HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.

THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.Plate XII.

THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.Plate XII.

THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.

Plate XII.

Grammar School, (taken down in 1836,) and a north walk never existed. (Hereford Cathedral, it should be remembered, had no monastic establishment attached to it; and this cloister, [Plate XII.] unlike that at Gloucester, was little more than an ornamental walk, connected with the Bishop’s Palace). The cloister is of Perpendicular date, with window-openings which deserve notice. The south walk is more richly groined than the east. At the south-east corner is a square turreted tower, called the “Ladies’,” or “Ladye Arbour,” the original purpose of which is not clear; nor has it been possible to trace the origin of the name, which apparently has some reference to the Virgin.

Some good old iron-work on a door between the cloister and the chapter-yard should be noticed. In the cloister are placed monuments for—Dr.Matthews, (with sculptured figures); BishopHuntingford, (died 1832); and BishopGrey, (died 1837).

Between the cloister and the Bishop’s Palace, a remarkable chapel, which seems to have been early Norman, existed until it was pulled down by BishopEgerton, (1724-1746). It had an upper and a lower story, in which were altars dedicated respectively to St. Mary Magdalene and to St. Catherine. One wall alone remains, and deserves notice.

From the east walk of the cloister a door opened to the vestibule of thechapter-house. This was ruined by the Parliamentarian troops; and much of its stone-work was used by BishopBisse, (died 1721,) and by his successors until recently, for the repairs of the episcopalpalace. The foundations and fragments which remain shew that it was rich Decorated, in shape a decagon, with a projecting buttress at each angle.

At the south-west angle of the lesser transept is an entrance to the Vicars’ Cloister; (see §XXVII.)

XXV. Theexteriorof the greatnorth transeptshould be especially noticed. The remarkable windows shew to great advantage from the outside, in connection with the massive buttresses, of which those at the angles are turreted, with spiral cappings. The clerestory windows are, as has already (§XI.) been mentioned, triangular on the exterior, and resemble those in the outer wall of the triforium in the nave of Westminster. The upper window in the north wall opens from the Archive Room, (§XXIII.) The external sills of all these windows resemble those of the interior, (§XI.) They were walled up, but have been restored by Mr. Scott from original portions found embedded in the walls, partly in their places, and partly detached.

The date of thecentral tower, which rises above this transept, has not been recorded, but it may safely be placed between 1300 and 1310. It was probably undertaken immediately after the completion of the north transept, and the cost of its erection, like that of the transept, was no doubt defrayed from the sums which continued to be offered at the shrine of St. Thomas Cantilupe[42]. The tower (161 ft. high to the top of thepinnacles) is of two stages above the roofs, with buttresses at the angles. (The pinnacles which cap these buttresses are modern, and date from 1830.) The arcades and window-openings, as well as the buttresses, are covered with the ball-flower ornament, which is scarcely anywhere found in such profusion as here, and in the south aisle of the nave of Gloucester; (see that Cathedral).

TheStanbery Chapel(§XIV.) projects between the great and the eastern transept. The graceful Decorated window of the choir aisle, which rises above it, and the Early English arcades which cover the wall of the choir between the clerestory windows, as well as the windows themselves, (see §IX.,) should here be noticed.

XXVI. On the south side of the Lady-chapel aporchopens to a staircase leading to thecrypt. The porch (which is finely recessed) is, like the crypt, of the same date—Early English (see §XVIII.)—as the Lady-chapel, under which it extends. The crypt extends under the whole of the Lady-chapel; and is the solitary example in an English cathedral of a crypt constructed after the end of the eleventh century[43]. It is lighted by plain lancets, and consists of a nave andaisles 50 ft. long, and divided by plain clustered shafts. The crypt was repaired in 1497 by Andrew Jones, “Mercator hujus civitatis,” whose altar-tomb,—covered with an incised slab of large dimensions and elaborate decoration, representing the merchant and his wife—remains in the centre. This crypt is called the “Golgotha”—from its having been used as the charnel ordomus carnaria—the place appropriated for the decent reception of disinterred fragments of the bodies of the defunct, and special services for the repose of their souls. Adjoining Worcester, Norwich, and some other cathedrals, a chapel, separated from the cathedral itself, was used for this purpose.

Theeast endof the Lady-chapel was, it must be remembered, rebuilt by Mr. Cottingham, (§XVIII.) The gable above the five lancet windows is by no means an exact reproduction of the original, and the work is not too good. The Audley Chantry (§XIX.) projects very picturesquely on the south side of the Lady-chapel. The side pinnacles were reproduced by Mr. Scott from old drawings; the finials are original, having been preserved in the crypt.

The existingwest frontof the cathedral is, as has already been said, a composition of Wyatt’s, and is unworthy of notice. The total exterior length of the church, including the buttresses, is 344 ft.

XXVII. On the south side of the Lady-chapel is the entrance to theCollege of Vicars Choral, (incorporated in 1396,) a very picturesque quadrangle, with an inner cloister. It is for the most part Perpendicular, (circa1474). A long cloistral walk (109 ft.) leading from the quadrangle of the college to the south-east transept of the cathedral has the oaken beams of its roof very finely carved.

Theepiscopal palacelies south between the cathedral and the river Wye. It is almost entirely formed out of an ancient Norman hall with pillars of timber, and is consequently of considerable interest. In the Deanery is preserved a small reliquary, of Limoges work, dating from the early part of the thirteenth century. On it is represented the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury: on the lower part the murder, on the upper part the entombment of the saint. It no doubt contained a relic of the Archbishop. Similar reliquaries, with the same subjects, exist in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, and of Sir Philip Egerton.

History of the See, with Short Notices of the principal Bishops.

