392 CHAPTER XIX. THE POST-REFORMATION PERIOD. DETERIORATION IN ECCLESIASTICAL ART NOT ΤΟ BE REFERRED TO THE REFORMATION. - DESTRUCTION AND SPOLIATION OF CHURCHES.— THE CURSE UPON SACRILEGE. — MATERIALS OF CHURCHES USED TO MUCH HURT AND LITTLE GAIN. DIFFERENT SPIRIT OF SACRILEGE AT THE REFORMATION, AND AT THE REBELLION. - PURITAN DESTRUCTION. THE JOURNAL OF WILL DOWSING. DESOLATION OF LICHFIELD, OF SCARBOROUGH, OF ASTLEY.-RESTORATION OF LICHFIELD, OF STANTON HAROLD.-THE FIRE OF LONDON.-SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN, AND THE TOTAL EXTINCTION OF GOTHIC ARCHITEC TURE. THE Reformation occurred at a happy time for the true honour of ecclesiastical architecture. Teutonic art had passed its culminating point, and its gradual declension was prevented, and its shame covered by the rude collision of contending elements which quenched its full blaze of light. A little longer, and it would have set in dishonour, sinking feeble and dim behind the cold and dreary mists which were gathering in a tainted atmosphere from a corrupt world, to obscure its parting beams. It is well that there is nothing like a connecting link between Henry VII.'s chapel, and the debased or pseudo-Gothic of Elizabeth, or the revived and pseudo-classic of Inigo Jones, and Wren. We may be thankful for the violence of the transition. It is no part of my intention to enlarge on the causes or the course of the destruction which fell on so many of our greater ecclesiastical fabrics, and of the desolation which reigned within many a sacred pile which was itself wholly or partially spared : nor to relate how a nation with a rapidly-increasing population, not only ceased to build new churches, but even to restore old ones, until many a district once amply provided with sacred edi fices could not find "church-room" for a tenth part of its population; until some at least of the churches that remained were in a state which would not be tolerated in the stables of neighbouring mansions: and until, for very necessity, conventicles were substituted for churches :2 nor how at last, when something must be done, for very shame or for fear, many causes conspired to prevent the churches newly erected from taking their place as works of art, and objects of beauty, beside our beautiful and venerable sanctuaries. It is sufficiently well known as a general fact, though perhaps it is strangely little known in its particular incidents, how the greater churches belonging to the monastic bodies were sold or granted by the crown during the Reformation to needy and unprincipled courtiers, or retained for unhallowed uses; and how they were stripped of their roofs, and taken to pieces for their mere materials; and how the remaining cathedrals, and the parish churches, with a few others which were saved by the intervention of better counsels,3 or actually purchased by the inhabitants, were stripped of their decorations. Thus a church was destroyed by Henry VIII. to build Nonsuch. The protector Somerset pulled down the parish church of S. Mary's, and the palaces of the Bishops of Worcester, Lichfield, and Llandaff, to form a site for Somerset House, and several chapels and religious houses supplied the materials. Tewkesbury was granted to Sir 4 1 The very word indicates our poverty. Could there, since the full establishment of Christianity, till long after the Reformation, have been such a question asked as whether there was "church-room" in any district? 2 In 1268, Branescombe, Bishop of Exeter consecrated forty churches in his diocese. One would be curious to know how many churches were consecrated during the whole of the episcopates, of all the post-Reformation Bishops, till the year 1800. The present Bishop of Exeter is exerting himself, not in vain we hope, to procure "church-room" in Devonport, which, with a population of 26,000 persons, has not a single church! 3 York was besieged by Fairfax, but the inhabitants surrendered on condition that their minster and churches should be spared. The condition was respected. Perhaps the chapter-house was not accounted a part of the church. It is said to have been sold as useless, and to have been doomed to destruction, but the death of the purchaser saved it. 4 S. Alban's was thus saved, being purchased for £400 by the inhabitants, and converted into a parish church. See Staveley on Churches. Thomas Seymour: the church remains as a parish church, but it was sadly despoiled; the vestments were sold for £194, the plate weighed 1431 oz.: the lead 180 fodder, the bells 14,600 lbs. and all this besides jewels.1 Although of course the valuable materials were converted either to immediate use, or into money, yet the mere wanton determination to destroy seems to have dictated the demolition or dismantling of several conventual fabrics. The author of "Monks and Monasteries " quotes a remarkable document of a royal commissioner, in which the true spirit of a spoliator is expressed with great naïvete.2 These men seem to have had something of a sportsman's delight in marking and bringing down the prey had the prey been less feeble, and had the excitement of flight or of resistance been added to their sport their satisfaction would have been complete. But though wood and stone might seem too passive to revenge the injury, it turned out far otherwise: "the stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber answered it."3 It was a thing notorious at the time, and which we would not willingly have forgotten, that the spoils of churches brought no blessing 1 Spelman's History and Fate of Sacrilege, recent edition. 