Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Lichfield Part 7

Notwithstanding these close links between the two kingdoms, in the year 655 Penda with an enormous force invaded Northumbria; he was defeated and killed by Oswy, who now became king of Mercia, but left Peada in his old rule in Mid-Anglia. This was the death-blow of paganism in Mercia; Christianity, which was beginning to take firm hold in Peada's country, spread rapidly, and =Diuma= (656-658) was made bishop of Mercia. This may be said to be the commencement of the see which afterwards was called by the name of Lichfield; but as yet there was no cathedral, nor was any place particularly settled upon as the headquarters of the work which was so enthusiastically carried on. Diuma was a travelling or missionary bishop, and when he died, after a brief rule of two years, the Church in Mercia was an accomplished fact.

Diuma was succeeded by =Creollach= (658-659), who, unlike his predecessor an Irishman, was a Briton; he was appointed by Oswy; but in this same year the Mercians rebelled, Oswy fled, and Creollach fled with him, and finally retired to Iona.

The next bishop was a Saxon abbot named =Trumhere= (659-662), and he was succeeded on his death by =Jaruman= (662-667). Both were appointed by King Wulphere, son of Penda, who had been raised to the Mercian throne by his people; and both were Saxons who had been consecrated in the Northumbrian Church. Jaruman was a most energetic bishop, and he appears to have been sent into Ess.e.x to reconvert the people there who had fallen into paganism again; his mission was a success, and Jaruman returned to his own people in Mercia.

It was during Jaruman's episcopate that difficulties arose between the Church in Britain and the Church in Rome. Rome had sent messengers to Britain, and they had been the means of converting a large portion of the south coast and of East Anglia; but there were differences in the two Churches, and one particularly caused much trouble. The Roman Church had always kept Easter Day on a Sunday, but the British Church held this feast on March 14, whatever day of the week it might be. A synod was called at Whitby, and it was decided, mainly through the instrumentality of Wilfrid, the future bishop of York, in favour of the Roman Sunday. In this way, it may be said, began the rule of Rome in the English Church. Shortly after, in 667, Jaruman died, and no successor was appointed for two years. During this time, Theodorus of Tarsus became Archbishop of Canterbury, and to him belongs the credit of making the English Church: before, each kingdom had had its own Church, but Theodore welded them together into one whole, and completed their dependence on the bishop of Rome. Wilfrid was made bishop of York, and St. Chad, who had been consecrated to that see, retired to the abbey at Lastingham, only in the next year, 669, to be reconsecrated as bishop of Mercia by the new Archbishop of Canterbury.

=St. Chad= or =Ceadda= (669-672) made his seat at Lichfield, and in so doing founded the diocese of Lichfield.

St. Chad, as has been stated before, was the patron saint of Lichfield. What is known of him is princ.i.p.ally derived from Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation." From this we learn that when not on his missionary travels over the diocese he spent most of his time in prayer, and in meditation on death and supernatural things. His method was to proceed from place to place in his diocese on foot; and there is a story of Theodore taking St. Chad in his arms and lifting him on to a horse which he presented to him. He founded the abbey of Barrow-on-Humber, which King Wulphere endowed with fifty hides of land. His headquarters, as we have said, were at Lichfield, and he built, or finished building, a small church near what is still known as St. Chad's Well, at the eastern end of Stowe Pool.

Like his predecessors' his time was short; only for two years was he allowed to labour at Lichfield. There is a beautiful legend of his death which has been well told by Dean Bickersteth. "A week before his death a sound of angelic melody was heard coming from the south-east, until it reached and filled the little oratory where he was praying. This the good bishop interpreted to be his summons to heaven. The voices, he privately told Ovin, were those of angels. The messenger of death, that 'lovable guest,' was with them. They would come again in seven days and take him with them. About the same time, Egbert, a Northumbrian who had been a fellow-student with St. Chad in an Irish monastery, dreamt that he saw the soul of Cedda, Chad's brother, descending from heaven with a company of angels to take the soul of Chad with him into the heavenly kingdom." As he had foretold, so he died; but he was not forgotten, and many were the miracles said to have been performed at his shrine. His bones were removed from their first resting-place near Stowe Church into a beautiful shrine in the cathedral, where they remained until the Reformation, when they were taken away, and are now said to be in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Birmingham.

