It was on June 19th, 1483, that Dr. Ralph Shaw, brother of the Lord Mayor, preached a famous sermon at the cross. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, intended seizing the crown. Dr. Shaw was directed to make the purpose known in his sermon, and, accordingly, took for his text the fourth chapter of the Book of Wisdom: “Bastard slips shall not take root.” He tried to prove the illegitimacy of Edward V. and his brother, saying that when Edward IV. married their mother, Elizabeth Woodville, he was already the husband of Lady Eleanor Boteler, of Sudeley. Next, he expressed a doubt if Edward was in reality the son of Richard, Duke of York, and entitled to the crown of England. He made a strong point of the fact that no likeness existed between him and his reputed father. Continuing his sermon, he observed that “my Lord Protector, that very noble prince, the pattern of all heroic deeds, represented the very face and mind of the great Duke, his father; he is the perfect image of his father; his features are the same, and the very express likeness of that noble Duke.” Sir Thomas More says that it had been arranged that, when the words had been spoken, the Protector should have come amongst the assembly, “to the end that these words, reciting with his presence, might have been taken by the hearers as though the Holy Ghost had put them in the preacher’s mouth, and should have moved the people even then to cry, ‘King Richard! King Richard!’ that it might have been after said that he was specially chosen by God, and in a manner by miracle. But the device failed, either by the Protector’s negligence, or the preacher’s overmuch diligence.” There is not any evidence that the device was contemplated. It is suggested that the sermon is not correctly reported, and it is believed that Richard would not have submitted to any aspersion on the chastity of his mother.
William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible was publicly burned in front of the cross in the year 1527. “Cardinal Wolsey,” writes W. H. Davenport Adams, in his “Book about London,” “sat enthroned in the midst of bishops, mitred abbots, and princes, and attended by a large concourse of chaplains and spiritual doctors. Opposite, on a platform, knelt six heretics, clothed in penitential garb—one holding a lighted taper of five pounds weight, the others carrying symbolic faggots, signifying the fate they had deserved, though, this time, mercifully allowed to escape it. After they had made confession of their errors, and begged pardon of God and the Holy Catholic Church, Bishop Fisher preached a sermon. The penitents were then conducted to a great fire which had been kindled in front of the north door of the cathedral, and led round it thrice, casting in their faggots as they went.” The ceremony concluded by Testaments and tracts being cast into the blazing fire.
Shortly after Mary had occupied the throne, a serious riot occurred at the cross. On Sunday, August 13th, 1553, Bourne, the Queen’s chaplain, preached to a large gathering of refugees and English fanatics. In the course of his sermon, he prayed for the souls of the departed, praised Bonner, and spoke in an uncharitable manner of Ridley. He was assailed with cries of “Papist, Papist! Tear him down!” A dagger was thrown at him, but, striking one of the side-posts of the cross, massed him. Men drew their swords, and had not leading Protestants interfered, doubtless Bourne would have lost his life, and those who supported him would have suffered. Fox, in his “Acts and Monuments,” relates how Master Bradford came into the pulpit, and “spoke so mildly, christianly, and effectously that, with few words, he appeased all; and afterward he and Master Rogers conducted the preacher betwixt them from the pulpit to the grammar school door, where they left him safe.” Shortly afterwards, the two men who had intervened were cast into prison, and finally suffered death at the fires of Smithfield.
Determined efforts were made to proclaim the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, and on the following Sunday, Mr. Thomas Watson, an earnest preacher, gave a stirring sermon. He was guarded with 200 soldiers, “with their halberdes.” Amongst those who listened to him, are named the Marquis of Winchester, the Earl of Bedford, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Lord Rich. Watson, some time previously, had been set in the stocks at Canterbury, by the orders of Cranmer. The time was near at hand when the teachings of the Roman Church were “heard without protest, if not with approval.” The Catholics took decided measures to close the mouths of those who did not agree with them.
Mary died. In her stead, Elizabeth occupied the throne, and a change came over the scene. The new Queen dearly loved pomp. On one occasion, she went to hear one of the Reformers preach at St. Paul’s, and in her train were a large number of lords and ladies, 1000 soldiers, ten great cannons, hundreds of drums and trumpets, a party of morris-dancers, and two white bears. On Ash Wednesday, 1565, Dean Nowell preached. Queen Elizabeth was present, and a very large number of the inhabitants of London, doubtless being more anxious to see their Queen than listen to the preacher. The Dean had not proceeded far with his sermon when he came to the subject of images, which, we are told, “he handled roughly.” The Queen cried out: “Leave them alone.” He did not hear her, and continued his invectives. Raising her voice, she said: “To your text, Mr. Dean! to your text! Leave that, we have heard enough of that! To your subject!” The Dean stammered a few more incoherent words, and was obliged to give up any further attempts to continue his sermon. The Queen left the place in a rage, and the Protestant part of the congregation, we are told, were moved to tears.
