England, Picturesque and Descriptive: A Reminiscence of Foreign TravelCook, Joel
History
England, Picturesque and Descriptive: A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel
Cook, Joel
England -- Description and travel
a house, while some of his officers beat off Cobbett's troops who
attacked the front. Upon this house, built in 1557, is still read the
inscription, "Love God; honor the king." Then getting out of the city,
Charles escaped into the wood of Boscobel, and after a series of
romantic adventures managed to reach the seacoast in Sussex, and on
October 15th embarked at Shoreham for France. It was in this battle that
Worcester earned the motto it still bears of "Civitas fidelis."
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE GUESTEN HALL.]
Worcester's most conspicuous building is the cathedral, its tower being
prominently seen from miles around. Its western front overlooks the
Severn, and the ground-plan is an elongated rectangle with small double
transepts. The choir and portions of the nave are the original work,
most of the remainder being restored. St. Dunstan's successor, Bishop
Oswald, built the first cathedral here, and during the progress of the
work he met an unexpected check. The ancient chronicler tells us that a
large stone became immovable, and despite every exertion could not be
brought to its proper place. "St. Oswald," he continues, "after praying
earnestly, beheld 'Ethiopem quendam' sitting upon the stone and mocking
the builders: the sign of the cross removed him effectually." No
portion of this original building remains, the earliest parts of the
present cathedral dating from Bishop Wulstan's time, in the eleventh
century. Wulstan was a man of piety and simplicity who retained his see
after the Norman Conquest. The increasing number of monks in the
monastery compelled the removal of Oswald's church to make more room,
and Wulstan regretfully built the new cathedral, saying he was pulling
down the church of a far holier man than himself. Miracles were frequent
at Wulstan's tomb, and in 1203 he was canonized. His church was
unlucky--several times partly burned, and once the central tower fell,
and afterwards the two western towers during storms; but it was always
repaired, and in 1218, St. Wulstan's remains were removed to a shrine
near the high altar, and the cathedral rededicated in the presence of
Henry III. The interior view is striking, the arches of the nave,
triforium, and clerestory being in harmonious proportions. In the middle
of the choir is King John's monument, the effigy representing him
crowned and in royal robes, holding the sceptre and the sword, the point
of the latter inserted in the mouth of a lion on which his feet rest. We
are told that in 1797 the coffin was found beneath the tomb, with the
apparel partially mouldered, but the remains all gone. There are several
other monuments in the cathedral--one a mural slab commemorating Anne,
wife of Izaak Walton, "a woman of remarkable prudence and of the
primitive piety." The crypt beneath the choir is a remnant of Wulstan's
work, and the old doors of the cathedral, dating from the thirteenth
century, are preserved there: fragments of human skin are still seen
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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