the credulous had paid too much deference, He dug down to the river-level, and found neither oxbone nor stag-horn. What he did find, however, was curious. It was this:-1. Below the medieval graves Saxon stone coffins and Saxon tombs, lined with slabs of chalk. 2. Lower still, British graves, and in the earth around the ivory and box-wood skewers that had fastened the Saxons' woollen shrouds. 3. At the same level with the Saxon graves, and also deeper, Roman funeral urns. These were discovered as deep as eighteen feet. Roman lamps, tear vessels, and fragments of sacrificial vessels of Samian ware were met with chiefly towards the Cheapside corner of the churchyard. There had evidently been a Roman cemetery outside this Prætorian camp, and beyond the ancient walls of London, the wise nation, by the laws of the Twelve Tables, forbidding the interment of the dead within the walls of a city. There may have been a British or a Saxon temple here; for the Church tried hard to conquer and consecrate places where idolatry had once triumphed. But the Temple of Diana was doubtful from the beginning, and doubtful it will ever remain. The antiquaries were, however, angry with Wren for the logical refutation of their belief. Dr. Woodward (the "Martinus Scriblerus" of Pope and his set) was especially vehement at the slaying of his hobby, and produced a small brass votive image of Diana, that had been found between the Deanery and Blackfriars. Wren, who could be contemptuous, disdained a reply, and so the matter remained till 1830, when the discovery of a rude stone altar, with an image of Diana, under the foundation of the new Goldsmith's Hall, Foster Lane, Cheapside, revived the old dispute, yet did not help a whit to prove the existence of the supposed temple to the goddess of moonshine. The earliest authenticated church of St. Paul's was built and endowed by Ethelbert, King of East Kent, with the sanction of Sebert, King of the East Angles; and the first bishop who preached within its walls was Mellitus, the companion of St. Augustine, the first Christian missionary who visited the heathen Saxons. The visit of St. Paul to England in the time of Boadicea's war, and that of Joseph of Arimathea, are mere monkish legends. The Londoners again became pagan, and for thirty-eight years there was no bishop at St. Paul's, till a brother of St. Chad of Lichfield came and set his foot on the images of Thor and Wodin. With the fourth successor of Mellitus, Saint Erkenwald, wealth and splendour returned to St. Paul's. This zealous man worked miracles both before and after his death. He used to be driven about in a cart, and one legend says that he often preached to the woodmen in the wild forests that lay to the north of London. On a certain day one of the cart-wheels came off in a slough. The worthy confessor was in a dilemma. The congre gation under the oaks might have waited for ever, but the one wheel left was equal to the occasion, for it suddenly grew invested with special powers of balancing, and went on as steadily as a velocipede with the smiling saint. This was pretty well, but still nothing to what happened after the good man's death. St. Erkenwald departed at last in the odour of sanctity at his sister's convent at Barking. Eager to get hold of so valuable a body, the Chertsey monks instantly made a dash for it, pursued by the equally eager clergy of St. Paul's, who were fully alive to the value of their dead bishop, whose shrine would become a money-box for pilgrim's offerings. The London priests, by a forced march, got first to Barking and bore off the body; but the monks of Chertsey and the nuns of Barking followed, wringing their hands and loudly protesting against the theft. The river Lea, sympathising with their prayers, rose in a flood. There was no boat, no bridge, and a fight for the body seemed imminent. A pious man present, however, exhorted the monks to peace, and begged them to leave the matter to heavenly decision. The clergy of St. Paul's then broke forth into a litany. The Lea at once subsided, the cavalcade crossed at Stratford, the sun cast down its benediction, and the clergy passed on to St. Paul's with their holy spoil. From that time the shrine of Erkenwald became a source of wealth and power to the cathedral. The Saxon kings, according to Dean Milman, were munificent to St. Paul's. The clergy claimed Tillingham, in Essex, as a grant from King Ethelbert, and that place still contributes to the maintenance of the cathedral. The charters of Athelstane are questionable, but the places mentioned in them certainly belonged to St. Paul's till the Ecclesiastical Commissioners broke in upon that wealth; and the charter of Canute, still preserved, and no doubt authentic, ratifies the donations of his Saxon predecessors. William the Conqueror's Norman Bishop of London was a good, peace-loving man, who interceded with the stern monarch, and recovered the forfeited privileges of the refractory London citizens. For