[Illustration:  ST. CROSS FROM THE MEADOWS]

Shortly after the death of de Blois a dispute arose between the Hospitallers and the bishop, but after the lapse of many years the management was restored to the latter, then Peter de Rupibus, who appointed Alan de Soke as Master.  In 1446, Cardinal Beaufort, Wykeham’s successor in the see, added a new foundation to St. Cross, to be called “The Almshouse of Noble Poverty”.  De Blois’s charity had been intended to benefit the very needy; this of Beaufort’s was designed for those who had fallen upon evil days after a life of ease and comfort.  There were to be two priests, thirty-five brethren, and three sisters.  The brethren were to be of gentle birth, or old servants of the founder.  The scheme, however, was never completed, owing to the Wars of the Roses intervening, with the result that the estates with which he had intended to endow his almshouse were claimed by the Crown on the accession of the House of York.  So it came about that in 1486 Bishop Waynflete was compelled to reduce the recipients of Beaufort’s charity to one priest and two brethren.  Fortunately, St. Cross was spared at the Reformation, and its endowments were not confiscated.  The Vicar-General reported that there were “certain things requiring reformation”, and that sturdy beggars were to be “driven away with staves”; also that the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed were to be taught in English, and that relics and images were not to be brought out for the devotion of pilgrims.  In 1632 Archbishop Laud caused a strict enquiry to be made, with the result that the Master, Dr. Lewis, reported that the fabric was in a state of great dilapidation.  This Master lost his post through his loyalty to Church and King, and John Lisle, the regicide, became Master of the Hospital until Cromwell made him a peer, when his place was filled by John Cooke, the Solicitor-General who drew up the indictment against Charles I. Both these regicides met with misfortune, for Cooke was executed and Lisle assassinated, so that at the Restoration Dr. Lewis was restored to the mastership.  Between the years 1848 and 1853, chancery suits, costing a large sum of money, resulted in an entirely new scheme being drawn up, under which the two charities were treated as separate foundations under one head.  The differences of qualification between the two sets of Brethren are carefully laid down, and a portion of the income is used for the maintenance of fifty out-pensioners, the modern equivalent for the “Hundred Poor Men” of mediaeval days.  The distinctive dresses of the Brethren are the same with regard to colour and cut as those worn in the time of Henry VI, those worn by the recipients of Beaufort’s charity being of red cloth, with the badge, a cardinal’s hat and tassels on a silver plate, worn on the left breast.  The Brethren of the older institution, founded by de Blois, wear black gowns, with the silver cross potent pinned on the left breast.  On the death of a Brother the cross is placed on a red velvet cushion and laid on his breast in the coffin; but before burial the cross is removed and fastened by the Master on the breast of the Brother elected in place of the deceased.