360 CITY OF WORCESTER.

and exercised much cruelty. Simon Montford in 1263, and Glendower's troops in 1401, plundered and burnt the city, and in the wars of the roses and the contests between the Parliament and the Stuarts no place could possibly have fared worse.

Wolfarnis, "ye first Christian Kynge of medle England, of his kinglie affeccon," is said to have granted the first charter to Worcester, by which he made it a city, and Offa and Edgar enlarged and confirmed its privileges. The earliest charter now in existence is that of Richard I (small enough to he put with ease into the waistcoat pocket), by which he made a grant of the city to the burgesses at a fee-farm rent of £24. One proof of the permanency of British institutions exists in the fact that this amount has been paid to the present day, and is now regularly transmitted to the Queen's receiver; but what can be the use of perpetuating this relic of feudalism, beyond the maintenance of certain officers to collect it, I cannot perceive. In Saxon times the city was governed by a borough reeve; under the Normans by a bailiff or constable; Philip and Mary's charter declared Worcester to be a city of itself, and incorporated it under the name of "bailiffs, aldermen, chamberlains, and citizens." The charter of James I constituted a city and county of itself, changing the bailiff into a mayor, with six aldermen and twenty-four and forty-eight citizens.

The Cathedral was in the seventh century dedicated to St. Peter, and a monastery hard by to St. Mary, but through the agency of King Edgar and the Saints Dunstan and Oswald, in the tenth century, the monkish element predominated over the priestly, St. Peter's was abandoned, and a new Cathedral erected in connection with the Benedictine fraternity of St. Mary's. Those horrible heathens, the Danes, frequently brought fire and sword into the Severn Valley, and in fact nearly depopulated the district and destroyed the Cathedral. It is a satisfaction to know that one of these wretches underwent the operation of flaying for stealing the sanctus bell,