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Born digital.
Cheapside Cross (Eleanor Cross), pictured but not labelled on the
Agas map, stood on Cheapside Street between Friday Street and Wood
Street. St. Peter, Westcheap lay to its
west, on the north side of Cheapside Street. The
prestigious shops of
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If monuments could speak, the Cheapside Cross would
have told a tale of kingly love, civic pride, and sectarian violence. By the
time of its demolition in 1643, the Cross was an
ornate structure about twelve metres high. It is visible in a well known long
view of
There are three octangular compartments, and each is supported by eight slender columns. Its height is calculated at about thirty-six feet; the first storey being about twenty feet, the second, ten, and the third, six. Amongst the statues which ornamented the structure may be mentioned, in the first niche, most likely, a contemporaneous pope, round the base of the second were four apostles, and above them was placed the Virgin, with the infant Jesus in her arms. Four standing figures filled the top niche, and a cross, surmounted with the emblematic dove, completed the ornamentation, which was extremely rich.142
For a woodcut image of the Cross as it appeared in the 1640s, see the title page of
In the Cheap Ward section of
[Queene Elianor
a stately crosse of stoneto be erected at each place where her body rested on the way (Stow 1:265–266).with the Queenes Image and armes vpon it
The Cheapside Cross, built at an original cost of
£300, was one of the most elaborate of the twelve Eleanor Crosses (Wheatley 167). It was a site for civic
pageantry and notable events throughout its existence. The Cross was the starting point for jousts and horse
races in the reign of with a bridge from its gatehouse to the ground, over which a choir of maidens, dressed in
virginal white, came out to greet the king, singing,
(Keen 115).Welcome
In 1441, London’s Lord Mayor obtained permission of being by length of time decayed
(Stow
1:266). This new Cross was completed in
1486. During the first half of the Tudor period, the Cross was freshly gilded nearly every decade for important visitors
and occasions: in 1522 for the visit of Their majesties
(149).
During the reign of as they alleged
(Stow 1:266). Then, on 21 June 1581, during the night, images on the lowest
level of the Cross were vandalized. Although a
reward was offered, the perpetrators were not found. The Cross remained in this state, with the broken statue of the Virgin
Mary tied to the monument with ropes, until 1595, when partial repairs were
undertaken. In about 1596, a gray marble tabernacle enclosing an alabaster
statue of the goddess Diana was set up under the defaced image of the
resurrected Christ. This statue functioned for a time as a conduit.
A more overt attempt to dismantle the Cross took
place in 1599. According to
The citizens of London had appealed to the Croſs in Cheapſide
hath many in the twilight and morning early which doe reverence before it
(Abbott sig. B1r). However, according to Stow,
in
greater number
remonstrated, and a plain gilt cross was set on top (Stow 1:267). Henry Wheatley states that the
Cross was altered so much in 1600 that it may
be said to have been rebuilt (167).
Henry Peacham dates the protective iron fence around the monument to
preparations for the coronation of
The Cross still had its adherents. An anonymous ballad sheet published in 1630,
tender care: / to preserue their rich & ſumptuous buildings(19–20), and appeals to the City to save Charing Cross also. Even as the final campaign against the Cross began in 1641,
I the foreſaid Iaſper Croſſe was aſſaulted and battered in the Kings highway, by many violent and inſolent-minded people, or rather ill-affected Brethren(
Other anonymous writers, however, now proposed that the Cross should be convicted of high treason and beheaded.
chargesagainst the Cross, which consisted mainly of its being the location of
ſpirituall fornication, Idolatry(
And no true Chriſtian juſtly can repine, To let a Croſſe ſtand as a Chriſtian ſigne. Knaves may deface it, fooles may worſhip it, All which may be for want of grace or wit, To thoſe that wrongd the Croſſe this is my curſe, They never may have croſſes [silver coins] in their purſe.
Henry Peacham, writing under the pseudonym of Ryhen Pameach, has the Cross affectingly relate her history to her sister, Charing Cross, as the two commiserate on their present danger. In 1642, as the first skirmishes of the English civil war took place, the Cross was once again defaced (Wheatley 168), and pamphlets anticipated, celebrated, or justified its pending downfall.
By 1643, England was in the thick of civil war, and the forces of King much of London appears to have been overtaken by a new
wave of Puritan religious fervor, manifested especially in a rising tide of
iconoclasm
(450–51). Meanwhile,
After the Restoration, the Cheapside Cross was remembered and mentioned in several histories, pamphlets, and poems. As late as 1663, the spot where the Cross stood was still used for civic events. John Tatham’s 1663 Lord Mayor’s show,
a lively Figure repreſenting Albion or England,with the figure of
a graceful Ornament to this Famous Citybut also because the Cross had served the sweeps as an informal hiring hall,
we having liberty to wait there every morning for imployment(