1681-1686.
CHELSEA COLLEGE--S. JAMES'S, WESTMINSTER--A HARD WINTER--CHICHESTER
SPIRE--AN ASTRONOMICAL PROBLEM--A SEAT IN PARLIAMENT--MORE CITY
CHURCHES--A CURIOUS CARVING.
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had
been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.--_Merchant
of Venice_, act i. scene ii.
Charles II.'s gift of Chelsea College to the Royal Society had proved a
gift of greater magnitude than they had been able to deal with, and the
building had remained unused since 1669. Nor did their funds allow them
to make use of Mr. Howard's donation of a piece of land, though the
ever-ready Sir Christopher produced a design for it of some size, on the
principle 'that a fair building may be easier carried on by contribution
with time, than a sordid one.' At last, in 1681, he proposed the sale of
Chelsea College back again to King Charles, and Wren and Evelyn
undertook to manage what must have been rather a delicate transaction.
During the negotiation Sir Stephen Fox came to Evelyn and proposed that
the King should buy it, and build there a hospital for soldiers. The
proposal came well from Sir Stephen, who, originally a chorister of
Salisbury Cathedral, by the favour and help of Bishop Duppa first, and
then by that of the King, and most of all by his own honesty and
dexterity, became paymaster to the whole army and acquired an honest and
unenvied fortune. The King agreed to the plan, and the matter was
arranged by Wren, Evelyn, and Fox, who was a liberal benefactor to the
college. The three men went across to Lambeth to their old friend
Sancroft and acquainted him with the plan, and received his approval.
Wren set instantly to work, and in August 1682 the foundations were
being laid; the whole building was not completed until William and
Mary's reign; but during all that time Wren's energy and care never
flagged, but were extended even to the minutiæ of the regulations, all
of which he drew up, for the health, comfort, and economy of the
building. As architecture the building has been severely criticised; but
when the worst is said, it still remains picturesque, cheerful and
spacious, and a beautiful object as seen from the Thames.
The Royal Society continued its meetings at Gresham College, which it
did not quit until, in 1710, the members purchased a house in Crane
Court, which has only very lately been pulled down. The next year saw
many of Wren's churches finished.
All Hallows the Great, in Thames Street, a plain brick and stone edifice
with a strong square tower, was then completed: it, like by far the
greater number of the City churches, had been repaired and beautified
under the vigorous rule of Laud while Bishop of London. Thomas White,
who came into the living a few months only before the Fire, was
afterwards as Bishop of Peterborough one of the famous 'Seven Bishops.'
At the time when Wren rebuilt the church the living was held by the
learned church historian, Dr. William Cave.[183]
S. Mildred's, Bread Street, is another church belonging to this date.
It is so hidden by the tall warehouses that have sprung up round it that
it is but little known; but its red brick tower, tall spire, and, above
all, its most light and graceful dome, are all after Wren's best manner.
The destruction of this beautiful little church has actually been
threatened, but it has been ably defended, and it is to be hoped it will
not add another name to the black list of desecrated City churches.
[Sidenote: _S. JAMES'S, WESTMINSTER._]
A third church belonging to this year is S. James's, Westminster, then
called 'in the fields,' from the large parish of S. Martin's, out of
which it was taken. It was built principally at the expense of Henry
Jermyn, Earl of S. Albans, Wren's Paris friend, who gave his name to
Jermyn Street, where the church stands.
The proportions of S. James's and the technical skill displayed in
building it, especially the construction of the roof, have been always
admired. Wren, who was allowed but a moderate sum to expend upon it, was
proud of having combined beauty with 'the cheapest of any form I could
invent.'[184] When the church was newly done, with its bricks red
instead of darkly grimed with smoke, with the handsome pillared entrance
to the south aisle, a flight of steps leading up to it, which have
vanished, leaving only as a mark the closed iron gates in the railings,
without the strange excrescence that now does duty as a porch--its
exterior must have been far more attractive than it is now; the little
pinched steeple[185] is said, as indeed one would imagine, to be no
building of Wren's. Within, Evelyn[186] gives us his description of the
effect.