ARCHBISHOP USHER asserts that Hereford was the place of an episcopal see in the first half of the sixth century, when (A.D.544) one of its bishops was present at a synod convened by the Archbishop of Caerleon. However this may have been, it is certain that the existing succession of bishops dates fromA.D.676; when Putta, Bishop of Rochester, whose Kentish cathedral had been plundered and desolated by Ethelred of Mercia, was placed at Hereford by Sexwulf, Bishop of Lichfield. Hereford was at this time a place of no great consequence. It lay about one mile distant from the Roman road which ran from Magna Castra (Kenchester) to Wigornia (Worcester); but it was not itself a station, and its later importance arose mainly from its position on a ford of the Wye, which Athelstane fixed as the boundary between the English and Welsh, in the same manner as he made the Tamar the boundary of the English and the Cornish of “West Wales.” Hereford thus became a frontier town; and one of the strongest castles on the marches of Wales rose near the cathedral, on its south side.[A.D.676-688.]Putta, the first Saxon bishop, received no great wealth with the church of Hereford. He was, says Bede, “more careful about ecclesiastical than secular matters.” During his rule here he taught, “wherever hewas asked,” the chants of the Church,—those ancient Gregorian tones which Augustine had introduced at Canterbury, and which Archbishop Theodorus was now carefully disseminating throughout England.The permanent establishment of Hereford as the place of an episcopal see was also the work of Archbishop Theodore, who after the Council at Hertford (A.D.673) divided the great diocese of Mercia, as he had done that of East Anglia, into several bishoprics. (SeeLichfield, Pt. II.) Of the bishops of Hereford between (688-1012) Putta and Æthelstan little is recorded beyond their names.Cuthbert(736-740) is an exception. In the latter year he was translated to Canterbury. (See that Cathedral, Pt. II.) It was during his archiepiscopate that the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were ordered to be universally taught in English.[A.D.1012-1056.]Æthelstan, (“vir magnæ sanctitatis,” according to Florence of Worcester,) rebuilt his cathedral from the foundations. He was blind for thirteen years before his death; and the affairs of his diocese were administered by Tremerig, Bishop of St. David’s. In 1055, the year before Bishop Æthelstan’s death, the town of Hereford (Herefordport as it is called in the Saxon Chronicle[44]) was harried by a large body of Irish and Welsh, under Ælfgar, the exiled Earl of Mercia. “They burned the town,” says the Chronicle; “and the great mynstre which the venerable Bishop Æthelstan had before caused to be built, that they plundered, and bereaved of relics and of vestments, and of all things; and slew the folk, and led some away[45].” In the following year Bishop Æthelstan died, and was buried in this desolated church.The great treasure of Æthelstan’s minster was the body ofSt. Ethelbert, King of East Anglia; whose head, says the Saxon Chronicle, was “stricken off by the command of Offa, King of the Mercians,A.D.792.” This is the only notice of Ethelbert in the Chronicle; and Florence of Worcester is almost as brief. We know nothing of the real history of Ethelbert. Later accounts asserted that he was murdered at Sutton’s Walls, a chief palace of the Mercian kings, about eight miles from Hereford, where he had gone at the invitation of Offa, who had offered him the hand of his daughter Elfrida. His body was secretly interred at Marden, close to Sutton’s Walls. Three nights afterwards, Ethelbert appeared to a certain Brithfrid, and telling him where he had been buried, ordered him to remove his body to the “chapel of Our Lady at Fernlege,”—generally supposed, but without much authority, to have been on the site of the existing cathedral of Hereford. Brithfrid obeyed; and the translation took place, not without the occurrence of miracles on the way. Many others followed. The murdered king of the East Angles was recognised as a saint; and a sumptuous monument was raised over his remains by Offa, in token of his penitence. Bishop Æthelstan translated the relics into his new “minster,” which was dedicated to St. Ethelbert. His festival was duly celebrated until the Reformation. A fine Early English church, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Ethelbert, remains at Marden, where the body was first interred.[A.D.1056.]Leofgar, “Earl Harold’s mass-priest,” succeeded Æthelstan. “He,” says the Chronicle, “wore his kenepas (headpiece?) in his priesthood, until he was a bishop; he forsook his chrism and his rood, his ghostly weapons, and took to his spear and to his sword, after his bishophood, and so went in the force against Griffith the Welsh king; and he was there slain, and his priests with him, and Ælfnoth the shire-reeve, and many good men withthem, and the others fled away. This was eight nights before Midsummer[46].” After Leofgar’s death the see remained vacant for four years, during which it was under the rule of Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester.[A.D.1061-1079.]Walter of Lorraine, chaplain of Queen Edith, was consecrated at Rome by Pope Nicholas II. (He had accompanied Bishop Ealdred of Worcester to Rome, on his elevation to the see of York.) Bishop Walter was a prelate of questionable sanctity, if the story told of him by William of Malmesbury is not an invention of his enemies.[A.D.1079-1095.]Robert de Losing, like his predecessor a native of Lorraine, is said to have been one of the most learned of the bishops consecrated by Lanfranc. Bishop Robert found his cathedral in ruins. It had apparently remained uncared for during the troubled times of the Conquest, and it had been partly burnt, as we have seen, by the Welshmen under Earl Ælfgar. The Bishop rebuilt it, taking for his model the church of Aachen, (Aix la Chapelle,) founded by Charlemagne. The existing choir (see Pt. I. §II.) has been regarded as part of Bishop Robert’s work.Remigius of Lincoln, who had also been rebuilding his cathedral, had fixed the day for its dedication, and invited Bishop Robert of Hereford to be present. He refused to undertake the journey, however, saying, according to William of Malmesbury, that the stars assured him the dedication would not take place in the lifetime of Remigius; who died, in fact, the day before that appointed. Bishop Robert is said by Malmesbury to have received a forewarning of his own death from St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, with whom he had lived in the closest friendship. When Wulfstan was on his death-bed, Robert was absent with the King. His friend, says the Chronicler, appeared to him in a dream, and directed him to hasten toWorcester if he wished to see him once more. Bishop Robert set out at once, but whilst resting at Cricklade he was again visited by Wulfstan, who said, “Thou hast done what was possible, but in vain, for I have now departed. Thou, however, shalt not remain here long; and as a token that I speak true, thou shalt to-morrow receive a gift from me.” Accordingly, the Prior of Worcester, where Robert arrived the next day, presented him with a cope lined with lamb-skins, which St. Wulfstan had been in the habit of wearing on his journeys. The Bishop recognised the token, and returning to Hereford died there in the following June, (1095). St. Wulfstan’s death occurred in January.[A.D.1096, trans. to York 1101.]Gerard, nephew of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, and Chancellor under the Conqueror and William II. On his translation to York, Roger Lardarius was nominated to the see of Hereford by the King, Henry I. He died before he could be consecrated. Reinhelm was then chosen, and received the temporalities as bishop-elect from the King, by the delivery of the ring and pastoral staff. Anselm (seeCanterbury, Pt. II.) refused to consecrate the bishops who had been thus invested; and Reinhelm accordingly restored the temporalities to the King, who, enraged by his submission to the Archbishop, banished him from the court.[A.D.1107-1115.]Reinhelm, the Queen’s Chancellor, was, however, consecrated by Anselm in 1107, after the King had conceded the main points in dispute, and the Archbishop had returned from his exile. (SeeCanterbury, Pt. II.) Reinhelm is commemorated in an obituary of the Canons of Hereford, as “fundator ecclesiæ S. Ethelberti;” and it has accordingly been considered that he completed the church begun by Robert de Losing. But of this there is no direct proof.[A.D.1115-1120.]Geoffry de Clivesucceeded. “Bonus quidem et ille,” says William of Malmesbury, “continentissimusque; indifferenter cibis et vestibus quæ minori pretio taxarentur utens; agriculturæ studens.” He greatly improved the lands belonging to the see; but was more careful to increase than to distribute; “leaving great stores behind him to no heir.”[A.D.1121-1127.]Richard, called “de Capella,” a clerk of the King’s chapel. A bridge across the Wye, at Hereford, was partly built by this bishop. His successor,[A.D.1131-1148.]Robert de Bethune, had been nominated by the King (Henry I.) in 1129, but was not consecrated until 1131. Bishop Robert was a member of the noble house of Bethune; and received his early education from his own brother Gunfrid, a teacher of some celebrity. He became a canon in the Augustinian priory of Llanthony; and on the death of Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Hereford, was appointed to superintend the building of a religious house at Weobly, where the great Earl was buried. Here he worked as a common labourer, and is said to have injured his health so greatly, that he was recalled to his priory, of which he soon afterwards became the superior. When the see of Hereford became vacant, Robert de Bethune was recommended to the King by the Earl of Gloucester, and at last accepted the bishopric, “quamvis invitus.” During the troubles of Stephen’s reign Hereford suffered greatly. The cathedral was deserted and desecrated, and the Bishop himself was compelled to take flight in disguise. On his return, he “cleansed and repaired” the building. In 1148, Bishop Robert was present at the Council of Rheims, convened by Pope Eugenius III., then an exile in France; and died there, (April 16). His remains were brought to England, and interred in his own cathedral.A short life of Bishop de Bethune, who was one of the best and worthiest bishops of his age,—a man of peace and religion, when by far the greater number of English bishops were little better than the most turbulent barons,—was written by William of Wycumb, his successor in the prioryof Llanthony, and was printed by Wharton in the second volume of hisAnglia Sacra.[A.D.1148, trans. to London 1163.]Gilbert Foliot, Abbot of Gloucester, the inflexible antagonist of Becket. Foliot “was admitted to be a man of unimpeachable life, of austere habits, and great learning. He was in correspondence with Popes Cælestine II., Lucius II., Eugenius III., and Alexander, and with a familiarity which implies a high estimation for ability and experience. He is interfering in matters remote from his diocese, and commending other bishops, Lincoln and Salisbury, to the favourable consideration of the pontiff. All his letters reveal as imperious and conscientious a Churchman as Becket himself, and in Becket’s position Foliot might have resisted the King as inflexibly. He was, in short, a bold and stirring ecclesiastic, who did not scruple to wield, as he had done in several instances, that last terrible weapon of the clergy which burst on his own head, excommunication[47].” It was Foliot who uttered the “bitter sarcasm” on Becket’s consecration as primate, “The King has wrought a miracle, he has turned a soldier and a layman into an archbishop;” but in spite of this, Becket “acquiesced in, if he did not promote, the advancement of Foliot to the see of London,” vacant when Becket was consecrated, at Whitsuntide, 1161. Foliot’s translation took place in 1163. From that time he appears on the King’s side, in opposition to the Archbishop, and Becket accuses him of aspiring to the primacy. The life of Foliot belongs too completely to the public history of his time, and is too closely associated with the career of Becket, to be dwelt on here at any length. He was among the bishops excommunicated by Becket on Ascension-day, 1169, and again in Canterbury Cathedral, on the Christmas-day before the Archbishop’s murder; and it was Foliot who preached in that cathedral on the memorable day (July 12, 1174) of King Henry’s penance. He died in 1187.The letters of Bp. Foliot have been edited by Dr. Giles, (Oxon. 1845,) and form two volumes of the series illustrating the life of Becket. Foliot was annually commemorated by the canons of Hereford, as one who “multa bona contulit Herefordensi capitulo.”[A.D.1163-1167.]Robert de Melun(of Maledon), called by the annalist of St. David’s “Episcopus Anglorum sapientissimus.” He was present at the famous scene between Becket and Henry at Northampton, when he attempted, with Foliot, to take the cross from the hands of the Archbishop, to whose side he seems to have adhered.[A.D.1174-1186.]Robert Foliot, a friend and fellow-student of Becket, and probably a relative of Bishop Gilbert of London, although this is not certain. He was one of the four English bishops who in 1179 attended the Lateran Council convened by Alexander III., in which the Albigenses and Waldenses were excommunicated[48].[A.D.1186-1199.]William de Vere, son of Alberic de Vere, third Earl of Oxford. Bishop de Vere is said by Godwin to have built much, (multa dicitur construxisse,) but no part of the existing cathedral can be assigned to him, and indeed the authority for Godwin’s statement does not appear.[A.D.1200-1215.]Giles de Bruce, orde Braose, son of William, Lord Brecknock. He sided with the barons against King John, and was compelled to leave his see, the temporalities of which were seized by the Crown. He was afterwards allowed to return, and died at Gloucester in 1215. Bishop Giles is generally said to have built the central tower of his cathedral, but this (see Pt. I. §X.) is undoubtedly an error.[A.D.1216-1219.]Hugh de Mapenore, Dean of Hereford.[A.D.1219-1234.]Hugh Foliot, Archdeacon of Salop; founded and endowed a hospital at Ledbury.[A.D.1234-1239.]Ralph of Maidstone, “vir magnæ literaturæ, et in theologia nominatissimus,” according to Wyke the chronicler. He bought for the see a house in London, together with the advowson of the adjoining church, St. Mary Monthalt. In 1239 Bishop Ralph resigned his see, and became a Franciscan at Oxford, whence he afterwards passed to the house of the Franciscans at Gloucester, where he died.[A.D.1240-1268.]Peter d’Acquablanca, whose fine tomb remains in the cathedral, (Pt. I. §XIII.,) was one of the intruding “foreigners” by whom England was oppressed during the long reign of Henry III., and whose exactions and tyranny were among the chief causes of the rising of the barons under Simon de Montfort. Like the contemporary Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface, Bishop Peter was a native of Savoy, and had come to England in the train of William of Valence. He obtained the see of Hereford in opposition to a canon of Lichfield,—“vir per omnia commendabilis,” says Matthew Paris,—who had been elected by the canons; but the King affected none but strangers. In 1250 Bishop Peter took the cross, and went, under the banner of the King of France, to the Holy Land. He returned in 1258, bringing letters, which are said to have been forged, but which professed to be those of the Pope, Innocent IV., commanding all religious houses to grant a tenth of their property toward the crusade. During his absence (in 1257) he spent large sums in endeavouring to procure for himself the see of Bordeaux, when the death of the Archbishop had been reported. But after the money had been spent, the Archbishop of Bordeaux proved to be still alive, and the unfortunate Bishop Peter became, says Paris, the subject of infinite jests. In 1263, with other “foreigners,” he was expelled from England; but he returned to the country, though not to his diocese,in the following year, when Henry III. reprimands him by letter, saying, that “coming to Hereford to take order for the disposing the garrisons in the marches of Wales, he found in the church of Hereford neither bishop, dean, vicar, or other officer to discharge the spiritual functions, and that the church and ecclesiastical establishment was in a state of ruin and decay[49].” The Bishop was soon afterwards in Hereford, where he was taken by Simon de Montfort, who seized all his wealth, and imprisoned Bishop Peter in “Ordelay” [Urdley] Castle. He died in 1268, leaving behind him no good reputation, although he had bought the manor of Holme Lacy for the cathedral, and left money for the annual distribution of much corn to the clergy of his church and to the poor. He founded a monastery at his birthplace, Aquabella, or Aquablanca, in Savoy, where his heart was conveyed for entombment, and where a monument with an inscription still remains. His body was interred in his own cathedral, under the canopied tomb already noticed.[A.D.1269-1275.]John Breton; has usually been considered the author of a treatiseDe Juribus Anglicanis, and is described by Sir Edward Coke as “a man of great and profound judgment in the common laws, an excellent ornament to his profession, and a satisfaction and solace to himself.” Selden, however, proved that the treatise contains references to statutes passed long after the death of Bishop Breton; and Bishop Nicholson suggests, with much probability, that the true writer of the abstract was a “John Breton,” one of the king’s justices (together with Ralph and Roger de Hengham) in the first year of Edward II.