The community of clergy at Southwell consisted of the prebendaries, who formed the chapter, the vicars-choral and chantry priests and choristers. The prebendaries had much power and many privileges. They held property, and each had a large house, hunted in neighbouring forests, and lived as country gentlemen as well as canons of Southwell. At the Reformation they surrendered their goods to Henry VIII., who contemplated making Southwell a Cathedral. He despoiled the church of vast quantities of plate and other valuables. In 1574, however, the college, like other similar institutions, was seized by the unscrupulous advisers of Edward VI. In Mary's reign it reverted to the Crown, and she restored the college to its former owners and uses, and this arrangement was happily left undisturbed by her successors. During the Civil War Cromwell's soldiers stabled their horses in the nave of the church. Charles I. stayed in the town at the "Saracen's Head," and here he delivered himself up to the Scotch commissioners, who stayed at the Palace. Cromwell wished to destroy the nave, but was stayed in his fanatical design by the intercession of one of his officers. The story is told of the wife of a hunted Royalist, named William Clay, registrar of the minster, hiding herself in the parvise, or room over the porch, and there giving birth to a child, while the soldiers lived in the church. A general pillage took place in the church at this time; the font was destroyed, lead torn from the roofs, brasses from the tombs, and every vestige of an image swept away. The College of Southwell has suffered in many other ways, sometimes from the carelessness of the prebendaries and their lack of zeal, sometimes from the effects of unwise and revolutionary legislation. In 1846 its position as a peculiar ceased to exist. Southwell is now a Cathedral with a diocese of its own, and if the ecclesiastical commissioners and the friends of the Church could see their way to granting an adequate endowment and means for carrying on its great work, Southwell would be able to maintain the dignity of an important see, and fulfil its mission to the Church and nation. EXTERIOR The finest view of this noble minster is obtained from the north-west corner of the churchyard. We notice the general Norman character of the building. The massive western towers, capped with spires, the lantern tower, the north transept and beautiful chapter-house, the noble roof, all combine to form a magnificent example of dignified and noble building.