This City has especial reason to be proud of him, for rather than withdraw his unflinching assertion of the Native Liberties of the Citizens, and his steadfast support of King Charles I., he submitted to imprisonment in the Tower at the hands of the Parliament in 1647 and 1648, and his “Salva Libertate” became historical.
He resided in this Parish, and “Dyed in peace in his owne house” on the 20th of July 1649, and he now lies buried in a Vault beneath this Church of St. Katharine Cree, Leadenhall St.
This Memorial Brass was subscribed for by Members of and Descendants from the Family of Gayer, and was placed here by them in testimony of their admiration for and appreciation of the noble character and many virtues of their illustrious ancestor.
The work of organising this Memorial was carried out by
Edmund Richard Gayer, M.A. of Lincoln’s Inn, Esq., Barrister at Law,
1888.
There are a number of ancient bequests for ringing bells and lighting beacons to guide travellers by night. These were very useful charities, for in the days of old, lands were generally unenclosed, and the roads poorly constructed. It was difficult for the wayfarer to find his way when the nights were dark. At the ancient village of Hessle, near Hull, a bell is still rung every night except Sunday, at 7 o’clock. Long, long ago, so runs the local story, a lady was lost on a dark night near the place, and was in sore distress, fearing that she would have to wander about in the cold until daylight. Happily, the ringing of the Hessle bells enabled her to direct her course to the village in safety, although she had to wend her weary steps over a trackless country. In gratitude for her delivery she left a piece of land to the parish clerk, on condition that he rang every evening one of the church bells.
A similar story is related respecting a Barton-on-Humber bell ringing custom. Richard Palmer left in 1664 a bequest to the sexton of Workingham, Berkshire, for ringing a bell every evening at eight, and every morning at four o’clock. One reason for ringing this, was “that strangers and others who should happen, on winter nights, within hearing of the ringing of the said bell, to lose their way in the country, might be informed of the time of the night, and receive some guidance into the right way.”
John Wardall, in his will dated 29th August, 1656, provided for a payment of £4 per annum being made to the Churchwardens of St. Botolph’s, Billingsgate, London, “to provide a good and sufficient iron and glass lanthorn, with a candle, for the direction of passengers to go with more security to and from the water-side, all night long, to be fixed at the north-east corner of the parish church, from the feast-day of St. Bartholomew to Lady-Day; out of which sum £1 was to be paid to the sexton for taking care of the lanthorn.” In 1662 a man named John Cooke made a similar bequest for providing a lamp at the corner of St. Michael’s Lane, next Thames Street.
In past ages churches were frequently unpaved and the floor usually covered with rushes. Not a few persons have left money and land for providing rushes for churches. In these latter days rushes are no longer strewn on the floor for keeping the feet warm in cold weather, but at a number of places old rights are maintained by the carrying out of the custom. At Clee, Lincolnshire, for example, the parish officials possess the right of cutting rushes from a certain piece of land for strewing the floor of the church every Trinity Sunday. The churchwardens preserve their rights by cutting a small quantity of grass annually and strewing it on the church floor. At Old Weston, Huntingdonshire, a similar custom still lingers. “A piece of land,” says Edwards in his “Remarkable Charities,” “belongs, by custom, to the parish clerk for the time being, subject to the condition of the land being mown immediately before Weston feast, which occurs in July, and the cutting thereof strewed on the church floor, previous to divine service on the feast Sunday, and continuing there during divine service.” At Pavenham, Bedfordshire, the church is annually strewn with grass cut from a certain field, on the first Sunday after the 11th July. “Until recently,” says a well-informed correspondent, “the custom was for the churchwardens to claim the right of removing from the field in question as much grass as they could ‘cut and cart away from sunrise to sunset.’ A few years ago this arrangement was altered into a yearly payment on the part of the tenant of the field of one guinea.” The money is spent in purchasing grass for spreading on the church floor. The parishioners have always taken a deep interest in this old custom. On the benefaction table of Deptford Church is recorded that “a person unknown gave half-a-quarter of wheat, to be given in bread on Good Friday, and half a load of rushes at Whitsuntide, and a load of pea-straw at Christmas yearly, for the use of the church.” In 1721, an offer of 21s. per annum was accepted in lieu of the straw and rushes, and in 1744, the sum of 10s. yearly in place of the half-quarter of wheat.
John Rudge, by his will dated 17th April, 1725, left a pound a year to a poor man to go round the parish church of Trysull, Staffordshire, during the delivery of the sermon, to keep people awake and drive out of the church any dogs which might come in. Richard Brooke left 5s. a year for a person to keep quiet during divine service the boys in the Wolverhampton church and churchyard.
At Stockton-in-the-Forest, Yorkshire, is a piece of land called “Petticoat Hole,” and it is held on the condition of providing a poor woman of the place every year with a new petticoat.