OLD LONDON MONUMENT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4797, 9 January 1925, Page 4

OLD LONDON MONUMENT.

ROM's IT WAS; PRESERVED. Which is the oldest statue in London apart from those of historic interest in Westminster Abbey? Certainly a good claim could be made out for that of Charles I. in Trafalgar Square. For 250 years this regal horseman has been gazing down Whitehall and inviting the attention of the faithful friends of the Stuart cause who annually lay their wreaths around thiis memorial of the “Martyi King.” Tiie statue itself was forty years old when it was placed in position. It was cast in 1664, in the old Bartholomew Close, by Herbert Le Soeur, a Frenchman, "who received £6OO. Lord Treasurer Weston commissioned it in order that it might adorn his Roehampton Gardens, but it never went there, because Weston’s Royal master was soon in the thick of hip losing battle with his Parliament. Jn ' their ruthlessness to destroy every trace of the Stuart regime, the Commonwealth 'Government sold the monument to a Holborn brazier, a man named Rivett, for a ‘‘reng.” They . gave him explicit instructions -that it must be broken up. Now, whether Rivett was an ardent loyaUst or a

cunning rogue may not be very clear, but wnat he did wap to hide it in the vaults of St. Paul’s Covent Garden. Meanwhile, as evidence that tiie Government’s orders had been obeyed, he purchased a stock of old metal and made a quantity of knives and forks, which he declared were mounted with bronze taken from the statue of the executed King. It was a neat stroke of business. The Royalists and the Parliamentarians were equally keen bidders for them, the one in order that they might be sacred mementoes, and the other in order to keep them as symbols of triumph. 'Hie imposture was not discovered until the Restoration, when the surrendei of the statue was demanded, first by Weston’s heir, and then by the House of Lords. The wily brazier, however, contended that he had paid for it, and that it was his property, and he resolutely refused to give *t up The Sheriff of London was put on his track, but it was not until several yeans later, after what must have been an obstinate struggle, that Rivett said he was “presenting” the statue to the reigning King. Le Soeur’s instructions, when he was casting the horse. Were to make it bigger than a great hors? by a foot, the rider to be in proportion. It was always regarded as a fine piece of ; work, and so also is the pedestal on which it stands, the carvings on this being by Grinling Gibbons. It was erected in 1674 on the spot which it . still occupies, and where only a few : years earlier the regicide had been . beheaded, a spectacle witnessed by Pepys. Here also, until .1674, had stood the old Charing, or Eleanor, Cross. ;