the business of his diocese, and to admit all persons who desired to speak with him to his presence, as he lay in his upper chamber. But all saw that the "venerable father" (as he is ever affectionately termed in the chronicles of his college) was soon to be taken from them, to receive the reward of eighty years spent in unbroken acts of charity towards God and man. These last days of Wykeham were passed in almost uninterrupted prayer: and so, as the last hour drew on, we are told that, "taking leave of the world, and looking away from his nearest and dearest friends and kinsfolk, who were standing around him, he lifted up his eyes and hands to heaven, and continued with sighs to implore the mercy of his merciful God, ana humbly prayed to the Most Holy Trinity,-not as one that was about to die, but as one that was to pass from exile to his home, from death to life, from bondage to glorious freedom,—that he might soon be allowed to depart, and to be with Christ." He expired on the 27th of September 1404, which that year fell on a Saturday, the day consecrated to the honour of Mary, and on which so many of her servants and clients have passed to their eternal crown. An alabaster tomb was raised over his remains, which were laid before his favourite altar; and there, with the image of his Blessed Patroness looking down upon the place of his rest, the figure of the good and faithful prelate was represented lying as in tranquil slumber. He is in his pontifical robes, with mitre and pastoral staff, his face turned towards heaven, and his hands folded on his breast in prayer. At his head carved angels seem to watch; at his feet are three monks clothed in the habit of St. Benedict; and the images of more than thirty saints formerly occupied those tabernacled niches which were placed around the monument, but which are now empty and defaced. No hand, however, has ventured to injure the figure of Wykeham himself; the features are as perfect as on the first day they were chiselled, and have the tranquil and majestic character which is described as so peculiarly his own. The preservation of this monumental effigy from the fury of the puritanical soldiers under Sir W. Waller, who in 1642 devastated the rest of the cathedral, literally breaking down the carved work with axes and hammers, is due to the courage and determination of two gentlemen,* who had formerly been students of Winchester, and who both protected the founder's grave, and prevented the sacrilegious rabble from setting foot within the college-gates. But sacrilege had already done its worst in the preceding century, leaving nothing but the broken foundation-stones of the altar and credence table to witness against those who had made the daily sacrifice to cease. For three hundred years the "perpetual" Masses have been taken away; and the charity which was so urgently and so touchingly solicited by the great founder is denied him even by the scholars of his own foundation, to whom the inscription, which bids them. pray for him and for all who showed him kindness, is nothing now but an antiquarian curiosity. His own works of charity and munificence make up his fittest epitaph, and have earned for his memory a veneration which attaches to few prelates not honoured by the title of sanctity. A traditional sentiment of respect and love is entertained by those even of opposing creeds for the name of William of Wykeham; and many are ready to repeat in the words of honest John Stow, "Neither do I doubt but that he who thus lived is now with God, whom I beseech to raise up many like Bishops in England." * Colonel Fiennes and Mr. Nicholas Love. APPENDIX. NOTE A, p. 7. BROTHER RICHARD PEKES, or Pekis, was a monk of St. Swithin's Priory, and was ordained priest in 1322 by Peter, Bishop of Corbavia, on behalf of Rigaud de Asserio, Bishop of Winchester, and by his special license, he being then absent from his diocese, and in attendance at the Papal court. 66 NOTE B, p. 9. William de Edyndon, the immediate predecessor of William of Wykeham (of whom Dr. Milner speaks, in his History of Winchester,* as a prelate only inferior to Wykeham himself in his virtues and talents," and says that justice has never been done to his memory), was born of honourable parentage at Edington, a village in Wiltshire, in the diocese of Sarum, and therefore probably received his orders at the hands of the Bishop of that diocese. He was certainly known, and held in good repute, by Adam de Orleton, who had been translated to the see of Winchester, December 1st, 1333, as in the beginning of the year 1335 he collated this William de Edyndon, who was at that time in priest's orders, to the mastership of the hospital of St. Cross, and this preferment was held by him up to the time he was made Bishop of Winchester. In the same year we find Bishop Orleton collating him to the valuable rectory of Cheriton, Hants, which he exchanged a few years afterwards for the rectory of Harting, Sussex, and the prebendship of Allcannings, Wilts, a prebendal stall in the conventual church of St. Marie's Abbey, Winchester; a few months later he exchanged the rectory for the prebendship of Timsbury in the abbey of Romsey. He was a man of unquestionable ability and merits, and stood high in the favour of King Edward III., who, in 1344, appointed him Chancellor of his Exchequer, and shortly afterwards Treasurer of England. On the death of Adam de Orleton, who died at his castle of Farnham, July 18th, 1345, the monks of Winchester Cathedral chose John de Devenishe, one of their own community. The king, however, designed the see for William de Edyndon; and in this wish he found himself forestalled by the Holy See, Pope Clement V. having already fixed upon him for this important bishopric, and to