The site was given with all the buildings to Sir Thomas Audley, afterwards Lord Chancellor. Audley offered the great church, just as it stood, with its peal of bells, to the adjacent parish of St. Catherine, meaning that they should pull down the latter and build upon the site. Unhappily, the parishioners were afraid to accept the offer, “having doubts in their heads,” says Stow, “of afterclaps.” If they had accepted, another fine Monastic Church would have been preserved, together with those of St. Mary Overies and St. Bartholomew the Great. Whereupon Audley pulled down the Church himself with a great deal of expense and labour. On the death of Audley, his daughter and heiress, Margaret, became the second wife of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The Duke was executed for high treason in 1572; the mansion went to his son, by Margaret, who sold it in 1592 to the Mayor and Corporation of the City. Some remains of the buildings were standing until recently. The place itself seems to have been occupied by the Jews on their return under Oliver Cromwell. For nearly two hundred years it was almost entirely the Jews’ Quarter in London. Every year they held a kind of Fair on the Feast of Purim in Duke’s Place. The Feast, which falls in the month of Adar, _i.e._ partly in February and partly in March, commemorates the execution of Haman and the deliverance of the Hebrews. The Fair was held without any authority until early in the nineteenth century, when it was licensed for three days, generally extended to six, the square of Duke’s Place being let for shows. It was found to be a public nuisance, and was suppressed a few years later. For many years after the destruction of the Priory Church, the inhabitants of the Precinct had no parish church of their own. In 1622, however, St. James’s was built as a parish church for the Precinct. The church became notorious for the irregular marriages without banns or license which were solemnised here. In 1874 the curacy of St. James’s was united with that of St. Catherine Cree, and the former church was pulled down. The Precinct was privileged, and though within the City, persons not freemen of the City were permitted to trade within its limits. PRIORY OF HOLY TRINITY AND CHURCH OF ST. KATHERINE CREE