Table of
Contents

THE DIOCESE AND BISHOPS.

According to a curious legend,[15] widely circulated in the Middle Ages, the men of Rochester did not accord a patient hearing to St. Augustine when he first came thither to preach the Gospel. They, instead, used him rudely, and in mockery threw at him and hung on his dress a lot of fish-tails. In anger the saint prayed to God to avenge him on his persecutors and “the Lord smote them in posteriora to their everlasting ignominy, so that not only on their own but on their successors’ persons similar tails grew ever after.” A way of escape was, however, according to the fourteenth century prose version of the “Brut,” soon provided, for “whenne the kyng herde and wiste of this vengeance that was falle thurghe saynt Austines powere he lette make one howse in honour of God ... at the brugges end,” children born in which would not be afflicted with the dreaded appendage. Other versions of the story give Dorchester as the place where the saint was thus ill-used and his assailants were thus punished, but both Kent and Dorset have been zealous to repudiate any concern with it, and Lambarde in his “Perambulation” has written an indignant diatribe in defence of the former county.

Later, in the legends concerning St. Thomas À Becket, another form of the same fable appears. The men of Strood are said to have docked the tail of his horse and to have been punished in the same way as St. Augustine’s persecutors. In the story Rochester sometimes appears instead of Strood, and this is our excuse for alluding to the variation here. It seems to be due to a confusion of the old story with a new fact, as we have a contemporary statement that St. Thomas, on the Christmas Day before his death, excommunicated a certain Robert de Broc, because the latter had, to insult and shame him, cut off the tail of a mare in his service.

In the Middle Ages the matter was of national concern, for the disgrace said to have befallen the inhabitants of one or other of the small towns mentioned became “a scandal to their unoffending country.” When the story spread, as it did, nearly all over Europe, foreigners did not particularize, but offensively alluded to all Englishmen as caudati, or tailed. Such allusions often occur in narratives of the Crusades, and the French and Scotch were especially keen to hurl the epithet at their hereditary foes. Even in the sixteenth century John Bale says, “that an Englyshman now can not travayle in an other land by waye of merchandyce or any other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most contumelyouslye throwne in his tethe that all Englishmen have tayles.” The name “Kentish Longtails” seems to have been early current, and in Drayton’s “Polyolbion” we find “Longtails and Liberty” given almost as a motto for the county.

We are not told whether it was due to this miracle of the “tails,” but it is certain that the conversion of the townspeople of Rochester must have been rapid, for we know that a see was founded here as early as 604. The diocese placed under its bishop’s care was a small one, including no more than the western part of the ancient kingdom of Kent, the dividing line being roughly the course of the Medway, or, more precisely, that of its tributary, the Teise. The whole diocese formed only a single archdeaconry, which was divided into four deaneries, and of this small number one was subject, as a peculiar, to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, “who holdeth his prerogative wheresoever his lands do lye.”

Not only “hath the See at Rochester well holden her owne: for during the whole succession of ... Bishops, which in right line have followed Justus, she hath continually mainteined her Chaire at this one place, whereas in most partes of the Realme besides, the Sees of the Bishops have suffred sundry translations,” but it was long also before the ancient limits of the diocese were changed. In 1845 it was enlarged so as to include Essex and Hertfordshire, and was then divided into the four archdeaconries of Rochester, Colchester, Essex and St. Alban’s. The old palace at Bromley, which had been since Cardinal Fisher’s time the chief home of the bishops, was at the same time quitted for Danbury in Essex. In 1863 the archdeaconries of Rochester and St. Albans were joined into one, and in 1867 the total number of archdeaconries was reduced to two: Rochester and St. Albans forming one, and Essex the other. The extent and composition of the diocese was again entirely changed in 1877, when the new diocese of St. Albans was formed. Since that time the diocese of Rochester has included West Kent and part of Surrey, and has comprised three archdeaconries: Rochester, Kingston, and Southwark. In 1877 Danbury Palace had to be given up and Selsdon in Surrey became for a time the episcopal home. Quite recently a new palace has been completed at Kennington, in the most populous and needy part of the diocese.

In mediÆval times the bishops of Rochester had a town house at Southwark. This was afterwards changed for the one at Lambeth Marsh, where the attempt to poison Bishop Fisher occurred. They had also other country homes at Halling and Trottescliffe. Our space will not, however, allow us to deal at length with these palaces outside the cathedral precincts.