[A.D.1275-1282.]Thomas Cantilupe, who succeeded, was the last Englishman canonized before the Reformation. He was the son of William Lord Cantilupe, and his wife Millicent, Countess of Evreux. The future bishop and saint was educated at Oxford and at Paris, and after beingmade Chancellor of the former University, became Chancellor of England under Henry III. in 1265. He was, moreover, a clerical pluralist of the first order, being at once canon and chantor of York, archdeacon and canon of Lichfield and Coventry, canon of London, canon of Hereford, and archdeacon of Stafford. It is possible, however, that as in the case of Bishop Walter de Merton, who held the great seal immediately before Cantilupe, the King may have found no more ready means of paying his great officer than by such preferments. In 1275 he became bishop of Hereford. His episcopate was not a tranquil one. He vigorously maintained the rights of his see against both Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, the latter of whom insisted on the visitation of Bishop Cantilupe’s diocese, as his metropolitan; a claim which the archbishops were then vigorously prosecuting. After a long dispute, Peckham solemnly excommunicated the refractory Bishop of Hereford, who at once proceeded to Rome, to lay his case before the Pope, Martin IV. There is reason to believe, however, that as an excommunicated person he could obtain from the Pope nothing more than “the promise of a quick despatch and removal of delays;” and that he only received absolution in the hour of his death, which occurred near Orvieto, August 23, 1282. Richard Swinfield, his successor in the see of Hereford, who had accompanied Bishop Cantilupe to Italy, proceeded, probably at his own request, to separate the flesh of his body from the bones by boiling. The flesh was interred in the church of Santo Severo, near Orvieto; the heart was conveyed to the monastic church of Ashridge in Buckinghamshire, founded by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall; and the bones were brought to his own cathedral at Hereford. As they were being conveyed into the church, says the compiler of the Bishop’s “Life and Gests,” Gilbert Earl of Gloucester approached and touched the casket which contained them, whereupon they “bledafresh.” The Earl was struck with compunction, and made full restitution to the Church of all the lands which Bishop Cantilupe had rightly claimed from him.Swinfield, who had been the constant companion of Cantilupe, and many of the contemporary chroniclers, bear witness to the purity and excellence of the Bishop’s life, and his tomb soon became distinguished by miracles. The first of these, according to the annalist of Worcester, occurred in April, 1287; at the time, apparently, of the removal of his remains from the tomb in the Lady-chapel to the shrine which had been provided for them in the north transept. The number of marvels increased daily; for, “superstition,” in Fuller’s words, “is always fondest of the youngest saint;” and in 1289, Bishop Swinfield, who had brought Cantilupe’s bones from Italy, wrote to the Pope requesting his canonization. Many difficulties, however, were interposed; and in spite of numerous letters from Edward I. and his son Edward II., it was not until May, 1320, that the bull of canonization was issued by Pope John XXII.[50]It is possible that the excommunication of Cantilupe, and his connection with the Knights Templars, of which Order he was Provincial Grand Master in England, were among the causes of the delay. The Templars were arrested throughout England in 1307; condemned in 1310; and in 1312 the Order was finally dissolved in the Council of Vienne.A book entitled “The Life and Gests of Saint Thomas Cantilupe,” said to be compiled from evidences at Rome, collected before his canonization, was published at Ghent in 1674. “No fewer than four hundred and twenty-five miracles,” says Fuller, “are registered, reported to be wrought at his tomb.... Yea, it is recorded in his legend, that by his prayers were raised from death to life three-score several persons, one-and-twenty lepers healed, and three-and-twenty blind and dumb men to have received their sight and speech[51].”The arms of Cantilupe—Gules, three leopards’ heads jessant, with a fleur-de-lis issuing from the mouth, or—have since his canonization been assumed as those of the see of Hereford.[A.D.1283-1317.]Richard Swinfield, a native of Swinfield in Kent, from which place he is said to have transported a small colony of Kentish men to Herefordshire, laboured throughout his episcopate to procure the canonization of his predecessor, which was not effected until 1320. Bishop Swinfield, however, translated the remains of St. Thomas Cantilupe to the new transept in 1287; and besides this transept, the clerestory and upper portion of the choir, the central tower above the roof, and the eastern transept as it now exists, were either completed, or were in progress during his episcopate. A curious roll of the household expenses of this Bishop for the years 1289-1290 has been edited for the Camden Society, with some very interesting annotations, by the Rev. John Webb.[A.D.1317, trans. to Worcester 1327.]Adam OrletonThis Bishop had joined the barons, under the Earl of Lancaster, against Edward II. and the Spencers; and in 1323,—two years after the defeat of the barons at Boroughbridge,—he was impeached in Parliament as having given “countenance and assistance to the rebellion.” He refused, as a Churchman, to be so tried, and was delivered to the custody of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whence he was afterwards brought before the bar of the King’s Bench. “These proceedings being looked upon as a violation of the liberties of the Church, the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Dublin, came immediately, with their crosses erected, into the court, and carried off the Bishop withoutgiving him time to answer to the indictment[52].” The Bishop was tried in his absence, however,—(the first English bishop brought to trial in a temporal court,)—found guilty, and his temporalities confiscated. But these had been restored before 1326, when Bishop Orleton joined the party of Queen Isabella. He preached before her at Oxford, on the text “doleo caput,” (2 Kings iv. 19,) inferring that a distempered “head” should be removed; and the Queen proceeded with him to Hereford, where the younger Spencer was hanged. Thence the Bishop wrote his famous letter to the keepers of Edward II. at Berkeley Castle,—“Edwardum regem occidere nolite timere bonum est.” In 1327 he was translated, by the influence of the Queen, to Worcester; and in 1333 to Winchester, where he died in 1345.[A.D.1327-1344.]Thomas Charlton, Canon of York. In 1329 he was Treasurer of England. In 1337 he was sent to Ireland as Chancellor, and was afterwards Justiciary and “Warden” of that kingdom. In 1340 he returned to Hereford.[A.D.1344-1360.]John Trilleck.Little is recorded of this Bishop, whose fine brass remains in the choir of the cathedral. (Pt. I. §X.) He prohibited the performance of miracle-plays in churches within his diocese.[A.D.1361-1369.]Lewis Charlton; of some distinction as a theologian.[A.D.1370, trans. to London 1375.]William Courtenay, son of Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon. From London Bishop Courtenay passed to Canterbury in 1381, and died 1396. As Bishop of London, and as Archbishop, he was a strong opposer of Wickliffe. (SeeCanterbury Cathedral, Pt. II.)[A.D.1375, trans. to St. David’s 1389.]John Gilbert; was translated to Hereford from Bangor. In 1386 he was Treasurer of England.[A.D.1389-1404.]John Trevenant: sent on an embassy to Rome by Henry IV. in 1400.[A.D.1404-1416.]Robert Mascall: had been a Carmelite friar at Ludlow; whence he proceeded to Oxford, and there, by his learning, attracted the notice of Henry IV., who employed him on various embassies. He built great part of the church of the Carmelites in London, where he was buried. Bishop Mascall was present with Bishop Hallam of Salisbury, at the Council of Constance, 1415, 1416.[A.D.1417, trans. to Exeter 1420.]Edmund Lacy.(SeeExeter Cathedral, Pt. II.)[A.D.1420, trans. to Chichester 1421.]Thomas Polton, Dean of York. From Chichester he passed to Worcester in 1426.[A.D.1422-1448.]Thomas Spofford, Abbot of St. Mary’s at York; to which monastery he returned in 1448, having resigned his see. “The record of his abdication is printed in Rymer’sFœdera, vol. x. p. 215: in Wilkins’sConcilia, vol. iii. p. 538, is a writ of pardon for abdicating in favour of his successor, who was to allow him one hundred pounds yearly out of the revenues. The Pope testified by his bull that Spofford had expended on the buildings of his cathedral upwards of two thousand eight hundred marks[53].” No part of the cathedral itself can be of Bishop Spofford’s time; but possibly he erected the cloisters.[A.D.1449, trans. to Salisbury 1450.]Richard Beauchamp.For this Bishop, one of the best architects of his time,—the superintendent of the works at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor,—seeSalisbury Cathedral, Pt. II.[A.D.1451, trans. to Lichfield 1453.]Reginald Boulers, Abbot of Gloucester.[A.D.1453-1477.]John Stanbery, translated to Hereford from Bangor. Bishop Stanbery was born at Stanbery, in the parish of Morwenstow, on the north coast of Cornwall;and bequeathed a “cross of silver gilt” to his baptismal church there. “He was bred,” says Fuller, “a Carmelite in Oxford, and became generally as learned as any of his order, deserving all the dignity which the University did or could confer on him. King Henry the Sixth highly favoured, and made him the first Provost of Eton; being much ruled by his advice in ordering that, his new foundation. He was by the King designed Bishop of Norwich, but William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, got it from him for his own chaplain, and Stanbery was fain to stay his stomach on the poor bishopric of Bangor, till, anno 1453, he was advanced Bishop of Hereford[54].” The Bishop was faithful to Henry VI. throughout his adversity, but was taken prisoner after the battle of Northampton, (July, 1460,) and was long confined in Warwick Castle. After his release he retired to the Carmelite monastery at Ludlow, and died there in May, 1474. He was interred in his own cathedral, in the chantry which he had built and endowed during his life. (Pt. I. §XIV.)[A.D.1474-1492.]Thomas Milling, Abbot of Westminster, Privy Councillor of Edward IV., and godfather to his son, Edward V. He was buried at Westminster, where a stone coffin remains which is supposed to have contained his body.[A.D.1492, trans. to Salisbury 1502.]Edmund Audley.(SeeSalisbury, Pt. II.) During his tenure of the see of Hereford he constructed the chantry on the south side of the Lady-chapel. (Pt. I. §XIX.) He was interred in the chantry he afterwards built at Salisbury.[A.D.1502, trans. to Bath and Wells 1504.]Hadrian de Castello, who had been entrusted by Henry VII. with the management of all business between England and the Papal Court, received both his English bishoprics at Rome,and never saw either. (See, for a fuller notice of him,Wells Cathedral, Pt. II.)[A.D.1504-1516.]Richard Mayew, Archdeacon of Oxford, President of Magdalen College, and Chancellor of the University, was Henry the Seventh’s Almoner, and was sent to Spain in order to conduct Catherine of Arragon to England. He received the bishopric of Hereford after his return. His fine tomb and effigy remain on the south side of the choir. (Pt. I. §XXI.)[A.D.1516-1535.]Charles Booth, Chancellor of the Welsh Marches, is best known as the builder of the north porch of his cathedral at Hereford. His tomb adjoins it. (Pt. I. §VII.)[A.D.1535-1539.]Edward Fox, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, Almoner to Henry VIII., by whom he was employed on various embassies. It was Fox who first introduced Cranmer to the King, and Fuller calls him “the principal pillar of the Reformation, as to the management of the politic and prudential part thereof, being of more activity, and no less ability, than Cranmer himself[55].” He had been the first to instigate Wolsey, as papal legate, to commence a visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy, in 1523, in consequence of the general complaint against their manners. Bishop Fox died in London in 1538, and was interred in the church of St. Mary Monthalt.[A.D.1539-1552.]John Skip.On Fox’s death, Edmund Bonner was elected Bishop of Hereford, but before his consecration to that see he was removed to London. Bishop Skip had been Archdeacon of Dorset. He was one of the “notable learned men” associated with Cranmer in drawing up the “Order of Communion,” (1548,) and was probably one of those who assisted in compiling the first Common Prayer-book of Edward VI.[56][A.D.1553-1554.]John Harley, was compelled to resign on the accession of Mary because he was a “married priest,” and died a few months afterwards.[A.D.1554-1558.]Robert Parfew, orWharton, was translated from St. Asaph.[A.D.1559-1585.]John Scory, translated from Chichester. As Bishop of Hereford, Bishop Scory alienated many of the best manors belonging to the see, but it is very doubtful whether it was in his power to resist effectually the rapacity of the courtiers. It has been proved (seeExeter Cathedral, Pt. II.—Bishop Veysey) that in many cases the bishops of this period have been blamed for alienations which they had done their best to resist.[A.D.1586-1602.]Herbert Westfaling, Prebendary of Christ Church, Oxford. Godwin, who knew him intimately, describes him as a bishop of unusual excellence, of great purity of life, of great honesty and integrity, and of such serious gravity that he was hardly ever seen to smile. Sir John Harrington relates, that while Bishop Westfaling was preaching in his cathedral, a mass of frozen snow fell from the tower upon the roof, and so frightened the congregation that they endeavoured to escape in all haste. But the Bishop remained unmoved in his pulpit, calmly exhorting them to sit still and fear no harm. All the revenues of his see were expended in works of piety and hospitality by Bishop Westfaling, who left nothing but his private inheritance to his family. He was buried in the north transept, where his effigy remains. (Pt. I. § 12.)[A.D.1603-1617.]Robert Bennett, Dean of Windsor. Bishop Bennett was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, says Sir John Harrington, he was “an active man, who played well at tennis, and could toss an argument in the schools even better than a ball in the tennis court.” He was a vigorous defender of the privileges of his see against the corporation of Hereford, and both he and his predecessor Westfaling expended largesums in the restoration of the episcopal residences at Hereford and at Whitbourn. Bishop Bennett’s tomb with effigy remains on the north side of the choir. (Pt. I. §X.)[A.D.1617-1633.]Francis Godwin, translated to Hereford from Llandaff. Bishop Godwin was the compiler of the “Catalogue of the Bishops of England,” to which all succeeding writers on English Church history have been greatly indebted. He was the son of Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and was born at Harsington in Northamptonshire. In the year 1601 he became Bishop of Llandaff, and in 1605 published the first edition, in English, of his “Catalogue.” It was again published in Latin, in 1616, and in 1743 this Latin version was edited, in a large folio volume, by Dr. Richardson, Canon of Lincoln, and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Richardson made considerable additions to the book, besides correcting numerous errors; and it is his edition of the CommentaryDe Præsulibus Angliæthat is alone to be relied upon. “Bishop Godwin,” says Fuller, “was a good man, grave divine, skilful mathematician, pure Latinist, and incomparable historian. The Church of Llandaff was much beholding to him; yea, the whole Church of England; yea, the whole Church Militant; yea, many now in the Church Triumphant had had their memories utterly lost on earth, if not preserved by his painful endeavours. I am sorry to see that some have since made so bad use of his good labours, who have lighted their candles from his torch, thereby merely to discover the faults of our bishops, that their personal failing may be an argument against the prelatical function[57].” Bishop Godwin also wrote a life of Queen Mary, inserted in Kennet’s History of England, vol. ii.; and “Annals of England under Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary.” He was interred at Whitbourn, where the bishops of Hereford had a palace, April 29,1633. A good portrait of Godwin, engraved by Vertue, is prefixed to Richardson’s folio.[A.D.1634, died in November of the same year.]Augustine Lindsell, translated from Peterborough.[A.D.1635, trans. to Norwich in the same year.]Matthew Wren.(SeeNorwich Cathedral, Pt. II.)[A.D.1635-1636.]Theophilus Field, had been Bishop successively of Llandaff and St. David’s.[A.D.1636-1646.]George Coke, translated from Bristol. He was brother of Sir John Coke, Secretary of State under James I. and Charles I. Bishop Coke fell upon the evil days of the civil war, and like the rest of the bishops, was deprived of his see. “He was a meek, grave, and quiet man,” says Fuller, “much beloved of such as were subjected to his jurisdiction[58].” He died in 1650.For fifteen years the see remained vacant. In[A.D.1661, died the same year,]Nicholas Monk, Provost of Eton, was consecrated Bishop of Hereford. He was the brother of the great Duke of Albemarle. Bishop Monk never visited his diocese, but, dying at Westminster, was interred in the abbey church there.[A.D.1662-1691.]Herbert Croft, had been Dean of Hereford before the Rebellion. In his youth he had embraced Romanism, and had been received into the Order of Jesuits, but was reconverted by Bishop Morton of Durham. Bishop Croft is said to have been especially careful to promote none but the clergy of his own diocese to honourable positions within it.[A.D.1691-1701.]Gilbert Ironside, translated from Bristol.[A.D.1701-1712.]Humfrey Humphries, translated from Bangor. Wood declares him to have been “excellently versed in antiquities.”[A.D.1713-1721.]Philip Bisse, translated from St. David’s. Bishop Bisse expended much on the cathedral and on thepalace. In the former he erected a Grecian altar-screen, which has been happily removed during the late restoration.[A.D.1721, trans. to Salisbury 1723.]Benjamin Hoadly, trans. from Bangor. SeeWinchester Cathedral, (to which see he was trans. from Salisbury,) Pt. II.; but it should be added that the passage there quoted from Hallam’s Constitutional History is far too favourable to the character of Bishop Hoadly.[A.D.1724-1746.]Henry Egerton, fifth son of the third Earl of Bridgewater.[A.D.1746-1787.]James Beauclerk, eighth son of the Duke of St. Alban’s.[A.D.1787-1788.]John Harley, third son of the third Earl of Oxford.[A.D.1788-1802.]John Butler, translated from Oxford. Bishop Butler owed his elevation to his powers as a political pamphleteer. He was an effective assistant to Lord North in vindicating the American War.[A.D.1803, trans. to Worcester 1808.]Ffolliott Herbert Walker Cornewall, translated from Bristol.[A.D.1808, trans. to St. Asaph 1815.]John Luxmoore, translated from Bristol.[A.D.1815-1832.]George J. Huntingford, translated from Gloucester. Bishop Huntingford had been made Warden of Winchester College in 1789, and retained the wardenship until his death.[A.D.1832-1837.]Edward Grey.[A.D.1837, trans. to York 1847.]Thomas Musgrave.[A.D.1848—.]Renn D. Hampden.

