In justice, however, to Wolsey it must be stated that he commenced to build a new chapel along the north side of Tom Quad, which, judging by the foundations that some draining operations in the canon's gardens have recently disclosed, would have rivalled the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, in size, and have been about 100 feet longer than the actual length of the cathedral. To this the Aubrey MSS. (written about 1670) refer:--"Ye foundations of that famous begun Chapel or Cathedral of Cardinal Wolsey which went towards the blue Boare in Oxford and pulled down by Dean Fell about 1671." Aubrey also mentions that the height of the walls of this chapel was seven feet at the time of Wolsey's disgrace. The west end ran in a line with the front of the octagonal turrets in St. Aldate's Street, and the walls reached nearly to Fell's passage into Peckwater.
To the sixteenth century belong also the flat wooden roofs of the nave and transepts, and perhaps the concealment of the lantern story of the tower.
The Reformation, apart from the usual destruction of altars, furniture, plate, and ornamental work generally, is chiefly remembered in the history of the church by the demolition of St. Frideswide's shrine. Anthony à Wood says of the third shrine that, "being adored till the dissolution of the religious houses, it was then, 30 Henry VIII. [A.D. 1538], amongst others, taken down, and all the offerings conveyed into the King's Treasury." We give an account of the curious incidents connected with the demolition in our description of the shrine itself.
An inventory taken in the last year of Henry VIII.'s reign is interesting for the glimpse it gives us of the rich ornaments which even then survived, and must have made so vast a difference in the appearance of the church. They were confiscated, no doubt, as being "monuments tending to idolatrie and popish or devill's service, crosses, censars, and such lyke fylthie stuffe," to quote the curious phrases used by Bishop Horne of the plate of Trinity College.
There were eight altars in the aisles and body of the church, in addition to the high altar. The furniture then remaining of the high altar and choir was catalogued (only that the spelling was obscurer) as follows:--"Upon the high altar a here-cloth, 40s. _Item_, two altar-cloths, one of olde diaper, and the other of fine linen cloth. _Item_, a mass-book and a desk. _Item_, a great sacring bell. _Item_, 4 high latten candlesticks. _Item_, a canopy with a pix of copper. _Item_, 4 desks with two cloths of old silk. _Item_, a pair of organs, with a turned chain to the same. _Item_, 2 forms. _Item_, a canopy over the Dean's head of old silk. _Item_, 15 antiphoners and 9 grayells." After some more books comes:--"_Item_, a foot-cloth for the high altar of old tapestry." All the hangings of the side altars are enumerated, besides their vestments, candlesticks, etc. Thus the south choir aisle had "4 hangings for above and beneath the altar, whereof two of white satin Bruges, and the other two of yellow and red," and two altar-cloths; St. Lucy's Chapel had "two altar-cloths of old diaper, two hangings for the altar for above and beneath, the one of old needle-work, and the other of buckram"; the four altars on the north of the choir were hung with "dornaxe," diaper, yellow and white baundkin.