4 The Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, Salisbury. 



building. The Dean and Chapter undertook to lengthen the 

 chancel on the north side, in accordance with the work done on 

 the south side by the parishioners (probably one additional bay). 

 They also promised to build the pillars, arches, and clerestory, on 

 the north side to correspond with the work of the same kind done 

 by the parishioners on the south side of the choir. The capitals 

 of the pillars on the south side bear inscriptions, one being " The 

 founder of this peler was art . . . John Nichol," another has 

 the merchant's mark of John Webb upon it. The spring of the 

 ancient arch, which was only uncovered a few years since, is un- 

 doubtedly a portion of St. Stephen's Chapel, and this part of the 

 Church, viz., the south chancel aisle, William Swayne undertook 

 to rebuild and to make it 59 feet long, to correspond with the new 

 chancel ; members of the Godmanstone and Hungerford families 

 promising to make the Godmanstone or north chancel aisle the 

 same length. 



When in the years 1445-6 the affluent merchant, William 

 Swayne, was mayor of the city, he became the patron and friend 

 of the Tailor's Guild. This fraternity, from its earliest days, had 

 an altar in St. Thomas' (probably in St. Stephen's Chapel), but in 

 1447, that is, the year in which St. Thomas' chancel fell down, and 

 possibly owing to this disaster, the guild obtained a charter from 

 Henry VI. which gave them licence to found their chantry in St. 

 Edmund's Church. In 1448. however, that is, after the agreement 

 to rebuild St. Thomas' had been made, the guild petitioned the 

 King to revoke these letters patent, and to grant them a fresh 

 charter, which would empower them to found their chantry of St. 

 John the Baptist, in St. Thomas' Church. Their petition was 

 successful, and a new charter was granted to them in 1449. The 

 result was that William Swayne built, at his own cost, the enlarged 

 south chancel aisle as a guild chapel, and in this chapel he founded 

 two chantries, one an altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the 

 other to St. John the Baptist, for the fraternity of tailors. Swayne's 

 Chapel was completed during the episcopacy of Bishop Beauchamp, 

 and we read that Richard Betan was admitted to the chantry of 

 the Blessed Mary there devoutly founded on the presentation of 



