Monuments.--West's Chapel.--Alcock's Chapel.--Northwold
Cenotaph.--Basevi.--Shrine of Etheldreda.--Lady Chapel.--View
from Tower.--Triforium.--Exterior of Minster.--Palace, "Duties"
of Goodrich.--St. Mary's.--St. Cross.--Cromwell's
House.--Cromwell at Ely.--St. John's Farm.--Theological
College.--Waterworks.--Basket-making.
The monuments within the Ambulatory may now claim our attention.
Starting at the southern entrance, let us look first at a canopy of
coloured stone, the tomb of De Luda, Bishop of Ely from 1290 to 1298.
The builder of Ely Chapel,[226] Holborn, he was eminent for learning,
and was keen to enrich the See; as a man of note he was sent by Edward
the First to France to settle terms of peace. Here we can study the
details of Decorated work at its best. Close at hand is Bishop
Barnett's tomb of grey marble, of a date somewhat later, robbed of the
effigy in brass which was once part of it. Next we come to the
cenotaph of Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who lived during the Wars of
the Roses. He had travelled to Jerusalem, and had made his home in
Italy, and was known as "The Pilgrim Scholar." A pioneer of Greek,
then reviving in the schools of Western Europe as the result of the
fall of Constantinople, he was also a patron of Caxton and his novel
printing press. Under Edward the Fourth he tried his hand at governing
Ireland, where his cruelty toward the Lancastrians gained for him the
name of "the Butcher." He was beheaded in 1470, and appears here in
marble lying between his two wives. Next note Bishop Hotham's tomb, of
the Decorated period. His name is familiar to us as having promoted by
every means in his power the work carried out by Alan of Walsingham.
[Footnote 226: See p. 322.]
So far the tombs we have noticed have stood in a line under three
arches of the Presbytery, as the eastern part of the Choir is called:
we now turn to the south aisle to look at that of Peter Gunning,
Bishop of Ely under Charles the Second, who wrote (as we mentioned
before) the prayer to which we owe the phrase "All sorts and
conditions of men." The mitred bishop rests his head on one hand, in
an attitude somewhat ungainly, and his monument is of little artistic
merit. But the resolute, delicately-cut features deserve our study,
and the epitaph is of interest as recording how he had vindicated the
Church of England in the presence of Cromwell himself. Let us pause a
few steps further east to look at the calm face of Canon Selwyn, a
nineteenth century lover of the cathedral; and then, as we pass the
tomb of Bishop Eustace, who built the western porch, let us go back in
thought to the far-off troublous days of King John.
From the Retro-choir we enter Bishop West's chapel, rich with the
ornament of Perpendicular architecture at its highest pitch of
elaboration. Nicholas West was Bishop of Ely under Henry the Eighth,
from 1515 to 1533; and little did he foresee that the sanctuary he was
adorning with the devotion of a lover who offers of his best would be
despoiled and defaced by his own immediate successor in the See.
He was no novice as an architect when he came to Ely; for while Dean
of Windsor he had completed the vaulting of St. George's Chapel. This
chantry abounds in work characteristic of the Renaissance, extremely
rare in England. Again and again, always with arabesque ornament that
recalls the designs of Raphael in the Loggie of the Vatican, is
reproduced the bishop's favourite motto, _Gratia Dei sum quod sum_
("By the grace of God I am what I am"), alluding, it may be, to his
own humble parentage; for, born the son of a baker in Putney, he rose
to be Bishop of Ely, and to live "in the greatest splendour of any
prelate of his time"; he kept a hundred servants; nor did he forget
the poor, feeding two hundred of them daily at his gate; or it may be
that the motto refers to his having in early life brought upon himself
disgrace by his violent temper. He had been turned from these evil
ways to become the friend and ally of the two saintliest men in
England--Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher.
Besides embellishing this chapel with this motto, he adorned it
further with exquisite statuary. Here delicate canopies, upwards of
two hundred in number, still overhang corresponding pedestals, on
which there stood once, for a few short years, statuettes of
workmanship equally delicate; but of these nothing is left beyond a
few traces of their feet, which being carved out of the solid stone
did not give way when the tiny statue of which they formed a part was
broken off by the mandate of Bishop Goodrich. When the quarrel arose
between Henry the Eighth and the Pope as to his repudiating Catharine
of Aragon, Bishop West was true throughout to the cause of the injured
Queen; but he died in 1533, just before the bursting of the storm in
which his friends, More and Fisher, laid down their lives, and was
buried in the chapel that bears his name.