this end had, in the lifetime of the late Bishop, reserved the appointment to * Vol. ii, p. 29. himself per viam provisionis. This occasioned some little delay; but he was afterwards duly elected by the monks, and John de Devenishe was, by way of compromise, appointed Prior of Canterbury. On the vigil of Christmas, William de Edyndon received by a special messenger the private bull upon his provision . to the see of Winchester; but it was not until the 13th February 1346 that the customary apostolic bulls reached him; and on the 21st of the same month, in virtue of the said bulls, he received from the king the restitution of the temporalities of the bishopric. He was consecrated on Sunday, May 14th, 1346, by John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishops of London and Chichester, in the chapel of the Archbishop's manor at Otford, in Kent. In 1350, the king appointed him chancellor or prelate of the newly instituted Order of the Garter, an honour which has ever since been held by his successors the Bishops of Winchester. In 1357, he had the Great Seal delivered to him, and became Lord High Chancellor of England. In this difficult post he conducted himself with great discretion.* On the death of Archbishop Islip, he was elected, on the 10th of May 1366, to the metropolitan and primatial see of Canterbury, which he declined on account of his advanced age, and perhaps also through humility.+ 66 He was distinguished for his numerous works of piety and charity, distributing almost all his unappropriated money amongst the poor during his lifetime; for he had seen his diocese sorely visited by two dreadful plagues, and his beloved children dying by thousands. Little can we realise the frightful havoc occasioned by this terrible scourge, carrying off as it did nine-tenths of the people. "So much misery," says Friar Capgrave, who lived a few years later, was in the land, that the prosperity which was before was never recovered."§ Our own researches enable us to assert, that it was so great a blow to the religious houses, that up to the period of their suppression they had not recovered from its effects. These sad afflictions laid an overwhelming amount of work upon the shoulders of William de Edyndon, and most zealous and unflinching did he show himself in his laborious office. Exact in the discharge of every duty, he made almost superhuman efforts to alleviate the distress of his own diocese, and did all that he could to console the survivors and inspire them with courage and resignation. Under these circumstances it cannot be matter for wonder that his episcopal palaces were suffered to fall Chronic. Anonym., Contin. Hist. Winton. Harpsfield, Hist. Eccl. s. xiv. c. 19; and Hen. Wharton, Cont. Hist. Wint. Chronicle of England, edit. 1858, p. 213. Capgrave died at his convent at Lynn, of which he was prior, August 12th, 1464, æt. seventy. into dilapidation, though this was not owing to his continual absence from his diocese, as has been asserted by some writers; for, in fact, he visited every part of it, and that more frequently than any of his predecessors. We have no means of ascertaining the actual havoc occasioned among the religious houses of his diocese, or the number of clergy who perished; but in the hospital of Sandown, in Surrey, there existed not a single survivor; and of other religious houses in the diocese (which comprises only two counties) there perished no fewer than twenty-eight superiors,-abbots, abbesses, and priors,-and nearly 350 rectors and vicars of the several parish-churches. In the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, London, 50,000 dead are recorded to have been buried within twelve months; between Candlemas and Easter nearly 200 interments took place every day. Three Archbishops of Canterbury in one year put on the pallium only to be covered with the shroud; and at Westminster Abbey the abbot and twenty-six of his brethren were committed to one large grave in the southern cloister. Pope Clement wrote both to the King of England and to William de Edyndon to encourage them amidst all this distress, imploring them to place their confidence in Almighty God, and in the prayers of His saints; and by processions and prayers to endeavour to propitiate His mercy on behalf of both the living and the dead." Bishop Edyndon was held in such great esteem by the Holy See that the Papal mandates were almost invariably addressed to him. He delivered the pallium to three Archbishops, viz. of Canterbury, York, and Dublin; consecrated one Archbishop and eight Bishops to the vacant sees in England; and ordained nearly 800 priests. He founded a college for secular priests at his native place of Edington, the beautiful church of which exists to this day; but at the request of the Black Prince, who was a great admirer of the order of hermits, called Bon-hommes, he changed it into a convent of that order. He also founded a chantry of three priests in the chapel of Farnham Castle, and was a benefactor to the college of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, which stood just without the gate of his palace of Wolvesey, Winchester, where the anniversary of his own obiit was to be for ever kept; and on the vigil of the feast of St. James the Apostle each year, solemn obsequies were to be celebrated for the repose of the souls of his father and mother, with the office Salus populi, and alms were to be distributed to the poor. He built the western front of his cathedral, above the gable of which may still be seen his statue in pontificals, placed beneath a canopy, his right hand uplifted in the act of benediction; and actually began the great work of rebuilding its nave, afterwards so ably carried out by his successor. By his will he ordered |