St. Ethelburga is a small and very ancient church, squeezed almost out of sight by intervening parasitic shops; when or by whom founded not known, but most probably in the Saxon age. In an old print it is represented with a spire similar to that in Langham Place. It escaped the fire of 1666, was repaired and "beautified" in 1694, and again in 1701. St. Ethelburga was the daughter of Ethelbert, the first Christian king of Kent, and patron of St. Augustine; she married Eadwine, King of Northumbria, the convert of St Paulinus, after whose death, in battle at the hands of Penda, the Pagan king of Mercia, she fled with her children and Paulinus to her brother, who had succeeded to the kingdom of Kent, and who nominated Paulinus to the see of Rochester. Walter Brune, citizen, and Rosia, his wife, in 1235, founded a priory of canons and hospital for the sick and needy, dedicated to our blessed Mary, called St. Mary Spital Without, Bishopsgate. It was suppressed in 1539, at which time it made up 180 beds, and supplied the sick occupants with all necessaries at a cost of £478 per annum. Outside was the pulpit where the famous Spital sermons were preached at Easter before the Mayor and Corporation, and sometimes royal personages, by the most eminent City divines. After the dissolution they were preached at St. Paul's, then in St. Bride's Church, and now in Christ Church, Newgate Street. The pulpit stood on a site that now forms the north-east corner of Spital Square. There existed for 120 years in the precincts of Bishopsgate, near Camomile Street, a curious fraternity called The Papey, a religious house of St. John and St. Charity, sometimes called St. Augustine's Papey, consisting of threescore priests, governed by a master and two wardens. Its objects were to supply the necessities of the poorer clergy by providing them with lodgings, coals, bread, and ale. Near by stood the church of St. Augustine-in-the-Wall, the patronage of which was vested in the rich Priory of the Holy Trinity, who presented to the living four rectors from 1321 to 1375, but after that no one could be found to accept the incumbency in consequence of the stinginess of the Priory—the stipend not being sufficient to live upon—who therefore in 1430 gave the church to the Papey guild. The fraternity was not rich in funds, and in order to improve their exchequer they practised the singing of dirges and attended funerals as professional mourners and dirge singers. The house was suppressed 2 Edwd. VI.