The abbot’s house, although much altered, is that occupied by the Wilberforce School for the Blind. After the Dissolution, it was called the King’s Manor and made the residence of the Lord President of the North. On the site of the monastic chapter house, a palace was built and occupied by Henry VIII and his Queen, Catherine Howard, when they visited York. The palace was afterwards disused and became a ruin. The basement, known as the “King’s Cellar”, remains and now forms the substructure of a recent building. During the reign of Elizabeth additions were made “to the Queen’s Majesty’s house” by the successive Lords Presidents, the Earls of Sussex and Huntingdon. One apartment contains a large fireplace with pilasters which have bases, raised panels and caps, and an arch adorned with sculptured panels. The plaster frieze has the crest of the Hastings, Earls of Huntingdon--a coronet over the garter, within which is a bull’s head between the letters H.H., the royal Tudor badge--an open pomegranate between two dragons--and the bear and ragged staff--the badge of the Dudleys, the Countess being the sister of Robert Dudley, the Queen’s favourite. In the reign of James I other additions were made, including a new entrance. In the pilaster base on either side are the letters I.R. under a crown. A view is given of the stairs and doorway, with the Royal Arms above, which led to the Banquetting Hall added by the great Earl of Strafford (then Viscount Wentworth). He placed his own armorial bearings over the doorway on the west side of the courtyard, and although there was nothing unusual in such an act, it formed one of the charges against him at his trial, he having placed his own arms on one of the king’s palaces. Later, King Charles I took up his abode here for a month, and the Royal arms were placed over the entrance. The School for the Blind, with its two courtyards surrounded by mullioned windows and quaint doorways with heraldic devices, forms an extremely picturesque brick and stone building. A pretty view is that obtained from the abbey grounds. It shows the Elizabethan additions, one a stone building with gabled end and a series of stone dormers; the other, a later building on a stone base is of brick with brick pilasters, cornices, and gables, the whole making an especially fit subject for the artist in water colours. Three of the Abbots of St. Mary’s became bishops: Thomas of Spofforth went to Hereford, William Wells to Rochester, and William Sever to Carlisle and Durham. Bishop Sever was buried in the choir of St. Mary’s Abbey church. His tombstone was discovered during recent excavations. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of York, by George Benson