| Share page |
|
42 THE SUSSEX COAST |
||
|
The bulk of the citizens were for the Parliament in the disputes of the seventeenth century, and that was the chief reason why Chichester could be held for so short a time when besieged by Sir William Waller in 1642. On this occasion the Cathedral suffered much from the Puritan soldiery, who were careful to destroy everything of which their consciences disapproved, and that included the Ten Commandments which were painted up over the altar; but then, as Dean Bruno Ryves put it in his account of their barbarous outrages, " 'Twas no wonder that they should break the Commandments in their representation, that had before broken them all in their substance and sanction." After the Restoration, appointed Dean of Windsor, Dr. Ryves preached a most subtle sermon in which he pointed out that no improvement in English weather could be hoped for till all the murderers of the King had been executed, an Old Testament doctrine that was appropriately driven home by references to the Gibeonites and Achan.
One of the regicides was William Cawley, a prominent Cicestrian, who undoubtedly did something to mould public opinion in the city. He founded St. Bartholomew's Hospital outside the North Gate. Its little brick court and tiny step-battlemented, clock-turreted chapel, dated 1625 with the initials W.C., forms a good example of the style of building of that age. The original grave of Cawley is in St. Martin's, Vevey, for the insanely vindictive government of Charles II. made England no pleasant home for such as had helped to place the crown of the Martyr on the brow of Charles I. It seems likely, however, that by his son the body of the founder was brought home |
||