Diocese of Ely

“ The mitred figure of the bishop is on an altar-tomb beneath a richly groined roof, and a space is left at the feet, where a priest might stand to pray for the soul of the deceased prelate.9 There are grand canopies on the sides, with crockets and coloured shields bearing emblems of the Crucifixion, the arms of the See of Ely and of S. Asaph, where Bishop Redman was at first; but the arms of the See of Exeter, from which diocese he came to Ely, as now used, are not to be seen. Above the roof is fine open screen-work, and against the adjoining piers, east and west, are large canopied niches. ”

“ In 1554 he was appointed commissary of the diocese of Ely under the chancellor, John Fuller (d. 1558) [q. v.] , and in 1555 he was keeper of the spiritualities of the diocese of Bangor during the vacancy after the death of Arthur Bulkeley [q. v.] In that year he subscribed the Roman catholic articles imposed upon all graduates of the university. ”

“ On the frontage of a great house in Dover Street, now occupied by the Albemarle Club, with massive stone facings without and marble halls within, there may be seen, over the second storey, a mitre carved in stone, shewing that once it was the abode of the Bishops of Ely; for after their old Palace in Holborn was sold, (p. 323) this "Ely House," built about 1775, took its place, to be sold in turn early in the twentieth century with a view to forming a nucleus toward the endowment of a new bishopric, when the proposed subdivision of the present diocese can be carried out. ”

“ That he was also a man of culture is evident by his being chosen to be one of the translators of the Bible.
In Matthew Wren, who was Bishop of Ely for twenty-nine years, from 1638-1667, we meet with another prisoner for his faith. Bishop Wren was anti-puritan in his aims; throughout his diocese his influence was exercised in favour of the re-introduction of reverent ceremonial in public worship; and for this he was sent to the Tower, where he remained for eighteen years, till the Restoration set him free and brought him back once more to his well-loved Cathedral. ”

“ See Walks in London by A. C. Hare, vol. ii. pp. 196–201.
[82] Fragmentary Illustrations of the History of the Book of Common Prayer, edited by the Bishop of Chester, p. 47, et seq.
[83] Bishop Kennet says, ‘One particular will appear’ (from Bishop Wren’s Register) , ‘that there were but few of the parochial clergy deprived in this diocese (Ely) in 1662, for not submitting to the Act of Uniformity, though more of the old legal incumbents had been sequestered about 1644 than in proportion within any other diocese.’—Grey’s Examination of Neale’s History of the Puritans, vol. iv. p. 328. ”

“ The strength of the Dissenting spirit thus implanted at Oakington may be measured by that of the language employed by the zealous Archdeacon of Ely, who, in 1685, declares this to be "the most scandalous parish and the worst in the diocese. The people most vile. ”

“ DGAR "the peaceful," by his charter, as mentioned in the Introduction, restored the powers and privileges enjoyed by the Superiors of the monastery previous to its destruction by the Danes, to the newly-appointed Abbot on its re-foundation by Bishop Ethelwold, a.d. 970, and the Abbots of Ely successively exercised powers nearly similar to a County Palatine, and after the change from an abbacy to a bishopric, the bishops continued to exercise similar authority until the reign of Henry VIII., when they were greatly abridged by an Act of Parliament. ”

“ We owe to the creation of this Bishopric the very existence of Ely Minster as it now stands; had it remained merely an abbey, instead of being also a cathedral, it would have perished at the Reformation, along with the yet greater church at Bury St. Edmund's not far away, and with many another sister abbey throughout the land. At Ely, too, we should see before us ruined arches open to the sky, beautiful indeed and pathetic, but no longer a centre of worship. To this day the Bishop of Ely sits in his cathedral not as Bishop but as Abbot ”

“ In (3) the leaf-bearing staff has an abundance of conventional foliage. In (5) Wilfrid bears a simple pastoral staff, and not an archbishop's cross, as in previous scenes—a point to which Dean Stubbs calls attention as indicating the historical accuracy of the designer, because in former scenes the archbishop is represented in his own diocese, while here he is a simple bishop in banishment. In (6) there is a dignified figure—probably S. Sexburga—standing behind the priest who is ministering to the dying abbess. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Bishop does not care to stay long in this place, not being good for his health; he is Lord of all the island, has the command and ye jurisdiction.... There is a good palace for the Bishop built, but it was unfurnished. There are two Churches. Ely Minster is a curious pile of building all of stone, the outside full of Carvings and great arches, and fine pillars in the front, and the inside has the greatest variety and neatness in the works. ”

“ Nothing distracts the attention from the giant bulk of the Cathedral.
How shall we come into Ely? As archæologists, as pilgrims spiritually inclined and chanting a sursum corda as we go, or shall we be gross and earthly, scenting lamb and green peas, spring duckling and asparagus from afar, for all the world like our hearty grandfathers of the coaching age, to whom the great white-faced Lamb Inn, that is still the principal hostelry of this city, appealed with much more force than that great grey religious pile? ”

“ The monks were thus restored; but the nuns of Ely have disappeared from view. As for those secular priests who were in possession and had maintained the sacred character of the spot for well-nigh a hundred years, ever since its devastation by the Danes, they were allowed to stay on if they submitted to the Benedictine Rule, otherwise they were dismissed. ”

“ There is little known of his life at this time beyond the story of his promotions, and what we hear of his conduct as bishop is from a very adverse critic, the historian of the monastery of Ely, who says that he was severe and exacting towards the tenants, and that he would never celebrate mass in his own cathedral except on the day of his installation, which he put off till two years after his appointment. ”