The poverty of the Church at the time of the Conquest has been already mentioned, and even later we find that the episcopal revenue continued to be very small. One diocese only, we are told, paid a lower “Rome-scot,” and only two English bishoprics appear as inferior in value in the King’s books. Some old sources of episcopal and monastic income seem to us curious. The bulk was, of course, derived from manors or estates, but we find also that the bishop was entitled to a share of the whales killed on the shores of his diocese and that the monks of the priory of St. Andrew owned oyster fisheries. Out of the estates assigned to them the monks had to make an annual contribution, in kind, called the Xenium, to the bishop’s income, and this, due on St. Andrew’s Day, was on several occasions a subject of dispute. In Henry VIII.’s time we find the bishopric valued at £358 4s. 9½d., and later, in 1595, it is stated that the clear annual profits did not exceed £220. To supplement this paltry revenue the bishops often held other appointments in commendam. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth, the deanery of Westminster was, in this way, almost continuously attached to the bishopric of Rochester. Such pluralities are, of course, no longer allowed, the estates of this, as of other sees, being administered by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, through whom the bishop receives the regular and more adequate income that he now enjoys. Poor though the see has been, we find many distinguished men among those who have held it. A great number of such passed on soon to richer bishoprics, and some even attained the archiepiscopal dignity, but one or two of the greatest consistently refused to be thus advanced.

For the sake of convenient reference, we now give a list of the bishops, in chronological order.

St. Justus, sent to reinforce the English mission in 601, became the first bishop in 604; fled to Gaul in 617, on the great relapse into idolatry after Ethelbert’s death; summoned back after a year by the new king Eadbald; succeeded Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury in 624; died in 627.

Romanus, consecrated in 624; drowned while on a mission to Rome (absorptus fluctibus Italici Maris) probably in 627, but certainly before November, 630.

St. Paulinus came over with Justus; ordained Bishop of York, in 625, to accompany Ethelburga, princess of Kent, when she went to marry Edwin of Northumbria; baptised Edwin himself in April, 627, and earned well his title of the Apostle of Northumbria; preached also, we are told, in Lancashire, in Cumbria, on the Trent, and at Lincoln; fled with the widowed queen on Edwin’s overthrow in 633, as he owed attendance to her; gladly received in Kent and persuaded to accept the see of Rochester, where, probably, he received the pallium sent him in 634; died in 644; buried in the secretarium of the church, whence his remains were afterwards transferred to the Norman cathedral. St. Ythamar, the first bishop who was an Englishman by birth; died in 655; like Paulinus, buried in the church, and much revered, though the Normans seem to have been less eager to translate his remains.

Damian succeeded in 656, died in 664.

Putta succeeded five years later in 669; translated to Hereford in 676; died in 688.

Cuichelm resigned the see, through poverty, after only two years.

Gebmund, appointed in 678, died in 693.

Tobias, appointed in 693; famous for his great learning, which included a knowledge of both Greek and Latin; died in 726; buried in the Porticus of St. Paul, which he had himself built on to the cathedral.

Then came Alduulf, 726—d. 739 or 741; Duina, 741-747; Earduulf, 747 (or 757)-765; Diora, 778—d. 781; Wermund, 788-802; Beornmod, 803 (or 811)-814; Tathnoth, 841 (or 844)-; Godwin I.; Cutherwulf, 868-; Swithulf, 880-; Ruhric; Cheolmund; Chinefurth; Burrhic; Alfstan (Athelstan), 955-; Godwin II. (Godric) and Godwin III., c. 995—c. 1012. This is as complete a list as can be given until we come to Bishop Siward.

Siward was appointed in 1058; under him the establishment reached the greatest extreme of poverty, but, though it is suspected that the services of the church were also neglected, he was allowed to retain the see after the Conquest until his death in 1075.

Ernost, a monk, appointed by Lanfranc in 1076, died in the same year.

Gundulf, consecrated in 1077; came over with Lanfranc; also a great friend of Anselm; a skilful architect, rebuilt much of the cathedral, built the White Tower in London, St. Leonard’s Tower and the nunnery at Malling, part of Dartford Church, and a tower at Rochester earlier than the present keep; substituted Benedictines for the old secular establishment of the cathedral; famous for piety and holiness, and in favour with the Conqueror and the two sons who succeeded him; died in 1108, aged 84; buried by Anselm in the cathedral, where a plain tomb is still called by his name.

Ralph d’Escures, an abbot of SÉes who had been forced to flee by Robert of BellÊme; a friend of Gundulf; some architectural work at Rochester carried out under his sway; Archbishop of Canterbury in 1114; died in 1122.

