GEDDINGTON CROSS.
The Cheapside Cross was renewed in 1486 by the citizens of London, and again in 1600. In the excitement of the religious ferment of the following century it was a great sufferer, all the images on it being broken in 1581, and again, “with profane indignity” in 1596. Its final destruction took place in 1643 under an order of the Long Parliament, which decreed the demolition of all crosses. Both this and, it would appear, the earlier attacks upon it, were the work of a fanatical minority merely, which could command but little popular sympathy, for Sir Robert Harlow, who had charge of the work of destruction, brought with him to the city a troop of horse and two companies of foot to protect the workmen from the rage of the citizens. The Cross at Charing was probably removed at the same time. Of the fate of the others we have no record; some perhaps crumbled with decay, and were neglected, others doubtless met a fate similar to that of their London sisters.
PURITANS DESTROYING CHEAPSIDE CROSS.
The Waltham Cross has proved the most suggestive to architects of subsequent times; amongst other instances the Crimean Cross, near Westminster Abbey, has been formed on its design. Sir G. Gilbert Scott drew inspiration from the Northampton Cross for the erection of the Martyrs’ Memorial at Oxford; and near Sheffield is one which perhaps follows, though at an immense distance, the type at Geddington. This is the memorial to the four hundred victims, of the terrible epidemic of cholera which visited Sheffield in 1832. This cross, the foundation-stone of which was laid by James Montgomery, the poet, is chiefly interesting as one of the earliest instances of the reviving taste and feeling for this specially appropriate form of monument. Another Memorial Cross, whose noble size and dignified proportions, when compared with the one last named, give ample evidence of the artistic growth which has accompanied this growth of feeling, is the S. Andrew’s Cross, at Plymouth.
Two crosses of a different type to the Eleanor crosses are those at Newark and at Wedmore. The first, which consists of a tall shaft on a flight of bold, hexagonal steps, was erected by the Duchess of Norfolk, as a memorial of her husband, John Viscount Beaumont, who fell at the battle of Towton Moor in 1461. The present head of the cross is modern. The Wedmore Cross, sometimes called “Jeffrey’s Cross,” commemorates the unfortunate country-folk of Somersetshire, who fell in Monmouth’s rebellion, or were butchered by the brutal Jeffreys afterwards.