HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 107 



was completely finished in Bishop Heyworth's time, who was ap- 

 pointed Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in the year 1420. The 

 principal contributor to the embellishment of the Cathedral was 

 Bishop Langton, who laid the foundation of St. Mary's Chapel, 

 and left money to complete it. Several other zealous friends of 

 the church, whose names are unrecorded, doubtless contributed to 

 promote the completion of this stately and beautiful edifice, and it 

 was only by the efforts of successive prelates during the lapse of 

 several ages that it was brought to perfection. 



All the pomp of Popish superstition was subverted by the Refoi - 

 mation ; and at the Dissolution, the costly and venerated shrine of 

 St. Chadd, and several images of exquisite workmanship, were re- 

 moved from Lichfield Cathedral. A celebrated writer on Ecclesi- 

 astical history, says, " in the time of William Heyworth, the Ca- 

 thedral of Lichfield was in the vertical height thereof, being (though 

 not augmented in the essentials) beautified in the ornamentals 

 thereof. Indeed, the west front is a stately fabric adorned with ex- 

 quisite imagerie, which I suspect our age is so far from being able 

 to imitate the workmanship, that it understandeth not the history 

 thereof. But alas ! it is now in a pitiful case indeed, almost beaten 

 down to the ground in our Civil dissentions. Now, lest the church 

 should follow the castle, and vanish quite out of view, I have at the 

 cost of my worthy friend (Elias Ashmole) here exemplified the 

 portraiture thereof."* 



Whatever zeal the Protestants, in the first era of the Reforma- 

 tion, might evince in the removal or destruction of shrines, cruci- 

 fixes, images of saints, and other objects of Popish idolatry, they 

 did not attempt to deface the exterior of Lichfield Cathedral, which 

 continued for upwards of two centuries in all its magnificence, an 

 object of admiration to travellers, and the principal architec- 

 tural ornament of Staffordshire. But when Charles the First, by 

 unconstitutional and arbitrary measures opposed the Parliament, 

 and levied imposts without controul, a most sanguinary Civil war 

 ensued, and the Close and Cathedral of Lichfield were exposed to 

 three destructive sieges. These events are of too much importance 

 in this history to be overlooked, and the following authentic parti- 

 culars will not only demonstrate the deplorable state of ruin to which 

 this noble pile was brought, but prove illustrative of the manners 

 of that age. 



" The situation of the place on an eminence, surrounded by water 

 * Fuller's Church History, Book IV. p. 175. 



