Bishop of Lichfield

“ Accordingly two legates of Hadrian held a synod at Chelsea in 787, in which Higberht, bishop of Lichfield, was declared an archbishop. Jaenberht, archbishop of Canterbury, was forced to submit to the partition of his province, the obedience of the Mercian and East Anglian bishops being apparently transferred to the new metropolitan. ”

“ In the most easterly bay but one of this aisle there must have been a doorway leading into the chapel which Dr Stukeley speaks of: "In the chapel over against the lady choir was the burying-place of two Mercian Kings; but it is now chosen for a burying-place by Dr Chandler, present bishop of Lichfield, who has there buried one child."
The Lady Chapel has always most justly been admired by architects and antiquarians. Not only is it peculiarly beautiful in its construction, but also its windows are now filled with some of the most charming old glass to be seen in England. ”

“ At the present day the diocese of Lichfield consists of almost the whole of the county of Stafford, part of Shropshire, and a small part of Flintshire and of Warwickshire. Originally, in Anglo-Saxon times, when the first bishop was appointed, the see of Lichfield extended over the whole of Mercia—that is, from the Humber and East Anglia on the north and east, to Wales on the west, and the Thames on the south. Since those days the diocese has been at various times divided, and other dioceses formed; Hereford, Lincoln, Ely, Peterborough, Chester, Worcester, Oxford, St. ”

“ That he was a man of distinction may be taken for granted, as he was master of that famous college at Oxford, Balliol College, where his picture hangs in the dining-hall to-day.
When in Lichfield Cathedral, where we saw Chantrey's monument of Bishop Ryder, we had omitted to ask for particulars about him, but here we were told that he was appointed Rector of Lutterworth in 1801, and had been a benefactor to the town. He was made Canon of Windsor in 1808, Dean of Wells 1812, Bishop of Gloucester 1815, and finally became Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. ”

“ This derivation is supported by a prevailing tradition, of the martyrdom of a thousand British Christians on this spot, at the time of the persecution (A. D. 303) under Dioclesian, when Maximian was governor of Britain.
It is certain that the present diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, anciently formed a part of the kingdom of Mercia, which, being conquered by (the Christian King) Oswy, introduced the Christian faith into this powerful kingdom of the Saxon Heptarchy. He made Lichfield an episcopal See, by appointing Diuma, a Scotsman, the first Bishop, A. D. 656. ”

“ Churches were springing up all over the diocese, with their own clergy, and so, although the church at Lichfield remained the headquarters of the diocese, yet the clergy attached to it were no longer to be responsible for the ministrations of the whole diocese, but were to confine themselves to the estates of the bishop and the cathedral, where they were to dwell under canons or rules. ”

“ The position of Lichfield Cathedral is peculiarly fine. Three sides of the square surrounding it are occupied by splendid ecclesiastical buildings connected with the diocese, including the bishop's palace. A beautiful sheet of water lies upon the lower side, so that nothing incongruous meets the eye.
We obtained there a better idea of the magnitude of the church establishment and its to us seemingly criminal waste of riches than ever before. To think of all this power for good wasting itself upon a beggarly account of empty benches, the choir outnumbering the congregation!
The Coach. ”

“ The three scholars so taken obtained fellowships in due course, Hacket became chaplain to James I, Charles I, and later to Charles II, suffered cruel persecution under the commonwealth, and at the restoration was made bishop of Lichfield: the Bishop’s Hostel was erected at his cost. An incident in Shirley’s career is chronicled below (see p. 223) . ”

“ The Bishop was Bishop of a city, and he remains so. The English Bishop was sometimes Bishop of a city from the beginning, more commonly he was Bishop of a land or rather of a people. His title was Bishop of the South-Saxons or of the Sumorsætan. The place of the bishopstool in Gaul varied but seldom (as St. Lo was moved to Coutances) ; in England it was ever shifting. This leads to confusion. "Somerset," "Wells," "Bath," and "Bath and Wells" are simply different names for the same extent of country. So were Lichfield, Chester, Coventry, Coventry and Lichfield, Lichfield and Coventry. ”

