The following is curious:—
“On the 8th day of March, 1555, while a doctor preached at the cross, a man did penance for transgressing Lent, holding two pigs ready drest, whereof one was upon his head, having brought them to sell.”—[Strype’s Ecclesiastical Memorials.]
Before this cross, in 1483, was brought, divested of all her splendour, Jane Shore, the charitable, the merry concubine of Edward IV., and after his death, of his favourite the unfortunate lord Hastings. After the loss of her protectors, she fell a victim to the malice of the crook-backed tyrant Richard III. He was disappointed (by her excellent defence) of convicting her of witchcraft, and confederating with her lover to destroy him. He then attacked her on the side of frailty. This was undeniable. He consigned her to the severity of the church: she was carried to the bishop’s palace, clothed in a white sheet, with a taper in her hand, and from thence conducted to the cathedral, and the cross, before which she made a confession of her only fault. “In her penance she went,” says Holinshed, “in countenance and pase demure, so womanlie, that albeit she were out of all araie, save her kirtle onlie, yet went she so faire and lovelie, namelie, while the woondering of the people cast a comelie rud in hir cheeks (of whiche she before had most misse), that hir great shame was hir much praise among those that were more amorous of hir bodie than curious of hir soule. And manie good folkes that hated hir living (and glad were to see sin corrected), yet pitied they more hir penance than rejoised therin, when they considered that the Protector procured it more of a corrupt intent, than anie virtuous affection.”—[Hardyng’s Chron. 4to. Lond. 1812. p. 499.] She lived to a great age, but in great distress and poverty; deserted even by those to whom she had, during prosperity, done the most essential services.
In 1538, “The 24th of February being Sunday, the Rood of Boxeley, in Kent, called the ‘Rood of Grace,’ made with divers vices, to move the eyes and lips, was shewed at Pawle’s Cross by the preacher, which was the bishop of Rochester, and there it was broken and plucked to pieces.”—[Stow’s Annals, p. 575.]
“On the 17th of November, 1595, a day of great triumph for the long and prosperous raigne of her majestie (queen Elizabeth) at London, the pulpit crosse in Pawle’s churchyard was new repayred, painted, and partly inclosed with a wal of bricke: Doctour Fletcher, bishop of London, preached there in prayse of the queene, and prayer for her majestie, 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 ordinance, the bels were rung, bonefires made,” &c.—[Stow’s Annals, p. 770.]
Pennant says, the last sermon which was preached at this place was before James I., who came in great state from Whitehall, on Midlent Sunday, 1620; but Mr. Ellis, the learned and indefatigable editor of the new edition of Dugdale’s “History of St. Paul’s Cathedral,” says, there is a sermon in print, entitled, “The White Wolfe, preached at Paul’s Crosse, February 11, 1627;” and according to the continuator of “Stow’s Annals,” Charles I., on the 30th of May, 1630, having attended divine service in the cathedral, “went into a roome, and heard the sermon at Paule’s Crosse.”—[Stow’s Annals, p. 1045.]
Thus this cross stood till it was demolished, in 1643, by order of parliament, executed by the willing hands of Isaac Pennington, the fanatical lord mayor of London for that year, who died in the Tower a convicted regicide.
The engraving at the head of this article is from a drawing in the Pepysian library, and appears to have been the same that was erected circa 1450.
There is a large painting of this cross as it appeared on Sunday, 26th of March, 1620, when king James I., his queen, Charles, prince of Wales, the archbishop of Canterbury, &c. attended with their court. It has been engraved in Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata.”