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Title: Westminster Abbey
Author: Smith, Mrs. A. Murray
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Westminster Abbey" ***
Transcriber's notes:
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in
curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page
breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page
number has been placed only at the start of that section.
The page numbers in the List of Illustrations are those in the
of paragraphs, the illustrations may have been moved one (or
more) pages preceding or following.
In the original book, each illustration was on its own
leaf, prefaced by a separate onion-skin leaf containing the
description of that illustration. In the text version of this
e-book, each pair of illustrations and descriptions is set off
from the text with a separator line of asterisks.
The original book did not have a Table of Contents. One has
been added for convenience.
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
* * * * * *
[Frontispiece: The North Transept]
* * * *
THE NORTH TRANSEPT
Here is represented the north front as it appeared before the last
restoration, _i.e._ we see the handiwork of the eighteenth century and
the façade as remodelled under the superintendence of Sir Christopher
Wren. The modern front was constructed about twenty years ago.
* * * * * *
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
Painted by
JOHN FULLEYLOVE, R.I.
Described by
MRS. A. MURRAY SMITH
Author of 'The Annals of Westminster Abbey,'
'The Roll Call of Westminster Abbey,' Etc.
With Twenty-One Full-Page Illustrations in Colour
London
Adam and Charles Black
1906
Published August 30, 1904
Reprinted, with corrections, March 1906
TO
MY HUSBAND
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A Walk Round Westminster Abbey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
{vii}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. The North Transept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. View of the Abbey and St. Margaret's Church from
Whitehall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. The West Front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4. The Chapter House and East End of Henry VII.'s
Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5. The Interior of the Nave, looking East . . . . . . . . . . 24
6. St. Edmund's Chapel, showing the Tomb of the Duchess
of Suffolk, Lady Jane Grey's mother . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7. Interior of the South Transept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
8. Chaucer's Tomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
9. View of the Choir and Nave, looking West from the
High Altar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
10. The South Ambulatory, looking West down the South
Choir Aisle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
11. Early Brasses and Picturesque Tombs in St. Edmund's
Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
12. The West End of the Confessor's Shrine, with the
Modern Altar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
13. The Tomb of Henry III. from St. Edward's Chapel . . . . . 76
14. St. Edward's Shrine and the Chantry Chapel of
Henry V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
15. The Tomb of Queen Philippa and the Chantry Chapel
of Henry V. from the South Ambulatory . . . . . . . . . . 88
16. The Chapel of Henry VII., looking East . . . . . . . . . . 90
17. The Coronation Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
18. The North Ambulatory, showing the Steps which lead
up to Henry VII.'s Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
19. Interior of the North Transept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
20. The South Transept and Chapter House from Dean's
Yard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
21. The Abbot's Courtyard and the Entrance to the
Jerusalem Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
_The illustrations in this volume were engraved in England by The
Hentschel Colourtype Process_.
{3}
INTRODUCTION
"Kings are thy nursing fathers and their queens thy nursing mothers."
From the reign of Edward the Confessor, the last sovereign of the royal
Saxon race, till the death of Elizabeth, the last Tudor queen, these
words of the old Hebrew prophet were literally applicable to the great
West Minster. When Edward knelt within the Benedictine chapel on
Thorneye, which had so miraculously withstood the ravages of the Danes,
and vowed to dedicate a new church on the same spot to the glory of God
and in the name of St. Peter, even his prophetic soul cannot have
foretold the high destiny of his beloved foundation. As the building
slowly grew during the last years of his reign, he conceived the idea
of its use as a sepulchre for himself and his successors. In his
visions he may even have foreseen the coronations of the English
sovereigns within its walls, his own canonisation, and the long
connection {4} between the throne and the monastery. All that the
words above imply would have appealed to the pious founder, but what of
his feelings could he have looked on through the centuries? He would
have seen much to vex, yet we venture to think he would have found
consolation, even in these latter days when the monks are no longer
here and the Roman Church has ceased to be the Church of his country.
Three hundred years after Edward's death came the destruction of his
church in the name of piety, but for this there was ample compensation
in the beautiful and stately buildings which were raised upon the ruins
of the old, and in the devotion to the first founder's memory shown by
Henry III. and his descendants. During the ages of faith, when the
Pope held sway over England, king after king gave liberally to the
fabric, while their queens may also be counted amongst the benefactors
to the West Minster. St. Peter, the patron saint to whom the church
was dedicated, was practically lost sight of in the halo which
surrounded the memory of the Saxon king, and it was to the English
royal saint rather than to the Hebrew apostle that the Abbey owed its
peculiar sanctity. From the first it was a royal foundation, a
building consecrated to the memory of a king, yet none of {5} these
considerations were weighed in the balance when the West Minster shared
in the general downfall of the English monasteries. The sovereign
himself laid violent hands upon the treasures presented by his pious
forefathers in honour of St. Edward, and the saint's body must surely
have turned in its coffin when, to save it from indignity, the monks
were obliged to lift it from the feretory and hide it beneath the
ground. The shrine which had been the pride of each king since the
days of Henry III., and honoured no less by the first Tudor sovereign,
was stripped of its glories: the shining golden top, which used to be
seen from end to end of the church, was melted down; the jewels, which
had been offered by royal worshipper and humble pilgrim alike, even the
precious images of sainted king and saintly evangelist, were ruthlessly
transferred to the palace treasury. None of these survive to-day, but
the mosaic pillars and the basement were concealed by the brethren
before they fled from the monastery, and the lower part of the shrine
was reconstructed by the daughter of the sovereign to whom the
devastation was due; to her also we owe the wooden top, which replaced
the glorious golden feretory. The monastic community, who were
restored to their home by the same {6} Queen, the "bloody" Mary of
Protestant history, survived a few years longer into the days of
Elizabeth, and the former intimate connection between the Crown and the
convent, severed with the final dismissal of the Abbot and monks, found
a pale reflection in the friendship which Elizabeth always showed to
the Dean of her new foundation. But the Maiden Queen was in very deed
the last royal person to whom Westminster Abbey owed substantial
benefits. She refounded the collegiate church, which finally took the
place of the monastery, and established Westminster School; before her
reign the only boys taught within the precincts were the few scholars
collected in the cloisters by the monks. She is, in fact, the
foundress of St. Peter's College, which thus owes its status as a royal
foundation to Queen Elizabeth.
Very rarely, however, in modern days has the church or the college been
honoured with a visit from the reigning sovereign _in propriâ personâ_.
At great functions, such as public funerals, the heir-apparent is
occasionally present, but the Crown is usually represented by a Court
official, and the Dean's stall, which is only vacated for the reigning
king or queen, has been occupied on very rare occasions in the last
hundred years. The Latin {7} play acted by the Westminster scholars
every winter term, was formerly a gala occasion on which royalty used
often to be present, but the old custom was gradually dropped. In the
year 1903, for the first time within the memory of this generation, a
royal person, H.R.H. the Duchess of Argyll, was present at the
performance.
With the last of the Tudors there is no doubt that the strong and
living bond between the palace and the Abbey was slackened, although it
has never been altogether snapped, nor will it be as long as the
coronation of our sovereigns continues to take place in Westminster
Abbey. Then and then only does the king resume all his ancient rights,
the collegiate body is practically deposed, and people realise that
their national church is really a royal peculiar. For while the kings
came less and less to St. Edward's shrine, their subjects in
ever-increasing numbers, like the pilgrims in olden times, were and are
drawn hither as by a magnet, till Westminster has become the sanctuary
of a nation, and is no longer the sepulchre of the seed royal. A plain
English squire, one of that "happy breed of men" to whom his native
land--"this little world, this precious stone set in a silver sea"--was
dearer than the blood of kings, was destined to inaugurate a new epoch
in the {8} annals of the Abbey. To this man, Oliver Cromwell, it is
that we owe the first conception of this church as a fitting
burial-place for our national worthies. From the State obsequies of
Admiral Blake, which were held here by Cromwell's command, has
germinated the seed which has borne fruit in the public funerals and in
the monuments, ordered and paid for by Parliament, of statesmen,
soldiers and sailors. The nineteenth century has closed, and there is
little space available in the Abbey for the worthies of the twentieth,
but the national feeling still turns instinctively to Westminster on
the death of a great man. For a long time past memorial services have
been substituted for the grave or cenotaph, so lavishly granted to
practically the first comer only a hundred years ago. Yet although the
material fabric of this ancient foundation can no longer receive her
sons within her bosom, her spirit is perhaps more alive than it has
ever been since her altars were demolished and the images of her saints
torn from their high places. No longer do the smoke of innumerable
candles and the fumes of incense blacken and obscure her arches, but
the spiritual breath of supplication and of thanksgiving still as of
yore ascends to heaven from this ancient church, consecrated by the
prayers of so many {9} past generations. The old order has changed,
and a Protestant form of worship has long taken the place of the florid
mass; what further changes the future has in store no man can prophesy.