There is another legend concerning St. Chad which has become more closely attached to Peterborough than to Lichfield, but it must be briefly stated here, as the story appears in some of the decorations of the cathedral. Bede does not mention it, and it has been given in varying forms by different writers. Briefly, the essence of the legend is that Wulphere, the king of Mercia, had killed two of his sons, Wulfade and Rufin, on account of their having been baptised by St. Chad. Each of these young princes had been hunting in the forest when he came across a hart with a rope round its neck. The prince gave chase, and the hart led him to St. Chad, who, having prayed with him, baptised him. This happened to both Wulfade and Rufin separately. Then Wulphere in his anger slew them. Afterwards he repented, and setting out to St. Chad, was led there by the same hart, and found the saint at prayer, with his cloak hanging on a sunbeam. Wulphere was absolved on condition that he should expiate his crime by founding churches and monasteries all over his kingdom. Lichfield is said to have been one of these churches, and Peterborough one of these monasteries. Many churches have been dedicated to St. Chad, especially in the Midlands, and in the east of London there was a well known as St. Chad's Well, where miracles were performed; and it was noted for its medicinal waters up to quite recent times. A large district in east London is still called after St. Chad's Well in the corrupted form of Shadwell.

The next bishop was =Winfrid= (672-675), the abbot of St. Chad's Abbey at Barrow-on-Humber; but in the year that he was appointed a church council was held by Theodore, at which it was decided to split up some of the dioceses. Lichfield being one of the largest, would have been divided at once, but Winfrid, whether for his own sake or at the instigation of King Wulphere, resisted, and the diocese remained unchanged until Wulphere died, when in 675, Winfrid, still remaining opposed to the scheme, was deprived. He subsequently was murdered on his way to Rome.

The new bishop was =Saxwulf= (675-691), abbot of Peterborough, and the work of cutting up the diocese was begun. The sees of Hereford and Worcester were made. Lincolns.h.i.+re was taken from the diocese, and the Middle Angles became the see of Leicester. However, Lichfield still remained an enormous diocese, and when Saxwulf died he was bishop of both Lichfield and Leicester. He was succeeded by =Hedda= (691-721), who is said to have determined the site of the present cathedral by building a church there. However, nothing remains of this cathedral, but it is always supposed that Hedda brought St. Chad's bones from Stowe Church and deposited them here. The cathedral was dedicated to St. Peter.

Hedda and his successor, =Aldwin= (721-737), were bishops of both Lichfield and Leicester. They were followed at Lichfield by =Witta= (737-752), and the connection with Leicester ceased. In 756 Offa, the greatest of the Mercian kings, ascended the throne. Offa added a part of Shrops.h.i.+re to the diocese, which from this time remained the same in extent down to the Reformation. Here followed three bishops--=Hemele= (752-764), =Cuthred= (765-768), and =Berthum= (768-779)--of whom little is known; and then came =Higbert= or =Hygeberht= (785-801), who holds a remarkable position in the history of the diocese. Offa had by this time advanced himself into the leading position in England; and so great was his power that Charlemagne called him emperor of the west, keeping for himself the t.i.tle of emperor of the east. But Offa was first of all king of Mercia, and it did not please him to think that his bishops were subordinate to an archbishop who lived in one of his subject states; and so he determined "to humble Canterbury and exalt Lichfield." He began by confiscating all the property of Canterbury situated in Mercia, and then he appealed to the Pope that the bishop of Lichfield should be made an archbishop. The Pope a.s.sented, a council held at Chelsea in 785 also agreed, and Higbert, the new bishop, became archbishop, with the bishoprics of Worcester, Leicester, Lincoln, and Hereford, parts of the old diocese of Mercia, as well as Elmham and Dunwich, to make up his province. Offa died in 796, and immediately a stir was made to restore Canterbury to its old dignity. The negotiations were long, but in 802 Pope Leo decided in favour of Canterbury, and the council of Cloveshoe in 803 formally annulled the metropolitan dignity of Lichfield. =Aldulf= (801-812), who had succeeded Higbert as archbishop, became bishop, but took precedency after Canterbury overall the other bishoprics, and =Herewin= (812-818) on his appointment submitted to Canterbury.

Shortly afterwards =aethelwald= (818-828) organised the bishopric upon the basis of its present const.i.tution. Churches were springing up all over the diocese, with their own clergy, and so, although the church at Lichfield remained the headquarters of the diocese, yet the clergy attached to it were no longer to be responsible for the ministrations of the whole diocese, but were to confine themselves to the estates of the bishop and the cathedral, where they were to dwell under canons or rules. It is possible that from this time the cathedral clergy became known as canons.

