252 LONDON PARKS © GARDENS 
citizens, and the political significance of such harangues 
may well be imagined. It was here Papal Bulls were 
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 