But at present churchmen of all shades of religious feeling may worship
in this church with no extreme ritual to disturb their minds, and at
the same time with none of that irreverent and jarring carelessness in
the ordering of the services which vexed the souls of many in the days
long ago, before any of the present generation were born. On one
festival in the year, the Translation of St. Edward the Confessor, the
13th of October, Roman Catholics return in ever-increasing numbers to
the West Minster, which was once their own, and pilgrims may be seen
kneeling round the shrine, offering their devotions to the saint. On
this historic day the Abbey clergy, mindful also of the founder's
memory, keep his feast at their own service in the choir, by a sermon
preached in his honour, Protestants and Catholics thus uniting in a
common homage to the memory of the sainted English king.
There are several points of view whence the group of buildings formed
by the Abbey, St. Margaret's Church, Westminster Hall, and the Houses
of Parliament, can be seen above the {10} roofs of the houses, or
without any intervening obstruction. The foreigner who arrives at
Charing Cross first sees Westminster from the railway bridge, and gets
another and a nearer aspect as he reaches the bottom of Whitehall. Now
that passenger-steamers ply once again upon the river, many persons are
familiar with the unrivalled water approach, but no longer does the
wayfarer coming from the south or east hire a boat from the Lambeth
side, and thus follow the traditional route taken by St. Peter, when he
came to consecrate the original church on Thorneye. Although the Roman
road, which led from north to south of England, and crossed the river
here, is entirely lost sight of in London, the intending visitor will
be well advised if he walk to the Abbey by the parks. From the bridge
over the Serpentine he gets a distant view, and all the way, by Green
Park and St. James's, there are glimpses of the Westminster Towers. At
present, in the temporary absence of any building where the old
aquarium used to be, he has but to cross Birdcage Walk, take the old
Cockpit passage into Queen Anne's Gate, and from Dartmouth Street, just
across the way, he will see a magnificent view of the Abbey Church with
her small daughter, St Margaret, by her side. {11} As he approaches
nearer, down Tothill Street, the ugly Western Towers, which we owe in
the first instance to Wren's incapacity to understand Gothic
architecture, in the second to his successor Hawkesmore's want of taste
in the execution, become too prominent.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: View of the Abbey and St. Margaret's Church from
Whitehall]
* * * *
GENERAL VIEW OF THE ABBEY FROM WHITEHALL
The traveller who approaches Westminster from this direction has a fine
view of the whole extent of the Abbey from east to west. St.
Margaret's Church, while it certainly somewhat hides the more ancient
building, adds to the impression of size. The statues of statesmen on
the green in front prepare the minds of those who enter the north
transept by the triple doorway, which we have already seen in the
frontispiece, for the galaxy of politicians within, and when we stand
beneath the lantern we can realise the plan of the whole far better
after this general view than we could if we had entered immediately by
the west door at the farther end.
* * * * * *
Below the offending towers is the west front, which was finished as far
as the roof in the first years of Henry VII.'s reign, under those two
indefatigable abbots, Esteney and Islip. Tudor badges are visible in
the last bays of the nave vaulting: the great west window with its fine
Perpendicular tracery probably belongs to Esteney's time (the last few
years of the fifteenth century); and to Islip, who is often credited
with the whole, we now attribute only the finishing touches which
completed the west end. Henry and Islip were so beguiled by their
fascinating plans for a new chapel at the east end, that they could
spare neither money nor attention to the fact that towers were a
practical artistic necessity at the west, and those begun by Islip were
left unfinished for two centuries, when Wren took the matter up. A
central tower was also contemplated by Islip, who never carried out his
project. Wren went so far as to design one, but the apparently massive
thirteenth-century {12} piers were found too weak to support its
weight, and the idea had to be abandoned. Outside the west front, in
the richly canopied niches, were formerly the statues of such kings and
abbots "as had been benefactors," headed by Edward the Confessor, to
whose piety we owe the very existence of the West Minster, and
including Henry III. and Edward I. Amongst them were the great
builders, Esteney and Islip, with, no doubt, Henry VII. himself.
The exterior of the church has suffered much from the ravages of time
and of smoke. Before entering, it is well to take a survey of the
outside, and so prepare ourselves for a more exhaustive ramble round
the interior.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The West Front]
* * * *
THE WEST FRONT
The west front was not built till about one hundred and fifty years
after Richard II. had added a porch to the north transept, and thus
completed the thirteenth-century façade. The inside of the nave had
been slowly growing all this time, and early in the reign of Henry VII.
the vaultings were at last finished, and the exterior carried up as
high as the basement of the towers, under the supervision of two
successive abbots, Esteney and Islip. We scarcely see the upper part
of the towers in the illustration, but we can well dispense with them,
for they were added under the auspices of Wren and his followers in the
eighteenth century, and are by no means a success. Owing to the
crumbling state of the stone used for the fabric in former days, this
façade and the towers themselves have recently been refaced, and the
pinnacles strengthened. To the right of the picture are the windows of
the Jerusalem Chamber, in which room Henry IV. died. To the left,
appear St. Margaret's Church and a portion of the north transept,
whilst in front is a monument erected to the memory of those "Old
Westminsters" who were killed in the Crimean War.
* * * * * *
Like the timbers of Nelson's old ship the _Victory_, the surface of the
stone, often the very stones themselves have been completely renewed
since monastic times. The whole church has been frequently restored,
but the exterior has suffered from the vagaries of architects, who
found less scope for their own ideas inside the building, where the
original stone-work was in better preservation. Much of the damage was
due also to neglect, for after the dispersal of the monks, most of whom
were themselves capable of superintending the repairs, {13} the lesser
brethren, in fact, working on the building with their own hands, a long
period went by during which neither the authorities of the Church nor
of the State took note of the decaying stone-work. At last, in the
time of Charles I., Dean Williams--afterwards Archbishop of York--took
Abbot Islip as his pattern, and spent much of his own private income,
since there were no funds available, in repairing the most ruinous
parts of the church, notably the north-west, the west end, and the
south-east chapels. He also remodelled the monks' dormitory, which he
made into a library. So ungrateful was the public for these benefits
that the Dean was accused of paying for this necessary work "out of the
diet and bellies of the Prebendaries," but he was completely exonerated
by a chapter order in 1628, indignantly denying the truth of "this
unjust report." Williams's own disgrace and then the long interregnum
put a stop to these benefactions, and the ruin continued unchecked for
the next score or more of years. Dolben, an energetic man who had
fought for his king during the Civil War, was made Dean soon after the
Restoration, and on the very day of his installation the first fabric
fund was instituted out of the Abbey revenues, a very inadequate sum,
as it proved, for the {14} expenses. With this money, however, Dolben
was able to repair the roof and vaulting, then in danger of falling;
and later, in the seventeenth century, the fund was augmented by a
Parliamentary grant.
At that time, with the approval of Dean Atterbury, the decaying tracery
of the north rose window was completely destroyed and remodelled. The
south had already been tampered with, and Wren anathematises the little
Doric passage, which in Atterbury's time was patched on before the
northern window, and the "cropping of the pyramids." In the first
years of the eighteenth century Wren was himself Surveyor of the
fabric, and, while he saved much of the stone-work from irretrievable
ruin, fresh havoc called by the name of restoration was wrought under
his directions and after his time by his successors. The decaying
stone all round the nave and both transepts was in urgent need of
repair, if not actually in ruins, and, probably in order to save
trouble and expense, the small Early English pilasters supporting the
window tracery were remorselessly cut off, and an acorn was substituted
in every case. These pilasters have since been restored again under
Mr. Pearson's supervision. As we walk along the green to the north
front, we see the whole north side of the {15} nave, but before leaving
the west end we may note that repairs have recently been carried out,
as one or two of the crockets were showing signs of immediate ruin, and
even the eighteenth-century towers required new faces. The north
façade was completely restored and, in fact, practically rebuilt about
twenty years ago: the portico from designs left by Sir Gilbert Scott,
who was Surveyor of the fabric for some time, and the upper part by his
successor, Mr. Pearson, who carried out the whole work. Both north and
west fronts recall Wren, who remodelled the north and restored the
west. Whether he or Hawkesmore was guilty of finally sweeping away the
last vestiges of Richard the Second's northern entrance and such of the
figures which still remained intact at the west end, we do not know.
