on the inscription, “Altar” and “Sacrifice,” are said to have excited the fury of the rabble, and it was broken down with axes, pole-axes, and hammers.  So this good old knight “outlived his own monument, and lived to see himself carried in effigie on a Souldiers back, to the publick market-place, there to be sported withall, a Crew of Souldiers going before in procession, some with surplices, some with organ pipes, to make up the solemnity.”  This monument, as it was left after this profanity, is still to be seen exactly as it remained when the soldiers had done their work.  The brasses in the floor, the bells in the steeple, were regarded as lawful plunder.  The same would not be said of the stained glass, of which there was a great quantity.  This was especially the case with the windows in the cloisters, which were “most famed of all, for their great art and pleasing variety.”  All the glass was broken to pieces.  Much that escaped the violence of these irresponsible zealots fell before the more regular proceedings of commissioners.  By their orders many of the buildings belonging to the cathedral were pulled down and the materials sold.  This was the case with the cloisters, the chapter-house, the Bishop’s hall and chapel.  The merchant that bought the lead from the palace roofs did not make a very prosperous bargain, for he lost it all (as Dean Patrick says, within his own knowledge) and the ship which carried it, on the voyage to Holland.

[Illustration:  Iron Railings, 1721.]

For some time nothing was done to repair the damage.  At length the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Oliver St. John, obtained a grant of the ruined Minster, which he gave to the town for use as a parish church, their own parish church having also gone to decay.  This gentleman was doubly allied to the Cromwell family, his first wife being great-grand-daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrooke, and his second wife daughter of Henry Cromwell, of Upwood.  He had been sent upon a distasteful embassy to Holland, where he experienced many indignities; and on his return, according to Mark Noble,[16] “he protested, that all the favour which he received in reward for this embassy, was, that he obtained the cathedral of Peterborough, which was propounded to be sold and demolished, to be granted to the citizens of that place.”  The interest that he took in Peterborough arose from the fact that he resided at Longthorpe Hall, about two miles off.

The burden of restoring the church to a decent condition being too great for the inhabitants, they agreed to pull down the Lady Chapel, and sell the materials.  This was done, except that some portion of the woodwork was utilised in repairs.  The painted boards from the roof were made into backs for the seats in the choir.  An engraving of the choir as it appeared in the eighteenth century shews these boards.  They are mostly adorned with the letter M surmounted by a crown, and the three lions of England, in alternate lozenges.  Until the Restoration the church was served by a school-master of the Charterhouse, Samuel Wilson, appointed by the London Committee.  When the cathedral body was restored, further repairs were gradually effected, and when Dean Patrick wrote, he says that the church was “recovering her ancient beauty and lustre again.”