by Swapham, the Chronicle of Walter of Whittlesey, and two other works.  There are also kept here some of the fabric rolls of the monastery.  Bishop Kennett’s library contained a most valuable collection of tracts and pamphlets published in the latter part of the seventeenth century.  There are also some books of much earlier date, a few of great rarity.  A memorandum written in the Book of Swapham above mentioned tells us that the Precentor, Humphrey Austin, had hidden it in 1642 in anticipation of coming troubles.  But Cromwell’s soldiers found it, and would probably have destroyed it; the Precentor, however, under pretence of enquiring after an old Latin bible, found out where it was, and redeemed it for the sum of ten shillings.

=Monuments and Inscriptions=.—­We proceed to speak of these, treated as a single subject, instead of describing them at the various parts of the building where they are to be found.

At first sight it is thought that this cathedral is singularly deficient in monuments of interest.  To a certain extent this is the case.  There are no memorial chantries, such as add to the beauty of many of our noblest churches; no effigies of warriors or statesmen; no series of ancient tablets or inscriptions that illustrate the history of the neighbourhood; not a single brass.  With few exceptions all the monuments and inscriptions that remain commemorate abbots or other members of the monastery, or, after the Reformation, bishops, and members of the cathedral foundation and their families.  While of famous persons known to have been buried within the walls, such as Katherine of Arragon, Mary Queen of Scots, the Archbishops Elfricus and Kinsius of York, Sir Geoffrey de la Mare, Sir Robert de Thorpe, and others, no memorials worthy of their fame and importance are in existence.  The wanton destruction during the civil war in great part explains this; but it is sad to remember that numbers of mediaeval inscriptions in the floor were hidden or destroyed during some well-meaning but ill-judged alterations in the eighteenth century.

First in interest and importance is that known as the Monks’ Stone, now preserved in the new building.  It is generally thought that this was constructed in commemoration of the massacre of Abbot Hedda and his monks in 870, by the Danes.  It was not till nearly a century later that any attempt was made to rebuild the monastery.  But Mr Bloxam read a paper at Peterborough in 1861 in which he disputed the authenticity of this monument, which had been previously regarded as one of the most ancient monumental stones extant.  He pronounced it to be Norman, and not Saxon work, and some centuries later in date than the massacre of the monks.  He considered the figures did not represent the slain monks and their abbot, but Christ and eleven disciples.  It has been further conjectured by Bishop Westcott that it may have been part of the shrine erected over the relics of S. Kyneburga, when