“ He prays best whose prayers are an interlude of toil; and so, when we read Cobbett's long account of the wretched condition of Ely Cathedral, of its "disgraceful irrepair and disfigurement," and of the two [Pg 260] old men who on a week-day afternoon formed the whole of the congregation, coupled with his regretful surmise that in Catholic times five thousand people would have been assembled here, we are apt to think that sparse congregation a very healthy sign, and that even those two old men would have been better employed out in the workaday world. ”

“ For upwards of six years the affairs of the monastery were administered by Godfrey, one of the monks. He was an able and efficient administrator. In his time the king sent a number of knights and gentlemen to live at Ely, and he supported them out of the revenues of the house. The names and armorial bearings of these pensioners are preserved in a curious painting called the "Tabula Eliensis," now in the palace. This is a copy, as it is said, of one formerly in the refectory. It cannot be earlier than the fifteenth century. ”

“ It is true that the cleric is everywhere a brake on the wheels of progress, but what religion plunges its adherents in so abject a condition of superstitious dependence as the Roman Catholic creed? Cobbett on Ely is, in short, a monument of blundering clap-trap.
"Arrived at Ely," he says, "I first walked round the beautiful cathedral, that honour to our Catholic forefathers and that standing disgrace to our Protestant selves. It is impossible to look at that magnificent pile without feeling that we are a fallen race of men. ”

“ How could this be that the archdeaconate of Ely should be offered to a poor priest, one of Wyclif's band, so distrusted and hated by Rome?
"You, the Bishop of Ely, you offer me this? It is no jest?"
The Bishop smiled. "Well, I do not mind confessing that it was no easy matter to bring about. Yet why should we go on permitting you to take people away from the Church? I am persuaded that the people need the Church as much as the Church needs the people. They have your confidence; I want you to bring them back to the altar." ”

“ The pope required him to dedicate his eldest son to the religious life in some monastery which he was liberally to endow, and to bestow largely of his substance to the relief of the poor. His son Edelmor was accordingly devoted to the service of God at Ely, and very large estates were assigned by Leofwin to the monastery. He further improved the church, rebuilding and enlarging the south aisle, and joining it to the rest of the building ”

“ The Upper House appointed on the 21st of November, a Committee consisting of the Bishops of Durham, Ely, Oxford, Rochester, Sarum, Worcester, Lincoln, and Gloucester, most of whom had been Commissioners at the Savoy, to meet in the palace of the Bishop of Ely in Hatton Garden, at five o'clock in the afternoon of every day, except Sunday, until their work was finished. ”

“ The Ely monks cannot but have been mindful of the unfairness with which, in the earlier part of the century, Hervey, the first bishop of the see, had carried out the royal mandate for a division of the lands of the monastery of Ely between the convent itself and the newly created see ”

“ A twelfth century chronicler, the writer of the "Liber Eliensis," asserts that, within the first years of the seventh century A.D., Ethelbert, King of Kent, newly converted to Christianity, founded a monastery at Cratendune, about a mile south of Ely, and that Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, consecrated it. But we cannot say that the authentic history of Ely begins till seventy years later, when we see an Anglo-Saxon lady founding a monastery on this rising ground in the midst of the Fens. The lady is Etheldreda, once Queen of Northumbria ”

“ He would be a Goth who should fail to perceive the beauty of Ely Cathedral and of its like, but those noble aisles, those soaring towers tell a tale of an enslaved land, of fettered souls, of a priestcraft that sought to rule the State, as well as to hold the keys of Heaven and of Hell. No man, whether he be Pope, Archbishop, or merely the Boanerges of some hideous Bethel, has the right to enslave another's soul. ”

“ The shopkeepers (who surely keep shop for fun) come to their doors and yawn, and regard the stray customer with severity; the Divinity students yawn, and the Dean and the Cathedral staff yawn horribly at the service they have gone through so many times and know by heart. The only place where they don't yawn is the railway station, down below by the Ouse, by whose [Pg 258] banks you get quite the finest near view of the Cathedral. Ely, in short, lives chiefly by and on the Cathedral. If there had never been a cathedral here, it would have been a village the size of Stretham. ”

“ Needham's charity school has recently been developed into a considerable school of the second grade. The national and infant schools are large and commodious. A monastery was founded here about 670; but in 870 it was pillaged and destroyed by the Danes, and it remained in ruins till 970, when it was restored by Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester. In 1107 Ely was erected into a bishopric by Henry I., and after the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII. converted the conventual church into a cathedral. ”

“ This dedication took place in 1252. "Two years later the good bishop died at his manor at Downham, and his body was carried with much reverence to Ely, where it was buried in a magnificent Presbytery which he had founded and built." Such is the witness of Matthew Paris, a contemporary chronicler. We may mention that the income of the See of Ely was at this time equivalent to £30,000 a year. ”

“ Ely Cathedral is architecturally one of the most interesting in England. It occupies the site of an abbey founded by St. Ethelreda in 673. The existing building was begun in 1083 by the first Norman abbot, and the last half at least was completed in its original form when the see of Ely was created in 1109. The west part of the nave, including the west tower, was finished about 1180, and the west porch was added before 1215. ”

“ The columns of the nave are simple Norman; the chancel and chapel on the south are distinctly Early English; the tower and spire are of Decorated work; and we meet with inserted Perpendicular windows. In the midst of a well-kept churchyard may be seen a broken and ancient font, with an inscription embossed in lead stating that it has been so placed that it may receive only the water of heaven.
The citizens of Ely throughout the Middle Ages were well provided with churches, having for their devotions both St. (p. 379) Mary's and also St. ”