof
having been rebuilt by Cottingham and the porch and Audley Chapel by Sir
G. G. Scott. It is 24 by 45 feet in extent and has three bays. On the
north side each of these bays contains two large windows, and on the south
side two of the bays contain each two windows, while the third is filled
by the Audley Chapel.

In 1841 the eastern gable of the chapel was stated by Professor Willis to
be in a parlous state, and the rebuilding of this portion was one of the
first works undertaken by Mr. Cottingham. Sir G. G. Scott completed the
pavement and other restorations.

The glorious east window consists of five narrow lancets recessed within
arches supported by clustered shafts, the wall above being perforated with
five quatrefoil openings, of which the outside ones are circular and the
centre three are oval.

Fergusson(5) remarks: "Nowhere on the Continent are such combinations to
be found as the Five Sisters at York, the east end of Ely, or such a group
as that which terminates the east end of Hereford."

Of the beauties and interesting features which were developed by the
clearing of the Lady Chapel by Mr. Cottingham, Dean Merewether wrote:—

                     [Illustration: THE LADY CHAPEL.]

                             THE LADY CHAPEL.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


"Its symmetrical proportions, before completely spoilt; the remnants of
its ancient painting, which were traceable beneath the whitewash; the fair
disclosure of the monuments of Joanna de Kilpec, a benefactress to this
very edifice, and Humphry de Bohun, her husband, both of exceeding
interest; the discovery of two aumbries, both walled up, but one with the
stones composing it reversed; the double piscina on the south side, the
chapel of Bishop Audley; but especially two of the most beautiful
specimens of transition arches which can be found in any edifice, bearing
the Early English form, the shafts and capitals and the lancet-shaped arch
above, but ornamented in their soffits with the Norman moulding, and the
zig-zag decoration, corresponding with the remarkable union of the Norman
intersecting arches on the exterior of the building, with its pointed
characteristics. The appearance of the central column with a base in the
Early English and its capital with the Norman ornament might be added: the
stairs to the crypt, and the discovery of several most interesting relics
in the adjoining vaults opened in reducing the floor to its original
level."

          [Illustration: SECTION THROUGH LADY CHAPEL AND CRYPT.]

                  SECTION THROUGH LADY CHAPEL AND CRYPT.


       [Illustration: ARCH DISCOVERED AT ENTRANCE OF LADY CHAPEL.]

               ARCH DISCOVERED AT ENTRANCE OF LADY CHAPEL.


It was as a memorial to Dean Merewether, to whom the cathedral owes so
much, that the stained glass designed by Cottingham was placed in the east
windows in the narrow lancets that he loved so dearly. It represents
scenes in the early life of the Virgin and the life of Christ; the last
being the supper in the house of Mary and Martha. In the side windows the
visitor should especially notice the rich clustered shafts and arches, the
Early English capitals, and the ornamentation of the arches. Above these
windows, corresponding to the openings above the east window, a quatrefoil
opening enclosed by a circle pierces the wall. The quadripartite vaulting
springs from slender shafts, which descend upon a slightly raised base.

The double piscina and aumbry south of the altar are restorations
necessitated by the dilapidated state of the originals.

*Monuments in the Lady Chapel.*—Of great beauty and interest is the
Perpendicular recess in the central bay on the north side of the Lady
Chapel, in which is the recumbent effigy which tradition has assigned
without evidence to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, who died in the
46th year of the reign of Edward III., 1372. He was, however, buried in
the north side of the Presbytery in Walden Abbey, Essex.

The Rev. Francis Havergal considers this to be the monument of Peter,
Baron de Grandisson, who died 1358. In any case, the knight was probably
one of the Bohun family, and husband of the lady whose effigy lies under
an arch in the wall adjoining. The costume is of the earlier part of the
fourteenth century; full armour, and covered (a rare example) by a
cyclass, a close linen shirt worn over the armour in Edward III.’s reign.
This shirt is cut short in front and about 6 inches longer behind. The
visitor should also notice the fringed poleyns at the knees.

The upper story of the recess itself has open tabernacle-work, now
containing a series of figures representing the crowning of the Virgin; on
one side are figures of King Ethelbert and St. John the Baptist, and on
the other St. Thomas à Becket (with double crozier) and Bishop Thomas de
Cantilupe. Of these, however, only the two central carvings are in their
original positions, the others having been discovered by Mr. Cottingham
when the oak choir-screen was removed.

In the easternmost bay on this side is the tomb of Joanna de Bohun,
Countess of Hereford, 1327. To quote from Dean Merewether: "The effigy of
the lady, there can be scarcely a doubt, represents ’Johanna de Bohun,
Domina de Kilpec.’ She was the sister and heiress of Alan Plonknett or
Plugenet of Kilpec, in the county of Hereford, a name distinguished in the
annals of his times; and of his possessions, his sister doing her homage,
had livery 19 Edward II.

"In 1327 Johanna de Bohun gave to the Dean and Chapter of Hereford, the
church of Lugwardyne, with the chapels of Llangarren, St. Waynards and
Henthland, with all the small chapels belonging to them, which donation
was confirmed by the king by the procurement and diligence of Thomas de
Chandos, Archdeacon of Hereford; and the Bishop of Hereford further
confirmed it to the Dean and Chapter by deed, dated Lugwas, 22nd July,
1331 (ex Regist. MS. Thomæ Chorleton, Epi.): And afterwards the Bishop,
Dean and Chapter appropriated the revenues of it to the service peculiar
to the Virgin Mary, ’because in other churches in England the Mother of
God had better and more serious service, but in the Church of Hereford the
Ladye’s sustenance for her prieste was so thinne and small, that out of
their respect they add this, by their deeds, dated in the Chapter at
Hereford, April 10th, 1333.’ (Harl. MS. 6726, fol. 109.)

"Johanna de Bohoun died without issue, 1 Edward III., 1327, the donation
of Lugwardyne being perhaps her dying bequest. On the 17th of October in
that year, she constituted John de Badesshawe, her attorney, to give
possession to the Dean and Chapter of an acre of land in Lugwardine, and
the advowson of the church with the chapels pertaining to it. This
instrument was dated at Bisseleye, and her seal was appended, of which a
sketch is preserved by Taylor, in whose possession this document appears
to have been in 1655, and a transcript of it will be found Harl. MS. 6868,
f. 77 (see also 6726, f. 109, which last has been printed in _Shaw’s
Topographer_, 1. 280).

"In the tower is preserved the patent 1 Edward III., pro Ecclesia de
Lugwarden cum capellis donandis a Johanna de Bohun ad inveniendum 8
capellanos et 2 diaconos approprianda (Tanner’s _Notitia Monast._).

                [Illustration: SEAL OF JOHANNA DE BOHUN.]

                        SEAL OF JOHANNA DE BOHUN.


"The circumstances above mentioned appear sufficiently to explain why the
memorial of Johanna de Bohoun is found in the Lady Chapel, to which
especially she had been a benefactress. They also explain the original
ornaments of this tomb, the painting which was to be seen not many years
since under the arch in which the effigy lies, now unfortunately concealed
by a coat of plaster, of which sufficient has been removed to prove that
Gough’s description of the original state of the painting is correct. He
says, ’The Virgin is represented sitting, crowned with a nimbus; a lady
habited in a mantle and wimple kneeling on an embroidered cushion offers
to her a church built in the form of a cross, with a central spire—and
behind the lady kneel eleven or twelve religious, chanting à gorge
deployée after the foremost, who holds up a book, on which are seen
musical notes and "salve sca parens." Fleur-de-lys are painted about both
within and without this arch, and on the spandrils two shields; on the
left, a bend cotised between twelve Lioncels (Bohun); and on the right,
Ermines, a bend indented, Gules.’ This description was published 1786.

"By this painting there can be no doubt that the donation of the church of
Lugwardine was represented; the eleven or twelve vociferous choristers
were the eight chaplains and two deacons mentioned in the patent, who were
set apart for the peculiar service of the Lady Chapel, and provided for
from the pious bequest of Johanna de Bohoun. The two shields mentioned by
Gough are still discernible, that on the dexter side bearing the arms of
Bohun, Azure a bend, Argent between two cotises, and six lions rampant,
or.—The other, Ermines, a bend indented, (or fusily) Gules, which were the
bearings of Plugenet, derived perhaps originally from the earlier Barons
of Kilpec, and still borne by the family of Pye in Herefordshire, whose
descent is traced to the same source. In the list of obits observed in
Hereford Cathedral, Johanna is called the Lady Kilpeck, and out of
Lugwardine was paid yearly for her obit forty pence."

The effigy of Joanna de Bohun is also valuable as a specimen of costume.
Its curious decoration of human heads is also noteworthy.

Over the grave of Dean Merewether, who is interred at the north-east angle
of the chapel, is a black marble slab with a brass by Hardman bearing an
inscription, which records that to the restoration of the cathedral "he
devoted the unwearied energies of his life till its close on the 4th of
April 1850."

The next monument to notice is the effigy of Dean Berew or Beaurieu (died
1462) in the south wall of the vestibule. This is one of the best
specimens of monumental sculpture in the cathedral. The face, which is
well modelled, and the arrangement of the drapery at the feet, are
especially noticeable. There are remains of colour over the whole
monument. In the hollow of the arch-moulding are sixteen boars with rue
leaves in their mouths, forming a "rebus" of the dean’s name.

To the west of this monument is the effigy of a priest, supposed to be
Canon de la Barr, 1386.

*The Audley Chantry.*—In the central bay on the south side of the wall is
the Audley Chantry—a beautiful little chapel built by Bishop Edmund Audley
(1492-1502), with an upper chamber to which access is obtained by a
circular staircase at the south-west angle.

After Bishop Audley’s translation to Salisbury in 1502 he erected a
similar chantry in that cathedral wherein he was buried, so that the
object of the Hereford Chantry as the place for his interment was of
course never fulfilled.

