Some inscriptions again are of historical interest, such as at Child Okeford, Dorset, where, in 1648,
GOD BLESS KING CHARLES
was actually placed on a bell by a founder who must have had the courage of his convictions! It need hardly be pointed out that the royal cause was just then at the depth of unpopularity. The eight bells of S. Helen’s, Worcester, bear the names of Marlborough’s victories in Queen Anne’s reign, with an appropriate couplet in each case. Other bells, such as the great bell of Glasgow Cathedral, and the tenor of Stepney, London, record their own history from mediaeval times down to their latest re-casting.
A curious form of inscription found on seventeenth-century bells, and sometimes revived at the present day, is the chronogram, where the date is given by Roman letters of a larger size than the rest of the inscription, as at Clifton-on-Teme, Worcestershire—
henrICVs Ieffreys keneLMo DeVoVIt,
where the letters MDCLVVVIII in numerical order read as the date 1668.
