a private and monastic life to all the riches and honours of the
kingdom, who, when he had reigned 30 years, received the religious
habit at the hands of Walther, Bishop of London, who succeeded the
aforesaid Erkenwald, of whom the Venerable Bede makes mention in his
History of the English People."]

[Footnote 2: "Here lieth Ethelred, King of the English, son of
King Edgar, to whom, on the day of his hallowing, St. Dunstan, the
archbishop, after placing the crown upon him, is said to have foretold
terrible things in these words: Forasmuch as thou hast aspired to the
Kingdom through the death of thy brother, against whom the English
have conspired along with thy wretched mother, the sword shall not
depart from thy house, raging against thee all the days of thy life,
destroying thy seed until the day when thy Kingdom shall be conveyed
to another Kingdom whose customs and language the race over whom
thou rulest knoweth not; nor shall there be expiation save by
long-continued penalty of the sin of thyself, of thy mother, and of
those men who took part in that shameful deed. Which things came to
pass even as that holy man foretold; for Ethelred being worn out and
put to flight in many battles by Sweyn, King of the Danes, and his son
Cnut, and at last, closely besieged in London, died miserably in the
year of the Incarnation 1017, after a reign of 36 years of great
tribulation."]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORICAL MEMORIES TO THE ACCESSION OF THE TUDORS.

_The First Cathedral_--_Mellitus and his Troubles_--_Erkenwald_
--_Theodred_ "_the Good_"--_William the Norman, his Epitaph_
--_The Second Cathedral_--_Lanfranc and Anselm hold Councils in
it_--_Bishop Foliot and Dean Diceto_--_FitzOsbert_--_King John's
Evil Reign, his Vassalage_--_Henry III.'s Weak and Mischievous
Reign_--_The Cardinal Legate in St. Paul's_--_Bishop Roger_ "_the
Black_"--_The three Edwards, Importance of the Cathedral in their
Times_--_Alderman Sely's Irregularity_--_Wyclif at St. Paul's_
--_Time of the Wars of the Roses_--_Marriage of Prince Arthur._

I have already said that the buildings of the ancient cathedral, with
a special exception to be considered hereafter, were completed before
the great ecclesiastical changes of the sixteenth century.

Our next subject will be some history of the events which the
cathedral witnessed from time to time during its existence, an