power to discountenance sports which led to large congregations, the Cornhill shaft was hung on a range of hooks under the “pentises[52]” of a neighbouring row of houses, where it remained till 1549. In that year, one Sir Stephen, curate of St. Catherine Cree, in a sermon which he preached at Paul’s Cross, persuaded the people that this pole had been made into an idol by naming the church of St. Andrew with the addition of Under that Shaft; and so worked upon them, that in the afternoon of the same day, “after they had dined,” the inhabitants with great labour raised the pole off the hooks on which it had rested thirty-two years, and each man sawing off for himself a piece equal to the length of his house, it was quickly demolished and burned.--Godwin and Britton, _Churches of London_, 1839; Brayley, _Londiniana_, 1829, vol. iii. p. 223; Hall’s _Chronicle_, 1517. [48] This pole, when it was fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple; and it is to this that Chaucer the poet refers when he says, speaking of a vain boaster, that he bears his head “as he would bear the great shaft of Cornhill.”--Stow’s _Survey_, B. ii. p. 65; Godwin and Britton, _Churches of London_, 1839. [49] Pennant, _London_ (5th edition, p. 587), says this shaft gave rise to the insurrection. Godwin and Britton deny this was the case. [50] Hall, in his _Chronicle_, says these foreigners “compassed the citie rounde aboute, in Southwarke, in Westminster, Temple Barre, Holborne, Sayncte Martynes, Sayncte John’s Strete, Algate, Toure Hyll, and Sainct Katherines.” [51] Cholmondeley, constable of the Tower, discharged some guns into the streets, while the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, collecting the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, restrained the violence of the populace.--Lyttleton, _History of England_, vol. ii. p. 167. [52] Of the pent-house, or shelving roof projecting from the main wall, by which the shops at that period were ordinarily protected, many examples, Godwin and Britton say, existed in their time. Brayley in his _Londiniana_ (vol. iv. p. 318) says, nearly opposite to Craven Buildings is a low public-house, bearing the sign of the _Cock and Pye_ (a contraction for the Cock and Magpye), which two centuries ago was almost the only dwelling in the eastern part of Drury Lane, except the mansion of the Drewries. Hither the youths and maidens of the metropolis, who, in social revelry on May-day threaded the jocund dance around the maypole in the Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale and other refreshments.