RETHINKING

ENGLAND:

ICONOCLASM
IN EARLY
THE CASE OF CHEAPSIDE

MODERN
CROSS

JOEL BUDD
New YorkUniversity
ABSTRACT
Protestant iconoclasm has generally been understood as an assault on the beliefs and
practices of traditional religion. This article challenges that understanding through a
detailed study of Cheapside Cross, a large monument that was repeatedly attacked by
iconoclastsin the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It draws on contemporary pamphlets and the manuscripts records of the City of London to reveal the complex variety of associations that Cheapside Cross acquired before and during the Reformation
era. It argues that perceptions of the monument were shaped not only by its iconography but also by its involvement in ceremonies and rituals, including royal coronation
processions.The iconoclasticattacks on Cheapside Cross should be interpreted not merely
as a challenge to traditional beliefsbut as attempts to restructure the monument's associations. The paper concludes that attacks on other images may be understood in a similar manner.

On May 2, 1643, a large crowd gathered in Cheapside, London, to

witness the demolition of the most famous religious image in England.
Cheapside Cross was a tall polygonal monument containing three recessed
tiers that supported statues of the Virgin and Child, God (represented
as an old man), Christ, the Holy Ghost (represented as a dove), Edward
the Confessor, the pope, and a cardinal. It had stood in the street since
the late thirteenth century. Guarded by a troop of horse, a group of
iconoclasts chipped away at the statues and, to the accompaniment
of
drums and trumpets, fastened a rope around the cross at the top of the
structure' and pulled it down. In the words of one skeptical observer,
it seemed "as if they had obtained some remarkable victory upon the
greatest enemies of the Chri.stian faith." The whole spectacle was carefully managed by the civic authorities, who were probably concerned
about the possibility of rioting: public iconoclasm had provoked several
scuffles between puritans and conservatives
in the past few years.
The event seems to have passed off peacefully, however. According to

' For the sake of clarity, this will be referred to as the "top-cross."

380
Secretary, the crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of the
destruction, although some people openly deplored it.2
The most remarkable thing about the destruction of Cheapside Cross
is that it did not happen sooner. Considering the fact that it was located
in London, which was both the seat of government and a stronghold
of religious radicalism, one would expect it to have been pulled down
in the early years of the Reformation. London was generally precocious
in its destruction of religious imagery. In the 1530s, Thomas Cromwell,
Hugh Latimer and other prominent reformers created an atmosphere
conducive to iconoclasm by bringing famous images into the city and
destroying them in front of large crowds. Even before the first injunction against images of 1538, some Londoners had begun to remove
images from the churches. In the late 1540s, many objects that had
survived the purge of the late 1530s were removed or demolished, often
by parish officials who claimed to be acting in accordance with royal
or episcopal injuctions.3 Other images were swept out of London soon
after Elizabeth acceded to the throne. Yet Cheapside Cross stood in
the middle of London's largest street for over a hundred years after the
break with Rome. Although illicit iconoclasts attacked it at least five
times between the 1580s and the 1640s, the monument was repeatedly
repaired, painted and gilded at the city's expense.
In his recent book, Travestiesand Transgressionsin Tudor and Stuart England,
David Cressy briefly recounts the history of Cheapside Cross and explains
how it came to be destroyed in 1642. His analysis centers on the last
two years of the monument's existence, when it became the subject of
a fierce debate in the London press. Cressy treats the debate over
anxiety about reliCheapside Cross as a case study in contemporary
gious imagery. He shows why Puritans in the early 1640s hated and
feared monuments such as Cheapside Cross and examines the rhetorical strategies that they used to justify their opinions. Cressy does not
confront the question of why the monument survived so much longer
than other images of similar type. He implies, however, that as strict
puritan attitudes came to dominate people's perceptions of religious
the Venetian

vol. 26, 272. The iconoclasm was widely noted. See

Calendar of StatePapersVenetian,
The Biary if John Evelyn,vol. 2, ed. E. S. de Beer (Oxford, 1955), 81; TheDiary ofJohn
Rous, Incumbentof SantonDownham,Suflolk,
from 1625 to 1642, ed. Mary Anne Everett
Green (Camden Society, old series, 66 (1856) reprinted New York, 1968), 130.
3 Susan
(Oxford, 1989). A useful account of iconBrigden, Londonand the Reformation
oclasm in Edwardian London is The Chronicle
of the GreyFriarsof London,ed. John Gough
Nichols, (Camden Society, old series, 53 (1852), reprinted New York, 1968), 53-80.

381

Crosse(London,
of Cheap-side
Fig. 1. Samuel Lovedeay, An Answerto tlteLamentation
1642). Corporation of London, Guildhall Library.

382
images from the late sixteenth century, the destruction of Cheapside
Cross became increasingly inevitable. His account emphasizes the increasing vehemence of attacks, both physical and literary, on Cheapside Cross
from the 1580s onwards.4
Historians of early modern England have tended to interpret iconoclasm in two ways: as an indicator of religious attitudes, and as an agent
in changing those attitudes. These interpretations are naturally not mutually exclusive. Cressy's analysis of the history of Cheapside Cross implies
that people's attitudes to the monument revealed their religious sympathies. A number of historians of the English Reformation have followed similar assumptions, viewing popular outbreaks of image-breaking
as evidence of Protestant fervor and popular resistance to it as evidence
of religious traditionalism." Historians of the Civil War, similarly, have
arrived at conclusions about popular piety after examining the speed
with which different typcs of images (communion rails, crucifixes, and
fonts, for example) were removed from the churches.' Many scholars
have also emphasized the role that iconoclasts played in the conversion
process. They have argued that the destruction of images helped to
eradicate traditional religious beliefs in England by ritually banishing
sacred intercessors and forcing the laity to abandon practices that the
reformers regarded as superstitious. Margaret Aston, for example, has
argued that iconoclasts, motivated by a "spirit of rejection," sought to
destroy all evidence of religious beliefs and practices that they regarded
as corrupted. Eamon Duffy has described the destruction of tombs and
statues as "a necessary rite of exorcism." In this interpretation,
iconoclasm aimed at the negation of the doctrines and powers that the images
represented as well as the images themselves.'
4 David
and Transgressions
in Tudorand StuartEngland:Talesqf Discord
Cressy, Travesties
and Dissension
(Oxford, 2000), 234-50.
' See
Politics,and Societyunderthe Tudors
Religion,
Christopher Haigh, EnglishReformatioras:
(Oxford, 1993); Robert Whiting, The BlindDevotionof the People:PopularReligionand the
EnglishReformation
(Cambridge, 1989); Duffy, Strippingoj'the Altars: TraditionalReligionin
England,c. 1400-1580 (New Haven, 1992).
6
to theEnglishCivilWar,
John Morrill, "The Church in England, 1642-9,"in Reactions
ed. Morrill (New York, 1983), 89-114, reprinted in Morrill, The Nature of the English
Revolution:
Essays(London, 1993), 148-75.Cf William Cliftlands, "The 'well-affected'and
the country: politics and religion in English provincial society, c. 1640-c. 1654" (Ph.D.
thesis,Universityof Essex,1987).See also JohnMorrill, "WilliamDowsing:the Bureaucratic
in Early ModemEngland:EssaysPresentedto
Puritan," in Public,Duryand PrivateConscience
G. E. Aylmer,ed. _JohnMorrill, Paul Slack, and Daniel Woolf (Oxford, 1993), 173-203.
'
Margaret Aston, England'iIconoclastsIrol. L LawsAgainstImages(Oxford, 1988), 9;
Eamon Duffy, The Strippingof tiaeAltars,495.

