Old St. Pauls Cathedral | Page 8

were twelve bays to the nave, then the four mighty pillars supporting the tower, then the screen closing in the choir. The nave was known as "Paul's Walk," and not too favourably known, either, under this title. Of this more hereafter. At the second bay in the North Aisle was the meeting-place of Convocation, closed in as a chamber. Here, too, was the Font, by which was the Monument of Sir John Montacute. He was the son of the first Earl of Salisbury, and it was his mother of whom the fictitious story about the establishment of the Order of the Garter by Edward III. was told. John de Montacute's father was buried in the Church of the Whitefriars. The son was baptized in St. Paul's, and directed in his will, "If I die in London I desire that my body may be buried in St. Paul's, near to the font wherein I was baptized."
At the sixth bay came "the Little North Door," and it was answerable, as till lately was a similar door at St. Alban's Abbey, for much of the desecration of the church which went on. There was a notice on it that anybody bringing in burden or basket must pay a penny into the box at hand. Between the columns of the tenth bay was the Chantry of Bishop Kempe (1450-1489). It was the finest in the cathedral, built by Royal licence. He did much for the beautifying of the cathedral, and rebuilt Paul's Cross, as we have said already. He seems to have kept clear of the fierce struggles of the Wars of the Roses, for he saw rival kings in succession ostentatiously worshipping in St. Paul's, and did not lose the friendship of any of them. So far as one can judge, he honestly felt that he was not called upon to become a partisan of any, and this fact was recognised.
It was Edward IV. who gave him licence to erect his chantry. "For the singular reverence which he bore to God and to the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, as also to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to St. Erkenwald and Ethelbert, those devout confessors, he granted license to Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, for the founding of a chantry of one priest, who should be the Bishop of London's confessor in this cathedral, for the time being, to celebrate divine service daily at the altar of the Holy Trinity in the body thereof, towards the north side, for the good estate of the said King and Queen Elizabeth, his Consort; as also of the said Bishop, during their lives in this world, and for the health of their souls after their departures hence, and moreover for the souls of the said King's progenitors; the parents and benefactors of the said bishop and all the faithful deceased; and to unite it to the office of confessor in this church for ever, and likewise to grant thereunto one messuage, one dovehouse, 140 acres of land, six acres of meadow, with eight acres of wood, called Grays, and 10_s._ rent with the appurtenances, lying in Great Clacton in the county of _Essex_; as also another messuage, twenty acres of land, two acres of meadow and two acres of wood, with the appurtenances in the same town, and two acres of land lying in Chigwell, together with the advowson of the Church of Chigwell, in the same county."
The next monument has a very strange and quaint interest. It was nearly opposite Kempe's, in the eleventh bay on the south side, that of Sir John Beauchamp, of Powick, in Worcestershire (son of Guy, Earl of Warwick), who died in 1374. He settled, out of some tenements in Aldermanbury, for the payment of 10 marks a year for a priest to celebrate at his altar, and 50_s._ a year for the special keeping of the anniversary of his death, December 3rd. There was a very fine image of the B.V.M. beside this tomb. Barnet, Bishop of Bath and Wells, gave a water mill, ninety acres of arable and pasture, and eight acres of wood, all lying at Navestock, in Essex, to the Dean and
Chapter for
the saying of certain prayers and a de profundis beside this image for the souls of the faithful; and there were constant oblations here. John Westyard, citizen and vintner, founded another altar at the same place for a chantry priest to say masses for the soul of Thomas Stowe, sometime Dean of St. Paul's, and for those of his parents and benefactors. In after years a strange mistake befell this tomb, one wonders why. It became popularly known as the tomb of Duke Humphrey, of whom we have more to say hereafter, who was buried not here but at St. Albans.
Entering within