“ The brass Lectern is also modern, and is in the usual form of an eagle. It was presented by the members of the Lichfield Theological College, and was executed by Mr Hardman of Birmingham. The Litany Desk is by Messrs Rattee & Kett of Cambridge, the well-known carvers; and the Bishop's Chair, which stands under the great tower, was presented by the clergy of Derbyshire when that county was transferred from this diocese to the new diocese of Southwell. The chair is not of striking beauty. ”

“ The same bishop at another time orders all rectors and parish priests to publish “at the time of their sermons and exhortations” his indulgence to all who would visit the cathedral church of Lichfield and contribute to the building of the spires of his cathedral. Other episcopal letters, which were all to be read in the parish churches, were of a more private character. One man, for instance, had suffered great losses through a fire, which had destroyed his house ”

“ About 1284, Archbishop Peckham made a provincial visitation, in which he exercised severe discipline on both clergy and laity. For example, in Lichfield Diocese, the bishop being a foreigner and non-resident, the archbishop sent a public summons to him to reside, on penalty of deprivation, telling him that since he could not preach to his people, he was the rather bound to reside among them, and to spend his revenue in hospitality and relieving the poor. ”

“ The Bishop is still passionately fond of riding and driving, and as soon as he gets out of Lichfield, mounts the box of his carriage and drives his own horses, ‘Pride’ and ‘Prejudice.’ He says people may consider it a terrible thing for a Bishop to be drawn hither and thither by these passions, but then it is assuredly a fine thing to have them well under control. ”

“ In England, every cathedral, which possesses post-reformation records, yields abundant evidence of the Child-Bishop customs. We found interesting mention of it in several places when setting in order the chaotic mass of capitular muniments at Lichfield. An inventory of 1345 names four small choir copes for the use of boys on the feast of Holy Innocents. The next century names a mitre, cope, sandals, gloves, and staff for the Nicholas Bishop. An invariable part of the proceedings seems to have been a sermon from the Boy Bishop, delivered from the usual pulpit. ”

“ One of the earliest is that of Bishop Hugh of Wells, of Lincoln in A.D. 1235; Bishop Stavenby of Lichfield, who died 1238, set the example there; and so in other cathedrals. There [Pg 452] is a pleasing touch of sentiment in Bishop Weseham’s foundation of a chantry in Lichfield Cathedral for himself and his friend, Bishop Grostete of Lincoln, of which cathedral he had himself been dean before his promotion to the episcopate. [515]
Not many parish priests founded chantries, because they were seldom rich enough to undertake anything so costly ”

“ App. vii —— Michael de, 95 See Bishops Blythe, Clinton, Lee, Limesey, Longsword, Norbury, Peche, Smythe, Stretton. Lights, Endowment of, 15, 69, 86, 89 Lilleshall Abbey, 205 Limesey, Bishop of Lichfield, 10 Lincoln, 107, 108, 109 Lincolnshire, 7, 107 Littleover, 79 Littleton, Edward, 25, 54, 55, 90, 235 —— Mr., 171 Lisle, Lord, 24 Loke, Thomas, 190 London, 7, 52, 84, 98, 100, 169, 177 —— John of, Abbot of Croxden, 95 Longford, 98 —— Ralf, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40 ”

“ So in 1367 Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, forbade any nun of Fairwell to go into Lichfield without the Prioress’ leave, ordering that she should be accompanied by two sisters and should “make no vain and wanton delays,” but added that “this is not intended to interfere with the laudable custom of the whole or greater part of the convent walking out together on certain days to take the air” [1201] . This forerunner of the schoolgirls’ “crocodile” was not, however, what the nuns desired. ”

“ But grasping bishops were not the only enemies known to the monks. There was a long-standing feud between the brethren of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield, dating from the time when Stephen gave them, together with the canons of Chester, permission to elect the bishop of the diocese. [53] The monks frequently defeated their object by nominating a candidate of their order, usually the prior, whom the canons would in nowise be induced to accept. ”