Here, too, lie the bones of the great Earl Brithnoth, who, as we
remember, was brought back hither headless, from the battle of Maldon,
by the monks of Ely to be buried amongst them according to their
promise. We connect this warrior's character with the dying words
attributed to him in Anglo-Saxon poetry, "God, I thank Thee for all
the joy that I have had of Thee in life."[227] Other Anglo-Saxon
worthies of the ninth and tenth centuries rest also in this chapel: an
Archbishop of York, a Swedish Bishop, and several Bishops of Elmham,
in Suffolk, and Dorchester, in Oxfordshire--Sees which were in later
years transferred to Norwich and Lincoln respectively. It is held that
these were retired prelates, who had come to end their days at Ely;
where they were welcome guests, as they were licensed by the Diocesan
to perform the often-needed episcopal functions of the Abbey, without
calling in the distant and over-busied Bishop of Dorchester, to whose
See Ely belonged. This was a convenience both to the Brotherhood and
to the Diocesan himself. The names of Earl Brithnoth and of these
contemporaries are inscribed on tablets let into the wall of this
chantry.
[Footnote 227: See p. 312]
Touching it on the northern side, behind the screen of the High Altar,
we see a fine tomb, Perpendicular in style, where lies buried the
Cardinal de Luxembourg, a foreign prelate presented to the See of Ely
in 1438 by King Henry the Sixth, but never (it seems) canonically
confirmed as Bishop. In order to gain space for his chapel, Bishop
West did not scruple to take a slice off the tabernacled work of
unrivalled beauty that adorned this adjoining tomb, but the northern
side he left in its perfection. Notice, too, close at hand, a bronze
monument to Dr. Mills, professor of Hebrew, who died about the middle
of the nineteenth century. The recumbent figure is of great beauty.
Next we come to Bishop Alcock's chapel, occupying the northern corner
of the ambulatory, as Bishop West's does the southern. It was built, a
generation earlier, by Bishop Alcock only a few years after his
reconstitution of St. Radegund's Priory at Cambridge as Jesus College,
recorded in our sixth chapter, and is marked as his by the frequent
recurrence of his "canting" armorial bearings, a shield and crest _all
cocks_, or, rather, black cocks' heads. He was a great builder, a
great worker, and, like many another ecclesiastic of his day, a great
politician, being Lord President of Wales, and Comptroller of the
Royal Works to Henry the Seventh; yet withal he was a man of marked
sanctity. His chapel is rich in Perpendicular ornament. A wreath of
grapes and vine-leaves in stone runs round it in all directions, as if
verily clambering. The undercutting of this wreath is wondrous, but
perhaps the marvel of it culminates in a pendant boss of vine-leaves
on the northern side so deeply wrought that we can see right through
it, yet perfect to-day as when first carved.
The masons who worked here liked their joke; and one of them made a
boss of foliage, graceful enough when seen from above,--but stoop down
to look at it from below, and behold a grinning imp. This stonework
was chiselled _in situ_, the rough blocks were placed where they were
to stay, and there they were cut into the shape required, several
being even yet unfinished. Canopied niches abound here, but of the
statuary that once filled them one figure alone has escaped
destruction, and still indicates how beautiful its companions must
have been. To Bishop Alcock Jesus College, Cambridge, owes its
existence, and Peterhouse many benefactions; and here is his tomb. In
1900 Bishop Alwyne Compton filled the window of this chapel with
stained glass, depicting four of his most noted predecessors.
Leaving this chantry behind we see on our right, under his own Early
English bays, the monument to our old friend, Hugh de Northwold, who
lies buried not in this spot but in the middle of his presbytery.
Before he became Bishop of Ely he had been Abbot of Bury St.
Edmund's, for which place he ever retained a warm affection. His feet
touch a block of marble, on which is sculptured the martyrdom of St.
