Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul Part 5

[47] Particularly the 68 Indulgences between 1228-1316 cited in "Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trating," p. 174.

[48] This crypt, under the extension of the thirteenth century choir, cannot be that mentioned by William of Malmesbury. According to the plan in Dugdale, there was no crypt underneath the Norman cathedral.

[49] "Chapters on the History" (pp. 91-93) gives more details about the crypt. Dean Milman calls Lyly John; and Chambers' "Book of Days"

buries him in the churchyard.

[50] "Chapters in the History," with plate, pp. 159, 222, etc.

[51] This is Wren's estimate; others are higher.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE FIRE TO THE COMPLETION OF NEW ST. PAUL'S (1666-1710).

Christopher Wren was the most distinguished member of a distinguished family. His father's elder brother, Matthew, was fellow and senior treasurer of Pembroke College, Cambridge, when James I. visited that university in 1611, and won the favour of his sovereign by the ability with which he acquitted himself in the "Philosophy Act." After serving as chaplain to Charles in the journey to Spain, he received, amongst other preferments, the Mastership of Pembroke and the Deaneries of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and then was made, in quick succession, Bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely. We shall see that the Cathedral of Ely exercised an influence over his nephew in designing the Dome of St. Paul's. Matthew survived the Commonwealth after a lengthy imprisonment without trial, and returned to Ely after the Restoration.

His younger brother Christopher was chaplain to Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, who preferred him to the Rectory of East Knoyle, Wilts.[52] Charles I. made him chaplain in ordinary; and when Matthew was preferred to Norwich, his brother succeeded him in his two deaneries. The Dean, like his brother, was a learned scholar, and to him posterity is indebted for the preservation of many valuable records at Windsor during the troubled times. He married Mary, heiress of Robert c.o.x, of Founthill, in Wiltshire, and died in poverty and deprived of his benefices before the Restoration. The only surviving son of the marriage, Christopher, was born at East Knoyle, October 20, 1632. Like others who have eventually lived to an extreme old age, he was delicate during childhood, and, instead of being sent early to school, received his primary instruction privately. Like his father before him, he displayed great apt.i.tude for mathematics, both pure and applied, and was fortunate enough to have a capable teacher in Dr. William Holder, the husband of a sister, in whose house his father took refuge and died after his ejection from Windsor. At the age of thirteen he was sent for a short period to Westminster, and about the same time invented a new astronomical instrument. The next year he was admitted as a gentleman commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. Both the Warden, Dr. John Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Seth Ward, observed his early promise, and gave him every encouragement in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and he continued to design ingenious instruments and models, Dr. Charles Scarborough, a surgeon of note, making use of his talents in preparing pasteboard models for his anatomical lectures.[53] His intellectual precocity can only be compared to that of John Stuart Mill, and with this difference, that whereas Mill was forced by his father like a plant under gla.s.s, Wren's studies were spontaneous and voluntary.

Graduating in 1650, he was elected three years later, after taking his Master's degree, to a Fellowship of All Souls, the next year began his friendship with John Evelyn, and he was subsequently chosen Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College[54] and Savilian Professor at Oxford.

Isaac Newton in the "Principia" cites him as an authority on mathematics, and, had he never turned his attention to architecture, he would still have taken high rank in other ways. By 1663, as appears by a letter of Thomas Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, he was looked upon as the fittest man to restore the dilapidated St.

Paul's, and was about the same time asked to go to Tangiers to direct the extensive fortifications and harbour projected there. He refused the offer of Tangiers on the plea of health, "and humbly prayed his Majesty to allow of his Excuse, and to command his duty in England."

Although this post was to be accompanied by a reversionary grant of the Surveyor Generalship of the Royal Works, one may well ask the question, who, had he accepted it, would have rebuilt St. Paul's?[55]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELEVATION AND SECTION OF WREN'S REJECTED DESIGN FOR ST. PAUL'S.

_From his drawings in All Souls' College, Oxford, as reproduced in facsimile in Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture in England."_]

We now begin to find him devoting what Sprat most truly called "that great genius of yours" to architecture. He examined carefully the leading churches of England and of some parts of the Continent.[56] He went to Paris the year of the Plague, and it is characteristic of the taste of his time that no mediaeval cathedral pa.s.sed on the way is mentioned. At Paris, under the auspices of Mazarin, many architects and artists were a.s.sembled. "I hope I shall give you a very good Account of all the best Artists in France," he wrote to a friend. "My business now is to pry into Trades and Arts. I put myself into all shapes to humour them; 'tis a comedy to me, and tho' sometimes expenceful, I am loth yet to leave it." He mentions not only leading men like Colbert, but more than twenty architects, painters, and designers he met, and above all Bernini, the architect of the Louvre.

