ST. ALBAN 80 ST. DUNSTAN’S 82 ST. MAGNUS 85 ST. MARGARET’S PATTENS 86 ST. BRIDE’S 87 ST. MILDRED, BREAD STREET 91 ST. BRIDE’S 92 ST. MARY-LE-BOW 146 [Illustration: S^T PETER’S] [Illustration: S^T PETER’S] SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN SCIENTIST, SCHOLAR, AND ARCHITECT CHAPTER I PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD On the 20th October, 1632, Christopher Wren was born in the Rectory at East Knoyle in Wiltshire. His father, also Dr. Christopher Wren, is said to have descended from an ancient English family of Danish origin which settled in the county of Durham; but I can find no authority for the Danish story except _Parentalia_. In J. W. Rylands’ _Records of Wroxall Abbey_ there is a pedigree which shows Sir Christopher’s grandfather, Francis Wren, Citizen and Mercer of London, who lived from 1552 to 1624. His father was Cuthbert and his grandfather William Wren, of Sherborn House, Durham, who died in 1539. This William is described as brother to a Christopher Wren, of Wythebroke, Warwick, who died in 1542, but the authority is doubtful. If it is accurate, however, it may be an added reason for Sir Christopher’s purchase of the Warwickshire estate of Wroxall for his son, who settled down there as a country gentleman. Sir Christopher’s mother was Mary, daughter and heiress of Robert Cox, of Fonthill, Wiltshire. So on both sides Christopher was well born. He was an only son, with seven sisters, but one of them only is important in Wren’s story. She married, in 1640, Dr. William Holder, of Blechington, Oxford. We know nothing of Christopher’s mother except her name, but his father cut some figure in Charles I.’s reign. A loyalist of loyalists, he succeeded his more distinguished brother, Bishop Matthew Wren, in 1635, as Dean of Windsor and Registrar of the Order of the Garter. When St. George’s Chapel was plundered by the Cromwellian troops, the spoils included the three Registers of the Garter Knights, but by making a heavy payment the Dean got them back again, and cherished them until his death in 1658. They then passed into the safe keeping of Christopher, who soon after the Restoration handed them over to Dr. Bruno Ryves, then the Registrar of the Garter.