ARCHBISHOP USHER asserts that Hereford was the place of an episcopal see in the first half of the sixth century, when (A.D.544) one of its bishops was present at a synod convened by the Archbishop of Caerleon. However this may have been, it is certain that the existing succession of bishops dates fromA.D.676; when Putta, Bishop of Rochester, whose Kentish cathedral had been plundered and desolated by Ethelred of Mercia, was placed at Hereford by Sexwulf, Bishop of Lichfield. Hereford was at this time a place of no great consequence. It lay about one mile distant from the Roman road which ran from Magna Castra (Kenchester) to Wigornia (Worcester); but it was not itself a station, and its later importance arose mainly from its position on a ford of the Wye, which Athelstane fixed as the boundary between the English and Welsh, in the same manner as he made the Tamar the boundary of the English and the Cornish of “West Wales.” Hereford thus became a frontier town; and one of the strongest castles on the marches of Wales rose near the cathedral, on its south side.

[A.D.676-688.]Putta, the first Saxon bishop, received no great wealth with the church of Hereford. He was, says Bede, “more careful about ecclesiastical than secular matters.” During his rule here he taught, “wherever hewas asked,” the chants of the Church,—those ancient Gregorian tones which Augustine had introduced at Canterbury, and which Archbishop Theodorus was now carefully disseminating throughout England.

