November 17.
Hugh,
Bishop of Lincoln.
His name is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day, which was ordained his festival by the Romish church, wherein he is honoured as a saint.
St. Hugh was born in Burgundy in 1140, educated in a convent, took the habit of the Chartreuse near Grenoble before he was of age, was ordained priest, and, at the end of ten years, the procuratorship of the monastery was intrusted to him. Henry II. of England, confiding in his prudence and sanctity, induced him to come over and regulate the new monastery of Carthusians, founded by the king at Witham in Somersetshire, which was the first of that order established in England. He was consecrated bishop of Lincoln, 21st September, 1186, exerted his episcopal authority to restore ecclesiastical discipline, especially amongst his clergy, and maintained the claims of the church against the crown itself. In quality of ambassador from king John, he went to France and negotiated a peace; on his return he was seized with a fever, presumed to have been occasioned by his abstemiousness, and died at London, on blessed ashes strewed on the floor, as he directed, in the form of a cross, on the 17th of November, 1200. His body was embalmed, and conveyed with great pomp to Lincoln, where it was met by king John of England and king William of Scotland, with three archbishops, fourteen bishops, above a hundred abbots, and a great number of earls and barons. The two kings put their shoulders under the bier as it was carried into the church.
Alban Butler, from whom these particulars are derived, affirms that three paralytic persons, and some others, recovered their health at St. Hugh’s tomb. He further relates, that, during the saint’s life time, Henry II., being on his way from Normandy to England, in a furious storm, prayed for mercy, through the merits and intercession of St. Hugh, whereon a calm ensued, and the voyage was made in safety.
The Untombed Mariners.
An incident really witnessed in
the Bay of Biscay.