Edmund, whom we see tied to a tree and shot to death by Danish arrows,
while his beheading is also represented. Here, too, is a wolf guarding
the Saint's head, according to the legend. The story ran that, after
the Saint's martyrdom and decapitation, his surviving subjects, to
whom his "universal graciousness which yet suffered no unbecoming
familiarity" had deeply endeared him, sought, so soon as the Danes had
marched away, to take up his remains for fitting burial. The body they
soon found, but the head had been cast into a thicket, and was not
discovered till the searchers heard a voice crying, "Here! Here!
Here!" which guided them to the spot where it lay. A huge wolf was
standing, as it were, on guard over the sacred relic, but did not
offer to attack the finders, who, on their part, suffered it to remain
unhurt. The faithful beast followed them like a dog till it saw the
head laid together with the body, and then quietly departed into the
forest, no man doing aught against it.
Close at hand, leaning against the northern wall of the aisle, is a
detached fragment of stonework, once the arm of Northwold's abbatial
chair which he brought with him from Bury St. Edmund's. This, too, is
made in the form of a beast of prey (somewhat distantly resembling a
wolf), holding between its paws a human head. The Abbey of Bury St.
Edmund's, it may be mentioned, was, in some sort, a daughter House of
Ely. When King Edgar, "the Peacemaker," founded that monastery in
honour of the Royal Martyr he populated it, in the first instance, by
drafting forty monks from Etheldreda's earlier royal foundation.
We will next look at the impressive monument of William of Kilkenny,
Bishop of Ely for three years under Henry the Third. He gave great
offence through being consecrated bishop by the Archbishop of
Canterbury in Italy, instead of in England, where it was felt that
both prelates ought to have been attending to their duties at home;
he, moreover, died abroad on a journey to Spain, whither he was going
on the King's business. A traveller and statesman, he was also a
generous promoter of education, as is shown by his founding
scholarships at Barnwell Priory. A recumbent figure holding a crozier,
he rests on a pillow as if asleep.
Next we reach the tomb of Bishop Redman, who held the See for a very
short time in the opening years of the sixteenth century. The tomb is
of fine Perpendicular work, and the Bishop lies under a canopy rich in
armorial bearings; but the figure is strangely truncated at the foot,
which derogates not a little from its beauty.
Retracing our steps for a few yards, we find beneath our feet a brass
which records one of the tragedies that the Minster has witnessed;
here lies buried Basevi, the gifted architect of the Fitzwilliam
Museum at Cambridge, who met with his death in 1845 while accompanying
Dean Peacock over the work of repair going on in the western tower.
The Dean had just a moment before given the architect a caution to
take care how he walked. Basevi, familiar with scaffolding, smiled at
the advice, and going on with his hands in his pockets, came to a hole
he had not perceived, and fell through in a way that would have been
well-nigh impossible had his hands been free; his feet struck the
pavement below with a jar so intense that death was almost
instantaneous.
And now we end our tour round these sepulchres and monuments by
contemplating all that remains of what was once the rallying centre
for those countless pilgrims who travelled hither in search of
spiritual and physical benefit--the shrine of St. Etheldreda. It was
once enriched with gems and costly hangings. It has been told how
Queen Emma, in 1016, gave it a "purple cloth worked with gold and set
with jewels."[228] Sixty years later the shrine is described as "made
in part of silver, as adorned with pearls, emeralds, onyxes,
alamandine stones, embossed with images in relief, among which were
two lions carved in crystal, also four figures of angels carved in
ivory." Such it was made by Theodwin, who was Abbot for three years
under William the Conqueror, and such he left it. After another sixty
years it was robbed by Bishop Nigel, who took away much of its gold
and silver and used it for his own purposes.
[Footnote 228: See p. 314.]
But if it was despoiled in one century it was enriched in the next.
From 1252 it stood behind the High Altar in Bishop Northwold's
Presbytery, erected purposely for its reception; with the figure of
the Foundress of the Abbey gazing down upon it from the central boss
of the vaulting overhead. The shrine was thus held in honour till the
reign of Henry the Eighth; when the Royal greed swooped down upon it,
the dust of Etheldreda was thrown we know not where (though the chapel
in Holborn bearing her name, and the church of the Dominicans at Stone
in Staffordshire claim to possess relics of her hand), her coffin was
broken up and destroyed, the treasures that adorned her shrine were
dispersed. Love of loot was the great motive for this spoliation;
hatred of abuses, some real, some imaginary, was the hypocritical
excuse. Whatever may have been the pretext for its demolition, the
shrine was robbed and left empty.
