[Illustration: A LATER DESIGN. _From Sir C. Wren's drawings at All Souls' College._ [This is approximately the design finally adopted.]]
Early in 1699, although the nave was not completed, the north-west chapel was opened for daily morning service, at six in the summer, and seven in the winter. Queen Anne attended in state for the victories of Marlborough on land, and of Ormond and Rook at sea (Nov. 12, 1702). Two years later came Blenheim; and she went again in her state coach drawn by eight bays. From the west door to the choir, under the unfinished vaulting and dome, the way was lined by a detachment of Foot Guards; and as the long procession advanced, the hautboys played and the drums beat until the Queen and her husband had reached their throne in the centre of the choir towards the west, when, after a pause, service began. Dean Sherlock preached from the text, "Doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth"; and the service, which began at one, lasted some three hours. On four other occasions Anne repeated these visits--thrice for victories, and once for the union of England and Scotland.[67]
Although the commissioners decided that the dome was to be covered with copper, lead was used instead, and the work steadily progressed until two years after the last royal visit, when the fabric was completed. Wren was now seventy-eight years of age, and his son Christopher represented him when, in company with the master-mason, Edward Strong, and other free and accepted masons, the last stone was laid on the summit of the lantern, a great crowd looking on from below. Stephen was able to reflect with satisfaction that the cathedral had been begun and finished by his grandfather, and practically during the time of one bishop, for Henchman had died a few months after the laying of the first stone; and he contrasted this with St. Peter's at Rome, where, with an unlimited supply of marble and other costly building materials ready at hand, one hundred and fifty-three years had been required under nineteen popes from Julius II. to Innocent X., and under twelve architects from Bramante to Berninus. Stephen forgot, however, that St. Peter's is more than twice the size of St. Paul's, and that only the bare fabric of the latter was ready, and that it still wanted its mosaics and other adornments.