'I went to see the new church at S. James's elegantly built; the
altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously
and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr.
Gibbons in wood; a pelican with her young at her breast, just over
the altar in the carved compartment and border, invironing the
purple velvet fringed with I.H.S. richly embroidered, and most
noble plate were given by Sir R. Geere to the value (as was said)
of 200_l._ There was no altar anywhere in England nor has there
been abroad more handsomely adorned.'
The font, now well placed in a baptistery beneath the tower, is one of
Gibbons' few works in marble. It represents Adam and Eve, two detached
statuettes standing on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, the
branches of which support a bowl whereon are finely cut in low relief
the Ark of Noah, and the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. With all this,
and without the high, stiff indevout pews which now disfigure the
church--pews that Sir Christopher did not put there, and to the presence
of which in any of his churches he always strongly objected, it must
have been a decidedly handsome edifice. The organ, built by Renatus
Harris, was made for James II.'s timber chapel at the camp on Hounslow
Heath; after the King's flight Wren obtained the organ from Queen Mary
for S. James's Church.
[Sidenote: _S. BENNET, PAUL'S WHARF._]
Dr. Tenison, who then held S. James's jointly with S. Martin's, obtained
the timbers of the chapel and used them in erecting the chapel of the
Holy Trinity in Conduit Street,[187] which was also included in the
enormous parish of S. Martin. S. Bennet, Paul's Wharf,[188] was finished
in this year; picturesque and characteristic in its red brick, stone
carving, well suited to its situation, then less cramped and
overshadowed than it is now.
Its rector, Mr. Peter Lane, had experienced all the greater perils that
had lately befallen the City; presented to the living in 1662, he
steadily ministered there through the terrible time of the plague, and
was then burnt out by the Great Fire. He lived, however, to return and
to minister for five years in the new church built by Sir Christopher.
In this church Inigo Jones was buried, in the darkest days of the
Rebellion.
The handsome Church of S. James's, Garlickhithe, with its curious
columnated steeple, and its projecting clock surmounted by a figure, is
also of this date.
It was well that Sir Christopher had been able to get even this much of
his numerous works finished, for the winter of 1683-4 was of exceptional
severity. On December 23 the Thames was frozen over; on January 9,
Evelyn[189] 'went crosse the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as
to beare not only streetes of booths in which they roasted meate and had
divers shops of wares, quite acrosse in a towne, but coaches, carts, and
horses passed over.' Evelyn himself drove across it to Lambeth to dine
with Archbishop Sancroft, who had succeeded Sheldon in 1677.
'London,'--says Evelyn a few days later in words which, alas, still
describe but too vividly a genuine 'London fog,'--
'by reason of the excessive coldnesse hindering the ascent of the
smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steame of the sea-coale
that hardly could one see crosse the streetes, and this filling the
lungs with its grosse particles exceedingly obstructed the breath
so as one could scarcely breathe. Here was no water to be had from
the pipes and engines, nor could the brewers and other tradesmen
worke, and every moment was full of disastrous accidents.'
In addition to this dismal state of things 'the small pox was very
mortal.'
For eight weeks no foreign posts reached the city, for 'the very sea was
so locked up with ice that no vessell could stir out or come in.' It was
not until April was advanced that there was any sign of spring. It was
certainly no building weather, and must have sharply tried the rising
Choir of S. Paul's. Sir Christopher made a journey to Chichester on the
invitation of the old Bishop, Guy Carleton, to examine the spire of the
Cathedral. The whole building had suffered terribly under the wanton
sack of Sir William Waller and his men, and required extensive repair.
