Part 1

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TALES OF ENGLISH MINSTERS

ST. PAUL’S

BY ELIZABETH GRIERSON

AUTHOR OF “THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF EDINBURGH,” “CHILDREN’S TALES FROM SCOTTISH BALLADS,” ETC.

WITH TWO FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND FOUR IN BLACK AND WHITE

LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1910

TALES OF ENGLISH MINSTERS SERIES

EACH CONTAINING TWO FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND FOUR IN BLACK AND WHITE

DURHAM LINCOLN ST. ALBANS YORK ELY ST. PAUL’S CANTERBURY

PUBLISHED BY A. AND C. BLACK. SOHO SQUARE. LONDON

AGENTS

AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE

CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. ST. MARTIN’S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO

INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN COLOUR

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL FROM LUDGATE HILL _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

SIGNING MAGNA CHARTA 8

IN BLACK AND WHITE

PREACHING AT PAUL’S CROSS 17

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN 24

NELSON’S MONUMENT 40

THE NAVE 48

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL

‘The Church of the Citizens.’

I

I am sure that there is no one who goes to London for the first time, no matter how hurried he may be, who does not try to visit at least three places--the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Of these three places, two are churches; but they are churches that are so connected with the history of our nation that they almost seem to stand at the heart of the Empire.

Their stories are linked together in a curious way, and yet they are quite distinct. As someone has said, ‘Westminster Abbey was ever the Church of the King and Government; St. Paul’s was the Church of the Citizens.’

When we come to study the history of Cathedrals, we find the way in which they came to be built is pretty much the same in most cases. A little church was raised to the glory of God, and a monastery was founded beside it, which became the home of a community of monks or nuns, ruled over by an Abbot or Abbess; and the church was known as the Abbey Church.

Then by-and-by, sometimes not till quite late, as at St. Albans, a ‘Bishop’s Stool’ was placed there, and the Abbey became a Cathedral.

But in the case of St. Paul’s Cathedral it is quite different. It was built for a Cathedral from the first. Its builder, instead of adding a monastery to it, as was usually done, built a monastery having its own Abbey on a little Island which stood in some marshy ground on the banks of the Thames, about a mile away.

This Island was called ‘Thorney Island,’ and the Abbey Church was dedicated to St. Peter, but soon it began to be spoken of as the ‘West Minster,’ or Westminster Abbey, by which name we know it to-day.

This was how it all came about. In the time of the early Britons there were Christian churches scattered up and down the land, and it is almost certain, from stones that were dug up when the foundations of the present Cathedral of St. Paul were being laid, that in those far bygone days a little church stood on the Hill of Ludgate, in the centre of Roman London. But, as you know, the Roman legions were recalled to Rome in A.D. 410 to help the soldiers there to drive back the vast hoards of Goths and barbarians who were pouring down from the north-west upon Italy; and when they were withdrawn from Britain, there were not enough fighting-men left to protect her shores from the next enemies who threatened her.

These were the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons, fierce and heathen warriors who came from Jutland and from Germany, and landed on our coasts.

They conquered the British, and rapidly forced their way inland, ravaging and pillaging wherever they went; and in the confusion and misery that followed, Christianity was completely swept away for a time, to come again with St. Augustine and St. Columba some two hundred years later. You know too, perhaps, that when St. Augustine came to Canterbury and began to preach the Gospel there, the King of Kent, Ethelbert by name, soon became a Christian. This King Ethelbert was a very powerful monarch, and he was Overlord of the King of the East Saxons, who chanced to be his nephew, and who lived in what we now call Essex. Now, while St. Augustine preached to the men of Kent, a friend of his, named Milletus, preached to the East Saxons. And when at last their King became a Christian, his uncle Ethelbert suggested that, as Kent had its Bishop of Canterbury, with his Cathedral Church, it would be a good thing for the Kingdom of the East Saxons to have a Bishop of its own who would have his Cathedral Church also.

So, as London was the Capital of the East Saxons, he proposed to help King Siebert to build a church there; and Augustine, only too glad to find that the Faith was spreading, said that Milletus should be its first Bishop.

It was in this way that the first Cathedral of St. Paul was built, and, as we have seen, Siebert also founded the church and monastery of Westminster.

Now, although their King had been baptized, and had built two churches in their midst, the people of London did not want to become Christians; they were pagans, and were quite content to worship Thor and Odin, the gods of the tribes of the North. So for a long time the good Bishop Milletus preached to them in vain; and far away in Rome, Pope Gregory, who had hoped that the new Cathedral in London would become what we call the ‘Metropolitan Church’ of England--that is, the church where the Archbishop has his throne--was sadly disappointed, and had to become accustomed to the idea of Canterbury, which was a far less important place than London, having that honour.

