Note 388 — Chapter XIII
Reading edition
Laud was at work upon the restoration of St. Paul's in 1640, "the whole body was finished with Portland stone excellent against all smoke and weather, and the tower scaffolded up to the top with purpose to take it all down and to rebuild it more fair." After his apprehension "the scaffolds were taken away and sold, with some of the lead which covered this famous structure."—Chamberlayne's Anglica Notitia, part ii. 155.
In the State Paper Office there is a document by Montague, Bishop of Chichester, containing an exhortation to the clergy of his diocese, giving thirteen reasons for their contributing to the fund for repairing the Cathedral of St. Paul. He dwells upon the dignity of St. Paul's as, in a sort, the mother church of the kingdom, and stimulates the persons addressed to liberality by a consideration of what was done by their predecessors.—Calendar, 1633-4, 384.