Sir Christopher
'for about two hours viewed the tower at the north west angle both
without and within, and above and below, and observed the great
want of repairs especially in the great western tower; made his
report; proposing to clear away the ruin of the fallen tower; to
pull down the south western tower; to shorten the nave by one arch,
and to substitute a fair built west end of his own.'[190]
[_CHICHESTER SPIRE._]
He next examined the beautiful spire, well known as a landmark to
sailors in the channel, sister spire to that most perfect one at
Salisbury which he has preserved to this day. He adopted a different
plan with the Chichester spire to that which he had formerly pursued,
for he took down the top of the spire, and fastened to the finial within
an immense pendulum of yellow fir wood, which in great gales preserved
exactly the balance of the spire. This lasted till 1813, when the
pendulum was repaired by Mr. Elmes, and so remained until, after a great
gale in 1861, the spire fell in; it has since been rebuilt, and is now
rather higher than it was formerly. The other part of Wren's scheme was
not acted upon. At this time he built Fawley Court in Oxfordshire: the
place had lain in ruins since the civil war, when it suffered, though
the property of Sir Bulstrode Whitelock, even more from Cromwell's
troops than from those of Prince Rupert. Sir Bulstrode's descendants
sold the property to Mr. William Freeman, who pulled the ruins down and
got Sir Christopher to build the present Court, with its four fronts,
handsome hall, and characteristic festoons of flowers in the ceiling.
In this same year Wren was made Controller of the Works, for which he
received a salary of 9_l._ 2_s._ 6_d._ a year; not a very magnificent
sum considering that a good deal of petty work and cares went with the
office. It was necessary to see that this person had not incroached on
the castle stables, or that person on the castle ditch; to measure and
plan, and settle little quarrels and disputes in a way infinitely
tormenting, one would think, to a man who had already such enormous
works to consider. But Wren's genius was a patient one, and had a great
grasp of details; he dealt with point after point as it arose, and no
one seems ever to have complained of his breaking an engagement or
neglecting to settle their difficulties.
While this work was going on all London was startled by the tidings of
Charles II.'s sudden illness and death, when all the luxury of the Court
was at its height. With all his grave faults, the King's death caused
considerable grief throughout England; to both Wren and Evelyn he had
been always kind and friendly, and both looked with great anxiety to the
reign of his successor.
The Royal Society certainly lost a steady friend in Charles II. and was
soon to see its court favour fade away. It was, however, much occupied
with a discussion between Newton and Robert Hooke concerning the
planetary motions. The question was one which deeply interested Wren,
and which hitherto he had not been able to answer. As he and Hooke were
walking together--Wren, whom one can never imagine but with all the
courtesy and refinement of a finished gentleman, and Hooke half a miser,
utterly slovenly, and jealous of any rising fame--they were met by Dr.
Halley, an astronomer of some note even then, who was struggling with
this problem and confessed that he had hitherto failed.
Wren promised a book worth forty shillings to whoever should solve the
problem, whereupon Hooke declared he understood it from Kepler's 'Law of
Periods and Distances,' and would show his solution some day to Wren;
this he never did, and very soon Newton published his 'Principia,'[191]
in which he solved this problem, acknowledging freely that Wren and
Halley had independently deduced the law of gravity from Kepler's second
law. He had a great quarrel with Hooke, the less to be wondered at, as,
excepting Sir Christopher, Hooke quarrelled with everybody and was a
philosopher of the sourest type. In 1685 Sir Christopher was returned to
Parliament for the borough of Plympton S. Maurice, in Devonshire, a
Parliament in which his cousin Charles also sat. The elections in
Devonshire are supposed to have been specially influenced by the Court.
The 'Parentalia' gives no hint even of what his politics were, whether
he spoke often or how he voted. And yet it was a stormy time. The
Parliament had not sat a month before Monmouth's brief rebellion began,
to be bloodily quenched; public feeling was in a state of irritation and
suspense, no one feeling sure what King James might not do. He did
continue Wren unmolested in the S. Paul's commission, and the progress
of the building was steady, though probably its architect thought with
no light anxiety that it might be used for services other than those for
which it was designed.