Indeed, for a time it seemed as though, in spite of Church and Bishops, the new religion would be driven out. Ethelbert died, and so did his nephew Siebert, and the Kings who succeeded them either went back altogether to their pagan worship, or tried, as an East Anglian King did, to worship Thor and Odin and Christ all at the same time. I will tell you just one story about those troubled days, and it will show you what a terrible struggle went on between Paganism and Christianity, and how much we owe to these brave men, priests, and Abbots, and Bishops, whose names are almost unknown to us, on whom rested the responsibility of maintaining the Faith in England, and of whom, to their honour be it said, hardly one failed.

One day Bishop Milletus was administering the Holy Communion in his church to the little congregation of Christians who still remained true to what he had taught them. It is probable that the altar stood then just where the high-altar in St. Paul’s stands to-day. Only the church would be much smaller and plainer, and the door would be locked to prevent unbelieving pagans entering and disturbing the service by irreverent jeering and laughter. Suddenly a loud knocking was heard, then the crash of falling wood. The young King and his friends had chanced to be passing, and, in a moment of heedless excitement, had determined to visit the Christian’s church, and see what amusement they could get there. Angry at finding the door locked against them, they had broken it down without further delay. Up the aisle strode the King, followed by his mocking companions, to where the old Bishop was engaged in distributing the consecrated Bread to the kneeling communicants. In those days white bread was a rarity, most of it being dark-coloured and unwholesome; and this white bread that was used for the Holy Communion was the whitest and purest of all; for, in order that it should be so, pious people, even the clergy themselves, used to grind the meal carefully with their own hands, and bake it into loaves, and bring it to the church as their offering.

‘Give me some of that white bread,’ cried the young King, stretching out his hand. ‘You gave it to my father Siebert; give it also to me.’

Perhaps he thought in his reckless insolence that the Bishop would obey. But King Siebert had been a baptized Christian, his son was a pagan and an unbeliever; so, King though he was, he could not be allowed to join with the Christians in their solemn Feast. And the brave old Bishop told him so, knowing full well that the refusal might cost him his life. The young King did not put him to death, however, though he was very angry--perhaps he was ashamed to do so--but it cost him his Bishopric, for he was driven out of the Kingdom, and had to leave to seeming ruin all the work that was so dear to his heart.

But it was only _seeming_ ruin. He had done his work faithfully; he had laid the foundations, as it were; and, as has ever happened in the history of the Church, God saw to it that there were other men ready to step in, and build upon these foundations. Other Bishops were appointed--Bishop Cedd and Bishop Erkenwald--and in their days the Christian Faith began to take root again, and spread among the citizens of London, and they improved and beautified their Cathedral until it became famed for its riches and grandeur. Indeed, Bishop Erkenwald was such a famous preacher, and did so much for his church, that when he died he was buried in a golden shrine which people came to see, just as they visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St. Thomas at Canterbury. As for stout old Bishop Milletus, although he was driven into exile for a time, he became in after-years Archbishop of Canterbury, and his bones lie in the Cathedral there.

Now, it is a curious thing how often those old churches that we are talking about were destroyed, either wholly or in part, by fire. And if there was one church that was fated to suffer more than another in this way, it was St. Paul’s. It was partly burned down in A.D. 951. By that time the Normans were in the country, and they set to work at once to rebuild it. When it was finished, it was a very splendid church indeed; but once more it suffered severely from a fire which broke out in the City, and destroyed everything from London Bridge to the Church of St. Clement Danes, which stands in the Strand.

Let us see what this Cathedral of the Middle Ages was like. It was the largest church in England, and was shaped like a cross, and, instead of having a dome, as the present Cathedral has, it had a great square tower in the centre, with a wooden spire, four hundred and sixty feet high. It stood in the middle of a churchyard, which was surrounded by a high wall. We still talk about ‘St. Paul’s Churchyard,’ although it is long years since anyone was buried there; but if we are in London, and take a bus along the crowded Strand, and up Ludgate Hill, we shall arrive at this old churchyard, and then we shall see the ‘St. Paul’s’ of to-day, and shall be better able to picture to ourselves the ‘St. Paul’s’ of the Middle Ages.

