Sir Christopher Wren Part 17

The King had proposed to Sir Christopher a very congenial piece of work.

The remains of Charles I., which had been hastily buried in S. George's Chapel at Windsor, were to be removed to what was known as the tomb-house at the east end of the chapel, re-interred there with the solemn service that had been denied to them before, and a grand tomb built over them. Lord O'Brien proposed in the House of Commons a grant of money for the purpose, and the House voted 70,000_l._ to be raised by a two months' tax. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, preaching before the Commons on the following day, the anniversary of King Charles's death, alluded to the tardy honour done 'by that much-desired, long-expected vote.' Sir Christopher prepared designs for a splendid monument.

It was to take the form of a Rotundo with a beautiful Dome and Lantern, and a Colonnade without, like that of the Temple of Vesta at Rome.

Mosaic work was to be freely used, black and white marble and gilded bra.s.s; the cupola was to be painted in fresco. In the central niche fronting the entrance was the King's monument. Four statues, emblems of heroic virtues, standing on a square plinth, and pressing underneath the prostrate figures of Rebellion, Heresy, Hypocrisy, Envy and Murder, support a large s.h.i.+eld, on which is a statue erect of King Charles in modern armour, over his head a group of angels bearing a crown, a cross, and branches of palm. Two designs were made, one for bra.s.s work, one for marble: one design is drawn by Grinling Gibbons, whom Wren meant to employ for the carving. The other is by Wren himself, drawn with extraordinary care, in delicate pen and ink, and they yet remain with his note upon them. 'Alas! for the state of the times!--not yet erected.' The failure of his design was a great annoyance to Wren, who was most anxious to have paid this tribute to the King's memory.

Why the plan was never executed it is hard to say. Charles II. kept the designs for some time and then returned them, begging Wren to keep them carefully; but the moment for their use never arrived.

Though he was not allowed to honour King Charles, curiously enough, it fell to Wren's lot to provide a tomb for two other murdered Princes of England.

[_THE REMAINS OF THE PRINCES._]

Some repairs were being made in the Tower of London under the orders of Wren, who was at that time repairing what is known as the White Tower, one of the oldest parts of the fortress. As the workmen were removing some stairs which led from the Royal lodgings to S. John's Chapel, they came upon a wooden chest, which proved to contain the remains of two children, exactly corresponding in age and state of decay with the date of the murder of Edward V. and his brother Richard Duke of York in 1573.

The place also corresponded in every respect with the traditions respecting the murder:[156] it was said to have been done in the b.l.o.o.d.y Tower--the spot where the bones were found is but seventy yards distant; they were always said to have been buried in consecrated ground by the Priest of the Tower--the place where the remains were was just within S.

John's Chapel. The discovery caused considerable interest, and was fully represented to the King, who desired that the bones should be laid, under the Surveyor's directions, in Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey in a white marble coffin with a suitable monument. Wren designed a pedestal and urn of white marble surmounted by twin crowns and palms. No doubt the monument accords better with the taste of the age in which it was erected than with that of the building in which it is placed, but it has an interest of its own. By the King's wish a mulberry-tree was planted on the spot where the bones were discovered, but subsequent buildings at the Tower destroyed the tree, and even its stump has perished.

FOOTNOTES:

[131] To this church and parish belongs the honourable distinction of having successfully resisted the encroachments of the railway company which recently attempted to desecrate the church. 'The City Church and Churchyard Protection Society'--alas! that any such society should be needed--which fought this battle, must have the best wishes of any biographer of Christopher Wren.

[132] The interior has been lately altered.

[133] _History of Modern Architecture._ Fergusson, p. 307.

[134] Antonio Canova, born 1757, died 1822. He had come to England to see the Elgin Marbles.

[135] _History of the Royal Society_, p. 237. Weld. The anecdote is taken from an article in an old _Gentleman's Magazine_, written professedly by one who knew Sir I. Newton.

