REIGN OF EDWARD VI. 211 CHAPTER IX. S. PAUL'S UNDER EDWARD VI. On On HARDLY had Edward VI. been proclaimed King, when CHAP. CHAP. were present. The choir and all the body of the church was hung with black. In the same day, the same obit was observed in every church in London, all the bells tolling. In the procession from the Tower to Westminster there were pageants, the streets were hung with rich tapestries, the guilds stood along Cheapside in all their splendour, presenting themselves as loving subjects unto their King, and so to S. Paul's. At the west end of S. Paul's steeple was tied a cable, the other end attached to the anchor of a ship near the door of the deanery, down which a man ran as swift as an arrow from a bow, with his hands and feet abroad, and not touching the rope.' In September appeared in S. Paul's the commissioners for the execution of the edict of the Council which commanded the destruction of images in churches, forbade processions, and ordained the discontinuance of all customs held to be superstitious, not in the Cathedral only but in all the precincts. The images were pulled down, the work of demolition began. On the 14th February the Litany was chanted in English, between the choir and the nave, the singers being half on one side, half on the other; the Epistle and Gospel were read in English. The Dean, William May, sanctioned these proceedings with his presence. John Incent had succeeded Sampson in 1540; on Incent's death in 1545, William May became Dean of S. Paul's, a man, it should seem, of the more advanced principles of the Refor mation. Bishop Bonner had received the injunctions of the Council under protest; he had been committed to the Fleet for his contumacy; he made a submission humble enough to be accepted by the Government, and was released after an imprisonment of eight days. In his absence these changes were made; greater changes were 1 Grey Friar's Chronicle, p. 53. GREY FRIARS' CHRONICLER. 213 to come. Gardiner too was summoned before Cranmer in the Deanery of S. Paul's, and also committed to prison. Not far from the Cathedral, lurking, no doubt, among the ruins of the once splendid Monastery of the Grey Friarsnearly on the site of the present Christ's Hospital (part of the sumptuous building had been destroyed, part alienated to profane uses, the Choir remaining, but curtailed of its fair proportions), the Chronicler of the Grey Friars watched with jealous vigilance all these proceedings, odious, sacrilegious, impious to him, in the neighbouring Cathedral, and recorded them from day to day, with a quiet simplicity through which transpires the bitterness of his heart. On the first general destruction of the images he is brief. On the vth day after September began the 'King's visitation at Powll's, and all the images were pulled 'down." On the details of the iconoclasm he is silent; as his indignation deepens, he becomes more eloquent. On the 21st day of November, at night (Did the destroyers apprehend tumult and resistance?) the Rood in S. Paul's was pulled down, the Crucifix, and its attendants, S. Mary and S. John; and so alle imagys pullyd down throw alle 'Ynglonde at that tyme, and alle Churches new whyte'limed, with the commandements wrytten on the walls.'3 (This cannot have been done at S. Paul's.) Two of the men engaged in the sacrilegious work at S. Paul's, the chronicler takes care to note, were killed. 2 Grey Friar's Chronicle, among the were destroyed. We have seen forpublications of the Camden Society. 'Item, at this time was pulled up all 'the tombs, great stones, all the aulters 'with the stalls and walls of the quoir, 'and aulters in the church that was 'sometime the Grey Friars, and sold, 'and the quoir made smaller.' 'I cannot satisfy myself whether S. Paul's boasted of splendid painted windows, and, if so, at what time they merly that some windows of cost СНАР. IX. CHAP. IX. 214 OBITS AND CHANTRIES ABOLISHED. With the images fell of course the boxes for oblations. No doubt the golden days were passed in which those boxes, watched with so much care, opened with so much solemnity, poured forth their unfailing treasures into the lap of the Dean and Canons. With the failure of faith in the tutelar power of the saints, with doubts as to the efficacy of the masses and prayers which supplicated their all-powerful intercession, the tribute to the clergy, through whom that intercession was obtained, would fall off. Did Dean William May, and the Canons who agreed with William May, with a noble and Christian self-denial, look calmly on their loss ?-the loss, which even devout Roman Catholics might have looked upon with sorrow, as impoverishing the maintenance of the Church and her services, and the abundant alms for the poor? A heavier blow fell on the Cathedral. By one remorseless and sweeping act all obits and chantries were swept away; their endowments and estates poured into the insatiate gulph of the Royal Treasury. Before the death of Henry VIII. they had been escheated to the Crown by Act of Parliament. But in the first year of Edward VI., on New Year's Day, a full, elaborate, and copious return was demanded and rendered of all chantries and obits. The confiscation followed, not for any great national use, but, it is to be feared, the proceeds were poured lavishly into the hands of unprincipled and rapacious members of the Council and their adherents. All the private masses died away into silence; the names of the founders disappeared from the walls; the chapels and shrines remained mute and unfrequented: the souls of the provident and munificent founders were left to the unpropitiated justice, as it was thought by many, or unbought mercy, of the Great Judge. Whether any soul fared the worse, our colder age may doubt; but it was doubtless a galling wound to the PLUNDER OF THE CATHEDRAL. 215 CHAP. IX. What became of the kindred and friends of those men. On the spoliation of the other treasures of the Church. 4 The return of the chantries and obits is given at full length in the Appendix to Dugdale, pp. 380-390, |