AN ARCHBISHOP’S PENANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 April 1934, Page 2

AN ARCHBISHOP’S PENANCE

A notable prelate who hunted was Archbishop Abbot, of Canterbury, whose closing years were saddened by an unfortunate fatality when he was hunting at Bramshill. invited by Lord Zoucli to bunt and kill a buck, the Archbishop accidentally loosed a barbed arrow, which killed a keeper who had gone amongst the herd to drive them to a better place. Eol lowing the incident, Sir Edward' Coke, the great lawyer, was asked whether it was “lawful for a bishop to hunt in a park by the laws of the realm.” “Yes,’ ’ the lawyer replied. “He may hunt by the laws of this realm by this very token, that there is an old law that a bishop, when dying, is to leave his pack of dogs to the King's free use and disposal.” The accident so affected Archbishop Abbot that, as a penance, he built and endowed in Guildford, Surrey, where be was born, a "hospital” for fourteen or fifteen aged inhabitants. One of the finest specimens of Jacobean architecture extant, the hospital still bears the name, “Archbishop Abbot’s.”