In any case, Crull, writing in 1713, says that a few of the statues of
the twelve apostles which adorned Richard's portico were still in a
fair state of preservation, as were many of the "benefactors" on the
west, "all undeniable witnesses of their former excellency." It is
impossible to enter into the history of the fabric fund and the many
restorations of the Abbey. Enough for our present purpose to call
attention to the fact that the soft stone is constantly corroding, and
{16} that frequent supervision is necessary. The saying that "the arch
never sleeps" is only too true, and the Clerk of the Works has to keep
a constant and vigilant eye over the church which he so dearly loves,
ever ready to report any sign of change in stone-work or actual fabric
to the Dean and to the architect.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Chapter House and East End of Henry VII.'s Chapel]
* * * *
THE CHAPTER HOUSE AND EAST END OF HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL
In our walk round the Abbey we now enjoy an uninterrupted view of these
fine buildings, which were formerly partly concealed by houses. The
two are in striking contrast; the Chapter House, in the severe Early
English style, with flying buttresses so characteristic of that period,
belongs to the monastery which was built on the site of the Confessor's
original foundation by Henry III. The Chapel of Henry VII., of the
late Perpendicular style of architecture, replaced an Early English
Lady Chapel, which had stood on this same spot since the first years of
Henry III.'s reign.
* * * * * *
We pass from the north front along the apse to the Chapel of Henry
VII., and, as we turn the corner and have a clear view of the beautiful
Early English Chapter House, with its flying buttresses, rejoice in the
absence of the houses which were formerly close against it. The chapel
itself was practically falling in the early nineteenth century, when,
owing to the energy of Dean Vincent, and by the aid of a grant from
Parliament amounting to 42,000 pounds, it was completely restored. The
work was begun under Dean Vincent, but not finished until 1822, in the
time of Dean Ireland; the whole was carried out with the help of a
committee of taste, which instructed James Wyatt, the architect.
Unfortunately, although Wyatt is honoured by a tablet in the nave, his
name is not one of high standing architecturally, and the so-called
committee of taste were guilty of many acts of sheer want of taste.
Thus there is no doubt that {17} considerable damage was done to the
original design of the chapel, statues were removed, bosses in the roof
added, besides other alterations, but the healing hand of time has
mellowed the stone, and the whole appears equally ancient and in
sufficient harmony to the casual eye.
{21}
A WALK ROUND WESTMINSTER ABBEY
The most usual way to enter the church is by the north doorway, but the
more convenient trysting-place is the west end of the nave. Our purpose
in the following pages is to picture a morning spent in the Abbey with a
party of tourists, who have been collected in a somewhat haphazard manner
before a start is made, and are now assembled beneath the statue of the
younger Pitt. Although the majority are probably of British and American
nationality with a sprinkling no doubt of our colonial brothers, in the
minority will very likely be found more than one stranger from the West
or from the East, perchance even a coloured man. But as we pass along
the aisles, now one, now another, whatever his nationality, is sure to be
reminded by some grave or monument of his own country, and we shall hope
to awaken {22} the interest of all alike. Before a start is made we
would recall the memory of Dr. Bradley, who made it one of his chief
duties and pleasures to show people round the church he loved so well,
thus following a custom set by Stanley, and continued by the present Dean
and his colleagues. Royal princes, distinguished foreigners, tourists
from every part of the world, working men and women, and his own friends,
all were equally welcome to Westminster Abbey. On every Saturday during
the spring and early summer the late Dean made fixed engagements to take
parties round, and on the Bank holidays was rarely absent from the Abbey,
but held himself ever ready to help the chance sightseer and show him
places which are not easily accessible to the public. His ground plans
of the church and its precincts were hung up in the Jerusalem Chamber on
the days when he expected parties, and here, before beginning their
round, he would tell his eager listeners something of the general history
of the foundation. After that the Dean used to lead the way into the
building itself, by the little door beneath the Abbot's Pew, and show
them all the most notable tombs and monuments. He now lies at rest
beneath the very stones which his feet so often passed over on {23} these
happy Saturday afternoons, close to the vault of an eighteenth-century
Dean, whose heart was broken by his banishment from the Deanery, and of
whom we shall have occasion to speak later.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Interior of the Nave, Looking East]
* * * *
THE INTERIOR OF THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST
Standing in the south-west corner of the nave, we get a view of the
interior of the church in its full extent as far as the east window.
Behind this we know, from our previous survey of the outside, is the
Chapel of Henry VII., and below, hidden from sight by the organ screen,
is the high altar, with the shrine of the founder, St. Edward the
Confessor, beyond. Formerly the rood was suspended from the nave roof
between us and the present wooden screen, which, although the stone below
is of fourteenth-century workmanship, is only about a hundred years or so
old. Just beyond the rood were also the Jesus altars, above and below,
but no trace of these nor of the wall or screen upon which they stood is
left. We see now only two large monuments on either side of the choir
screen, which, as we approach nearer, prove to be those of the great
philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, and of a less renowned personality, Earl
Stanhope.
* * * * * *
Although practically impossible to stand at the west end and discourse at
any length on the history and architecture, it is well to get some idea
of the shape of the building and the period of each portion before we
start. On either side are the lower parts of the towers, behind us is
the great west window, finished, as we heard before, in the reign of King
Henry VII. The bells hang in the belfry, the south-west tower, and the
north-west tower is still called the baptistery, because baptisms used to
take place there. The font is now in Henry VII.'s Chapel. The glass of
the window over our heads dates only from George II.'s time; the two
smaller ones, left and right, are filled with fragments of ancient glass,
as is also the east window, which we see at the other end of the church.
The building itself is in the usual cruciform shape, and we stand now, as
it were, at the foot of the cross, the nave and ritual choir forming the
beam, the transepts the arms, and the apse, with its circle of small
chapels, the head. Behind the apse, we know from our previous survey,
{24} is the Chapel of Henry VII., which takes the place of the old Lady
Chapel. The nave is divided into twelve bays, intersected at the eighth
by the choir screen, upon which is placed the organ. At the twelfth bay,
where the nave properly so called ends, the ritual choir begins, and we
can see the sanctuary and high altar through the open gates. On either
side of the nave beyond the screen are the aisles, now included, as is
all this part at the present time, in the choir. Look first at the
graceful arcading of the triforium, then higher still from the clerestory
windows carry the eye to the roof, 100 feet above our heads, and thence
along the clustered columns and arches straight in front. The whole
resembles that magnificent and peculiarly English beauty, an ancient
beech avenue with its arching and interlacing boughs reaching up to
heaven. Except to the student of architecture, the church might have
risen from the ground in a single night, so harmonious and perfectly
proportioned are the lines, so carefully did the old builders follow out
the ideas of the thirteenth-century designers. Henry the Third himself
probably supervised the plans, and we know that the King had already seen
and admired Salisbury Cathedral, then quite a new building, before {25}
he arranged to rebuild Westminster in the same style. As a fact, no less
than two and a half centuries passed from the year 1245, when Henry gave
orders for the demolition of the whole of the eastern end--the same part
which the Confessor had watched grow up and had caused to be consecrated
before his death,--till the reign of his collateral descendant, the first
Tudor king, when the last bay was quite finished. Only an observant eye
can detect the slight differences, chiefly in the vaultings of the roof,
which mark the different stages of the western part, and it is difficult
to realise that the old Norman nave, divided by a wall from the new
Gothic church, existed long after Henry's death, and was taken down bit
by bit as the building slowly proceeded. Edward the First's period is
marked by metal rings round the columns, and only extended one bay west
of the present screen, where formerly the Jesus altars and rood loft
stood, with a stone wall behind, which is now concealed by the wooden
casing of the modern screen. Services for the ordinary worshippers, the
parishioners so to speak, were held by the monks at these altars, above
and below the rood screen, but the lesson, which was read from above, was
the only part of the High Mass celebrated in the choir intended for {26}
the congregation in the nave. With the early fourteenth century the
beautiful diaper work which decorated the triforium arcades ceased, and
this helps us to fix the date of the later part. During the century
which followed, the building practically stood still for a long time.
