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On the eve of the election of Sandys as Bishop of London, May, 1570, all London was roused by a papal bull against Elizabeth being found nailed on the gates of the bishop's palace. It declared her crown forfeited and her people absolved from their oaths of allegiance. The fanatic maniac, Felton, was soon discovered, and hung on a gallows at the bishop's gates.

have acted some of Lily's Euphuistic plays, and one of Middleton's.

In this reign lotteries for Government purposes were held at the west door of St. Paul's, where a wooden shed was erected for drawing the prizes, which were first plate and then suits of armour. In the first lottery (1569) there were 40,000 lots at ros. a lot, and the profits were applied to re

One or two anecdotes of interest specially con- pairing the harbours of England. nect Elizabeth with St. Paul's. On one оссаsion Dean Nowell placed in the queen's closet or pew a splendid prayer-book, full of German scriptural engravings, richly illuminated. The zealous queen was furious; the book seemed to her of Catholic tendencies.

"Who placed this book on my cushion? You know I have an aversion to idolatry. The cuts resemble angels and saints-nay, even grosser absurdities."

In the reign of James I. blood was again shed before St. Paul's. Years before a bishop had been murdered at the north door; now, before the west entrance, in January, 1605-6, four of the despe. rate Gunpowder Plot conspirators, Sir Everard Digby, Winter, Grant, and Bates, were there hung, drawn, and quartered. Their attempt to restore the old religion by one blow ended in the hangman's strangling rope and the executioner's cruel knife. In the May following a man of less-proven guilt, Garnet, the Jesuit, suffered the same fate in St. Paul's Churchyard; and zealots of his faith affirmed that on straws saved from the scaffold miraculous portraits of their martyr were discovered. The ruinous state of the great cathedral, still

The frightened dean pleaded innocence of all evil intentions. The queen prayed God to grant him more wisdom for the future, and asked him where they came from. When told Germany, she replied, "It is well it was a stranger. Had it been one of my subjects, we should have ques-without a tower, now aroused the king. He tried to tioned the matter." saddle the bishop and chapter with its restoration, Once again Dean Nowell vexed the queen-this but Lord Southampton, Shakespeare's friend, intertime by being too strongly Puritan. On Ash Wed-posed to save them. Then the matter went to nesday, 1572, the dean preaching before her, he sleep for twelve years. In 1620 the king again denounced certain popish superstitions in a book awoke, and came in state with all his lords on recently dedicated to her majesty. He specially horseback, to hear a sermon at the Cross and to denounced the use of the sign of the cross. Sud- view the church. A royal commission followed, denly a harsh voice was heard in the royal closet. Inigo Jones, the king's protégé, whom James had It was Elizabeth's. She chidingly bade Mr. Dean brought from Denmark, being one of the comreturn from his ungodly digression and revert to missioners. The sum required was estimated at his text. The next day the frightened dean £22,536. But the king's zeal ended here; his wrote a most abject apology to the high-spirited favourite, Buckingham, borrowed, for his Strand palace, the stone collected for St. Paul's, and from parts of it was raised that fine water-gate still existing in the Thames Embankment gardens.

queen.

The king

The victory over the Armada was, of course, not forgotten at St. Paul's. When the thanksgiving sermon was preached at Paul's Cross, eleven When Charles I. made that narrow-minded Spanish ensigns waved over the cathedral battle-churchman, Laud, Bishop of London, one of Laud's ments, and one painted streamer with an image first endeavours was to restore St. Paul's. Charles I. of the Virgin fluttered over the preacher. That was a man of taste, and patronised painting and was in September; the queen herself came in architecture. Inigo Jones was already building November, drawn by four white horses, and with the Banqueting House at Whitehall. her privy council and all the nobility. Elizabeth was so pleased with Inigo's design for the new heard a sermon, and dined at the bishop's palace. portico of St. Paul's, that he proposed to pay for The "aery of children" whom Shakespeare, in that himself. Laud gave £1,200. The fines of Hamlet, mentions with the jealousy of a rival the obnoxious and illegal High Commission Court manager, were, as Dean Milman has proved, the were set apart for the same object. The small chorister-boys of St. Paul's. They acted, it is sup- sheds and houses round the west front were ruthposed, in their singing-school. The play began at lessly cleared away. All shops in Cheapside and four p.m., after prayers, and the price of admission Lombard Street, except goldsmiths, were to be was 4d. They are known at a later period to shut up, that the eastern approach to St. Paul's

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1639, a paper was found in the yard of the deanery, before Laud's house, inscribed-"Laud, look to thyself. Be assured that thy life is sought, as thou art the fountain of all wickedness ;" and in October, 1640, the High Commission sitting at St. Paul's, nearly 2,000 Puritans made a tumult, tore down the benches in the consistory, and shouted, "We will have no bishops and no High Commission."

The Parliament made short work with St. Paul's, of Laud's projects, and Inigo Jones's classicalisms. They at once seized the £17,000 or so left of the

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THE CHAPTER HOUSE OF OLD ST. PAUL'S, FROM A VIEW BY HOLLAR (see page 243).

princely benefactors of St. Paul's.