The most able preachers of the day, including Latimer, Cranmer, and other great men, delivered sermons at St. Paul’s Cross, and it was recognised as the seat of pulpit eloquence. Sermons were lightly esteemed unless preached here. The preachers were lodged at the Shunamite House for two days before and for one day after their sermon, and suitable diet provided for them. Soon after Richard Hooker had taken his degree (1581), he was invited to preach at the cross. He arrived in London wet and weary, and ill with a severe cold. He was carefully tended and cured by Mrs. Churchman, who had charge of the Shunamite House. Her consideration did not end with her nursing. She persuaded Hooker that he was “a man of tender constitution,” and that it would be his wisest course to have a wife who would nurse him. Not only would a wife prolong his life, but would make him more comfortable. Mrs. Churchman suggested her own daughter as a desirable wife. Hooker had not courage to refuse the proposal, and in due course they were married. The union was in every respect unsuitable. She is described as being without beauty and portion, and, worse still, she was of a shrewish temper.
The Dean of St. Paul’s, in 1588, gave public notice at the cross of the defeat of the “Invincible Armada.” Important local, as well as national, events were made known here. It was here and in similar places, says a recent writer, “Londoners must have first heard of the triumphs at Cressy and Poictiers—of their glorious Black Prince and his captive, King John; as in a latter age of the victory at Agincourt.” Public announcements in past ages were very important when few could read.
We read, in an old record, that on the birthday of Queen Elizabeth, on the 17th November, 1595, “the Pulpit Cross, in St. Paul’s Church-yard, was new repaired, painted, and partly enclosed with a wall of brick. Doctor Fletcher, Bishop of London, preached there in praise of the Queen, and prayed for her Majesty, before the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens, in their best liveries. Which sermon being ended, upon the church-leades the trumpets sounded, the cornets winded, and the quiristers sung an antheme. On the steeple many lights were burned, the Tower shot off her ordnance, the bels were rung, bonefires made, etc.”
The next event we notice at the cross, is in the reign of the first king of the ill-fated house of Stuart. For some years Henry Farley had, with pen and picture, done much to rouse an interest in St. Paul’s Cathedral, which, for over half a century, had been in a dilapidated condition, the chief cause being the result of a fire in 1561. In addition to trying to get bills introduced into Parliament, publishing pamphlets, he had, in 1616, pictures painted. One painting represented a procession of great personages; another, the said personages seated at a sermon at St. Paul’s Cross. We reproduce a picture of his painting of the cross. In the gallery, placed against the choir of the church, are seated the King, Queen, Prince of Wales, the Lord Mayor, and other notable men and women, and a large gathering of citizens is seated in front of the cross. The dog-whipper is busy driving away a dog. The outcome of Farley’s zeal, was the visit of James I., with his family and court, to hear a sermon here, on Midlent Sunday, in 1620. The gathering would be similar to the one represented in the picture drawn four years previously. The preacher was Dr. John King, called by James “The King of Preachers.” He selected for his text, Psalm cii. 13, 14. “Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; for the appointed time is come; for Thy servants delight in the stones thereof, and have pity on the dust thereof.” It will, perhaps, not be without interest to give a few quotations from Dr. King’s sermon, as a specimen of the extravagant figures of speech which prevailed at this period, and came down to the days of William III. “I am now,” said Dr. King, “to speak unto you of litterall and artificial Zion—a temple without life, yet of a sicklie and crazie constitution, sicke of age itselfe, and with many aches in her joynts, together with a lingering consumption that hath long been in her bowels, the timber in the beames whereof cryeth, ‘I perish,’ and the stone on the walles answereth no less, and part is already moultered away to stone, part to dust, and (that which is more), symbolizing with the other Zion, not only when fates and casualties, but in the very retinues and revolutions of these fates. After her building (600 years after Christ), salted with fire, sacrificed to the anger of God, and being raised, Phœnix, out of the ashes, betwixt 400 and 500 more (two in a thousand years), touched by an invisible hand, with a coal from the altar of heaven, that was never blowne, which wholly consumed the crest and vertical point, the top and top-gallant, and so scorched the rest, that ever since it hath remained valetudinary and infirm, rather peced out with an ordinary kind of physic, than restored to a sound plight.” In conclusion, he said, “Set it as seale upon your hearts, that your king has come unto you. Such comings are not often; Queen Elizabeth once, and now your sovereign once. Would it be believed, that a king should come from his court to this cross, where princes seldom or never come, and that ceremony to be in state, with a kinde of sacred pompe and procession, accompanied with all the fair flowers of his field, and the fairest rose of his garden, to make requests to his subjects, not for his private, but for the public; not for himselfe, but for God; not out of reason, state policy, but of religion and piety; no lesse fruit of honour and favour with God and man accruing thereby to his people, than to his sacred Majesty. You see it, value and prize it.” James I. and others gave liberal donations towards the restoration fund, but it was not until the reign of Charles I. that any real progress was made. The king and Archbishop Laud were most active in carrying out the much-required work.