The following is an extract taken from the calendar of an ancient
missal:—"_Secundum usum Herefordensem_," which notes a number of
"_obiits_" or commemorations of benefactors, chiefly between the times of
Henry I. and Edward II. "_X. Kal. Obitus Domini Edmundi Audeley, quondam
Sarum Episcopi, qui dedit redditum XX. Solidorum distribuendorum Canonicis
et Clericis in anniversario suo presentibus, quique capellam novam juxta
Feretrum Sancti Thomae Confessoris e fundo construxit, et in eadem
Cantariam perpetuam amortizavit, etc. Constituit necnon Feretrum argenteum
in modum Ecclesiae fabricatum atque alia quam plurima huic Sacre Edi
contulit beneficia._"

The lower chamber is shut off from the Lady Chapel by a screen of painted
stone with open-work panelling in two stages. The chapel is a pentagon in
plan, and has two windows, while a third opens into the Lady Chapel
through the screen. The ceiling is vaulted, and bears evidences of having
in former times been elaborately painted.

There are five windows in the upper chamber, and the groined roof is
distinctly good. The boss in the centre represents the Virgin crowned in
glory. On other parts of the ceiling are the arms of Bishop Audley and
those of the Deanery as well as a shield bearing the letters R.I. The
upper part of the chantry, which is divided from the Lady Chapel by the
top of the screen which serves as a kind of rail, may have been used as an
oratory; but no remains of an altar have been found. On the door opening
on the staircase is some good iron-work, and Bishop Audley’s initials may
be noticed on the lock.

Standing by the door of this chapel the visitor has a lovely view
westward, two pillars rising in the roof and across the top of the
reredos, to the right the Norman arches of the north transept, and further
on still the nave.

The Lady Chapel was used for very many years as a library, and after 1862
as the church of the parish of St. John the Baptist, which surrounds the
cathedral, and claimed to hold its service in some part of the building.

*The Crypt* is entered from the south side of the Lady Chapel where a
porch opens to a staircase leading down. The porch is deeply in-set, and
like the crypt itself and the Lady Chapel, Early English. Professor Willis
points out that Hereford is the only English cathedral whose crypt is
later in date than the eleventh century; the well-known examples at
Canterbury, Rochester, Worcester, Winchester, and Gloucester all belonging
to earlier times. A flight of twenty steps leads down to the crypt, which
is now light and dry, although previous to Dean Merewether’s excavations
it was utterly neglected and nearly choked up with rubbish. There is
another approach to it from the interior of the church.

                        [Illustration: THE CRYPT.]

                                THE CRYPT.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


It is 50 feet in length, and consists of a nave and aisles marked out by
undecorated columns. It runs beneath the whole extent of the Lady Chapel.

This crypt having been used as a charnel-house is called the "Golgotha."
In the centre is an altar tomb, upon which is a large and elaborately
decorated alabaster slab, in a fair state of preservation. It bears an
incised representation of Andrew Jones, a Hereford merchant, and his wife,
with an inscription setting forth how he repaired the crypt in 1497.
Scrolls proceeding from the mouths of the figures bear the following
lines:—

  "Remember thy life may not ever endure,
  That thou dost thiself thereof art thou sewre.

  But and thou leve thi will to other menis cure,
  And thou have it after, it is but a venture."

At the back of the reredos is a brass to Mr. Bailey, M.P. for the county,
whose bust formerly stood here, but was removed to a more fitting position
in the county hall.

*The Vicars’ Cloisters.*—The entrance to the college of Vicars Choral is
from the south side of the Lady Chapel. Leading from the south-east
transept of the cathedral to the quadrangle of the college is a long
cloister walk.

In the morning, when the sun shines upon the cloister, its richly carved
roof may be best seen. The western wall, with the exception of a few
mortuary tablets, is quite plain. The eastern wall is pierced with eight
three-light windows, between which are the remains of small niches.

Many old vicars are buried within this cloister. The roof is of oak, the
wall-plates, purlins, and rafters are richly moulded and the tie-beams and
principals are richly carved on both sides with various patterns and
devices.

The Rev. F. Havergal says:—"The late William Cooke acquired an immense
amount of information relating to the college and the vicars in olden
time. His biographical notices of them are most curious and amusing,
giving a complete insight into the manners, traditions, and customs of the
place." He goes on to quote from the _Lansdowne Manuscript_ in the British
Museum, 213, p. 333.

"Relation of a survey of twenty-six counties in 1634, by a captain, a
lieutenant, and an ancient, all three of the military company in Norwich.

"Next came wee into a brave and ancient priviledg’d Place, through the
Lady Arbour Cloyster, close by the Chapter-house, called the Vicars
Chorall or Colledge Cloyster, where twelve of the singing men, all in
orders, most of them Masters in Arts, of a Gentile garbe, have their
convenient several dwellings, and a fayre Hall, with richly painted
windows, colledge like, wherein they constantly dyet together, and have
their cooke, butler, and other officers, with a fayre library to
themselves, consisting all of English books, wherein (after we had freely
tasted of their chorall cordiall liquor) we spent our time till the Bell
toll’d us away to Cathedral prayers. There we heard a most sweet Organ,
and voyces of all parts, Tenor, Counter-Tenor, Treble, and Base; and
amongst that orderly shewy crew of Queristers our landlord guide did act
his part in a deep and sweet Diapason."

*The North-East Transept.*—This transept shows ample evidence of the
original Norman plan, although its present character is Early Decorated.

Of the triple apse in which the Norman Cathedral probably terminated—an
arrangement similar to the eastern apses of Gloucester and Norwich
Cathedrals—portions remain in the walls of the vestibule to the Lady
Chapel, and in this, the north-east transept, still remain parts of the
apses which opened from the choir aisles. These are somewhat later than
the nave and belong to the Transition period.

After the completion of the great north transept for the reception of the
shrine of St. Thomas Cantilupe, the terminal apses of the choir aisles
were almost entirely removed, and the present north-east transept erected.

In the centre of this transept rises an octagonal pier which helps to
carry the quadripartite vaulting. Some Norman arches in the west wall
doubtless formed part of the original apse. The windows belong to the
Early Decorated period. Sir G. G. Scott was responsible for the
restoration of the transept.

*Monuments in the North-East Transept.*—Under the north-west window is the
canopied tomb of Bishop Swinfield. The effigy of the bishop has been lost,
and in its place, which is now shown, is an unknown figure which was found
buried in the cloisters. In the mouldings of the arched canopy the
ball-flower ornament is again in evidence, and behind the tomb a carving
of the crucifixion is still visible, though nearly obliterated by the
chisel of the Puritans. The beautiful vine leaf carving at the sides has,
however, been happily spared; it is similar to the leafage on the
Cantilupe shrine.

The altar-tomb of Dean Dawes, 1867, one of the most active of the modern
restorers, is very beautiful. It is by Sir G. G. Scott, with effigy by
Noble.

Under the north-east window is an altar-tomb of an unknown bishop. It has
been assigned to Bishop Godwen, 1633, but is probably much earlier.

There is also an old stained glass window, restored by Warrington, with
figures of SS. Catherine, Gregory, Michael, Thomas, and a modern one, by
Heaton, to the Rev. J. Goss.

In the north choir aisle, which is entered through the original Norman
arch, is an exquisite little chapel known as Bishop Stanbury’s Chantry. In
style it is late Perpendicular (1470). The roof is a good specimen of
fan-vaulting, and the walls are panelled with heraldic bearings. Its
dimensions are 8 feet by 16 feet, and it is lighted by two windows on the
north side, the entrance being on the south.

At the east end are shields with emblems over the place of the altar, and
the west is covered with shields in panels and tracery.

The capitals of the shafts at the angles are formed by grotesques, and
over the arch on the south side are shields with emblems of St. Matthias,
St. Thomas, and St. Bartholomew. The Lancaster rose is prominent in the
decoration, and there is much under-cutting in the carving.

The stained windows, which form an interesting collection of arms and
legends, are in memory of Archbishop Musgrave, once Bishop of Hereford, to
whom there is also another window by Warrington in the wall of the aisle
above the chantry, which is only 11 feet in height. The subjects are taken
from the life of St. Paul.

Monument to Bishop Raynaldus, 1115, one of the chief of the Norman
builders of Hereford.

In a Perpendicular recess on the left of the door opening to the turret
staircase which leads to the archive room and chapter library is an effigy
said to be of Bishop Hugh de Mapenore, 1219. Above is a stained glass
window by Clayton and Bell, placed here as a memorial of John Hunt,
organist, who died 1842, and his nephew. There is also a small brass plate
at the side of the window, from which we learn that the nephew James died
"of grief three days after his uncle."

[Illustration: VIEW BEHIND THE ALTAR, LOOKING NORTH. AFTER A DRAWING BY W.
                           H. BARTLETT, 1830.]

 VIEW BEHIND THE ALTAR, LOOKING NORTH. AFTER A DRAWING BY W. H. BARTLETT,
                                  1830.


In the middle bay on the north side of the choir is the monument of Bishop
Bennett (1617), who was buried here. He wears a close black cap, and the
rochet and his feet are resting on a lion. Across his tomb one gets a fine
view of the Norman double arches of the triforium stage on the other side
of the choir.

In the north wall of the north choir aisle in the first of the series of
arched recesses, of Decorated character, with floral ornament in the
mouldings, is an effigy assigned to Bishop Geoffrey de Cliva (died 1120),
and in the same bay of the choir as Bishop Bennett’s tomb is the effigy of
a bishop, fully vested, holding the model of a tower. It is assigned to
Bishop Giles De Braose (died 1215), who was erroneously thought to have
been the builder of the western tower (which fell in 1786). This effigy
belongs to the Perpendicular period, when a number of memorials were
erected to earlier bishops.

