y Companie the chiefest in his state,
Which in this city grew to wealth, and unto worship came,
When Henry raign'd who was the seventh of that redoubted name.
But he to honor did atchieu the second golden yeere
Of Henry's raigne, so called the 8, and made his fact appeere
When he this Aldermary Church gan build with great expence,
Twice 30 yeeres agon no doubt, counting the time from hence.
Which work begun the yere of Christ, well known of Christian men,
One thousand and fiue hundred, just, if you will add but ten.
But, lo! when man purposeth most, God doth dispose the best;
And so, before this work was done, God cald this knight to rest.
This church, then, not yet fully built, he died about the yeere,
When Ill May day first took his name, which is down fixed here,
Whose works became a sepulchre to shroud him in that case,
God took his soule, but corps of his was laid about this place;
Who, when he dyed, of this his work so mindful still he was,
That he bequeath'd one thousand pounds to haue it brought to passe,
The execution of whose gift, or where the fault should be,
The work, as yet unfinished, shall shew you all for me;
Which church stands there, if any please to finish up the same,
As he hath well begun, no doubt, and to his endless fame,
They shall not onley well bestow their talent in this life,
But after death, when bones be rot, their fame shall be most rife,
With thankful praise and good report of our parochians here,
Which have of right Sir Henries fame afresh renewed this yeere.
God move the minds of wealthy men their works so to bestow
As he hath done, that, though they dye, their vertuous fame may flow."

This quaint appeal seems to have had its effect, for in 1626 a Mr.
William Rodoway left L200 for the rebuilding the steeple; and the same
year Mr. Richard Pierson bequeathed 200 marks on the express condition
that the new spire should resemble the old one of Keeble's. The old
benefactor of St. Mary's was not very well treated, for no monument was
erected to him till 1534, when his son-in-law, William Blount, Lord
Mountjoy, laid a stone reverently over him. But in the troubles
following the Reformation the monument was cast down, and Sir William
Laxton (Lord Mayor in 1534) buried in place of Keeble. The church was
destroyed in the Great Fire, but soon rebuilt by Henry Rogers, Esq., who
gave L5,000 for