Amenities of Literature: Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English LiteratureDisraeli, Isaac
History
Amenities of Literature: Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature
Disraeli, Isaac
Authors, English -- Biography; English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life
The funeral of the schoolmen carried on their biers was too recent to be
forgotten; and in return, all Bibles in English, and all the
commentators on the Bible in the vernacular idiom, and which, we are
told, "for their number seemed almost infinite," were thrown together in
the market-place; and the lighted pyre proclaimed to Oxford the ominous
flames of superstition, which consumed, not long after, opposite to
Baliol College, the great unfortunate victims of reformation. There
Latimer and Ridley bowed their spirits in the fires, while Cranmer, from
the top of the Bocardo, witnessed the immolation, praying to God to
strengthen them, and felt in anticipation his own coming fate. Then
followed expulsions and emigrations. We have a long list of names. Five
years afterwards, such was the rapid change of scenery, these fugitives
returned to re-possess themselves of their seats, and were again and
finally the ejectors under Elizabeth.
The history of this mutable period is remarkably shown in the singular
incident of Catherine, the wife of Peter Martyr, and St. Frideswide.
Peter Martyr, when celibacy was the indispensable virtue of an
ecclesiastic, brought his wife into his college, and also his bawling
children. This spirit of reform was an abhorrence to the conscience and
the quiet of the monks. A brothel, a prostitute, and a race of bastards,
formed, according to the old inmates, the residence of the family of the
reformer. The wife of Martyr died, and was interred near the relics of
St. Frideswide. In the Marian days, it was resolved that the departed
female should be condemned for heresy, and, since the corpse lay not
distant from "that religious virgin, St. Frideswide," it should be
disinterred; and the Dean of Christ Church had the remains of Martyr's
wife dug up and buried in the dunghill of his stable. Five years after,
when Elizabeth reigned, the fate of the disturbed bones of the wife of
Martyr was recollected, and, by command, with patience and ingenuity,
the sub-dean collected from the dunghill the bones which time had
disjointed, and placed them in a coffin in the cathedral till they
should be reburied with greater solemnity. A search was at the same time
made by the sub-dean for the bones of St. Frideswide, which were not
found where they had reposed for centuries. They had been hidden by some
relic-adoring Catholic, to save them from the profane hands of the
triumphant heretics of Edward the Sixth. In the obscurest part of the
church, after much seeking, two silken bags were discovered, which had
carefully preserved the relics of St. Frideswide. The sub-dean, who
seems to have been at once a Romanist and a Reformer, considered that
these bones of Peter Martyr's wife and the female saint should receive
equal honours. He put them in the same coffin, and they were re-interred
together. This incident provoked some scoffs from the witless, and some
grave comments from those who stood more in awe of the corpse of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account