“Again and again the tocsin sounded, as St. Paul’s bell rang clear and loud, and the citizens seized their weapons and formed their battalions beneath the shadow of the great church. Now it was to help Simon de Montfort against the King; now to seize the person of the obnoxious Queen Eleanor, who was trying to escape by water from the Tower to Windsor, and who was rescued from their hands by the Bishop of London, and found refuge in his palace. Now the favourites of Edward II. excited their rage, especially the Bishop of Exeter, the King’s regent, who dared to ask the Lord Mayor for the keys of the city and paid for his temerity with his life.[9]

“The chronicles of the Cathedral tell the story of the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses. We see Henry IV. pretending bitter sorrow for the death of the murdered Richard, and covering with cloth-of-gold the body, which had been exhibited to the people in St. Paul’s. We see Henry V. returning in triumph from the French wars, riding in state to the Cathedral attended by ‘the mayor and brethren of the City companies, wearing red gowns with hoods of red and white, well-mounted and gorgeously horsed with rich collars and great chains, rejoicing at his victorious return.’ Then came Henry VI. attended by bishops, the dean and canons, to make his offering at the altar. Here the false Duke of York took his oath on the Blessed Sacrament to be loyal to the King. Here the rival houses swore to lay aside their differences, and to live at peace. But a few years later saw the new King Edward IV., at St. Paul’s, attended by great Warwick, the king-maker, with his body-guard of 800 men-at-arms. Strange were the changes of fortune in those days. Soon St. Paul’s saw the exhibition of the dead body of the king-maker, and not long afterwards that of the poor dethroned Henry, and Richard came in state here amid the shouts of the populace. After the defeat of the conspiracy of Lambert Simnel, Henry VII. celebrated a joyous thanksgiving in the Cathedral, and here, amid much rejoicing, the youthful marriage of Prince Arthur with Katherine of Aragon took place, when the conduits of Cheapside and on the west of the Cathedral ran with wine, and the bells rang joyfully, and all wished happiness to the Royal children whose wedded life was destined to be so brief.

“St. Paul’s became the gathering-place for lords and courtiers and professional people, who met every day from eleven till twelve and from three till six to discuss the news of the day and to transact business.

“Here lawyers received their clients; here men sought service; here usurers met their victims, and the tombs and font were mightily convenient for counters for the exchange of money and the transaction of bargains, and the rattle of gold and silver was constantly heard amidst the loud talking of the crowd. Gallants enter the Cathedral wearing spurs, having just left their steeds at The Bell and Savage and are immediately besieged by the choristers, who have the right of demanding spur money from any one entering the building wearing spurs. Nor are the fair sex absent, and Paul’s Walk was used as a convenient place for assignations. Old plays are full of references to this practice. Later on the nave was nothing but a public thoroughfare, where men tramped, carrying baskets of bread and fish, flesh and fruit, vessels of ale, sacks of coal, and even dead mules and horses and other beasts. Hucksters and peddlers sold their wares. Duke Humphrey’s tomb was the great meeting-place of all beggars and low rascals, and they euphemistically called their gathering ‘a dining with Duke Humphrey.’ Much more could be written of this assembly of all sorts and conditions of men, but we have said enough to show that the Cathedral had suffered greatly from desecration and abuse. Indeed an old writer in 1561 declared that the burning of the steeple in that year was a judgment for the scenes of profanation which were daily witnessed in old St. Paul’s.”—(P. H. D.)

“Was there ever known in the history of the world any cathedral which suffered from fire like St. Paul’s? The whole career of the church was an ordeal by fire. It was injured by fire a hundred years before Westminster Hall was built; it was totally destroyed by fire in the Eleventh Century and it took nearly two centuries to restore it to anything like its former magnificence. ‘Away! we lose ourselves in light,’ might have been its motto, for it was all but completely destroyed by fire in the Fifteenth Century, and its spire, which was then claimed to be the highest in the world, was destroyed by fire a century later. Thus we have brought it to the terrible days of 1666, when it went under with so much of London to accompany it—one of the most tremendous conflagrations recorded in the history of great cities. Then came the Commission to rebuild it, of which brave John Evelyn was a member, and then Sir Christopher Wren raised the monument to his fame which those who would question his renown have only to look upon and be satisfied.”—(J. McC.)

