JOINS THE ARTILLERY COMPANY.
In 1669 Wren appears in a new character as a member of the Honourable Artillery Company. He was admitted at their festival on August 17, when the company marched in state to a church in Broad Street, probably one of the many temporary ones put up after the Fire, and rewarded Dr. Waterhouse for his sermon with three of the newly-coined guinea pieces. A great banquet in the Clothworkers’ Hall in Mincing Lane, where the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many other distinguished persons were present, concluded the festival.[130] It is hardly conceivable that Wren could have found time to be more than an honorary member, but scattered notices here and there of observations made when ‘firing off my piece’ seem to point to his having attended the drills of the company.
One wishes there was a portrait extant of Sir Christopher in his uniform, wearing the red-plumed high hat which appeared on gala days!
In 1673 Wren resigned the Savilian astronomy professorship, to which the pressure of his architectural work made it impossible he should any longer attend. No doubt it was with great regret that he gave up the post, with all its curious speculations, its boundless possibilities of discovery, and turned himself from the study of the heavens to the dust and turmoil, the endless difficulties and petty quarrels, which thwarted him at every step of his London labours.
In truth, the pressure of business was enormous. Not a moment could be spared while the population of the City had neither churches, places of traffic, nor houses to dwell in; and the architect, whose plan had been marred, had to do the best he could in the midst of every kind of incongruity.
The futile attempts to patch up S. Paul’s were in 1673 at last abandoned, and Wren ordered the ground to be cleared that new foundations might be laid. A great mass of material for building had had to be disposed of while the repairs were going on.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Winchester, and Oxford, and the Lord Mayor, were commissioners for the repair of S. Paul’s; from them Wren obtained an order that—
‘The clerk of the works shall be required to dispose of and sell the stone, chalk, timber and free stone for, and towards, the rebuilding of the parochial churches and to no other use whatsoever, as he shall be directed, at merchantable rates to the masons and carpenters that build the said churches by order of Sir Leoline Jenkins (judge of the Admiralty Court), Dr. Sancroft, and Dr. Wren, or any two of them.’
The money thus collected was put aside for the fabric of the Cathedral.