At each angle of the west front there was a tower. The portico was intended for a Paul's Walk, to drain off the profanation from within.

Nor were the London citizens backward. One most large-hearted man, Sir Paul Pindar, a Turkey merchant who had been ambassador at Constantinople, and whose house is still to be seen in Bishopsgate Street, contributed £10,000 towards the screen and south transept. The statues of James and Charles were set up over the portico, and the steeple was begun, when the storm arose that soon whistled off the king's unlucky head. The coming troubles cast shadows around St. Paul's. In March,

subscription. To Colonel Jephson's regiment, in arrears for pay, £1,746, they gave the scaffolding round St. Paul's tower, and in pulling it to 'pieces down came part of St. Paul's south transept. The copes in St. Paul's were burnt, to extract the gold, and the money sent to the unfortunate Protestant poor in Ireland. The silver vessels were sold to buy artillery for Cromwell. There was a story current that Cromwell intended to sell St. Paul's to the Jews for a synagogue. The east end of the church was walled in for a Puritan lecturer; the graves were desecrated; the choir became a cavalry barrack; the portico was let out to sempsters and hucksters, who lodged in rooms above; James and Charles

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EXTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S FROM THE SOUTH-WEST, 1800.

were toppled from the portico; while the pulpit and cross were entirely destroyed. The dragoons in St. Paul's became so troublesome to the inhabitants by their noisy brawling games and their rough interruption of passengers, that in 1651 we find them forbidden to play at ninepins from six a.m. to nine p.m.

the intense heat of the air. The bells were melting, and vast avalanches of stones were pouring from the walls. Near the east end he found the body of an old woman, who had cowered there, burned to a coal. Taswell also relates that the ashes of the books kept in St. Faith's were blown as far as Eton and Windsor.

On the 7th (Friday) Evelyn again visited St. Paul's. The portico he found rent in pieces, the vast stones split asunder, and nothing remaining entire but the inscription on the architrave, not one letter of which was injured. Six acres of lead on the roof were all melted. The roof of St. Faith's had fallen in, and all the stores and books from Paternoster Row were consumed, burning for a week together. Singularly enough, the lead over the altar at the east end was touched, and among the monuments the body of one bishop, Braybroke (Richard II.) remained entire. The old tombs nearly all perished; amongst them those of two Saxon kings, John of Gaunt, his wife Constance of Castile, poor St. Erkenwald, and scores of bishops, good and bad; Sir Nicholas Bacon, Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, and father of the great philosopher; the last of the true knights, the gallant Sir Philip Sidney; and Walsingham, that astute counsellor of Elizabeth. Then there was Sir Christopher Hatton, the dancing chancellor, whose proud monument crowded back Walsingham's and Sidney's. According to the old scoffing distich, Philip and Francis they have no tomb, For great Christopher takes all the room."

When the Restoration came, sunshine again fell upon the ruins. Wren, that great genius, was called in. His report was not very favourable. The pillars were giving way; the whole work had been from the beginning ill designed and ill built; the tower was leaning. He proposed to have a rotunda, with cupola and lantern, to give the church light, "and incomparable more grace" than the lean shaft of a steeple could possibly afford. He closed his report by a eulogy on the portico of Inigo Jones, as "an absolute piece in itself." Some of the stone collected for St. Paul's went, it is said, to build Lord Clarendon's house, near Albemarle Street. On August 27, 1661, good Mr. Evelyn, one of the commissioners, describes meeting Wren, the Bishop and Dean of St. Paul's, &c., and resolving finally on a new foundation. But on Sunday, September 2, the Great Fire drew a red cancelling line over Wren's half-drawn plans. The old cathedral passed away, like Elijah, in flames. The fire broke out about ten o'clock on Saturday night at a bakehouse in Pudding Lane, near East Smithfield. On Sunday afternoon Pepys found all the goods carried that morning to Cannon Street now removing to Lombard Street. At St. Paul's Wharf he takes water, follows the king's party, and lands at Bank-Men of letters in old St. Paul's, says Dean Milman, side. "In corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the city, a most horrid, bloody, malicious flame, not like the flame of an ordinary fire." On the 7th he saw St. Paul's Church with all the roof off, and the body of the choir fallen into St. Faith's.

On Monday, the 3rd, Mr. Evelyn describes the whole north of the City on fire, the sky ablaze for ten miles round, and the scaffolds round St. Paul's in flames. On the 4th he saw the stones of St. Paul's flying like grenades, the melting lead running in streams down the streets, the very pavements too hot for the feet, and the approaches too blocked for any help to be applied. A Westminster boy named Taswell, quoted by Dean Milman from "Camden's Miscellany," vol. ii., p. 12, has also sketched the scene. On Monday, the 3rd, from Westminster he saw, about eight o'clock, the fire burst forth, and before nine he could read by the blaze a 16mo "Terence" which he had with him. The boy at once set out for St. Paul's, resting by the way upon Fleet Bridge, being almost faint with

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there were few. The chief were Lily, the grammarian, second master of St. Paul's; and Linacre, the physician, the friend of Colet and Erasmus. Of artists there was at least one great man— Vandyck, who was buried near John of Gaunt. Among citizens, the chief was Sir William Hewet, whose daughter married Osborne, the apprentice who saved her from drowning, and who was the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds.