In the calendar of the ancient missal "_Secundum usum Herefordensem_,"
previously quoted, occurs the following entry:—"_XV. Kal. Decem. Obitus
pie memorie Egidii de Breusa Herefordensis Episcopi, qui inter cetera bona
decimas omnium molendinorum maneriorium suorum Herefordensi Ecclesie
contulit, et per cartam quam a Domino Rege Johanne acquisivit omnes
homines sui ab exactionibus vicecomitum liberantur._"

In the easternmost bay on the north of the choir is the effigy of Bishop
Stanbury, provost of Eton and builder of the chantry already described. It
is a fine alabaster effigy with accompanying figures. The bishop wears
alb, stole, and chasuble.

Beyond the entrance to Bishop Stanbury’s Chantry is a Perpendicular effigy
under an arch which is assigned to Bishop Richard de Capella (died 1127).

On the chancel floor is a very good brass to Bishop Trilleck (died 1360).

In the north-east transept are the following antiquarian remains:—Two
altar-stones, nearly perfect, whereon are placed:—

Six mutilated effigies of unknown lay persons, probably buried in or near
the Magdalen Chapels, but dug up on the south side of the Bishop’s
Cloisters, A.D. 1820, and brought inside the cathedral A.D. 1862.

Two matrices of brasses; also a small one on the wall.

The wooden pulpit—very late Perpendicular work from which every canon on
his appointment formerly had to preach forty sermons on forty different
days in succession.

We may also notice two rich pieces of iron-work from Sir A. Denton’s tomb:
the head of a knight or templar’s effigy and several heraldic shields from
monuments in the cathedral—especially seven in alabaster now placed
against the east wall.

       [Illustration: COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, EXTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.]

               COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, EXTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.


*The Choir*, with its details of architecture and its individual
accessories, is very beautiful, notwithstanding an unusual deficiency of
light, caused by the position of the transepts, which practically
intercept all light except that from the clerestory. It consists of three
lofty Norman bays of three stages. The middle of the three stages has some
exquisite dwarfed Norman arches with no triforium passages; but there is
one in the upper stage, with slender and graceful Early English arches and
stained glass at back. The vaulting is also Early English, and dates from
about the middle of the thirteenth century.

       [Illustration: COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.]

               COMPARTMENT OF CHOIR, INTERIOR, NORTH SIDE.


The principal arches of the choir are supported by massive piers with
square bases. The shafts are semi-detached and bear capitals enriched with
foliated and grotesque ornament. In each bay on the triforium level a wide
Norman arch envelops two smaller arches, supported by semi-circular piers
on each side.

A richly carved square-string course runs along the base of the triforium.

The east end of the choir was covered before 1841 by the "Grecian" screen,
a wooden erection placed there by Bishop Bisse in 1717, and above it a
Decorated window containing a stained glass representation of the Last
Supper after the picture by Benjamin West. The improvement effected by the
removal of this screen with its heterogeneous appendages was immense. The
great Norman arch was once more exposed to view; and, in place of the
Decorated window, we now have three lancets at the back of the clerestory
passage.

In describing the discoveries led up to by the removal of the old screen,
Dean Merewether says: "By cautious examination of the parts walled up it
was discovered that the capitals were all perfect, and that this exquisite
and grand construction, the mutilation and concealment of which it is
utterly impossible to account for, was in fact made up of five arches, the
interior and smallest supported by the two semi-columns, and each of the
others increasing in span as it approached the front upon square and
circular shafts alternately, the faces of each arch being beautifully
decorated with the choicest Norman ornaments. Of the four lateral arches,
the two first had been not only hid by the oak panelling of the screen,
but were also, like the two others, closed up with lath and plaster as the
central arch; and when these incumbrances and desecrations were taken away
it is impossible to describe adequately the glorious effect produced,
rendered more solemn and impressive by the appearance of the ancient
monuments of Bishops Reynelm, Mayew, Stanbury, and Benet, whose ashes rest
beneath these massive arches, of which, together with the noble triforium
above, before the Conquest, Athelstan had probably been the founder, and
the former of those just mentioned, the completer and restorer after that
era."

The reredos is in Bath stone and marble, and was designed by Mr.
Cottingham, junior, as a memorial to Mr. Joseph Bailey, 1850, who
represented the county for several years in Parliament.

The sculptor was Boulton, and the subject is our Lord’s Passion, in five
deep panels occupying canopied compartments divided by small shafts
supporting angels, who carry the instruments of the Passion. The subjects
in the separate panels are:—1. The Agony in the Garden; 2. Christ Bearing
the Cross; 3. The Crucifixion; 4. The Resurrection; and 5. The Three Women
at the Sepulchre.

              [Illustration: EAST END OF THE CHOIR IN 1841.]

                      EAST END OF THE CHOIR IN 1841.


Above the reredos a broad spandrel left by two pointed arches springing
from a central pier fills the upper part of the Norman arch. The pier
itself is old, but the upper part is a restoration of Mr. Cottingham’s.
The spandrel is covered with modern sculpture, as may be seen in the
illustration. The subject is the Saviour in Majesty, the four evangelists
holding scrolls; and below a figure of King Ethelbert.

An older representation of King Ethelbert is the small effigy on a bracket
against the easternmost pier south of the choir, close to the head of the
tomb of Bishop Mayo, who had desired in his will to be buried by the image
of King Ethelbert. It was dug up about the year 1700 at the entrance to
the Lady Chapel, where it had doubtless been buried in a mutilated
condition when the edict went forth for the destruction of shrines and
images.

              [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH WINDOW MOULDING.]

                      EARLY ENGLISH WINDOW MOULDING.


Originally there were other representations of St. Ethelbert: on the tombs
of Bishops Cantilupe and Mayo, Dean Frowcester, Archdeacon Rudhale,
Præcentor Porter; in colour on the walls of the chapter-house and the tomb
of Joanna de Kilpec; in ancient glass, recently restored, in a window in
the south aisle of the choir; and in a stone-carving over the door of the
Bishop’s Cloister, and the effigy formerly on the west front.

Opposite the throne a slab of marble, from designs by Scott, marks the
spot, as far as it is known, where Ethelbert was buried.

*The Choir-stalls* are largely ancient, belonging to the Decorated period.
They have good canopy work, and are otherwise excellent in detail. Some of
the _misereres_ are quaint, among them being found several examples of the
curiously secular subjects chosen for this purpose by the wood-carvers of
the period.

In addition to the bishop’s throne, which is of the fourteenth century,
there is, on the north side of the sacrarium, a very old episcopal chair,
concerning which a tradition remains that King Stephen sat in it when he
visited Hereford. Be this as it may, the Hereford chair is undoubtedly of
very great antiquity, and belongs to, or at least is similar to, the
earliest kind of furniture used in this country. The dimensions of the
chair are—height, 3 feet 9 inches; breadth, 33 inches; front to back, 22
inches. The entire chair is formed of 53 pieces, without including the
seat of two boards and the two small circular heads in front.

Traces of ancient colour—vermilion and gold—may still be seen in several
of the narrow bands: a complete list of other painted work which has been
recorded or still exists in the cathedral has been compiled by Mr C. E.
Keyser.(6)

*The Cathedral Library.*—The Archive Chamber, on the Library. This room,
which has been restored by Sir G. G. Scott, is now approached by a winding
stone staircase.

In earlier times access was only obtainable either by a draw-bridge or
some other movable appliance crossing the great north window. The Library
(which Botfield(7) calls "a most excellent specimen of a genuine monastic
library") contains about 2000 volumes, including many rare and interesting
manuscripts, most of which are still chained to the shelves. Every chain
is from 3 to 4 feet long, with a ring at each end and a swivel in the
middle. The rings are strung on iron rods secured by metal-work at one end
of the bookcase. There are in this chamber eighty capacious oak cupboards,
which contain the whole of the deeds and documents belonging to the Dean
and Chapter, the accumulation of eight centuries.

                       [Illustration: THE REREDOS.]

                               THE REREDOS.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._


Among the most remarkable printed books are:—A series of Bibles, 1480 to
1690; Caxton’s _Legenda Aurea_, 1483; Higden’s _Polychronicon_, by Caxton,
1495; Lyndewode, _Super Constitutiones Provinciales,_ 1475; Nonius
Marcellus, _De proprietate sermonum_, 1476, printed at Venice by Nicolas
Jenson; and the _Nuremberg Chronicle_, completed July 1493. Of the
manuscripts, the most interesting is an ancient _Antiphonarium_,
containing the old "Hereford Use." One of the documents attached to this
volume states: "The Dean and Chapter of Hereford purchased this book of Mr
William Hawes at the price of twelve guineas. It was bought by him some
years since at a book-stall in Drury Lane, London, and attracted his
notice from the quantity of music which appeared interspersed in it."

The date of the writing is probably about 1270, the obit of Peter de
Aquablanca being entered in the Kalendar in the hand of the original
scribe and the following obit in another hand.

The oldest of all the treasures preserved at Hereford Cathedral, being
certainly one thousand years old at least, is a Latin version of the Four
Gospels written in Anglo-Saxon characters.

The Rev. F. Havergal thus describes it: "This MS. is written on stout
vellum, and measures about 9 x 7 inches. It consists of 135 leaves. Three
coloured titles remain, those to the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and
St. John. Two illuminated leaves are missing—those that would follow folio
1 and folio 59. With the exception of these two lacunæ, the MS. contains
the whole of the Four Gospels.

No exact date can be assigned, but several eminent authorities agree that
it is the work of the eighth or ninth century.

It does not exactly accord with any of the other well-known MS. of that
period, having a peculiar character of its own.

From the evidence of the materials it would appear to have been written in
the country, probably in Mercia, and not at any of the great monasteries.

The text of this MS. is ante-Hieronymian, and offers a valuable example of
the Irish (or British) recension of the original African text. Thus it has
a large proportion of readings in common with the Cambridge Gospels, St.
Chad’s Gospels, the Rushworth Gospels, and the Book of Deir.

