In St. Margaret's—a storied haunt, for shining names alike of nobles and poets—was also buried John Skelton, another of the old bards (obiit 1529), the enemy and satirist of Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More, one of whom he described as "madde Amaleke," and the other as "dawcock doctor." Their renown has managed to survive those terrific shafts; but at least this was a falcon who flew at eagles. Here the poet Campbell was married,—October 11, 1803. Such old churches as this—guarding so well their treasures of history—are, in a special sense, the traveller's blessings. At St. Giles's, Cripplegate, the janitor is a woman; and she will point out to you the lettered stone that formerly marked the grave of Milton. It is in the nave, but it has been moved to a place about twelve feet from its original position,—the remains of the illustrious poet being, in fact, beneath the floor of a pew, on the left of the central aisle, about the middle of the church: albeit there is a story, possibly true, that, on an occasion when this church was repaired, in August, 1790, the coffin of Milton suffered profanation, and his bones were dispersed.
Among the monuments hard by is a fine marble bust of Milton, placed against the wall, and it is said, by way of enhancing its value, that George the Third came here to see it.† Several of the neighbouring inscriptions are of astonishing quaintness. The adjacent churchyard—an eccentric, sequestered, lonesome bit of grassy ground, teeming with monuments, and hemmed in with houses, terminates, at one end, in a piece of the old Roman wall of London (A.D. 306),—an adamantine structure of cemented flints—which has lasted from the days of Constantine, and which bids fair to last forever. I shall always remember that strange nook with the golden light of a summer morning shining upon it, the birds twittering among its graves, and all around it such an atmosphere of solitude and rest as made it seem, though in the heart of the great city, a thousand miles from any haunt of man. (It was formally opened as a garden for public recreation on July 8, 1891.)
† This memorial bears the following inscription: "John Milton. Author of 'Paradise Lost.' Born, December 1608. Died, November 1674. His father, John Milton, died, March 1646. They were both interred in this church."
St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, an ancient and venerable temple, the church of the priory of the nuns of St. Helen, built in the thirteenth century, is full of relics of the history of England. The priory, which adjoined this church, has long since disappeared and portions of the building have been restored; but the noble Gothic columns and the commemorative sculpture remain unchanged. Here are the tombs of Sir John Crosby, who built Crosby Place (1466), Sir Thomas Gresham, who founded both Gresham College and the Royal Exchange in London, and Sir William Pickering, once Queen Elizabeth's Minister to Spain and one of the amorous aspirants for her royal hand; and here, in a gloomy chapel, stands the veritable altar at which, it is said, the Duke of Gloster received absolution, after the disappearance of the princes in the Tower. Standing at that altar, in the cool silence of the lonely church and the waning light of afternoon, it was easy to conjure up his slender, slightly misshapen form, decked in the rich apparel that he loved, his handsome, aquiline, thoughtful face, the drooping head, the glittering eyes, the nervous hand that toyed with the dagger, and the stealthy stillness of his person, from head to foot, as he knelt there before the priest and perhaps mocked both himself and heaven with the form of prayer.
Every place that Richard touched is haunted by his magnetic presence. In another part of the church you are shown the tomb of a person whose will provided that the key of his sepulchre should be placed beside his body, and that the door should be opened once a year, for a hundred years. It seems to have been his expectation to awake and arise; but the allotted century has passed and his bones are still quiescent.