EXON'S LASTE BYSHOPPE. EXETER, 1845.

Under the title 'SYMPTOMS OF THE END,'  The Western Times (4th October 1845) published this remarkable report.

"The tomb of Leofricus, first Bishop of Exeter, bears the inscription: -

"Leofricus, first bishop of Exeter, lyeth here.

"It is reported that an ancient stone hath been brought to light, which states that.

"Exon's laste byshoppe shall lie everywhere.

"We have not seen the stone, but the simple people who place the last day on the 10th October are making a great fact of it, though in what way it bears upon the subject we do not exactly see.

"Prophesies , like dreams, go by contraries perhaps.

"It may therefore mean that the last Byshoppe shall be one of a restless disposition, constantly roaming through his diocese, and never resting from his apostolic toils. 

"In that sense, perhaps, the prediction may apply somewhere."

*

The whole is first and foremost another attack by the newspaper on Bishop Henry Phillpotts.  How much truth there is in the stone that was brought to life  I do not know.

Lyeth/ Here and everywhere:  It's a pun!   Get it?

Leofricus:  Leofric was Bishop of Cornwall and Crediton before, during and after the Conquest. That perhaps means he was something of a trimmer though he is remembered as a 'good' bishop.

The tomb of Leofricus;  is itself a fake in the sense that it was not constructed until some 500 years after the bishop's death and the inscription lieth when it states that he lyeth there because he lieth somewhere else.

The ancient stone: was surely another fake, if indeed it ever existed.  There is, in my opinion, too much of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe about the inscription for it to be anything other than Victorian.

The simple people:  It was a time of millennary fever.  Mountebank 'preachers' had, in Exeter, been foretelling  Second Comings, that kept coming and going.. Somehow the report of this stone was exciting the expectations of simpletons.  The next Second Coming was scheduled to take place the next week which, if it came, would make Henry Phillpotts Exon's laste byshoppe.

Apostolic toils:  Now comes the paper's laboured attack on Henry Phillpotts.  The prophecy, if that's what it was, predicted a bishop who, if that's what it meant, was busy doing the things a bishop should  do.  This could only be true of Henry, who shamelessly spent all his time playing the politician in London or living the high-life in Torbay if prophesies go by contraries.