The removal of the altar and other derangements of the building had been effected during the preceding century; but now the vestments, plate, and ornaments were stolen.  The decorative and other paintings on the walls, and all parts that could easily be reached, were scratched, scraped, and hacked about until they were mere wretched, disfiguring excrescences; and in this mutilated condition they waited for the whitewash that came later, to cover up these vulgar excesses with a cheap but clean decency.  Such criminal procedure culminated in the wilful wreckage of all the beautiful glass.  The store of three centuries of labour and consummate skill was destroyed till it lay all strewn in broken fragments, mere rubbish, about the floors.  But the decorations on the vaults were saved, because they could not be reached without expensive scaffolding.  They were thus preserved to be dealt with by the wisdom and taste of a later century.

Let me quote the remarks of one who lived when these things were done.  He says they

“plundered the Cathedral, seized upon the vestments and ornaments of the Church, together with the consecrated plate serving for the altar; they left not so much as a cushion for the pulpit, nor a chalice for the Blessed Sacraments; the common soldiers brake down the organs, and dashing the pipes with their pole-axes, scoffingly said, ’hark how the organs go!’ They brake the rail, which was done with that fury that the Table itself escaped not their madness.  They forced open all the locks, whether of doors or desks, wherein the singing men laid up their common prayer books, their singing books, their gowns and surplices; they rent the books in pieces, and scattered the torn leaves all over the church even to the covering of the pavement, the gowns and surplices they reserved to secular uses.  In the south cross ile the history of the church’s foundation, the picture of the Kings of England, and the picture of the bishops of Selsey and Chichester, begun by Robert Sherborn the 37th Bishop of that see, they defaced and mangled with their hands and swords as high as they could reach.  On the Tuesday following, after the sermon, possessed and transported by a bacchanalian fury, they ran up and down the church with their swords drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead, hacking and hewing the seats and stalls, and scraping the painted walls.  Sir William Waller and the rest of the commanders standby as spectators and approvers of these barbarous impieties.” [18]

  [18] “Mercurius Rusticus” (1642).  Quoted by Walcott.

This is a history in little of what took place in nearly every cathedral and other church in the kingdom, and this after the Reformation and its best work had been a fact for a century.

The most important disaster to the fabric during the seventeenth century was that which so seriously affected the structure at the west end.  It is difficult to decide exactly when and how north-west tower fell or was removed.  Professor Willis [19] is content to say: