The Downfal of Charing-Cross

Charing-Cross, as it stood before the civil wars, was one of those beautiful Gothic obelisks, erected to conjugal affection by Edward I., who built such a one wherever the hearse of his beloved Eleanor rested in its way from Lincolnshire to Westminster.  But neither its ornamental situation, the beauty of its structure, nor the noble design of its erection (which did honour to humanity), could preserve it from the merciless zeal of the times; for in 1647 it was demolished by order of the House of Commons, as Popish and superstitious.  This occasioned the following not unhumorous sarcasm, which has been often printed among the popular sonnets of those times.

The plot referred to in ver. 3 was that entered into by Mr Waller the poet, and others, with a view to reduce the city and Tower to the service of the King; for which two of them, Nath. Tomkins and Richard Chaloner, suffered death, July 5, 1643.  Vid. Ath. Ox. 11. 24.—Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

Undone! undone! the lawyers are,
   They wander about the towne,
Nor can find the way to Westminster
   Now Charing-Cross is downe:
At the end of the Strand they make a stand,
   Swearing they are at a loss,
And chaffing say, that’s not the way,
   They must go by Charing-Cross.

The Parliament to vote it down
   Conceived it very fitting,
For fear it should fall, and kill them all
   In the House as they were sitting.
They were told god-wot, it had a plot,
   Which made them so hard-hearted,
To give command it should not stand,
   But be taken down and carted.

Men talk of plots, this might have been worse,
   For anything I know,
Than that Tomkins and Chaloner
   Were hang’d for long agoe.
Our Parliament did that prevent,
   And wisely them defended,
For plots they will discover still
   Before they were intended.

But neither man, woman, nor child
   Will say, I’m confident,
They ever heard it speak one word
   Against the Parliament.
An informer swore it letters bore,
   Or else it had been freed;
In troth I’ll take my Bible oath
   It could neither write nor read.

The Committee said that verify
   To Popery it was bent:
For ought I know, it might be so,
   For to church it never went.
What with excise, and such device,
   The kingdom doth begin
To think you’ll leave them ne’er a cross
   Without doors nor within.

Methinks the Common-council should
   Of it have taken pity,
’Cause, good old cross, it always stood
   So firmly to the city.
Since crosses you so much disdain,
   Faith, if I were as you,
For fear the King should rule again
   I’d pull down Tiburn too.

Whitlocke says, “May 3rd, 1643, Cheapside Cross and other crosses were voted down,” &c.  When this vote was put in execution does not appear; probably not till many mouths after Tomkins and Chaloner had suffered.

We had a very curious account of the pulling down of Cheapside Cross lately published in one of the Numbers of the Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1766.—Percy’s Reliques.