Bishop of Hereford

“ A statue of the murdered King has been placed, as you see, on a pedestal, close to one of the pillars, and here, on the floor, in front of the altar, is a circular slab of marble, on which is traced a representation of his murder.
But if we cannot visit St. Ethelbert’s shrine, we can visit another, which is six hundred years old, and which was erected to hold the bones of a very celebrated Bishop of Hereford, who was such a good man, that, after his death, people thought he deserved the name of Saint;—Thomas de Cantilupe. ”

“ If that a man serveth be whom he worshippeth, then was Sir Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Hereford, priest of Sathanas and none other. The King was had to Kenilworth Castle, in ward of my Lord of Lancaster—a good though mistaken man, that used him not ungently, yet kept him straitly. Sir Hugh and Sir Simon were brought to the Queen at Hereford, and I was in waiting when they came into her presence. ”

“ To the Right Reverend Father in God, James Lord Bishop of Hereford. “These are to certify to your lordship that I, John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, in the county of Salop and your lordship’s diocese of Hereford, do hereby nominate and appoint Alexander Benjamin Greaves, late Curate of Glossop, in Derbyshire, to perform the office of a Curate in my church of Madeley aforesaid; and do promise to allow him the yearly sum of £42 for his maintenance in the same ”

“ The bishop of Hereford is to dine with me to-day,
And he shall pay well for his cheer.
'We'll kill a fat ven'son,' said bold Robin Hood,
'And dress it by the highway side;
And we will watch the bishop narrowly,
Lest some other way he should ride.'
[Pg 285] Robin Hood dressed himself in shepherd's attire,
With six of his men also;
And, when the bishop of Hereford came by,
They about the fire did go.
'O what is the matter?' then said the bishop,
'Or for whom do you make this ado?
Or why do you kill the king's ven'son,
When your company is so few?' ”

“ Until the appointment of Bishop Hotham of Ely as lord chancellor on the accession of Edward III, the Bishop of Norwich and Cliff discharged the chancellor's duties. For some dispute with Thomas de Cherleton, bishop of Hereford, in connection with the presentation to the prebend of Blebury in Salisbury Cathedral he incurred the penalty of excommunication, in regard to which, within a month of his accession, and again in the following March, Edward III personally wrote letters on his behalf. The great seal continued to be often entrusted to him. ”

“ Returning to England, he was again chancellor of Oxford University, lectured on theology, and held several ecclesiastical appointments. In 1274 he attended the second council of Lyons, and in 1275 he was appointed bishop of Hereford. ”

“ The Bishop of Gloucester preached at the Abbey at the funeral of the Bishop of Hereford, brother to the Duke of Albemarle. It was a decent solemnity. There was a silver miter, with episcopal robes, borne by the herald before the hearse, which was followed by the Duke his brother, and all the bishops, with divers noblemen. ”

“ The capitals of the shafts at the angles are formed by grotesques, and over the arch on the south side are shields with emblems of St. Matthias, St. Thomas, and St. Bartholomew. The Lancaster rose is prominent in the decoration, and there is much under-cutting in the carving.
The stained windows, which form an interesting collection of arms and legends, are in memory of Archbishop Musgrave, once Bishop of Hereford, to whom there is also another window by Warrington in the wall of the aisle above the chantry, which is only 11 feet in height. The subjects are taken from the life of St. Paul. ”

“ ROBERT of Melun (d. 1167) , bishop of Hereford, was an Englishman by birth. He must have been born in the latter part of the eleventh century, for he is described as ‘grandævus’ when he was made bishop of Hereford in 1163, and is said to have taught in France for over forty years (Robert of Torigni, iv. 219; Materials for History of T. Becket, iii. 60) . ”

“ He was uncle of the distinguished architect of St. Paul's at London, Sir Christopher Wren, and he held the following offices at different periods: Master of St. Peter's College, Cambridge; Dean of Windsor; and Bishop of Hereford, and also of Norwich. He was a great sufferer during the Usurpation and the Rebellion, but outlived both, and before his death saw peace and tranquility restored. In looking over the list of Ely's bishops, one is astonished to observe how eminent they must have been, if we may judge from their having previously been bishops in other cathedrals. ”