“St. Paul’s is often called Classical, or Roman, or Italian; it is not one of these three: it is English Renaissance. It was, too, a distinctly happy thought of Fergusson to suggest that the Cathedral takes a like place in English architecture to that which the immortal ‘Paradise Lost’ does in English literature. The plan is that of a mediÆval church; the pilasters and entablature are Roman; the round arch is found in both Roman and Romanesque, and that commanding feature, the Dome, is the common property of many styles and many ages. The general plan resembles the long or Latin Cross, with transepts of greater breadth than length; and the uniformity is broken by an apse at the east, and the two chapels at the west end.”—(A. D.)

“In olden times St. Paul’s Churchyard was one of the great business centres of London. About the church men met to discuss the doings of the day, the last piece of news from Flanders, France or Spain, or the rumours from the country. Here the citizens gathered angrily when there was any talk of an invasion of their cherished liberties, grumbled over the benevolence demanded by his Majesty for the pay of the troops engaged in the French war, or jeered at some poor wretch nailed by his ears in the pillory. Here the heralds would proclaim the news of our victories by sea and land; here the public newsmen would read out their budgets; vendors of infallible nostrums would wax eloquent as to the virtues of their wares; and the wives and daughters of the citizens would gather to gossip and flirt. It was at once the exchange, the club, and the meeting-place of London. Paul’s Cross was the heart of the City; here men threw up their bonnets when they heard of CrÉcy and of Agincourt; here they listened to the preachings of the first followers of Wycliffe; here they erected their choicest pageants when a new sovereign visited the City for the first time, or brought his new-made spouse to show her to his lieges; and gathered with frowning brows beneath iron caps when London threw in its lot with the Parliament, and the train bands marched off to fight the King’s forces. The business mart of the City lies now in front of the Mansion House, but a great deal of business is still done under the shadow of the Cathedral.”—(C. D.)

“The modern passenger through St. Paul’s Churchyard has not only the last home of Nelson and others to venerate as he goes by. In the ground of the old church were buried, and here therefore remains whatever dust may survive them, the gallant Sir Philip Sidney (the beau idÉal of the age of Elizabeth), and Vandyke, who immortalised the youth and beauty of the court of Charles the First. One of Elizabeth’s great statesmen also lay there—Walsingham—who died so poor that he was buried by stealth to prevent his body from being arrested. Another, Sir Christopher Hatton, who is supposed to have danced himself into the office of Her Majesty’s Chancellor, had a tomb which his contemporaries thought too magnificent, and which was accused of ‘shouldering the altar.’

“Old St. Paul’s was much larger than now, and the Churchyard was of proportionate dimensions. The wall by which it was bounded ran along by the present streets of Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row, Old Change, Carter Lane and Creed Lane; and therefore included a large space and many buildings which are not now considered to be within the precincts of the Cathedral. This spacious area had grass inside, and contained a variety of appendages to the establishment. One of these was the cross of which Stow did not know the antiquity. It was called Paul’s Cross, and stood on the north side of the church, a little to the east of the entrance of Cannon Alley.”—(L. H.)

“We note the two-storied constructions, the graceful Corinthian pillars, arranged in pairs, with round-headed windows between them; the entablature; and then, in the second story, another row of beautiful pilasters of the Composite order. Between these are niches where one would have expected windows; but this story is simply a screen to hide the flying-buttresses supporting the clerestory, as Wren thought them a disfigurement. The walls are finished with a cornice, which Wren was compelled by hostile critics to add, much against his own judgment. There are some excellently carved festoons of foliage and birds and cherubs, which are well worthy of close observation. The North and South Fronts have Corinthian pillars, which support a semicircular entablature. Figures of the Apostles adorn the triangular-shaped heads and balustrade. The Royal Arms appear on the north side, and a Phoenix is the suitable ornament on the south, signifying the resurrection of the building from its ashes. The south side is almost similar to the north. The east end has an apse.”—(P. H. D.)

