Editing Christopher Wren (section)

== Marriage to Jane Fitzwilliam ==
[[File:Christopher Wren.jpeg|thumb|right|Wren, portrait {{Circa|1690}} by [[John Closterman]]]]
In 1677, 17 months after the death of his first wife, Wren remarried, this time to Jane Fitzwilliam, daughter of [[William FitzWilliam, 2nd Baron FitzWilliam]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Christopher Wren - Biography |url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Wren/ |access-date=7 October 2022 |website=Maths History |language=en}}</ref> and his wife Jane Perry, the daughter of a prosperous London merchant.<ref>{{cite web|title=FITZWILLIAM, Hon. Charles (c.1646-89), of Stamford Baron, Lincs.|url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1660-1690/member/fitzwilliam-hon-charles-1646-89|access-date=4 March 2024}}</ref>

She was a mystery to Wren's friends and companions. [[Robert Hooke]], who often saw Wren two or three times every week, had, as he recorded in his diary, never even heard of her, and was not to meet her till six weeks after the marriage.<ref>{{harvnb|Tinniswood|2001|p=239}}</ref> As with the first marriage, this too produced two children: a daughter Jane (1677–1702); and a son William, "Poor Billy" born June 1679, who was reportedly handicapped in some way and it is also known that he never married.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wren family history |url=https://www.bedfordpark.net/genealogy/wren/sir_christopher.htm |access-date=2025-01-28 |website=bedfordpark.net}}</ref>

Like the first, this second marriage was also brief. Jane Wren is believed to have died of [[tuberculosis]] in September 1680 although this cannot be confirmed.{{cn|date=January 2025}} She was buried alongside Faith and Gilbert in the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Wren was never to marry again; he lived to be over 90 years old and of those years was married only twice.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lerner |first=Edwin |date=2023-02-03 |title=Sir Christopher Wren – London’s Greatest Architect |url=https://www.guidelondon.org.uk/blog/sir-christopher-wren-londons-greatest-architect/|access-date=2025-01-28 |website=Guide London |language=en}}</ref>

Bletchingdon was the home of Wren's brother-in-law William Holder, who was rector of the local church. Holder had been a Fellow of [[Pembroke College, Oxford]]. An intellectual of considerable ability, he is said to have been the figure who introduced Wren to arithmetic and geometry.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Davies |first=C.S.L. |title=The Youth and Education of Christopher Wren |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=123 |issue=501 |pages=300–327 |date=2008 |issn=0013-8266 |jstor=20108454 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cen008}}</ref>

Wren's later life was not without criticisms and attacks on his competence and his taste. In 1712, the ''Letter Concerning Design'' of [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury|Anthony Ashley Cooper]], third [[Earl of Shaftesbury]], circulated in manuscript. Proposing a new British style of architecture, Shaftesbury censured Wren's cathedral, his taste and his long-standing control of royal works. Although Wren was appointed to the [[Commission for Building Fifty New Churches|Fifty New Churches Commission]] in 1711, he was left only with nominal charge of a board of works when the surveyorship started in 1715. On 26 April 1718, on the pretext of failing powers, he was dismissed in favour of [[William Benson (architect)|William Benson]].<ref>{{cite ODNB |last=Downes |first=Kerry |title=Wren, Sir Christopher (1632–1723), architect, mathematician, and astronomer |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-30019 |year=2004 |access-date=16 June 2019 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/30019}}</ref>

In 1713, he bought the manor of [[Wroxall Abbey|Wroxall]], Warwickshire, from the [[Burgoyne baronets|Burgoyne family]], to which his son [[Christopher Wren the Younger|Christopher]] retired in 1716 after losing his post as Clerk of Works.<ref>{{cite web |title=Parishes: Wroxall |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol3/pp215-220 |publisher=British History Online |access-date=10 September 2018}}</ref> Several of Wren's descendants would be buried there in the [[Wren's Cathedral|Church of St Leonard]].