“ The great south window, which, as has just been stated, is in the Perpendicular style, was in 1895 adorned with new glass; this was the gift of Mr A. P. Heywood-Lonsdale, in memory of his father and his uncle, Bishop Lonsdale. The subject is "I am the vine, ye are the branches," and represents Our Lord in the centre surrounded by angels, with the principal bishops of the Early Christian Church. The six early British bishops: St. Columba, Scotland; St. Wulstan, Worcester; St. Chad, Lichfield; St. Augustine, Canterbury; St. Aidan, Northumbria; St. Hugh, Lincoln, are at the feet of Our Lord. ”

“ On his return to England, after some years of banishment, he published an interesting volume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and became one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made a bishop after the Revolution, if he had not given offence to the government by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William and Tillotson. ”

“ His acceptance of Pulham, part of the confiscated temporalities of Bishop Lisle of Ely, involved him in a prosecution in the papal court, and his presentation by the crown to the Lichfield prebend of Flixton during a vacancy of the see was stoutly resisted by the administrator and the dean and chapter. The king's persistence triumphed in each case, but in 1361 Wykeham quietly resigned Pulham, and exchanged the canonry at Lichfield for a less contentious one at Southwell. ”

“ In the next reign he continued steadfast to John's son, and was among the four bishops present when the legate Gualo crowned Henry III at Gloucester (An. Wav. in An. Mon. ii. 286) . Of his acts as bishop little is recorded. He made a grant, confirmed by a bull of Honorius III, to the canons of Lichfield of the right of electing their own dean, an appointment previously in the hands of the bishop (Thomas Chesterfield in Anglia Sacra, i. 436–7) , and was further their benefactor by his gift of the impropriations of Hope, Tideswell, Earnley, Cannock, and Rugeley (Anglia Sacra, i. 446) . ”

“ Aidan at Lindisfarne, teaching in his school, where St. Chad is one of the scholars.
The third window is in memory of Dean Bickersteth. The figures are Archbishop Theodore and St. Ovin, and the scenes St. Chad teaching his clergy, and St. Ovin listening to the angels who were calling St. Chad at his death.
The fourth window is in memory of Prebendary Gresley. The figures are Oswy, King of Northumbria, and Diuma, the first bishop of Mercia. The scenes are Bishop Jaruman [113] promising to build a church at Lichfield, and the institution by King Æthelwald of prebendaries. ”

“ In 1529 he became an advocate in Doctors' Commons. He was connected with the diocese of Lichfield, where he held many preferments, first under Bishop Geoffrey Blyth, and then under Bishop Rowland Lee. ”

“ There are ministering angels outside a pediment at the head; the figure has the pastoral staff in the left hand, while the right is obviously raised in benediction, though only the fingers are left, the second wearing the episcopal ring. Pennant and others have drawn attention to the fact that this effigy has the "stigmata" or marks of Our Lord's wounds on his hands and feet. Some antiquarians think that this is the monument of Bishop Weseham, and not of Bishop Patteshull. ”

“ The frescoes have disappeared except over the doorway, where still remain faint signs of the representation of the Assumption, which may have formed part of Dean Heywood's decoration, but more likely is earlier: it has been suggested that it was placed there by Bishop Burghill from the fact that a Dominican Friar, to which order he belonged, is represented in the group in adoration. The glass contained figures of the apostles, with other pictures above; these being all pre-Cromwellian, have, of course, disappeared. ”

“ The patron is the Bishop of Worcester, and to the living (valued at £350) , is attached a Prebendary in Lichfield Cathedral. The present Vicar, since 1881, is the Rev. E. R. Mason, M.A. There is accommodation for 1,500, all the seats being free, but at one time the worshippers were limited in their freedom of sitting by the males having to take their places on one side and the females on the other, a custom which gave rise to the following epigram:
"Our churches and chapels we generally find
Are the places where men to the women are joined ”

“ The central chapel is the largest, and is lighted by two small windows. It is only entered from the eastern chapel by means of a doorway cut right through the buttress. In this central chapel lies the effigy, in Derbyshire alabaster, of Bishop Selwyn. During his life he had expressed a wish to be buried here, but this was [106] found to be illegal, and he was buried in the close just outside. The effigy is by Mr Nicholls, and the decorations of the walls of the chapel are by Messrs Clayton & Bell. ”