2 "Plesythe your good lordship to be advertysed, I have taken down all the lead of Jervase, and made it in pecys of half foders, which lead amountyth to the number of eighteen score and five foders; with thirty and four foders and a half that were there before; and the same lead cannot be conveit nor caryed unto the next sombre, for the ways in that country are so foull and deep, that no caryage can pass in wyntre; and as concernynge the raising and taking down the house, iff it be your lordshipp's pleasure, I am minded to lett it stand to the spring of the year, by reason of the days are now so short it would be dowble charges to do it now; and as concernynge the selling of the belles, I cannot sell them above fifteen shillings the hundreth; wherein I would gladly know your lordshipp's pleasure, whether I should sell them after that price or send them up to London. And if they be sent up, surelye the caryage will be costly from that place to the water. And as for Bridlington, I have doun nothing there as yet, but spayreth it to March next, because the days now are so short, and from such time as I begyn I trust shortly to dispatch it after such fashion, that when all is finished, I trust your lordshipp shall think that I have been no evil housbound in all such things as your lordshipp appointed me to do; and thus the HOLY GHOST preserve your lordshipp in honour. "At York, the 14th day of November, 1538, by your most bounden beadman, RICHARD BELLASIS." 3 Habakkuk ii. 11. with them, and that the materials somehow or other turned to no profit. They were lost in their transit, as a very great proportion of the bells were; or they paid gambling debts; or they eat into the house as doth a canker.1 I purposely omit to mention the general fate of sacrilege, where the property of the Church, its wealth and its broad lands were taken, but some reference to the curse which seemed to cleave even to the materials of the religious houses and of the churches, could not be omitted without evident impropriety in a history of ecclesiastical architecture. The several royal injunctions, with the episcopal articles of visitation from the close of the reign of Henry VIII. to the end of that of Elizabeth, give sufficient note of the changes in smaller matters of decoration and arrangement which were continually occurring. These, however, do not come strictly speaking within the subject of this work, for they do not touch the fabric of the church. Nor are churchwardens' accounts and the like contemporary notices of such events more directly to our purpose; they are, however, always amusing and often interesting, and as they are not found 1 Sir Henry Spelman relates the following instance, of which he speaks as within his own knowledge, and as admitted by the person concerned. "Sir Roger Townsend, the baronet, intending to build a goodly house at Rainham, and to fetch stone for the same from Coxford Abbey, by advice of Sir Nathaniel Bacon, his grandfather, began to demolish the church there, which till then was standing and beginning with the steeple, the first stone (as it is said,) in the fall brake a man's leg, which somewhat amazed them; yet contemn. ing such advertisement, they proceeded in the work, and overthrowing the steeple, it fell upon a house by, and breaking it down, slew in it one Mr. Seller, that lay lame in it of a broken leg, gotten at foot-ball, others having saved themselves by fright and flight. "Sir Roger having digged the cellaring of his new house, and raised the walls with some of the abbey stone, breast-high, the wall reft from the corner stones, though it was clear above ground; which being reported to me by my servant, Richard Tedcastle, I viewed them with mine own eyes, and found it so. Sir Roger, utterly dismayed with these occurrents, gave over his begun foundation; and digging anew wholly out of the ground, about twenty yards more forward toward the north, hath there finished a stately house, using none of the abbey stone about it, but employed the same in building a parsonage-house for the minister of that town, and about the walls of the churchyard, &c. "Himself also showed me that as his foundation reft in sunder, so the new bridge, which he had made of the same stone at the foot of the hill, which ascendeth to his house, settled down with a belly as if it would fall." in general history, a specimen may be admissible here. I give, therefore, the Churchwardens' Account, S. Helen's, Abingdon. MDLIX. Eliz. 2. For taking down the altere MDLX. Received of Thomas Hethe for the holye loft Payde for tymber and making the communyon table 8 1 0 0 8 For mending and paving the place where the altere stoode 2 MDLXI. Elizabeth 4. To the somner for bringing the order for To the carpenter and others for taking down the roode To the peynter for wrighting the scripture, where the 15 8 3 35 426 MDLXIV. For reparations of the cross in the market place and peynting of the same MDXCI. 34 Eliz. Payde for an houre glass for the pilpitt2 The tendency during Elizabeth's reign,3 so far as acts of authority were concerned, was on the whole to decency if not 1 I came once myselfe," says Latimer, Sermon VI., before King Edward VI., "to a place, riding on a journey homeward from London, and I sent word overnight into the town that I would preach there in the morning, because it was a holy day, and methought it was an holidaye's worke; the church stode in my way; and I toke my horse and my companye and went thither; I thought I should have found a great companye in the churche, and when I came there the churche dore was faste locked. I tarried there half an houre and more, and at last the keye was founde; and one of the parishe commes to me, and sayes, Syr, thys ys a busye day with us, we cannot heare you: it is ROBYN HOODE'S DAYE. The parishe are gone abroad to gather for Robyn Hoode, I pray you let them not.' I was fayne there to geve place to Robin Hoode. I thought my rochet should have been regarded, thoughe I were not; but it woulde not serve, it was fayne to give place to Robyn Hoode's men." 2 Archæologia, Vol. I. 3 During this reign, (June 4, 1561,) the spire of S. Paul's Cathedral, the loftiest in the world, was burnt down. An extract from a contemporary account will be found in the Appendix to this Chapter. |