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 from A.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 he was 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. (See LICHFIELD, 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 of ST.
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 with
them, 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
to Worcester 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 (see CANTERBURY,
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.
(See CANTERBURY, 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 CLIVE succeeded. “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 priory of Llanthony, and was printed by Wharton
in the second volume of his _Anglia 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, or DE 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 treatise _De 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 being made 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 “bled afresh.” 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 ORLETON This 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
without giving 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. (See CANTERBURY
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. (See EXETER
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’s _Fœdera_, vol. x. p.
215: in Wilkins’s _Concilia_, 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,--see SALISBURY
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. (See
SALISBURY, 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, or WHARTON, 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 (see EXETER 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 large sums 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
Commentary _De Præsulibus Angliæ_ that 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. (See
NORWICH 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 the palace. 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. See WINCHESTER 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
[Illustration]
A HANDBOOK
TO
WORCESTER CATHEDRAL.
WITH 7 ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1866.
CONTENTS.