The permanent establishment of Hereford as the place of an episcopal see was also the work of Archbishop Theodore, who after the Council at Hertford (A.D.673) divided the great diocese of Mercia, as he had done that of East Anglia, into several bishoprics. (SeeLichfield, Pt. II.) Of the bishops of Hereford between (688-1012) Putta and Æthelstan little is recorded beyond their names.Cuthbert(736-740) is an exception. In the latter year he was translated to Canterbury. (See that Cathedral, Pt. II.) It was during his archiepiscopate that the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were ordered to be universally taught in English.

[A.D.1012-1056.]Æthelstan, (“vir magnæ sanctitatis,” according to Florence of Worcester,) rebuilt his cathedral from the foundations. He was blind for thirteen years before his death; and the affairs of his diocese were administered by Tremerig, Bishop of St. David’s. In 1055, the year before Bishop Æthelstan’s death, the town of Hereford (Herefordport as it is called in the Saxon Chronicle[44]) was harried by a large body of Irish and Welsh, under Ælfgar, the exiled Earl of Mercia. “They burned the town,” says the Chronicle; “and the great mynstre which the venerable Bishop Æthelstan had before caused to be built, that they plundered, and bereaved of relics and of vestments, and of all things; and slew the folk, and led some away[45].” In the following year Bishop Æthelstan died, and was buried in this desolated church.

The great treasure of Æthelstan’s minster was the body ofSt. Ethelbert, King of East Anglia; whose head, says the Saxon Chronicle, was “stricken off by the command of Offa, King of the Mercians,A.D.792.” This is the only notice of Ethelbert in the Chronicle; and Florence of Worcester is almost as brief. We know nothing of the real history of Ethelbert. Later accounts asserted that he was murdered at Sutton’s Walls, a chief palace of the Mercian kings, about eight miles from Hereford, where he had gone at the invitation of Offa, who had offered him the hand of his daughter Elfrida. His body was secretly interred at Marden, close to Sutton’s Walls. Three nights afterwards, Ethelbert appeared to a certain Brithfrid, and telling him where he had been buried, ordered him to remove his body to the “chapel of Our Lady at Fernlege,”—generally supposed, but without much authority, to have been on the site of the existing cathedral of Hereford. Brithfrid obeyed; and the translation took place, not without the occurrence of miracles on the way. Many others followed. The murdered king of the East Angles was recognised as a saint; and a sumptuous monument was raised over his remains by Offa, in token of his penitence. Bishop Æthelstan translated the relics into his new “minster,” which was dedicated to St. Ethelbert. His festival was duly celebrated until the Reformation. A fine Early English church, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Ethelbert, remains at Marden, where the body was first interred.

[A.D.1056.]Leofgar, “Earl Harold’s mass-priest,” succeeded Æthelstan. “He,” says the Chronicle, “wore his kenepas (headpiece?) in his priesthood, until he was a bishop; he forsook his chrism and his rood, his ghostly weapons, and took to his spear and to his sword, after his bishophood, and so went in the force against Griffith the Welsh king; and he was there slain, and his priests with him, and Ælfnoth the shire-reeve, and many good men withthem, and the others fled away. This was eight nights before Midsummer[46].” After Leofgar’s death the see remained vacant for four years, during which it was under the rule of Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester.

[A.D.1061-1079.]Walter of Lorraine, chaplain of Queen Edith, was consecrated at Rome by Pope Nicholas II. (He had accompanied Bishop Ealdred of Worcester to Rome, on his elevation to the see of York.) Bishop Walter was a prelate of questionable sanctity, if the story told of him by William of Malmesbury is not an invention of his enemies.

[A.D.1079-1095.]Robert de Losing, like his predecessor a native of Lorraine, is said to have been one of the most learned of the bishops consecrated by Lanfranc. Bishop Robert found his cathedral in ruins. It had apparently remained uncared for during the troubled times of the Conquest, and it had been partly burnt, as we have seen, by the Welshmen under Earl Ælfgar. The Bishop rebuilt it, taking for his model the church of Aachen, (Aix la Chapelle,) founded by Charlemagne. The existing choir (see Pt. I. §II.) has been regarded as part of Bishop Robert’s work.

Remigius of Lincoln, who had also been rebuilding his cathedral, had fixed the day for its dedication, and invited Bishop Robert of Hereford to be present. He refused to undertake the journey, however, saying, according to William of Malmesbury, that the stars assured him the dedication would not take place in the lifetime of Remigius; who died, in fact, the day before that appointed. Bishop Robert is said by Malmesbury to have received a forewarning of his own death from St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, with whom he had lived in the closest friendship. When Wulfstan was on his death-bed, Robert was absent with the King. His friend, says the Chronicler, appeared to him in a dream, and directed him to hasten toWorcester if he wished to see him once more. Bishop Robert set out at once, but whilst resting at Cricklade he was again visited by Wulfstan, who said, “Thou hast done what was possible, but in vain, for I have now departed. Thou, however, shalt not remain here long; and as a token that I speak true, thou shalt to-morrow receive a gift from me.” Accordingly, the Prior of Worcester, where Robert arrived the next day, presented him with a cope lined with lamb-skins, which St. Wulfstan had been in the habit of wearing on his journeys. The Bishop recognised the token, and returning to Hereford died there in the following June, (1095). St. Wulfstan’s death occurred in January.