Then comes the period of the invasion by the Danes, whereby the country was devastated and the rich abbeys were destroyed. Peterborough, Crowland, and Ely, "went up in flames"; the enemy advanced along the Trent, and levelled to the ground the famous monastery of Repton--the Walhalla of Mercia--where countless kings and princes had been buried. What happened at Lichfield is not known, but many bishops succeeded one another, of whose consecration, in some cases, the dates are so doubtful that it is not worth while to give them. Their names are:--=Hunbert=, 828; =Kynebert=; =Tunfrith=; =Ella=; =Algar=, 941; =Kinsy=, 949; =Winsy=, 964; =Elfege=, 973; =G.o.dwin=, 1004; =Leofgar=, 1020; =Brithmar=, 1026; and =Wulsy=, 1039; but little is known of them, though these two centuries are far from being unimportant in the history of the diocese.

Probably the destruction of the royal abbeys caused the building of numerous parish churches during this period, and of the collegiate churches which were planted in the princ.i.p.al centres of the population. The former were mostly endowed with lands or t.i.thes to support the parish clergy, or to recompense the canons who should attend the church, in which latter case the t.i.thes were probably "appropriated"

to the cathedral.

So the system developed until about the year 1000, when began, in Mercia, a new age of monasteries, not like the old royal abbeys which had mostly been destroyed, but houses that were filled with monks or nuns of the Benedictine order. These competed with the secular clergy in appropriating the endowments of the churches, and a jealousy began between the two systems which blazed continually, with greater or less heat, until the final overthrow of the monasteries by Henry VIII. at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Early in the eleventh century was founded, at Coventry, the Benedictine abbey which had so great a share in the history of the diocese. Its founder, Earl Leofric, was the husband of the beautiful G.o.diva whose ride through the town made Coventry free from tolls.

"I, Luriche, for love of thee, Doe make Coventre toll-free,"

are the old words. She induced her husband to found and endow the abbey with its twenty-four monks; she herself contributed her gold and silver, and the monastery became so wealthy that "the walls seemed almost too strait to hold it all."

=Leofwin=, bishop of Lichfield (1054-1066), was made the first abbot of Coventry; he died in the year of the Conquest, and was the last Saxon bishop: henceforth a new order of men was to rule the Church in England.

No doubt Lichfield owed to its insignificance as a city the immunity which it again enjoyed while all the neighbouring country was being pillaged. William appointed his own chaplain, =Peter= (1072-1084), as bishop, and here, no doubt, he lived until 1075, when, at the synod of London, it was decided that the seats of the bishops should be in the larger towns and not in the villages. So to the town of Chester, where there were about 400 or 500 houses, the bishop's seat was moved.

It is interesting to find in "Domesday Book" mention of the extraordinarily heavy fines payable to the bishop at Chester for such offences as the following:--"If any free man does work on a holy day, the bishop has a forfeit of eight s.h.i.+llings. A slave or maidservant so transgressing pays four s.h.i.+llings. A merchant coming into the city and carrying a stall shall pay to the bishop four s.h.i.+llings if he take it down between the ninth hour of the Sabbath and Monday without licence from the bishop's officer."

Following Peter came =Robert de Lymesey= (1087-1117), who, after waiting a short time, obtained papal leave to remove his seat to Coventry, the barony of which he bought from the king; and so he became both bishop and abbot, and for about a century his successors united the two offices. This arrangement was not at all to the taste of the monks, and constant quarrels occurred. Robert de Lymesey is said to have rifled the place; some contend, for the sake of the cathedral at Lichfield, but others, in order to prosecute the suit at Rome in which he was involved with the monks.

The next bishop was =Robert Peche= (1121-1126), and then came =Roger de Clinton= (1129-1148); he was known as the soldier-bishop, and was certainly a strong man, whatever his reputation may have been in other ways. At Lichfield, he was a reformer who did much good to the place. The five canons he found there were dependent for their support on the bishop, and he seems to have settled property on the cathedral to support them. He also added a number of prebendaries, or non-resident canons, who were to be members of the chapter, and were to enjoy a stall in the choir; and to each stall a small estate or prebend was attached. Many other things he did; but, princ.i.p.ally, he is supposed to have built the Norman cathedral, and to have fortified the close.