Edward II. gave the monks no help, and Edward III. was too poor and too
busy with his numerous wars to occupy himself with pious donations. But
at the end of his reign Archbishop Langham, formerly the Abbot here, left
a large bequest, primarily intended for the completion of the nave, which
was diverted by his successor Litlington to more pressing needs, such as
the rebuilding of the monastery, enlarging the cloisters, and, with the
help of gifts from Richard II., the addition of a rich porch outside the
north front. Henry IV. died in the precincts, but we have no record of
any generosity on his part; his son Henry V., however, gave an annual sum
to the work on the nave, which during his short reign progressed well.
The pious Henry VI., who loved the Abbey and often walked here with the
Abbot and Prior, no doubt helped as long as he had the power, but the
civil wars soon put a stop to his aid. We know that he presented the
wrought-iron gates which divide his father's {27} mortuary chapel from
the shrine, and the stone screen to the west of the shrine probably
belongs to his time. His supplanter, Edward IV., when settled on the
throne, granted oaks and lead for the roof, while his wife, and the
little son who was born in the Abbot's house, gave thank-offerings of
money. Another gap followed during the troublous reign of Richard III.,
but by the end of the fifteenth century, when Henry VII. felt his title
absolutely secure, and his dynasty established, the west end was quite
finished, within and without, while then, and then only, the last remains
of the old nave were cleared away.
We have thus briefly sketched the building of the church in which we
stand, and now must turn our attention to the historic names which are
all around us on the walls and pavement. The very earliest monument, the
only tolerably artistic one in the nave, was put up in 1631 to a certain
Mistress Jane Hill, and till nearly the end of the seventeenth century
few others were added. But unfortunately from that time the custom grew
apace of covering the wall space, even the floor itself, with memorials
of soldiers, sailors, statesmen, physicians, men of science, and, in
fact, a truly miscellaneous collection of people, till not a vacant spot
is left, and {28} the ancient arcading is completely or partially covered
up, in some cases even cut away. The committee of taste appointed to
assist the Chapter were of some use here, for by their advice the Dean
moved one or two monuments from the centre to the wall, and the iron
railings in front of all of them were taken away. Dean Stanley, more
than a century later, curtailed some of the most aggressive memorials,
but none have been removed, for there would be no end to such a difficult
undertaking, and in any case the ancient arcading was already ruined.
Thus we start on our pilgrimage with some idea of the shape and the
history of the church which lies before us. First let us look into the
baptistery called Little Poets' Corner, where Wordsworth's seated statue
and some memorials of literary men are to be seen, such as the great
teacher, Dr. Arnold, who is close to his gifted son Matthew, in the
company of three notable divines, Maurice, Kingsley, and Keble. The
entrance is blocked by two huge eighteenth-century erections, the one to
Cornewall, a valiant sea-captain, put up by Parliament, the other to
Craggs, a young statesman, whose posthumous fame was sullied by his share
in the South Sea Bubble. The elder Craggs committed suicide {29} when
the Bubble burst, but the son died first, and Pope wrote a wordy epitaph
and superintended the erection of the monument. From this side we turn
to the other tower, but make no exhaustive survey of the "Whig Corner,"
for statesmen galore are to be found in the north transept, and we
mention the chief of these in connection with their contemporaries there.
The latest name here is that of General Charles Gordon, a bronze given by
the Royal Engineers seven years after the fall of Khartoum, but before
the fall of the Mahdi wiped out England's dishonour. It is not likely
that a Chinaman has joined our party; were one with us we would point out
Gordon's services to the Chinese government and the honours he received
from the Emperor. There is only one other memorial connected with China
(in the north choir aisle), put up a century ago to Sir George Staunton,
who went as Secretary on our first embassy to China. His son, a boy of
eleven, accompanied him, and actually learned enough Chinese on the
voyage to interpret for the party; he afterwards became a learned Chinese
scholar. We linger yet a moment to point out one of the few German names
in the Abbey, William Horneck, whose father, a Westminster Prebendary,
was a German {30} by birth; he was himself one of the earliest of our
Engineers, and won honour in the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns. When
we reach the south transept we shall see a more familiar German name on
the bust of Grabe, the well-known Oriental scholar.
We pass out now by the statue of a modern philanthropist, Lord
Shaftesbury, who fought as energetically for the freedom of the white
slave as did Zachary Macaulay, whose tablet is behind us in the tower,
for that of the black. Shaftesbury's efforts on behalf of the overworked
women and of the children in mines and factories will never be forgotten,
nor is the distinguished statesman Charles James Fox, whose connection
with the abolition of slavery is marked by the tasteless monument before
our eyes, in any danger of oblivion. The life-size group represents
Fox's dying agony in the arms of Liberty; a negro slave is kneeling at
his feet.
If there be any one interested in astronomy amongst us, he should turn
round to the tablet at the extreme west end, which commemorates young
Benjamin Horrocks, the first observer of the transit of Venus in 1639,
who was praised by Sir John Herschel as the pride and boast of modern
{31} astronomy. Herschel's own bust is on the north wall; he lies side
by side with Charles Darwin, near the iron gate. We now leave the west
end and progress up the centre of the nave, noticing on our way eastward
the old wooden pulpit, which has been brought here from Henry VII.'s
Chapel and replaces a heavy marble one given in Dean Trench's time to
commemorate the opening of the nave for evening services. Trench himself
passed from Westminster, as Archbishop of Dublin, to Ireland, his native
country, whither the pulpit has gone, but his body was brought back to
England, and his grave is beneath our feet. Behind it the name of the
American philanthropist, George Peabody, whose mortal remains rested in
the Abbey for a few days only, reminds all Londoners of the original
Peabody buildings, the first working-class dwellings on the block system,
which were founded by him and called after his name.
A few steps further and we stand above the grave of David Livingstone,
another ardent worker for the black man's cause, a personality dear to
white and black alike. Should some traveller from South Africa be with
us, he will be familiar with Livingstone's work amongst the natives and
the opposition he met with from the ignorant Boer {32} farmers, who could
not understand his enthusiasm for the coloured race. He lost his life
for their cause, and so greatly was he loved by his "boys" that two of
them carried the body through hardships and dangers innumerable across
the continent of Africa to the West Coast, where it was shipped for
England and finally brought safely here. Immediately in front, to our
left, we see the names of engineers and architects. To the engineers we
allude later; of two architects, Scott and Pearson, we have already
spoken, and may pass on to the men who crushed the Indian Mutiny, first,
however, pointing out the brass of Barry, the designer of the present
Houses of Parliament. Sir James Outram, Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, and
John, Lord Lawrence, rest in close proximity to one another, even as they
worked together for a common object in India. On Outram's monument,
which is against the right-hand wall, near Lawrence's bust, is
represented the meeting of the three Generals, Outram, Havelock, and
Campbell, when the latter finally relieved the Lucknow Residency, a task
bravely attempted by the two former, who were themselves beleaguered
after bringing in stores and ammunition to the garrison. Lord Wolseley's
recent Autobiography has vividly recalled the whole scene, and {33} bears
witness also to the valour of many a forgotten hero, with most of whom he
had previously fought in the Crimea. Seven of these officers are
commemorated by the very inharmonious painted glass below the rose window
of the north transept; amongst them may be mentioned in this connection
Lord Clyde's brigadier, Adrian Hope, who took a foremost part in the
relief of Lucknow, and was killed during the subsequent reconquest of
Oude. While Clyde may be styled the conqueror of Oude, Lord Lawrence, a
civilian not a soldier by profession, performed the task of reducing the
Punjab. In the north transept is the bust of Sir Herbert Edwardes, who
co-operated with the Lawrence brothers at the outbreak of the Mutiny, and
continued to support John in his arduous work after Henry's death at
Lucknow. Ten years before the Mutiny, Edwardes had already won undying
fame in the same district, the Punjab, when he stamped out the Multan
rebellion, and prevented that dangerous conflagration from assuming
serious proportions. A grave west of Clyde's, that of Sir George
Pollock, is a reminder of another part of our Indian Empire--an
ever-present source of anxiety--Afghanistan, where Pollock retrieved
England's lost prestige after the Cabul disaster.
