LAMBETH PALACE 



Chicherley spent vast sums upon the demesne of Lambeth. 

 He restored the house and added a fountain, or aqueduct, and 

 also a " rabbed garden." A fountain suggests a garden, and we 

 thus come upon the earliest reference to the gardens of the Palace. 

 Chicherley's chief contribution, however, to the growing pile of 

 buildings on the south bank of the Thames, was the square, grim, 

 battlemerited tower, built of rough, grey stone, standing at the 

 western extremity of the chapel ; it was erected about the thir- 

 teenth year of the reign of Henry VI., when Chicherley had been 

 eight years Primate. An old stone building was cleared away to 

 make room for it, of which a small turret was spared and incor- 

 porated in the main body of the new tower. From the steward's 

 accounts for that year, the latter is found to have cost 278 2s. 11 Jd., 

 something like 3,000 of our present currency. 



The tower has long been known as the " Lollards Tower." 

 Ducarel records this fact, but makes no comment on it. Dr. 

 Maitland, however, who was Librarian at Lambeth about 1840, 

 states authoritatively that there is no foundation for the popular 

 belief that the unfortunate followers of Wycliff were ever incar- 

 cerated there ; and that the stone chamber on the summit, in 

 which a so-called " oubliette " is shown, was never used as their 

 prison. Nevertheless, the " oubliette," though it is no oubliette, 

 and certain rings and staples to which prisoners might have been 

 chained, are still regarded by some as evidence of the melancholy 

 purpose to which they assume it had been put by its builders. 



This is unfair to the memory of Chicherley, for the disgrace of 

 the persecution of the unhappy reformers should fall chiefly on 

 Arundel, who was responsible for the statute legalizing the burning 

 of heretics in 1401, the year when the fires of Smithfield were, I 

 believe, first lighted. 



Any priest who had arrived at the dignity of Archbishop of 

 Canterbury, was bound in those days to be more or less a per- 

 secutor, and Chicherley was no exception ; but he was not only an 

 ecclesiastic, he was also a statesman, and a man of the world, 

 occupied with large public and benevolent undertakings. It was 

 Chicherley who encouraged Henry V. to begin the successful 

 campaign against France, and to found the famous twin monastery 

 of Sion at Isleworth, concerning which there will be more to say 

 in a succeeding chapter. Above all, he will always be remem- 



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