Bishop Roger seems to have been also a great supporter of the Cistercian monks, who appeared in the neighbourhood about this time, and for whom he built an abbey in the diocese at Buildwas, not very far from Shrewsbury. Then, being a soldier as well as a bishop, he started for the East, and died, after fighting in the Crusades, at Antioch in 1148.

Ever since the Conquest the struggles in the Church had been growing sharper. There is no room for a full discussion of these quarrels, but, briefly, it may be said that they arose largely from a desire on the part of the monks and the collegiate churches to shake off the power of the bishops. In doing this it had been necessary to appeal more and more to the Pope, and in consequence the Pope was gradually increasing his power in England, to the detriment not only of the bishops, but also of the king. On the death of Bishop Clinton, Stephen, instead of appointing a successor himself, as had been the custom of the king on previous occasions, found it necessary to depute his authority to a joint council of the monks of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield and Chester. They met at Leicester, and the monks by themselves appointed =Walter Durdent= (1149-1159), prior of Canterbury. The canons would not admit this election, although the new nominee had been precentor at Lichfield; they appealed to Rome, and--how the result came about is not clear, but indeed is a matter of dispute--Durdent was consecrated at Canterbury. He was enthroned at Coventry, but was barred out of Lichfield, where he commenced his rule by excommunicating the canons. But Durdent, being now a bishop, soon drew the canons to his side, and it was with Coventry that the differences continued. He and the prior were summoned to Rome, where it was settled that the bishop should keep the abbey as a monastic cathedral, but that the prior should in the future have the first voice in the election of bishops.

Durdent died at Rome, and was succeeded by =Richard Peche= (1161-1182), son of Robert Peche--for the clergy of that day often married--who seems to have secured the suffrages of both sets of electors. He retired just before his end to the priory of St Thomas, near Stafford, which he had founded in 1180 in memory of Thomas a Becket, who had been murdered ten years previously. He was one of those who had consecrated the archbishop a few years before, and he joined in the popular indignation which ended in the canonisation of the victim. About this time the diocese was permanently divided into the archdeaconries of Derby, Stafford, Chester, and Coventry.

The next bishop was =Gerard Puella= (1183), a celebrated authority on ecclesiastical and canon law. Lichfield refused to admit him, and he died soon after his consecration.

The next bishop was =Hugh de Nonant= or Nunant (1184-1199); his intense hatred of the monks led to terrible disturbances at Coventry. Soon after his consecration he exasperated the monks so greatly that they beat him, and Nonant, with the wounds upon him, hurried to the king, and obtained his consent--some say by purchase--to the monks being turned out. This was done, and secular canons inst.i.tuted in their place. During the absence of King Richard at the Crusades, Nonant appears to have identified himself too much with the cause of Prince John. This brought about his ruin; for, being suspected by Richard on his return from captivity of partic.i.p.ation in the plots against the crown, he was deprived of his bishopric, which in course of time, however, he was allowed to buy back for 5000 marks. He lived not only to see the monks restored to Coventry by the Pope, but also to repent of his harshness to monastical inst.i.tutions. He died on his way to Rome, and was buried among the monks of Caen.

The next election revived the bitterness between Coventry and Lichfield, a bitterness accentuated by the political adherence of the two parties, Coventry being on King Richard's side, Lichfield for Prince John. Under these circ.u.mstances, the canons had not even been called to the ceremony of election, and Coventry's candidate, =Geoffry de Muschamp= (1198-1208), was elected. But the greatest difficulty of all arose at the election of the next bishop. John was now king, and Lichfield in favour. The monks chose their prior, but John would not allow his consecration; then came a series of proposals, to none of which could king, monks, and canons all three a.s.sent, but finally, at the intercession of Pandulf, the Pope's legate, they all agreed on =William de Cornhull= (1215-1223). Thomas of Chesterfield tells us that this bishop conferred the right upon the chapter of electing their own dean.

The next bishop, =Alexander de Stavenby= (1224-1238), was appointed by the Pope, on the appeal to him of both parties, who were still unable to agree. He built the friary in Lichfield, and dedicated it to St. Francis, the founder of the Friar Minors, which order he first introduced into the diocese.

