Читать книгу Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times - Lucy Phillimore - Страница 4

Table of Contents

ANCESTRY OF THE WRENS—MATTHEW WREN—TRAVELS TO SPAIN WITH THE PRINCE OF WALES—INTERVIEW AT WINCHESTER HOUSE—BISHOP ANDREWES’ PROPHECY—WREN MADE MASTER OF PETERHOUSE—BISHOP OF HEREFORD—CONSECRATION OF ABBEY DORE—OFFICE OF RECONCILIATION—FOREIGN CONGREGATIONS AND THE NORWICH WEAVERS—RESULT OF ‘A LECTURER’S’ DEPARTURE.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream

Bears all its sons away.

The name of Christopher Wren is no doubt familiar to the great majority of English people, and to Londoners especially; but it is to many of them little more than a name with which is connected S. Paul’s Cathedral and a now, alas! diminished number of City churches. Yet the great architect’s ninety-one years of life were passed among some of the most stirring times of our history, in which his family played no inconsiderable part, and he himself was not only the best architect of his day, but was also the foremost in many other sciences. A singularly patient and far-seeing intellect aiding a strong religious faith enabled him ‘to keep the even tenour of his way’ through a life of incessant labour and considerable temptation. It has been truly said,

‘It seems almost like a defect in such a biography as that of Wren, that it presents nothing of that picturesque struggle, in the rise from a lower to a higher condition, which has so commonly attended the conquest of genius over difficulty.’[2]

Far otherwise, the Wren family was an old one, tracing its descent from the Danes; one of the house fought in Palestine under Richard I., and his fame long survived, as in Charles I.’s time it was quoted against one of the knight’s descendants.

In 1455, during the reign of Henry VI., in the Black Book (or register) of the Order of the Garter, mention is made of a Wren who probably belonged to this family:—

‘The Lord of Winchester, Prelate of the order, performed the Divine Service proper for S. George the Martyr, but the Abbots Towyrhill and Medmenham being absent, were not excused, in whose stead Sir William Stephyns read the gospel and Sir W. Marshal the epistle, both of them singing men of the king’s choir. The dean of the same choir presented the gospel to the sovereigne to be kissed, and the next day celebrated Mass for the deceased, Sir J. Andevere and John Wrenne assisting in the reading of the epistle and gospel. The reader of the gospel, after censing the reader of the epistle, reverently tendered the heart of S. George to the sovereigne and knights in order to be kissed.’

The heart of S. George was presented by Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, on his admission to the Order of the Garter.

The spelling of ‘Wrenne’ was a very common form of the family name, and it seems very likely that John Wrenne belonged to this family, who were much connected with S. George’s, Windsor.

OLD FAMILY MOTTO.

William Wren was in Henry VIII.’s time the head of the family; his younger brother Geoffrey, who was a priest, was of Henry VII.’s privy council, and was confessor both to him and to Henry VIII. He held the living of S. Margaret’s, Fish Street, in the City of London, from 1512 till his death.[3] Geoffrey Wren was also a canon of S. George’s at Windsor, where he founded the seventh stall. There he died in 1527, and was buried in the north aisle of the chapel under a brass bearing his effigy in the Garter mantle, with this inscription at his feet:

‘Sub saxo ponor, et vermibus ultimis donor,

Et sicut ponor, ponitur omnis honor.’[4]

This tomb and brass have disappeared, as has the ‘South Lodge’ with its window displaying his coat of arms and emblem; the latter, a wren holding a trefoil in its claw, and his motto—‘Turbinibus superest coelo duce praescius.’ Dean Wren explains this emblem as chosen because, ‘the trefoil or clover shrinking before a storm foretold a change of weather,’ and the wren was supposed to have the same prescience. Both motto and emblem were changed by the descendants of the family.