centuries-indeed, even up to the end of Queen Mary's reign-the mayor, aldermen, and crafts used to make an annual procession to St. Paul's, to visit the tomb of good Bishop William in the nave, In 1622 the Lord Mayor, Edward Barkham, caused these quaint lines to be carved Bishop of London should live like a poor man, on the bishop's tomb :that was magnificent." "Walkers, whosoe'er ye bee, Their grateful memory for to show, By him when Conqueror William reigned. In the reign of Stephen a dreadful fire broke out and raged from London Bridge to St. Clement Danes. In this fire St. Paul's was partially destroyed. The Bishop, in his appeals for contributions to the church, pleaded that this was the only London church specially dedicated to St. Paul. The citizens of London were staunch advocates of King Stephen against the Empress Maud, and at their folkmote, held at the Cheapside end of St. Paul's, claimed the privilege of naming a monarch. The ruthless Conqueror granted valuable privi- In the reign of Henry II. St. Paul's was the leges to St. Paul's. He freed the church from the scene of a strange incident connected with the payment of Danegeld, and all services to the Crown. quarrel between the King and that ambitious His words (if they are authentic) are-" Some Churchman, the Primate Becket. Gilbert Foliot, lands I give to God and the church of St. Paul's, the learned and austere Bishop of London, had in London, and special franchises, because I wish sided with the King and provoked the bitter hatred that this church may be free in all things, as I wish of Becket. During the celebration of mass a my soul to be on the day of judgment." In this daring emissary of Becket had the boldness to same reign the Primate Lanfranc held a great thrust a roll, bearing the dreaded sentence of council at St. Paul's-a council which Milman excommunication against Foliot, into the hands calls "the first full Ecclesiastical Parliament of of the officiating priest, and at the same time to England." Twelve years after (1087), the year cry aloud-" Know all men that Gilbert, Bishop in which the Conqueror died, fire, that persistent of London, is excommunicated by Thomas, Archenemy of St. Paul's, almost entirely consumed the bishop of Canterbury!" Foliot for a time defied cathedral. the interdict, but at last bowed to his enemy's authority, and refrained from entering the Church of St. Paul's. Bishop Maurice set to work to erect a more splendid building, with a vast crypt, in which the valuable remains of St. Erkenwald were enshrined. William of Malmesbury ranked it among the great buildings of his time. One of the last acts of the Conqueror was to give the stone of a Palatine tower (on the subsequent site of Blackfriars) for the building. The next bishop, De Balmeis, is said to have devoted the whole of his revenues for twenty years to this pious work. Fierce Rufus no friend of monks-did little; but the milder monarch, Henry I., granted exemption of toll to all vessels, laden with stone for St. Paul's, that entered the Fleet. To enlarge the area of the church, King Henry gave part of the Palatine Tower estate, which was turned into a churchyard and encircled with a wall, which ran along Carter Lane to Creed Lane, and was freed of buildings. The bishop, on his part, contributed to the service of the altar the rents of Paul's Wharf, and for a school gave the house of Durandus, at the corner of Bell Court. On the bishop's death, the Crown seized his wealth, and the bishop's boots were carried to the Exchequer full of gold and silver. St. Bernard, however, praises him, and says: "It was not wonderful that Master Gilbert should be a bishop; but that the The reign of Richard I. was an eventful one to St. Paul's. In 1191, when Cœur de Lion was in Palestine, Prince John and all the bishops met in the nave of St. Paul's to arraign William de Longchamp, one of the King's regents, of many acts of tyranny. In the reign of their absentee monarch the Londoners grew mutinous, and their leader, William Fitzosbert, or Longbeard, denounced their oppressors from Paul's Cross. These disturbances ended in the siege of Bow Church, where Fitzosbert had fortified himself, and by the burning alive of him and other ringleaders. It was at this period that Dean Radulph de Diceto, a monkish chronicler of learning, built the Deanery, "inhabited," says Milman, “after him, by many men of letters;" before the Reformation, by the admirable Colet; after the Reformation by Alexander Nowell, Donne, Sancroft (who rebuilt the mansion after the Great Fire), Stillingfleet, Tillotson, W. Sherlock, Butler, Secker, Newton, Van Mildert, Copleston, Milman, and Mansel. St. Paul's was also the scene of one of those great meetings of prelates, abbots, deans, priors, and barons that finally led to King John's concession of Magna Charta. On this solemn occasion-so important for the progress of England-the Primate Langton displayed the old charter of Henry I. to the chief barons, and made them sacredly