QUEEN ELEANOR CROSSES. 213 



The Cross has been frequently restored, the first repairs of 

 which there is any record being those done in 1713. 



In 1884. it was again restored by subscription, her late Majesty 

 Queen Victoria heading the list with a donation of 20. 



It has since, together with the site upon which it stands, 

 become vested in the County Council of Northamptonshire, 

 who have undertaken to keep the structure in repair.* 



The last resting-place of the body before entering the precincts 

 of London was Waltham. 



Waltham Cross is certainly one of the most precious inherit- 

 ances we have from the architecture of the Middle Ages. 



On an old print of this Cross, dated 1718, is the following 

 inscription : 



"Waltham Cross, here represented to ye N.E., was one of 

 the Crosses erected by King Edward I. about ye year 1291, in 

 memory of his consort, Queen Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand, 

 3rd King of Castile and Leon, whose arms are cut on the lower 

 part of this Cross, as are those of ye Countess of Pontieu, her 

 mother, and also of England." 



In another print, apparently of the same date, occurs the 

 following : 



"In memory of Queen Eleanor, the beloved wife of that 

 glorious Monarch, who accompanied him to the Holy Land, 

 where her Royal husband being stabbed with a poisoned dagger 

 by a Saraycen, and the rank wound judged incurable by his 

 physician, she full of love, care, and affection adventured her 

 own life to save his, by sucking out the substance of the poison, 

 that the wounds being closed and cicatrised, he became per- 

 fectly healed." 



Waltham Cross has been more copied than any other remain- 

 ing in England. It has been excellently imitated on a much 

 larger scale, in the Westminster Crimean Cross near the Abbey. 



* An amusing caricature of antiquaries viewing this Eleanor Cross by 

 Cruickshank, was published by Allen and West in 1796. This exceedingly rare 

 print was given me by Mr, A. M, Broadley. 



