LIVES

OF

THE BRITISH ARCHITECTS.

WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM.

BEFORE Architecture became a defined science, and had schools, professors, and disciples, a class of men existed in England, who, trained to other studies, and living in the daily discharge of devout duties, planned and reared edifices with a mathematical skill, a knowledge of effect, and a sense of elegance and usefulness which regular practitioners have never surpassed. The architects to whom I allude, were divines of the Roman Church, and if their labours sometimes had in view only the glory of their religion, it is not the less true that they tended to the good of mankind. The art in which they excelled has been stigmatized as barbarous by learned men; and the uses to which it was dedicated have induced Walpole to say, "that, stripped of its altars and shrines, it is nearer converting one to popery than all the regular pageantry of Roman domes." But the works of men

VOL. IV.

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called barbarians are not all barbarous, and he who is in danger of becoming a Catholic from looking at an abbey, is near of kin to him who dreads drunkenness from gazing at an empty cup. I shall attempt no definition of what is classic or what is barbarous-to me Gothic Architecture exhibits a harmony of parts, a scientific elegance of combination, a solemn grandeur of effect, and such fitness of purpose, as class it with the finest efforts of the human mind. That it differs from the classic architecture of Greece is its merit if it resembles it in any way, it is only as two statues resemble each other; dissimilar in attitude, and expressing different sentiments, both are works of art, and imitations of nature. I claim for this style of architecture a character original and peculiar; by many it has been called the Gothic, by others the Norman, and by some the English; but it may more properly be called the Order of the Catholic Church-for here, at least, it rose with her rising and sank with her decline. Of those clerical architects the names of but few are known, though their labours extend over a period of five hundred years;-since the Reformation one cathedral only, and that too in the classic style, has been built in England;-and the memories of our Gothic artists have become dim amongst us. Indeed, History has only taken care of the fame of one -the architect of Winchester Cathedral, Windsor Castle, and New College, Oxford, whose life has been written at some length, and with much learning and no little eloquence, by Bishop Lowth.

William of Wykeham, for so his name is frequently expressed, or William Wykeham as he

writes himself in his will, and oftentimes in his own register, was born at Wykeham, in Hampshire, in the year 1324-the eighteenth of Edward the Second. Concerning his name, parentage, and education, we find many legends, and some bitter controversy. Leland, an anxious inquirer after truth, relates, that on a time he happened to meet with Dr. London, a person, who, by his station had the best means of informing him, and noted down from his lips the following singular memoranda respecting William, Bishop of Winchester. "William Perot,” says this veracious document, "alias Wikam, because he was born at Wikam, in Hampshire. Sum suppose that he was a bastard---Perot the parish clerk's son of Wikam. Perot, brought up by Mr. Wodale, of Wikam, lernid grammar, and to write faire. The constable of Winchester Castle, at that time a great ruler in Hampshire, got Perot of Wodale and made him his clerke. Edwarde the Third cummyng to Winchester Castelle lykid Perot and tooke him to service, and understanding that Perot had mind to be a preste, made him first, parson of St. Martines, in London; then Archdeacon of Buckingham. Edwarde afterwards made him Surveyor of his buildings at Windsore and Queenburge in Kent and other places. Then he made him bearer of the Privy Seal and Master of the Wards and the Forests. Then he made him Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor and Treasurer of England, as very manifestly appeareth by writing. The Black Prince scant favoured Wikam. Wikam procured to keep the prince in battle out of the realme. John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, enemy to Wikam. Alice Per

rers, concubine to Edwarde the Third, caused Wikam to be banished, and then he dwelled in Normandy, and Picardy a seven years, Edwarde the Third yet lyving. Wikam restored about the second yere of Richard the Second, of whom he had a generale pardon." In addition to this scandal, in later days one William Bohun of the Middle Temple thus writes: "In the declining years of King Edward the Third, W. Wickham, Bishop of Winchester, in whom the king entirely confided, had found means to introduce his niece or sister, the famed Alice Pearce, to the king's favour and bed, and by her means had got into the chief management of the councils and revenues of the kingdom." Concerning these calumnies, Lowth seems more troubled than necessary. By references and arguments he has most triumphantly refuted them but he crushed their authors first.

Of John London, Lowth exhibits the following character. He owed his education, subsistence, and rank, to Wykeham's bounty-became Warden of New College, Oxford, in 1526, and being favoured by Archbishop Wareham, obtained many rich pluralities. He insinuated himself into the good graces of Cromwell, was much employed in the suppression of monasteries, and became zealous in removing images and destroying reliques. On Cromwell's fall he courted and gained the confidence of the cruel Gardiner-put himself foremost in the plot to destroy Cranmer; succeeded in convicting and burning three persons accused on the Six Articles-sought to confer the same favour on others connected with the court-was discovered, accused, delivered a false testimony, was convicted

of perjury, by his own hand writing, and exhibited in Windsor, Reading, and Newbury, with his face to a horse's tail, and then pilloried. The testimony of Bohun, the bishop has also shaken sorely. This man conceived without cause a violent resentment against the society of New College. Having been foiled in a law suit with one of their number, and cudgelled by another, Eustace Budgell-he thought he could give them a blow which would affect them more sensibly, by wounding the reputation of their founder, and set himself to collect every thing he could meet with that was capable of being represented to his discredit, and scrupled not to improve it with new calumnies of his own invention. Such were the characters and motives of the men who collected oral rumours, embellished improbable legends, and related wilful falsehoods, to darken the fame of one of the benefactors of the human race.

Of John the father, and Sybil, the mother of this great man, nothing more is with certainty known, than that they lived in wedlock at Wykeham, and, according to the unimpeachable testimony of their son's will, had several children. That Wykeham was the family name there have been some doubts. At the time of the bishop's birth, surnames were not settled by descent as they are now; they were unknown in England till the Conquest; by little and little the better sort took surnames, but by the common people they were not generally adopted till the reign of Edward the Second; we are not, therefore, to consider it to the reproach of the Bishop that there should be some uncertainty on this point. That the surname was borne by others of