The high position of Stavenby in the councils of the realm make him an important personality among the bishops of the diocese. He died in 1238; and it might have been expected that a successor would have been appointed without difficulty, for during his rule it had been agreed that Coventry and Lichfield should appoint to the vacant bishopric alternatively. Coventry appointed William de Raleigh, but he accepted Norwich in preference, and then the monks claimed to appoint again, but the canons would not allow this, and appointed their dean, William of Manchester, who, however, stood aside when the monks suggested Nicholas de Farnham, and he was too modest to accept the office. Then =Hugh de Patteshull= (1239-1241) was chosen at the king's desire. He was Treasurer of England and a native of the diocese; he seems to have followed in the steps of his predecessor, and it is said that he made new regulations as to the manner of the cathedral services. He died only eighteen months after his appointment, and a fresh trouble arose over the election of a successor; but the Pope intervened without asking permission of the king, and, under the advice of Grosseteste, the famous bishop of Lincoln, appointed =Roger de Weseham= (1245-1256), the dean of the cathedral. The king in his anger seized the endowments of the see, and Weseham began his work amid great difficulties, but finally Henry restored the endowments, and allowed Weseham to prosecute his salutary re-organisation of the clergy. Weseham retired in 1256, and died shortly after. It is doubtful if the monument in the south aisle, generally known as that of Bishop Patteshull, is not in reality that of Bishop Weseham.

There was no contention over the election of the next bishop, =Roger de Molend= or Meyland (1256-1295). He was a natural son of the Earl of Salisbury, William Longespee, and so nephew to King Henry III. His was not an admirable role, the most remarkable event being his attempt, _vi et armis_, to obtain admittance to the Royal Free Chapel of St. Mary at Stafford. Both sides refused to plead at the a.s.sizes, but it was finally decided that the bishop should be allowed the use of the free chapels in Derby and Stafford, but should have no disciplinary powers over their clergy. Afterwards he seems to have neglected his diocese, and the scandalous and avaricious conduct of the clergy, which the last two bishops had controlled, now became so intense that in 1282 Archbishop Peckham had to interfere, and Roger was forced to come into residence. Soon after it was found necessary to find him a coadjutor, who was to advise him in all official acts. Incompetent as he was as a bishop, the diocese obtained several remarkable benefits during his rule. The king gave Cannock Chase to the see, and the west front of the cathedral was begun. It may well be that in his travels he had acquired a love of beauty he would not have acquired at home, and that we owe to him the conception of this beautiful feature of the cathedral. The money it must have cost, too, could only have been found by one whose princely rank enabled him to obtain money with some ease. In London also he left his mark, unhappily now entirely obliterated. Where Somerset House now stands he erected his palace, next to the palace of his brother Bishop of Worcester. It was a beautiful mansion, but the site was too valuable to permit of it belonging to any one but the king when Henry VIII. graced the throne.

About this time the archdeaconry of Stafford was occupied by Thomas de Cantilupe, afterwards Bishop of Hereford. The story of his life belongs to the account of that diocese, but such a man must have had great influence on his archdeaconry.

The next bishop was =Walter de Langton= (1296-1321), Treasurer of England, and friend to King Edward I. He was chosen unanimously by both parties. At first his political duties claimed him, and brought him into collision with the Prince of Wales, who, as soon as he had ascended the throne as Edward II., threw him into prison. There he does not seem to have remained long, and when Piers Gaveston, the king's favourite, was beheaded in 1312, he was restored to his former treasurers.h.i.+p. Langton is princ.i.p.ally remembered in connection with the see as having founded the Lady Chapel and built the Bishop's Palace, for so long a splendid monument to his memory in the north-east corner of the close. He rebuilt also Eccleshall and Haywood Manor houses, and walled the close for "the honour of G.o.d, the dignity of the cathedral, and the bodies of the saints there reposing, and also for security and quiet of the canons."

This last a mistaken work, as we who live after the event are well able to judge. He also bridged the cathedral pool, and made a magnificent shrine for St. Chad's bones. Langton died in 1321 in London, and was carried to Lichfield, where he was buried with much ceremony. His bones were removed into the Lady Chapel when it was finished during the rule of the next bishop, and a sumptuous monument placed over them. The mutilated remains of this monument can be seen in the south choir aisle to this day.

His successor, =Roger de Norbury= or Northbury (1322-1359), was appointed by the Pope, as the two chapters had not agreed once more. His was a long rule, nearly forty years, and filled with good for the see. The registers of both Langton and Norbury are both still in existence among the muniments of the cathedral, and from them we know much of the life of a bishop of this time. Every kind of evil seems to have come under the notice of the bishop--whose power of inducing those who had done wrong to repent and do right was the direct outcome of the terrible threat of excommunication which he was able to wield. Lichfield had constantly during the later reigns been the scene of royal festivities, and after the battle of Crecy Edward III. held his Court here, and there were tournaments and banquets at which the flower of English chivalry a.s.sisted. It is said by some that here occurred the famous incident of the garter which led to the inst.i.tution of the order of that name.