{34}
Buried, as he would have wished, amongst these men of action is a sailor,
who resembled the free-booters and fighting seamen of the Elizabethan
age. Cochrane's feats of valour when in our navy surpassed those of all
his contemporaries, but a charge of betraying the country which he had
served so well, drove him into exile in 1814. His activity found new
scope abroad, and his memory is honoured by Brazil and Chili alike as the
founder of their navies; for the past few years Chilian sailors have laid
a wreath annually upon his tomb. The stain was removed from Lord
Dundonald's name before his death, and he was laid, as was justly due,
amongst his compeers; his banner and arms were long afterwards restored
to their places with those of the other Knights of the Bath, in Henry
VII.'s Chapel.
Immediately before us now, on either side of the choir screen, two
eighteenth-century monuments attract attention. The one to the right
commemorates several of the Earls Stanhope, notably the first Earl, whose
dashing valour might well be compared with Dundonald's, but whose
military career ended in disaster and imprisonment. The feat usually
connected with his name is a brilliant charge of cavalry at Almenara, one
of the battles in the Peninsular War, when he killed a Spanish general
{35} in single combat. On the left is a man of peace, Sir Isaac Newton,
whose discovery of the law of gravitation brought him world-wide fame,
and whose reputation as a natural philosopher and mathematician was
unrivalled in his generation. His funeral was attended by "the chief men
of the nation," and many distinguished foreigners; amongst them was the
French philosopher, Voltaire, who carried his enthusiasm for Newton to
such a height that he placed the English scientist at the head of all the
geniuses in the universe. Those who are familiar with Roubiliac's
portrait-statue at Trinity College, Cambridge, will note the extreme
inferiority of this one (Rysbrack's), which represents the great Newton
reclining on a couch, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and surrounded by the
allegorical figures and emblems so dear to eighteenth-century artists.
It is well now to shape our course towards the east, turning to the right
aisle, but ere we reach the iron gate, one or two memorials call for some
remark. Thus our long wars with the Moors are brought to mind by Sir
Palmes Fairborne's tablet, upon which is inscribed a bombastic epitaph
usually attributed to Dryden. Fairborne, as Governor of Tangier, fought
valiantly for a losing cause, and {36} three years after his death, the
place, which had passed into the possession of the English Crown as part
of the dowry of Charles the Second's queen, Catherine of Braganza, was
finally abandoned to the Moors. Fairborne is not the only Englishman in
the Abbey whose prowess against these black races is worthy of
remembrance, but while he bore a _Turk's_ head for his crest as a proof
of his early valour in Candia, the other knight, Sir Bernard Brocas,
rests his head upon that of a crowned _Moor_. No record remains of the
doughty deed which caused Edward III. to grant Brocas this special crest,
but the vergers in Addison's time used to point out his tomb, which we
shall see presently in St. Edmund's Chapel, as that of "the old Knight
who cut off the King of the Moors's head."
* * * * * *
[Illustration: St. Edmund's Chapel, showing the Tomb of the Duchess of
Suffolk, Lady Jane Grey's mother]
* * * *
ST. EDMUND'S CHAPEL, SHOWING THE TOMB OF THE DUCHESS OF SUFFOLK, LADY
JANE GREY'S MOTHER
This chapel is dedicated to St. Edmund, the martyred King of East Anglia.
The illustration shows part of the Duchess of Suffolk's altar tomb with
her recumbent effigy, while beyond, Prince John of Eltham's monument is
partly visible against the screen; above the screen are the canopies over
the tombs of Richard II. and his Queen, and Edward III. The red velvet
pall over the shrine of Edward the Confessor shows between the canopy and
tomb of Edward III.
* * * * * *
Our friends from the States will certainly pause before the monument of
that ill-fated young British officer, Major André, for upon it is a small
figure of General Washington. André, caught within the American lines
during our war with the colonies, dressed as a civilian, and with
suspicious papers in his boots, was hanged as a spy and buried beneath
the gallows. We see André here vainly petitioning Washington for a
soldier's death, while in the background all is prepared for his
ignominious {37} fate. The heads of both these statuettes were
constantly stolen by tourists in old days, as far back in fact as the
time of Lamb, and a fresh supply was always kept in stock by the Clerk of
the Works. Andre's bones, brought back to his native country, forty-one
years after his death, by a royal prince, were buried near the monument,
which was erected earlier at the expense of George III.
Beyond the gate, to our left, another pictorial monument appeals to
Londoner and countryman alike, for here is represented the assassination
of Tom of the Ten Thousand, a younger member of that well-known Dorset
family the Thynnes, Marquesses of Bath. His murderers were hired by a
notorious foreign count who desired to gain Thynne's rich young bride for
his own wife, but failed to persuade the lady to recognise his claims.
The cockney gazes in wonder at Pall Mall as it appeared in 1682, when it
was a lonely road between meadows, where highwaymen were apt to demand
your money or your life. The Welshman, if one be here, is pleased to
recognise a countryman in the coachman, whose descendants long boasted
that their ancestor was to be seen in the Abbey, on the box of Squire
Thynne's carriage. A little further is the recumbent tomb of one {38} of
the same family, William Thynne, who was Receiver of the Marches for many
years under the Tudor sovereigns. As yet we have been unable to single
out one of the many sailors whose memorials surround us in the nave, but
now we are brought up short, so to speak, by a monstrous figure with a
huge periwig and lolling on cushions, which, we are almost ashamed to
explain, is meant for one of our most noted eighteenth-century admirals,
Sir Cloudesley Shovel to wit.
It is better to distract attention to the bas-relief of the wreck below,
and relate the story of Shovel's youthful valour, when he swam from ship
to ship under fire carrying despatches in his mouth, for all the world
like a Newfoundland dog. The strange and tragic history of his end must
also be retold, when the flagship was wrecked on the treacherous Scilly
rocks, and the Admiral's unconscious body received the _coup de grâce_
from a callous fishwife, who stole his signet ring, and after concealing
it for thirty years, confessed her crime and returned the ring to
Shovel's representatives on her deathbed. No less wanting in taste is
the monument above to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the painter of simpering
beauties at the Courts of five sovereigns, from Charles II. to George I.,
and the only memorial to {39} an artist, with the exception of Ruskin, in
the whole Abbey. Kneller swore a mighty oath that he would not be buried
at Westminster, "They do bury fools there," he grumbled, but he himself
designed his most inartistic cenotaph, while his friend Pope wrote the
epitaph, which begins with the extravagant line: "Kneller by Heaven and
not a master taught."
While most of our party are attracted towards the last two conspicuous
monuments, the Non-conformists, should any be amongst us, are sure to
linger by the mural tablet, with medallion portrait heads, which Dean
Stanley allowed the Wesleyans to put here in memory of the brothers John
and Charles Wesley. Upon it are the appropriate words: "I look upon all
the world as my parish," which John Wesley literally interpreted. Near
by was already the memorial to Dr. Isaac Watts, the great dissenting
minister of an earlier generation, whose hymns are still popular in
church and chapel alike, as are to a greater degree those of Charles
Wesley.
To a Frenchman or Italian a humbler tablet on the opposite side with a
long inscription is of more interest, for it commemorates Pasquale de
Paoli, the champion of Corsican independence, {40} who took refuge in
England, the home of liberty, and died here in 1807. The ladies, leaving
the men to their study of the seamen and soldiers, with whose names the
walls are covered, ask for information about the bust of a young woman,
just beyond Paoli. Grace Gethin, although the only authoress in the
Abbey who has a monument to herself,--for the learned Margaret, Duchess
of Newcastle, shares her husband's tomb in the north transept,--has no
real claim to this distinction. Her immortal work, which she bequeathed
to an admiring circle of blue-stockings, proved to be a mere book of
extracts culled from popular writers. The playwright, Congreve, whose
own medallion is below the Abbot's Pew in the nave, showed his want of
literary cultivation by not only composing a poem in praise of the young
writer, but allowing it to be published as a preface to the book, which
went through several editions before the fraud was discovered. The
annual sermon, which was long preached in the Abbey in memory of the
youthful heiress (she was only twenty-one) who left a bequest for the
purpose in her will, has become a thing of the past.