Ernulf came next in 1115; had been successively Prior of Canterbury and Abbot of Peterborough; built at both those places as well as at Rochester; famous for saintliness, and a great authority on canon law; perhaps best known generally by Sterne’s comments in “Tristram Shandy” on the terrible excommunication curse contained in his “Textus Roffensis”; died in 1124.

John, formerly Archdeacon of Canterbury; Bishop of Rochester in 1125; cathedral consecrated in his time; died in 1137.

John, formerly Abbot of SÉes; appointed in 1137; died in 1142.

Ascelin, succeeded in 1142; active bishop, even visited Rome for the monks of his cathedral; died in 1148.

Walter, chosen in 1148; the first bishop elected by the monks of the Priory of St. Andrew, the right being granted them by his brother Archbishop Theobald; formerly Archdeacon of Canterbury; died in 1182.

Gualeran, appointed in 1182; formerly Archdeacon of Bayeux; died in 1184.

Gilbert de Glanvill, consecrated in 1185; employed earlier by Becket on a mission to the Pope; quarrelled with his monks and helped Archbishops Baldwin and Hubert Walter (a friend of his own) against those of Canterbury; died 1214, before the Interdict was removed; buried at Rochester, where a tomb is shown as his.

Benedict de Sansetun, succeeded in 1215; saw cathedral plundered, and great works in new choir; died in 1226.

Henry Sandford; new choir entered in his first year, 1227; in a sermon at Sittingbourne said that the release from Purgatory, in one day, of Richard I., Stephen Langton, and a chaplain of the latter, had been revealed to him; died in 1235.

Richard de Wendover, not consecrated till 1238; monks had to appeal to Rome, against the archbishop’s claims, to get their election of him confirmed; died in 1250.

Lawrence de Saint Martin, succeeded in 1251; appealed to Pope against a robbery of his see by Archbishop Boniface; at Rome for the canonization of St. William in 1256; died in 1274; his tomb (in the choir) has been described. Walter de Merton, appointed in 1274; before this, chancellor (1261-63; 1272-74) and justiciar; founded his college at Maldon, and afterwards transferred it to Oxford; drowned in the Medway in 1277; buried in the cathedral (north choir transept).

John de Bradfield, a monk at Rochester; became bishop in 1277; died in 1283; buried in the cathedral (south choir aisle).

Thomas Inglethorp, appointed in 1283; formerly Dean of St. Paul’s and Archdeacon of Middlesex; died in 1291; buried in the cathedral (chancel).

Thomas de Wouldham, Prior of Rochester, became bishop in 1292; died in 1317.

Hamo de Hythe, appointed in 1319 after a delay caused by Pope’s wish to nominate John de Puteoli; did much for church and renewed the shrines of St. Paulinus and St. Ythamar; died in 1352; tomb in the cathedral (north choir aisle).

John de Sheppey, succeeded in 1352; treasurer of England, 1326-58; died in 1360; buried on the north side of the choir.

William of Whittlesea, Bishop of Rochester, 1362; of Worcester, 1364; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1368; died in 1374.

Thomas Trilleck, succeeded in 1364; formerly Dean of St. Paul’s; died in 1372.

Thomas Brinton, appointed in 1373 by the Pope, who rejected the monk’s nominee, their prior, John Hertley; a Benedictine of Norwich; had been penitentiary to the Roman see; died in 1389.

William de Bottisham, transferred from Llandaff in 1389, the Pope rejecting John Barnet; died in 1400.

John de Bottisham, succeeded in 1400; died in 1404; this repetition of the same surname has caused some confusion.

Richard Young, translated from Bangor in 1404; seems not to have taken full possession of see till 1407; died in 1418.

John Kemp, at earlier dates Keeper of Privy Seal and Chancellor of Normandy; Bishop of Rochester, 1419; of Chichester, 1421; of London, 1421; Archbishop of York, 1426; of Canterbury, 1452; Cardinal, 1439; prominent member of Beaufort party; Chancellor of England; served on several important political missions; died in 1454. John Langdon, appointed in 1434; a royal councillor; author of an Anglorum Chronicon; died at Basle in 1434.

Thomas Brown, succeeded in 1435; in 1436, while still at Basle, translated by the Pope to Norwich; died in 1445.

William Wells, Abbot of York, succeeded in 1437; died before 26 February 1444.

John Lowe, translated from St. Asaph in 1444; English Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine; died in 1467; buried in north choir transept.

Thomas Rotheram (or Scott), appointed in 1468; translated to Lincoln, 1472; Archbishop of York, 1480; died in 1500; had been Chaplain to Edward IV., Keeper of the Privy Seal, and, in 1474, Lord Chancellor.