“ A COOK ON A JOURNEY (CHAUCER’S COOK) .
(From the Ellesmere MS.)
A bishop did not start on a journey without a great train; and the bishops, besides their episcopal visitations, {116} had, like the nobility, to travel to visit their lands and to live on them. On all these occasions they took with them their servants of different kinds and their followers, as the king did his court. The accounts of the expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, give an idea of the lordly life led by well-to-do prelates. He was a bishop of some importance, and rich in proportion ”

“ Fierce foreign mercenaries, for whom the barons have no pay, pillage the farms and the monasteries. The bishops, for the most part, rest supine amid all this storm of tyranny. When they rouse themselves they increase rather than mitigate the miseries of the people. Milo, Earl of Hereford, has demanded money of the Bishop of Hereford to pay his troops. The Bishop refuses, and Milo seizes his lands and goods. The Bishop then pronounces sentence of excommunication against Milo and his adherents, and lays an interdict upon the country subject to the Earl's authority. ”

“ On 17 Nov. 1585 he was nominated bishop of Hereford, in succession to John Scory [q. v.] , and was consecrated at Lambeth on 30 Jan. 1585–6 (Strype, Life of Whitgift, i. 466–7; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1589–90, p. 259) . On 7 Oct. 1587 he sent a report, such as was demanded from most of the bishops, concerning the suitability of the justices of the peace in his diocese, and especially concerning their treatment of recusants (Strype, Annals, iii. i. 669, ii. 453–455) . ”

“ A man of much learning and ability. During his episcopate, according to William of Malmsbury, the cathedral was rebuilt after the pattern of Charlemagne's church at Aix-la-Chapelle. In his time also Walter de Lacy built the Church of St. Peter at Hereford. He was a keen man of business, and it has been suggested that he was open to bribery, but this accusation is hardly compatible with his intimate companionship with the high-minded Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, the date of whose death, January 19, 1095, is included in the calendar of the Hereford Service-Book. ”

“ The Saxons were driving the British inhabitants more and more to the west, and before the close of the sixth century they [pg 092] had founded the Mercian kingdom, reaching beyond the Severn, and in some places beyond the Wye.
The See of Hereford properly owes its origin to that of Lichfield, as Sexwulf, Bishop of that diocese, placed at Hereford Putta, Bishop of Rochester, when his cathedral was destroyed by the Mercian King Ethelred. ”

“ In England he was still more vigorous in action. In January 1167 he had an interview with the king in Guienne, and was sent into England. Landing at Southampton, he found the Bishop of Hereford waiting to cross over to Becket. 'On finding him he forbade him to proceed, first in the name of the king, and then of the pope. The bishop then inquired .. . ”

“ The power of his preaching was universally felt, and his capacity for business placed him at the head of his party. He had been made a king’s chaplain, and was offered the bishopric of Hereford, but he could not accept the offer without virtually assenting to things as they were. This he could not do, and after his refusal he was not allowed, even before the passing of the Act of Uniformity, to be a curate in Kidderminster, though he was willing to serve that office gratuitously. Bishop Morley even prohibited him from preaching in the diocese of Worcester. ”

“ The see was detached from Lichfield in 676, Putta being its first bishop; and the modern diocese covers most of Herefordshire, a considerable part of Shropshire, and small portions of Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Monmouthshire; extending also a short distance across the Welsh border. The removal of murdered Aethelbert’s body from Marden to Hereford led to the foundation of a superior church, reconstructed by Bishop Athelstane, and burnt by the Welsh in 1055. Begun again in 1079 by Bishop Robert Losinga, it was carried on by Bishop Reynelm and completed in 1148 by Bishop R. de Betun. ”