The existing monument is a vaulted canopy of the fourteenth century,
and is held to be due to Alan of Walsingham. Much of the ancient
colouring survives on its northern side, but the southern has been
completely refaced with new stone-work. Let no one leave without
stooping down to pass beneath it, where it is easy to stand upright.
It was here that pilgrims congregated, happy in the sense that they
were in close proximity to the bones of the sainted Abbess. Here once
was sheltered the sarcophagus of marble that held the body of the
Foundress of the Abbey. Sturdy blows must have been needed to
annihilate it; but destroyed it was, and no tradition gives any record
of its fate, nor has any remnant of it ever been recovered. Stripped
as we see the shrine, now set aside in the northern aisle of the
presbytery, it seems left to prove that dignity may linger on for
ages, long after the word has been spoken "Thy glory is departed."
Before leaving the cathedral we must pass into the Lady Chapel
adjoining the north-eastern transept, connected with it by a passage.
We have already told when and by whom it was built, and when and by
whom it was desecrated. At the Reformation it was rededicated to the
Holy Trinity, and became a parish church, replacing the church of St.
Cross, which once stood close to the cathedral, but was pulled down
during the sixteenth century. Our visit must have its painful side, as
we remember how one form of faith built this chapel and another
defaced it. We could envy those who saw it fresh from the hand of
gifted sculptors and masons, its windows, now so bare, all aglow with
colour of a richness to which the few poor fragments that remain bear
eloquent testimony.
This chapel measures a hundred feet in length and is about half that
width, the roof is of a single span, with no pillars to support it.
Around it runs a stone bench, divided up by canopied niches still
bearing traces of the old colouring--red, blue, green and gold. The
canopied work over these niches is in almost perfect preservation,
rich and free in design, but the statuary which once abounded under
and above it has been ruthlessly and deliberately broken. Only one
head half hidden by sculptured foliage escaped the iconoclasts as they
went round the hallowed walls to "break down all the carved work
thereof with axes and hammers."
We look up and see some relics of stained glass, accidentally spared
when the rest was smashed, in colour most harmonious, the greens and
reds incomparably mellow in tone; while certain small outlined figures
strangely traversing it, stiff yet vigorous, recall the painting on
Egyptian monuments. A few square feet of this precious glass, a
multitude of headless yet graceful statuettes canopied by unblemished
stone-work, are still left to show us how beautiful the whole must
have been when in its glory. We leave with a sigh the chapel, designed
by Alan of Walsingham, and built by his faithful subsacrist John of
Wisbech.
Those who desire it can, before they quit the Minster, climb to the
top of the western tower, and if the day is clear they will be well
rewarded by a superb view over the "boundless plain" below; towns and
hamlets, steeples and spires, spread there beneath us, nor must we
forget the railways, with their kindly evidence of modern life at its
fullest. To the east the horizon is bounded by those East Anglian
uplands which nurtured Etheldreda for her great work here. But, beyond
almost any other, this is essentially a man-made landscape; its
salient features are not hills, but buildings, not rivers but lodes.
Peterborough, the sister Abbey-Cathedral, is in view twenty miles away
to the north-west, and many a church of note and beauty is prominent
within nearer range, including the towers and spires of Cambridge
fifteen miles to the south. The very cornfields and pastures beneath
us have been reclaimed from the marsh by man; while, far on the
north-east, is "Denvers Sluice" protecting the rich fenland from
inundation. The view from the top of the tower is well worth a climb,
if we have time and strength for the venture.
Those who wish to be acquainted with the structural secrets of the
cathedral should make an effort to gain admittance to one of the
spiral staircases to the upper passages that lead from triforium to
triforium, from clerestory to clerestory. In these higher regions we
shall still come upon deeply wrought crocketing, such as that in the
upper eastern lancet windows--crocketing seen only by the stray
visitor, yet worked with ungrudged labour and skill. Here we may step
along the plank that takes us from beam to beam for a hundred feet
over the vaulting of the Choir, through the spacious chamber that
separates this vaulting from the outer roof. On every beam stands a
pail of water ready in case of fire.
Through a low doorway at the end we pass to the circle of the lantern.