383
Iconoclasm, then, has been accorded an important role in the Protestant
Reformation.
Historians of early modern England have rejected the
critics of iconoclasm, that it was
notion, advanced by contemporary
merely vandalism under the cloak of religious zeal. Arguably, however,
they have drawn overly simplistic connections between iconoclasm and
religious reform. Popular support for and resistance to iconoclasm should
not necessarily be viewed as litmus tests for religious allegiances. It is
far from clear that the laity perceived iconoclasm as a generalized assault
on the old faith, or even that many iconoclasts understood their actions
in this way. Historians of the English Reformation have tended to assume
that, because the aggregate effect of iconoclasm was the large-scale
destruction of the objects and symbols of traditional religion, iconoclasts
must have envisaged their actions as an assault on this whole system of
belief.
The protracted war against religious images in England was fought
primarily on the local level. It did not resemble a coordinated government campaign so much as a series of small skirmishes between zealots
and conservatives in the parishes. Any attempt to explain iconoclasm
must acknowledge the fact that it was carried out primarily by people
who were closely acquainted
with the objects that they destroyed.
Whatever their religious sympathies, local people associated individual
images not merely with the "idols" of Protestant theology, but with distinct practices and powers.' People's attitudes to specific images were
shaped by the circumstances of their creation and the uses to which
they had been put over the years, as well as by their appearance. In
the local context, images might take on associations that were not strictly
religious: they might reflect the prestige of the man or woman who
donated them, for example. The destruction of such images might communicate meanings of similar complexity. On this intimate local level,
iconoclasm itself, which historians of early modern England have generally viewed as a broad religious and political process, potentially invoked
as many meanings as the objects that suffered it.
This article shows how a single monument, Cheapside Cross, came
to acquire clusters of meanings and associations in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. Whereas David Cressy's study focuses on representations of Cheapside Cross in the pamphlet literature of the early
8 This
Idols and ViolentHands:
point is developed by Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious
Iconoclasm
in Reformation
Zurich,Straibourg,and Basel(Cambridge, 1995). See also Robert
W. Scribner, "Ritual and Reformation" in The GermanPeopleand the Reformation,
ed.
R. Po-chia Hsia (Ithaca, 1988), 122-44.

384
1640s, this study emphasizes the way that the monument was incorporated into royal and civic processions and asks how physical treatments
have altered percepof the cross-both
respectful and hostile-might
tions of it. I argue that Cheapside Cross did not possess a single, stable set of meanings or associations. At various times (occasionally at the
same time) it was associated with the monarchy, the civic oligarchy,
and traditional religion. People's perceptions of the image were strucin which it was
tured by the symbolic exchanges and negotiations
involved, particularly during coronation processions. When iconoclasts
attacked the monument, they wittingly or unwittingly disrupted the pattern of associations that had been constructed on previous occasions.
Iconoclasm is interpreted here as an attempt to restructure perceptions
of religious images rather than as an attack on traditional religious
beliefs. I suggest that although Cheapside Cross was unusual for the
depth of its involvement in public ceremonies, its history can nonetheless provide clues to the meaning of iconoclasm more generally.
***
Cheapside Cross was built in the early 1290s as part of the magnificent
funerary display accorded Eleanor of Castile, queen consort of Edward
1.9 Upon her death in 1290, Eleanor's viscera and heart were removed
and buried in Lincoln and Blackfriars, respectively. Her body was carried from Lincoln to Westminster Abbey, where it was interred in a
gilded tomb. Crosses were erected along the route in Lincoln, Grantham,
Stamford, Geddington, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable,
St. Alban's, Waltham, Cheapside, and Westminster. The inhabitants of
some of these places were enjoined to pray for Eleanor. Like the montjoies erected along the route of Louis IX's funeral procession twenty
years before, the crosses were as much political as religious symbols that
house even as they invited prayers for the
glorified the Plantagenet
Cross
was built of solid marble at a cost of
queen's soul. Cheapside
300 pounds. It was the second most lavish of the Eleanor crosses, after
Charing Cross, which was located in Westminster. Edward's decision to
9
Margaret Aston has briefly discussedthe destruction of Cheapside Cross in a number of studies, but has not analyzed its involvement in civic ceremonies or investigated
its shifting associations.See Aston, "Iconoclasm in England: Official and Clandestine,"
in Iconoclasmvs. Art and Drama, ed. Clifford Davidson and Ann Eljenholm Nichols
and Iconography
in a Tudor
(Kalamazoo, 1989), 76-80; Aston, the King'sBedpost:Reformation
GroupPortrait(Cambridge, 1993), 108-12.

385
place the two most elaborate crosses in Westminster and London is suggestive of a desire to assert his influence in the capital: he had recently
antagonized the civic oligarchy by suspending some of its privileges. He
may also have sought to rehabilitate Eleanor's reputation, which had
been stained by rumors that she had profited from Jewish moneylending.'o
It is difficult to know how closely the monument that was built in
the 1290s resembled the monument that was destroyed in 1643. If it
had originally contained the statues of Christ, God the Father, the Holy
Ghost, Edward the Confessor, the pope, and a cardinal that are mentioned in sixteenth and seventeenth-century
accounts, it would have been
unlike the other Eleanor crosses, which seem to have contained statues
of the queen alone." It is possible that Cheapside Cross originally resembled the other crosses but was altered in the fifteenth century. A letter
from a sub-contractor
survives from this period in which the author
complains that his work on the monument was repeatedly delayed by
demands for time-consuming
"new Invencions,"
which presumably
involved the alteration of its appearance. If indeed the religious statues
were added in the fifteenth century, this would suggest that the cross
was transformed from a monument to Queen Eleanor to a more generic
monument to the monarchy, the papacy, and Christian faith. 12
Considering the likelihood of significant alterations to Cheapside Cross
in the fifteenth century, it is not surprising that few writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries associated it with Queen Eleanor. The
historian William Camden, writing in the 1600s about the commemoration of Eleanor's death, mentioned almost all the monuments to the
' Eleanor Castile,1290-1990:
the 700thAnniversary
of
Essaysto Commemorate
of her Death,
ed. David Parsons (Stamford, 1991); The Historyof the King's Works,vol. 1, ed. H. M.
Colvin (London, 1963), 483-85;John Carmi Parsons, Eleanorof Castile:Queenand Sociep,
in Thirteenth-century
England(New York, 1995); Gwyn A. Williams, MedievalLondon:From
Commune
to Capital(London, 1963).
"
John Stow wrote of the crosses: "every one of them ... [was] garnished with the
Image of the said Q. also with his armes and hers." Stow, TheAnnalesof England(London,
1605),313. See also Nicola Coldstream, "The Commissioningand Design of the Eleanor
Crosses" in Eleanorof Castile,1290-1990, 55-68.
'2 Public Record Office
(hereafter PRO) Chancery Court C 1 / 101 /21;Charles
Wriothesley,A Chronicle
of EnglandDuringtheReignsof the Tudors,from A.D. 1485 to 1559,
ed. WilliamDouglas Hamilton, (Camden Society,new series, 11and 20 (1875 and 1877)),
vol. 1,1; Ryhen Pameach [Henry Peacham],A dialogue
betiveene
thecrossin Cheape,
and CharingCross(London, 1642). The Museum of London contains two pieces of carved marble
which may have been removed from the cross during repairs in the fifteenth century,
but it is also possible that they were part of the Standard, a monument that stood just
to the east of Cheapside Cross. See the Cheapside Cross file in the museum archive.