While the artistic persons with us have been bewailing the ruthless
destruction of the wall {41} arcading and will have cause to lament still
louder in the transepts, the student of heraldry is attracted to some
defaced shields which repay a closer attention, and have helped
antiquaries to fix the dates of the choir and nave. The Confessor's,
with the familiar five birds, and Henry the Third's arms with three lions
are easily identified in this aisle, and the learned in such matters
point out many others, chiefly the coats of Henry's relations, such as
his father-in-law, Raymond de Beranger, Count of Provence, and his
brother Richard, King of the Romans, one of the royal princes selected to
carry St. Edward's coffin from the palace to the new shrine.
We have now reached the crossing, and should all our party desire to make
an exhaustive circuit of the church to-day, the south transept is our
next goal. When time presses it is wisest for the guide to pause here,
merely point out the Statesmen's Aisle and the Poets' Corner, and then
pass on at once through the iron gates to the royal chapels.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Interior of the South Transept]
* * * *
INTERIOR OF THE SOUTH TRANSEPT
The illustration shows the south transept proper, looking towards the
great rose window. On our right we see the historical side, to our left
is Poets' Corner; from here the statue of Shakespeare is the most
conspicuous, standing out from the mass of other memorials which
commemorate poets and literary men. The glass in the window above and
the lights below it are quite modern, placed there as a memorial to the
late Duke of Westminster in 1902.
* * * * * *
Upon our right is the so-called "historical" side of the transept, where
are collected the monuments of many distinguished literary men, not
historians only, whose names are more familiar to us than {42} the
majority of poetasters who were honoured with tributes in Poets' Corner
proper. The busts of Grote and Thirlwall were placed here by Dean
Stanley, in close proximity to other classical scholars. These two
friends each compiled a history of Greece without the other's knowledge,
till the publication of Thirlwall's surprised Grote, but made no change
in their friendship. They are buried in the same grave, near Macaulay.
We tread now upon the tombstone of Dean Ireland; with him rests the
companion of his youth and the friend of his maturity, William Gifford,
editor of the _Quarterly Review_ at the time when its biting reviews cut
many a rising poet, including Keats, to the heart. Ireland's name must
ever be held dear by all visitors to the Abbey, for under his orders the
nave and transepts, formerly accessible only on payment of a fee, were
opened free to the general public. The quaint half-figure of William
Camden claims our attention next. We see the famous antiquary and
historian "in habit as he lived," with his hand upon his great work, the
_Britannia_. Camden belongs to Westminster in every sense: as a boy he
was a _protégé_ of Goodman's, as a young man he became usher, and he
ultimately rose to be headmaster of the school. {43} Later on he gave up
teaching in order to devote himself to antiquarian research, encouraged
by the approval of the Queen, and supported by the salary he received as
Herald. He continued to dwell in Dean's Yard, and loved to wander in the
Abbey, meditating amongst the tombs; the fruit of his solitary hours here
was the first attempt at a guide-book, a list of the monuments, which
was, however, written in Latin, and therefore of no use to the ordinary
tourist. His own monument was sadly knocked about twenty-three years
(1643) after his death by some rough fellows, probably Cavaliers, who
broke into the Abbey one night, and on their way to deface Lord Essex's
hearse took the nose off poor Camden; the damage they did was repaired in
the eighteenth century at the expense of Oxford University. Next to
Camden, upon a plain mural monument, is inscribed the name of Isaac
Casaubon. We know him by repute only as a celebrated French scholar, who
was tempted from his native land by King James I. with the offer of a fat
canonry at Canterbury, but who only lived to enjoy the sinecure post--he
was a layman--four years. Surely there must be fishermen amongst us: to
them the initials I. W. scratched upon Casaubon's memorial may recall the
great angler, Isaac [Transcriber's note: "Izaak" in Index] Walton, {44}
even though we have no means of proving that these were actually his
handiwork; but as a friend of Casaubon's son, and a namesake and admirer
of the father, there is no incongruity in associating the two names.
The "burlesque" statue of the famous actor, David Garrick, with "a
farrago of false thoughts and nonsense inscribed below," must ever be
associated with Charles Lamb, who thus appropriately described it. With
Garrick himself is indissolubly connected the memory of his lifelong
friend, Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose familiar form, with its brown coat and
tie wig, was conspicuous at the funeral, standing close to Shakespeare's
monument, tears coursing down his cheeks for the loss of his dear Davy.
Five years later, Mrs. Garrick herself, once a brilliant, graceful
dancer, now a little shrivelled old woman, stood by the doctor's open
grave in this same transept, bowed with age and overcome with grief.
In this transept there are monuments to another actor and an actress,
celebrated in their own day. Barton Booth, a Westminster scholar under
Dr. Busby, rose to a high place in his profession; his wife, once like
Mrs. Garrick a popular dancer, put up the tablet. His memory still
survives in two {45} Westminster streets, called Barton Street and Cowley
Street, after his name and the place where he was buried. Mrs. Pritchard
was honoured by a memorial near Shakespeare's statue, upon which the
poet-laureate of the day wrote a florid inscription. She began her
professional career after Booth's death, but lived long enough to tread
the same boards as Garrick, whose grave is just below; she predeceased
the younger actor by ten years. Only one actress, Ann Oldfield, who
belonged to an earlier generation (she flourished in the beginning of the
eighteenth century), was buried actually within the Abbey; a woman of no
character but of some talent, she lies near the Deanery door in the nave.
We must not forget, when we reach St. Andrew's Chapel, to point out the
colossal statues of Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John Kemble, upon whose
shoulders fell the mantles of Mrs. Barry and Garrick, and who carried on
the old traditions at Drury Lane and Covent Garden during the first
quarter of the nineteenth century.
We have digressed from our beaten path to follow after the lights of the
theatrical profession, and shall afterwards find other well-known players
in the cloisters. A glance round, as we stand in the western part of the
transept, shows that we are {46} literally surrounded by familiar faces
and much-loved authors. Of Addison we speak later, so may pass over his
very inferior statue (by Westmacott), but just beyond we see the busts of
Lord Macaulay and of Thackeray, and the medallion heads of Sir Walter
Scott and of John Ruskin; below them is the grave of Charles Dickens.
The lovers of music raise their eyes meantime to the unwieldy figure of
Handel, whose personality remained essentially German although the
greater part of his life was spent in England, at the Court of the first
three Georges. Beneath his monument is the medallion of that gifted
singer Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, placed there as a record of the many
occasions when the Swedish nightingale interpreted Handel's beautiful
music to the British public in a manner never excelled before or since.
Close to us now is a reminder of the old monastic days--the door which
leads into an ancient chapel used by the brethren as a vestry, and in the
floor before it is the grave of Abbot Litlington, to whom we have alluded
before and of whom we shall speak again. Near his is that of a humble
monk, one Owen Tudor, who took sanctuary during the Wars of the Roses,
and probably lived to see his nephew, Henry Tudor, on the English throne.
Above the {47} door Oliver Goldsmith's name recalls the early days of the
English novel, when the _Vicar of Wakefield_ was one of the very few in
existence. Many of us have enjoyed his inimitable comedy, _She Stoops to
Conquer_, on the stage, as well as those popular plays, _The Rivals_ and
_The School for Scandal_, by the other eighteenth-century Irish
dramatist, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whose tombstone is beneath our
feet. That great portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds is responsible for
the position and design of Goldsmith's medallion, which spoils the
architecture, and is so high that even classical scholars rarely attempt
to decipher Dr. Johnson's pompous inscription. The cynical English
lines, which the poet Gay wrote for his own tablet close by, are far more
often noticed:--
Life is a jest and all things show it;
I thought so once and now I know it.