The same doubt may have clouded his satisfaction in the many churches
which were finished in this and the immediately following years. S.
Martin's on Ludgate Hill, closely wedged in by the neighbouring houses,
with its little tapering spire, of which that of S. James's,
Westminster, appears a caricature, should have had its place among the
churches of the previous year. It harmonizes beautifully with the great
dome of S. Paul's. Sir Christopher bestowed on the inside much of the
ornament, the festoons and the carving, which its situation did not
allow him to bestow on the outside; in those days it had daily services
and may well have stood open, offering 'a shadow from the heat' to the
incessant passers-by.
S. Alban's, Wood Street, is in the pointed style of architecture in
which Wren's genius generally felt fettered, though, as in the case of
S. Michael's, Cornhill, he sometimes dealt very successfully with it.
[Sidenote: '_AN ALTAR-PIECE._']
S. Mary Magdalene's, Fish Street,[192] is more after Wren's usual
manner, with its good proportions, its highly ornamented round-headed
windows, its stone balustrade and solid square stone tower, with the
little steeple rising from it on seven steps. Within, carving in 'right
oak' was bestowed with no sparing hand, especially in the altar-piece.
And here one may say that, while defects in church arrangement, such as
galleries, pews, and the like, are invariably laid on Sir Christopher
and said to be the inevitable concomitants of his style, it should be
borne in mind that in many and many an instance the churchwardens during
the eighteenth century repewed and 'beautified' the churches which Wren
had left as completed; in what style, and on what principle one can
readily guess. It should be remembered also that an 'altar-piece,' as
the old books call it, was an invariable part of his design. If there
was rich carving, if there was black and white marble, he placed it
there; the altar was the principal part of the church in his eyes, even
though he did not often avail himself of the dignity given by a flight
of steps. The close altar rails which are now not admired, were, it must
be remembered, ordered by Archbishop Laud to protect the Holy Table from
profanation, and were always so placed by Wren.
S. Mary Magdalene's included the parish of S. Gregory, the little church
which nestled by old S. Paul's, so that Fuller described the Cathedral
as 'the mother church, having a babe in her arms.'[194]
S. Bennet's, Gracechurch Street, or Grasschurch Street, as it was really
named, from a herb market formerly held hard by, is, or rather was, of
the same date. It was well placed at the corner of two streets, and
stood boldly out with a tall tower crowned with a cupola and slender
spire; the interior was full of carving and ornament. S. Bennet's is,
however, a thing of the past; the building is gone, the site desecrated,
and the memory of such an edifice alone survives in the names of the
streets which formerly led to and now usurp its place.
The little plain Church of S. Matthew, Friday Street, close pressed by
neighbouring houses, is the last completed in this year. Obscure as the
street where it stands may have been, it was full of associations for
Wren. In Friday Street was the house where his aunt Anna lived, and
where his uncle Matthew 'lay,' when summoned to that memorable
conference with Bishop Andrewes. Hard by in the parish of S. Peter's,
Eastcheap, now incorporated with that of S. Matthew, Christopher's
merchant grandfather had lived and died, and there his own father had
been born. S. Peter's churchyard was preserved, and its single
plane-tree is carefully protected.
[_COMPLAINTS FROM WINCHESTER._]
S. Matthew's has a less pleasant association: the living was for a time
held by the notorious Henry Burton,[195] the friend and ally of Prynne.
Burton was at first designed to accompany the Prince of Wales to Spain,
but doubts of his principles arising, he was rejected and dismissed from
his attendance as the Prince's chaplain. This formed one strong motive
for the bitter spite he bore to the church of his ordination. It is
likely also that he stirred Prynne's malice against Bishop Wren, who
appears to have been Burton's successor in the vacant chaplaincy.