At any rate, Uttoxeter was appropriated to the chapel of the garter.

About this time, too, the cathedral must have been finished; now, too, was the terrible visitation of the black death, that most deadly of all plagues, which is said to have cut off one half of the whole population of the realm. Whether the fear of it, or the occasion of the completion of the cathedral, caused the chapter to set their house in order, certain it is that we have, in the discovery of the sacrist's roll of 1346, a kind of inventory of the valuables of the cathedral at this time; these are set out in the part devoted to the cathedral. Thomas of Chesterfield, the early historian of the diocese, whose work is printed in Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_, and on whom all later writers on the subject have had largely to rely, lived at this time, and brought down his "chronicle"

to 1348, one of the years of the black death.

=Roger de Stretton= (1360-1386), an absolutely uneducated man, succeeded Langton; then came =Walter Skirlaw= (1386) and =Richard Scrope= (1386-1396), but the former, between his consecration and his enthronement, was translated to Bath and Wells, from whence he went to Durham, and the latter, though distinguished in English history, is more noted as Archbishop of York. Next came Bishop =John Burghill= (1398-1414), a barefooted Black Friar, who gained a reputation for asceticism, and left his worldly goods to the church. Richard II. was present at the enthronement of these two last bishops. They were followed by =John Catterick= (1415-1419).

In 1419, =William Heyworth= (1419-1447), the abbot of St. Albans, became bishop. An important question was settled in his time--viz. the bishop's position in the cathedral. At his suggestion, it was arranged that he should give notice to the dean when he intended a visitation: the chapter should be summoned, and they should conduct him to the high altar and there leave him to stand or kneel alone in prayer. Afterwards they were to conduct him to the chapter-house, where he might inquire into the t.i.tle and conduct of the canons; the other cathedral clergy were to be entirely subject to the dean and chapter. His rule saw also the beginnings of the collegiate church of Manchester, which so long after was to become the cathedral of the new diocese to be carved out of our see.

It is unnecessary to more than mention the names of bishops who succeeded about this time: they are--=William Booth= (1447-1450), =Nicholas Cloose= (1452), =Reginald Bolars= (1453-1459). =John Halse= (1459-1492) was called on to give shelter to Queen Margaret after the battle of Bloreheath.

At the end of the fifteenth century there is another political bishop. This was =William Smyth= (1492-1496). He, like several of his successors, was President of Wales, and he was also the founder of Brasenose College, Oxford. Next comes =John Arundel= (1496-1503), and then comes =Geoffry Blythe=, whose rule, commencing in 1503, lasts until 1531, the year when Henry required the clergy to acknowledge him as supreme head of the Church. This period of the dark days before the Reformation must have been one of great difficulty for the bishops, but Blythe seems to have been very popular at Lichfield; he made several attempts to stamp out Lollardism, and has earned for himself an unenviable niche in the house of fame by his inclusion in Fox's "Book of Martyrs" for his holding of the "Court of Heresy." One martyr (a woman) was burned at Coventry, and others were tried and acquitted or condemned to less horrible punishments. On the whole, Blythe seems to have been as gentle as the times would allow him to be. He died in 1531, and escaped the storm which was now to burst. When it had cleared away, many of the old religious landmarks had disappeared; Lichfield Cathedral had lost her sister minster, and had been shorn of much that it valued and was beautiful.

After an interval, =Rowland Lee= (1534-1543) was appointed. He had been chaplain to the king, and it was he who officiated at the private marriage of Henry and Anne Boleyn; he was rewarded with the bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, and was made President of Wales, in which latter appointment he was said to have ruled so wisely that we owe to him the kindly feelings which have ever since existed between the two countries. This work must have kept him much away from the diocese, and it was superintended by two suffragans; but we have it on record that he did his best to save something for the diocese from the wreck of the Reformation; how little he was able to do we shall now see. He also issued to the clergy a set of injunctions, in which the new teaching and ideas are set forth, "that the King's Majesty is only Supreme Head under Chryst in Erthe of this his Churche of England"; that every parish priest shall provide for his church a "Boke of the hole Byble both in Latin and alsoe in Englishe, and lay the same in the Quiere for every man that will loke and read therein"; and other injunctions on prayers and preaching and behaviour, which are not, like the first two, new and startling, but are reminiscences of the ordinances and manners of the past.

