These wonderful cures were celebrated by magnificent festivals, the produce of which helped to swell the exchequer, and enabled Rahere to extend his charitable operations.
Rahere found though his fame increased his difficulties did not decrease; members of his own house rebelled against him, and he was accused of being a deceiver. At length his position became so trying that he appealed to the King for protection; the King listened to his appeals, and prohibited by his royal authority, “whether his minister or any other in his whole land, to be troublesome to Rahere the Prior, or the aforesaid church, concerning anything that belongs thereto; and that no man of the clergy or laity presume to usurp dominion of that place, or introduce himself without the consent of the Prior or brethren.”
In his difficulties he was much helped and encouraged by the counsel of an old man named Alfun, who not long before had built the adjoining church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, also just without the city walls, the most perfect remains of which are still to be seen in the churchyard.
Having obtained these concessions from the King he purposed going to Rome to lay before the authorities there his calamities, but death intervened, after a prelacy of 22 years and 6 months. And thus ended the life of this man, “subject to the King of bliss, with all meekness; provided with all diligence that were necessary to his subjects; and so providing increased daily to himself; before God and man grace; to the place reverence; to his friends gladness; to his enemies pain; to his after-comers joy.”
At the time of Rahere’s death there were 13 Canons, “with little land and right few rents.” “When the day of his nativity into heaven was known, it was solemnized with great joy and dancing on earth;” and though the solemnities of miracles ceased, and less means flowed into the church in consequence, yet “by copious oblations of the altar, and by helping of the populous city,” it seems to have prospered very well till it was dissolved by Henry VIII., in 1542, having enjoyed its privileges 427 years. At its dissolution the six bells were taken out of the church and sold to the parish of St. Sepulchre.
During the reign of Mary an attempt was made to revive the Catholic worship here by presenting the Church to the Black Friars; but in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign they were expelled, and the reformed service performed, which has continued to this day.
The present church was originally the choir of the priory; it in all probability extended to the gate in Smithfield, which was the entrance into the southern aisle of the nave.
