Wars, when the Scots had
besieged the town for several weeks, and were still as far as at first
from taking it, the General sent a messenger to the Mayor of the town,
and demanded the keys and the delivery up of the town, or he would
immediately demolish the steeple of St. Nicholas.

"The Mayor and Aldermen, upon hearing this, immediately ordered a
certain number of the chiefest Scottish prisoners to be carried up to
the top of the old tower, the place below the lantern, and there
confined. After this, they returned the General an answer to this
purpose, that they would upon no terms deliver up the town, but would to
the last moment defend it; that the steeple of St. Nicholas was indeed a
beautiful and magnificent piece of architecture, and one of the great
ornaments of the town, but yet should be blown to atoms before ransomed
at such a rate; that, however, if it was to fall it should not fall
alone; that at the same moment he destroyed the beautiful structure he
should bathe his hands in the blood of his countrymen, who were placed
there on purpose, either to preserve it from ruin or to die along with
it. This message had the desired effect. The men were kept prisoners
during the whole time of the siege, and not so much as one gun was fired
against it."

In 1646, when Charles I. was a prisoner in Newcastle for nearly a year
(from May, 1646, to February 3rd, 1647), this was the church he
attended; and we may picture him listening perforce to the
"admonishing" of the stern Covenanters. In this connection occurs the
oft-told story of his ready wit, when one of the preachers wound up his
discourse by giving out the metrical version of the fifty-second Psalm,
with an obvious allusion to his royal hearer:--

"Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
Thy wicked works to praise?"

Charles quickly stood up and asked for the fifty-sixth Psalm instead:--

"Have mercy, Lord, on me, I pray,
For man would me devour."

The good folk of Newcastle with willing voice rendered the latter Psalm,
doubtless to the discomfiture of the preacher.

Gray, who published his _Chorographia_, or Survey of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, just three years after this, describes St.
Nicholas' as having "a stately, high, stone steeple, with many pinakles,
a stately stone lantherne, standing upon foure stone arches, builded by
Robert de Rhodes.... It lifteth up a head of Majesty, as high above the
rest as the Cypresse Tree above the low Shrubs."

Th