The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
History
The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.
Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
"So works the man of just renown,
On men when centuries have flown;
For what a good man would attain,
The narrow bounds of life restrain;
And this the balm of Genius gives:
Man dies, but after death he lives."
On a marble pedestal reposes the effigy of Wykeham, once painted in
gaudy colors,--perfect yet in every line of his benignant countenance,
of his stole and his canonical robe. Beneath this monument has rested
his revered dust for nearly five hundred years.
Forty-three years after the burial of the great bishop, on the 13th
of April, 1447, the solemn stillness was disturbed by a procession to
deposit the remains of Henry of Beaufort, the successor of Wykeham in
1404, afterward made cardinal of St. Eusebius, by Martin V. This is he
of whom Shakespeare said, "He died and made no sign." How unlike John
Knox, of whom Carlyle says: "When he lay a-dying it was asked of him,
'Hast thou hope?' He spake nothing, but raised his finger and pointed
upward, and so he died."
Beaufort was a remarkable man. He was president of the court when Joan
of Arc was on trial; by his countenance and aid she was sentenced to
death. What influence this dust once had on kings! Out of Beaufort's
vast cathedral revenues, $150,000 was advanced to his nephew, Henry V.
To the infant Henry VI., who was brought up under his immediate care,
he advanced $50,000. But we must not play the historian now, and only
call attention to the fact that, in the play of Henry VI., Shakespeare
represents him as dying in great remorse. As a redeeming quality be it
said, that when spirit and body must part companionship, the good angel
of charity took possession of him, and his great property went to works
of charity. The hospital of St. Cross speaks for him more eloquently
than monumental stone, or the chantry where he ministered in the great
cathedral itself.
Here too is kingly dust, that of William II., son of the
Conqueror,--William Rufus, as they called him, because of his red
hair. Shot in the New Forest in the year 1100, by Walter Tyrrel,
Lord of Poix, he died instantly, at the age of forty-four, and for
783 years his royal body has been mouldering here. But he is only
one of many, for over each side range of the choir stalls are oak
chests,--containing what? Records of the church or important papers of
State? Jewels of deceased bishops, or their robes? No; but the mortal
remains of Wessex and Saxon kings. Each chest is perhaps three feet
long, eighteen inches square, and bears on its side the name of its
occupant. These bones were once buried in the crypt, between the years
1126 and 1171, but were put into these chests by order of Bishop De
Blow. Three hundred and eighty-four parishes pay their homage to the
Bishop of Winchester. No See in all England is as rich in its revenues
as this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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