After the fire Bishop Sancroft preached in a patched-up part of the west end of the ruins. hopes of restoration were soon abandoned, as Wren had, with his instinctive genius, predicted. Sancroft at once wrote to the great architect, "What you last whispered in my ear is now come to pass. A pillar has fallen, and the rest threatens to follow." The letter concludes thus: "You are so absolutely necessary to us, that we can do nothing, resolve on nothing, without you." There was plenty of zeal in London still; but, nevertheless, after all, nothing was done in the way of rebuilding till the year 1673.

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The Rebuilding of St. Paul's-Ill Treatment of its Architect-Cost of the Present Fabric-Royal Visitors-The First Grave in St. Paul'sMonuments in St. Paul's-Nelson's Funeral-Military Heroes in St. Paul's-The Duke of Wellington's Funeral-Other Great Men in St. Paul's-Proposals for the Completion and Decoration of the Building-Dimensions of St. Paul's-Plan of Construction-The Dome, Ball, and Cross-Mr. Horner and his Observatory-Two Narrow Escapes-Sir James Thornhill-Peregrine Falcons on St. Paul's-Nooks and Corners of the Cathedral-The Library, Trophy Room, and Clock-The Great Bell-The New Peal of Bells-Curious Story of a Monomaniac-The Poets and the Cathedral-Discovery of Ancient Foundations-St. Paul's Churchyard Gardens.

TOWARDS the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral, Charles II., generous as usual in promises, offered an annual contribution of £1,000; but this, however, never seems to have been paid. It, no doubt, went to pay Nell Gwynne's losses at the gambling-table, or to feed the Duchess of Portsmouth's lap-dogs. Some £1,700 in fines, however, were set apart for the new building. The Primate Sheldon gave £2,000. Many of the bishops contributed largely, and there were parochial collections all over England. But the bulk of the money was obtained from the City duty on coals, which, as Dean Milman remarks, in time had their revenge by destroying the stone-work of the Cathedral. It was only by a fortunate accident that Wren became the builder; for Charles II., whose tastes and vices were all French, had in vain invited over Perrault, the designer of one of the fronts of the Louvre.

The great architect, Wren, was the son of a Dean of Windsor, and nephew of a Bishop of Norwich whom Cromwell had imprisoned for his Romish tendencies. From a boy Wren had shown a genius for scientific discovery. He distinguished himself in almost every branch of knowledge, and to his fruitful brain we are indebted for some fiftytwo suggestive discoveries. He now. hoped to rebuild London on a magnificent scale; but it was not to be. Even in the plans for the new cathedral Wren was from the beginning thwarted and impeded. Ignorance, envy, jealousy, and selfishness met him at every line he drew. He made two designs-the first a Greek, the second a Latin cross. The Greek cross the clergy considered as unsuitable for a cathedral. The model for it, which is still preserved in the Cathedral, was for some time on view at the South Kensington Museum, having been lent for that purpose by the Dean and Chapter. The interior of the first design is by many considered superior to the present interior. The present recesses along the aisles of the nave, tradition says, were insisted on by James II., who thought they would be useful as side chapels when masses were once more introduced.

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June, 1675, but there was no public ceremonial. Soon after the great geometrician had drawn the circle for the beautiful dome, he sent a workman for a stone to mark the exact centre. The man returned with a fragment of a tombstone, on which was the one ominous word, as every one observed, Resurgam!" The ruins of old St. Paul's were stubborn. When they tried to blow up the tower, a passer-by was killed, and Wren, with his usual ingenuity, resorted successfully to the old Roman battering-ram, which soon cleared a way. "I build for eternity," said Wren, with the true confidence of genius, as he searched for a firm foundation. Below the Norman, Saxon, and Roman graves he dug and probed till he could find the most reliable stratum. Below the loam was sand; under the sand a layer of fresh-water shells; under these were sand, gravel, and London clay. At the north-east corner of the dome Wren was vexed by coming upon a pit dug by the Roman potters in search of clay. He, however, began from the solid earth a strong pier of masonry, and above turned a short arch to the former foundation. He also slanted the new building more to the north-east than its predecessor, in order to widen the street south of St. Paul's.

Well begun is half done. The Cathedral grew fast, and in two-and-twenty years from the laying of the first stone the choir was opened for Divine service. The master mason who helped to lay the first stone assisted in fixing the last in the lantern. A great day was chosen for the opening of St. Paul's. December 2nd, 1697, was the thanksgiving day for the Peace of Ryswick-the treaty which humbled France, and seated William firmly and permanently on the English throne. The king, much against his will, was persuaded to stay at home by his courtiers, who dreaded armed Jacobites among the 300,000 people who would throng the streets. Worthy Bishop Compton, who, dressed as a trooper, had guarded the Princess Anne in her flight from her father, preached that inspiring day on the text, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." From then till now the daily voice of prayer and praise

The first stone was laid by Wren on the 21st has never ceased in St. Paul's.

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