386
Cross.'3 Sixteenth
and seventeenthqueen but ignored Cheapside
century pamphlet writers almost always referred to the monument simCross," presumably
ply as "Cheapside Cross" or sometimes as jasper
in an allusion to the marble of which it was built. Charing Cross, on
the other hand, was almost always associated with Eleanor during the
same period. The most important exception to this rule is John Stow,
who linked both Charing Cross and Cheapside Cross to the queen in
his Survey of London and Annals of England." Stow's work notwithstanding, Cheapside Cross appears to have become disassociated from the
original circumstances of its creation by the mid sixteenth century. It
had largely ceased to evoke memories of Queen Eleanor, although it
had remained strongly associated with the English crown. It was also
associated with the City, primarily because of its location. Last, and
most problematically,
it was associated with traditional religion.
The association of Cheapside Cross with the monarchy was articulated most forcefully during royal entries to the city, when Cheapside
Cross was physically transformed and took on enormous symbolic importance. Contemporary
chronicles and city records reveal that the gilt,
and
woodwork,
paintwork on the cross were always repaired in preparation for the coronation procession of an English monarch, and occasionally for the visit of a foreign monarch, from the late medieval period
onwards. In 1415, for example, an observer wrote that "the cros in
Chepe was riolly arrayet like a castell with towes pight full of baners,
and therein angeles syngyng Nobell, nobell" to celebrate Henry V's
return from Agincourt.15 In 1522, the cross was gilded and repaired for
the visit of Charles V. In 1533, it was "newe garnished" for the wedding procession of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. In 1547, it was gilded
again for the coronation of Edward VI (an ironic gesture, given the
iconoclastic fervor that the new king's regime would soon display). In
1553 the cross was gilded for Mary's coronation progress, and again
the following year for Philip. It was made "faire and well-trimmed" for
Elizabeth's coronation and for those of James I and Charles L'6 Contemporary writers made almost casual allusions to the beautification of
13William Camden, Remains
Britain,ed. R. D. Dunn (Toronto, 1984), 237.
Concerning
14On Stow's attitude to rites and
images generally see The TheatricalCity: Culture,
Theatreand Politicsin London,1576-1649, ed. David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David
Bevington (Cambridge, 1995), 17-54.
15
Quoted in Robert Withington, EnglishPageantry;an HistoricalOutline,vol. 1 (New
York, 1963), 134-35.
16
of the Courtof Aldermen
(hereafter
Corporation of London Record Office, Repertories
CLRO Reps.)iv, fols. 163r, 169v; John Stow, A Surveyof London,vol. 1 (Oxford, 1908),

387
the monument, which suggests that this process was viewed as a predictable and necessary element in the preparations for a royal coronation. One chronicler, for example, commented on Philip and Mary's
procession thus: "Saterdaye the 18 of August, in the after-noone, the
King and Queenes Majesties rode through Southwerke, over the bridge,
and so throughe London; where they were with great provision receaved
of the citizens, pageants in places accustomed, the crosse in Cheape
new gilte, &c."" Like many of the practices associated with royal coronations, the regular beautification of Cheapside Cross conveyed a sense
of continuity with previous regimes.
Written accounts of royal entries often commented on the appearance of Cheapside Cross and mentioned the gilding and painting of its
statues. Particularly from the later sixteenth century, authors generally
described coronation processions from the perspective of the royal party.
They emphasized the progression of the new monarch through the
streets of London and often commented on his or her reaction to the
spectacles that had been constructed for the event. As a result, accounts
of coronation processions read as if the very presence of the monarch
produced the spectacles. They describe the beautification of Cheapside
Cross, like the work that went into the pageants, as if it were realized
in the royal gaze. As a result, the new monarch was expected to acknowledge the gilded cross just as he or she was expected to admire the
pageants. An account of Philip and Mary's coronation procession noted
that the couple "staied a while lokinge" at the cross, "which was (no
doute it is) unto them a right excellent view." Philip graciously took off
his hat to
Protestant monarchs, not surprisingly, avoided such disof
reverence.
Nonetheless, a contemporary illustration of Edward
plays
VI's coronation procession shows the king gazing at the cross as he rode
past it.19 Sometimes the royal gaze appears to have been deliberately
266; LiteraryRemainsof KingEdwardthe Sixth,ed. John Gough Nichols (London, 1857)
cclxxxviii;Edward Halle, The unionqf thetwonobleand illustrefamiliesof Lancastreand Yorke
xiii, fols. 167r, 189v; anon., Theroyallpassage
(London, 1548),sig. ccxiiii(v);CLRO
qf Her Majesry
from the Towerof London,to her Paliceof White-hall(London, 1558), sig. B4r;
CLROReps. xiii,
ibis.167r,
<o
xiii,fols.
167r,189v;
189v; ThomasDekker,
Dekkcr,?!'?-?// (I?ondon, 1558), given to
KingJames, QueeneAnnehis wife,and HenryFredericktlaePrince(London, 1604), sig. B4r;
CLRO
xxxv, fol. 243r, Reps.xxxix, fol. 219v. T'orthe iconographic significanceof
gold, see Margaret Aston, "Gold and Images," in ?7teChurchand Wealth,ed. W. ,J. Shiels
and Diana Wood, Studiesin GiturcitHistory24 (1987), 189-207, reprinted in Aston, Faith
and Fire: Popularand UnpopularReligion1350-1600 (London, 1993), 219-30.
L7
Wriothesley, Chronicle
of England,vol. 2, 122.
John Elder, 7he copieof a letter.sentin to Scotland(London, 1555),sig. Ci(v).
''' Aston, Yi'ing's
Bedpost,109. Cf. Withington, EnglishPageantry,vol. 1, 185 n. 6.

388
directed towards Cheapside Cross. For Elizabeth's coronation processtood next to the monument and
sion, for example, trumpet-players
played a fanfare as she passed by. For the coronation procession of
James I, speeches were made from a platform that was physically joined
to the cross.2 By such means, Cheapside Cross was incorporated into
the iconography of the coronation.
Cheapside Cross would have also made a striking impression on the
crowds that turned out to watch the coronation procession. Although
contemporary pamphlet-writers strived to record the speeches and pageants
that had been prepared for the occasion, it is likely that the crowd
would have been more impressed by the sheer lavishness of the event.
Coronation processions were not as orderly and refined as many authors
suggested. The crowd, which had to be held back by members of the
livery companies, often made so much noise that it was impossible to
hear the speeches. Most spectators could only have seen one of the
pageants, and the great majority would have been unable to decipher
the Latin inscriptions that adorned them. As R. Malcolm Smuts has
argued, the crowd would probably have been more impressed by the
sight of the monarch and the other participants in the procession than
by the erudite references to Biblical and Classical history that the pageants
displayed.2' The gilding and repainting of Cheapside Cross and other
civic monuments would also have conveyed a strong sense of the grandeur
of the occasion to the average spectator, especially as this work would
still have been visible even after the last pageant was taken down.
Because Cheapside Cross was usually repaired only for a coronation
ceremony, Londoners would have associated the changes in its appearance with the presence of the monarch.
The beautification
of Cheapside Cross, like the royal entry itself,
the
even
as
it emphasized the authority of the new monarch.
glorified
city
The City paid for the repair of the monument and was responsible for
overseeing the work that was done to it. The cost of the repairs must
have varied considerably, according to the state of the cross and the
that was desired. In 1522, the repair of the
degree of beautification
2 Dekker, the
entertainment,
magnificent
sig. F3(r).
2' Malcolm Smuts, "Public
Ceremony and Royal Charisma: the English Royal Entry
in London, 1485-1642,"in The First ModernSocietyEssays
in EnglishHistoryin Honourof
:
Lawrence
Stone,ed. A. L. Beier, David Cannadine, and James M. Rosenheim (Cambridge,
1989) 65-94. See also Benjamin Klein, "Between the Bums and Belliesof the Multitude:
Civic Pageantry and the Problem of Audience in Late Stuart London," TheLondon
Journal
17:1 (1992): 18-26.