Here a shutter-like panel can be opened and we can look downwards if
we will, but we shall probably elect rather to spend these rare
minutes in gazing upwards, on the figure of Christ in the key boss of
the vaulting, now that for once in our lives we find ourselves near
enough to John of Burwell's carving to see how bold and yet how
reverent it is.[229]
[Footnote 229: See p. 358.]
One question forces itself upon us, how was it placed here? How was
Mr. Gambier Parry able to paint the glowing angels on these panels? We
see in imagination the scaffolding, the ropes, the pulleys, that have
been in use here, where now all is calm and rest, and we feel that
William Watson might have had this very scene before him when he wrote
the lines:
"No record Art keeps
Of her travails and woes:
There is toil on the steeps,
On the summit repose."
The tourist has one further duty to perform; for he must not leave Ely
without walking round the cathedral outside. He will then be perplexed
by the anachronisms before him; he will see Perpendicular windows
inserted in Norman aisles, Decorated tracery in Early English masonry;
he will observe this from without more plainly than from within, and
he will realise how the monks who designed and built it all had a firm
belief in themselves, and in their own age, so that they did not
shrink from what we should now count as acts of Vandalism. They no
more hesitated to displace the work of their forefathers by their own,
than we hesitate to light our houses and churches with electricity,
instead of being content with the gas that was good enough for our
grandparents.
As we turn to the north, on leaving the cathedral by the western door,
we shall be puzzled by the strange appearance of the steeple on its
northern side. For Ely Minster, we cannot deny it, is lop-sided; it
has no north-western transept to correspond with the south-western. On
the north side of the tower there is masonry proving that once it had
the support of such a transept; but there is no record of its fall or
demolition, so we are left to surmise that perchance it shared the
fate of the adjoining church of St. Cross, described as a "lean-to,"
dark and "uncomley, very unholdsome for want of thorrowe ayre" which
we know to have been pulled down during the reign of Elizabeth.
We must now go eastward, and, keeping close to the cathedral as we
follow the path that surrounds it, we shall be able to drink in the
view, described earlier, of the Minster as seen from the east. From
this point we can grasp it all, and we can feel ourselves in close
touch with the builders of yore, with Simeon, and Richard, and Hugh,
and Alan, and John; for the work of each is here before our eyes at
once. They now rest from their labours, leaving them as a priceless
legacy to benefit ourselves and others. Look at Richard's transepts
resting on old Simeon's foundations; look at Hugh's lancet windows, at
Alan's incomparable lantern, at the Lady Chapel which John was able to
build through his finding of that brazen urn. The space that lies
between us and these men of mark seems bridged by a span as we
contemplate their work and try to understand it.
As we complete our circuit of the East end, and stand at that of the
south transept, we shall be struck with a conspicuous range of ruined
arches built into the Canons' residences to the south-east. These are
the remains of the Infirmary; which we have seen to play such an
important part in the life of the Abbey. It had its own chapel, hall
and kitchen, and stood on the site of the original Saxon church. The
space between it and the Minster was called the Slype, and served as a
kind of market, whither travelling merchants brought their wares for
the inspection of the Prior, Sacrist, and other chief officers of the
Abbey. These officers, we may mention, did not share the common life
of the monks, but had houses of their own, fragments of which still
dot the "College,"--mostly, like the Infirmary, now built into the
residences of the various Canons.
Not a stone's throw from the Galilee Porch, just across the street
towards the west, stands the episcopal palace. At one time this palace
was actually connected with the cathedral by a covered gallery
crossing the street. We can see from an old print how seriously this
erection must have blocked the traffic, and on this account it was
finally removed; yet its name adheres to the thoroughfare over which
it once passed, and which is still called "the Gallery." The Bishop of
Ely is fortunate in having his house close to his cathedral, unlike
too many of the episcopal residences, which are at an inconvenient
distance from the central city of the See. Moreover, his palace is of
reasonable size; not too large nor yet too small for the hospitality
to which a bishop must be given if he is to live up to the Scriptural
standard; and it has another great practical advantage in being near
to a station where several lines converge, and where all trains stop.
