In 1684 the house of late numbered 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s was in the occupation of one William Moses. That year Sir John Lawrence, who so far had not handed over his uncle’s legacy for the poor of the parish, agreed to discharge his obligation by payment of £250, and to give £100 in addition for leave to make a family vault in the church. In 1690 Sir John was living in Putney, as appears from the churchwardens’ accounts.[99] He died January, 1691-2, and was buried on the 29th of that month, in the family vault which had been constructed for him under the church of Great St. Helen’s, but no monument to his memory exists. The Rev. J. E. Cox, D.D., in his ‘Annals of St. Helen’s’ tells us that at the church restoration of 1865-8 ‘a quaint piece of carved work, which had been set up to sustain the Lord Mayor’s sword and mace, was removed to the pillar dividing the choir from the Chapel of the Holy Ghost.’ The following is a description of it taken almost verbatim from Allen: ‘It consists of two twisted Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature highly enriched, and an attic panel. The shafts of the columns are set off with a wreath of foliage running round them. On the frieze are the arms of Sir John Lawrence, in the attic are the City arms, and the whole structure is crowned with the arms of Charles II., supported by two gilt angels, and surmounted with the royal crown.’ I hope that this interesting memento of a great City worthy, though not ‘Gothic’ in style, will be carefully preserved during the far more wholesale restoration which is now in progress. Sir John Lawrence’s arms were: argent, a cross raguly gules, a canton ermine.[100] Peter le Neve says that they were granted to him September 18, 1664, and to his brothers James and Abraham, sons of Abraham Lawrence deceased; but it must have been earlier, as they appear on his house associated with the date 1662. Faulkner, in his ‘History of Chelsea,’ no doubt deceived by the fact that their arms were identical, assumes that Sir John Lawrence belonged to the ancient English family of the same name, whose memory is perpetuated by various monuments at the end of the north aisle of Chelsea old church. Both he and Dr. Cox[101] go so far as to say that Sir John was buried there; but his namesake, ‘Sir John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet,’ to whose memory a tablet was placed against the east wall of Chelsea Church, belonged to Iver, in the county of Bucks, and died in 1638, aged fifty years, as appears by the inscription. For several generations the descendants of the famous Lord Mayor continued to own the house which became Nos. 8 and 9, Great St. Helen’s. It afterwards passed into the hands of the Guise family, from whom it was inherited by an ancestor of the last possessor, Mr. John Cosens Stevens. Peace be to its memory!