389
cross for Charles V's visit cost a hundred pounds. In 1553, the civic
authorities levied a tax on the city to pay for the improvements
that
were made to the cross for Mary's coronation, and in the following
year the monument was beautified yet again. The money and care that
was lavished on Cheapside Cross, whether it truly needed it or not,
suggests that the city offered it as a kind of gift to the new monarch.
This gesture complemented
the offering of gold coins that was conventionally presented to the royal party, often at a location adjacent to
the gilded cross, during the procession. Both symbolized the wealth and
of London and invited the monarch to reciprocate by
independence
the
City's privileges.22 Hence, it was important to the civic
upholding
authorities that the cross look its best for the coronation procession.
When, in 1626, a complaint was made about the poor quality of the
for Charles's
repairs that had been made to the cross in preparation
coronation procession, the Court of Aldermen took steps to investigate.
Such a lapse could send a very distinct (and very unwelcoming) message
to the royal party.23
Cheapside Cross was a paradoxical image. As a monument to traditional religion that survived into a reformed era, and as a monument
to monarchy that stood in civic space, it embodied two profound contradictions. The cross could potentially encourage antagonistic interpretations, but for much of the period under discussion its paradoxical
nature allowed for its use as a symbol of harmony. The civic authorities took advantage of its spatial ambiguities by using it to negotiate
their own difficult relationship with the crown. By repairing and gilding the cross for the coronation ceremony, they articulated their relationship with the monarchy in a symbolic manner, where an explicit
discussion of rights and obligations might have produced conflict. The
civic authorities were particularly inclined to involve the cross in the
coronation ceremony because of its location. Cheapside was the only
street in London that could comfortably accommodate
royal processions and the huge crowds that turned out to watch them. Its chief

22 CLRO
Reps.iv, fols. 163r, 169v; Reps.v, fol. 291r. For analysis of civic pageants
as a form of ritualized gift-exchange,see Mary Hill Cole, "Ceremonial Dialogue Between
Elizabeth and her Civic Hosts," in Ceremony
and Text in the Renaissance,
ed. Douglas F.
Rutledge (Newark, 1996), 84-100. See also Lawrence Manley, Literatureand Culturein
Early ModernLondon(Cambridge, 1995);David Harris Sacks, "Celebrating Authority in
ed. Susan Zimmerman and Ronald
Bristol, 1475-1640," in UrbanLifein the Renaissance,
F. E. Weissman (Newark, 1989), 187-223.
23 CLRO
Reps.xl, fols. 84-85.

390
ornament could easily be passed by on the way to St. Paul's, where the
coronation took place. If Cheapside Cross had not been so conveniently
located, it is very doubtful that the city would have bestowed such care
on it. For proof of this point, one need only look at the fate of Charing
Cross, which was located in Westminster. Charing Cross had been the
most lavish of the monuments of Queen Eleanor, but was neglected
throughout the sixteenth century and was even scavenged for its marble. By the late sixteenth century, it was in a ruinous state.24
Nonetheless, one might expect the city authorities to have bestowed
their care on a less overtly traditional image than Cheapside Cross. It
in the western part of
was not the only large medieval monument
Standard and Great Conduit stood just to the East and
Cheapside-the
the Little Conduit just to the West. None seems to have displayed such
a wealth of traditional religious imagery as Cheapside Cross. It would
hardly have been surprising if the cross had been left to rot after the
break from Rome, its central place in the coronation procession usurped
by one of the Conduits or the Standard. And yet this does not appear
to have happened. Although all these images were prepared for the
coronation ceremony (the Standard was often garlanded with branches,
and the Conduits ran wine) the evidence of contemporary
texts and
civic records suggests that, if anything, Cheapside Cross became more
in the ceremony after the Reformation.
The location of
prominent
cannot
its
Cross,
then,
entirely explain
symbolic importance
Cheapside
in the coronation procession.
Ironically, it may have been the iconography of Cheapside Cross, as
much as its location, that secured a place for the monument in the
coronation rituals of Tudor and Stuart monarchs. As Marc Bloch observed
in his study of scrofula (the King's Evil), English monarchs continued
to draw on pre-Reformation
traditions of sacred kingship through the
symbol of
early modern era. 15 Cheapside Cross was an appropriate
this tradition. One of the statues on the monument represented Edward
the Confessor, the king-saint to whose laws the new monarch swore

Stow, Surveyof London,vol. 2, 100-1. See also Pameach, A dialoguebetweenthe cros.s

in Cheape,and Charing-Cross;
anon., Thelastwill and testament
of CharingCross(London, 1646).
The ruin of Charing Cross was finallydemolishedfour years later than Cheapside Cross.
Scc Elias Ashmolc, The livesof thoseeminentantiquariansEliasAshmoleand Mr. WilliamLilly,
zvrittenby themselves
(London, 1774), 254-55.
25Marc Bloch, The
RoyalTouch:SacredMonarchyand Scrofulain Englandand France,trans.
J. E. Anderson (London, 1973). See also Jennifer Woodward, The Tfaeatre
qf Death:the
RitualManagement
of RoyalFuneralvin Renaissance
England(Woodbridge, 1997).

391
obedience in the coronation oath. Thus Cheapside Cross alluded to the
historical tradition in which the Tudor and Stuart monarchy located
itself. 26But even the images that would have appeared most out of place
in a reformed kingdom, like those of the Virgin Mary and the Holy
Ghost, may have encouraged the authorities to keep the cross as a centerpiece of the coronation procession. Early modern coronation ceremonies simultaneously evoked Classical, Biblical and Medieval models
of rulership.
By means of speeches and images, they constructed
the new monarch and a variety of historical and
between
parallels
mythical figures and, in doing so, played down religious and political
disjuncture. The regular beautification of an overtly medieval image like
Cheapside Cross likewise symbolically smoothed over the break from
Rome and the political and religious chaos that followed. In short, the
antiquated iconography of the cross gave it contemporary relevance."
This is not to argue that everybody would have interpreted the gilding of the monument in precisely the same manner. If during the coronation procession Cheapside Cross evoked for some people the continuity
of certain political and religious traditions, as I have argued, it is by
no means certain that they would have agreed precisely on what those
traditions were. The significant thing is that a number of influential
figures seem to have believed that the coronation procession would not
have been complete without the beautification of Cheapside Cross. There
was some consensus as to the proper use of the monument, if not its
have drawn a distinction between
meaning. Symbolic anthropologists
social consensus and cultural consensus which is relevant here. Social
consensus, they argue, entails a collective readiness to engage in a particular ritual activity. Cultural consensus entails agreement as to the
meaning of that activity and the symbols involved in it. Anthropologists
have pointed out that cultural consensus is difficult to obtain, and tends
to be gained at the expense of social consensus. Rituals, they maintain,
involve more people, and move them more profoundly, when little
attempt is made to standardize their meanings or those of the symbols

26Janelle
Greenberg, "The Confessor's Laws and the Radical Face of the Ancient
Constitution," EnglishHistoricalReview,104/412 (1989):611-37.
27On ritualsof state
generallysee Edward Muir, Ritualin EarlyModernEurope(Cambridge,
Festivals,1450-1650 (Woodbridge, 1973);
1997); Roy Strong, Art and Power.-Renaissance
Clifford Gcertz, Negara:the TheaterStatein Nineteenth-century
Bali (Princeton, 1980). David
M. Bergeron points out that the Lord Mayor's Shows confused historical time in a similar manner: "Civic Pageants and Historical Drama," Journal of Medievaland Renaissance
Studies5:1 (1975):89-105.

