found that the whole length of the
walls had once been painted. The old stalls were fortunately so high
that they had saved not only the lower border, which, with its ribbon
pattern and yellow six-petalled roses, is the same on each wall, but
nearly a complete row of the main design as well. Scott retained this,
and repeated it over the rest of the space, up to the top border, of
which traces remained just under the first string-course. This upper
border varies slightly on the different sides. The shields in it,
formerly blank, are now occupied with the coats-of-arms of bishops of
the see.

The pattern that covers the space between the borders is certainly
heraldic. The lions in the red quatrefoils, and the fleurs-de-lis in the
alternate blue spaces, correspond in every possible way--in form,
colour, and ground--with those of the royal arms of England and of
France. Dating, as they almost certainly do, from the fourteenth
century, they remind us of the attempts of Edward III. and his brave son
to unite both realms under his sway. The idea of the design may have
come from Canterbury, where an earlier border, of similar materials,
alluded perhaps to Edward II.'s marriage with Isabella of France. After
making this suggestion, Canon Scott Robertson[14] records a mention of
the use, at much the same time, of a similarly constituted pattern on
some altar-cloths at Westminster Abbey.

[14] "Archaeologia Cantiana," x. 70.

[Illustration: CORBEL IN CHOIR (H. P. CLIFFORD DEL.).]

The painting is continued on oak panelling across the organ screen. A
piece of the original panelling, with a fragment of an earlier rather
tartan-like pattern also, is now hung, under glass, on a pier opposite
the chapter-house door.

#The Bishop's Throne#, on the south side, just to the west of the
crossing, is of carved oak, in the Gothic style, and has a rich canopy.
It was designed by Scott, and was a present to the cathedral from Lord
Dudley, a brother-in-law of Bishop Claughton. Of two of its predecessors
some particulars can be given. In 1743 Bishop Wilcocks gave a throne,
classical in style, with a flat pedimental canopy supported by massive
columns. The place of this was taken in 1840 by a new work of
Cottingham's, which was still more quickly supplanted by the present
throne. Cottingham's did not, however, long remain unused; it was taken
to St. Albans in 1877 for the enthronement of Dr. Claughton as the first
bishop of that new see.