Historical sketches of old Charing. / The hospital and chapel of Saint Mary Roncevall. Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, and the monuments erected in her memory.

by Sir James Galloway

[52]. Vide fig. 1.

[53]. John Norden. MS. Harl. 570 (circ. 1593), quoted by Lethaby; cf. “Speculum Britanniæ, the first parte,” 1593, p. 45, and the maps of London.

Fig. 19.
The fragments of two panels of the Cross in Chepe, City of London, now in the Guildhall Museum. The panels show the heraldic bearings of England, and of Castile and Leon, with portions of moulding. These relics are probably portions of the Cross as restored by John Hatherley in the fifteenth century. From a drawing by Mr. J. C. Hallinan.

Charing Cross suffered many indignities in the Parliamentary period. After many years of neglect, it was sentenced by Parliament to be taken down in 1643. An old rhyme mentions the event:—

“The Parliament to vote it down

Conceived it very fitting,

For fear it should fall and kill them all

In the house as they were sitting.

They were told God wot, it had a plot,