Page:VCH London 1.djvu/503

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES The same bishop, by letters addressed to the clergy of the City and diocese, conferred an induli^ence on all who contributed to the Old Work.^o The boundaries of the precincts were still questionable. In 1316-17 Edward II granted that the churchyard wall might be completed. ''' The chapter appears to have taken advantage of his permission, and thus to have become involved in another dispute. In 1 32 1-2 the mayor pleaded before the justices that the dean and chapter had surrounded with a mud wall the ancient meeting-place of the folkmoot, the pro- perty of the commonalty ; that they had in- closed St. Augustine's Gate and thus obstructed the king's highway through it and the western gate of St. Paul's to Ludgate ; and that they had prevented passage through Southgate and 'Dycer's Lane.' In reply the canons produced their various charters.''^ It is difficult to discover the political attitude of the chapter in the fifteenth century. The privileges of the cathedral had been confirmed by Richard II, and a like benefit was granted by Henry IV and Henry V.'" In 1464 Dean William Saye, who had been chosen proctor by the clergy of the synod of London, was adhibited by Edward IV to secret councils.'''^ Another possible indication of policy occurs in 1455, when the commons petitioned that Thomas Lisieux, dean of St. Paul's, might be an adminis- trator of the property of Humphrey, late duke of Gloucester.'^' At all events the cathedral does not appear to have suffered otherwise than accidentally from the changes of dynasty. Charters were confirmed to St. Paul's by Ed- ward IV '^^ and Henry VII'" in the first year of the reign of each ; in 1464 the cathedral was exempted from the effects of the Act of Resumption."' William Worseley, dean, was implicated in the conspiracy of Perkin Warbeck,''' but received a royal pardon and was suffered to retain his office.'*" Twelve prebends in St. Paul's were certainly provided by the pope between 1 396 and 1404,'*' and three from 1404 to 14 15 ; '*" but the great period of papal aggression was over. From the sixteenth century the history of St. Paul's loses much of its interest : when the '^ Lond. Epis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 340, 341. '" Stow, Surv. of Lond. (ed. Strype), ill, 142. ^"■^ Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 354 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, App. pt. i, 49. ''' Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. S. Simpson), vii, cap. 15. '" Wharton, De Epis. Lond. &.:. 228. '" Par/. R. (Rec. Com.), 339a. "« Chart. R. I Edw. IV, pt. 6, No. 4. '" Reg. S. Pauli (ed. W. F. Simpson), v, 2. "* Par!. R. (Rec. Com.), v, 421 a. "' Andre, Hist, of Hen. Vll (Rolls Scr.), 69. "" Letters of reigns of Ric. Ill and Hen. Vll (Rolls Scr.), 375. '" Cat. of Pap. Lettirs, v, 142. '" Ibid. vi. chapter can be said to have a policy, it is one of consistent servility to kingly government. The cathedral was brought into prominence by the deanery of Colet.'*^ After his death, in i 5 I 9, it suffered for many years from virtual lack of a dean. Richard Pace, Colet's successor, was pre- vented, first by his foreign avocations and later by illness, from taking part in the affairs of St. Paul's.'" Richard Sampson was twice appointed his coadjutor in I526and 1536. The latter year is probably that of Pace's death, and in July Cranmer licensed Sampson, then bishop of Chichester, to hold the deanery in commendam. In 1534 the clergy of St. Paul's formally denied the pope's supremacy, in a declaration so explicit that it became a model for such renunciations.''" Yet Bishop Stokesley asserted that he had sup- ported its adoption by the chapter, almost singly. In this period the cathedral received Cromwell's visitors,'*^ Thomas Legh and John Ap Rhys, who are said to have comported themselves with in- solence towards the clergy. During a short time of triumph for Cromwell in 1540, Sampson,'*' who was a conspicuous member of Gardiner's party, lost the deanery of St. Paul's and was sent to the Tower.'** Cranmer was appointed preacher and reader in the cathedral ; '" and John Incent, a leader of factions in the chapter, became dean."" The iconoclasts began their work in St. Paul's under Henry VIII ; '*' but it was under Edward VI, in 1552, that all the chapels and altars and much 'goodly stonework' were demolished."^ The motives for such destruction were often mixed : thus Somerset used the stone of the chapel and cloister in Pardonchurchhaugh "' '" v. infra. '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv, 14, 93, 126, 177, 185, 374. 392- "-■ Rymer, Foed. xiv, 493. The declaration was signed by five resident and three other canons, nine or ten minor canons, six vicars, thirty-one chantry priests, and twenty-three persons of unspecified rank. '"^ L. and P. Hen. nil, ix, 622. '" Ibid, xi, 125. "» Hall, Chron. (ed. 1809), 328 '" L. and P. Hen. Fill, ix, 922. ""Ibid, viii, 744, 745. "' Collection of records in Burnet's Hist, of Ref. pt. ii, bk. i, No. 35. '" Chron. of Grefriars (Camden Soc), 75. '" The building of the chapel in the western quad- rature of Pardonchurchhaugh, which was called Sheryngton's Chapel, and dedicated to the Bieised Virgin and St. Nicholas, was begun by Walter Sheryngton, resident canon of St. Paul's, and chan- cellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and completed by his executors. Sheryngton received, in 1445-6, a licence to found in it a chantry, and his executors therefore endowed two chaplains, and granted the advowson to the dean and chapter. A library and a chamber were annexed to the chapel. {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. viii, App. 634; Sharpe, Ca/. of IV ills, ii, 5 39-) 415