William Wren’s grandson, Francis, was born 1552, two years before the close of Queen Mary’s reign, at Monk’s Kirby in Warwickshire, where the family had property. He was a mercer and citizen of London, and was steward to Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in England. He married Susan, daughter of William Wiffinson; they lived in the parish of S. Peter’s Cheap, and had three children: a daughter Anna, and two sons; Matthew, born 1585, and Christopher, born 1589. Both were educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School, and there Matthew especially attracted the notice of Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean of Westminster, who frequently came to the school where he had been bred, and examined the boys in various subjects, particularly in the Hebrew Psalter. He was struck by the proficiency of the eldest of the Wrens, and obtained for the boy a scholarship at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, of which he was himself master. From that time Dr. Andrewes appears never to have lost sight of Wren, but to have guided his studies and fostered ‘the most passionate affection for the ministry of the Church’ which the young man showed. Nor was Wren’s university life undistinguished, for he became Greek scholar of his college, and when King James visited Cambridge, Matthew Wren, then in priest’s orders, ‘kept the Philosophy Act’ before him with great applause. The subject given was, ‘Whether dogs were capable of syllogisms.’ Old Fuller says of this extraordinary ‘Act,’ ‘he kept it with no less praise to himself than pleasure to the king; where if men should forget even dogs should remember his seasonable distinction what the king’s hounds could perform above others by virtue of their prerogative.’[5] Probably this speech and its ready wit remained on the mind of the King, who dearly loved a compliment to the royal prerogative, and determined him to favour Matthew Wren.

MATTHEW WREN.

Lancelot Andrewes, who had been Bishop of Chichester, was in 1609 translated to Ely, and so enabled to watch over the University and ‘to search out,’ as he entreated his friends to do also, ‘hopeful and towardly young wits,’ and train them up for Holy Orders.[6] He made Matthew Wren his chaplain, gave him the living of Feversham in Cambridgeshire, and some years later made him a canon of Winchester. But very different duties from the ordinary ones of a parish priest devolved upon Wren. King James planned for the Prince of Wales the famous ‘Spanish match,’ and gave a most reluctant consent to the Duke of Buckingham’s scheme, that the Prince should himself go to Spain to fetch home his bride. Two of his chaplains were to attend the Prince, and by the advice of Bishop Andrewes and of Laud, then Bishop of S. David’s, Dr. Leonard Maw, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells, and Dr. Matthew Wren were chosen. The Prince and Buckingham departed hastily, leaving the chaplains and suite to follow as they could. King James had no sooner allowed the expedition than he repented of it, and being unable to recall his permission, was tormented by a thousand fears for the Prince’s safety. The nation was in a state of ferment, persuaded that the Prince’s faith would be tampered with as well as his person endangered. Thus the two chaplains had by no means an enviable post. They went down to Newmarket, took their leave of the King and received his last instructions:—

‘So as all their behaviour and service should prove decent and agreeable to the purity of the Primitive Church, and yet so near the Roman form as can lawfully be done; “for,” said he, “it hath ever been my way to go with the Church of Rome usque ad aras.”’[7]

‘The two bishops gave them also written and detailed instructions that there might appear a face of the Church of England in all forms of worship; that in the sermons there may be no polemical preachings to inveigh against the Romanists or to confute, but only to confirm the doctrine and tenets of the Church of England by all positive arguments either in fundamental or moral points.’

A full list followed of vestments for the clergy, ornaments and hangings for the altar, and altar lights, Latin service books, directions for a room to be adorned chapel-wise, and for frequent services, all to be read in Latin so that the Spaniards might comprehend them. All this careful provision seems to have been defeated by the fact of the Prince and his suite being lodged in the palace at Madrid, so that there was no public service, only bed-chamber prayers. Contemporary letters show that the chaplains’ position was not an easy one, though the Prince remained steadfast, and in the congenial atmosphere of the dignified Spanish court became every day more gracious. ‘Dr. Wren forbears,’ says one of these letters, ‘to write any particulars, but intimates all is not as it should be.’ It was no doubt a necessary precaution on the chaplain’s part to preserve this discreet silence, but it is tantalising to have only a hint concerning the transactions in Spain. How the negotiations were delayed, how the King recalled the Prince and the marriage was broken off, are historical facts too well known to need repetition here. One result seems to have been a strong bond of affection between the Prince and those who went with him on this singular expedition.

RETURNS FROM SPAIN.

That his departure was attended with some sea-peril appears from one of Edmund Waller’s[8] early poems on ‘the Danger which His Majesty, being Prince, escaped in the Road at S. Andero’:—

‘Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain,

And reached the sphere of his own pow’r, the main;

With British bounty in his ship he feasts

The Hesperian princes his amazed guests,

To find that wat’ry wilderness exceed

The entertainment of their great Madrid.’

A description follows of the Prince being rowed in a barge to his own ship, a sudden storm arises in which there is a great difficulty in making the ship; at length the Fates allow the rope to be successfully thrown, knowing it to be for England:—

‘Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)

Lord of the scene where now his danger lies.’

On October 8, 1623, Dr. Wren’s diary records ‘we landed at Portsmouth,’ and his first and only journey out of Great Britain was over.