[136] Destroyed 1876.

[137] Hubert Le Soeur was a pupil of John of Bologna; he came to England in 1630. The statue of Lord Pembroke at Oxford, and that of King Charles, which has Le Soeur's name on the horse's hoof, are all that now remain of his works.

[138] On the statue of King Charles I. at Charing Cross in the year 1674. E. Waller.

[139] The model was long preserved in what was called the Trophy Room of S. Paul's. 'It unfortunately has suffered much from neglect, decay, and the uncontrolled mischief of visitors; that which was one of its n.o.blest features, its long stately western portico, has entirely disappeared. The model was lent to and still remains in the Architectural Exhibition at South Kensington, on condition of repairing some of its reparable parts (a condition but imperfectly fulfilled).'--_Annals of S.

Paul's Cathedral_, Dean Milman, p. 40.

[140] An engraving giving a section of this very curious design is to be found at page 97 of Mr. Longman's exhaustive and interesting _Three Cathedrals dedicated to S. Paul's in London_.

[141] The fourth portion of the tax on coal granted for the public buildings of the City was given for the rebuilding of S.

Paul's.

[142] Thomas was the son of Mr. Valentine Strong, a well-known master-mason of Hertfords.h.i.+re; his six sons were all engaged in the same trade as himself. _Life of Sir C. Wren_, p. 316.

Elmes.

[143] Sir C. Wren gave the mallet and trowel used on this occasion to the Freemasons' lodge of which he was master, then called after his name, now the 'Lodge of Antiquity, No. 21.'

[144] J. Woodward, the founder of the Cambridge Geological Professors.h.i.+p, was born 1665, published a series of curious geological speculations under the name of _A Natural History of the Earth_. In 1707 he published _An Account of Roman Urns and Antiquities lately dug up near Bishopsgate_, addressed to Sir C. Wren, whom, as I have said, he did not convince.

Woodward was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the College of Physicians. He died 1728.

[145] Francis Atterbury, born 1662, made Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester 1715; was a strong Jacobite, and was banished in 1723: died 1732.

[146] A stone altar was however found during some excavations in Foster Lane in 1830, at no great distance from the Cathedral, with an image of Diana about which there can be no misapprehension, as it closely resembles the Diana of the Louvre.--_Annals of S. Paul's_, p. 7.

[147] Jack Cade's instruction to his followers on reaching London was 'Up Fish Street, down _S. Magnus_ corner. Kill and knock down, throw them into the Thames.' _Henry VI._, part ii. act iv. scene 8.

[148] The following interesting anecdote was related to one of the Honorary Secretaries (Mr. Wright) by a member of the Society (Mr. Fytche):--'Walking one fine summer morning in June 1872 down to the Mansion House, on reaching the Poultry I was surprised to see a man on the top of the tower of S. Mildred's Church hammering away at the stones with a crowbar; so, finding the door open, I went up the stairs of the tower and said to my friend of the crowbar, "Why, you are pulling the church down!" "Ay," says he, "it's all to be down and carted away by the end of July." "I suppose it's going to be rebuilt elsewhere!" "_Built_ anywhere? No; my master has _bought_ it."

"Who is your master?" "Don't you know him? Mr. So-and-So, the great contractor." "What's he going to do with it?" "Do with it? Why, he's twenty carts and forty horses to lead it away to his stoneyard, and he's going to grind it up to make Portland cement!" So I asked him of the crowbar to show me round the church. "Would your master sell the stones instead of grinding 'em up?" I asked. "Sell 'em? Yes, he'll sell his soul for money!" So I made an appointment for his master to come up to the Langham Hotel next morning, and we agreed about the purchase--he to deliver the stones at a wharf on the Thames, and they were brought down in barges and landed at the head of a ca.n.a.l on the east coast of Lincolns.h.i.+re, and are now lying in a green field near my house, called S. Katherine's Garth, from an old Priory of S. Katherine, which formerly stood there, and which I hope some day to rebuild as my domestic chapel.'--_Report of the City Church and Churchyard Protection Society_, 1880.