On the concluding leaves of this volume there is an entry of a deed in
Anglo-Saxon made in the reign of Canute, of which the following is a
translation:—

"Note of a Shire-mote held at Ægelnoth’s Stone in Herefordshire in the
reign of King Cnut, at which were present the Bishop Athelstan, the
Sheriff Bruning, and Ægelgeard of Frome, and Leofrine of Frome, and Godric
of Stoke, and all the thanes in Herefordshire. At which assembly Edwine,
son of Enneawne, complained against his mother concerning certain lands at
Welintone and Cyrdesley. The bishop asked who should answer for the
mother, which Thurcyl the White proffered to do if he knew the cause of
accusation.

"Then they chose three thanes and sent to the mother to ask her what the
cause of complaint was. Then she declared that she had no land that
pertained in ought to her son, and was very angry with him, and calling
Leoflœda, her relative, she, in presence of the thanes, bequeathed to her
after her own death all her lands, money, clothes, and property, and
desired them to inform the Shire-mote of her bequest, and desire them to
witness it. They did so; after which Thurcyl the White (who was husband of
Leoflœda) stood up, and requested the thanes to deliver free (or clean) to
his wife all the lands that had been bequeathed to her, and they so did.
And after this Thurcyl rode to St. Ethelbert’s Minster, and by leave and
witness of all the folk caused the transaction to be recorded in a book of
the Gospels."

*An Ancient Chasse or Reliquary* is shown among the treasures of the
cathedral, which was looked upon for a long time as a representation of
the murder of St. Ethelbert, but this is only an example of the many
traditional tales which modern study and research are compelled to
discard. It undoubtedly represents the martyrdom of St. Thomas of
Canterbury. On the lower part is the murder; on the upper, the entombment
of the saint, very similar in style to the later Limoges work of the
thirteenth century.

The Rev. Francis Havergal gives a detailed description, which we have
condensed to the following:—

This reliquary consists of oak, perfectly sound, covered with copper
plates overlaid with Limoges enamel. It is 8-1/4 inches high, 7 long and
3-1/2 broad. The back opens on hinges and fastens with a lock and key, and
the upper part sloped so as to form an acutely-pointed roof; above this is
a ridge-piece; the whole rests on four square feet. Front of Shrine:—Here
are two compartments; the lower one shows on the right side an altar, of
which the south end faces the spectator; it is supported on four legs and
has an antependium. Upon the altar stands a plain cross on a pyramidal
base, and in front of it a chalice covered with a paten. Before, or
technically speaking, in the midst of the altar stands a bishop
celebrating mass, having both hands extended towards the chalice, as if he
were about to elevate it. He has curly hair and a beard and moustache. He
wears a low mitre, a chasuble, fringed maniple, and an alb.

In the top right-hand corner is a cloud from which issues a hand pointing
towards the figure just described.

Behind, to the left, stand three figures. The foremost has just thrust the
point of a large double-edged sword, with a plain cross hilt, through the
neck of the bishop from back to front.

           [Illustration: ANCIENT RELIQUARY IN THE CATHEDRAL.]

                   ANCIENT RELIQUARY IN THE CATHEDRAL.


The upper compartment represents the entombment of the bishop. The middle
of the design is occupied by an altar tomb, into which the body, swathed
in a diapered winding-sheet, is being lowered.

The ends of the bier are supported by two kneeling figures.

On the side of the tomb furthest from the spectator is a bishop or abbot
without the mitre looking toward a figure on his right, who carries a
tablet or open book with some words upon it.

At either extremity of this panel stands a figure censing the corpse with
a circular thurible.

The border of each compartment is formed by a double invected pattern of
gold and enamel. The ridge-piece is of copper perforated with eight
keyhole ornaments.

The back of the shrine is also divided into two compartments, and is
decorated with quatrefoils.

It is pierced in the middle of the upper border by a keyhole communicating
with a lock on the inside.

The right-hand gable is occupied by the figure of a female saint. The left
gable is occupied by the figure of a male saint.

A border of small gilt quatrefoils on a chocolate ground runs round the
margins of the two ends and four back plates.

Those parts of the copper plates which are not enamelled are gilded, while
the colours used in the enamelling are blue, are light-blue, green,
yellow, red, chocolate, and white.

In the interior, on that side to which the lower front plate corresponds,
is a cross _pattée fitchée_ painted in red upon oak, which oak bears
traces of having been stained with blood or some other liquid. The wood at
the bottom is evidently modern. This reliquary is said to have been
originally placed upon the high altar. It appears to have been preserved
by some ancient Roman Catholic family until it came into the possession of
the late Canon Russell, and bequeathed by him to the authorities of the
cathedral.

The art of enamelling metals appears to have been introduced from
Byzantium through Venice into Western Europe at the close of the tenth
century. After this time Greek artists are known to have visited this
country, and to have carried on a lucrative trade in the manufacture of
sacred vessels, shrines, etc.

*Ancient Gold Rings.* One of pure gold, supposed to have been worn by a
knight templar, was ploughed up near Hereford. The device on the raised
besel is a cross pattée in a square compartment, on each side of which are
a crescent and a triple-thonged scourge.

Within the hoop is engraved in black-letter character "_Sancte Michael_."
Date about 1380.

A massive ring set with a rough ruby of pale colour was found in the tomb
of Bishop Mayew. On each side a bold tan cross with a bell is engraved.
These were originally filled with green enamel. Inside is engraved and
enamelled "Ave Maria."

A superb ring was also found in Bishop Stanbury’s tomb, on the north side
of the altar. It contains a fine and perfect sapphire, and flowers and
foliage are beautifully worked in black enamel on each side of the stone.

A fine gold ring was discovered in Bishop Trilleck’s grave in 1813, but
was stolen in 1838 from the cathedral. It was never recovered, though
_£_30 was offered as a reward.

*The Stained Glass* has survived only in a few fragments, scattered about
the eastern end of the cathedral.

Some of the best, apparently of early fourteenth century date, is in one
of the lancets on the south side of the Lady Chapel, west of the Audley
Chapel. The subjects are:

1. Christ surrounded by symbols of the four evangelists; 2. Lamb and flag;
3. Angel and Maries at the sepulchre; 4. Crucifixion; 5. Christ bearing
His cross.

In the north-east transept is an ancient glass window, restored and
entirely releaded by Warrington, at the cost of the Dean and Chapter, Oct.
1864. It is a fairly good specimen of fourteenth century work. For many
years it was hidden away in old boxes, and was formerly fixed in some of
the windows on the south side of the nave.

The figures represent—1. St. Katherine; 2. St. Michael; 3. St. Gregory; 4.
St. Thomas of Canterbury.

In the south-east transept, again, is a window of ancient glass, erected
under the same circumstances. The figures in this case represent—1. St.
Mary Magdalene; 2. St. Ethelbert; 3. St. Augustine; 4. St. George.

In the north aisle of the nave is a two-light window by Warrington. It was
erected in 1862 by Archdeacon Lane Freer to the memory of Canon and Mrs.
Clutton. The subjects are from the life of St. John the Baptist.

In the north transept is a very fine memorial window to Archdeacon Lane
Freer, erected at a cost of £1316. The window is one of the largest of the
Geometric period (_temp._ Edward I.) in England, the glass being 48 feet 6
inches in height by 21 feet 6 inches in breadth. About five or six shades
each of ruby and Canterbury blue are the dominating colours. Plain white
glass has also been wisely used in the upper part of the window. It was
designed and erected by Messrs. Hardman.

There is a small window by Clayton and Bell in the north aisle of the
choir to the memory of John Hunt, organist of the cathedral. The subjects,
in eight medallions, are:—1, 2. King David; 3, 4. Jubal; 5, 6. Zachariah
the Jewish Priest; 7. St. Cecilia; 8. Aldhelm. In Bishop Stanbury’s Chapel
is a memorial window to Archdeacon Musgrave, of which the subjects are:—1.
St. Paul present at the Martyrdom of S. Stephen; 2. Conversion of St.
Paul; 3. The Apostle consecrating Presbyters; 4. Elymas smitten with
Blindness. In the lower part of the window, 5. Sacrifices to Paul and
Barnabas at Lystra; 6. St. Paul before the Elders at Jerusalem; 7. His
Trial before Agrippa; 8. His Martyrdom.

                   [Illustration: MONUMENTAL CROCKET.]

                           MONUMENTAL CROCKET.


             [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH BASEMENT MOULDING.]

                     EARLY ENGLISH BASEMENT MOULDING.


The five eastern windows in the Lady Chapel were designed by Mr.
Cottingham, junior, and executed by Gibbs, to the memory of Dean
Merewether.

A series of twenty-one subjects, in medallions, connected with the life of
our Lord. These windows were erected in 1852.

In the south-east transept is a memorial window to Bishop Huntingford,
1816 to 1832. It was designed and manufactured by Warrington at the sole
cost of Lord Saye and Sele.

The upper part of the tracery is filled with the arms of George III.,
those of the See of Gloucester, the See of Hereford, Winchester College,
and of the bishop’s family.

The subjects, relating to St. Peter, are:—

1. His Call; 2. Walking on the Sea; 3. Receiving the Keys; 4. Denial of
our Lord; 5. S. Peter and S. John at the Gate of the Temple; 6. Baptism of
Cornelius; 7. Raising of Dorcas; 8. Deliverance from Prison by an Angel.

In the north and south side of the clerestory of the choir are simple
stained glass windows, consisting of various patterns. They were
manufactured by Messrs. Castell of Whitechapel.

The eastern central window of the choir was an anonymous gift in 1851,
executed by Hardman.

Its beauties are entirely lost at its present height from the ground. The
circular medallions are 3 feet in diameter, the subjects being:—

1. The Ascension; 2. The Resurrection; 3. The Crucifixion.

The upper semi-circles represent Christ healing lepers and demoniacs; the
lower, His being taken down from the Cross, and Mary with the box of
precious ointment.





CHAPTER IV. - HISTORY OF THE SEE.


The true origin of the See of Hereford is lost in remote antiquity.
However, it seems probable from the researches of many antiquarians that
when Putta came to preside here in the seventh century the see was
re-established.

