120 Images destroyed in Salisbury Cathedral. 
undo the recent church reforms of Archbishop Laud, and would 
never have authorised such wholesale defacing of the fabrics as the 
“ Reformation” of the previous century had witnessed. The image 
of the Virgin Mary was, it is true, to be removed, if set up within 
the previous twenty years; as also paintings of any Person in the 
Trinity, of what date soever. The communion table was to be 
shifted from the east end of the chancel, lest it should appear as 
an altar; rails to be removed and candlesticks abolished: and these, 
with a few similar items, comprise the entire reform sanctioned by 
law. In other respects, of course the usual care was to be taken of 
the building, and, moreover, great caution was enjoined in repairing 
parts injured by such removals. Thus we find, that when, in the 
summer of 1644, Middleton, one of Waller’s officers, sent up to the 
Parliament certain plate, pulpit cloth, copes, tippets, hangings, and 
a picture of the Virgin, which he had found in Salisbury Cathedral, 
he was considered to have overstepped his commission. The plate 
and pulpit cloth were ordered back to Salisbury, and only the tip- 
pets and other suspicious garments handed over to the soldiery. 
The fate of the picture is not stated; no doubt it was destroyed. 
But then the answer is usually ready, that, prompted by the 
lawlessness of the times, the rabble would instinctively destroy the 
accessories and emblems of a religion which their leaders had 
taught them to despise; and the instance of Canterbury Cathedral 
is quoted, where much of the stained glass was smashed by a 
thoughtless mob; (evidently an outbreak of popular indignation 
against Archbishop Laud in particular.) This of Canterbury is in 
fact the principal case made out for Cathedral spoliation, and I 
lay it down as a fair challenge, that, as to the fabric of Salisbury 
Cathedral, no manner of proof exists that it was ever wilfully in- 
jured, from the period of the Reformation in the reign of Edward 
VL, till the time of Bishop Barrington’s alterations in 1789. 
It is a very unfair and absurd picture of the civil war times, to 
represent the city of Salisbury as in a state of positive anarchy, 
with the populace running wild, and amusing themselves by tearing 
down statues, some of which were at least eighty feet above their 
reach. Much smaller events than these are chronicled with all 
