t have since occurred in money values.

In 1541 panelled book-desks were provided for the new canons and singing
men. Some of the panels belonging to them still remain, and are
incorporated in the present choir stalls.

For some years little of interest occurred directly concerning the
cathedral itself, though much happened of importance in the history of
the see and its bishops. In 1558, however, the body of Cardinal Pole lay
here for a night in state, and we are able to give an eye-witness's
account, written by Francis Thynne, afterwards Lancaster Herald, and
published in Holinshed's Chronicles in 1587. "Cardinal Poole died the
same daie wherein the Queene" (Mary) "died, the third hour of the
night.... His bodie was first conveyed from Lambeth to Rochester, where
it rested one night, being brought into the Church of Rochester at the
West doore, not opened manie yeres before. At what time myselfe, then a
yoong scholer" (he was born in 1545), "beheld the funeral pompe thereof,
which trulie was great and answerable both to his birth and calling,
with store of burning torches and mourning weedes. At what time, his
coffin, being brought into the church, was covered with a cloth of
blacke velvet, with a great crosse of white satten over all the length
and bredth of the same, in the middest of which crosse his Cardinal's
hat was placed. From Rochester he was conveied to Canterbury, where the
same bodie (being first before it came to Rochester inclosed in lead)
was, after three daies spent in his commendations set foorth in Latine
and English, committed to the earth in the Chapell of Thomas Becket."

In 1568 we have a curious story, said to be taken originally from
records in the Rochester Diocesan Registry of the discovery and
apprehension, at Rochester, of a Jesuit in disguise. A certain Thomas
Heth, purporting to be a poor minister, came and asked the dean to
recommend him for some preferment. The dean said that he would consider
his case after he had heard him preach before him in the cathedral. No
fault seems to have been found with the sermon, but in the pulpit
afterwards, the sexton, Richard Fisher, picked up a letter that had
been dropped, and carried it to the bishop, Dr. Gest. This was directed
to Th. Finne from Samuel Malta, a noted Jesuit at Madrid. Heth was
brought up and examined before the bishop; he acknowledged that he had
preached for six years in England, but said that he had left the hated
order. He was