392
involved in them.28 Neither the rituals and practices associated with the
coronation procession, nor the pamphlets that described the event, made
an overt attempt to determine the meanings of Cheapside Cross. The
monument would have allowed for a number of interpretations.
Nonetheless, its involvement in the procession provided a ritual context for
thinking about its meanings. Insofar as Cheapside Cross came to be identified with the crown and the City during the coronation procession,
its most iconographically
obvious association-medieval
Catholicismwas obscured, or at least strongly mediated. This effect was so powerful that the monument was twice gilded for coronation processions that
also featured pageants calling for the suppression of superstition and
idolatry.29 The ceremony may have continued to affect perceptions of
Cheapside Cross long after it ended.
***
The occasional involvement of Cheapside Cross in the rites and ceremonies of coronation could not render it impervious to less respectful
treatments. In June 1581, the monument was attacked in the middle of
the night. Several of the images on the lowest tier were smashed, including those of Christ and Edward the Confessor. The illicit iconoclasts
also attempted to pull the statue of Mary down, but failed, so they
plucked the infant Christ out of her lap and broke her arms.3 Although
a reward was offered to anybody who provided information about the
iconoclasm, the perpetrators were never caught. Hence, it is impossible
to know why they attacked the images in the way that they did. But
to the thousands of people who passed by the cross each day, their gesture might have resonated in quite specific ways. The attack had been
a very conventional one-sixteenth-century
iconoclasts often tried to pull
statues down or knock off their arms and heads in a parody of judicial
The attack might also have called to mind a Biblical
punishment.3'
event: a statue of Dagon, the god of the Philistines, was mysteriously
pulled down from its pedestal and deprived of its head and arms when

James Fernandez, "Symbolic Consensus in a Fang Reformative Cult," American

67:4 (1965):902-29. See also Catherine M. Bell, Ritual Theory,RitualPractice
Anthropologist
(New York, 1992);David 1. Kertzer, Rituals,Politics,and Power(New Haven, 1988).
29
Sydney Anglo, Spectacle,
Pageantry,and Early TudorPolicy,2nd edn. (Oxford, 1997).
30
Stow, Surveyof London,vol. 1, 266; Stow, Annalesof England,1167.
3'
in Western
and EasternEurope(London,
SergiuszMichalski, TheProtestantImageQuestion
1993), 75-98.

393
the ark of the covenant was placed in its temple (I Samuel 5:1-5). To
some observers, the attack on Cheapside Cross would have associated
the monument with the idols of Biblical antiquity.
The timing of the attack may also have influenced people's perceptions of it. London was buzzing with iconoclastic and anti-Catholic
rhetoric in 1581. There had been a number of protests against Elizabeth's
proposed marriage to Fran?ois, Duke of Anjou, who was known to be
a devout Catholic. Shortly before the iconoclasm occurred, the puritan
John Stubbs had penned a sharp attack on Anjou and the proposed
match in which he argued that both would threaten London with
idolatry.3z Moreover, many Protestants perceived a threat from the Jesuit
seminary priests Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons, who had entered
the country in the previous year and had already published a number
of polemical texts.33 The people who attacked Cheapside Cross were
very likely to have been aware of these developments and may have
intended to send some kind of coded message about one or both of
them. They may also have calculated that potential witnesses were more
likely to look the other way, given the anti-Catholic feeling that prevailed at the time.
Ultimately, we can only guess at the iconoclasts' intentions. We can,
however, see how their actions might have been perceived by looking
at the responses of the authorities. Here, the pattern is one of contrast
and conflict. Queen Elizabeth reacted quickly to news of the attack by
convening a private meeting with city officials where she ordered them
to repair the images. Historians have shown that Elizabeth was reluctant to countenance iconoclasm, particularly when it threatened close
to home. She had scandalized prominent reformers in the 1560s and
1570s by keeping a silver crucifix in her private chapel, and may have
taken a proprietary interest in Cheapside Cross as a symbol of monarchy. Moreover, she could have interpreted the attack on the monument,
coming as it did during a delicate phase in the negotiations with Anjou,
as a challenge to her authority in matters of religion and foreign policy. In mid-April, concern about the intensity of opposition to the Anjou
32
ed. Lloyd E. Berry
John Stubbs'sGapingGulfwith Lettersand OtherRelevantDocuments,
(Charlottesville,1968);Susan Doran, Monarchyand Matrimony:the Courtships
of ElizabethI
(London, 1996), 154-94;John A. Bossy, "English Catholics and the French Marriage
2-16.
1 577-8 1 Recusant
,"
History5:1 1 (1959):
The Reckoned
Ex ense:EdmundCampionand the Early EnglishJesuits, ed. Thomas M.
McCoog, SJ. (Woodbridge,1996);AlexandraWalsham, ChurchPapists:Catholicism,
Coriformiry
and Confessional
Polemicin Early ModemEngland(Woodbridge, 1993).

394
had led her to issue a proclamation
threatening death to anyor
with
the
French
ambassadors.
She expressed
body quarreling
fighting
the hope that the ambassadors would come away with a good impression of her command over her subjects. The attack on Cheapside Cross
might have jeopardized the impression that she and London were one
in their enthusiasm for Anjou and their tolerance for Catholicism."
The Lord Mayor, however, chose to defy the Queen by stalling on
the repairs. In a letter to the Privy Council, he provided a number of
justifications for his inactivity. He attempted to play down the significance
of the attack by arguing that the damage to the cross was barely noticeMoreover, he
able, and not intended "for any publike defacement."
the
iconoclasts
had
been
motivated
rather
than reliexplained,
by greed
have
a
little
leade
pillfered away
gious principles: "light persones ...
from armes and crosses in the lower part which were easiest to breake
as they have used sometime to doe likewise of gutters and other leades
of churches and howses where they may come by it in the night when
the watches are gon ..."35 The argument that iconoclasm was motivated purely by greed was commonly used to play down its symbolic
significance." The Mayor went on, somewhat inconsistently, to argue
that repairs to the cross were likely to inflame religious passions. He
explained that several "strangers and other supersticious people which
mislike state and religion" had been spotted kneeling before the images
in an attitude of worship, and suggested that repairs to the monument
would encourage disorder because they would be interpreted as a gesture of support for the Catholic religion. Although the Mayor denied
that the attack on Cheapside Cross had been motivated by religious
principles, he acknowledged that it had exposed the problem of the
monument's iconography.
At about the same time that the mayor composed his letter, another
event took place that would have made him even less willing to order
repairs to the monument. On July 22, Edmund Campion, the Jesuit
match

34CLRO
that... (London,
mostexcellent
majestie,
foreseeing
Reps.xx, fols. 216r-v; the Queenes
294-342;
1581). On Elizabeth's attitude to iconoclasm see Aston, England'sIconoclasts,
Six Studies(Aldershot, 1996), 129-50.
Andrew Pettegree, Marian Protestantism:
35CLRO LondonRemembrancia
i, fols. 103v-104r.The letter is undated, but it appears
between entries for 20 _Julyand 25 July, 1581. Both David Cressy and Margaret Aston
have erroneously dated it to the mid-1590s.
See for example T. J. [Thomas Jordan], A medicine
for the times,or, an antidoteagainst
faction(London, 1641) sig. A3(r). For a discussion of the links between iconoclasm and
discoursesof poverty and charity see Lee Palmer Wandel, Alr?aysAmongUs: Imagesof the
Poor in Zwingli'sZurich(Cambridge, 1990).