pledge themselves to stand up for Magna Charta and the liberties of England. One of the first acts of King Henry III. was to hold a council in St. Paul's, and there publish the Great Charter. Twelve years after, when a Papal Legate enthroned himself in St. Paul's, he was there openly resisted by Cantelupe, Bishop of Worcester. In this reign Papal power attained its greatest height in England. On the death of Bishop Roger, an opponent of these inroads, the King gave orders that out of the episcopal revenue 1,500 poor should be feasted on the day of the conversion of St. Paul, and 1,500 lights offered in the church. The country was filled with Italian prelates. An Italian Archbishop of Canterbury, coming to St. Paul's, with a cuirass under his robes, to demand first-fruits from the Bishop, found the doors closed in his face; and two canons of the Papal party, endeavouring to install themselves at St. Paul's, were in 1259 killed by the angry populace. of "Death to the queen's enemies!" They cut off the head of a servant of the De Spensers, burst open the gates of the Bishop of Exeter's palace (Essex Street, Strand), and plundered, sacked, and destroyed everything. The bishop, at the time riding in the Islington fields, hearing the danger, dashed home, and made straight for sanctuary in St. Paul's. At the north door, however, the mob thickening, tore him from his horse, and, hurrying him into Cheapside, proclaimed him a traitor, and beheaded him there, with two of his servants. They then dragged his body back to his palace, and flung the corpse into the river. In the inglorious close of the glorious reign of Edward III., Courtenay, Bishop of London, an inflexible prelate, did his best to induce some of the London rabble to plunder the Florentines, at that time the great bankers and money-lenders of the metropolis, by reading at Paul's Cross the interdict Gregory XI. had launched against them; but on this occasion the Lord Mayor, leading the principal Florentine merchants into the presence of the aged king, obtained the royal protection for them. In the reign of this weak king several folkmotes of the London citizens were held at Paul's Cross, Wycliffe and his adherents (amongst whom in the churchyard. On one occasion the king figured Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt-"old himself, and his brother, the King of Almayne, John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster "—) were present. All citizens, even to the age of soon brewed more trouble in St. Paul's for the twelve, were sworn to allegiance, for a great out- proud bishop. The great reformer being sumbreak for liberty was then imminent. The inventory moned to an ecclesiastical council at St. Paul's, of the goods of Bishop Richard de Gravesend, was accompanied by his friends, John of Gaunt Bishop of London for twenty-five years of this and the Earl Marshal, Lord Percy. When in the reign, is still preserved in the archives of St. lady chapel Percy demanded a soft seat for Paul's. It is a roll twenty-eight feet long. The Wycliffe. The bishop said it was law and reason value of the whole property was nearly £3,000, that a cited man should stand before the ordinary. and this sum (says Milman) must be multiplied by Angry words ensued, and the Duke of Lancaster about fifteen to bring it to its present value. taunted Courtenay with his pride. The bishop answered, "I trust not in man, but in God alone, who will give me boldness to speak the truth." A rumour was spread that John of Gaunt had threatened to drag the bishop out of the church by the hair, and that he had vowed to abolish the title of Lord Mayor. A tumult began. All through the City the billinen and bowmen gathered. The Savoy, John of Gaunt's palace, would have been burned but for the intercession of the bishop. A priest mistaken for Percy was murdered. The duke fled to Kennington, and joined the Princess of Wales. When the citizens of London justly ranged themselves on the side of Simon de Montfort, who stood up for their liberties, the great bell of St. Paul's was the tocsin that summoned the burghers to arms, especially on that memorable occasion when Queen Eleanor tried to escape by water from the Tower to Windsor, where her husband was, and the people who detested her tried to sink her barge as it passed London Bridge. In the equally troublous reign of Edward II. St. Paul's was again splashed with blood. The citizens, detesting the king's foreign favourites, rose against the Bishop of Exeter, Edward's regent in London. A letter from the queen, appealing to them, was affixed to the cross in Cheapside. The bishop demanded the City keys of the Lord Mayor, and the people sprang to arms, with cries Richard II., that dissolute, rash, and unfortunate monarch, once only (alive) came to St. Paul's in great pomp, his robes hung with bells, and afterwards feasted at the house of his favourite, Sir Nicholas Brember, who was eventually put to death. The Lollards were now making way, and Arch-basins