A preposterous and affected statue to our left, with the immortal name of
Shakespeare below it, has distracted the eyes of our friends, and
comments are freely made when we tell them how nearly the bones of the
sweet Swan of Avon were brought from Stratford to this burial-place of
poets. The monument itself was erected by subscription more than a
century after Shakespeare's {48} death, but the removal of the body had
been averted long before by Ben Jonson's protest and the dramatist's
posthumous curse. The Scotchmen with us, who have just gazed with much
appreciation at Chantrey's bust of their national novelist, a replica of
the one at Abbotsford, now look up to the heavy-featured face of Burns,
their national poet. We pause to tell them that this memorial was placed
here twenty-one years ago, and was paid for with shilling subscriptions,
which were voluntarily contributed by all classes in Scotland, from the
highest to the lowest. Southey and Coleridge are the next on the eastern
wall, and we find their names familiar to all those who have toured in
the Lake country, although few of their works are read now by the
generality, save possibly Southey's _Life of Nelson_. Campbell's bust is
at the angle where we turn into the original Poets' Corner, and several
of those around us call to mind his still popular poems, notably
"Hohenlinden" and the "Battle of the Baltic." A few steps further and we
stand upon the vault of Edmund Spenser, that prince of poets, who was
buried in close proximity to the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of
English poetry. Within this vault moulder not only the dust of Spenser,
{49} but the funeral odes and the pens wherewith they were writ, which
his friends, the poets and literary men of the day, threw old Camden
tells us upon his coffin. Elizabeth herself, according to a contemporary
writer, mindful of the tribute paid to her in the _Fairie Queen_, ordered
a monument to be erected in honour of her poet, but this was never done:
she died three years later, and some said that a greedy courtier
embezzled the money intended for this purpose. Whatever the truth, a
literary Countess, Lady Dorset, repaired the omission twenty years
afterwards, but by the following century her memorial had crumbled away,
and was replaced by a copy, for which Gray's friend Mason collected a sum
of money. After Spenser's burial this part of the transept was dedicated
to the memory of poets, and amongst many forgotten names are others of
undying fame. Before us, for instance, are Ben Jonson and Milton.
Jonson, who knew Shakespeare and owed much to his friendship with Lord
Bacon, died as did so many of his literary contemporaries, in poor
circumstances: like Chaucer and Spenser, he ended his life in a house
close to the Abbey, in King Street, which was recently demolished. His
body was buried in the nave, {50} standing upright on its feet; the words
"O rare Ben Jonson," which are repeated on the monument, were cut upon
the stone at the charge of a certain Sir Jack Young, who happened to be
passing when the mason was fixing the gravestone. The ancient
inscription has been placed against the wall to preserve the lettering,
and a modern paving stone marks the place of the vault. The buttons of
the poet's coat, which are on the wrong side in his bust, gave rise to
the couplet:--
O rare Ben Jonson, what a turncoat grown,
Thou ne'er wast such till thou wast carved in stone.
While roystering Ben waited a hundred years before his literary
distinction was recognised by this memorial in Poets' Corner, the
strength of Royalist feeling kept Milton's name out of the Abbey
altogether for the same period after his death. Thus, although both men
died in the seventeenth century, their monuments date from the middle of
the eighteenth. Milton's name was regarded as anathema by the loyal
Chapter, and it was not till long after the Jacobite Atterbury's exile,
that a Dean (Wilcocks) was broad-minded enough to acknowledge Milton's
genius, and allow an admirer of his, one Benson, to put up a monument.
The lyric muse above Gray's medallion {51} close by, points to the bust
of that master of poetry and prose, to whom he and all the poets ever
since Milton's time owe so much. Gray himself must always be remembered
in the Abbey, for who can stand amongst the kings and look upon the
"mighty conquerors, mighty lords," who made this island kingdom, without
recalling the words of his historic ode?
Nowadays, when by common consent Chaucer is regarded as the patriarch of
English poets, visitors to this transept naturally consider that he was
buried here on account of his literary reputation. But this was not the
case. At one time a favourite of kings, Chaucer was also a connection by
marriage with his powerful patron John of Gaunt, yet he seems to have
died in comparative poverty. He was Clerk of the Works at the royal
palace hard by, and a dweller beneath the shadow of the old Lady Chapel;
his burial in the adjoining church followed as a matter of course, simply
because he resided within the precincts. For nearly a hundred and fifty
years the only record of his grave was a leaden plate, with a Latin
inscription by an Italian poet, which hung upon the pillar near. At last
one Brigham, himself with a turn for verse-making, procured an ancient
marble {52} tomb, and got permission to put it up against this wall. It
has been called by Chaucer's name ever since; but whether the poet's
bones still lie in the original grave, where Dryden's coffin was
afterwards placed, or were transferred here, is still a moot-point. The
modern window above, the gift of an American admirer, contains portraits
of Chaucer and his contemporary John Gower. Quite lately another painted
glass window, dedicated to the Confessor, has been inserted beside it.
John Dryden, whose reputation equalled Spenser's in his own day, died,
like Chaucer (1400) and Spenser (1599), at the end of a century, in his
case the eighteenth, and his burial in Chaucer's grave, near the entrance
to St. Benedict's Chapel, was a mark of special honour. To reach his
beautiful bust, a copy by Scheemakers of an earlier one, we must pass
over the gravestones of two well-known modern poets, Alfred, Lord
Tennyson, and Robert Browning. On a pillar close by is Woolner's bust of
Tennyson, which represents the laureate in middle life. The name of
Abraham Cowley on a stone beside them conveys little to us now, but his
contemporary reputation was very great, and Dryden owed much to Cowley,
his immediate predecessor in the circle of poets. Before we move on
there are two busts {53} which are artistically very inferior to
Dryden's. I refer first to that of Longfellow, whose name is a household
word on either side of the Atlantic, and of whom Americans are justly
proud. On the other column is that of the Scotch Archbishop of
Canterbury, Archibald Tait, placed here with intent, because in the
vicinity lies another Primate also of Scotch birth, Spottiswoode,
Archbishop of St. Andrews, a favourite with King James I., and by his
command historian of the Scottish Church.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Chaucer's Tomb]
* * * *
CHAUCER'S TOMB
Before us is the monument, put up one hundred and fifty years after his
death, to Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, and we see upon
the pavement wreaths which mark the graves of our two most distinguished
modern poets, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Robert Browning, and were placed
there no doubt by some visitor to the Abbey, who desired thus to show
honour to their memory. This spot is the very centre of the famous
Poets' Corner, and close by is the vault where lie the bones of Spenser,
and the pens and funeral odes of the poets who attended his funeral.
* * * * * *
Close together on the left are the monuments of three men, all of whom
were old Westminsters, two of them headmasters of the school. Busby and
Vincent were strict disciplinarians, whose belief in the efficacy of the
rod was afterwards equalled if not excelled by Dr. Keate at Eton. Busby
flogged impartially the boy with brains and the boy with none, but prided
himself in later life on having schooled many a budding genius, including
the future laureate, Dryden himself. Amongst those who smarted under his
discipline was the eloquent preacher, Dr. South, who reclines in marble
so peacefully by his side. For fifty-five years Busby ruled supreme at
Westminster School; he remained a Loyalist to the core throughout the
disturbing changes of the Commonwealth, and {54} continued faithful to
the Stuarts even under the disquieting régime which followed the
Restoration. South, who was a Prebendary, is remembered here for his
refusal of the Deanery, a post which Dr. Vincent, whose medallion is
between these monuments, accepted (1816) a century after South's death.
So excessive was his use of the rod that Southey, a schoolboy at the
time, raised an energetic protest against the headmaster's tyranny, and
was forthwith expelled from Westminster. When he became Dean, however,
Vincent turned his superfluous energy to more practical uses, and, as we
have already said, carried out the restoration and preservation of Henry
VII.'s Chapel, besides many useful repairs to the Abbey fabric.
Before we pass within the iron gate and thus approach the head of the
cross, _i.e._ the apse with its surrounding chapels, we must stand awhile
in the centre of the church beneath the lantern. On either side stretch
the arms of the cross: the southern one we have just visited, the
northern we leave for our return. From here we can observe the
architectural features, and point out that the west aisle of the south
cross is cut off by the eastern walk of the cloister, a singular
arrangement, due probably to the fact that the ancient Norman {55}
cloister, which stood long after the building of Henry the Third's
church, was already in this position. Between the triforium and the roof
of this cloister is a vaulted chamber, called the Muniment Room, where
some of the Abbey documents are still kept, and the ancient chests
contain archives, which are gradually being sorted and rearranged. Upon
the wall the traces of Richard the Second's badge, the White Hart, can be
seen from below on sunny mornings. We have already noticed the doorway
of St. Faith's Chapel at the extreme south end, and there also are the
ruins of a little stone stair, which used to lead below the triforium
level above the chapel into the monks' dormitory beyond. The large rose
window, the tracery of which has been remodelled more than once since the
thirteenth century, was refilled with painted glass two years ago in
memory of the late Duke of Westminster. We look the other way, down the
north transept, and see the statues of statesmen in the distance, which
we shall examine later on. The northern rose window was also restored
several times in the eighteenth century, when it entirely lost its
original character under Dean Atterbury's energetic supervision. We are
told that he actually watched the workmen hewing {56} smooth the old
sculptures. Before his exile the Dean chose the subjects for the painted
glass, the colours of which, mellowed by time, compare favourably with
the modern lights below. From where we stand we can see one of the few
existing stone angels blowing trumpets, which formerly filled the
spandrels of the arches, and were part of the angelic choir all round the
church. The arcading immediately under the window still remains, but
lower down the architecture is completely ruined by two monstrous naval
monuments. The eastern aisle is cut off from the rest of the transept
and divided into three small chapels. The western is partially severed
from the main aisle by large cenotaphs.
