Read Ebook: Tales of English Minsters: Hereford by Grierson Elizabeth W Elizabeth Wilson

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

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AGENTS

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AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE

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IN COLOUR

HEREFORD CATHEDRAL

THE QUEEN HANDS THE DRUGGED CUP TO ETHELBERT

THE NORTH TRANSEPT OF THE CATHEDRAL

IN BLACK AND WHITE

THE CATHEDRAL

THE NAVE

THE SCREEN

TOMB OF BISHOP CANTELUPE

TALES OF ENGLISH MINSTERS

HEREFORD

It is possible that anyone who visits Hereford Cathedral, after having visited the other two great Cathedral Churches of the West of England, Worcester and Gloucester, may feel a little disappointed, for it is smaller and plainer than either of them, and there are not so many stories that can be told about it. It has no Royal Tomb, nor any great outstanding Saint, yet in one respect it is the most interesting of the three.

Indeed, in this one respect, it is the most interesting of all the English Cathedrals, for it does not only carry our thoughts back, as the others do, to the days when the torch of Christianity was re-lit in England by missionaries from Iona and Canterbury, but it takes them farther back still to the days when the early British Church existed, and had Bishops of her own; for, as doubtless you know, Christianity was brought to Britain from Gaul as early as two hundred years after Christ.

We do not know who brought it. The names of the first missionaries are forgotten. Probably they were humble Christian soldiers who came in the ranks of the Roman legions, and they would be followed by a few priests sent after them by the Church in Gaul to minister to them; and from the ranks of these priests one or two Bishops would be consecrated.

It all happened so long ago that it seems vague and far away, and it is difficult to pick out authentic facts.

We can only say with an old historian, that 'we see that the Light of the Word shined here, but see not who kindled it.'

Perhaps you know also that this early Christianity was swept away from all parts of the country, except in Ireland and Wales, by the coming of the heathen Angles, Saxons, and Danes.

We can easily understand how these two parts of what to us is one Kingdom, managed to hold the Faith. They were more or less undisturbed by the fierce invaders who came from the North of Germany and from Denmark, and who were quite content to settle down in fertile England without taking the trouble to cross the Irish Channel and fight with the savage Irish tribes, or penetrate into the wild and hilly regions of Wales.

So it came about that, while the English people were so harassed and worried with war and cruelty that they forgot all about the new doctrines which had been beginning to gain a slender foothold in their land, the people of Wales had still their Church and Bishops.

These Bishops seem to have held much the same Sees as the Welsh Bishops hold to-day. Bangor, Llandaff, Menevia or St. Davids, Llanelwy or St. Asaph, and three others with strange Welsh names, one of which was Caerffawydd, which meant the 'place of beeches,' and which we now know as Hereford.

For in these days Wales was larger than it is now, and was bounded by the Severn, and Caerffawydd was a Welsh town, if town it could be called, not an English one.

These Bishops were governed by an Archbishop, who is spoken of sometimes as living at Carleon-on-Usk, sometimes at Llandaff, and sometimes at Hereford.

Now, of course you have all heard about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; and you may have read about them in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King'; about their bravery, and chivalry, and purity, and how they took an oath--

'To break the heathen and uphold the Christ; To ride abroad, redressing human wrongs; To speak no slander--no, nor listen to it;'

and about Bishop Dubric, who crowned the King at Cirencester, and married him to Guinevere his wife.

Part of those wonderful stories is purely legendary, but part is true, for it is believed that King Arthur was a real person, and so were many of his Knights.

Bishop Dubric, or Dubricus, certainly was a real person, for we know that he was Bishop of Caerffawydd, and it is said that it was Sir Geraint, the Knight who married Enid, and rode with her, in her old faded dress, to Court, who built the first little church here, where the Bishop had his chair or 'stool.'

Be this as it may, it is certain that there was a tiny little Cathedral here, long before the other English Cathedrals were thought of, for you know that a church is a Cathedral, no matter how small it is, if it has a Bishop's official chair inside it. And it is probable that this little Cathedral was built of wood, and roofed with reeds or wattles.

It must have been rebuilt, or at least repaired, once or twice during the centuries that followed, but we know very little about its history until we come to the year A.D. 794, when a terrible event happened which led to a larger and more stately church being erected, this time of stone.

If you have read the story of St. Albans Cathedral, you will know what this event was; but I will try to tell you more fully about it here, for although it is very sad, it gives us a true picture of what even the life of Kings was, in these dark and troublous ages.

'Tales of English Minsters: St. Albans.'

The name of the King who reigned over East Anglia--that is, the land of the 'North folk' and the 'South folk,' or, as we call it, Norfolk and Suffolk--in these days was Ethelbert, and he had an only son, Ethelbert the AEtheling.

This Ethelbert was such a goodly youth, so tall and straight and handsome, so skilled in all manner of knightly exercises, and so kind to the poor and needy, that all his father's subjects adored him.

He loved God with all his heart, and would fain have given up his princely state and retired into some religious house, so that he might have more time to study His Word, and to learn about Him.

But he had plenty of what we call 'common sense,' so when his father died, and he was left King in his stead, he said to himself, 'Now must I bestir myself and put away the dreams of my youth. I had visions of forsaking the world like Cuthbert or Bede, or the holy Paulinus, who won King Edwin to the Faith. But if it had been the will of God that I should serve Him in this manner, I would not have been born an AEtheling, and inheritor of the throne of East Anglia; and, seeing He hath thus dealt with me, I must serve Him according to His will, and not according to mine own. Therefore will I seek to be a just and true King.'

'Tales of English Minsters: York.'

Heir Apparent.

Then, knowing that a King has need of a wife, he sent for all the aldermen and wise men of his Kingdom, as soon as the days of mourning for his father were over, and told them that he wished to wed the Princess Elfreda, daughter of Offa, King of Mercia, and that he willed that a deputation should go from among them to the Court of that Monarch, to ask, in his name, for her hand.

Now, this Offa was a very great and mighty King, who cared for nothing so much as to extend the boundaries of his Kingdom, and he had succeeded in doing this in an extraordinary way. He had conquered the parts of the country which are now known as Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Surrey, and on the West he had driven back the Welsh beyond Shrewsbury, and had built a huge earthwork, which was known as 'Offa's Dyke,' to mark the boundary of their domains. In this way it came about that in his days Caerffawydd, or 'Fernlege,' as it had come to be called, was in Mercia instead of Wales.

He had built for himself a great Castle at Sutton, near the banks of the Wye, and here he was holding his Court when King Ethelbert's Ambassadors arrived, and laid their request before him.

He granted it at once, for he had but two daughters, the elder of whom, Eadburh, was married to Beorhtric, King of the West Saxons, who owed allegiance to him, and he thought that he would also have a certain power over the young Monarch of the East Angles if Elfreda became his wife.

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