There can be little doubt that this Otto de Tilli is the same person whose name appears as a witness to several grants about the middle of the twelfth century, and who was Seneschal to the Earl of Conisborough. It stood uninjured till the Great Rebellion, when the Earl of Manchester's army, on their way from the South to the siege of York in the year 1644, chose to do the Lord service by defacing it. “And the said Earl of Manchester's men, endeavouring to pull the whole shank down, got a smith's forge-hammer and broke off the four corner crosses; and then fastened ropes to the middle cross which was stronger and higher, thinking by that to pull the whole shank down. But a stone breaking off, and falling upon one of the men's legs, which was nearest it, and breaking his leg, they troubled themselves no more about it.” This account with a drawing of the cross in its former state was in Fairfax's collection of antiquities, and came afterwards into Thoresby's possession. The Antiquarian Society published an engraving of it by that excellent and upright artist Vertue, of whom it is recorded that he never would engrave a fictitious portrait. The pillar was composed of five columns, a large one in the middle, and four smaller ones around it, answering pretty nearly to the cardinal points: each column was surmounted by a cross, that in the middle being the highest and proportionally large. There were numeral figures on the south face, near the top, which seem to have been intended for a dial; the circumference of the pillar was eleven feet seven, the height eighteen feet.
William Paterson, in the year of his mayoralty 1678, “beautified it with four dials, ball and fane:” in 1792, when Henry Heaton was Mayor, it was taken down, because of its decayed state, and a new one of the same form was erected by the road side, a furlong to the south of its former site, on Hop-cross hill. This was better than destroying the cross; and as either renovation or demolition had become necessary, the Corporation are to be commended for what they did. But it is no longer the same cross, nor on the same site which had once been consecrated, and where many a passing prayer had been breathed in simplicity and sincerity of heart.
What signifies the change? Both place and monument had long been desecrated. As little religious feeling was excited by it as would have been by the altar to the Deæ Matres if it had stood there. And of the hundreds of travellers who daily pass it in, or outside of stage coaches, in their own carriages, on horseback, or on foot; and of the thousands who flock thither during the races; and of the inhabitants of Doncaster itself, not a single soul cares whether it be the original cross or not, nor where it was originally erected, nor when, nor wherefore, nor by whom!
“I wish I did not!” said Dr. Dove, when some one advanced this consideration with the intent of reconciling him to the change. “I am an old man,” said he, “and in age we dislike all change as naturally, and therefore no doubt, as fitly as in youth we desire it. The youthful generation in their ardour for improvement and their love of novelty, strive to demolish what ought religiously to be preserved; the elders in their caution and their fear endeavour to uphold what has become useless, and even injurious. Thus in the order of Providence we have both the necessary impulse and the needful check.
“But I miss the old cross from its old place. More than fifty years had I known it there; and if fifty years acquaintance did not give us some regard even for stocks and stones, we must be stocks and stones ourselves.”
CHAPTER XLIV. P. I.
HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH DONCASTER. THOMAS, EARL OF LANCASTER. EDWARD IV. ASKE'S INSURRECTION. ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. JAMES I. BARNABEE. CHARLES I. CHURCH LIBRARY.
They unto whom we shall appear tedious, are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are not willing to endure.