“ From 1861 to 1856 he resided at Lorchill House, Langley-Marish, Buckinghamshire, and in 1856 was appointed precentor of Hereford Cathedral. He succeeded Sir Henry Rowley Bishop as professor of music in the university of Oxford in the same year, and was made LL.D. of Cambridge in 1883, and of Edinburgh in 1884. He was appointed a canon residentiary of Hereford Cathedral in 1886, and died suddenly of epilepsy on Saturday, 6 April 1889, at Hereford He was buried at St. Michael's, Tenbury. He was unmarried, and the baronetcy became extinct at his death. ”

“ Four years later, in 1799, he was presented to the rectory of Eaton-Bishop, Herefordshire, by Bishop Butler, who also gave him on 12 April 1800 the prebend of Withington Parva, and on 23 March 1801 translated him to the prebend of Gorwall and Overbury in Hereford Cathedral. ”

“ A few years later it was decided by a synod held here under the presidency of Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in 673, to make a division of the diocese of Lichfield. Very naturally Wilford, then bishop of that see, refused to recognise the decree, and for this piece of contumacy was subsequently deprived of part of his diocese. His successor, Sexulph, however, was more amenable, and with his consent Hereford was detached from Lichfield and restored to its original independence as a separate diocese. ”

“ Is his conscience so much improved beyond what it was when he was Bishop of Bangor, or Hereford, or Salisbury—for this book, I fear, was written so long ago—or is it that he would not risk losing a shilling a year more whilst there was anything better to be got than what he had? I cannot help saying, that if the Bishop of Winchester is your friend, you have a great puppy, and a very dull fellow, and a great rascal, for your friend. ”

“ This new church was dedicated to ‘St. Ethelbert and the Blessed Virgin,’ and into it, when it was finished, the Bishop’s chair was carried.
For, although the young King could not be called a martyr, he certainly left the record of a pure and brave and noble life behind him, and it seemed fitting—and we are glad that it did so—that the memory of his name should linger, all down the ages, round the stately Cathedral which was built as an expiation of his death, and in which, for half a century at least, his body rested. ”

“ Theophilus Field, A.D. 1635-1636, who had been Bishop of Llandaff and of St. David's, died a year after his translation, and thereby saved the diocese the ill effects of a longer term of servile and corrupt management.
George Coke, A.D. 1636-1646, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, became Bishop of Bristol in 1633, and was translated to Hereford in 1636. He was a grave and studious man, and well loved in his diocese, but in the troubled days of the Civil War was deprived of his see. ”

“ His dogmatic theological writings have no great merit. His political essays are clear and forcible, but they are disfigured by frequent adulation of the king and royal family. The letters to Lady Sundon show that he was well able to flatter influential personages in the state. As a bishop he was certainly negligent in the performance of his duties. He never visited the diocese of Bangor, and probably not that of Hereford; at Salisbury, however, he acted creditably on one occasion. ”

“ A great misfortune fell upon this good Bishop, for, for the last thirteen years of his life, he was blind, and I have no doubt that, during all the long period when he could not see, it must have been a great joy to him to think, as he was led out and in to Service, that he had been allowed, before the darkness fell on him, to repair the House of God, and to provide a fitting tomb for the royal youth in whose memory it had been erected. ”

“ The Hereford Canons wanted to choose the witty Walter Map to be bishop. He was already Archdeacon of Oxford, Canon of Lincoln, and Prebend of Hereford, but alas! he was also a friend of the disfavoured bishop. This fact is worth some emphasis, as it illustrates the large-mindedness of the saint. Walter was not only a vigorous pluralist, much stained by non-residence, but he was a whipster, whose lash was constantly flicking the monks, then in their decline. If any one considers his description of the Cistercians; of the desert life wherein they love their neighbour by expelling him ”

“ After his return to England he took charge of the sees of Hereford and Ramsbury, although not appointed to these bishoprics; and in 1058 made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, being the first English bishop to take this journey. Having previously given up Hereford and Ramsbury, Aldred was elected archbishop of York in 1060, and in 1061 he proceeded to Rome to receive the pallium. ”