e most
beautiful gems of architectural art, the monastic churches. We can
tell something of their glories from those which were happily spared
and converted into cathderals or parish churches. Ely, Peterborough
the pride of the Fenlands, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster,
St. Albans, Beverley, and some others proclaim the grandeur of
hundreds of other magnificent structures which have been shorn of
their leaden roofs, used as quarries for building-stone, entirely
removed and obliterated, or left as pitiable ruins which still look
beautiful in their decay. Reading, Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains,
and a host of others all tell the same story of pitiless iconoclasm.
And what became of the contents of these churches? The contents
usually went with the fabric to the spoliators. The halls of
country-houses were hung with altar-cloths; tables and beds were
quilted with copes; knights and squires drank their claret out of
chalices and watered their horses in marble coffins. From the accounts
of the royal jewels it is evident that a great deal of Church plate
was delivered to the king for his own use, besides which the sum of
L30,360 derived from plate obtained by the spoilers was given to the
proper hand of the king.

The iconoclasts vented their rage in the destruction of stained glass
and beautiful illuminated manuscripts, priceless tomes and costly
treasures of exceeding rarity. Parish churches were plundered
everywhere. Robbery was in the air, and clergy and churchwardens sold
sacred vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes
rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent
to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the
superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms,
buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the
hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal
or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal was that of the
Civil War and the Cromwellian period. At Rochester the soldiers
profaned the cathedral by using it as a stable and a tippling place,
while saw-pits were made in the sacred building and carpenters plied
their trade. At Chichester the pikes of the Puritans and their wild
savagery reduced the interior to a ruinous desolation. The usual
scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted--stained glass windows broken,
altars thrown down, lead stripped from the roof, brasses and effigies
defaced and b