The Rev. Francis Havergal writes on this matter in the beginning of his
_Fasti Herefordenses_.

"The Welsh claim a high antiquity for Hereford as the recognised centre of
Christianity in this district. Archbishop Usher asserts that it was the
seat of an Episcopal See in the sixth century, when one of its bishops
attended a synod convened by the Archbishop of Caerleon (A.D. 544). In the
_Lives of the British Saints_ (Rev. W. J. Reeves, 1853), we learn that
Geraint ab Erbin, cousin of King Arthur, who died A.D. 542, is said to
have founded a church at Caerffawydd, the ancient British name for
Hereford. In Wilkin’s _Concilia_, I. 24, it is recorded that beyond all
doubt a Bishop of Hereford was present at the conference with St.
Augustine, A.D. 601. Full particulars are given of the supposed time and
place of this conference. It is also stated—’_In secunda affuisse
perhibentur septem hi Britannici episcopi Herefordensis, Tavensis alias
Llantavensis, Paternensis, Banchoriensis, Chirensis alias Elinensis,
Uniacensis alias Wiccensis, Morganensis._’ It is styled ’_Synodus
Wigornensis_,’ or according to Spelman, ’_Pambritannicam_.’ Nothing
whatever is known of the names or of the number of British bishops who
presided over the earliest church at Hereford."

The boundaries of this diocese in the tenth century are defined in
Anglo-Saxon in an ancient volume known as the _Mundy Gospels_, now in the
library of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

"The condition of the Church of Hereford (_circa_ 1290 A.D.) gave clear
testimony to the liberal piety of its founders by the extensiveness of its
lands. The diocese itself was richly endowed by nature, and enviably
situated. Those of St. Asaph, Lichfield, Worcester, Llandaff, and St.
David’s, were its neighbours. On the north it stretched from where the
Severn enters Shropshire to where that river is joined on the south by the
influx of the Wye. From the west to the east perhaps its greatest width
might have been found from a point where the latter river, near Hay,
leaves the counties of Radnor and Brecon, by a line drawn to the bridge at
Gloucester. It embraced portions of the counties of Radnor, Montgomery,
Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester, and touched upon that of Brecon. It
included the town of Monmouth, with four parishes, in its neighbourhood.
The Severn environed its upper part. Almost midway it was traversed by the
Teme, and the Wye pursued its endless windings through the lower
district,—a region altogether remarkable for its variety, fertility, and
beauty, abounding in woods and streams, rich pastures, extensive forests,
and noble mountains. In several of the finest parts of it Episcopal manors
had been allotted, furnishing abundant supplies to the occupiers of the
see."(8)

In the early history of British dioceses, territorial boundaries were so
vague as to be scarcely definable, but one of the earliest of the bishops
holding office prior to the landing of Augustine was one Dubric, son of
Brychan, who established a sort of college at Hentland, near Ross, and
later on removed to another spot on the Wye, near Madley, his birthplace,
being guided thither by the discovery of a white sow and litter of
piglings in a meadow; a sign similar to the one by which the site of Alba
Longa was pointed out to the pious son of Anchises.

Dubric probably became a bishop about 470, resigned his see in 512, and
died in Bardsey Island, A.D. 522.

It was this Dubric who is said to have crowned Arthur at Cirencester, A.D.
506. When he became bishop he moved to Caerleon, and was succeeded there
by Dewi, or David, who removed the see to Menevia (St. David’s).

The Saxons were driving the British inhabitants more and more to the west,
and before the close of the sixth century they had founded the Mercian
kingdom, reaching beyond the Severn, and in some places beyond the Wye.

The See of Hereford properly owes its origin to that of Lichfield, as
Sexwulf, Bishop of that diocese, placed at Hereford Putta, Bishop of
Rochester, when his cathedral was destroyed by the Mercian King Ethelred.

From Bede we learn that in 668 A.D. Putta died, and that one Tyrhtel
succeeded him, and was followed by Torhtere.

Wahlstod, A.D. 731, the next Bishop, is referred to by both Florence of
Worcester and William of Malmsbury, as well as Bede. We also hear of him
in the writings of Cuthbert, who followed him in 736. Cuthbert relates in
some verses that Wahlstod began the building of a great and magnificent
cross, which he, Cuthbert, completed.

Cuthbert died, A.D. 758, and was followed by Podda, A.D. 746. The names of
these early Bishops cannot all be regarded as certain, and their dates
are, in many cases, only approximate. Some of them may have been merely
assistants or suffragans to other Bishops of Hereford.

The remaining Bishops of Hereford, prior to the Conquest, we give in the
same order as the Rev. H. W. Phillott in his valuable little _Diocesan
History_.

A.D. 758, Hecca.
777, Aldberht.
781, Esne.
793, Cedmand (doubtful).
796, Edulf.
798, Uttel.
803, Wulfheard.
824, Beonna.
825, Eadulf (doubtful).
833, Cedda.
836, Eadulf.
838, Cuthwulf.
866, Deorlaf.
868, Ethelbert.
888, Cynemund.
895, Athelstane I.
901, Edgar.
930, Tidhelm.
935, Wulfhelm.
941, Elfric.
966, Ethelwolf.
1016, Athelstane II.: he rebuilt the cathedral "from the foundations";(9)
but also saw it destroyed in a raid of the Welsh and Irish under Elfgar.
1056, Leofgar, slain in a fight with the Welsh.

*Walter of Lorraine*, A.D. 1061-1079. The diocese had been administered
for the last four years by the Bishop of Worcester, when Queen Edith’s
chaplain, a foreigner by birth, Walter of Lorraine, was appointed. Beyond
a probably satirical reference by William of Malmsbury, all that is known
of Walter is an account of a discreditable death.

*Robert de Losinga*, A.D. 1079-1095. A man of much learning and ability.
During his episcopate, according to William of Malmsbury, the cathedral
was rebuilt after the pattern of Charlemagne’s church at Aix-la-Chapelle.
In his time also Walter de Lacy built the Church of St. Peter at Hereford.
He was a keen man of business, and it has been suggested that he was open
to bribery, but this accusation is hardly compatible with his intimate
companionship with the high-minded Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, the date
of whose death, January 19, 1095, is included in the calendar of the
Hereford Service-Book.

  [Illustration: A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.]

          A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.


*Gerard*, A.D. 1096-1101. Three days after the body of William Rufus had
been brought from the forest to Winchester by Purkiss, the charcoal
burner, Gerard, who was the Bishop of Winchester’s nephew, assisted at the
coronation of Henry I., for which service it was said he was promised the
first vacant archiepiscopal see. The King tried to evade the bargain a few
years later by promising to increase the Hereford income to the value of
that at York, but Gerard carried the day and obtained his promotion.

*Reynelm*, A.D. 1107-1115, Chancellor to Queen Matilda; he resigned his
appointment as soon as it was conferred, on account of the King’s quarrel
with Anselm on the question of investiture, was banished for six years,
and was only consecrated in 1107. He is said to have been the founder of
the hospital of St. Ethelbert, and continued the work in the Cathedral
begun by Robert de Losinga. He regulated the establishment of prebendaries
and canons living under a rule.

*Geoffrey de Clive*, A.D. 1115-1119. During the latter years of this
episcopate, a question of jurisdiction over the districts of Ergyng and
Ewias, which had begun in the previous century, was revived between the
Bishop of Llandaff and the Bishops of Hereford and St. David’s.

*Richard de Capella*, A.D. 1120-1127, King’s chaplain and keeper of the
Great Seal under the Chancellor. He helped to build at Hereford a bridge
over the Wye.

During his episcopate the Royal Charter was granted for the annual holding
of a three days’ fair (increased to nine days later) commencing on the
evening of the 19th of May, called St. Ethelbert’s Day.

Nine-tenths of the profits of this fair went to the Bishop and the rest to
the Canons of the Cathedral. The bishop’s bailiff held a court within the
palace precincts, with pillory and stocks. The bishop also had a gaol for
the incarceration of offenders against his rights during fair-time.

Tolls were levied at each gate of the city. The suspension of civic
authority during fair-time was for centuries a source of frequent
quarrels. As late as the eighteenth century a ballad-singer was punished
by the bishop’s officers.

The wreck of the "White Ship" occurred during this episcopate (Nov. 25th,
1120), and one of the victims was Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Hereford.

*Robert de Bethune*, A.D. 1131-1148, had become prior of his monastery at
his native place of Bethune, in French Flanders, and thence had gone to
Llanthony, a priory in a glen of the Hatteral Hills in the disputed
district of Ewias.

When later on the country was torn and despoiled with the bitter struggle
for the Crown, Bishop Robert, who was a personal friend of Henry, Bishop
of Winchester, the King’s brother, sided with Stephen.

Hereford was seized near the beginning of the campaign by Geoffrey de
Talebot, and held by him for four or five weeks for the Empress Matilda.
It was then captured by Stephen, and the victory celebrated in the
cathedral on Whitsunday (A.D. 1138), when the King attended mass wearing
his crown, and seated, it is said, in the old chair described in an
earlier chapter.

In 1139, the Empress’s army again attacked Hereford, and seizing the
cathedral, drove out the clergy, fortified it, and used it as a vantage
ground from which to attack the castle. The tower was used as a platform,
from which missiles were thrown, and the nave as a stable; while a trench
and rampart was carried across the graveyard.

Bishop Robert was present at Winchester when the Empress was accepted
there by the clergy, and returned thence to Hereford to purify the
cathedral. He died at Chalons of a disease contracted while attending a
council of Pope Eugenius III.

The Pope decided that his body should be taken to Hereford, and it was
enclosed in the hide of an ox for the journey. Both at Canterbury and at
London were great demonstrations of grief, which were again repeated at
Ross, and on a still larger scale at Hereford. Bishop Robert was
undoubtedly a great man, and his reputation for fine character, bravery,
and ability was well deserved.