[149] _Vide supra_, p. 186-7.

[150] Evelyn's _Diary_, May 28, 1682.

[151] Nicholas Hawksmoor, born the year of the fire, became Wren's pupil in 1683 and helped him in many of his works. Hawksmoor built several churches under Queen Anne's Act; they are original, but heavy, and not always in good taste. He died 1736.

[152] Caius Cibber, born 1630. The statues of Melancholy and Madness at Bedlam were his greatest works: died about 1700.

[153] He did much of the work of S. Clement Danes under Wren's directions, and made a bust of Sir Christopher, now at All Souls: died 1698.

[154] _Moral Essays_, Ep. iii.

[155] _Of Medals_, p. 162, ed. 1697. Evelyn.

[156] For an interesting account of these see _The Tower of London_, by Lord de Ros, p. 417.

CHAPTER IX.

1677-1682.

EMMANUEL COLLEGE--GREENWICH OBSERVATORY--BIRTH OF JANE AND WILLIAM WREN--S. BARTHOLOMEW'S--PORTLAND QUARRIES--DR. AND MRS.

HOLDER--DEATH OF JANE, LADY WREN--POPISH PLOT--PAPIN'S DIGESTER--SIR J. HOSKYNS--ALLHALLOWS, BREAD STREET--PALACE AT WINCHESTER.

Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?--POPE, _Moral Essays_.

Great as was the pressure of Wren's London work, he did not confine himself to that city alone, but in 1677, we find him at Cambridge, busied with buildings there. The beautiful chapel of Emmanuel College, which still stands unaltered as he left it, was Sir Christopher's work in that year. More than thirty years before, Bishop Wren, when Bishop of Ely, had instanced amongst the irregularities to be amended at Cambridge the absence of a chapel at Emmanuel College,[157] and it well became his nephew to supply this lack. Sancroft had first set the plan on foot, and when he was removed in 1665 to S. Paul's--a removal so costly that, little knowing, he consoled himself by thinking the next would be to his grave--his successor, Dr. Breton, continued his work.

A picturesque cloister runs north and south across the facade built of stone instead of the brick with stone dressing as Wren at first intended; within the chapel the rich stucco ceiling, the pannelling and wood carving, the tall columns which support a pediment behind the altar, as well as the bold metal scroll-work of the altar rails, all show Wren's hand and eye. In the ma.n.u.script list of Wren's architectural works in the 'Parentalia' the Chapel of Queen's College at Oxford is a.s.signed to him as built at about this time; but it does not appear in the more accurate printed list, and is not generally reckoned amongst his works.

The Observatory at Greenwich, known by the name of Flamsteed House, was being completed. It was built at the suggestion of Sir Jonas Moor, the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, for the purpose of ascertaining the motions of the moon and the places of the fixed stars, in order, if possible, to discover accurately the longitude at sea.[158] Wren, confessedly one of the best astronomers in England, was on the commission for building the Observatory, and was its architect.

Greenwich was chosen as the site at his suggestion; the King, who took a great interest in the project, allowed 500_l._ towards it, and Sir Christopher used in the work some spare wood, iron, and lead from the Tower Gatehouse, and the bricks taken from Tilbury, the fort built by Elizabeth to repel the Spanish Armada.

The Observatory was begun in June, 1675, and roofed in at the Christmas of the same year, and Flamsteed shortly afterwards installed there.

[_A COLLECTION OF 'RARITIES.'_]

The Museum at Oxford, known as the Ashmolean, was Sir Christopher's work in 1677. It contained a collection of objects of natural history which was then reckoned a very good one: it had been collected by John Tradescant, and bequeathed by him to Mr. Elias Ashmole, the historian of the Order of the Garter, who made the whole over to the University, endowing a lecture upon them.