395
priest, was conveyed through Cheapside on his way to the Tower to
stand trial for treason. In his account of Campion's martyrdom, William
Allen recorded:
When he came by the crosse in Chepe, in the best manner he could (being pinyoned), he Christianly made the signe of our Saviour upon his brest and with like
humility deeply bent his bodie for reverence towardes Christ's image there, which
was a strange sight to the deceived people of that
What was Campion trying to signify through this display of reverence?
Was it the desperate act of a doomed man determined to display his
Catholic piety, as Allen seems to have suggested? Or did Campion seize
on the complex monarchical-papal
iconography of the cross, using it to
show that he was loyal both to the queen and to the pope? Throughout
his trial, Campion insisted that his religious beliefs did not compromise
his loyalty to Elizabeth. Nonetheless, he was represented in contemporary literature as an enemy to the crown as well as the Protestant
church." His gesture would have helped to convince Protestant Londoners
that Cheapside Cross was a dangerous image. Civic ceremonies had
shaped the meanings of Cheapside Cross by making it into a symbol
of the harmonious relationship between the city and the monarchy, thus
mediating its association with traditional religion. Edmund Campion
and the anonymous iconoclasts offered a symbolic challenge to this representation of the monument. While the iconoclasts' attack might have
suggested that it was an idol, Campion's reverential gesture would have
identified Cheapside Cross more specifically as a symbol of Catholicismnot the Catholicism of pre-Reformation
England, but that of the Jesuits
and the Papal League. Both parties had changed the context in which
the image would be perceived. Perhaps sensibly, Elizabeth let the matter rest.
When the images on the lowest tier of the monument were eventually repaired, some fifteen years after the 1581 attack, a slight alteration was made. The image of Christ was joined by a statue of Diana
with Thames water squirting from her naked breast. 39 As David Cressy
has suggested, this may have been intended as a tribute to the Virgin
Priests
William Allen, A Briife Historyqf the GloriousMartyrdomof the TwelveReverend
(ca. 1582, reprint, with a foreword by J. H. Pollen, SJ., London, 1908), 12.
38See Peter Holmes, Resistanceand
lite PoliticalThoughtof the Elizabethan
Compromise:
Catholics(Cambridge, 1982);McCoog, The Reckoned
Expense.Cf. Peter Lake and Michael
Questicr, "Agency,Appropriation and Rhetoric Under the Gallows:Puritans, Romanists
and the State in Early Modern England," Past and Present153 (1996):64-107.
39
Stow, Survryqf London,vol. 1, 266-67.

396
Queen. Soon after the repairs, however, the top-cross began to crumble
away. In 1600, Elizabeth twice used the Privy Council to order repairs
to it. She insisted that Cheapside Cross was "an ancyent ensigne of
a "goodly" and "civill" monument
that ought to be
Christianitie,"
restored to its full glory with as little alteration as possible. Elizabeth's
characterization of Cheapside Cross as a traditional symbol of Christianity
and a civil monument may have been rooted in personal experience:
during her coronation procession, I have argued, the cross had been
represented to her in this manner. It was also in tune with her larger
religious policies
The queen faced concerted opposition from several clergymen, however, including the Vicechancellor of Oxford, George Abbot, who claimed
that the cross in its present form was furtively worshipped by Catholics.
For Abbot, Campion's reverential gesture (which he described as "famous"
even though it had occurred almost twenty years before) had exposed
the monument's true meaning. He particularly objected to the top-cross
and the statues of God and the Holy Ghost, arguing that these statues
should be removed and the top-cross replaced with a pyramid. If these
changes were made, he maintained, Cheapside Cross would eventually
float free of its associations with Catholicism. Abbot made it clear that
the complete destruction of the monument would have been the best
solution to the problem of its iconography. His willingness to compromise, however, suggests that he recognized the importance of the cross
as a royal and civic symbol. 41
Queen Elizabeth got her way in 1601, but her triumph was shortlived. Twelve days after a new top-cross was put up, iconoclasts struck
again, removing Mary's crown and child and stabbing her in the chest.42
Again, the damage was not repaired for several years. This attack might
have conveyed anger at the repair of the top-cross and emphasized the
of iconoclasts. It seemed to support Abbot's claim that
determination
the cross would continue to attract violence until its most offensive
images were removed. Cheapside Cross was now in real danger. Another
of the monuments to Queen Eleanor had recently been destroyed in
broad daylight by men who claimed that it was encouraging popery.43
CLRO Reps.xxv, fol. 2v; Actsof thePrivyCouncilof England,New Series,vol. 30, 27;
vol. 31, 44.
4'
(London, 1642); PRO, State
George Abbot, Cheap-sideCrossecensuredand condemned
PapersDomestic,SP12/278, fol. 38r. For a more detailed discussionof Abbot's letter, see
and Transgressions,
237-39.
Cressy, Travesties
42 Stow,
Survryof London,vol. 1, 267.
43 P. D. A.
31 (1996): 83-106.
Harvey, "Where was Banbury Cross?" Oxoniensia

397
It had been more than forty years since London's most famous image
had played its customary role in the royal coronation ceremony, and
in the meantime, iconoclasts had focused attention on the traditionalism of its iconography.
And yet, in 1604 Cheapside Cross was again repaired and gilded,
this time for the entry of James I to the city. The logic of royal ceremony
dictated that it be restored to its former glory. During the coronation
procession, civic officials stood on a platform that was joined to the
monument as the recorder read a speech welcoming the king. Once
again, Cheapside Cross became a symbol of the city's harmonious relationship with the crown. Under the early Stuarts, Cheapside Cross came
to be particularly strongly associated with the civic oligarchy. In 1612,
for the first time, it was beautified for the lord mayor's inaugural procession. This was a significant demonstration
of the power of the mayoralty, and it marked an important stage in the development of the lord
mayor's show, which had come to rival the royal coronation procession
as the primary ceremonial event in London." A ballad written around
1630 celebrated Cheapside Cross as a purely civic image. One verse
it may be
ran: "The Crosse there placed,/Is now much graced,/that
well the Citie,/With care and pitie,/respects
her owne:/
knowne,/How
love they owe it,/and now they
Brave Citizens of worthy London,/such
show it,/freely bestow it/Upon their City faire,/with Cheapside Crosse/
There's none can make compare."45 In the early 1620s the cross was
for the coronation
repeatedly inspected and repaired in preparation
of
Charles
which
was
Off.46
The continued
I,
repeatedly
put
procession
involvement of Cheapside Cross in royal and civic ceremonies probably helped to mediate its Catholic connotations and thus made it less
contentious.
By the 1620s, however, there were signs that the iconography of
Cheapside Cross was becoming more troublesome as the Protestant convictions of the early Stuarts came to be doubted. Lancelot Andrewes,
dean of the Chapel Royal, suggested in a poem of 1623 that the gilding of the cross for the marriage of Charles and his Spanish bride would
symbolize the triumph of Rome.47 Three years later, a fence was erected
44 CLRO
Reps.xxx, fol. 244v. On the decline of the royal entry in the early Stuart
era see Smuts, "Public Ceremony and Royal Charisma." See also Withington, English
Pageantryvol. 2.
41Anon.,
crosseslamentation
(London, ca. 1630).
Cheapsides
triumph,and Chyrone.s
46 CLRO
Reps.xxxv, fol. 243r; Reps.xxxix, fol. 219v.
"A Church must be at St. James built/Besides the Cross at Cheap must be new
guilt/Besides, a toleration must be wrought,/The Sea of Rome around this Island