*Gilbert Foliot*, A.D. 1148-1163, the next Bishop, had been consecrated as
Abbot of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, by Bishop Robert, with whom he had
contracted an early friendship as far back as 1139.

On the death of Bishop Robert, he was consecrated at St. Omer. He assisted
at the consecration of Becket at Canterbury, and the next year was
transferred to the See of London. He was followed by *Robert of Maledon*,
A.D. 1163-1168, said to have been remarkably wise.

Amongst his pupils he numbered John of Salisbury. He attended the council
of Clarendon, A.D. 1162, and in 1164 was present at the meeting at
Northampton between Becket and the King.

Such was the fury and importance of the Becket controversy that even
distant Hereford was entangled with it. Two Hereford Bishops took part in
the quarrel, and it was through this that the see continued vacant for six
years after Bishop Robert’s death.

Notwithstanding the rigorous order of Henry VIII., A.D. 1538, for the
destruction of all images and pictures of Bishop Becket, there still
existed in the cathedral, till late in the seventeenth century, a wall
painting of the Archbishop, and even yet in the north-east transept there
remains a figure of him in one of the windows in good preservation. The
enamelled chasse or reliquary, with scenes of Becket’s murder and
entombment, and its dark but doubtful stain, has already been described
among the treasures of the cathedral.

Some four miles from Hereford is yet another memorial still remaining in a
well-preserved window of painted glass at Credenhill, a part of which
represents the murdered Becket. Lastly, the festival of the translation of
St. Thomas of Canterbury, July 7, is still included in the cathedral
calendar.

*Robert Foliot*, A.D. 1174-1186, had been a friend of Becket’s, and may
have had some share in his education.

*William de Vere*, A.D. 1186-1199, removed the apsidal termination at the
east end of the cathedral, and is said to have erected chapels, since
replaced by the Lady Chapel and its vestibule.

*Giles de Braose*, A.D. 1200-1215, a stubborn opponent of King John.

*Hugh de Mapenor*, A.D. 1216-1219, received his appointment by the
influence of the papal legate, who, after King John’s submission, claimed
the right of nomination to all vacant sees and benefices.

*Hugh Foliot*, A.D. 1219-1234, founded the Hospital of St. Katherine at
Ledbury, in which still hangs a portrait of him, painted from an older
picture. A tooth of St. Ethelbert was presented to the cathedral during
his episcopacy. He endowed the Chapels of St. Mary Magdalene and St.
Katherine, in the ancient building adjoining the Bishop’s palace,
destroyed in the eighteenth century.

*Ralph de Maydenstan*, A.D. 1234-1239, presented to the see a house in
Fish Street Hill, London, as a residence for the bishops when in the
metropolis. He also made various gifts to the cathedral, the chapter, and
the college of vicars choral. This Bishop was one of the commissioners to
settle the marriage of Henry III. with Eleanor of Provence.

*Peter of Savoy (Aquablanca)*, A.D. 1240-1268, a native of Aqua Bella,
near Chambéry, whose appointment was an instance of the preference Henry
III. showed for foreigners. One of the most unpopular men in England; he
was hand in glove with the weak-minded, waxen-hearted King in schemes for
money getting.

Bishop Aquablanca probably built the graceful north-west transept of the
cathedral, containing the shrine under which lie the remains of his
nephew, a Dean of Hereford, together with his own, except the heart. This
was carried, as he had requested it should be, to the church he had
founded in his native place.

*John de Breton*, or Bruton, A.D. 1268-1275.

*Thomas de Cantilupe*, A.D. 1275-1282. Born A.D. 1220, he showed, as a
child, unusual religious zeal, was educated at Oxford and Paris, and for
some years filled the office of Chancellor of England at the choice of the
barons. This post he lost on the death of Simon de Montfort. When he was
elected by the Chapter of Hereford to fill the episcopal chair on De
Breton’s death he was only persuaded to accept it with difficulty.

Bishop Cantilupe was renowned for his extreme piety and devotional habits.
In a dispute concerning the chace of Colwall, near Malvern Forest, from
which was derived the Bishop’s supply of game, he maintained successfully
the episcopal rights. He was also triumphant in a more important quarrel
with the Welsh King Llewellyn about the wrongful appropriation of three
manors.

When Lord Clifford was in trouble for plundering his cattle and
maltreating his tenants, Bishop Cantilupe inflicted personal chastisement
upon him with a rod in the cathedral. The clergy no less than laymen did
he subdue, appealing when necessary to the Pope.

In a quarrel arising out of a matrimonial case, in which the defendant
appealed to Canterbury against a sentence of the sub-dean of Hereford, he
was at last excommunicated by the Archbishop for refusing to go to discuss
the affair with him at Lambeth. At Rome he obtained a favourable decree,
but died in Tuscany on the homeward journey.

As already described, his remains were finally laid with great pomp in the
Lady Chapel.

Five years later the bones of Bishop Cantilupe were moved to the Chapel of
St. Katherine, in the north-west transept. Twice more were they moved,
finally resting in the same Chapel of St. Katherine.

*Richard Swinfield*, A.D. 1283-1316, the next Bishop, had been Bishop
Cantilupe’s devoted chaplain. He kept wisely aloof from politics, but
offered a keen resistance to any infringement on the rights of his
diocese. Several boundary questions were settled by Bishop Swinfield, and
in 1289-90 he made a tour through his diocese, of which has come down to
us a journal of daily expenses.

Bishop Swinfield was the probable builder of the nave-aisles and two
easternmost transepts. In his time the "_Mappa Mundi_" came into
possession of the Chapter.

He worked hard to obtain the Canonisation of his illustrious predecessor,
but it was not till four years after his death that Pope John XXII.
granted an act for the purpose. He was buried in the cathedral.

*Adam Orleton*, A.D. 1316-1327, was a friend of Roger Mortimer, and
consequently was opposed to Edward II. Throughout the struggle of those
many miserable years the affairs of the diocese were dragged in the mire
of civil war. It was the Bishop of Hereford who, at Neath Abbey, took the
King, carried him to Kenilworth, and deprived him of the Great Seal. The
Queen was staying at Hereford, and thither many of the King’s adherents
were taken with the Chancellor and Hugh Despenser. The last-named was
hanged in the town, decapitated, and quartered.

Bishop Adam showed much ability in managing the affairs of the cathedral.
He obtained a grant of revenues of two churches from Pope John XXII. for
monies necessary for the dedication of the Cantilupe shrine, and also for
repairs in the cathedral. He was followed on his translation to Worcester
by

*Thomas Charleton*, A.D. 1328-1343, who was made treasurer of England in
1329. In 1337 he went to Ireland as chancellor. He died in 1343.

*John Trilleck*, A.D. 1344-1360. The Black Death reached Herefordshire in
1349, and Bishop Trilleck is said to have kept it at bay in the city by a
procession of the shrine of the recently canonised St. Thomas of Hereford.

Bishop Trilleck was buried in the cathedral, and a fine brass effigy was
placed on his grave. "Gratus, prudens, pius" are among the words which may
be still read from the mutilated inscription, and they appear to have had
more justification than the rhetoric of the average epitaph.

             [Illustration: TOMB OF BISHOP THOS. CHARLETON.]

                     TOMB OF BISHOP THOS. CHARLETON.


*Lewis Charleton*, A.D. 1361-1369, was appointed by papal provision. The
Black Death made a second visitation in the first year of his episcopate,
and it was then that the market was removed to some distance from the town
on the west. The "White Cross" there placed, which bears the arms of
Bishop Charleton, may mark the spot. He bequeathed money and some books to
the cathedral.

*William Courtenay*, A.D. 1370-1375, was also appointed by papal
provision, which was necessary in consequence of his youth. Although he
had already held a canonry of York and prebends in Exeter and Wells in
addition to the Chancellorship of Oxford University, he was but
twenty-eight years of age. At Oxford he had, with Wicliff, opposed the
friars, though he afterwards turned against his former ally.

*John Gilbert*, A.D. 1375-1389, with partial success, went to make terms
of peace with Charles VI., the French King. He became treasurer of England
in 1386, an office of which he was deprived by Richard II. not long before
his translation to St. David’s. Bishop Gilbert founded the Cathedral
Grammar School.

*Thomas Trevenant*, A.D. 1389-1404. An active politician, this Bishop
assisted in the deposition of King Richard II., and was one of the
commissioners to the Pope to announce the accession of Henry IV.

*Robert Mascall*, A.D. 1404-1416, was employed as a foreign ambassador by
Henry IV., who also made him his confessor. He attended the council of
Constance in 1414.

*Edmund Lacy*, A.D. 1417-1420. This Bishop began to build the cloister
connecting the cathedral with the Episcopal palace.

*Thomas Polton*, A.D. 1420-1421, was consecrated at Florence, and the next
year was translated to Chichester.

*Thomas Spofford*, A.D. 1421-1448, Abbot of St. Mary’s at York, to which
post he returned on resigning his see in 1448. According to a papal bull
he laid out 2,800 marks on the buildings of the cathedral,—probably
completing the cloisters begun by Bishop Lacy. His pension on retiring was
£100 per annum. The great west window of the cathedral was put up in his
time by William Lochard.

*Richard Beauchamp*, A.D. 1448-1450. Son of Sir Walter, and grandson of
Lord Beauchamp of Powick, he was a great architect in his day, although
his chief work was done after his translation to Salisbury, when he was
appointed by Edward IV. to superintend the works at Windsor which included
the rebuilding of St. George’s Chapel where he was buried. It is said he
was the first Chancellor of the Order of the Garter.

*Reginald Buller*, A.D. 1450-1453, Abbot of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, was
translated to Lichfield. He was buried in Hereford Cathedral.