The sea-voyage, probably a stormy one, made an impression on his mind and he preached before the Universities on the text ‘One deep calleth to another.’ This is said to have been a remarkable sermon, and old Fuller declares that he became an excellent preacher. The one sermon of his now extant, preached at a later date, on the text ‘Fear God, honour the King,’ shows that he modelled his style greatly on that of Bishop Andrewes, though without attaining to the same excellence. The sermon is a bold and outspoken one, and has its striking passages. King James, in testimony of his approval of Dr. Wren’s conduct as his son’s chaplain, bestowed on him the valuable living of Bingham, in Nottinghamshire, to which he was inducted during the next year, resigning his fellowship of Pembroke and the living of Feversham.

AT WINCHESTER HOUSE.

Previous to this event, and soon after the Prince’s return, a singular incident occurred. Wren, who had been down to Cambridge, came up, as he says, ‘suddenly’ to London, and as it was late, lodged with his sister in Friday Street, instead of going to Winchester House, where the Bishop kept ‘three rooms near the garden’ fitted and reserved for him, and where he had lodged twice or thrice. He had, however, seen the Bishop twice, also the Bishops of Durham and S. David’s, had taken leave of them on a Saturday, and was prepared to return to Cambridge on the Monday morning following. His journey was, however, delayed by an event which shall be given in his own words:—[9]

‘On Monday morne by break of the day there was a great knocking at the door where I lay. And at last the apprentice (who lay in the shop) came up to my bedside, and told me there was a messenger from Winchester House to speak with me. The business was to let me know, that my Lord, when he came from Court last night, had given his steward charge to order it so that I might be spoken with, and be required as from him without fail to dine with him on Monday; but to be at Winchester House by ten of the clock, which I wondered the more at, his lordship not using to come from his study till near twelve. My businesse would hardly permit this, yet because of his lordship’s importunity, I got up presently, and into Holborn I went, and there used such despatch, that soon after ten of the clock, I took a boat and went to Winchester House, where I found the steward at the water gate waiting to let me in the nearest way; who told me that my lord had called twice to know if I were come. I asked where his lordship was? He answered, in his great gallery (a place where I knew his lordship scarce came once in a year), and thither I going, the door was locked, but upon my lifting a latch, my lord of St. David’s opened the door, and, letting me in, locked it again.

‘There I found but those three Lords, who causing me to sit down by them, my Lord of Durham began to me: “Doctor, your Lord here will have it so, I that am the unfittest person must be the speaker. But thus it is. After you left us yesterday at Whitehall, we entering into further discourses of those things which we foresee and conceive will ere long come to pass, resolve to again to speak to you before you went hence.

‘“We must know of you, what your thoughts are concerning your master the Prince. You have now been his servant above two years, and you were with him in Spain. We know he respects you well; and we know you are no fool, but can observe how things are like to go.” “What things, my Lord?” (quoth I). “In brief,” said he, “how the Prince’s heart stands to the Church of England, that when God brings him to the Crown we may know what to hope for.”

‘My reply was to this effect, that however I was most unfit of any opinion herein, attending but two months in the year and then at a great distance, only in the closet and at meals; yet, seeing they so pressed me, I would speak my mind freely; so I said, “I know my master’s learning is not equal to his father’s, yet I know his judgement to be very right; and as for his affection in these particulars which your Lordships have pointed at, for upholding the doctrine and discipline and right estate of the Church, I have more confidence of him than of his father, in whom they say (better than I can) is so much inconstancy in some particular cases.”

BISHOP ANDREWES’ PROPHECY.

‘Hereupon my Lords of Durham and St. David’s began to argue it with me, and required me to let them know upon what ground I came to think thus of the Prince. I gave them my reasons at large; and after many replyings, (above an hour together,) then my Lord of Winchester (who had said nothing all the while) bespake me these words:—

‘“Well, Doctor, God send you may be a good prophet concerning your master’s inclinations in these particulars, which we are glad to hear from you. I am sure I shall be a true prophet: I shall be in my grave, and so shall you, my Lord of Durham; but my Lord of St. David’s and you, Doctor, will live to see that day that your master will be put to it, upon his head and his crown, without he will forsake the support of the Church.”

‘Of these predictions made by that holy father,’ adds the writer, ‘I have now no witness but mine own conscience and the Eternal God who knows I lie not; nobody else being present when this was spoken but these three Lords.’

After this the four friends separated and Wren returned to Cambridge.