to the high altar, and twenty-two nobles bishop Courtenay had a great barefooted proces- at the shrine of St. Erkenwald. Milman calcusion to St. Paul's to hear a famous Carmelite lates that in 1344 the oblation-box alone at St. preacher inveigh against the Wycliffe doctrines. Paul's produced an annual sum to the dean and A Lollard, indeed, had the courage to nail to the chapter of £9,000. Among other relics that were doors of St. Paul's twelve articles of the new creed milch cows to the monks were a knife of our denouncing the mischievous celibacy of the clergy, Lord, some hair of Mary Magdalen, blood of St. transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, pilgrim- Paul, milk of the Virgin, the hand of St. John, ages, and other mistaken and idolatrous usages. pieces of the impetuous skull of Thomas à Becket, When Henry Bolingbroke (not yet crowned Henry and the head and jaw of King Ethelbert. These IV.) came to St. Paul's to offer prayer for the were all preserved in jewelled cases. One hundethronement of his ill-fated cousin, Richard, he dred and eleven anniversary masses were celepaused at the north side of the altar to shed tears brated. The chantry chapels in the Cathedral over the grave of his father, John of Gaunt, were very numerous, and they were served by an interred early that very year in the Cathedral. army of idle and often dissolute mass priests. Not long after the shrunken body of the dead There was one chantry in Pardon Churchyard, on king, on its way to the Abbey, was exposed in the north side of St. Paul's, east of the bishop's St. Paul's, to prove to the populace that Richard chapel, where St. Thomas Becket's ancestors were was not still alive. Hardynge, in his chronicles buried. The grandest was one near the nave, (quoted by Milman), says that the usurping king built by Bishop Kemp, to pray for himself and and his nobles spread-some seven, some nine- his royal master, Edward IV. Another was cloths of gold on the bier of the murdered king. founded by Henry IV. for the souls of his father, John of Gaunt, and his mother, Blanche of Castile. A third was built by Lord Mayor Pulteney, who was buried in St. Lawrence Pulteney, so called from him. The revenues of these chantries were vast. Bishop Braybroke, in the reign of Edward IV., was strenuous in denouncing ecclesiastical abuses. Edward III. himself had denounced the resort of mechanics to the refectory, the personal vices of the priests, and the pilfering of sacred vessels. He restored the communion-table, and insisted on daily alms-giving. But Braybroke also condemned worse He issued a prohibition at Paul's Cross against barbers shaving on Sundays; he forbade the buying and selling in the Cathedral, the flinging stones and shooting arrows at the pigeons and jackdaws nestling in the walls of the church, and the playing at ball, both within and without the church, a practice which led to the breaking of many beautiful and costly painted windows. But here we stop awhile in our history of St. Paul's, on the eve of the sanguinary wars of the Roses, to describe medieval St. Paul's, its structure, and internal government. Foremost among the relics were two arms of St. Mellitus (miraculously enough, of quite different sizes). Behind the high altar-what Dean Milman justly calls "the pride, glory, and fountain of wealth" to St. Paul's-was the body of St. Erkenwald, covered with a shrine which three London goldsmiths had spent a whole year in chiselling; and this shrine was covered with a grate of tinned iron. The very dust of the chapel floor, mingled with water, was said to work instantaneous cures. On the anniversary of St. Erkenwald the whole clergy of the diocese attended in procession in their copes. When King John of France was made captive at Poictiers, and paid But to return to our historical sequence. During the ruthless Wars of the Roses St. Paul's became the scene of many curious ceremonials, on which Shakespeare himself has touched, in his early historical plays. It was on a platform at the cathedral door that Roger Bolingbroke, the spurious necromancer who was supposed to have aided the ambitious designs of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, was exhibited. The Duchess's penance for the same offence, according to Milman's opinion, commenced or closed near the cathedral, in that shameful journey when she was led through the streets wrapped in a sheet, and carrying a lighted taper in her hand. The duke, her husband, was eventually buried at St. Paul's, where his tomb became the haunt of needy men about town, whence the well-known proverb of "dining with Duke Humphrey." Henry VI.'s first peaceful visit to St. Paul's is quaintly sketched by that dull old poet, Lydgate, who describes "the bishops in pontificalibus, the Dean of Paules and canons, every one who conveyed the king" "Up into the church, with full devout singing; his orisons at St. Paul's, he presented four golden we find the Duke of York taking a solemn oath |