Pastor resartus
Sir: I hesitate to take issue with so eminent a scholar as Sir Denis Brogan ('Table talk,' 9 May) but his assertion that the Cardinal's hat was never seen in public until after the re- cipient's death seems to require modification.
The print of the House of Lords facing p.302 of Fiddes's Life of Cardinal Wolsey shows the cardinal wearing a mitre with the hat suspended above it, and Cavendish stated in 1557 that when Wolsey went to Westminster Hall the cardinal's hat was borne before him with the great seal of England `by some Lord, or some Gentleman of Worship, right solemnly.'
There are illustrations of fourteenth century cardinals wearing their hats in Royal Ms 16G5 and an effigy in Winchester cathedral is said to show Cardinal Beaufort with his hat on. Pos- sibly in earlier times when cardinalates were given to priests not of episcopal rank and before the Bishop's mitre had fully developed they were more commonly worn. I understand that Ms No. 213 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, also shows a cardinal bishop wear- ing his hat: but this was in the thirteenth century.
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