[A.D.1096, trans. to York 1101.]Gerard, nephew of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, and Chancellor under the Conqueror and William II. On his translation to York, Roger Lardarius was nominated to the see of Hereford by the King, Henry I. He died before he could be consecrated. Reinhelm was then chosen, and received the temporalities as bishop-elect from the King, by the delivery of the ring and pastoral staff. Anselm (seeCanterbury, Pt. II.) refused to consecrate the bishops who had been thus invested; and Reinhelm accordingly restored the temporalities to the King, who, enraged by his submission to the Archbishop, banished him from the court.

[A.D.1107-1115.]Reinhelm, the Queen’s Chancellor, was, however, consecrated by Anselm in 1107, after the King had conceded the main points in dispute, and the Archbishop had returned from his exile. (SeeCanterbury, Pt. II.) Reinhelm is commemorated in an obituary of the Canons of Hereford, as “fundator ecclesiæ S. Ethelberti;” and it has accordingly been considered that he completed the church begun by Robert de Losing. But of this there is no direct proof.

[A.D.1115-1120.]Geoffry de Clivesucceeded. “Bonus quidem et ille,” says William of Malmesbury, “continentissimusque; indifferenter cibis et vestibus quæ minori pretio taxarentur utens; agriculturæ studens.” He greatly improved the lands belonging to the see; but was more careful to increase than to distribute; “leaving great stores behind him to no heir.”

[A.D.1121-1127.]Richard, called “de Capella,” a clerk of the King’s chapel. A bridge across the Wye, at Hereford, was partly built by this bishop. His successor,

[A.D.1131-1148.]Robert de Bethune, had been nominated by the King (Henry I.) in 1129, but was not consecrated until 1131. Bishop Robert was a member of the noble house of Bethune; and received his early education from his own brother Gunfrid, a teacher of some celebrity. He became a canon in the Augustinian priory of Llanthony; and on the death of Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Hereford, was appointed to superintend the building of a religious house at Weobly, where the great Earl was buried. Here he worked as a common labourer, and is said to have injured his health so greatly, that he was recalled to his priory, of which he soon afterwards became the superior. When the see of Hereford became vacant, Robert de Bethune was recommended to the King by the Earl of Gloucester, and at last accepted the bishopric, “quamvis invitus.” During the troubles of Stephen’s reign Hereford suffered greatly. The cathedral was deserted and desecrated, and the Bishop himself was compelled to take flight in disguise. On his return, he “cleansed and repaired” the building. In 1148, Bishop Robert was present at the Council of Rheims, convened by Pope Eugenius III., then an exile in France; and died there, (April 16). His remains were brought to England, and interred in his own cathedral.

A short life of Bishop de Bethune, who was one of the best and worthiest bishops of his age,—a man of peace and religion, when by far the greater number of English bishops were little better than the most turbulent barons,—was written by William of Wycumb, his successor in the prioryof Llanthony, and was printed by Wharton in the second volume of hisAnglia Sacra.

[A.D.1148, trans. to London 1163.]Gilbert Foliot, Abbot of Gloucester, the inflexible antagonist of Becket. Foliot “was admitted to be a man of unimpeachable life, of austere habits, and great learning. He was in correspondence with Popes Cælestine II., Lucius II., Eugenius III., and Alexander, and with a familiarity which implies a high estimation for ability and experience. He is interfering in matters remote from his diocese, and commending other bishops, Lincoln and Salisbury, to the favourable consideration of the pontiff. All his letters reveal as imperious and conscientious a Churchman as Becket himself, and in Becket’s position Foliot might have resisted the King as inflexibly. He was, in short, a bold and stirring ecclesiastic, who did not scruple to wield, as he had done in several instances, that last terrible weapon of the clergy which burst on his own head, excommunication[47].” It was Foliot who uttered the “bitter sarcasm” on Becket’s consecration as primate, “The King has wrought a miracle, he has turned a soldier and a layman into an archbishop;” but in spite of this, Becket “acquiesced in, if he did not promote, the advancement of Foliot to the see of London,” vacant when Becket was consecrated, at Whitsuntide, 1161. Foliot’s translation took place in 1163. From that time he appears on the King’s side, in opposition to the Archbishop, and Becket accuses him of aspiring to the primacy. The life of Foliot belongs too completely to the public history of his time, and is too closely associated with the career of Becket, to be dwelt on here at any length. He was among the bishops excommunicated by Becket on Ascension-day, 1169, and again in Canterbury Cathedral, on the Christmas-day before the Archbishop’s murder; and it was Foliot who preached in that cathedral on the memorable day (July 12, 1174) of King Henry’s penance. He died in 1187.

The letters of Bp. Foliot have been edited by Dr. Giles, (Oxon. 1845,) and form two volumes of the series illustrating the life of Becket. Foliot was annually commemorated by the canons of Hereford, as one who “multa bona contulit Herefordensi capitulo.”

[A.D.1163-1167.]Robert de Melun(of Maledon), called by the annalist of St. David’s “Episcopus Anglorum sapientissimus.” He was present at the famous scene between Becket and Henry at Northampton, when he attempted, with Foliot, to take the cross from the hands of the Archbishop, to whose side he seems to have adhered.

[A.D.1174-1186.]Robert Foliot, a friend and fellow-student of Becket, and probably a relative of Bishop Gilbert of London, although this is not certain. He was one of the four English bishops who in 1179 attended the Lateran Council convened by Alexander III., in which the Albigenses and Waldenses were excommunicated[48].

[A.D.1186-1199.]William de Vere, son of Alberic de Vere, third Earl of Oxford. Bishop de Vere is said by Godwin to have built much, (multa dicitur construxisse,) but no part of the existing cathedral can be assigned to him, and indeed the authority for Godwin’s statement does not appear.

[A.D.1200-1215.]Giles de Bruce, orde Braose, son of William, Lord Brecknock. He sided with the barons against King John, and was compelled to leave his see, the temporalities of which were seized by the Crown. He was afterwards allowed to return, and died at Gloucester in 1215. Bishop Giles is generally said to have built the central tower of his cathedral, but this (see Pt. I. §X.) is undoubtedly an error.

[A.D.1216-1219.]Hugh de Mapenore, Dean of Hereford.

[A.D.1219-1234.]Hugh Foliot, Archdeacon of Salop; founded and endowed a hospital at Ledbury.

[A.D.1234-1239.]Ralph of Maidstone, “vir magnæ literaturæ, et in theologia nominatissimus,” according to Wyke the chronicler. He bought for the see a house in London, together with the advowson of the adjoining church, St. Mary Monthalt. In 1239 Bishop Ralph resigned his see, and became a Franciscan at Oxford, whence he afterwards passed to the house of the Franciscans at Gloucester, where he died.

[A.D.1240-1268.]Peter d’Acquablanca, whose fine tomb remains in the cathedral, (Pt. I. §XIII.,) was one of the intruding “foreigners” by whom England was oppressed during the long reign of Henry III., and whose exactions and tyranny were among the chief causes of the rising of the barons under Simon de Montfort. Like the contemporary Archbishop of Canterbury, Boniface, Bishop Peter was a native of Savoy, and had come to England in the train of William of Valence. He obtained the see of Hereford in opposition to a canon of Lichfield,—“vir per omnia commendabilis,” says Matthew Paris,—who had been elected by the canons; but the King affected none but strangers. In 1250 Bishop Peter took the cross, and went, under the banner of the King of France, to the Holy Land. He returned in 1258, bringing letters, which are said to have been forged, but which professed to be those of the Pope, Innocent IV., commanding all religious houses to grant a tenth of their property toward the crusade. During his absence (in 1257) he spent large sums in endeavouring to procure for himself the see of Bordeaux, when the death of the Archbishop had been reported. But after the money had been spent, the Archbishop of Bordeaux proved to be still alive, and the unfortunate Bishop Peter became, says Paris, the subject of infinite jests. In 1263, with other “foreigners,” he was expelled from England; but he returned to the country, though not to his diocese,in the following year, when Henry III. reprimands him by letter, saying, that “coming to Hereford to take order for the disposing the garrisons in the marches of Wales, he found in the church of Hereford neither bishop, dean, vicar, or other officer to discharge the spiritual functions, and that the church and ecclesiastical establishment was in a state of ruin and decay[49].” The Bishop was soon afterwards in Hereford, where he was taken by Simon de Montfort, who seized all his wealth, and imprisoned Bishop Peter in “Ordelay” [Urdley] Castle. He died in 1268, leaving behind him no good reputation, although he had bought the manor of Holme Lacy for the cathedral, and left money for the annual distribution of much corn to the clergy of his church and to the poor. He founded a monastery at his birthplace, Aquabella, or Aquablanca, in Savoy, where his heart was conveyed for entombment, and where a monument with an inscription still remains. His body was interred in his own cathedral, under the canopied tomb already noticed.

[A.D.1269-1275.]John Breton; has usually been considered the author of a treatiseDe Juribus Anglicanis, and is described by Sir Edward Coke as “a man of great and profound judgment in the common laws, an excellent ornament to his profession, and a satisfaction and solace to himself.” Selden, however, proved that the treatise contains references to statutes passed long after the death of Bishop Breton; and Bishop Nicholson suggests, with much probability, that the true writer of the abstract was a “John Breton,” one of the king’s justices (together with Ralph and Roger de Hengham) in the first year of Edward II.