The Palace was built in the main by Bishop Alcock toward the end of
the fifteenth century. It is of chequered red brick with stone
facings; his own arms, three heads of the barn-door cock, and the arms
of the See, three crowns, are worked in stone on the face of the front
wing looking north; there project, moreover, three niches (now empty)
with the canopies he loved so well. Thirty years later Bishop Goodrich
(who robbed these niches of their statuary) added the western gallery,
a hundred feet long, with its beautiful oriel window, on whose outer
panels he caused to be engraved his original version of our Duty
toward God and our neighbour, which we may still read for ourselves if
we can contrive to see through certain bushes that hide it. These
inscriptions are on two slabs of freestone beneath the two side-lights
of the oriel window in the gallery of the palace. Unhappily they are
rapidly perishing under the action of the weather, and will soon be
altogether lost. This is unfortunate, as they are of no small
interest, representing, as it would seem, Goodrich's original draft
for the "Duties," which were afterwards expanded into the form so
familiar to us in the Catechism. Nor does any one seem to have been
at the pains to record them verbatim while they remained legible; so
that now many conjectural words have to be supplied, by considering
the number of letters in the spaces worn away. In the following
reproduction these conjectural words are placed within brackets and
italicised. The duty towards God, which is on the eastern side, is in
Roman capitals, and probably had eleven lines, the first three of
which are wholly gone. It runs thus:--
[_The . duty . toward . god . is . to .
believe . in . him . to . love . him .
with . all . our . hert . & . soul .
and_] . all . our . power . to . wors
hippe . god . to . give . him . tha
nkes . to . put . our . whole . trust
in . him . and . to . cal . on . him . to
honoure . his . holy . name [_and
his_] . worde . and . to . serve . god
[_truly_] . all . the . days . of . our
lyfe.
The duty towards our neighbour, on the western side, is in Old English
letters, in fourteen lines, as follows:--
The . duety . [_towards . our . neigh_]boure . is
to . love . him . a[_s . we . do . ourself . an_]d . to
do . to . all . men . as . I . wo[_uld . they . do ._ ]to . me
to . honour . and . obay . [_the . King . and . all . set_] under . him ? ? ?
beme ? ? [_and . to . order . ourselves_]
lowly . to . all . [_our . betters_] . to . hurt . no
body . by . word . nor . d[_eed . to . be . jus_]te . in . all
our . delyng . to . bear . no . [_malice_] . in . our . hert
to . kep . our . handes . from . stelyng . & . our
tong . from . evil . speaking . to . kep . our . bo
dys . in . temperance . not . to . covet . other . mens .
goods . but . laboure . truly . for . our . lyvyng . in . y^e
state . of . lyfe . it . plese . God . to . call . us . on . to .
Of the many residences once belonging to the See, this palace is all
that is left. In looking back, we must remember that in days when
travelling was difficult it may have been of real advantage to the
Bishop to have places of abode dotted all over his diocese, where he
could stay, and where he could exercise his episcopal functions. We
read, for instance, how, in 1487 and the following year, Bishop Alcock
admitted between forty and fifty persons to minor or higher orders in
his chapel at Downham Manor.
[Illustration: _St. Mary's Church._]
Beyond the Palace stands St. Mary's Church, built by Bishop Eustace
about 1200, while Norman architecture was developing into Early
English. It has been remarked that "its architect was disposed to
adopt the new style without quitting the old one." The columns of the
nave are simple Norman; the chancel and chapel on the south are
distinctly Early English; the tower and spire are of Decorated work;
and we meet with inserted Perpendicular windows. In the midst of a
well-kept churchyard may be seen a broken and ancient font, with an
inscription embossed in lead stating that it has been so placed that
it may receive only the water of heaven.
The citizens of Ely throughout the Middle Ages were well provided with
churches, having for their devotions both St. Mary's and also St.
Cross, of which we have spoken before. The name St. Cross has an
interesting history. When first the abbey was built, there stood
against the stone rood-screen thrown across the nave an altar known as
the Altar of the Holy Cross; here the inhabitants of the city were
invited to worship, while the monks said their office quite apart
within the screen. But, as time went on, the monks found that this
twofold worship was not convenient, and, wishing to have the Abbey to
themselves, they built, immediately outside it on the north, a church
for their lay neighbours, "for doing such things as should be done in
a parish church," and named it St. Cross, after the altar within the
Minster which was thus superseded. With the dispersion of the monks
the nave came again into public use, and the church of St. Cross was
permitted to decay, and was finally removed.
Adjoining the churchyard of St. Mary's stands the vicarage. It is a
rambling house of moderate size, quaintly made of rough hewn beams
with reed-stiffened clay in between, and opening on to the street.