398
around the monument. To Puritans, this gesture would have expressed
a reverence for the cross as well as a desire to protect it. The cross
had not been fenced in since Mary's reign. Upon Elizabeth's accession,
the aldermen had ordered the removal of the rails, deliberately leaving
the monument exposed to the profane commercial business that was
conducted on the street. The act of enclosing the cross with a railing
in 1626 implied that it was a sacred object.48 Perhaps not coincidentally, Sir Robert Harley, the puritan MP and iconoclast who later authorized the destruction of Cheapside Cross, began to call for it to be
reformed in the same year. 49
1642 when,
Cheapside Cross remained unmolested until 24 January
two months after Charles I had made a rather extemporaneous
progress
In
the
Christ's
the
it
was
attacked
assault,
again.
scepter
through
capital,
and leg were pulled off, the pope's miter was removed, the cardinal's
right hand was broken off, Edward the Confessor was decapitated and
Mary, once again, lost her crown. This attack was not entirely unexpected. The pamphlet-writer John Taylor had recently warned that radical puritans were planning an assault on the images. Another observer
noted that the apprentices of London had begun to argue over the
future of the cross.' Again, the timing of the attack was significant. In
the previous two months, rumors of Catholic plots had swept through
London. Common Council, which had become a predominantly
puritan body, had secured the loyalty of the London trained bands, effectively
preventing the king from seizing control over the city. Following the
failure to arrest the presumed leaders of the parliamentary
opposition,
and alarmed at the behavior of the London crowd, Charles had left
the city two weeks before the attack on Cheapside Cross. The iconoclasm
may have been interpreted as a symbolic statement about the allegiance
of London to the reformed cause: later in the year, several pamphletwriters interpreted it in this manner. Coming so soon after Charles I's

brought..." R. Malcolm Smuts, CourtCultureand the Originsof a RoyalistTraditionin Stuart

England(Philadelphia, 1987), 32.
48 CLRO
Reps.xiii, fol. 189v; Reps.xiv, fol. 102r; Reps.xl, fols. 337r, 342v; Reps.xli,
fol. 336v.
49 Conrad Russell, Parliaments
and EnglishPolitics,1621-1629 (Oxford, 1979), 277. On
the Harleysof BramptonBryanand the
Harley see Jacqueline Eales, Puritansand Roundheads:
Outbreakof the EnglishCivil War (Cambridge, 1990).
50
and
or a discoaery
assemblies,
synagogue,
of theirconventicles,
John Taylor, The Brozemists
placesof meeting(London, 1641), 3; BL Sloane, MS 3317, fol. 30r.

399
I
procession, it may also have signified resistance to royal authority. 5
On February 2, a small group fastened a rope around the top-cross
and tried to pull it down in broad daylight. A crowd of about a hundred apprentices and servants viciously attacked the would-be iconoclasts and tried to make one of them kneel to the cross-a
gesture of
reverence that puritans were known to deplore. 52 It is difficult to know
the exact motives of these vigilantes. They were later styled "the Defenders
of the Cross" but it is not clear that they bestowed this title upon themselves. Although presumably united by a hatred of puritan iconoclasm,
they appear to have understood their actions in terms of civic obligation as well as religious principle. They were entertained at the Lord
Mayor's house, where they drank a toast to him, allegedly boasting
"that there were a thousand who would stand for the Lord Mayor and
the Cross."" The actions of the Defenders of the Cross reveal that the
association between the cross and the civic oligarchy, which had always
been signified in royal processions but had more recently been emphasized by the involvement of the monument in civic ceremony, could be
powerfully evoked by opponents of reform.
Following the Candlemas Day brawl, the authorities put Cheapside
Cross under guard. Like the Croix de Gastines in Paris, which became
a rallying-point for militant anti-Protestants
in 1571, Cheapside Cross
had become so strongly associated with religious and civic conservatism
that it was likely to attract further violence. Cheapside Cross was not
the only image to provoke confrontation
at this time. Several other
London churches experienced rioting and illegal iconoclasm from early
1641 onwards. The very visible iconoclastic attacks on Cheapside Cross,
however, placed the monument at the center of the debate over iconography and iconoclasm. The London presses, which were practically
uncensored in this period, produced a small flood of mostly anonymous
pamphlets on the subject of the January attack. Some of them were
illustrated by a woodcut showing the iconoclasts in action [fig. 1]. As
David Cressy's study of these texts has shown, many of them explicitly
linked the future of the monument to the direction of reform in England.
Puritans maintained that the very presence of Cheapside Cross in the
capital was slowing the progress of reform and encouraging Catholics
Keith Lindley,PopularPoliticsandReligionin CivilWarLondon(Aldershot,1997);London
and the Civil War, ed. Stephen Porter (Basingstoke,1996).
52See Ann
Kibbey, the Interpretation
of MaterialShapesin Puritanism:a .Studyof Rhetoric,
P'r?udice,and Violence
(Cambridge, 1986).
53
Journalsof the Houseof Lord, v 230, 239, 247, 256.

400
to seditious
offended at
and would
until every

enterprises. Their opponents argued that people who were

the sight of Cheapside Cross suffered from an excess of zeal
probably not stop their campaign against religious imagery
church in London was razed to the ground. For our purposes, nothing need be added to Cressy's analysis of this debate, save
the fact that some of the writers who argued for the preservation of
Cheapside Cross pointed to its traditional use in royal coronation ceremonies. To them, this proved that the monument was not merely a
symbol of traditional reli?ion.54
By the time most of the pamphlets about Cheapside Cross were
published, the city was deeply embroiled in the political and religious
struggle that would lead to the Civil War. Londoners' attitudes to the
institutions that the monument had traditionally evoked were changing
rapidly, affecting the way it was perceived. Cheapside Cross had historically symbolized and helped to effect a harmonious
relationship
between religious tradition, civic authority, and royal power. By mid1642, all three were in question. Charles had been discredited following the attempt to capture the five members, and Richard Gurney, the
Lord Mayor who had endorsed the Defenders of the Cross, had been
impeached. If Cheapside Cross had been protected from the winds of
reform by its association with monarchy and civic authority, this would
not help it to survive the crisis of the early 1640s. The monument could
only have been harmed by its links to the crown and the mayoralty. It
was finally destroyed by order of Parliament in May 1643. As the topcross came down, many Londoners cheered and threw their hats in
the air.

***
In his recent study of the destruction of Communist
monuments in
Eastern Europe, Dario Gamboni has pointed to the range of processes
that can shape the meaning of an object. He argues: "What happened
54Samuel
Crosse(London, 1642);
Lovedeay, An answerto the lamentation
of Cheap-Side
anon., the downejllof Dagon(London, 1643). See also anon., The resolution
of thosecontemnersthat will haveno crosses(London, 1642);anon., The crossescasein Cheapside
(London,
crosse(London, 1642);anon.,
1642);anon., Articlesof hightreasonexhibited
againstCheap-side
The dolefulllamentation
crosse(London, 164 1);John Taylor, A full and compleat
of Cheap-side
answeragainstthe writerof a late volumeset forth,entituledA Tale in a Tub (London, 1642);
in London(London, 1642).
anon., The remarkable
funeral of Cheapside-Crosse
55
Councilxxxx, fol. 58v; Calendarof StatePapersVenetian,
vol.
CLRO,.7ournalsof Common
26, 272; A perfectdiurnallof thepassagesin Parliament47 [1 May-8 May, 1643] (London,
1643).

