To remember St. Hugh of Lincoln
I only know a very little about him - what I was told today and nothing more. Yet I am so sure that it was St. Hugh who Elizabeth Goudge had in mind when she wrote this:
"Bishops and Priors came and went and some were saints and some where not, and some were beloved in their day and some were hated, but none was remembered excepting only Prior Hugh, who was Prior at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.
He was a little man, quiet and peace-loving, so that men were not surprised when they heard that he had commanded his monks to yield humbly to the command of the King's Grace and to offer no resistance when the commissioners came to drive them from their home. Yet when they arrived...on a cold snowy day...it was found that the Prior had schooled his monks for a departure of dignity and grandeur. He himself in his simple monk's habit came out from the Cathedral and stood in front of the west door, at the top of the flight of stone steps that led up to it, and it seemed to the townsfolk and peasants who had come crowding and weeping up the steep streets to see the last of the monks who had looked after them for so many years, that he was a much taller man than they remembered. His voice, as he cried out to the commissioners and their men to stand aside that his sons might pass out, had an authority in its tones that none had heard before.
...When the last of his sons had disappeared the Prior dropped the hand he had raised in blessing and turned and walked back into the Cathedral. [At his death] Even his enemies were grieved...and for years it was remembered that some poor half crazed girl had vowed that on the day of his death she had seen two swans flying over the city towards the setting sun, and their wings were of pure gold."
"Bishops and Priors came and went and some were saints and some where not, and some were beloved in their day and some were hated, but none was remembered excepting only Prior Hugh, who was Prior at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries.
He was a little man, quiet and peace-loving, so that men were not surprised when they heard that he had commanded his monks to yield humbly to the command of the King's Grace and to offer no resistance when the commissioners came to drive them from their home. Yet when they arrived...on a cold snowy day...it was found that the Prior had schooled his monks for a departure of dignity and grandeur. He himself in his simple monk's habit came out from the Cathedral and stood in front of the west door, at the top of the flight of stone steps that led up to it, and it seemed to the townsfolk and peasants who had come crowding and weeping up the steep streets to see the last of the monks who had looked after them for so many years, that he was a much taller man than they remembered. His voice, as he cried out to the commissioners and their men to stand aside that his sons might pass out, had an authority in its tones that none had heard before.
...When the last of his sons had disappeared the Prior dropped the hand he had raised in blessing and turned and walked back into the Cathedral. [At his death] Even his enemies were grieved...and for years it was remembered that some poor half crazed girl had vowed that on the day of his death she had seen two swans flying over the city towards the setting sun, and their wings were of pure gold."