This house has a notable history. It was first built as a tithe house,
and was within the same ring-fence as the great barn or granary for
the storing of the tithe sheaves belonging to the monastery. In this
house lived the farmer of the tithes, who bore the title of Steward,
and collected tithe, first for the monks, later for the Dean and
Chapter of Ely; and as this office became hereditary the name of
Steward was taken as a family surname. The last of these Stewards was
Sir Thomas, who died in 1636, leaving no son to succeed him; but his
daughter Elizabeth was the mother of Oliver Cromwell, and Oliver by a
very natural arrangement stepped into his grandfather's office. He
accordingly left his home at St. Ives, sixteen miles distant, bringing
his wife, his mother, and several children, to live in the tithe house
at Ely; the older lady thus returning to the home of her childhood.
[Illustration: _The Cathedral from the West Fen Road._]
For ten years the Cromwell family occupied this very house, which
still remains pretty much what it was in their time. Here two children
were born, and one died. Mrs. Cromwell was an excellent housewife,
being we are told "as capable of descending to the kitchen with
propriety as she was of acting in her exalted position with dignity."
To Cromwell's duties as tithe farmer were added, in the course of
time, those of Governor of the Isle of Ely. On St. Mary's Green, in
front of this house, he used to drill and instruct the levies of his
newly-formed "Eastern Counties' Association," which by and by
developed into his formidable "Ironsides." The result of his drilling
speaks for itself in the history of the Civil War; of his precepts,
one at least, commonly attributed to him, was good, "Say your prayers,
and keep your powder dry."
The same house served as the residence of the tithe farmers till the
passing of the Tithe Commutation Acts, when, after the death of the
last of the officials in 1840, the Dean and Chapter sold it. Only in
1905 was it purchased by the Vicar of St. Mary's, to become the
vicarage of his church; appropriate in every way from size and
position and association for this purpose. The Tithe Barn was a
massive structure of stone thatched with reeds, but no trace of it is
left; for it was pulled down about the middle of the nineteenth
century, when tithe having ceased to be paid in kind[230] it no longer
served any useful purpose; and on its site were built the almshouses
and national schools, now to be seen quite close to the vicarage.
[Footnote 230: Within living memory the tithe paid to the parson or
other tithe owner, was actually the tenth sheaf in every row
throughout the harvest field. The corn might not be carried till the
owner's agent had "docked" these sheaves, (_i.e._ marked each by
crowning it with a dock leaf). He might begin his count with any one
of the first ten, for obvious reasons. The docked sheaves were
conveyed to the tithe barn either before or after the carrying of the
others.]
Cromwell was no friend to the cathedral services, nor did his
residence near at hand tend to make him love them. He at the tithe
house, and Bishop Wren at the Palace, must have lived in avowed
antagonism; but they ceased to be neighbours in 1642, when the Bishop
was sent to the Tower by warrant of Parliament for his persistent
effort to restore reverent ceremonial in public worship. The services
in the Minster were conducted at this time by Canon Hitch, Vicar of
Holy Trinity, to whom Cromwell wrote as follows from his house hard
by:
Ely _10th January 1643_.
MR. HITCH,
Lest the soldiers should in any tumultuary or disorderly way
attempt the Reformation of the Cathedral Church, I require you to
forbear altogether your Choir Service, so unedifying and
offensive:--and this as you shall answer for it if any disorder
should arise thereupon. I advise you to catechise, and read and
expound the Scriptures to the people; not doubting but the
Parliament with the advice of the Assembly of Divines will direct
you further. I desire your sermons too where they usually have
been, but more frequent.
Your loving friend,
OLIVER CROMWELL.
Canon Hitch took no notice of this letter, and the "Choir Service"
went on as before; wherefore Cromwell, sword in hand, his hat on his
head, attended by a party of soldiers, went to the cathedral at the
time of Divine Service, and spoke aloud these words: "I am a man under
authority, having soldiers under me, and am commanded to dismiss this
assembly." Canon Hitch, who was conducting the Service at the
Communion Table, paid no attention, and went on without stopping;
whereupon Cromwell, followed by soldiers and rabble, went up to the
clergyman, laid his hand on his sword, and, bidding him "leave off his
fooling and come down," drove the congregation out of the cathedral.
