St Clare’s Chapel

St Clare’s Chapel in the crypt of St Hallows by the Tower, London, was for eighteen years the burial place of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury. This peevish man was one of the causes of the civil wars within these kingdoms, with his attempts to re-catholicise the Churches of England and Scotland. A modern historian has described him as "the greatest calamity ever visited upon the English Church"; he was a persecutor of puritans and an avid reader of horoscopes. Although he was exhumed and reburied in his old college in 1663, this small, gloomy and austere chapel is a fiting place to remember such a dark character. Truly, it made me think of hades, not heaven.

Do not let me be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon You; let the wicked be ashamed; let them be silent in the grave [ie sheol/hades]. Psalm 31:17