The lesser details of the Surveyor-General's work must this year have
been a burden. There were complaints from Winchester, where the sudden
stoppage of the buildings and plans for the palace caused great
inconvenience; a complaint from Catherine Barton, the beautiful niece of
Sir Isaac Newton, widow of Colonel Barton, who sold her farm to Charles
II., and by the trickery of the agent never received her money; and a
complaint of the same kind from Sir Richard Tichbourne's son. Sir
Christopher examined both these cases carefully, and compelled the agent
to submit, and to satisfy the parties. Then there were troubles with the
Duke of Buckingham and the 'chaos' he had made in Spring Gardens, that
chaos so vividly described in 'Peveril of the Peak.' Nobody but Wren
could give the estimates for the new stables at S. James's Palace, or
order the new planting at Hampton Court and in Greenwich Park, or
secure the proper tithes for the Rector of S. Thomas's, Winchester.
Again, there was Verrio the painter's account for work done at Whitehall
and Windsor to be examined. For the chapel at Whitehall Verrio demanded
1,250_l._, and, says Wren, 'I suppose when the rest of the ceiling and
walls are finished, as they ought to be, it may fully deserve it.' The
whole bill was 2,050_l._, of which Verrio had received already more than
1,400_l._, so that he may be reckoned as fortunate.
It is not wonderful that in 1686, Wren attended no meeting of the
Society. Two churches were finished this year: S. Clement's, East Cheap,
and S. Mary's, Abchurch, in Cannon Street.
S. Clement's, with its square tower and balustrade, has within a great
deal of fine oak carving, and its ceiling adorned with one great circle
with an outer line of curious fretwork. Bishop Pearson was rector before
the Fire, and the famous treatise on the Nicene Creed is dedicated to
his parishioners there.
S. Mary's, with its quaint little round windows and flat-topped roof, is
not externally beautiful, but within it is one of the gems which Wren
bestowed on out-of-the-way nooks: its cupola[196] is gracefully
supported on eight arches and pendentives, the east end is rich with
Gibbons' carving of festoons of fruit, palm leaves and a pelican in her
piety. Much handsome work has also been bestowed on the inside
doorcases.
[_CARVERS IN WOOD._]
Wren's promise to Evelyn to employ Gibbons was certainly redeemed; for,
besides the works which have been glanced at, Gibbons was busied on the
stalls of S. Paul's choir, where, darkened but uninjured by time, his
work stands out in all the peculiar grace and tenderness which his
chisel could give to wood. The angels which cluster beneath the great
organ seem themselves to be taking part in the music which flows from
it, and are as unlike as possible to the lumps of marble or wood with
which other hands too often deform a church, and which the old
guide-books term 'Cupids'!
Still, it is a physical impossibility that all the work which bears
Gibbons' name is by him and him only.
[_MAKING A FORTUNE._]
The fame of the Cathedral, its architect, and its carvings, was widely
spread, and brought many from the country to seek for work on the new
building. Of one of these a curious account remains.[197] A young man,
named Philip Wood, of Sudbury, Suffolk, who had great skill in carving,
came up to London to make, if he could, sufficient fortune to enable him
to marry the daughter of his patron, a retired London merchant named
Haybittle. After long waiting in London, without work, till his money
was all but spent, he, remembering the rich wood work which abounded in
the churches of his native Suffolk, bethought himself that in the
Cathedral, whose progress he daily watched, 'they would surelie put
carvings.' The foreman to whom he spoke repulsed him, saying 'We want no
carpenters here.' Undiscouraged, the young man came again day after day
for a week, till at length Sir Christopher noticed him, and learning
from the foreman that he was 'a country fellow who troubled them to give
him some of the carving to do,' beckoned to Wood to come and speak to
him. As the young man approached full of hope, he said, 'Friend, you
want carving work--what have you been used to carve?' At this critical,
long-desired moment the poor youth lost his presence of mind, and
instead of mentioning the 'sundry figures of lions and elephants' that
he had carved for Mr. Haybittle's house, stammered out, 'Please your
worship, I have been used to carve troughs.' 'Troughs!' said Sir
Christopher; 'then carve me as a specimen of your skill, a sow and pigs
(it will be something in your line), and bring it to me this day week. I
shall be here.' So he went away, with a smile at the presumption which
could aspire to step straight from such work to that of adorning S.
