Whilst the controversy was at its fiercest, on the 3rd of June, 1561, a violent thunderstorm burst over London.  The Church of St. Martin’s, Ludgate, was struck by lightning, and great masses of stones came down upon the pavement.  Whilst people were looking dismayed at this, the steeple of St. Paul’s was discovered to be on fire.  The timber framework had got ablaze, the lead which covered it poured down like lava upon the roof, the very bells melted.  For four hours the whole cathedral was in danger, but happily, with the exception of the roof of the nave, the church was saved.  As soon as the flames were extinguished, Pilkington, whose works are published by the Parker Society, furiously declared that it was all owing to the retention of Popery, and the other side, with equal vigour, attributed the disaster to the desecration by the Puritans.[3]

The steeple was never rebuilt, but the nave roof was begun without loss of time.  Queen Elizabeth sent letters to the Lord Mayor, commanding him to take immediate steps, gave him 1000 marks from her own purse, and warrants for 1000 loads of timber from her woods.  L7000 were raised at once by the clergy and laymen of London, “very frankly, lovingly, and willingly,” says the Guildhall record.  Before a month had elapsed a temporary roof was made, and in five years the lead roof was complete.

The victory over the Armada, in 1588, sent all England wild with delight.  The Queen came in State to offer thanks at St. Paul’s, attended by all the nobility, and after the sermon dined with the Bishop in his palace.

But the signs of irreverence and neglect are continually before us.  We have already given extracts from sermons denouncing it.  It was now that the raising of money by Government lotteries began, for the purpose of repairing the harbours, and a great shed was set up at the west door of St. Paul’s for the drawing (1569).  In 1605, four of the Gunpowder conspirators were hanged in front of the west door, and in the following May, Garnet, the Jesuit priest, shared the same fate on the same spot.

Let us before closing this chapter take note of the monuments of four Deans not mentioned in our last survey.  They are Thomas Wynterbourne (Dean 1471-1478), William Worsley (1479-1499), a fine brass.  William May we have already spoken of, Dean under Edward VI., deprived by Mary, restored by Elizabeth, elected Archbishop of York, but died the same day, August 8th, 1560.  There were twelve Latin lines on his grave.  His successor, Alexander Nowell, who died in 1601 at the age of ninety, was a zealous promoter of the Reformation.  There was a fine monument to him, a bust in fur robe, and very long Latin inscriptions in prose and verse.

Before coming to the last chapter in the history of the great cathedral, a chapter of decay, of zealous attempts at restoration, of profanation, of one more attempt to restore, and of total destruction, it becomes necessary to take one more retrospect.