St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral, or Saint Paul's Cathedral, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London, and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London.

History[edit | edit source]

Middle Age[edit | edit source]

In 604 CE, the first wooden church was built in the city of Lunden but burned 71 years later.^[1]

In 873 CE, during the Viking expansion into England, Eivor Varinsdottir of the Raven Clan and Lunden's reeves Stowe and Erke Bodilsson used Old St Paul's Cathedral as a meeting place during their hunt for the Order of the Ancients member Vicelin. The soldiers working with the Ancient burned the church but Eivor and the reeves escaped from the building while the fire expanded through the city. The church was later restored.^[2]

In 1087, the chaplain ordered the construction of a stone church, preventing further incendiary mishaps.^[1]

Early Modern Era[edit | edit source]

As King Henry VIII severed ties with the Catholic Church, St. Paul's became a Protestant cathedral. When his daughter Mary I restored the Catholic faith in England, St. Paul's went back to Catholic worship until the reign of Mary's half-sister Elizabeth I in 1559, restoring Protestantism both in England and St. Paul's.^[1]

The renovation of the church was delayed by events like the English Civil War. In 1666, the Great Fire of London burnt St. Paul's, among other buildings. The architect Christopher Wren, who was hired to redesign the cathedral before the fire, engineered the design and construction of a new, revitalized cathedral.^[1]

By the dawn of the 18th century, the new St. Paul's Cathedral was finished, attracting many visitors. Taking advantage of the new influx of tourists, the fleet of the Welsh pirate Edward Kenway sold wine to the taverns of London.^[3] Later in the 1720s, Kenway became a member of the British Assassins and found an Isu cache containing a Shroud of Eden. He hid its key in a secret chamber inside the cathedral's dome.^[4]

Victorian Era[edit | edit source]

By the 19th century, St. Paul's had once again lost its lustre. Queen Victoria remarked that the cathedral was "dreary, dingy, and undevotional." Funds were raised to improve the cathedral by such philanthropists as Maria Hackett and William Weldon Champneys while the British Templars' Grand Master Crawford Starrick refused.^[1]

In 1868, the British Assassin Evie Frye, while searching for the Shroud of Eden, uncovered the secret room inside the cathedral's dome thanks to information from Edward Kenway's journal. When she took the key, the Templar Lucy Thorne confronted her, as she was also hunting for the artifact. After a duel, Lucy crashed through a window but escaped with the key.^[4]