This may be the place to say something of the abnormal civil position held by the Bishops of Ely till recent times. Etheldreda, the foundress of the Abbey, reigned, as the widow of her first husband, Tonbert, over the whole Isle of Ely, and exercised therein the full Royal rights of secular jurisdiction. These rights passed on to the Abbesses who succeeded her, and then in turn to the Abbots who followed; they were confirmed by the Charter of Edgar in 970, and again by Edward the Confessor, and when the abbots became bishops they still continued to exercise this jurisdiction. Each succeeding Prelate enjoyed rights throughout the Isle somewhat resembling those of the Prince Bishops of the continent.
This went on until Henry the Eighth fell upon the Church, and took away not only many of the Episcopal demesnes but also many of the Episcopal privileges (if indeed they may be so termed). Such rights as the King spared survived for 300 years longer. The Bishop of Ely still possessed a jurisdiction of considerable importance and dignity, holding almost sovereign authority within his "Franchise," which was styled "the Royal Franchise or Liberty of the Bishops of Ely." He himself appointed his own Judges to hear all cases within the Isle of Ely; Assize and Quarter Sessions were held in his name and at his pleasure; his chief bailiff acted as High Sheriff, and he nominated the magistrates. It was the Bishop's Peace, and not the King's Peace, against which malefactors throughout the Isle were held to offend. This went on till 1836, when on the death of Bishop Spark, these last remnants of Etheldreda's jurisdiction as Queen-Abbess ceased by Act of Parliament.
But to this day there live on some far-off echoes of the Girvian principality. The Isle of Ely, with its three Rural Deaneries and forty-six benefices, is ecclesiastically under the immediate jurisdiction of the Bishop; no Archdeacon holds any authority there, as in other parts of the diocese, except in the parishes of Haddenham and Wilburton. True, we have an Archdeacon of Ely, but he ought rather to be designated Archdeacon of Cambridgeshire, for, with the exceptions named, beyond the limits of the county proper he is powerless. The Isle, moreover, has its own County Council quite distinct from that of Cambridgeshire, while the common High Sheriff of both divisions is nominated from each in turn.
And in the very heart of London, close to Holborn Circus, traces of this civil jurisdiction still survive in Ely Place, where stands, abutting on houses of the most commonplace type, the beautiful chapel dedicated to St. Etheldreda, built at the close of the thirteenth century, and once attached to the town palace of the Bishops of Ely. Ely Place was a "Liberty," and, within the memory of those still living, the Royal writs did not run here, and no police-officer or sheriff could follow a debtor who had here taken sanctuary; it was, moreover, rated on a basis peculiar to itself. The "Liberty" is still governed by certain Commissioners, elected annually by the householders. It has its own day and night watchmen, with their gold-laced hats, who fulfil the function of policemen, and the silence of the night is, even in this twentieth century, broken by their call, hour by hour, as of yore. We all remember how Shakespeare makes Richard the Third say to the Bishop of Ely,
"My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
I saw good strawberries in your garden there,"
and the reference to these lines in the "Ingoldsby Legends" is hardly less familiar. Palace, strawberries, garden are no more; the property once held in this region by the See of Ely has passed by purchase into other hands, but the chapel is still here, well tended, the same House of Prayer, after many vicissitudes, that it was 600 years ago; the din of modern city life being there shut out by walls eight feet thick.
There exists in London one more very different relic of the old demesne of the Bishops of Ely. On the frontage of a great house in Dover Street, now occupied by the Albemarle Club, with massive stone facings without and marble halls within, there may be seen, over the second storey, a mitre carved in stone, shewing that once it was the abode of the Bishops of Ely; for after their old Palace in Holborn was sold, this "Ely House," built about 1775, took its place, to be sold in turn early in the twentieth century with a view to forming a nucleus toward the endowment of a new bishopric, when the proposed subdivision of the present diocese can be carried out. Times have changed; and the Bishop of Ely is now free from the burdensome luxury of an official residence in London.
CHAPTER XV
Bishop Northwold.—Presbytery Dedicated.—Barons at Ely.—Fall of Tower, Alan of Walsingham, Octagon.—Queen Philippa.—Lady Chapel, John of Wisbech, Bishop Goodrich.—Bishop Alcock.—Bishop West.—Styles of Architecture.—Monastic Industries.—Mediæval Account Books.—Clothing and Food of Monks.—Benedictine Rule.—Dissolution of Abbey.—Bishop Thirlby.—Bishop Wren.—Bishop Gunning.—Bishop Turner.
The fact that Ely had been made a Bishop's See did not prevent her from remaining a monastery, the home of busy monks, living in refinement and cleanliness according to the Benedictine Rule. Year by year they beautified their Abbey Church; the western tower rose stage by stage till it became, as it still continues to be, a landmark for the surrounding plain. During the episcopate of Eustace, lasting from 1198 till 1215, the western porch, known as the Galilee, came into being.