John Alcock succeeded in 1472; Privy Councillor, 1470-71; Lord Chancellor, 1474; first Lord President of Wales, 1476; tutor to Edward V., removed by Gloucester; under Henry VII., baptized Prince Arthur; comptroller of the royal works, and again Lord Chancellor; a great architect, works at Ely and Cambridge; translated to Worcester in 1476, to Ely in 1486; “devoted to learning and piety”; died in 1500.

John Russell, succeeded in 1476; translated to Lincoln, 1480; died in 1494.

Edmund Audley, Canon of York; Bishop of Rochester, 1480; of Hereford, 1492; of Salisbury, 1502; died in 1524; a legatee and executor of Henry VII.

Thomas Savage, Canon of York, Dean of the King’s Chapel at Westminster; Bishop of Rochester, 1492, of London, 1496; Archbishop of York, 1501; died in 1507.

Richard FitzJames succeeded in 1496; translated to Chichester in 1503 and to London in 1506; died in 1522; a famous warden of Merton; Royal Almoner in 1495; did not favour Colet’s efforts at reform.

John Fisher, having risen to the Chancellorship of Cambridge University in 1504, was then made, for his “grete and singular virtue,” Bishop of Rochester; he and his patron, Lady Margaret, were great benefactors to Cambridge; a friend of Erasmus; opposed Henry VIII.’s divorce and the royal supremacy; made a cardinal just before he bravely and resignedly met his death in 1535.

John Hilsey came then in 1535; formerly Prior of the Dominicans in London; one of Cromwell’s commissioners, compiled at his orders a service book in English; exposed the miraculous rood of Boxley at St. Paul’s Cross; died in 1538.

Richard Heath, succeeded in 1539; had been Almoner to Henry VIII.; translated to Worcester, 1543; deprived for a time, but restored on Queen Mary’s accession; Archbishop of York, 1555; Chancellor; held both the last appointments under Elizabeth, whose accession he proclaimed, but had to resign when the Act of Supremacy was enforced.

Henry Holbeach, succeeded in 1543; translated to Lincoln in 1546; previously suffragan Bishop of Bristol, and Prior (later Dean) of Worcester.

Nicholas Ridley, succeeded in 1547; translated to London when Bonner was removed in 1550; a famous Protestant, learned and pious; the story of his martyrdom with Latimer at Oxford, in 1555, is well known.

John Poynet, succeeded in 1550; translated to Winchester, 1551; left England when Mary became Queen; died at Strasburg in 1556.

John Scory, appointed in 1551; a great preacher; translated to Chichester in 1552; bishop of Hereford in 1559, when able to return from Friesland; died in 1585.

Maurice Griffith, appointed after an interval of about two years; educated by the Dominicans at Oxford; formerly Archdeacon of Rochester; one or two Protestants were burnt during his episcopacy; died in 1558.

Edmund Gheast, consecrated in 1559 and made Almoner to the Queen; transferred to Salisbury, 1571; died in 1578.

Edmund Freake, succeeded in 1571; previously Dean of Rochester, and of Salisbury; Queen’s Almoner in 1572; translated to Norwich in 1575, to Worcester in 1584; scandal at Norwich, his wife “will looke on him as the Divell lookes over Lincoln;” troubles with Puritans; died in 1590-91.

John Piers, succeeded in 1576; Bishop of Salisbury, 1577; Archbishop of York, 1589; Lord High Almoner, 1576; employed and consulted by the Queen; died in 1594.

John Yonge, became bishop in 1578; thought avaricious, but the annual revenue of his see shown not to exceed £220; died in 1605.

William Barlow, succeeded in 1605; wrote other works besides his account, denounced as partial by the Puritans, of the famous Hampton Court Conference; translated to Lincoln, 1608; died in 1613.

Richard Neile, succeeded in 1608; introduced Laud to the King’s notice; Bishop of Lichfield, 1610, of Durham, 1617 and of Winchester, 1627; Archbishop of York, 1631; privy councillor; employed in famous Essex divorce case; sat in the courts of High Commission and of the Star Chamber; died in 1640.

John Buckeridge, formerly a canon at Rochester; confirmed as bishop in 1611; formerly a royal chaplain; took part in Essex case; active in religious discussions; translated to Ely, 1628; died in 1631.

Walter Curle, appointed in 1628; translated to Bath and Wells in 1629, to Winchester in 1632; deprived by Parliamentarians and apparently in great straits before he died, c. 1650.

