Portsmouth.
_Inscriptions in Churches_ (Vol. vi., p. 510.).--I differ from your reply
to NORWOOD'S Query, in which you refer to the colloquy between Queen
Elizabeth and Dean Nowell as the origin of these inscriptions. No doubt
they were derived from the custom of our ante-Reformation ancestors, of
painting figures and legends of saints upon the walls of churches; but the
following instance will suffice to prove that they originated in the reign
of Edward VI., and not in Queen Elizabeth's.
In the interesting paper by the Rev. E. Venables in the _Transactions of
the Cambridge Camden Society_, on "The Church of St. Mary the Great,
Cambridge," he gives, under the year {26} 1550, the following extracts from
the churchwardens' accounts:
"For makyng of the wall where Saynt
George stood in the chyrche vj^d
It. payd for wythynge y^e chyrch xx^s iiij^d
It. payd for _wryghtynge of y^e chyrch
walls with Scriptures_ iiij^{lib} iij^s iiij^d."
Shortly after the accession of Queen Mary in 1553, the following entry
occurs:
"Payd to Barnes for mendyng over the rode
and over the altar in the chapell, and _for
washing oute the Scriptures_ 4^s 4^d."
They do not appear to have been restored after this, for in the year 1840
some of the plaister between two of the windows of the south aisle peeling
off, discovered traces of "wryghtynge" beneath; and I and another member of
the Cambridge Camden Society spent some time in laying it bare, and after
much difficulty made out that it was the Lord's Prayer in English, headed,
"The Lord's Prayer, called the Paternoster," and written in the church text
of the period, the whole enclosed in a sort of arabesque border; it was not
merely whited over, but had evidently been partially effaced, or partly
"washed oute," before being "concealed under its dreary shroud of
whitewash." On examination there were traces of more of this writing
between the other windows, but we had not time to make any further
investigation, for the church was then being cleaned, and in a few days all
that we had laid bare was again concealed under a veil of whitewash.
Thus, I think, we may assign to the reign of Edward VI., not merely the
obliteration of the numerous frescoes of St. Christopher, the great dome,
&c., which are now so constantly coming to light, but also the origin of
"wryghtynge of y^e chyrch walls with scriptures" in their stead, some ten
or twelve years _earlier_ than the remarkable colloquy between Queen
Elizabeth and the worthy Dean of St. Paul's.