"Bernini's designs of the Louvre I would have given my skin for; but the old reserved Italian gave me but a five Minutes View; it was five little designs on Paper, for which he had received as many thousand Pistoles: I had only time to copy it in my Fancy and Memory." In after years, when his enthusiasm had been tempered by a more mature judgment, this eulogium would have been materially qualified. We may add here that he was in course of time knighted, and became President of the Royal Society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

_From the engraving in Elmes' Memoirs of Sir C. Wren, after the portrait by Kneller at the Royal Society's rooms._]

Such was the man to whom not merely the king and his advisers, but public opinion, turned to repair the ravages of the Fire, and in particular to rebuild St. Paul's. It was the Surveyor General, Sir John Denham, who recommended Wren as his successor, and the death of Denham in March, 1668, gave this recommendation full effect. One of Wren's many disappointments was that the opportunity was missed of laying out afresh the whole City from Temple Bar to Tower Hill, and from Moorfields to the river. His inventive genius projected broad streets, generally rectangular, with piazzas, each the meeting-point of eight thoroughfares, and quays and terraces along the river bank.

He calculated that by obliterating the numerous churchyards and laying out healthier cemeteries in the suburbs, no owner would lose a square foot of ground, and that, although they would not find their property exactly on the same site, every building would be replaced, with the immense compensation of an excellent situation in the finest and healthiest city in the whole world. By this plan St. Paul's would have directly faced a long and broad street running west and pa.s.sing through the present Law Courts, with St. Dunstan's Church in the centre beyond the Fleet, and the narrow Strand joining from the west at Temple Bar. At Ludgate, three hundred yards west of the cathedral, this avenue of a width of some thirty yards began to open out until, opposite the west front, it had increased to a breadth of a hundred yards, leaving ample room for a piazza. Here an acute bifurcation was formed, the northern street leading to the Exchange; the southern, a broader and a n.o.bler Cannon Street, with St. Paul's between. This scheme, as laid before the King and Parliament, Wren declared to be thoroughly practicable. Certainly it would have prevented congestion of traffic unto this day, and given St. Paul's (although somewhat hemmed in on the east) a position unique amongst churches.[57] "The only and as it happened unsurmountable Difficulty remaining was the obstinate Averseness of great Part of the Citizens to alter their old Properties, and to secede from building their Houses again on the old Ground and Foundations"; and as rebuilding began almost as soon as the smoke of the Fire had ceased, and long before anything definite could be decided upon, a great opportunity was lost. The estimated three-quarters of a million of souls and the vehicles innumerable now crossing the boundaries every weekday are compelled, too often, to traverse choked and narrow streets, and not without danger to life and limb; while St. Paul's itself, cribbed, cabined, confined, becomes in each successive generation more hemmed in as the surrounding emporiums and magazines grow taller and taller.

At first the idea was entertained of restoring the ruins, but this was finally abandoned by royal warrant to the Commissioners in 1668, and clearing and excavations began. The workmen with pickaxes stood on the top of the walls some eighty feet high, and others below cleared away the dislodged stones--a dangerous task in which lives were lost. Of the Central Tower some two hundred feet remained, and a more expeditious plan was adopted. A deal box, containing eighteen pounds of gunpowder, was exploded level with the foundations at the centre of the north-west pillar, and the adjacent arches were lifted some nine inches, while these ruins "suddenly jumping down, made a great Heap of Ruin in the Place without scattering." Wren estimated the whole weight lifted at three thousand tons, and the labour saved equal to that of a battalion of a thousand men. When the alarmed inhabitants of the neighbourhood heard and felt the concussion, they naturally took it for an earthquake. In the surveyor's absence a subordinate used too much powder in attempting a second mine, and neither burying it low enough nor building up the mouth, a stone was projected through an open window into a room where some women were sitting at work.

Although no one was. .h.i.t, the neighbours took alarm, and successfully agitated against all further blasting. Delay was caused, and finally a battering-ram some forty feet in length, worked by thirty men, completed the demolition. The stones and rubbish were cleared away, and used in different buildings and in repairing the streets.

Afterwards some houses on the north side which encroached on the building, and may have been those that a.s.sisted the pa.s.sage of the Fire, were levelled, and their site included in the churchyard.

