father's decease, they began openly to practice idolatry, though whilst he lived they had somewhat refrained, and also gave free license to their subjects to worship idols. At a certain time, these Princes, seeing the Bishop administering the Sacrament to the people in the Church, after the celebration of Mass, and being puffed up with rude and barbarous folly, spake (as the common report is) thus unto him. 66 6 'Why dost thou not give us, also, some of that white bread, which thou didst give to our father Saba, (for so they were wont to call their father Sabareth,) and which thou dost not yet cease to give to the people in the Church? He answered, If ye will be washed in that wholesome font, wherein your father was, ye may likewise eat of this blessed bread, whereof he was a partaker ; but if ye contemn the lavatory of life, ye can in no wise taste the bread of life.' 'We will not,' they rejoined, ⚫ enter into this font of water, for we know we have no need to do so; but we will eat of that bread nevertheless.' And when they had been often and earnestly warned by the Bishop, that it could not be, and that no man could partake of this most holy oblation, without purification, and cleansing by baptism, they at length, in the height of their rage, said to him, 'Well, if thou wilt not comply with us in the small matter we ask, thou shalt no longer abide in our province and dominions;' and straightway they expelled him, commanding that he, and all his company, should quit their realm."" After this expulsion, the See continued vacant nearly forty years, but at length, through the persuasions of Oswy, King of Northumberland, Sigebert, surnamed the Good, who had succeeded to the East-Saxon throne, about 653, became a Christian, and appointed a Nor thumbrian Priest, named Cedda, or Ceadda, to this Bishopric, and "that change," Bishop Godwin remarks, "he attended painfully many years!" Cedda died of the plague in 664; soon afterwards, Wina, a Frenchman, who had been expelled from the See of Winchester, was appointed to this Diocese, which he is stated to have purchased from Wulfhere, King of Mercia, and thus became "the first Simonist," says the above author, "that is mentioned in our Histories." Erkinwald, the next Bishop, expended "great cost in the fabric," as Dugdale informs us, and much augmented the revenue of this Church" with his own estate." He likewise obtained for it " divers ample privileges," and after his decease, in 685, acquired so much renown by his miracles, that he was canonized as a Saint, and had "his body translated to a glorious Shrine in the east port of the Church, above the high altar."* During the successive centuries, from that time to the Conquest, the immunities and possessions of this Cathedral were greatly increased by different Sovereigns, and other benefactors; and the Norman Conqueror himself, following the example of his Saxon predecessors, confirmed to St. Paul's, about 1070, all its estates and privileges, by a Charter, concluding with the words, "for I Will, that the Church, in all things, be as free as I would my Soul should be at the Day of Judgment." Sometime prior to the year 1083, the Saxon Dugdale's "History of St. Paul's," p. 4: edit. 1658. Church, being "roofed with timber, was destroyed by fire, together with the greater part of the City. After that event, Bishop Maurice, the King's Chaplain and Councellor, "conceived the vast design," and commenced "the erection of the magnificent structure which immediately preceded the present Cathedral;" -a work, says Stow, "that men of that time judged wold never have bin finished, it was to them so wonderfull for length and breadth."* WESTMINSTER ABBEY.-BURIAL PLACE OF THE GOOD QUEEN MAUD. On the north side of St. Edward the Confessor's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, repose the ashes of the Good Queen Maud, as she has been styled by the Monkish writers in compliment to her superstitious piety. She was the daughter of Malcolm, King of Scotland, by Margaret, sister to Edgar Atheling, and was married to Henry the First, in November, 1100, in order to insure the future peace of the kingdom by the union of the Saxon and Norman dynasties. Alured calls her " a blessed Queen," and the "Annals of Waverley" affirm, that "her virtues were so great, an entire day would not suffice to recount them." She was * "Survey of London," p. 262: edit. 1598. Malmesbury, speaking of the Norman edifice, "De Gestis Pontif. lib. i.'' has this passage,-"tanta est decoris magnificentia, ut merito inter præclara numeretur ædificia: tanta Criptæ laxitas; tanta superioris ædis capacitas, ut cuilibet populi multitudini videatur posse sufficere." accustomed to pass several days and nights tog in Westminster Abbey, to which she gave reliques; and in Lent time, she came to the Chi in a garment of hair, bare-footed, and bare-legg to perform her devotions, and to wash and kiss feet of the poor. For this excess of humility, she w once reprimanded by a Courtier, whose reproof, wi the Queen's reply, is thus recorded in the Rhymin Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester: 'Madame, for Goddes love is this well idoo To handle sich unclene lymmes, and to kiss so ; 66 Sur, sur," sd the Quene, "be stille; why sayst thou so? Our Lord hymself ensamble gaf so for to do." This Princess died on May-day 1118, or 1119, and was buried in the Old Chapter House at Westminster; but Henry III., on re-building the Abbey Church, caused her remains to be re-interred in St. Edward's Chapel. The precise spot of her interment is unknown, but most probably, it is immediately under the tomb of King Edward the 1st; the word Regina, (forming part of an ancient inscription, in black letter), being still to be traced on the basement at the north-west angle of that tomb, within which, and above the pavement of the Chapel, the embalmed corpse of the King is known to be deposited.* *The last time that King Edward's tomb was opened, was on May 2, 1774: the body was found richly habited and almost entire. |