“The West Front has a magnificent portico, divided, like the rest of the building, into two stories. The lower consists of twelve coupled and fluted columns; that, above, has only eight, which bear an entablature and pediment of which the tympanum is sculptured in bas-relief, representing the conversion of St. Paul. On the apex of the pediment is a figure of the Saint himself, and at its extremities, on the right and left of St. Paul, are figures of St. Peter and St. James. The transepts are terminated upwards by pediments, over coupled pilasters at the quoins, and two single pilasters in the intermediate space. On each side of the western portico a square pedestal rises over the upper order, and on each pedestal a steeple, or campanile tower, supported upon triangular groups of Corinthian columns finishing in small domes formed by curves of contrary flexure very like bells. Lower down in front of these campaniles, the Four Evangelists are represented with their emblems. In the face of the southern campanile a clock is inserted. A flight of steps extending the whole length of the portico forms the basement. In the southwest tower is the Great Bell of St. Paul’s, cast in 1709 by Richard Phelps and Langley Bradley. It is ten feet in diameter, ten inches thick in metal and weighs 11,474 pounds.”—(M.)

“The form of St. Paul’s is that of the long or Latin cross. Its extreme length, including the porch, is 500 feet; the greatest breadth, that is to say across the transept but within the doors of the porticoes, 250 feet; the width of the nave, 118 feet. There are, however, at the foot or western end of the cross, projections northward and southward, which make the breadth 190 feet. One of these, namely, on the north side, is used as a morning chapel, and the other, on the south side, contains the Wellington Monument, but was formerly used as the Consistory Court. At the internal angle of the cross are small square bastion-like adjuncts, whose real use is to strengthen the piers of the dome; but they are inwardly serviceable as vestries and a staircase. The height of the Cathedral on the south side to the top of the cross is 365 feet.

“The exterior consists throughout of two orders, the lower being Corinthian, the upper composite. It is built externally in two stories, in both of which, except at the north and south porticoes and at the west front, the whole of the entablatures rest on coupled pilasters, between which in the lower order a range of circular-headed windows is introduced. But in the order above, the corresponding spaces are occupied by dressed niches, standing on pedestals pierced with openings to light the passages in the roof over the side aisles. The upper order is nothing but a screen to hide the flying-buttresses carried across from the outer walls to resist the thrust of the great vaulting.”—(M.)

“The dome, which is by far the most magnificent and elegant feature in the building, rises from the body of the church in great majesty. It is 145 feet in outward and 108 feet in inward diameter. Twenty feet above the roof of the church is a circular range of twenty-two columns, every fourth intercolumniation being filled with masonry, so disposed as to form an ornamental niche or recess, by which arrangement the projecting buttresses of the cupola are concealed. These, which form a peristyle of the Composite Order, with an unbroken entablature, enclose the interior order. They support a handsome gallery adorned with a balustrade. Above these columns is a range of pilasters, with windows between them, forming an attic order, and on these the great dome stands. The general idea of the cupola, as appears from the Parentalia, was taken from the Pantheon at Rome. On the summit of the dome, which is covered with lead, is a gilt circular balcony, and from its centre rises the lantern, adorned with Corinthian columns. The whole is terminated by a gilt ball and cross.

“But with the matchless exterior ceases the superiority, and likewise, to a great degree, the responsibility of Wren. His designs for the interior were not only carried out, but he was in every way thwarted, controlled, baffled in his old age to the eternal disgrace of all concerned; the victim of the pitiful jealousy of some, the ignorance of others, the ingratitude of all.”—(M.)