[A.D.1275-1282.]Thomas Cantilupe, who succeeded, was the last Englishman canonized before the Reformation. He was the son of William Lord Cantilupe, and his wife Millicent, Countess of Evreux. The future bishop and saint was educated at Oxford and at Paris, and after beingmade Chancellor of the former University, became Chancellor of England under Henry III. in 1265. He was, moreover, a clerical pluralist of the first order, being at once canon and chantor of York, archdeacon and canon of Lichfield and Coventry, canon of London, canon of Hereford, and archdeacon of Stafford. It is possible, however, that as in the case of Bishop Walter de Merton, who held the great seal immediately before Cantilupe, the King may have found no more ready means of paying his great officer than by such preferments. In 1275 he became bishop of Hereford. His episcopate was not a tranquil one. He vigorously maintained the rights of his see against both Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, the latter of whom insisted on the visitation of Bishop Cantilupe’s diocese, as his metropolitan; a claim which the archbishops were then vigorously prosecuting. After a long dispute, Peckham solemnly excommunicated the refractory Bishop of Hereford, who at once proceeded to Rome, to lay his case before the Pope, Martin IV. There is reason to believe, however, that as an excommunicated person he could obtain from the Pope nothing more than “the promise of a quick despatch and removal of delays;” and that he only received absolution in the hour of his death, which occurred near Orvieto, August 23, 1282. Richard Swinfield, his successor in the see of Hereford, who had accompanied Bishop Cantilupe to Italy, proceeded, probably at his own request, to separate the flesh of his body from the bones by boiling. The flesh was interred in the church of Santo Severo, near Orvieto; the heart was conveyed to the monastic church of Ashridge in Buckinghamshire, founded by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall; and the bones were brought to his own cathedral at Hereford. As they were being conveyed into the church, says the compiler of the Bishop’s “Life and Gests,” Gilbert Earl of Gloucester approached and touched the casket which contained them, whereupon they “bledafresh.” The Earl was struck with compunction, and made full restitution to the Church of all the lands which Bishop Cantilupe had rightly claimed from him.

Swinfield, who had been the constant companion of Cantilupe, and many of the contemporary chroniclers, bear witness to the purity and excellence of the Bishop’s life, and his tomb soon became distinguished by miracles. The first of these, according to the annalist of Worcester, occurred in April, 1287; at the time, apparently, of the removal of his remains from the tomb in the Lady-chapel to the shrine which had been provided for them in the north transept. The number of marvels increased daily; for, “superstition,” in Fuller’s words, “is always fondest of the youngest saint;” and in 1289, Bishop Swinfield, who had brought Cantilupe’s bones from Italy, wrote to the Pope requesting his canonization. Many difficulties, however, were interposed; and in spite of numerous letters from Edward I. and his son Edward II., it was not until May, 1320, that the bull of canonization was issued by Pope John XXII.[50]It is possible that the excommunication of Cantilupe, and his connection with the Knights Templars, of which Order he was Provincial Grand Master in England, were among the causes of the delay. The Templars were arrested throughout England in 1307; condemned in 1310; and in 1312 the Order was finally dissolved in the Council of Vienne.

A book entitled “The Life and Gests of Saint Thomas Cantilupe,” said to be compiled from evidences at Rome, collected before his canonization, was published at Ghent in 1674. “No fewer than four hundred and twenty-five miracles,” says Fuller, “are registered, reported to be wrought at his tomb.... Yea, it is recorded in his legend, that by his prayers were raised from death to life three-score several persons, one-and-twenty lepers healed, and three-and-twenty blind and dumb men to have received their sight and speech[51].”

The arms of Cantilupe—Gules, three leopards’ heads jessant, with a fleur-de-lis issuing from the mouth, or—have since his canonization been assumed as those of the see of Hereford.

[A.D.1283-1317.]Richard Swinfield, a native of Swinfield in Kent, from which place he is said to have transported a small colony of Kentish men to Herefordshire, laboured throughout his episcopate to procure the canonization of his predecessor, which was not effected until 1320. Bishop Swinfield, however, translated the remains of St. Thomas Cantilupe to the new transept in 1287; and besides this transept, the clerestory and upper portion of the choir, the central tower above the roof, and the eastern transept as it now exists, were either completed, or were in progress during his episcopate. A curious roll of the household expenses of this Bishop for the years 1289-1290 has been edited for the Camden Society, with some very interesting annotations, by the Rev. John Webb.

[A.D.1317, trans. to Worcester 1327.]Adam OrletonThis Bishop had joined the barons, under the Earl of Lancaster, against Edward II. and the Spencers; and in 1323,—two years after the defeat of the barons at Boroughbridge,—he was impeached in Parliament as having given “countenance and assistance to the rebellion.” He refused, as a Churchman, to be so tried, and was delivered to the custody of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whence he was afterwards brought before the bar of the King’s Bench. “These proceedings being looked upon as a violation of the liberties of the Church, the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, and Dublin, came immediately, with their crosses erected, into the court, and carried off the Bishop withoutgiving him time to answer to the indictment[52].” The Bishop was tried in his absence, however,—(the first English bishop brought to trial in a temporal court,)—found guilty, and his temporalities confiscated. But these had been restored before 1326, when Bishop Orleton joined the party of Queen Isabella. He preached before her at Oxford, on the text “doleo caput,” (2 Kings iv. 19,) inferring that a distempered “head” should be removed; and the Queen proceeded with him to Hereford, where the younger Spencer was hanged. Thence the Bishop wrote his famous letter to the keepers of Edward II. at Berkeley Castle,—“Edwardum regem occidere nolite timere bonum est.” In 1327 he was translated, by the influence of the Queen, to Worcester; and in 1333 to Winchester, where he died in 1345.

[A.D.1327-1344.]Thomas Charlton, Canon of York. In 1329 he was Treasurer of England. In 1337 he was sent to Ireland as Chancellor, and was afterwards Justiciary and “Warden” of that kingdom. In 1340 he returned to Hereford.

[A.D.1344-1360.]John Trilleck.Little is recorded of this Bishop, whose fine brass remains in the choir of the cathedral. (Pt. I. §X.) He prohibited the performance of miracle-plays in churches within his diocese.

[A.D.1361-1369.]Lewis Charlton; of some distinction as a theologian.

[A.D.1370, trans. to London 1375.]William Courtenay, son of Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon. From London Bishop Courtenay passed to Canterbury in 1381, and died 1396. As Bishop of London, and as Archbishop, he was a strong opposer of Wickliffe. (SeeCanterbury Cathedral, Pt. II.)

[A.D.1375, trans. to St. David’s 1389.]John Gilbert; was translated to Hereford from Bangor. In 1386 he was Treasurer of England.

[A.D.1389-1404.]John Trevenant: sent on an embassy to Rome by Henry IV. in 1400.

[A.D.1404-1416.]Robert Mascall: had been a Carmelite friar at Ludlow; whence he proceeded to Oxford, and there, by his learning, attracted the notice of Henry IV., who employed him on various embassies. He built great part of the church of the Carmelites in London, where he was buried. Bishop Mascall was present with Bishop Hallam of Salisbury, at the Council of Constance, 1415, 1416.

[A.D.1417, trans. to Exeter 1420.]Edmund Lacy.(SeeExeter Cathedral, Pt. II.)

[A.D.1420, trans. to Chichester 1421.]Thomas Polton, Dean of York. From Chichester he passed to Worcester in 1426.

[A.D.1422-1448.]Thomas Spofford, Abbot of St. Mary’s at York; to which monastery he returned in 1448, having resigned his see. “The record of his abdication is printed in Rymer’sFœdera, vol. x. p. 215: in Wilkins’sConcilia, vol. iii. p. 538, is a writ of pardon for abdicating in favour of his successor, who was to allow him one hundred pounds yearly out of the revenues. The Pope testified by his bull that Spofford had expended on the buildings of his cathedral upwards of two thousand eight hundred marks[53].” No part of the cathedral itself can be of Bishop Spofford’s time; but possibly he erected the cloisters.

[A.D.1449, trans. to Salisbury 1450.]Richard Beauchamp.For this Bishop, one of the best architects of his time,—the superintendent of the works at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor,—seeSalisbury Cathedral, Pt. II.

[A.D.1451, trans. to Lichfield 1453.]Reginald Boulers, Abbot of Gloucester.

[A.D.1453-1477.]John Stanbery, translated to Hereford from Bangor. Bishop Stanbery was born at Stanbery, in the parish of Morwenstow, on the north coast of Cornwall;and bequeathed a “cross of silver gilt” to his baptismal church there. “He was bred,” says Fuller, “a Carmelite in Oxford, and became generally as learned as any of his order, deserving all the dignity which the University did or could confer on him. King Henry the Sixth highly favoured, and made him the first Provost of Eton; being much ruled by his advice in ordering that, his new foundation. He was by the King designed Bishop of Norwich, but William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, got it from him for his own chaplain, and Stanbery was fain to stay his stomach on the poor bishopric of Bangor, till, anno 1453, he was advanced Bishop of Hereford[54].” The Bishop was faithful to Henry VI. throughout his adversity, but was taken prisoner after the battle of Northampton, (July, 1460,) and was long confined in Warwick Castle. After his release he retired to the Carmelite monastery at Ludlow, and died there in May, 1474. He was interred in his own cathedral, in the chantry which he had built and endowed during his life. (Pt. I. §XIV.)