Paul's.
Distracted at his own folly and the loud laughter of the workpeople,
Wood rushed back to his lodging, and but for the kind advice of his
Quaker landlady, would have given up all for lost. She wisely told him
to take Wren at his word and carve the best sow and pigs that he could
make.
He obeyed her exactly, spent his last guinea on a block of pear-wood,
and wrought with all his might to get it ready by the appointed day. Sir
Christopher was showing the building to a party of friends, but as soon
as he saw Wood with his carving hidden in an apron, he beckoned him
forward. Wood produced his carving; Wren looked at it a moment in
silence, and then said, 'I engage you, young man; attend at my office
to-morrow forenoon.' Shortly afterwards he came to Wood again and said,
'Mr. Addison[198] wishes to keep your carving, and requests me to give
you ten guineas for it;' then with his gentle courtesy, he added, 'Young
man, I fear I did you some injustice, but a great national work is
entrusted to me, and it is my solemn duty to mind that no part of the
work falls into inefficient hands. Mind and attend me to-morrow.' Wood
was employed for seven years in the Cathedral, and received considerable
sums of money; and it is pleasant to know that he did marry Hannah
Haybittle.
Thus some of his work is in S. Paul's, and to him London streets were
indeed paved with gold. Yet one cannot but think sadly, for one who thus
succeeded, what numbers then and now come full of hope, to the great
city, and without help or friends lose their all, and are left without
even the means of returning. To the number of these the House of
Charity, which occupies one corner of Wren's once handsome Soho Square,
can bear but too true a testimony.
FOOTNOTES:
[183] He wrote _Primitive Christianity, Lives of the Fathers_, &c.;
was a Canon of Windsor, where he died in 1713.
[184] _Vide infra_, p. 310
[185] Newcourt says, 'A lofty spire was at first built, but the
tower not proving strong enough, it was taken down, and
another sort of spire built.' It is said to be by Willcox, a
carpenter.
[186] _Diary_, December 7, 1684.
[187] It was private property and never consecrated, and has within
the last few years been pulled down and the site used as a
shop.
[188] _Repertorium_, p. 367. Newcourt. Now used by the Welsh
congregation.
[189] _Diary_, January 9, 1684.
[190] _Memorials of the See of Chichester_, p. 306.
[191] The title of Newton's book is _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia
Mathematica_. The MS. is in the possession of the Royal
Society.
[192] Matthew Griffiths, the favourite and the pupil of Dean Donne,
held this living through the Rebellion, and being a hearty
Episcopalian was sequestered, plundered, and twice imprisoned;
he returned to London and read the Prayers of the Church in
the obscure church of S. Nicholas Olave's,[193] hard by his
own church, to the poor Cavaliers; for this he suffered seven
violent assaults and five imprisonments; the last for
preaching before General Monk a strong Royalist sermon before
Monk had declared himself. Mr. Griffiths was speedily released
and restored to his benefice.
[193] S. Nicholas Olave was burnt to the ground and the parish
incorporated with that of S. Nicholas Coleabbey.--Newcourt's
_Rep._, p. 305.
[194] It would seem from the S. Gregory's vestry books that Sir C.
Wren put up at the request of the parishioners 'a wooden
tabernacle' for the use of both parishes. It was set up in S.
Paul's Churchyard, and taken down after a time as interfering
with the building of the Cathedral.
[195] _Repertorium_, p. 475. Newcourt.
[196] _Walks in London._ A. Hare, vol. i. p. 331.
[197] For this anecdote (taken from MS. in the British Museum) I am
indebted to a number of the _British Workman_ for 1877. It is,
I think, the foundation of Mr. J. Saunders' graceful story of
_Jasper Deane_.
[198] Probably the father of the great writer.