“all London poured forth for the spectacle, which had been publicly announced, and were looking up in wonder to the old man, or his son, if not the old man himself, who was, on that wondrous height, setting the seal, as it were, to his august labours.

“When one enters the west door one cannot fail to be struck with the vastness of the space enclosed within its massive walls; there is no screen to break the view towards the east, and, as one stands beneath the dome and looks up into its enormous hollow, the sense of overpowering height is felt as in no other church in England.”—(T. P.)

“The interior of the nave is formed by an arcade resting on massive pillars and dividing the church into a body and two aisles. The eastern piers of the nave serve at the same time for the supports of the cupola. They are wider than the other piers, and are flanked by pilasters at their angles and have shallow oblong recesses in the intercolumniations. The roof over these piers is a boldly coffered waggon-vault, which contrasts very effectively with the rest of the vaulting.

“The nave is separated from the choir by the area over which the cupola rises. From the centre of this area, the transepts, or traverse of the cross, diverge to the north and south, each extending one severy, or arch, in length. The choir, which is vaulted and domed over, like the nave and transepts, from the top of the attic order, is terminated eastward by a semicircular tribune, of which the diameter is, in general terms, the same as the width of the choir itself. The western end of the choir has pillars similar to those at the eastern end of the nave, uniform with which there are at its eastern end piers of the same extent and form, except that they are pierced for a communication with the side aisles. Above the entablature and under the cupola is the Whispering Gallery, and in the concave above are representations of the principal passages of St. Paul’s life in eight compartments, painted by Sir James Thornhill.”—(M.)

“The great arches overhead divide the vault as the greater pilasters and their continuations do the walls. Between these arches are the small saucer-shaped domes, 26 feet in diameter. The reason for these and their accessories, the pendentives, may best be understood from Wren’s own words. He says that his method of vaulting is the most geometrical, and ‘is composed of Hemispheres, and their Sections only; and whereas a Sphere may be cut all Manner of Ways, and that still into Circles.... I have for just Reasons followed this way in the Vaulting of the Church of St. Paul’s.... It is the lightest Manner, and requires less Butment than the Cross-vaulting, as well that it is of an agreeable View.... Vaulting by Parts of Hemispheres I have therefore followed in the Vaultings of St. Paul’s, and with good reason preferred it above any other way used by Architects.’ The saucer-shaped domes are sections of spheres, as are both the pendentives, and the sides of the clerestory windows. The wreaths, garlands, and festoons, and the various conventional patterns with which the edges and surfaces of the various parts of the vaulting is adorned cannot be estimated from the pavement.”—(A. D.)

“When Wren planned his dome interior he had the difficulty caused by the four limbs and their side aisles to overcome. He must have turned to his uncle’s cathedral at Ely for enlightenment. In the earlier years of the Fourteenth Century the central tower of Ely collapsed, and the sacrist Alan de Walsingham, who acted as architect, seeing that the breadth of his nave, choir and transepts happened to agree, took for his base this common breadth, and cutting off the angles, obtained a spacious octagon. The four sides terminating the main aisles are longer than the four alternate aisles at the angles of the side aisles; but at Ely this presents no difficulty, owing to the use of the pointed arch. As you stand in the centre of the octagon under the lantern you see eight spacious arches of two different widths, all springing from the same level and rising to the same height of eighty-five feet, the terminal arch of the Norman nave pointed like its opposite neighbour of the choir. Amongst Gothic churches the interior of Ely reigns unique and supreme, certainly in England if not in Europe. Wren was familiar with this cathedral, and even designed some restorations for it; and he adopted the eight arches in preference to any possible scheme of four great arches of sixty feet: but the use of the round arch, as distinct from the pointed, deprived him of Sacrist Alan’s liberty, who without incongruity made his intermediate arches of the shorter sides, springing from the same level, rise to the same height as the others. Wren was compelled to make use of some expedient to reconcile his two different spaces between piers of forty feet and twenty-six feet, and accordingly arched these four smaller intermediate spaces as follows. A smaller arch, rising from the architrave of the great pier, spans each shorter side of the octagon, and has a ceiling or semi-dome in the background, coming down to the terminal arches of the side aisles. A blank wall space above is relieved by a section of an ornamental arch of larger span, resting on the centre of the cornice; and above this a third arch, rising from the level of the triforium cornice, rests more upon the outer side of the great supporting pier, and thereby obtains the required equal span of forty feet, and equal height of eighty-nine feet from the ground. This also has a semi-dome; and the platform beneath on a level with the clerestory is railed.