When at length the ruins of Old St. Paul's had come down and the huge ma.s.s of wreckage been cleared away, working from the west the excavations for the new foundations were begun. The old cathedral had rested on a layer of loam, or "pot earth" or "brick earth," near the surface; and wells being sunk at various points to ascertain the depth of this, it was found that the loam, owing to the ground sloping towards the south, gradually diminished from a depth of six feet to four. Sinking further, they found sand so loose as to run through the fingers; next, freshwater sh.e.l.ls and more sand, and continuing through hard beach or gravel, they reached at last the London clay.[58] At one point of the north-east corner, where the loam had been dug out, Wren was compelled to rest the foundations on the clay; and it seems almost a pity that this was not universally adopted, at whatever additional cost of time and labour, in preference to the loam. The building had not long been completed ere the great weight of the dome caused some of the piers to sink from an inch to more than two inches, and Edward Strong the younger had to repair cracks and fissures.[59] Dean Milman tells us that in his time the City authorities once contemplated a sewer on the south side; but the surveyor, Mr. R. c.o.c.kerell, remembering that the sand and sh.e.l.ls underneath the loam would be in danger of oozing out, went in great haste to him, and on their joint representation the project was abandoned.

The old cathedral was not due east and west, neither did it directly face Ludgate Hill. Owing to the lie of the land cleared away, both of these peculiarities were increased by the surveyor, and the axis of the New St. Paul's was swung some seven degrees further north than the Old. He thereby made the best of his somewhat cramped site, and avoided the foundations of the old walls. The excavations were not completed nor the site fully cleared and made ready until 1674.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RELATIVE POSITION AND AREA OF THE GROUND-PLANS OF OLD AND NEW ST. PAUL'S.

_Reproduced from Longman's "Three Cathedrals of St. Paul's."_]

It has been the lament of many that the Pointed arch had by the time of the Fire died out, and that the Renaissance style, borrowed from Italy, had taken the place in England of Gothic architecture. "About two hundred years ago," we are told in the "Parentalia," "when ingenious Men began to reform the _Roman_ Language to the Purity which they a.s.signed and fixed to the Time of _Augustus_ and of that Century, the Architects also, ashamed of the modern Barbarity of Building, began to examine carefully the Ruins of _Old Rome_ and _Italy_; to search into the Orders and Proportions, and to establish them by inviolable Rules: so to their Labour and Industry we owe in a great Degree the Restoration of Architecture." Here we have the Renaissance style defined. Wren would naturally have fallen in with the fashion of his own time; and the faults he found in his elaborate surveys at Old St. Paul's, Salisbury, and elsewhere confirmed him in his adherence.

He found "a Discernment of no contemptible Art, Ingenuity and geometrical Skill in the Design and Execution of some few"; but this was more than counterbalanced by grave faults: "An affectation of Height and Grandeur, tho' without Regularity and good Proportion, in most of them." They are loaded with too much carving and tracery, and in other ways offend his taste, but chiefly in the neglect of a due regard to stability. "There is scarce any _Gothick_ Cathedral, that I have seen, at home or abroad, wherein I have not observed the Pillars to yield and bend inwards from the Weight of the Vault of the Aile....

For this Reason this Form of Churches has been rejected by modern Architects abroad who use the better and _Roman_ Art of Architecture.... Almost all the Cathedrals of the _Gothick_ Form are weak and defective in the Poise of the Vault of the Aile."[60] On the other hand, he reckoned the dome "a form of church-building unknown in England, but of wonderful Grace," and, moreover, the dome wasted a minimum of s.p.a.ce, whilst a mediaeval cathedral could accommodate only a small auditory in proportion to its large area, so that every one could both see and hear. Any place of worship was in his eyes badly or imperfectly constructed in which the preacher's voice could not travel so as to be distinctly heard. There is much to be said on both sides in regard to the comparative merits of Gothic and Renaissance; and instead of echoing complaints, it is surely better to be thankful we have one cathedral, situated in the greatest centre of population, in the latter style.[61]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MODEL OF WREN'S FIRST DESIGN _Reproduced from Longman's "Three Cathedrals," &c._ [The western cupola is an addition to the design shown on p. 57]]

In 1668 a small committee of eight, in addition to the Dean and Chapter, was appointed, and about the same time Wren set seriously to work and soon after produced his first design (see p. 57). In addition to the reasons already mentioned, he had at first to take into consideration the all-important question of finance, for when he began there were only voluntary contributions to fall back upon; but in 1670 a share of the import duties on coal was granted, and soon const.i.tuted the greater part of the rebuilding fund. In 1673 an enlarged commission of over a hundred members was nominated by royal warrant, with the Lord Mayor at its head, who took precedence over the Primate and the Bishop; and Wren laid his first design before them, of which a model was made. This was a kind of Greek cross; the external order was the Corinthian, with Attic above. It bore a general resemblance to a rotunda, and was crowned with a dome taken from the Pantheon at Rome.

