S. Mary Magdalene’s included the parish of S. Gregory, the little church which nestled by old S. Paul’s, so that Fuller described the Cathedral as ‘the mother church, having a babe in her arms.’[194]
S. Bennet’s, Gracechurch Street, or Grasschurch Street, as it was really named, from a herb market formerly held hard by, is, or rather was, of the same date. It was well placed at the corner of two streets, and stood boldly out with a tall tower crowned with a cupola and slender spire; the interior was full of carving and ornament. S. Bennet’s is, however, a thing of the past; the building is gone, the site desecrated, and the memory of such an edifice alone survives in the names of the streets which formerly led to and now usurp its place.
The little plain Church of S. Matthew, Friday Street, close pressed by neighbouring houses, is the last completed in this year. Obscure as the street where it stands may have been, it was full of associations for Wren. In Friday Street was the house where his aunt Anna lived, and where his uncle Matthew ‘lay,’ when summoned to that memorable conference with Bishop Andrewes. Hard by in the parish of S. Peter’s, Eastcheap, now incorporated with that of S. Matthew, Christopher’s merchant grandfather had lived and died, and there his own father had been born. S. Peter’s churchyard was preserved, and its single plane-tree is carefully protected.
COMPLAINTS FROM WINCHESTER.
S. Matthew’s has a less pleasant association: the living was for a time held by the notorious Henry Burton,[195] the friend and ally of Prynne. Burton was at first designed to accompany the Prince of Wales to Spain, but doubts of his principles arising, he was rejected and dismissed from his attendance as the Prince’s chaplain. This formed one strong motive for the bitter spite he bore to the church of his ordination. It is likely also that he stirred Prynne’s malice against Bishop Wren, who appears to have been Burton’s successor in the vacant chaplaincy.
The lesser details of the Surveyor-General’s work must this year have been a burden. There were complaints from Winchester, where the sudden stoppage of the buildings and plans for the palace caused great inconvenience; a complaint from Catherine Barton, the beautiful niece of Sir Isaac Newton, widow of Colonel Barton, who sold her farm to Charles II., and by the trickery of the agent never received her money; and a complaint of the same kind from Sir Richard Tichbourne’s son. Sir Christopher examined both these cases carefully, and compelled the agent to submit, and to satisfy the parties. Then there were troubles with the Duke of Buckingham and the ‘chaos’ he had made in Spring Gardens, that chaos so vividly described in ‘Peveril of the Peak.’ Nobody but Wren could give the estimates for the new stables at S. James’s Palace, or order the new planting at Hampton Court and in Greenwich Park, or secure the proper tithes for the Rector of S. Thomas’s, Winchester.
Again, there was Verrio the painter’s account for work done at Whitehall and Windsor to be examined. For the chapel at Whitehall Verrio demanded 1,250l., and, says Wren, ‘I suppose when the rest of the ceiling and walls are finished, as they ought to be, it may fully deserve it.’ The whole bill was 2,050l., of which Verrio had received already more than 1,400l., so that he may be reckoned as fortunate.
It is not wonderful that in 1686, Wren attended no meeting of the Society. Two churches were finished this year: S. Clement’s, East Cheap, and S. Mary’s, Abchurch, in Cannon Street.