401
to the monuments of the Communist era after 1989 depended not only
on the decline and fall of Communism but on the monuments themselves, their forms and (changing) significations, the intentions associated
with their erection and conservation
as well as the functions they
fulfilled."56 The history of Cheapside Cross shows that attitudes to images
could be more complex than one might deduce from analysis of their
form and the context of contemporary
religious policy. As long as the
monument supported a cross and contained statues of Mary, Christ,
and the pope, it could potentially be viewed as a symbol, or even an
agent, of the Catholic Church against which English Protestants firmly
set themselves. Yet the traditionalism of its iconography could be mediated and obscured by gestures and rituals that conveyed different associations. The treatment of the monument, understood in the broadest
sense, was much more important in shaping people's perceptions than
its physical form. Every time the cross was repaired, decked out for a
civic procession, openly reverenced, or attacked, and every time such
treatments were written about or otherwise communicated,
its associations and meanings shifted subtly.
Even the smaller, less well-known parish images that constituted the
great majority of objects destroyed in the English Reformation potentially invoked meanings and associations of similar density. Many church
images, for example, were identified with specific individuals, rituals,
places, and powers. The very injunctions that led to the widespread
destruction of images during the Reformation drew attention to some
of these contexts by insisting that only images "abused" by offerings,
pilgrimages and other superstitious practices should be destroyed. Although
there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that some reformers used
these injunctions as a pretext for more indiscriminate iconoclasm, it is
nonetheless clear that an image's associations could affect both its fate
and the way in which its destruction was interpreted. Detailed research
on individual images might well reveal some important patterns that
would convey a better sense of how reform was experienced by the
laity.5'
56Dario Gamboni, TheDestruction
and Vandalism
sincetheFrenchRevolution
of Art:Iconoclasm
(New Haven, 1997), 55.
Some intriguing episodesfrom Civil War London: in St. Lawrence Jewry,the iconoclastic designs of the vestry were frustrated by the Mercers' Company, which had
donated the chancel window (GuildhallMS 2590/1, fols. 331, 338). In AllhallowsBarking,
the vestry proved reluctant to remove or destroy images donated by living parishioners
(AllhallowsBarking by the Tower, vestryminutes1629-1669, RR/D 1 / l, insert between
fols. 25-26, fol. 35). See also William Hunt, The PuritanMoment:the Comingof Revolution
in an EnglishCounty(Cambridge, MA, 1983).

402
Once it is acknowledged that religious images evoked a complex variety of associations, not all of them necessarily "religious" in a direct
sense, iconoclasm itself comes to resemble much less the generalized
attack on traditional religion that historians have usually perceived.
Instead, it may be interpreted as just one ritual among many that shaped
the meaning of images. Whether they intended to or not, the people
who attacked Cheapside Cross conveyed powerful symbolic arguments
about the meaning of the monument that challenged the associations
constructed during royal and civic ceremonies. Their violent intervenwould have been impossitions did not destroy the monument-that
between
it and other discredited
ble-but
they did highlight the similarities
idols. Iconoclasm in this case was a means rather than an end.
Another iconoclastic episode that occurred in the church of St. Thomas
Apostle, London, in June 1641 shows how closely the process of association could be intertwined with the act of destruction. Like many
churches in London, St. Thomas Apostle had been affected by the
reforms of Archbishop Laud in the 1630s. Although the communion
table had not been moved to the East end of the Chancel or placed
"altar-wise," as Laud had instructed, it had been enclosed by a railing.
Such barriers, which seemed to suggest that the communion table and
the minister stood in sacred space, were bitterly resented by puritans.
They were usually among the first objects to be destroyed in the reform
of the early 1640s.
In St. Thomas Apostle, iconoclasm was precipitated by the publicaProtestation. The Protestation required the
tion of the Parliamentary
to
defend
"the true Reformed Protestant Religion
of
England
people
the
Church of England, against all popery
in
the
doctrine
of
expressed
and Popish Innovations within the Realme." The aldermen of London,
who feared that the Protestation would encourage disorder, tried to prevent it from being read in the churches, but the text was widely dispersed in spite of their misgivings.58 It was read in St. Thomas Apostle
on 11June. As the congregation was leaving the church Thomas Blakewell, a parishioner, declared:
Gentlemen, we have here made a protcstation before Almighty god against popery and popish Innovacons, and theis railes (layinghis hand on the raile about the
Comunion table) are popish Inovacons and therefore it is fitt that they be pulled
downe.
58 TheProtestation
madeby the Parliament,the thirdday of May, annoDomini1641 (London,
and
City,Government
1641);Valerie Pearl, Londonand the Outbreakof the PuritanRevolution:
NationalPolitics,1625-43 (O?ord, 1 96 1 Lindley,
);
PopularPolitics.

403
According to a petition put in to the House of Lords by some of the
parish authorities, Blakewell went on to make "other irreverent speeches"
and joined a group of youths in tearing down the communion rails.
Then, according to the petition, "haveing broken them in peeces they
carryed them to the church doore, saying that they were formerlie a
Sinn offeringe, but now they would make them a burnt offeringe, and
that dagon being now downe they would burne him." The iconoclasts
lit a fire, and announced that if the parson ever appeared in a surplice,
they would burn him and his surplice in the
Because Blakewell and his allies acted openly, it is possible to see in
their actions what we can only infer from the reactions of others in the
case of Cheapside Cross. The iconoclasts of St. Thomas Apostle constructed a cluster of meanings and associations for the object that they
destroyed. In quick succession, Blakewell associated the communion rails
with the "popish innovations" of the Protestation, Jewish ritual offerings,
and the image of a Philistine deity. By setting fire to them, the iconoclasts performed a cleansing rite that had been performed on idols since
antiquity. In their own petition, Blakewell and his supporters again
echoed the Protestation by referring to the rails as "innovations" and
a "grave and pious matron" who had recently
made a further claim-that
been induced to kneel before the rails had sickened and died soon after.
Her death, they implied, had been a punishment for idolatry.60
Blakewell may have chosen his words and actions as a means of rallying support for the destruction of the rails. If this was his intention,
he was quite successful. Forty people signed a petitioned for the release
of the iconoclasts from the Fleet prison. The unusually detailed documentation in this case shows that Blakewell justified his actions by crethe wooden railing as an ungodly
ating a context for understanding
idol. Our rather more limited evidence on Cheapside Cross suggests
that repeated iconoclastic attacks on the monument had a similar effect.
In their iconographically
astute vandalism, the people who attacked
Cross
Cheapside
challenged the associations that the monument had
acquired through involvement in ceremonies, and insisted that it was a
Catholic idol.

Houseof LordsMain Papers,petition of the parson, churchwardens, and other parishioners of St. Thomas Apostle, 30 June 1641. I am grateful to Keith Lindley for referring me to the documents in this case.
so House
qf LordsMain Papers,petition of the churchwardens and other parishioners of
St. Thomas Apostle, 30 June 1641.

404
* **
There is an epilogue to the story of Cheapside Cross. Although the
monument was completely demolished in May 1643, it was not forgotten, and its complex meanings continued to be contested. In the
early 1640s the puritan authorities burned "popish" books and images
on the very site where the monument had stood, perhaps as a means
of proving that it was a papal image.6' Then, twenty years after its
destruction, the cross was temporarily reconstructed for the coronation
of Charles II. A contemporary
letter states that a model of the cross
was incorporated into a larger pageant. The letter also suggests that the
pageant sought to confront the associations that the iconoclasm and
book-bumings had attached to the monument during the 1640s, while
in the coronation
evoking the traditional function of the monument
ceremony:
the third [pageant], which is the most sumptuous, stands in Cheapside, relating
the honours due to the Hierarchy, and showeth the restoration of Episcopacy. In
this magnificent building, His Majesty is to be treated to a stately banquet, and
to show the power which Episcopacy hath over presbytery, just at His Majesty's
departure will arise the form of the old Crosse, which anciently stood at the same
place, at whose appearance Presbytery vanisheth.6?
Even the ceremonial demolition of Cheapside Cross in 1643 had clearly
failed to resolve the problem of its meaning. Twenty years after its
destruction, the monument was still a powerful signifier of monarchy
and religious tradition. From a modern-day perspective, the destruction
of Cheapside Cross appears to have obliterated it completely, but to
century, it may have continued to
people living in the mid-seventeenth
exist in the memory, its meanings continually contested.

61 Bulstrode Whitelocke,

vol. 1 (Oxford, 1853), 136,

7?M?:oy:a/yo/'?E?M/!?!!?,
202, 326, 482; John Vicars, A looking-glasse
for malignants,or, Godshand againstGod-haters
(London, 1643).
on HistoricalManuscripts,vol. 1 (London, 1876),
Ffth Reportof the Royal Commission
175. See also Withington, EnglishPageantry,vol. 1, 242.