*John Stanberry*, A.D. 1453-1474, was a Carmelite friar at Oxford, and was
chosen by King Henry VI. to be his confessor, and also first Provost of
Eton. In 1448 he was made Bishop of Bangor, and five years later was
translated to Hereford. After the battle of Northampton (July, 1460), he
was taken prisoner and was incarcerated for some time in Warwick Castle.
On his release he retired to the convent of his order at Ludlow, where he
died in May, 1474. He was buried at Hereford, near his own Chantry Chapel,
which still bears his name. He gave land from the garden of the bishop’s
palace for building a dwelling-house for the vicars choral, which was
completed in 1475.

*Thomas Mylling*, A.D. 1474-1492, the next Bishop, was Abbot of St.
Peter’s, Westminster, where he had been a monk. King Edward IV. made him a
Privy Councillor and gave him the see of Hereford in remembrance of his
services to Elizabeth Woodville, whom he received into sanctuary when her
husband had to fly to Holland. After his death his body was carried to
Westminster, and the stone coffin is still there which is said to have
enclosed his remains.

*Edmund Audley*, A.D. 1492-1502, a prebendary of Lichfield, of Lincoln,
and of Wells, was Bishop of Rochester in 1480, translated to Hereford in
1492, and to Salisbury in 1502. The beautiful chantry chapel on the south
side of the Lady Chapel, near the shrine of St. Thomas of Cantilupe, was
founded by him. He also presented a silver shrine to the cathedral, and a
pulpit at St. Mary’s, Oxford, is said to be his gift.

*Adrian de Castello*, A.D. 1503-1504. He conducted the negotiations
between Henry VII. and the Pope; and he was translated from Hereford to
Bath and Wells, but never visited either see.

*Richard Mayhew*, A.D. 1504-1516, was made in 1480 the first regular
president of Bishop Waynflete’s new College of St. Mary Magdalene at
Oxford. He was also Chancellor of the University, and almoner to King
Henry VII., by whom he had been sent in 1501 to bring the Infanta
Katharine of Aragon from Spain as the bride of Prince Arthur.

He was buried near the effigy of St. Ethelbert on the south side of the
choir, where his tomb is still to be seen.

*Charles Booth*, A.D. 1516-1535, Archdeacon of Buckingham, and Chancellor
of the Welsh Marches, left a lasting memorial in the north porch of the
cathedral, which bears upon it the date of his death. He seems to have
been much in the King’s favour, and was summoned in 1520 to make one of
the illustrious company on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He was attached
to the company of Henry’s "dearest wife, the queen," and was accompanied
by thirty "tall personages."

On his death he left some books to the library, as well as a tapestry for
the high altar; also to his successor a gold ring and other articles which
have disappeared.

*Edward Foxe*, A.D. 1535-1538. This "principal pillar of the Reformation,"
as Fuller calls him, is said by Strype to have been "an excellent
instrument" in its general progress.

A Gloucestershire worthy, having been born at Dursley in that county, he
was sent first to Eton and then to Cambridge, becoming, in 1528, Provost
of King’s College. In 1531 he succeeded Stephen Gardiner as Archdeacon of
Leicester. For many years almoner to the King, he was employed in
embassies to France, Italy, and Germany, the most important of these
diplomatic missions being in February, 1527, when he was sent to Rome with
Gardiner to negotiate in the matter of Henry’s separation from his
"dearest wife."

Foxe first introduced Cranmer to the King; and he, again, wrote the book
called _The Difference between the Kingly and the Ecclesiastical Power_,
which Henry wished people to think he had partly written himself,
intended, as it was, to make easier his assumption of ecclesiastical
supremacy.

In August, 1536, Bishop Foxe began, by deputy, a visitation of the diocese
for the valuation of all church property therein, in accordance with the
order referred to above. Dr. Coren, his vicar-general, actually carried
out the valuation, and its results are to be found in the pages of _Valor
Ecclesiasticus_, printed by the Record Commissioners in 1802.

In March, 1535-6, an Act was passed by Parliament granting to the King all
religious houses possessing a revenue under £200 per annum. There were
about eighteen houses in the diocese, excluding the cathedral, and of
these only the priories of Wenlock, Wigmore, and Leominster possessed
revenues exempting them from appropriation. Bishop Foxe died in London in
May, 1538, and was buried in the Church of St. Mary Monthalt.

*John Skypp*, A.D. 1539-1552. The Archdeacon of Leicester, Edmund Bonner,
was appointed to the see on Foxe’s death, but was removed to London before
his consecration, and John Skypp, Abbat of Wigmore, Archdeacon of Dorset,
and chaplain and almoner to Ann Boleyn, became the next Bishop.

He was associated with Cranmer, though, after Cromwell’s execution for
high treason in 1540, the Archbishop became distant towards him. He was
the part compiler with Foxe of the _Institution of a Christian Man_,
published in 1537, of the _Erudition_ or _King’s Book_, published in 1543,
and was probably one of the committee employed to draw up the first Common
Prayer-Book of Edward VI., in 1548, although, on its completion, he
protested against its publication. He died in 1552 at the episcopal
residence in London.

*John Harley*, A.D. 1553-1554, was appointed by Edward VI. to hold the see
"during good behaviour." He was consecrated on May 26, 1553, but only to
be deposed in March, 1554. Soon after Mary came to the throne, she
appointed a commission of bishops to deprive the bishops appointed during
the reign of her brother. On various charges, and especially on that of
"inordinate life" (meaning marriage), the bishopric of Harley was declared
void. He is said to have spent the remainder of his life wandering about
in woods "instructing his flock, and administering the sacrament according
to the order of the English book, until he died, shortly after his
deposition, a wretched exile in his own land."

*Robert Parfew*, A.D. 1554-1557, also known as Wharton, was instituted to
the Hereford See at St. Mary’s Church, Southwark, by Lord Chancellor
Gardiner. He had been Abbat of St. Saviour’s, Bermondsey, as well as
Bishop of St. Asaph, attended the baptism of Prince Edward, and was one of
those concerned in the production of the _Bishop’s Book_. On his death,
September 22, 1537, he bequeathed his mitre and other ornaments to
Hereford Cathedral, though whether he was buried there or in Mold Church
seems doubtful. The Dean of Exeter, Dr. Thomas Reynolds, was appointed to
succeed him, but was imprisoned in the Marshalsea, on the accession of
Elizabeth, before he had been consecrated, and died there in 1559. Fuller,
in his _Church History of Britain_, remarks: "I take the Marshalsea to be,
in those times, the best for the usage of prisoners, but O the misery of
God’s poor saints in Newgate, under Alexander the gaoler! More cruel than
his namesake the coppersmith was to St. Paul; in Lollard’s Tower, the
Clink, and Bonner’s Coal-house, a place which minded them of the manner of
their death, first kept amongst coals before they were burnt to
ashes."(10)

*John Scory*, A.D. 1559-1585, was translated from Chichester. On the
accession of Mary, 1553, he is said to have done penance for his marriage,
and generally reconciled himself with Rome, then to have withdrawn to
Friesland and retracted his recantation, becoming superintendent to the
English congregation there. When Elizabeth came to the throne he returned,
preached before her by appointment in Lent, 1558, was restored to
Chichester, and later on was elected to Hereford.

During his episcopate the persuasive Queen induced Bishop Scory to
surrender to the Crown nine or ten of the best manors belonging to the
see, and to receive in exchange advowsons and other less valuable
possessions. In these transactions it is possible he thought more of his
own interest than that of his successors; in any case, serious charges
were brought against him in other ways. His steward Butterfield drops into
verse on the subject. One of his stanzas runs:—

  Then home he came unto our queene, the fyrst year of her raigne,
  And byshop was of Hereford, where he doth now remaine;
  And where hee hath by enemyes oft, and by false slanderous tongues,
  Had troubles great, without desert, to hys continuall wronges.

Bishop Scory was succeeded by *Harberd (or Herbert) Westphaling*, A.D.
1585-1601, Prebendary of Christ Church, Oxford: a man remarkable for the
immoderate length of his speeches, his great integrity, and a profound and
unsmiling gravity. He married a sister of the wife of Archbishop Parker,
and before his election to Hereford was treasurer of St. Paul’s and Dean
of Windsor.

According to Sir John Harrington, Bishop Westphaling was once preaching in
his cathedral when a mass of frozen snow fell upon the roof from the
tower, creating a panic among the frightened congregration[**typo:
congregation]. But the Bishop, remaining in his pulpit, exhorted them to
keep their places and fear not. He spent all that he had in revenues from
the see in charity and good works, leaving, says Fuller, "no great, but a
well-gotten estate, out of which he bequeathed twenty pounds per annum to
Jesus College in Oxford." He lies in the north transept of the cathedral,
where his effigy can still be seen.

*Robert Bennett*, A.D. 1602-1617, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
was a famous tennis player.

Queen Elizabeth had imprisoned him for a short time for preaching against
her projected marriage with the Duke of Anjou, but made him Dean of
Windsor towards the close of her reign. He is said to have been vain, and
especially fond of having his name and arms carved on house fronts. In
1607 the old quarrel about the Bishop’s rights respecting St. Ethelbert’s
fair broke out again between the citizens and Bishop Bennett. He spent
large sums on the restoration of the Bishop’s Palace. Bishop Bennett was
buried on the north side of the choir, where his tomb remains with effigy.

*Francis Godwin*, A.D. 1617-1633, translated to Hereford from Llandaff,
which preferment he is said to have obtained from the Queen on account of
his commentary _De Praesulibus Angliae_. He also wrote other historical
works, including a life of Queen Mary. To quote again from Fuller, "He was
stored with all polite learning both judicious and industrious in the
study of antiquity, to whom not only the Church of Llandaff (whereof he
well deserved) but all England is indebted, as for his other learned
writings, so especially for his catalogue of Bishops." He was buried at
Whitbourn, in a residence belonging to the see of Hereford, on April 29,
1633.

*William Juxon*, Dean of Worcester, and President of St. John’s College,
Oxford, was chosen to follow Bishop Godwin, but before consecration was
called to London. During his episcopacy in that see, he was by Bishop
Laud’s procurement made Lord Treasurer of England. Fuller says of his
administration of these duties that "No hands, having so much money
passing through them, had their fingers less soiled therewith."

