The Olive, The Crown, The King and The Church - part 2

Bath Abbey or Cathedral - Some rights reserved by alkruse24

"...He interpreted this dream as calling on him to restore the Church, for Olive answered to his Christian name, Oliver, and King to his family name. Most certain it is," Harrington continues, "he was so transported with his dream for the time, that he presently set in hand with the church (the ruins whereof I rue to behold even in writing these lines), and at the west end thereof he caused a representation to be graved of this his vision of the Trinity, the angels, and the ladder; and on the north side the olive and crown, with certain French words, which I could not read, but in English is the verse taken out of the Book of Judges, chap. ix. :-

'Trees going to choose their king,
Said, Be to us the Olive King.'"

The window to which Harrington refers is, at the present day, one of the glories of the cathedral; it represents the dream which led to the re-erection of the building. 

But Bishop King died and left his work unfinished, and the Reformation arrested all architectural ecclesiastic work, and in Harrington's time the church, which had become dilapidated, lay in a ruinous state."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Bath Abbey