FIG. 9. The cross according to the use of Roncesvalles, from a stamp now used in the “Real Casa.” This ensign “unites in one figure the Cross, the Crozier, and the Sword.” ] It is stated that over the doorway of each of these houses was sculptured a cross, according to the use of Roncesvalles. There also appears to have been a Latin inscription around or near the doorway of the chapel indicating the date of an addition or restoration in the time of Henry IV. The exact position occupied by the Hospital itself cannot be now identified unless, as is very probable, the chapel itself did duty both as a church and a hospital. The churchyard of the community was probably situated in the lands to the south-west of the conventual buildings. The situation of the chapel corresponds approximately to the middle section of Charing Cross Railway Station in alignment with York Gate and extending towards the land now occupied by Craven Street and Northumberland Avenue. THE BLACK DEATH (1348-49). The event which seems to have done more than any other single cause to depress the fortunes and to change the future relationships of the foreign community of St. Mary was the catastrophe of the Black Death. The plague visited London in the autumn of 1348. Its ravages were serious in the early days of November, and the condition of affairs had produced so much alarm that Parliament was prorogued on January 1, 1349. A further prorogation occurred on March 10, the reason given being that the “pestilence was continuing at Westminster, in the City of London, and at other places, more severely than before (_gravius solito_).” It had diminished, or almost disappeared, in London by the end of that year. The clergy appear to have suffered throughout the country even more severely than the rest of the populace—evidence that they did not fail in their duties during that terrible period. Geoffrey le Baker, a clerk of Osney, says, “Of the clergy and cleric class there died a multitude known to God only.”[12] Footnote 12: Creighton, “History of Epidemics in Britain,” 1891, Camb., i, chap. 3. What actually happened at Charing Cross can only be guessed, but there are very clear indications that the Convent of St. Mary Roncevall suffered severely. The deaths among the brethren were probably numerous, for no one sufficiently important seems to have survived to uphold the interests of the parent House. The depressed state of the Convent is the more striking as the calamity occurred after a period of great prosperity.