When we leave our bus, we find ourselves in an open space bounded on all sides by busy streets and fine shops. In the centre of this open space stands an immense church, with a huge dome rising from its centre, and on the top of the dome, standing clearly out against the sky, so far up that it can be seen from nearly all parts of London, is an immense gilded cross. In front of the church there are two great flights of steps, which lead down into a broad paved space, only separated from the street by a row of low stone pillars, while round at the sides lie pleasant gardens, with flagged walks, where pigeons flutter about, and where, in summer, hundreds of busy clerks, and shop-girls, and message-boys, come and sit in their lunch-hour, and get a breath of fresh air and a little sunshine.

‘But where is the old churchyard?’ you ask, looking round in amazement. I will tell you. These gardens, and the great space in front of the church, stand to-day where St. Paul’s Churchyard stood long ago, only there is no longer a wall round them, and although the name remains, the gravestones have long since disappeared. Let us try, however, to think that we are back in the Middle Ages, and imagine ourselves standing among the graves in the old churchyard. In front would be the great church, bigger than that which now rises before us, with its square tower and wooden steeple. At the north-east corner of it we should see a curious erection like a low, eight-sided tower, with a stone cross on the top of it. That was called ‘Paul’s Cross,’ and it was almost as important a place as the Cathedral itself.

As I said at the beginning, St. Paul’s Church was the Church of the Citizens. The Monarchs of the land might be crowned or buried at Westminster, but it was to St. Paul’s that the people crowded when they wanted to meet together and stand up for their rights. So there was a great bell in the Cathedral belfry, like the bell in St. Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, which was rung whenever a question arose which concerned the burghers of the city, and when its deep tones were heard, the people ran out of their houses, and thronged into the churchyard through the six gates which pierced its encircling wall, and crowded round Paul’s Cross; and the Aldermen, ascending by steps to the top of the eight-sided tower, stood under the Cross, and spoke to them. Here royal proclamations were made, quarrels were settled, grievances stated, and put to rights. Here, also, sermons were preached in the open air by famous preachers.

Indeed, I think that I may safely say that ‘Paul’s Cross’ was the centre of the public life of London. It has long since been pulled down, however; but if we go to the north-west corner of the gardens, we can still see the place where it stood, clearly marked on the pavement.

The Bishop’s Palace also stood within the wall, and two little churches, one of which was founded by Gilbert à Becket, father of Thomas of Canterbury, who was a silk-mercer in Cheapside; while the other was a parish church--the Church of St. Faith--which was pulled down in after-years, and the people who went to Service there were allowed to worship in the crypt of the Cathedral instead.

It would only weary you to attempt to describe the interior of the old church. It would be very like the other Cathedrals of that time, which were all more richly adorned before the Reformation than they are now. All the accounts which we read of it show us that it was very magnificent, with rich carvings, and stained glass, and no less than seventy side-chapels and chantries, each with its own altar, and, richer than all others, the great Shrine of St. Erkenwald, with its ornaments and jewels.

I think that it will be much more interesting to talk of some of the scenes that took place there in these far-off days. Let us go back, for instance, almost eight hundred years, to the day when the news arrived in London that the King of England, Henry I., lay dead in France. He and his brother, William Rufus, were, as you know, sons of the great Norman Conqueror, and during their reigns the country had been well governed and prosperous. But when Henry died, no one quite knew what to do next. For the rightful heir to the throne was Henry’s daughter Maud, who had married a French Count of Anjou, who, as you remember, was the first of his race to be called ‘Plantagenet,’ because he was in the habit, as he rode along, of plucking a piece of broom (_Planta genista_) and sticking it in the front of his cap. Now, the English people did not love this Geoffry of Anjou, who was a greedy and selfish man, and they had no wish to have him for their King, as they would certainly have to do if his wife became Queen. So their thoughts turned to Maud’s cousin, Count Stephen of Blois, who, although his father was a Frenchman, had an English mother, and who had been brought up in England at his uncle’s Court. Most people wished to have him as their King; but no one dare suggest it until the citizens of London took matters into their own hands.

‘The country needed a Monarch,’ they said, ‘and if the Barons would not take the responsibility of electing one, they would.’ And without more ado the Portreve (or Lord Mayor) and Aldermen caused the great bell of St. Paul’s to be rung, summoning the burghers to a ‘Folk-mote’ or council; and when they had all gathered round the Cross in the churchyard, the matter was discussed, and it was agreed that it would be better for England that Stephen should be King rather than that Maud should be Queen; and straightway the city gates were thrown open to the Count, and the citizens swore allegiance to him, and he was crowned King of England.