This dome was of about the same diameter as the present, but less lofty, and was likewise supported by eight pillars. West of the rotunda part was the foot of the cross, and a secondary dome was afterwards added. When Wren began to design this we have seen that amongst other considerations was that of finance[62]; but even had the coal dues been then granted, it is certain that he would have adhered to it, for it was always a great favourite. In designing it he took two facts into consideration: (1) that the outdoor sermons, formerly preached at the Cross, were for the future to be preached inside, and that a large auditorium would be required for this purpose (2) that religious processions inside were now discouraged, and that a nave and aisles were in consequence a useless waste of s.p.a.ce and means.[63]

Forgetting these two important items, a vast amount of adverse criticism has been bestowed upon Wren's favourite. Its main drawback was the absence of a proper Sacrarium; and yet so obvious were its advantages, that when a cathedral was lately proposed for Liverpool, no less an authority on architecture than the late Canon Venables advocated its adoption.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF THE MODEL.

_A sketch by the Rev J.L. Pet.i.t._]

The clergy and others wanted something with more resemblance to the old cathedrals; and first of all the surveyor tried to humour them by adding another secondary dome to the west. He next set to work making a great number of sketches, merely, as his grandson says, for "Discource sake"; and one of these was so much approved of that a model was again made. But the demand for a building with choir, nave, and aisles complete continued, and required to be satisfied; and at length one design met with the approval of the king; and on the 14th of May, 1675, Charles issued his warrant to the commissioners accordingly, stating that he approved of this particular design because it was "very artificial, proper, and useful," and could be built by parts, and that his commissioners were to begin at once with "the East-end or Quire."

Wren had already become disgusted with the impediments and delays caused by incompetent judges, and had determined to discontinue making his drawings and plans public.[64]

We shall never know all that took place during the building so as to be able to account for the deviations from this design. The king gave the surveyor permission to make alterations "rather ornamental than essential," and left the whole to his management, so that the royal commission was chiefly employed as treasurers. But even this scarcely explains the great alterations made. The drum and dome of the design, of comparatively modest dimensions, are crowned with a minaret-like spire. The west front has but one order of columns, and the towers are insignificant to a degree. These are amongst the features which were altered, and they were "essential" as distinct from "ornamental." We know that Wren developed as his experience was enlarged; and we know also that certain alterations were made contrary to his wish. Beyond this we are lost in conjecture at the poverty of his design. Perhaps, despising the taste of the commissioners, he never seriously intended to adhere to it, antic.i.p.ating he would be his own master.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "WARRANT" DESIGN.

_From a drawing in All Souls' College, Oxford. Reproduced from Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture."_]

Quickly following on the royal warrant, the first stone was laid June 21, 1675, at the south east corner of the choir.[65] By 1685 the walls of the choir were finished, with the north and south porticoes, and the dome piers raised to a like height. When fixing the centre of his dome, Wren directed a labourer to place a stone as a mark. The man took a broken fragment of an old gravestone on which was inscribed the word _Resurgam_; and by many this was naturally taken as a favourable augury. In 1686 the old west end, hitherto left undisturbed in its ruins, was cleared away, and two years later the choir was ready for its roof; but shortly after, a fire at the west of the north choir aisle, in a room allotted to the organ-builder, caused a slight delay.

Not until 1697 was the choir ready for divine service.

After long years of war, during which the country had suffered from the heavy burden of taxation, and her commerce had been impaired, the treaty of Ryswick was at length signed, sealed, and ratified; and Louis XIV. acknowledged William and Mary as the lawful sovereigns of these isles. The king returned from the Continent in November, 1697, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. Stock almost rose, and gold almost fell, to par; and every prospect of a returning prosperity put the public, whatever their politics, in a good humour. A council at which William presided, resolved that the second day of December should be kept as a day of Thanksgiving; and the Chapter decided that the day of Thanksgiving should be the day for the consecration of the choir. William wished to attend himself; but it was represented that if he went in procession from Whitehall, the whole population would turn out, and the parish churches be empty; and he had to rest content with a service in his palace. At St. Paul's the civic representatives attended in full state, and Bishop Compton, Dean Sherlock, and the cathedral staff, occupied the new stalls of Grinling Gibbons. The temporary organ accompanied the chanting, and a special prayer incorporated into the Communion office ran: "We offer our devout praises and thanksgivings to Thee for this Thy mercy, humbly beseeching Thee to perfect and establish Thy good work. Thou, O Lord, dwellest not in houses made with hands; heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; but though Thy throne is in heaven, earth is Thy footstool; vouchsafe, therefore, we beseech Thee, Thy gracious presence in this Thy house to hear our prayers, and accept our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving." Bishop Compton, who preached, took for his text, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the House of the Lord." His sermon has not come down to us, but no doubt he reminded the clergy and congregation that the day of Thanksgiving had been selected because it was the dedication of their metropolitan temple to the public worship of the religion of the Prince of Peace; that after a lapse of thirty years, and in spite of the hardship and distress engendered by plague, fire, and war, London was raising another building on the spot consecrated by centuries of prayer and praise; and that as the result of the treaty of peace, their national religion was a.s.sured, while the metropolis might continue to extend her commerce without fear of disaster and bankruptcy.[66]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LATER DESIGN.