John Bowle, appointed in 1629; apparently in ill-health, and consequently neglectful, for three years before his death in 1637.

John Warner, succeeded in 1638; seems to have been the last to struggle for his order’s place in Parliament; deprived of revenues, but allowed to stay at Bromley under the Commonwealth; one of the nine bishops who lived till the Restoration; employed in the Savoy Conference; wealthy; benefactor to the cathedral and to Magdalen and Balliol Colleges, Oxford; founded college for clergymen’s widows at Bromley; died in 1666; the last bishop buried in the cathedral.

John Dolben, made bishop in 1666; had served at Marston Moor and been wounded at York; retained his deanery of Westminster in commendam; translated to York in 1683; died in 1686.

Francis Turner, succeeded in 1683; translated to Ely in 1684; one of the seven bishops who petitioned against the Declaration of Indulgence, though he had been James II.’s chaplain; had to give up his see on account of his belief in James’ divine right; died in 1700.

Thomas Sprat, Dean of Westminster, became Bishop of Rochester in 1685; of such literary ability as to have a place in Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets;” wrote a poem on the death of Cromwell, a history of the Royal Society, a life of Cowley, etc.; in no great favour with William’s government; implicated in the fabricated Flower-pot Plot, the papers concerning which were said to have been found in a flower-pot at Bromley; seems to have been somewhat of a time-server; died in 1713.

Francis Atterbury, born in 1662; took orders after the Revolution; became a Royal Chaplain, but still lived usually at Oxford; took part in the great controversy between Boyle and Bentley, on the Epistles of Phalaris; successively Archdeacon of Totnes, Dean of Carlisle, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and finally in 1713 Bishop of Rochester; in 1710 composed the speech for Sacheverell’s defence before the House of Lords; a Tory, but, though he had tried to procure the proclamation of James III., he assisted at George I.’s coronation; deprived, for Jacobitism, of his see and banished in 1723; retired to Brussels and then for his health’s sake to Paris; served James almost as a prime minister; in 1728 he left this service owing to bad treatment, but re-entered it before his death, after nine years of exile, in 1731-2.

Samuel Bradford, refused the see of St. David’s in 1710; accepted that of Carlisle in 1718; translated to Rochester in 1723; in 1725 first dean of the revised Order of the Bath; his “Discourse concerning Baptismal and Spiritual Regeneration” (1709) had great popularity; died in 1731 at the Deanery, Westminster; buried in the Abbey.

Joseph Wilcocks, translated in 1731, from Gloucester, which see he had held since 1721; the new west front of Westminster Abbey finished in his time; he refused the Archbishopric of York before his death in 1756.

Zachary Pearce, succeeded in 1756; previously Dean of Winchester in 1739, and Bishop of Bangor in 1747; in 1768 he resigned the Deanery of Westminster, which he had held with his bishopric, but was not allowed to resign the see; died in 1774. While a fellow of Trin. Coll., Camb., he edited Longinus’ works and Cicero’s “De Oratore” and “De Officiis.”

John Thomas was then bishop from 1774 until his death in 1793.

Samuel Horsley, born in 1733; a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767, and one of its secretaries in 1773; Archdeacon of St. Alban’s in 1782; resigned his membership of the Royal Society on account of the dispute, in 1783-4, with Sir Joseph Banks about its management; in 1785 he completed his edition of Newton’s works; Prebendary of Gloucester, in 1787; Bishop of St. David’s in 1788; translated to Rochester, with the deanery Westminster, in 1793, and thence to St. Asaph in 1802; died in 1806, showing his carelessness in money matters by letting a life policy for £5,000 lapse two days before his death; had engaged much in controversy with Priestley.

The Bishops of Rochester during this century have been Thomas Dampier, from 1802 to 1808, when he was translated to Ely; Walter King, from 1809 to 1827; Hugh Percy, appointed in 1827 but translated in the same year to Carlisle; George Murray, from 1827 to 1860; Joseph Cotton Wigram, from 1860 to 1867; Thomas Legh Claughton, from 1867 until his transfer to the new see of St. Alban’s in 1877; Anthony Wilson Thorold, from 1877 until his translation to Winchester in 1891; Dr. Randall Thomas Davidson, who succeeded Dr. Thorold at Rochester, and again, on his death, at Winchester in 1895, and Dr. Edward Stuart Talbot, appointed in 1895, and still governing the diocese. These have all been worthy of their distinguished position and of their predecessors in the see.

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Bell’s Cathedral Series.

Table of
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EDITED BY

GLEESON WHITE AND E. F. STRANGE.

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