Bishop Lee, who had failed in his efforts to save the cathedral church of Coventry, also exerted himself on behalf of the shrine of St. Chad, and succeeded so well that, though the shrine was rifled of its jewels and precious metals, they were granted to the uses of the cathedral, instead of finding their way into the coffers of the king. The ashes of the saint were stolen by one of the prebendaries. Soon after, the collegiate churches were confiscated, and the diocese, like other dioceses, found itself stripped of all its finest churches. The royal chapels of Stafford, Shrewsbury, Chester, Bridgenorth, Derby, and Penkridge all went; and throughout the country, for want of the endowments which had been confiscated, churches and chapels were falling into ruin.

Henry seems to have had ideas of using some of the money thus obtained for ecclesiastical purposes, but his own needs did not permit him to do much. The bishopric of Shrewsbury, which he had planned, came to nothing, though a suffragan with that t.i.tle was appointed; but at Chester the abbey of St. Werburgh became a cathedral church when, in 1541, the see of Chester was founded, and Ches.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re were taken from Lichfield to form the new diocese.

=Richard Sampson= (1543-1553), dean of the cathedral, succeeded Lee as bishop, and died early in Mary's reign. His successor, =Ralph Bane= (1554-1558), lighted the fires in the diocese, and many perished at his hands. He was a bishop after Mary's heart, and sat with Tonstall and Bonner in the inquisitions which disgraced the reign. He resigned on the advent of Elizabeth. And then another kind of persecution commenced; this time it was the Papists who suffered, and many were done to death in the diocese.

Following Bane came =Thomas Bentham= (1560-1579), and =William Overton= (1580-1609); then =George Abbott= was bishop in 1609, and in one year was promoted to Canterbury, where he preceded Laud, whose life-long opponent he was. Then came =Richard Neill= (1610-1614), who was dean of Westminster as well, and earned an ign.o.ble reputation by burning a Papist named Wightman, at Lichfield. He was consecrated to Rochester in 1608, and translated successively to Lichfield, 1610; Lincoln, 1614; Durham, 1617; Winchester, 1628; and York, 1632. =John Overall= (1614-1618) wrote that part of the "Church Catechism" which explains the sacraments; he afterwards went to Norwich. =Thomas Morton= (1619-1632) came from Chester; he was one of the most learned bishops of the time, and a noted advocate of the Church of England principles.

=Robert Wright= (1632-1644) was a supporter of Laud; under him the cathedral service became again something like that of the time of Bishop Patteshull. He was one of the twelve bishops who were impeached by the Long Parliament in 1641, and, though an old man, pleaded his cause at the bar of the House of Commons. He was still bishop when the Civil War broke out; and during the famous siege of Lichfield he was shut up in his castle at Eccleshall, where he died while it was being defended against the Parliamentarians. His successor, =Accepted Frewen=, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, was appointed by the king, and consecrated in the chapel of his college; but, having neither cathedral, revenues, nor power, he retired into Kent, until in 1660 he became Archbishop of York.

=John Hacket= (1661-1671) was appointed to the see by Charles II., and decided that its t.i.tle should be altered from "Coventry and Lichfield"

to "Lichfield and Coventry"; partly, no doubt, because the cathedral was here, and partly because in the late troubles Lichfield had been loyal to the Crown, and Coventry had not. His great work was the restoration of the cathedral from its ruins, and the re-organisation of the diocese. He had had a distinguished record, and was one of the sub-committee in 1640 appointed to try and settle the vexed questions in the Church, and as such he made an eloquent speech at the bar of the House of Commons. Later he continued the use of the liturgy in his church of St. Andrew, Holborn, after it had been forbidden, and when the officer and soldiers were sent to arrest him and ordered him to desist on pain of instant death, he answered: "Soldier, I am doing my duty, do you do yours," and continued the service. Surely a man pre-eminently fitted for the work of re-organisation he was to do at Lichfield; and the king got the credit from the clergy of having the old "apostolic spirit of discerning,"

so greatly was he to their minds. He must have been a wit too, for, when the bishopric was offered to him, he remarked that he would rather that in future times people should ask why Dr Hacket was not a bishop, than why he was. He is also said to have entreated the gentleman who had declared that h.e.l.l was paved with bishops' skulls to tread lightly over his.