“The reduction of the octagon to the circle is facilitated by giving the spandrels between the arches the necessary concave surface; and this stage is finished off with a cantilever cornice, the work (at least in part) of one Jonathan Maine. The eight great keystones of the arches by Caius Gabriel Cibber are seven feet by five, and eighteen inches in relief.”—(A. D.)

“intervening spaces are pierced with square-headed windows; and from them such light as the dome receives, streams down through the windows of the exterior colonnade. The alternate fourth recesses, apparently nothing more than ornamental niches, conceal the supports which bear the weight above. In the recent scheme of decoration they have been filled with statues of Early Fathers—the four eastern, SS. Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, and Athanasius; and the four western, SS. Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, and Gregory.

“The straight lines bearing inwards give way to the sphere; and here, too, the three separate coverings, which constitute the dome, begin. The circular opening below the lantern coincides with the lower edge of the fluting of the exterior shell, and is about two hundred and fifteen feet from the pavement.

“These upper regions, hidden in an almost perpetual gloom, were decorated in monochrome by Sir James Thornhill; but his work has failed to resist the chemical action of the surcharged atmosphere. In these compartments are scenes from the life of the patronal saint: (1) The Conversion, (2) Elymas, (3) Cripple at Lystra, (4) Jailer at Philippi, (5) Mars Hill, (6) Burning Books at Ephesus, (7) Before Agrippa, (8) Shipwreck. We have all heard the story of the painter, on a platform at a great height, who stepped back to get a better view of his work. As he did so, an assistant, standing by, brush in hand, observed with alarm that the slightest further backward step would entail his falling headlong and being dashed to pieces. He deliberately daubed the painting; and the artist, stepping instinctively forward to prevent this, saved his life. The painter is said to be Thornhill: the scene, the giddy height under the dome.”—(A. D.)

“The exquisite carvings of Grinling Gibbons in the stall-work of the choir were not merely in themselves admirable, but in perfect harmony with the character of the architecture. They rivalled, if they did not surpass, all MediÆval works of their class in grace, variety, richness; they kept up an inimitable unison of the lines of the building and the decoration. In the words of Walpole ‘there is no instance of a man before Gibbons who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers and chained together the various productions of the elements with a fine disorder natural to each species.’”—(M.)

“The symbolism is expressed in the frieze above the Crucifixion, ‘Sic Deus dilexit mundum’ (‘God so loved the world’). The lower part is pierced with doors on either side; and ‘Vas Electionis’ (‘A chosen vessel’) over the north door refers to St. Paul, and ‘Pasce oves meos’ (‘Feed my sheep’) over the other to St. Peter; and here are the crossed swords, the arms of the diocese. The section above has the Entombment in the centre, and the Nativity and Resurrection on either side. A Crucifixion occupies the central position. The framework is of Roman design, with pilasters and a round arch; and remembering Wren’s conception, it is interesting that the columns of Brescia marble, supporting the entablature above, are twisted. This is flanked with a colonnade; the figure on the north being the Angel Gabriel, and to the south the Virgin. Above the pediment is a canopy with the Virgin and Child, and St. Peter and St. Paul to the north and south; and above all, and nearly seventy feet from the ground, the Risen Christ completes this most reverent design.

“The altar cross is adorned with precious stones and lapis lazuli; and the massive copper candlesticks are imitations of the original four said to have been sold during the Protectorate.”—(A. D.)