The see of Bangor extends over all Anglesea, and parts of Caernarvonshire, Denbigh, and Montgomery. It was most probably founded, or at all events a monastic establishment was formed here, in the year 525, by St. Deiniol, who was at first abbot, and afterwards bishop. The name Bangor may signify “the White Choir,” or the “High Choir,” and is found applied to an ecclesiastic institution in Flintshire, as well as to a famous religious house in the County of Down, in the North of Ireland. The subject of this description was distinguished by the prefix “Fawr,” or great, to mark its superiority. The original church existed to the time of the Saxon intrusion, when it was wholly demolished by that fierce and relentless people. In the year 1212 it was restored in a style of much magnificence by John, King of England, but it was again much injured in 1247, during the contentions between Henry the Third of England and the Welsh nobles. The demon of destruction once more visited this sacred edifice in the year 1402, when it was wholly reduced to ashes by a violent conflagration. This occurred in the civil wars, kindled by the brave and artful chieftain, Owain Glandwr. For ninety years there was no resuscitation of the embers; no pious prelate wore the wealthy mitre of this see, who preferred the honour of the church to all earthly considerations, until the reign of Henry the Seventh, when the learned and amiable Bishop Deane commenced the reedification of the cathedral, by erecting the present beautiful choir at his own expense. From an inscription over the western entrance, it appears that the tower and nave were added by Bishop Skiffington, in 1532, whose heart was deposited in Bangor Cathedral, but his body removed to the Cistercian monastery of Beaulieu in Hampshire, of which he had previously been abbot. The conduct of Bishop Bulkeley has afforded matter of much disputation amongst ecclesiastical writers: it is asserted, on one side, that this prelate dishonoured the mitre, which should have graced his brow, by spoliating the see of its estates, and the cathedral of its plate and bells; others assure us, with great earnestness, that Bulkeley did not alienate or abstract the property of the see, but that, on the contrary, he was a benefactor of the church and diocese, and that this was a calumny raised against the church by Godwin, who thought proper to direct his venomous shaft against the establishment through the character of this respectable prelate.