In two years from the time of that conference King James died, in the following year the saintly Bishop Andrewes, the kind and unfailing friend of both the Wrens, died also. It is to the great discredit of James I., and probably was the inconstancy to which Dr. Wren alluded, that, as has happened in our own day, the greatest Prelate, the ‘incomparable preacher,’ the truest and wisest champion of the Church, was passed over when the archbishopric was vacant, an inferior man put above him, and at last the see of Winchester offered to him in tardy amends. At Archbishop Bancroft’s death in 1610, everyone’s eyes had turned to Bishop Andrewes as his natural successor: but, in the words of a contemporary letter from Lord Baltimore (then Mr. Calvert) to Sir T. Edmonds,

‘The Bishop of London (Abbot) by a strong north wind blowing out of Scotland is blown over the Thames to Lambeth; the king having professed to the Bishop himself as also to all the Lords of this council that it is neither the respect of his learning, his wisdom nor his sincerity (although he is well persuaded there is not any one of them wanting in him), that hath made him to prefer him above the rest of his fellows, but merely the recommendation of his faithful servant Dunbar that is dead, whose suit on behalf of this Bishop he cannot forget, nor will suffer to lose his intention.’[10]

MASTERSHIP OF PETERHOUSE.

The consequences of such an ecclesiastical appointment made for so insufficient a reason were disastrous indeed. Had Andrewes succeeded Bancroft, and had Laud succeeded Andrewes, ‘the Church had been settled on so sure a foundation that it had not easily been shaken.’[11]

There was general lamentation when Andrewes died, and few can have mourned him more sincerely than Matthew Wren, whom he had loved as a son. Wren attended the funeral, received the gold ring which was the Bishop’s bequest to him, and composed the Latin epitaph for his tomb in S. Saviour’s, Southwark, which is no unworthy tribute to the holy Bishop.

During this year Dr. Wren was elected, by the unanimous wish of the fellows, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he ‘exercised such prudence and moderation in his government that he reduced all the fellows to one sacred bond of unity and concord.’ Besides this he rebuilt the college in great part from the ground, and perceiving that the absence of a chapel was a great obstacle in the way of reverent and frequent services, he did not rest until he had raised subscriptions enough to build a handsome chapel, and to ornament it richly.[12] The wood-panelled hexagonal roof, the marble steps on which the altar stands, flanked by two tall candlesticks, give a character to the interior enhanced by the east window, which is in part a copy of that famous picture of the Crucifixion, then just finished, by Rubens, at Antwerp. This window was carefully taken down in the Rebellion before the college was for the commissioners destroyed all the other ornaments, pulling down ‘two mighty angels with wings, divers other angels, the four evangelists, and Peter with his keys on the chapel door, together with about a hundred cherubim and many superstitious letters in gold. Moreover,’ they say, ‘we found six angels on the windows which we defaced.’ After the Restoration the hidden glass was brought forth again and put back in its place over the altar.[13] While Dr. Wren was thus adorning his college chapel King Charles did not show himself forgetful of Bishop Andrewes’ well-loved pupil and chaplain, but in 1628 appointed him Dean of Windsor and registrar of the Order of the Garter. The year after this appointment the peace between England and France was solemnly ratified in the chapel at Windsor and Dean Wren administered the oath to the French ambassador, the Marquis de Châteauneuf.

About this time, as his diary says, he was ‘joined together in happy matrimony.’ His wife was Eliza Brownrigg, the widowed daughter of Thomas Cull, Esquire, of Ipswich; she had one daughter by her first marriage, and seems to have been possessed of some property in Suffolk. The marriage was in truth as happy as the cruel times in which their lot was cast would allow, though chequered with many sorrows; for of the twelve children whose birth Wren records in his diary, six died while very young. When King Charles journeyed to Scotland for his coronation he summoned Wren to attend him. No shadow of the coming trouble showed itself then. The young King was everywhere received with enthusiasm. Whether Dr. Wren, mindful of Andrewes’ words, suspected what lay under this fair show, there is no record left to tell us. In after years Sir Thomas Widdrington’s venomous attack on himself must have strangely recalled his tones when on this occasion he addressed the King in terms of fulsome adulation at Berwick. On his return from Scotland the King passed the holy week at York, where on Maunday Thursday Dr. Wren washed the feet of thirty-nine poor old men in warm water, drying them with a linen cloth, and Dr. Curle, Bishop of Winchester, washed them over again in white wine and then kissed them.