The Cross, however, was not used for sermons only. Being a place centrally situated and resorted to by large numbers of people, it was deemed a suitable one for the performance of acts of public penance. In 1441, Roger Boltyngbroke, who was found guilty of the sin of necromancy, sat on a chair by the Cross during sermon time, surrounded by his magical appliances, and afterwards openly abjured his dark arts. A more notable penitent was Mistress Jane Shore, who came here “out of all araie, save her kertle onlie,” and with a taper in her hand, in May, 1483. John Hig, “alias Noke, alias Jonson”—a suspicious character obviously—stood bareheaded and barefooted, with a faggot on his shoulder, all through the preaching at the Cross on Good Friday, in 1528, as a penance for certain “damnable and erroneous opinions” which he confessed to having “erroneously and damnably said, affirmed, believed and taught.” A similar penance was performed in 1532 by a barrister of the Middle Temple, James Baynham by name, who seems to have been a singularly weak and vacillating creature. Having professed Protestantism, he recanted; again recalled his recantation, and was burned at Smithfield. In 1534, Elizabeth Barton, “the holy maid of Kent,” who professed to have had divine revelations condemning the divorce of King Henry VIII., was compelled to stand on a high scaffold over against the pulpit, together with some half-a-dozen priests and monks, who had expressed belief in her prophesyings. This probably mistaken, but certainly well-meaning and pious nun, was hanged at Tyburn on April 21st, 1534.
In November, 1554, five men did penance here by standing during the sermon with lighted tapers in one hand and rods in the other; in March, 1556, a man, for transgressing the rules of Lent, stood with the carcase of a pig on his head and another in his hand; and in August, 1559, a “minister” did penance for “marrying a couple that were married afore-time.”
The custom, common in past days, of formally destroying a book by way of condemning its publication, has several times been illustrated at S. Paul’s Cross. Many of Luther’s works were burnt at a sermon preached there by Fisher on May 12th, 1521; and Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament, after another sermon by the same bishop, Cardinal Wolsey being present also, in 1530. In 1613, some books by a Jesuit named Suarez, whose works were said to be “derogatory to Princes,” were burnt at the Cross, and the writings by Pareus, concerning the people’s authority over princes, were similarly treated in 1622.
A notice of the Cross in the reign of Edward III. gives us a curious insight into the ideas of episcopal duty at the time. Michael de Northbury, Bishop of London from 1354 to 1362, acted as a pawnbroker for the benefit of the citizens of that city, and if at the year’s end the pledges were not redeemed, notice was given by the preacher, after his sermon at the Cross, that they would be sold in fourteen days.
THE READING CROSS, ST. PAUL’S, LONDON.
Amongst the incidents of a secular character which centred in this time-honoured erection, we find a pleasing illustration of the friendly relations which subsisted between the King and his subjects in bygone days; for it seems to have been customary for the monarch, before going abroad, to come down to S. Paul’s Cross, and there to bid them farewell. So came, at any rate, Henry III., both in 1257 and in 1261, before passing into France.
The gatherings round the spot were not always of so friendly a nature. Under Queen Mary, religious feeling ran so high as to lead to serious disturbances. Dr. Bourne, chaplain to Bonner, was interrupted by shouting and uproar for attacking Ridley in a sermon on August 13th, 1553, and a dagger was flung at him, which stuck into a post of the Cross. On the following Sunday, about one hundred and twenty halberdiers were present, and peace was preserved; but in June of the next year, Dr. Pendleton was fired on whilst preaching and nearly struck by a pellet “of tyne.”