*Augustine Lindsell*, A.D. 1633-1634, Bishop of Peterborough, was
confirmed on March 24, 1633, but in November of the following year was
found dead in his study.

*Matthew Wren*, A.D. 1635-1635, Dean of Windsor, held a still briefer
episcopate, and in the same year as his consecration to Hereford was
translated to Norwich.

*Theophilus Field*, A.D. 1635-1636, who had been Bishop of Llandaff and of
St. David’s, died a year after his translation, and thereby saved the
diocese the ill effects of a longer term of servile and corrupt
management.

*George Coke*, A.D. 1636-1646, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, became
Bishop of Bristol in 1633, and was translated to Hereford in 1636. He was
a grave and studious man, and well loved in his diocese, but in the
troubled days of the Civil War was deprived of his see.

*Nicholas Monk*, A.D. 1661-1661, who followed, was brother to the Duke of
Albemarle, and provost of Eton. He died in the December following his
consecration, at Westminster, where he was buried.

*Herbert Croft*, A.D. 1662-1671. The son of Sir Herbert Croft, of an
ancient family in the county of Hereford, he was brought up at Douai and
St. Omer as a Jesuit, but was restored to the English Church through the
influence of Bishop Morton, of Durham. He became a determined opponent of
Romanism, and wrote several treatises against it. About this time there
seems to have been an appeal to the nobility and gentry of the county for
help towards restoring the cathedral. Bishop Croft was buried in the
cathedral, and joined to his gravestone is that of his intimate friend
George Benson, the Dean. He left by his will a sum of money for the relief
of widows, and for apprenticing the sons of clergymen of the diocese.

*Gilbert Ironside*, A.D. 1691-1701, warden of Wadham College, Oxford, was
translated to Hereford from Bristol. He died in London, and was buried in
the church of St. Mary, Monthalt. This church was destroyed in 1863, but
the Rev. F. T. T. Havergal succeeded in getting the Bishop’s remains and
tomb-stone removed to Hereford Cathedral a few years later, in 1867.

*Humphrey Humphreys*, A.D. 1701-1712, a Welshman, was translated to
Hereford from Bangor. He is said to have been a good antiquary. Again, in
the early days of the eighteenth century, was the old contest revived
between citizens and Bishop as to his jurisdiction in respect of the fair
of St. Ethelbert. The episcopal rights remained unaltered, at least in
form, down to 1838, when the privileges were taken away by a special Act
of Parliament, and compensation was made to the Bishop for the profits
arising from the fair privileges, to the amount of 12-1/2 bushels of wheat
or its equivalent in money value, according to the price current. This has
now been transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the fair
limited to two days’ duration.

*Philip Bisse*, A.D. 1712-1721, translated from St. David’s, was a man of
great munificence, and of the best intentions, of whom it may be said he
spent "not wisely but too well." He was entirely devoid of any æsthetic
feeling or of architectural fitness, and in the most religious spirit
committed acts of wholesale sacrilege. He employed, it is said, in the
work of restoration in the palace, the stones of the chapter-house, at
that time much injured, but certainly by no means ruined. He built a
hideous structure intended to support the central tower of the cathedral,
and as a crowning act of magnificent liberality, presented the church with
the most dreadful, ponderous, and unsuitable altar-piece that could well
have been devised. In an elaborate epitaph in the cathedral his virtues
are recorded. It was in the time of Bishop Bisse that the meeting of the
three choirs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester first took place.

*Benjamin Hoadley*, A.D. 1721-1723, translated from Bangor, was again
translated to Salisbury early in 1723. His rule over Hereford was too
short for him to have influenced it for good or evil, and his history
belongs rather to Salisbury and Winchester.

*Hon. Henry Egerton*, A.D. 1723-1746, fifth son of the third Earl of
Bridgewater, was chaplain to George I. He is chiefly to be remembered for
an attempt to destroy the early Norman building adjoining the Bishop’s
Palace, and thought to have been the parish church of St. Mary, each of
its two stories containing a chantry founded by Bishop Hugh Foliot.

*Lord James Beauclerk*, A.D. 1746-1787, grandson of Charles II. and Nell
Gwynn, a native of Hereford, was the next Bishop. It was during the last
year of his episcopate on Easter Monday, April 17, 1786, that occurred the
fall of the western tower of the cathedral, causing much injury. The west
front of the church was destroyed, and also a great part of the nave was
seriously injured. The Bishop died eighteen months after this calamity.
The see was next occupied for six weeks only by the Hon. J. Harley.

*John Butler*, A.D. 1788-1802. By birth a German, was an active political
supporter of the Government of the day.

He contributed largely to the repair of the cathedral.

*Folliott Herbert Cornewall*, A.D. 1802-1808. He was a member of an
ancient family in the county of Hereford. Translated from Bristol to
Hereford, he was again translated in 1808 to Worcester.

*John Luxmoore*, A.D. 1808-1815, was translated to Hereford from Bristol,
and again translated in 1815 to St. Asaph. He helped to establish national
schools in the diocese.

*Isaac Huntingford*, A.D. 1815-1832, warden of Winchester College, was
translated from Gloucester to Hereford, and still continued his duties at
Winchester. During his episcopate an incongruous painted window was placed
by Dean Carr at the east end of the choir in 1822. He was author of
several classical and theological works. He died April 29, 1832, in his
eighty-fourth year, and was buried at Compton, near Winchester. There is a
monument in the Bishop’s cloister and a window in the south-east transept
to his memory.

  [Illustration: A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.]

          A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.


*Edward Grey, D.D.*, of Christ Church, Oxford, A.D. 1832-1837. He was Dean
of Hereford in 1831. He was buried in the choir of the cathedral, eastward
of the throne, on July 24, 1837, aged fifty-five years. A brass plate on
the wall marks the spot. There is also a monument to his memory now in the
Bishop’s cloister.

*Thomas Musgrave, D.D.*, A.D. 1837-1847, Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge; Dean of Bristol; consecrated Bishop of Hereford, October 1,
1837; promoted to the Archbishopric of York, December, 1847. He died in
London, May 4, 1860, aged seventy-two years, and was buried at Kensal
Green, where there is a tomb with a short inscription. In York Minster a
monument in the shape of an altar tomb was erected to him, and in the
north choir aisle of Hereford Cathedral are three stained-glass windows to
his memory.

  [Illustration: A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.]

          A GARGOYLE IN THE CLOISTERS. DRAWN BY A. HUGH FISHER.


*Renn Dickson Hampden, D.D.*, A.D. 1848-1868, Fellow of Oriel College;
Principal of St. Mary’s Hall; Regius Professor of Divinity; and Canon of
Christ Church, Oxford. He was appointed in 1847 by Lord John Russell, and
for the first time since the Reformation "a struggle took place between
the recommending minister and a large and influential part of the clergy
and laity of the church, who regarded Dr. Hampden’s opinions as
heretical."(11) Lord John Russell refused to withdraw the appointment, and
it was eventually carried out in spite of all remonstrances; not, however,
until the question had been taken from the Spiritual Court to the Court of
Queen’s Bench, where the judges were equally divided in their opinion. He
died April 23, 1868, in London, and was buried at Kensal Green, close to
the Princess Sophia. His scholastic philosophy was said by Hallam to be
the only work of deep metaphysical research on the subject to be found in
the English language.

           [Illustration: BYE STREET GATE. FROM AN OLD PRINT.]

                   BYE STREET GATE. FROM AN OLD PRINT.


*James Atlay*, A.D. 1868-1895, second son of the Rev. Henry Atlay, M.A.,
formerly Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was born July 3,
1817; graduated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, of which he was
afterwards Fellow, appointed one of Her Majesty’s Preachers at the Chapel
Royal, Whitehall, 1857; Vicar of Leeds, 1859; Canon of Ripon, 1861;
nominated to Hereford, May 9, consecrated at Westminster on June 24, and
enthroned in Hereford Cathedral, July 2, 1868. He was succeeded in 1895 by
the Right Rev. *John Percival*, D.D., the present holder of the see.

               [Illustration: PLAN OF HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.]

                       PLAN OF HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.


The dimensions of the cathedral are:—

                          Ft.   In.
Total length      about   342   0
outside,
Total length      about   327   5
inside,
Length of Nave    about   158   6
to Screen
Gates,
Length of         about   75    6
Choir-Screen to
Reredos,
Length of Lady    about   93    5
Chapel from
Reredos,
Breadth of Nave   about   31    4
(span of roof),
Breadth of Nave   about   73    4
and Aisles
(internally),
Breadth of        about   146   2
Central
Transepts,
Breadth of        about   110   6
North-East
Transepts (each
about 35 ft.
sq.),
Height of         about   62    6
Choir,
Height of Nave,   about   64    0
Height of         about   96    0
Lantern,
Height of Tower   about   140   6
(top of
_leads_),
Height of Tower   about   165   0
(top of
_pinnacles_),
Height of old     about   240   0
central timber
Spire,

NEILL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.






FOOTNOTES


    1 --_Cathedralia_, p. 59.

    2 --_The Diocese of Hereford_, H. W. Phillott.

    3 --_Guide to the Wye and its Neighbourhood_, by the late G. Phillips
      Bevan, F.S.S.

    4 --_Guide to the Wye and its Neighbourhood_, by the late G. Phillips
      Bevan, F.S.S.

    5 --_History of Architecture_, ii. 38.

    6 --_List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland having Mural,
      etc., Decorations._ London: Dept. of Science and Art, 1883, p. 128.

    7 Botfield, _Cathedral Libraries_, 1848, p. 172. When he saw the
      collection it was in the Lady Chapel.

    8 Rev. J. Webb’s _Roll of the Household Expenses of Bishop Swinfield_,
      xviii.

    9 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

   10 Fuller’s _Church History of Britain_, Brewer’s ed., iv. 198.

   11 --_History of the Church of England from 1660._ By W. N. Molesworth,
      M.A.