compelled to reduce the recipients of Beaufort's charity to one priest
and two brethren. Fortunately, St. Cross was spared at the
Reformation, and its endowments were not confiscated. The Vicar-General
reported that there were "certain things requiring reformation", and
that sturdy beggars were to be "driven away with staves"; also that the
Lord's Prayer and the Creed were to be taught in English, and that
relics and images were not to be brought out for the devotion of
pilgrims. In 1632 Archbishop Laud caused a strict enquiry to be made,
with the result that the Master, Dr. Lewis, reported that the fabric was
in a state of great dilapidation. This Master lost his post through his
loyalty to Church and King, and John Lisle, the regicide, became Master
of the Hospital until Cromwell made him a peer, when his place was
filled by John Cooke, the Solicitor-General who drew up the indictment
against Charles I. Both these regicides met with misfortune, for Cooke
was executed and Lisle assassinated, so that at the Restoration Dr.
Lewis was restored to the mastership. Between the years 1848 and 1853,
chancery suits, costing a large sum of money, resulted in an entirely
new scheme being drawn up, under which the two charities were treated as
separate foundations under one head. The differences of qualification
between the two sets of Brethren are carefully laid down, and a portion
of the income is used for the maintenance of fifty out-pensioners, the
modern equivalent for the "Hundred Poor Men" of mediaeval days. The
distinctive dresses of the Brethren are the same with regard to colour
and cut as those worn in the time of Henry VI, those worn by the
recipients of Beaufort's charity being of red cloth, with the badge, a
cardinal's hat and tassels on a silver plate, worn on the left breast.
The Brethren of the older institution, founded by de Blois, wear black
gowns, with the silver cross _potent_ pinned on the left breast. On the
death of a Brother the cross is placed on a red velvet cushion and laid
on his breast in the coffin; but before burial the cross is removed and