vants that he had authority to put him down and to make whom he pleased abbot here.293 Notwithstanding these exactions, Clement Lichfield was a liberal benefactor to the town as well as to the monastery. He built the grammar-school in Merstowe for the youth of the town and neighbourhood, and adorned the choir belonging to the abbey church with the luxuriant decorations of the Tudor style of architecture; he also rebuilt the bell-tower of the monastery which still remains,—his glorious monument !—added a chantrychapel to the church of All-saints, where his remains are laid, and seems to have assisted in beautifying the adjacent church of St. Lawrence.

The character of this abbot is, by all his biographers, protestant as well as catholic, admitted to have adorned the sacred office which he filled. His conduct proves him worthy of such distinction. A short time previous to the dissolution of religious houses, he appears to have foreseen the ultimate design of the sovereign; and therefore-unmoved in his determination, never to surrender the possessions of the church to one whom he considered an ungodly and rapacious layman-he, at the instigation of Cromwell, resigned his pastoral staff; and retiring to his abbatial manor-house at Offenham, he there, in melancholy but dignified seclusion, calmly awaited his dismissal from the earth. That period soon arrived. A witness to the base conduct of his treacherous successor, beholding the utter destruction of his monastery, together with the desecration of those hallowed aisles which it had been the pride and business of his life to adorn, bowed down with anguish, rather than with years, he yielded up his spirit to Him whose servant he was consecrated,-"before whom all hearts lie open;" and by whom "actions are weighed."

Thus terminated, in the month of October 1546, the honorable and consistent life of Clement Lichfield; the last actual abbot of that long-drawn line, which-originating amid the gloom of semibarbarism and partial christianity-here terminated before the dawn of that resplendent era, wherein-in confirmation of the apocalyptic vision" the everlasting gospel," in primeval purity, is to be proclaimed "to them that dwell upon the earth, and to every

293 See letter from Clement abbot of Evesham to Cromwell Lord Privy Seal, printed in the Appendix, No. I.

nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." 294 His body was appropriately interred within the chantry that he had himself erected in the parochial chapel of All-saints. And mournful must have been the gathering upon that day, of the inhabitants throughout the Vale; who venerating the character and office of their late spiritual father, now thronged to witness the committal of his body to its silent resting-place. A marble slab still covers his remains, indented for an inlaid effigy and inscription; to which we shall have occasion to recur in an ensuing chapter. Himself unchanged in pious sentiment, amidst an almost general conformity with the assumed opinions of the king, no doubt nor question can be made of the sincerity of abbot Lichfield. Consistent even in death, he ordains a strict compliance with the usages of that Church of which he was yet a minister, the observances of which extend beyond the coffin and the shroud. His own stately fabric is in ruins and its monastic choristers are wide dispersed; and the imposing services which that community were wont to offer at stated periods for the welfare of the departed, cannot be there observed for him and therefore he is content that the postmortuary offices be rendered for his soul's repose in an obscure structure-a distant chapel, once dependent on his own--the mother church. And though vast estates are no longer vested in him, wherewith to charge the cost of yearly observances on his behalf, throughout all time,-observances which many of his predecessors thought they had in perpetuity securedhe yet bequeathes to the church at Littleton "three kine, to have mass and dirige," with a provision for some slight refreshment to the poor parishioners at his year's-mind "for ever." 295

294 Revelation of St. John, chapter xv.

295 The following appears in the contemporary register of South Littleton, near Evesham :

"Ao. Dni.

m. vc. xlvj

"Nota"

The xviij day of the monyth of october in the xxxviij yere of the reygn of ow", sowrygn lorde kynge henry the viijth dyed and was beryed in the parysh churche of all halowyn in Eveshm Mast' clement Wych bacheler of diuinite and sume tyme abbott of the monestery of Eveshm the wyche geve to ow chwrche before he dyed iij kyne to have masse and dirige wt serte Refreshyng to the paryfshoners at evry yere mynde for Ever."The interment is entered in the register of All-saints at Evesham; but in transferring the entries of that century at a later period from paper to parchment, in compliance with the canon of 1597, the month of October appears to be substituted for that

Upon the resignation of abbot Lichfield, in 1539, the king, at the instigation of Cromwell, to effect an appearance of voluntary surrender on the part of the convent, caused Philip Hawford or Hayford-whose family-name was Ballard-and who had been cellarer of the monastery,296 to assume the character of its abbot. In an original letter dated July 26th-given in our Appendix 297— this individual admits that it was only through Cromwell that he had been "preferryde to occupye the roome of abbott here ;" and on the 17th of November following he delivered up the monastery to the king. For this subserviency, he was rewarded by grants and patronage from the crown. His immediate provision was, a part of the monastic buildings reserved for him during life-as will be noticed in the following chapter-together with a pension of £240 a year. He was afterward made king's chaplain, and on the 5th September, 1543, was presented to the rectory of Elmeley Lovet, in this county. In 1553 he was, in lieu of his pension, preferred to the deanery of Worcester; and according to Dr. Thomas, he died July 30th 1557, and was buried in the south-east transept of that cathedral, in a stone coffin, upon which was placed his effigy clad in the abbatial robes and insignia. 298 But during the erection of the present altar-screen, in 1812, it being deemed desirable to remove the effigy, a recess was constructed in the basement of the screen at the eastern side, and the figure was removed thither; 299 where it still remains. Dr. Nash, and others after him, have objected to the above date as that of Hawford's death, because Willis says that mortuus is written opposite his name in the pension book in 1533. But this was the year in which he had received the rectory in lieu of his pension, therefore the word might have been inserted to mark that off as extinct.

of November, and therefore the entry erroneously stands thusLechfielde, abbott of Evesham, buryed the ixth of October."

"A.D. 1546. Clement

296 Thus distinguished in repeated entries upon a Manorial Court Roll, temp. 23d Henry VIII. in possession of Fisher Tomes, of Welford, esq.

297 Unpublished Letter from Philip abbot of Evesham to Cromwell Lord Privy Seal, A. D. 1539. See it in Appendix, No. II.

298 Vide Thomas's Survey of the Cathedrall-Church of Worcester, page 68; also Green's History of Worcester, vol. i. page 153.

299 Wild's Worcester Cathedral, page 29.

The effigy which is of stone-continues in tolerable preservation; but is somewhat indifferently cut; as though the art had already begun to decline with the overthrow of monastic institutions. It lies extended upon the coffin-lid in the robes of an abbot as decked for the altar; the head is mitred and upheld by angels, the right hand is uplifted for the benediction, and in the left is an abbatial staff with an ornamented head, but destitute either of cross or crosier. The gloves upon the hands have each a large jewel represented upon the back, and at the feet is carved a couching lion. The sides and ends of the coffin are faced with ancient quatrefoils, but the niche and canopy are of modern work.