143. HEREFORD
BLACK FRIARS' CROSS
144. IRON ACTON, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
PREACHING CROSS IN THE CHURCHYARD
On a certain Sunday, in 1492, two men did public penance for heresy, standing at Paul's Cross "all the sermon time, the one garnished with painted and written papers, the other having a faggot on his neck." On Passion Sunday another man "with a faggot stood before the preacher all the sermon while at Paul's Cross; and on the Sunday next following (Palm Sunday), four men stood and did their open penance ... in the sermon time, and many of their books were burnt before them at the Cross."
On 12th May 1521, in the presence of Cardinal Wolsey, Bishop Fisher, of Rochester, delivered at Paul's Cross a sermon in denunciation of the German heresiarch, Luther.
In 1534 the king, Henry VIII., caused sermons to be preached against his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and also against Papal supremacy. In the same year, Elizabeth Burton and six of her most prominent supporters (all of them ultimately hanged at Tyburn) were brought to Paul's Cross for public exposure and degradation there, for the crime of having dared to express disapproval of the king's liaison with Anne Boleyn.
On 24th February 1538, the Rood of Grace, from Boxley Abbey, in Kent, an image which was alleged, by means of wires and other devices, to simulate various gestures and changes of countenance, was exhibited at Paul's Cross by Bishop Hilsey, of Rochester, and, at his incitement, broken and plucked to pieces amid the jeers of the mob. "The like was done by the blood of Hayles, which in like manner, by Crumwell, was brought to Paul's Cross, and there proved to be the blood of a duck," according to the veracious Foxe. From this time onward Paul's Cross witnessed the delivery of a succession of controversial sermons, first on one side and then on the other. When Edward VI. ascended the throne, Bishop Latimer, of Worcester, became a frequent preacher at Paul's Cross. Thus in the month of January 1548 he preached no less than four times.
In 1549 the Privy Council delivered to Bishop Bonner a set of articles, which he was required to advocate in a series of quarterly sermons at Paul's Cross. But the Bishop in preaching there having neglected to comply, was cited, on information laid against him by Latimer and Hooper, to appear for examination before the King's commissioners on 10th September 1549.