[A.D.1474-1492.]Thomas Milling, Abbot of Westminster, Privy Councillor of Edward IV., and godfather to his son, Edward V. He was buried at Westminster, where a stone coffin remains which is supposed to have contained his body.

[A.D.1492, trans. to Salisbury 1502.]Edmund Audley.(SeeSalisbury, Pt. II.) During his tenure of the see of Hereford he constructed the chantry on the south side of the Lady-chapel. (Pt. I. §XIX.) He was interred in the chantry he afterwards built at Salisbury.

[A.D.1502, trans. to Bath and Wells 1504.]Hadrian de Castello, who had been entrusted by Henry VII. with the management of all business between England and the Papal Court, received both his English bishoprics at Rome,and never saw either. (See, for a fuller notice of him,Wells Cathedral, Pt. II.)

[A.D.1504-1516.]Richard Mayew, Archdeacon of Oxford, President of Magdalen College, and Chancellor of the University, was Henry the Seventh’s Almoner, and was sent to Spain in order to conduct Catherine of Arragon to England. He received the bishopric of Hereford after his return. His fine tomb and effigy remain on the south side of the choir. (Pt. I. §XXI.)

[A.D.1516-1535.]Charles Booth, Chancellor of the Welsh Marches, is best known as the builder of the north porch of his cathedral at Hereford. His tomb adjoins it. (Pt. I. §VII.)

[A.D.1535-1539.]Edward Fox, Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, Almoner to Henry VIII., by whom he was employed on various embassies. It was Fox who first introduced Cranmer to the King, and Fuller calls him “the principal pillar of the Reformation, as to the management of the politic and prudential part thereof, being of more activity, and no less ability, than Cranmer himself[55].” He had been the first to instigate Wolsey, as papal legate, to commence a visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy, in 1523, in consequence of the general complaint against their manners. Bishop Fox died in London in 1538, and was interred in the church of St. Mary Monthalt.

[A.D.1539-1552.]John Skip.On Fox’s death, Edmund Bonner was elected Bishop of Hereford, but before his consecration to that see he was removed to London. Bishop Skip had been Archdeacon of Dorset. He was one of the “notable learned men” associated with Cranmer in drawing up the “Order of Communion,” (1548,) and was probably one of those who assisted in compiling the first Common Prayer-book of Edward VI.[56]

[A.D.1553-1554.]John Harley, was compelled to resign on the accession of Mary because he was a “married priest,” and died a few months afterwards.

[A.D.1554-1558.]Robert Parfew, orWharton, was translated from St. Asaph.

[A.D.1559-1585.]John Scory, translated from Chichester. As Bishop of Hereford, Bishop Scory alienated many of the best manors belonging to the see, but it is very doubtful whether it was in his power to resist effectually the rapacity of the courtiers. It has been proved (seeExeter Cathedral, Pt. II.—Bishop Veysey) that in many cases the bishops of this period have been blamed for alienations which they had done their best to resist.

[A.D.1586-1602.]Herbert Westfaling, Prebendary of Christ Church, Oxford. Godwin, who knew him intimately, describes him as a bishop of unusual excellence, of great purity of life, of great honesty and integrity, and of such serious gravity that he was hardly ever seen to smile. Sir John Harrington relates, that while Bishop Westfaling was preaching in his cathedral, a mass of frozen snow fell from the tower upon the roof, and so frightened the congregation that they endeavoured to escape in all haste. But the Bishop remained unmoved in his pulpit, calmly exhorting them to sit still and fear no harm. All the revenues of his see were expended in works of piety and hospitality by Bishop Westfaling, who left nothing but his private inheritance to his family. He was buried in the north transept, where his effigy remains. (Pt. I. § 12.)

[A.D.1603-1617.]Robert Bennett, Dean of Windsor. Bishop Bennett was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where, says Sir John Harrington, he was “an active man, who played well at tennis, and could toss an argument in the schools even better than a ball in the tennis court.” He was a vigorous defender of the privileges of his see against the corporation of Hereford, and both he and his predecessor Westfaling expended largesums in the restoration of the episcopal residences at Hereford and at Whitbourn. Bishop Bennett’s tomb with effigy remains on the north side of the choir. (Pt. I. §X.)

[A.D.1617-1633.]Francis Godwin, translated to Hereford from Llandaff. Bishop Godwin was the compiler of the “Catalogue of the Bishops of England,” to which all succeeding writers on English Church history have been greatly indebted. He was the son of Thomas Godwin, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and was born at Harsington in Northamptonshire. In the year 1601 he became Bishop of Llandaff, and in 1605 published the first edition, in English, of his “Catalogue.” It was again published in Latin, in 1616, and in 1743 this Latin version was edited, in a large folio volume, by Dr. Richardson, Canon of Lincoln, and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Richardson made considerable additions to the book, besides correcting numerous errors; and it is his edition of the CommentaryDe Præsulibus Angliæthat is alone to be relied upon. “Bishop Godwin,” says Fuller, “was a good man, grave divine, skilful mathematician, pure Latinist, and incomparable historian. The Church of Llandaff was much beholding to him; yea, the whole Church of England; yea, the whole Church Militant; yea, many now in the Church Triumphant had had their memories utterly lost on earth, if not preserved by his painful endeavours. I am sorry to see that some have since made so bad use of his good labours, who have lighted their candles from his torch, thereby merely to discover the faults of our bishops, that their personal failing may be an argument against the prelatical function[57].” Bishop Godwin also wrote a life of Queen Mary, inserted in Kennet’s History of England, vol. ii.; and “Annals of England under Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Mary.” He was interred at Whitbourn, where the bishops of Hereford had a palace, April 29,1633. A good portrait of Godwin, engraved by Vertue, is prefixed to Richardson’s folio.

[A.D.1634, died in November of the same year.]Augustine Lindsell, translated from Peterborough.

[A.D.1635, trans. to Norwich in the same year.]Matthew Wren.(SeeNorwich Cathedral, Pt. II.)

[A.D.1635-1636.]Theophilus Field, had been Bishop successively of Llandaff and St. David’s.

[A.D.1636-1646.]George Coke, translated from Bristol. He was brother of Sir John Coke, Secretary of State under James I. and Charles I. Bishop Coke fell upon the evil days of the civil war, and like the rest of the bishops, was deprived of his see. “He was a meek, grave, and quiet man,” says Fuller, “much beloved of such as were subjected to his jurisdiction[58].” He died in 1650.

For fifteen years the see remained vacant. In

[A.D.1661, died the same year,]Nicholas Monk, Provost of Eton, was consecrated Bishop of Hereford. He was the brother of the great Duke of Albemarle. Bishop Monk never visited his diocese, but, dying at Westminster, was interred in the abbey church there.

[A.D.1662-1691.]Herbert Croft, had been Dean of Hereford before the Rebellion. In his youth he had embraced Romanism, and had been received into the Order of Jesuits, but was reconverted by Bishop Morton of Durham. Bishop Croft is said to have been especially careful to promote none but the clergy of his own diocese to honourable positions within it.

[A.D.1691-1701.]Gilbert Ironside, translated from Bristol.

[A.D.1701-1712.]Humfrey Humphries, translated from Bangor. Wood declares him to have been “excellently versed in antiquities.”

[A.D.1713-1721.]Philip Bisse, translated from St. David’s. Bishop Bisse expended much on the cathedral and on thepalace. In the former he erected a Grecian altar-screen, which has been happily removed during the late restoration.

[A.D.1721, trans. to Salisbury 1723.]Benjamin Hoadly, trans. from Bangor. SeeWinchester Cathedral, (to which see he was trans. from Salisbury,) Pt. II.; but it should be added that the passage there quoted from Hallam’s Constitutional History is far too favourable to the character of Bishop Hoadly.

[A.D.1724-1746.]Henry Egerton, fifth son of the third Earl of Bridgewater.

[A.D.1746-1787.]James Beauclerk, eighth son of the Duke of St. Alban’s.

[A.D.1787-1788.]John Harley, third son of the third Earl of Oxford.

[A.D.1788-1802.]John Butler, translated from Oxford. Bishop Butler owed his elevation to his powers as a political pamphleteer. He was an effective assistant to Lord North in vindicating the American War.

[A.D.1803, trans. to Worcester 1808.]Ffolliott Herbert Walker Cornewall, translated from Bristol.

[A.D.1808, trans. to St. Asaph 1815.]John Luxmoore, translated from Bristol.

[A.D.1815-1832.]George J. Huntingford, translated from Gloucester. Bishop Huntingford had been made Warden of Winchester College in 1789, and retained the wardenship until his death.

[A.D.1832-1837.]Edward Grey.

[A.D.1837, trans. to York 1847.]Thomas Musgrave.

[A.D.1848—.]Renn D. Hampden.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET

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