Perhaps, after all, it would have been better if the citizens had chosen Maud, for, as history shows, Stephen did not turn out to be a very good King.

Another great decision that was made at a public meeting at St. Paul’s was the framing of Magna Charta--that great Charter which secured, for all time to come, justice and liberty to English freemen.

In these old days, especially after the Normans came into the country, Kings were apt to think that might was right, and that they could do what they chose with their subjects. If a man displeased the King, or if he wanted to seize his land, he could simply throw him into prison and keep him there, sometimes until he died, without giving him even a trial. Then, too, if the Monarch wanted money, he simply forced the people to give it to him, and no one had any security that what was his to-day might not be the King’s to-morrow.

When Henry I. came to the throne, he wanted to please the people, because he had an elder brother living, who had gone to the Crusades, and he was afraid that unless he gained the affection of his subjects before his brother came back, they might choose the latter to be King instead of him. So he granted them a Charter, promising not to seize any of their property, nor to tax them unduly, nor to touch any of the lands belonging to the Church. He did not keep those promises very well, however, and his successors, Stephen, and Henry, and Richard, and John, did not keep them at all; and by the middle of King John’s reign the country was in a very bad state indeed. No heed was given to the advice or wishes of the great nobles, who ought to have had a voice in the government of the country, while the common people were so oppressed and down-trodden that they were ready to rise in rebellion. And they would have done so if it had not been for the wisdom and prudence of two great men--Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Marshal, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. Stephen Langton was a foreigner, whom the Pope had sent to Canterbury, but he was a good man, a real ‘Father in God’ to his people, and he believed that he was set over them to look after their bodies as well as their souls. When he found out how down-trodden the poor folk of England were, he made up his mind that such a state of things should not continue. So he began to inquire into the laws, and he found out about this old Charter, which had been granted by Henry I., but had never been kept, and had long since been forgotten. The wise Archbishop did not say anything, but he quietly set to work to find a copy of this Charter. After some trouble he discovered one, hidden away among the papers of an old monastery. He then summoned all the chief people in the country to meet him at St. Paul’s Cathedral. That was one of the most memorable assemblies in English history. All the powerful Nobles and Barons, all the stately Bishops and Priors, all the sober Aldermen of the great city, met together and listened with deep interest while the Archbishop read aloud to them the promises which had been made by Henry I., and recorded on the parchment which he held in his hand; then pointed out to them that these promises had never been kept, and that the people of England had a right to demand that they should be kept. He finished his speech by calling upon his listeners to band themselves together, and never rest satisfied till they had obtained redress from the grievous wrongs which had pressed upon them, and upon their poorer brethren.

The Archbishop’s words were not in vain. Nobles and Barons crowded round him, and, laying their hands upon their swords, took a solemn oath that they would insist upon the principles of Henry’s Charter being maintained, and would do their best to protect the liberties of the people.

This was just before Christmas-time, and when the King came to hold his Christmas Court in London, these same Nobles, armed to the teeth, and accompanied by the Churchmen and the principal citizens, appeared before him, and demanded that he should listen to their requests, and make proper laws to guard their liberties.

King John was frightened, but he did not want to give in; so, like the weak man that he was, he did not return a direct answer, but said that he would think over the matter, and meet them again at Easter. He thought that in this way he could put them off, and never give them an answer at all. But the people were determined, and formed themselves into an army, which they called the ‘Army of God, and of Holy Church,’ and all the clergy, and all the citizens of London, and Exeter, and Lincoln, supported them, and the King was obliged to yield.

So it came about that one June day a great assembly of people met on the banks of the Thames near Windsor. On one side was encamped the King, with a handful of followers, and on the other the great army of Barons, and nobles, and citizens had pitched their tents on a piece of marshy land known by the name of Runnymede. In the middle of the river was a small island, and on this island a few men chosen by the King, and a few men chosen by the Nobles, met to discuss matters; at least, they pretended to discuss matters, for everyone knew what the end would be. The King was powerless to resist the wishes of the great concourse of people gathered across the river, and before nightfall ‘Magna Charta,’ the ‘Great Charter,’ had been drawn up and signed.

I cannot tell you all the good things that were secured to Englishmen by this great deed, but there was one thing which, above all others, it gained for them--and gained for us as well--Justice. It is one of our proudest boasts that, by English law, no man, be he ever so poor or degraded, is condemned unheard; that every man is counted innocent till, by a fair trial, he is proved to be guilty. And the very foundation of our freedom rests on some words that were written that day on that old parchment: ‘_We will sell to no man, we will not delay nor deny to any man, justice or right_.’