wine, and died. The bishop afterwards entered
into a conspiracy against Leo X., but, being detected, escaped from Rome
in disguise and disappeared. Wolsey was Bishop of Wells at one time, but
the most illustrious prelate who held the see after the Reformation was
Thomas Ken. He was educated at Winchester, and afterwards became a
prebend of the cathedral there. Charles II. paid a visit to Winchester,
and, bringing Nell Gwynne with him, Ken was asked to allow her to occupy
his house. He flatly refused, which had just the opposite effect upon
the king to that which would be supposed, for he actually respected Ken
for it, and when the see of Wells became vacant he offered it to "the
little fellow who would not give poor Nelly a lodging." Ken attended the
king's deathbed shortly afterwards. He was very popular in the diocese,
and after the Sedgemoor battle he succored the fugitives, and with the
Bishop of Ely gave spiritual consolation to the unfortunate Duke of
Monmouth on the scaffold. Ken was one of the six bishops committed by
James II. to the Tower, but, strangely enough, he declined to take the
oaths of allegiance to William III., and, being deprived of preferment,
retired to the home of his nephew, Izaak Walton. All reverence his
sanctity and courage, and admire his morning and evening hymns, written
in a summer-house in the Bishop's Garden.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CHEDDAR CLIFFS.]

[Illustration: HIGH ROCKS AT CHEDDAR.]

The Mendip Hills, with their picturesque gorges and winding valleys,
were formerly a royal forest. It was here that King Edmund was hunting
the red deer when his horse took fright and galloped towards the brow of
the highest part of the Cheddar Cliffs. Shortly before, the king had
quarrelled with Dunstan, and expelled the holy man from his court. As
the horse galloped with him to destruction, he vowed if preserved to
make amends. The horse halted on the brink as if checked by an unseen
hand, and the king immediately sought Dunstan and made him abbot of
Glastonbury. These hills were the haunt of the fiercest wild beasts in
England, and their caves still furnish relics of lions to a larger
extent than any other part of the kingdom. The most remarkable deposit
of these bones is in the Wookey Hole, on the southern edge of the
Mendips, about two miles from Wells. At the head of a short and
picturesque glen, beneath an ivy-festooned cliff, is a cavern whence the
river Axe issues and flows down th