Five years after this scene took place, an order was made by the House
of Commons to the effect "that the Cathedral Church in the Isle of
Ely, being in a ruinous condition, should be examined with a view to
its being pulled down and its material used to make provision for sick
and maimed soldiers and their families." Providentially this order was
not carried into effect, Cromwell's own influence being presumably
used against it.
If we continue our walk for a few minutes further westward along the
street, we come to a quaint and picturesque building now known as St.
John's Farm. It was built by Bishop Northwold, in order to unite the
two Hostels of St. John the Baptist and St. Mary Magdalene. These
Hostels had been founded for the use of monks who, though residing in
Ely, wished to be independent of the greater monastery; Bishop
Northwold put an end to this undesirable state of things by erecting
one Hostel for the use of the two communities, and placing it under
the direct supervision of the Sacrist of Ely. The Hostel is now an
unpretending homestead, much rebuilt, yet retaining bits of thirteenth
century work still untouched and therefore of interest.
Those who approach Ely from the south must notice two prominent
buildings standing quite apart from the cathedral. One is the
Theological College, a structure of red brick well placed on rising
ground, where twenty students can reside while preparing to take Holy
Orders in the Church of England; it was founded by Bishop Woodford,
who filled the See for twelve years from 1873. The College has its own
private chapel for daily use, but by its constitution the students are
bound to attend many services in the cathedral; the founder having
insisted on this proviso as tending to maintain the link between the
new foundation and the ancient Minster, a link which he foresaw might
otherwise dwindle away. As a rule students have one year of special
training and study; and during this time they take part in the
parochial work of the cathedral city.
[Illustration: _St. John's Farm._]
The other conspicuous building is a round castellated structure that
might well pass for a Norman keep, but is, in fact, the water tower of
Ely, supporting a huge tank into which water is forced from springs at
Isleham some seven miles distant.[231] The inhabitants of the city
have good reason to be thankful for this water supply; not a hundred
years ago the natural springs on the spot were so inadequate for their
use that most of the water for brewing and washing had to be brought
up from the river, slung in a pair of leather bags on horseback, an
arrangement manifestly inconvenient, "though providing," as the
historian adds, "a comfortable subsistence for many industrious poor."
Let us hope that these poor folk did not bear a grudge against Dean
Peacock, to whose zeal the waterworks of Ely are mainly due.
[Footnote 231: See p. 183.]
One of the chief industries of Ely is the making of jam, for which the
rich fruit-growing fields in the neighbourhood supply the material.
And if we follow the main street down to the wharf on the river Ouse
we shall see in the piles of willow wands that lie ready stripped on
its banks, evidence of a much older industry still carried on here.
This is the basket-making, for the which the fenland districts of
Britain were famed even before the Romans reached the country.
Posidonius, the Rhodian geographer under whom Cicero studied, and who
himself visited our island about 100 B.C., mentions "British baskets"
as exported for use on the Continent. A century later Strabo tells us
of their extensive home use, for storing corn, and Martial, in the
next generation, gives us the very word, which was adopted into the
Latin from the Celtic original (still used in Welsh), as it has since
been adopted into English. In sending a present to a lady he alludes
to it as:
"A basket rude, from painted Britons come."
("Barbara de pictis venio _bascauda_ Britannis.")
The withies of which the baskets are made were at first, doubtless,
the shoots of the willows found growing wild along the streams. Now
they are cut from carefully tended osier-beds, small enclosed areas
which are periodically flooded, where the willows are regularly
cultivated with a view to the production of long shoots suitable for
this industry. "They are regularly cut, peeled, and seasoned and
afford employment to large numbers of people."[232] Nor is the making
of baskets the only purpose for which willows may be profitably
cultivated; for, as Fuller says:--"This tree delighteth in moist
places and is triumphant in the Isle of Ely, where the roots
strengthen the banks and the lop affords fuel for the fire. It groweth
incredibly fast; it being a by-word in this county that the profit by
willows will buy the owner a horse before other trees will pay for his
saddle."
[Footnote 232: Hughes. _County Geography of Cambs_, p. 98.]
Having thus come to know something of Ely Minster, we shall feel the
greater interest in all our further explorations through those
highways and byways of the surrounding district over which she
presides with the air of a Mother, and a Queen.
[Illustration: _Willow Walk._]