===Death===
[[File:Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral with tomb of Christopher Wren.jpg|thumb|Crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, Wren's memorial on the left]]
The Wren family estate was at [[The Old Court House]] in the area of [[Hampton Court]]. He had been given a lease on the property by Queen [[Queen Anne of Great Britain|Anne]] in lieu of salary [[arrears]] for building St Paul's.<ref name="Buchanan">{{cite news |last=Buchanan |first=Clare |title=Sir Christopher Wren's magnificent home up for sale |url=http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/archive/2013/04/11/10345331.Sir_Christopher_Wren_s_magnificent_home_up_for_sale/ |url-status=dead |work=Richmond and Twickenham Times |location=London |date=11 April 2013 |access-date=7 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112175954/http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/archive/2013/04/11/10345331.Sir_Christopher_Wren_s_magnificent_home_up_for_sale/ |archive-date=12 November 2013}}</ref> For convenience Wren also leased a house on [[St James's Street]] in London. According to a 19th-century legend, he would often go to London to pay unofficial visits to St Paul's, to check on the progress of "my greatest work". On one of these trips to London, at the age of ninety, he caught a cold and on 25 February 1723 a servant who tried to awaken Wren from his nap found that he had died in his sleep.<ref>{{harvnb|Tinniswood|2001|p=366}}</ref>

Wren was laid to rest on 5 March 1723. His body was placed in the southeast corner of the crypt of St Paul's. There is a memorial to him in the crypt at St Paul's Cathedral.<ref>"Memorials of St Paul's Cathedral" [[William Sinclair (Archdeacon of London)|Sinclair, W.]] p. 469: London; Chapman & Hall, Ltd; 1909.</ref> beside those of his daughter Jane, his sister Susan Holder, and her husband William.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Cathedral-History/Discover-the-Crypt |title=Discover the Crypt – St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK |publisher=stpauls.co.uk |access-date=6 September 2009 |archive-date=30 April 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090430144742/http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Cathedral-History/Discover-the-Crypt |url-status=dead }}</ref> The plain stone plaque was written by Wren's eldest son and heir, Christopher Wren the Younger<ref>{{harvnb|Elmes|1852|p=411}}</ref> The inscription, which is also inscribed in a circle of black marble on the main floor beneath the centre of the dome, reads:
{{cquote|{{lang|la|SUBTUS CONDITUR HUIUS ECCLESIÆ ET VRBIS CONDITOR CHRISTOPHORUS WREN, QUI VIXIT ANNOS ULTRA NONAGINTA, NON SIBI SED BONO PUBLICO. LECTOR SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS CIRCUMSPICE Obijt XXV Feb: An°: MDCCXXIII Æt: XCI.}}|20px|20px}}
which translates from Latin as:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Masters |first1=Tom |last2=Fallon |first2=Steve |last3=Maric |first3=Vesna |title=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VpaytmFdQbIC&pg=PA111 |publisher=Lonely Planet Publications |year=2008 |page=111 |isbn=978-1-74104-712-7}}</ref>
{{cquote|Here in its foundations lies the architect of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond ninety years, not for his own profit but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument – look around you. Died 25 Feb. 1723, age 91.|20px|20px}}

His [[obituary]] was published in the ''Post Boy'' No. 5244 London 2 March 1723:<ref>{{cite book|page=181|title=The Wren Society Volume XVIII|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1941|editor1-first=Arthur T.|editor1-last=Bolton|editor2-first=H. Duncan|editor2-last=Hendry}}</ref>

<blockquote>
Sir Christopher Wren who died on Monday last in the 91st year of his age, was the only son of Dr. Chr. Wren, Dean of Windsor & Wolverhampton, Registar of the Garter, younger brother of Dr. Mathew ([[sic]]) Wren Ld Bp of Ely, a branch of the ancient family of Wrens of Binchester in the Bishoprick {{sic}} of Durham<br/>
1653. Elected from Wadham into fellowship of All Souls<br/>
1657. Professor of Astronomy Gresham College London<br/>
1660. Savilian Professor. Oxford<br/>
After 1666. Surveyor General for Rebuilding the Cathedral Church of St.Paul and the Parochial Churches & all other Public Buildings which he lived to finish<br/>
1669. Surveyor General till April 26. 1718<br/>
1680. President of the Royal Society<br/>
1698. Surveyor General & Sub Commissioner for Repairs to Westminster Abbey by Act of Parliament, continued till death.<br/>
His body is to be deposited in the Great Vault under the Dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul.
</blockquote>

"The Curious and Entire Libraries of Sir Christopher Wren", and of his son, were auctioned by [[Abraham Langford|Langford]] and Cock at Mr Cock's in Covent Garden on 24–27 October 1748.<ref>{{cite book | last = Cock | first = Christopher | title = A Catalogue of the Curious and Entire Libraries of Sir Christopher Wren, Knt. and Christopher Wren, Esq. his son, etc.| publisher = Christopher Cock | date = 1748 | location = London }}</ref>