Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

INTRODUCTION. ci
Temple church or at the place where the font stone now standeth."
And as late as the year 1703, in the reign of Oueen Anne, it appears
from a deed now in our possession' that the rent reserved by a lease
dated 20th April of that year is to be paid " at the ffont stone in the
Temple church in London." The circular portion of the church
does not appear to have been used for divine service, but the " round
walk," as it was called, to distinguish it from the long walk at the
sides of the oblong portion, was a place for lounge and conversation,
for conferences of the two houses, and for the burial of servants and
other persons not fellows of the inns. The arrangement which gave
the northern side of the church exclusively to the Middle Temple,
and the southern side exclusively to the Inner, may have extended
to a similar division of the round, but the two inns seem to have
used this portion of the church in common. There is a reference in
1644 to the burial of Arthur Baker : " On the Inner Temple syde in p. 360
the round walke . . . next the tombe or monument in the wall."
What this monument may have been I am unable to say. The p. 365
effigies of the knights were collected within an iron grating in
the centre of the round.
Thus the church stood on the appointment of Dr. Littleton.
But the ecclesiastical and political position of affairs soon changed,
and the church was again subjected to reformation. In April, 1643,
the ordinance against superstitious and idolatrous monuments
was passed by the long parliament. Westminster Abbey and
S. Margaret's church were the first to suffer. They were followed,
in due course, by the Temple, where the rails about the table and
the crosses about the church were pulled down, the table was
removed from standing altar-wise, and the eminence on which the
altar stood was levelled with the ground.2 However much the
beauty of the church may have been affected by the action of the
puritans, who removed all traces of art (if any) in the windows, and
condemned the painting, and the decoration as idolatrous or mischievous
ornamentation, they at least left the great beauty of the
church, viz., its long vista from the western door to the eastern
window, unimpaired. Though the high pulpit and the large reading
Presented to the society by W. Sturgeon, Esq., a member of our inn.
" Journals, House of Commons," iii., 19 Ca. I., p. o6 ; Gardiner, " The Great
Civil War," vol. i., p. 154.