scratched, scraped, and hacked about until they were mere wretched,
disfiguring excrescences; and in this mutilated condition they waited
for the whitewash that came later, to cover up these vulgar excesses
with a cheap but clean decency. Such criminal procedure culminated in
the wilful wreckage of all the beautiful glass. The store of three
centuries of labour and consummate skill was destroyed till it lay all
strewn in broken fragments, mere rubbish, about the floors. But the
decorations on the vaults were saved, because they could not be
reached without expensive scaffolding. They were thus preserved to be
dealt with by the wisdom and taste of a later century.

Let me quote the remarks of one who lived when these things were done.
He says they

"plundered the Cathedral, seized upon the vestments and
ornaments of the Church, together with the consecrated plate
serving for the altar; they left not so much as a cushion
for the pulpit, nor a chalice for the Blessed Sacraments;
the common soldiers brake down the organs, and dashing the
pipes with their pole-axes, scoffingly said, 'hark how the
organs go!' They brake the rail, which was done with that
fury that the Table itself escaped not their madness. They
forced open all the locks, whether of doors or desks,
wherein the singing men laid up their common prayer books,
their singing books, their gowns and surplices; they rent
the books in pieces, and scattered the torn leaves all over
the church even to the covering of the pavement, the gowns
and surplices they reserved to secular uses. In the south
cross ile the history of the church's foundation, the
picture of the Kings of England, and the picture of the