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188

XCVIII. THE PRIMATE DISINTERRED, 1648 .

Shame on the regicide, who rent the tomb,
Where thy remains, age-honour'd Parker, lay,
Commingling fast with consecrated clay!
Shame on the wretch profane, who dared presume
To “burst the marble cearments;” to exhume
Thy bones from holy earth and meet array;
And like a potsherd, vilely cast away,
To grave obscene the scatter'd fragments doom.
What was thy crime? 'Twas that thy country owes,
Revived, her rites apostolick to thee:
The channel thou, through which transmissive flows
The stream episcopal, from error free;
Guard of the Church from innovating foes,
And foster-father of her Liturgy!
 

When in the time of the Great Rebellion, Lambeth Palace came into the possession of Colonel Scot, he turned the chapel into a hall, demolished Archbishop Parker's monument, digged up his body, sold the lead that inclosed it, and buried the bones in a dunghill.

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