252 LONDON PARKS & GARDENS 



citizens, and the political significance of such harangues 

 may well be imagined. It was here Papal Bulls wtre 

 promulgated ; here Tyndal's translation of the New 

 Testament was publicly burnt ; here Queen Elizabeth 

 listened to a sermon of thanksgiving on the defeat of 

 the Armada — only to mention a few of the associations 

 that cling round the spot, which, until within the last 

 fifty years, was marked by an old elm tree which kept its 

 memory green. Now it is treated with scant respect. 

 There is, indeed, a little wooden notice-board, like a 

 giant flower-label, stuck into the ground by an iron 

 support, which records the fact that here stood Paul's 

 Cross, destroyed by the Fire of 1666. The notice is not 

 so large or conspicuous as the one a few feet from it, 

 beseeching the kindly friends of the pigeons not to feed 

 them on the flower-beds ! It is to be hoped that before 

 long the bequest of ;{^5000 of the late H. C. Richards, 

 for the re-erection of the Cross, may be embodied in some 

 visible form. 



What a picture such recollections call up ! — the ex- 

 cited crowds with all the colour of Tudor costumes, the 

 eager, fanatical faces of the " defenders of the Faith," 

 the sad and despondent faces of the intensely serious 

 Reformers, as they see the blue smoke curl upwards, and 

 the flames consume the sacred volumes. 



Picture the churchyard once more in still earlier 

 times, when strange, fantastic customs clung round the 

 cathedral services. One of the most original seems to 

 have arisen from the tenure of land in Essex granted to 

 Sir William Baud by the Dean and Chapter. The 

 twenty-two acres of land were held on the condition 

 that " hee would (for ever) upon the Feast day of the 

 Conversion of Paul in Winter give unto them a good 



