The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the BishopsKing, R. J. (Richard John)
Religion
The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the Bishops
[A.D. 1283-1317.] RICHARD SWINFIELD, a native of Swinfield in Kent,
from which place he is said to have transported a small colony of
Kentish men to Herefordshire, laboured throughout his episcopate to
procure the canonization of his predecessor, which was not effected
until 1320. Bishop Swinfield, however, translated the remains of
St. Thomas Cantilupe to the new transept in 1287; and besides this
transept, the clerestory and upper portion of the choir, the
central tower above the roof, and the eastern transept as it now
exists, were either completed, or were in progress during his
episcopate. A curious roll of the household expenses of this Bishop
for the years 1289-1290 has been edited for the Camden Society,
with some very interesting annotations, by the Rev. John Webb.
[A.D. 1317, trans. to Worcester 1327.] ADAM ORLETON This Bishop had
joined the barons, under the Earl of Lancaster, against Edward II.
and the Spencers; and in 1323,--two years after the defeat of the
barons at Boroughbridge,--he was impeached in Parliament as having
given “countenance and assistance to the rebellion.” He refused, as
a Churchman, to be so tried, and was delivered to the custody of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, whence he was afterwards brought
before the bar of the King’s Bench. “These proceedings being looked
upon as a violation of the liberties of the Church, the Archbishops
of Canterbury, York, and Dublin, came immediately, with their
crosses erected, into the court, and carried off the Bishop
without giving him time to answer to the indictment[52].” The
Bishop was tried in his absence, however,--(the first English
bishop brought to trial in a temporal court,)--found guilty, and
his temporalities confiscated. But these had been restored before
1326, when Bishop Orleton joined the party of Queen Isabella. He
preached before her at Oxford, on the text “doleo caput,” (2 Kings
iv. 19,) inferring that a distempered “head” should be removed; and
the Queen proceeded with him to Hereford, where the younger Spencer
was hanged. Thence the Bishop wrote his famous letter to the
keepers of Edward II. at Berkeley Castle,--“Edwardum regem occidere
nolite timere bonum est.” In 1327 he was translated, by the
influence of the Queen, to Worcester; and in 1333 to Winchester,
where he died in 1345.
[A.D. 1327-1344.] THOMAS CHARLTON, Canon of York. In 1329 he was
Treasurer of England. In 1337 he was sent to Ireland as Chancellor,
and was afterwards Justiciary and “Warden” of that kingdom. In 1340
he returned to Hereford.
[A.D. 1344-1360.] JOHN TRILLECK. Little is recorded of this Bishop,
whose fine brass remains in the choir of the cathedral. (Pt. I. §
X.) He prohibited the performance of miracle-plays in churches
within his diocese.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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