_From Sir C. Wren's drawings at All Souls' College._ [This is approximately the design finally adopted.]]

Early in 1699, although the nave was not completed, the north-west chapel was opened for daily morning service, at six in the summer, and seven in the winter. Queen Anne attended in state for the victories of Marlborough on land, and of Ormond and Rook at sea (Nov. 12, 1702).

Two years later came Blenheim; and she went again in her state coach drawn by eight bays. From the west door to the choir, under the unfinished vaulting and dome, the way was lined by a detachment of Foot Guards; and as the long procession advanced, the hautboys played and the drums beat until the Queen and her husband had reached their throne in the centre of the choir towards the west, when, after a pause, service began. Dean Sherlock preached from the text, "Doubtless there is a G.o.d that judgeth the earth"; and the service, which began at one, lasted some three hours. On four other occasions Anne repeated these visits--thrice for victories, and once for the union of England and Scotland.[67]

Although the commissioners decided that the dome was to be covered with copper, lead was used instead, and the work steadily progressed until two years after the last royal visit, when the fabric was completed. Wren was now seventy-eight years of age, and his son Christopher represented him when, in company with the master-mason, Edward Strong, and other free and accepted masons, the last stone was laid on the summit of the lantern, a great crowd looking on from below. Stephen was able to reflect with satisfaction that the cathedral had been begun and finished by his grandfather, and practically during the time of one bishop, for Henchman had died a few months after the laying of the first stone; and he contrasted this with St. Peter's at Rome, where, with an unlimited supply of marble and other costly building materials ready at hand, one hundred and fifty-three years had been required under nineteen popes from Julius II. to Innocent X., and under twelve architects from Bramante to Berninus. Stephen forgot, however, that St. Peter's is more than twice the size of St. Paul's, and that only the bare fabric of the latter was ready, and that it still wanted its mosaics and other adornments.

Under Wren as Surveyor-General we have already mentioned the master-mason Edward Strong and his son Edward. John Oliver was a.s.sistant-Surveyor and Purveyor, with a salary of 100; Lawrence Spencer was Clerk of the Works and Pay-master at a like salary; Thomas Russell was Clerk of the Cheque at a salary of 50, and called over the roll of workmen at six in the morning, one in the afternoon, and six in the evening.[68] It has to be added that Wren and the royal commissioners did not agree; and that about the time of the consecration of the choir, an Act was pa.s.sed with a clause suspending "_a moiety of the Surveyor's Salary until the said Church should be finished, thereby the better to encourage him to finish the same with the utmost Diligence and Expedition_." His salary of 200 was thus reduced temporarily to 100, and the arrears, in accordance with the terms of this Act, were not made good until the completion. And worse than this was the charge brought against him that he deliberately delayed the building so that his pittance of two hundred a year might be continued. The commissioners knew nothing of building, and, like many people of to-day, may have thought that the old cathedrals were finished in a few years. Fortunately, Wren was an enthusiast in his great work, and the happy possessor of an equable temperament that nothing could seriously disturb. Otherwise this disgraceful treatment of so old a man might well have been fatal.

It is better to turn away from this as quickly as may be, and contemplate with a laudable pride the great achievement of our ancestors. The Plague, and still more the Fire, must have seriously impoverished the City; and in 1703 the great storm did immense damage.

Of the five-and-thirty years the cathedral was in building, one half were years of war; and the public confidence and security were further disturbed by a revolution, by civil war in Ireland, and by plots and intrigues without number, following in the wake of a disputed succession. Yet the City raised, and almost without complaint, a sum enormous in those days, and which would, even in our own time, be reckoned as serious.

I have calculated the expense as follows. My figures lay no claim to infallibility--I doubt whether a chartered accountant could make a quite accurate balance-sheet--but they may be taken as fairly approximate:--

RECEIPTS.

s. d.

Coal Dues 810,181 18 2 Subscriptions and Miscellaneous 68,341 14 1 --------------- Total 878,523 12 3

EXPENDITURE.

s. d.