ADVERTISEMENT. THE writer has felt much pleasure in collecting and arranging the particulars which he now ventures to commit to the press. He hopes that his notice of Ely Chapel and Palace may afford pleasure to some readers, from the mention which it makes of certain exemplary persons and remarkable events; and that it may be the means of calling attention to a venerable fabric, which, though situated in a thickly-peopled neighbourhood, is comparatively little known; which is distinguished for antiquity and religious interest; and in which the worship of God is celebrated at this day in a due and becoming manner. LONDON, 1840. B 2 ELY CHAPEL AND PALACE, ELY PLACE, HOLBORN. AMONG the thousands of persons who daily pass the iron gates dividing Ely Place from Holborn, one of the principal thoroughfares of London, few, comparatively, are aware of the religious and historical interest attached to the spot mentioned in our title. The name of "Ely Place" has not changed with the lapse of centuries. Full five hundred years have gone by; and it still retains the ancient designation which it received as the once magnificent town residence of the Bishops of Ely. Every stone of the secular portion of the episcopal palace has long since been levelled with the ground; and the only relic of antiquity existing on the original site is a beautiful chapel dedicated to the service of God, and called after St. Etheldreda, queen and virgin, foundress of the abbey of Ely*. In former times, most of the bishops had seats, or, as they were commonly called, Places, in or near London, in which they resided during their attendance on parliament: and at the periods of this residence they were accustomed to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in their town places, just as in their own dioceses in the country. The Bishop of Bangor had anciently a palace in Shoe Lane, Holborn; and the Bishop of Lincoln possessed one in the village of Holborn, or * Etheldreda, otherwise Audry, was daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, and is mentioned by Bede, for her love of purity and sanctity. She died in the year 680. She was succeeded in the government of the abbey at Ely by her sister, Queen Sexburga, whose daughter Ermenilda, also a queen, became the next abbess; so that the three first abbesses of Ely were queens. The father, brother, and three sisters of Etheldreda appear in the list of Romish Saints. Oldbourne. Winchester Place, Southwark, once a splendid palace of the Bishop of Winchester, was replaced by a house at Chelsea, which has also long ceased to be an episcopal residence. By far the most extensive "citie habitation" of this kind, placed in the very heart of the metropolis, was that of the Bishops of Ely, from about 1320 to 1772, on the spot which we are describing. Since the year 1772, the Bishops of Ely have successively occupied a house in Dover Street, Piccadilly, which was then annexed to their office, in lieu of the old Ely Place; but there is still a small piece of property belonging to the see, in the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, namely, the Charity School House in Hatton Garden, and a slip of ground running behind the houses in Kirby Street. The Chapel, though deprived of its original character in reference to the episcopal mansion, and no longer containing within its walls a Bishop's throne, is still a benefit and an ornament to the neighbourhood in which it stands; and within its walls the morning and evening services of our Church are on every Lord's day duly performed. Newcourt, in his Repertorium Londinense, written in the year 1700, says of Ely Chapel, "It is to this day a very fair, large, old chapel." This venerable structure may be considered to be of about the date of 1320; though an ecclesiastical building appears to have occupied its site at an earlier period. The rich and highly decorated eastern window, as seen from Ely Place, affords a pleasing specimen of the style of the fourteenth century. It, however, evidently wants a considerable portion of its original length, having been reduced from the lower part. The western window is of four mullions with cinque-foil arches; and above these, a circle filled with three roses and two quatre-foils. It is not less beautiful than that at the east end; but it is choked up with buildings, so as to be inaccessible from without, and is also greatly obscured by the west gallery |