Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/135

 crosses, notable objects in the old towns, were pulled down also in the general havoc. Cheapside cross fell in the demolition. Bishop Andrewes said, "That there had been a good riddance of images by the Puritans "; by which he meant to say that they had been busy at destroying them.

The Puritans had quite a crusade against our Churches. They were guilty of the worst form of sacrilege. Southey says, "In some of them they baptized horses and swine, in profane mockery of baptism; in others they broke open the tombs and scattered about the bones of the dead, or, if the bodies were entire, they defaced and dismembered them. At Sudbury, they made a slaughter-house of the chancel, cut up the carcases upon the Communion Table, and threw the garbage in the vault of the Chandoses, insulting thus the remains of some of the most heroic men, who, in their day, defended and did honour to their country. At Westminster, the soldiers sat smoking and drinking at the Altar, and lived in the Abbey, committing every kind of indecency there, which the Parliament saw and permitted. No Cathedral escaped without some injury; painted windows were broken, statues pulled down and mutilated, carvings demolished, the organs sold piecemeal for the value of the materials, or set up in taverns. At Lambeth, Parker's monument was thrown down, that Scott, to whom the Palace had been allotted for his portion of the spoils, might convert the chapel into a hall. The Archbishop's body was taken, not out of his grave alone, but out of his coffin, and the lead in which it had been enclosed was sold, and the remains were buried in a dunghill." Scores of historians