We turn to the west and see the present choir, which stretches to the
organ screen. The stalls are of no artistic merit, and were designed in
part by Wyatt, early in the nineteenth century; later on they were added
to by Blore, who was also responsible, in 1848, for the wooden casing of
the ancient stone wall between choir and nave. Beneath the
black-and-white pavement, his own gift, lie the remains of Dr. Busby.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: View of the Choir and Nave, Looking West from the High
Altar]
* * * *
VIEW OF THE CHOIR AND NAVE, LOOKING WEST FROM THE HIGH ALTAR
From the high altar we look down to the west end, and see above the choir
screen the painted glass of the west window which was inserted in the
reign of George II. To our right is the tomb of Aymer de Valence, and
the smaller contemporary monument of the first bride ever married in the
Abbey, Aveline, Countess of Lancaster. In the foreground is the ancient
mosaic pavement, which was laid in the thirteenth century, when this part
of the church was built; and beyond the altar rails we see the
comparatively modern stalls of the choir and the still more recent organ
case. The pulpit marks the intersection of the sanctuary with the north
transept.
* * * * * *
Facing east we look directly towards the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary,
where, raised high on a {57} mound of sacred earth, brought from
Palestine, is the shrine of Edward the Confessor, girdled by a half
circle of royal tombs. Between us and the saint's feretory is a
fifteenth-century screen, which is faced on this side by a modern
reredos, designed by Sir G. Scott. In front of this is the high altar.
Some way below the level of the floor, on either side of the altar, are
the bases of two pillars, which formed part of the original Norman
church, and have helped the experts to fix the exact proportions of the
Confessor's building.
Edward the Confessor was not canonised for nearly a hundred years after
his death, in spite of the repeated appeals made to Rome by the
Westminster abbots. In the meantime his coffin lay before this altar in
a plain stone tomb, which was adorned by a rich pall, the gift of William
the Conqueror. When at last our founder's name was added to the roll of
saints, the body was transferred (October 13, 1163) to an elaborate
shrine, in the presence of Henry II. and his then friend the Archbishop,
Thomas à Becket. When this part of the old church was destroyed to make
way for Henry the Third's new building, the old shrine was removed to a
temporary chapel, while a new and more magnificent one, which we shall
examine more {58} closely presently, was prepared by the same Italian
workmen who were employed on the pavement, and afterwards to decorate the
tombs of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor of Castile. The materials--the
mosaic, the coloured marbles, and the porphyry--used for this beautiful
pavement, which was put down in 1268, as well as for the royal tombs,
were, like the designers and craftsmen themselves, brought from Rome by
Abbot Ware, who, with his successor, Abbot Wenlock, lies beneath the
mosaic work which Ware had supervised. The whole design, now partly
covered by an ancient Persian carpet, represents the probable duration of
the world according to the Ptolemaic system. To our left are three
artistic tombs, which belong to a later date, the early fourteenth
century, and are no doubt by the same unknown artist. In shape they
resemble the hearses which used to stand in the church before and for a
time after the burial of all distinguished persons. The recumbent
figures take the place of the effigies of the deceased, which were
usually made of wood, in the likeness of the dead person. These were
first carried at the funeral, and afterwards laid upon the hearse. The
little statuettes all round the sides are intended for the mourners, and
above are represented the lighted {59} torches and wax tapers, which
covered the hearse. In the small tomb nearest to us lies Aveline, wife
of Edmund Crouchback, Henry the Third's second son, whose own far more
elaborate sepulchre is nearest the altar. Edmund and Aveline were the
first couple ever married in the present church. Their wedding, in fact,
took place only a few months--in the spring of 1270--after the choir and
transepts had been opened for service. But the north aisle of the choir
was certainly completed before this marriage took place, for upon the
wall are the arms of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and King of the
Barons, in close juxtaposition with the fleurs-de-lis of France. In 1263
a grand temporary reconciliation was patched up between Henry III. and
the proud Earl, which was ratified at Boulogne in the presence of the
French King, St. Louis the peacemaker. These shields must therefore have
been carved here at about that time--in any case before Simon's fall; he
was killed in 1265 at the battle of Evesham. The arms of Aveline's rich
and powerful father, William de Fortibus, are in this same aisle. The
heiress herself died young, leaving no children, and her husband
inherited her vast wealth, with which he endowed the powerful house of
Lancaster. Edmund took {60} a foreign bride after Aveline's death, and
resided much with her in Provins, whence he brought the red roses which
became the Lancastrian badge. His eldest son, Thomas, the second Earl of
Lancaster, met his death on the scaffold through the machinations of
Aymer de Valence--a tragic sequel to the friendship between their
fathers, Edmund Crouchback and his uncle William de Valence, who were
brothers at arms, and had often fought side by side in the Holy Land.
A defaced painting on the ambulatory side of Edmund's tomb once showed
the figures of ten Crusaders; amongst them may have been portraits of the
uncle and his nephew; they died (1296) within a week of one another, on
an ill-fated expedition to Gascony, which ended in defeat and disaster to
the English force. All these three monuments--Aymer's is between those
of the Earl and Countess of Lancaster--repay a close study, but we can
only glance at them now. Notice the noble and dignified recumbent effigy
on Aveline's tomb, which is dressed in the simple costume of a grand dame
of the thirteenth century; it was formerly painted and gilt; some traces
of the red and white paint, also the green vine leaves, still remain
beneath the canopy. At the feet two dogs are snapping at {61} one
another in play. The two warriors are depicted in life and in death:
above each is an armed equestrian figure with visor up, while below lie
their quiet images in the sleep of death. The royal prince has a finer
monument with a triple canopy, otherwise there is little difference
between the two. The picture of Richard II. in his brilliant youth hangs
opposite his relatives. The King, whose destiny seemed so fair, but
whose tragic fate must move our pity, is here represented in the
coronation robes holding the orb and sceptre, and seated in St. Edward's
chair upon the ancient stone of Scone, which his ancestor, Edward I.,
wrested from the Scots. Behind the portrait a piece of tapestry, which
used to be in the great schoolroom, recalls the fact that the whole
sanctuary was hung with arras and also wainscoted in Queen Anne's time.
The remains of the sedilia south of the altar date from Edward the
First's time, and were for long believed to form the canopy of an ancient
Saxon tomb, which the monks moved here from the Norman Chapter House and
called by the name of King Sebert, their traditional founder. We can see
this better from the ambulatory, also the curious skull and cross-bone
ornament which is all that is left of the tomb of Anne of Cleves, Henry
{62} the Eighth's repudiated wife, the only one of all his wives who was
buried in the Abbey. She was interred here with a pompous funeral
service by order of her friend and step-daughter Queen Mary.
Let us return now to the iron gate which divides the south ambulatory
from the transept. Just inside is a small chapel, called after St.
Benedict, the founder of the Benedictines, to which order the Westminster
monks belonged, and where his head was long kept. The chapel is not
open, but easily seen from outside. Within is the fine altar tomb of
Simon Langham, first Abbot of Westminster, then Archbishop of Canterbury,
through whose munificent bequest his energetic successor, Litlington, was
able to add to the monastic buildings and cloisters. Other burials of
interest took place in this chapel. The tomb which usurps the place of
the altar is that of Frances, Countess of Hertford, daughter-in-law to
the Protector Somerset, by whose orders these altars were destroyed, and
sister to that famous Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, whose fleet
drove the Spanish Armada from our shores. A well-preserved
seventeenth-century brass, raised a few inches above the floor, gives us
the portrait of Dr. Bill, the first Dean after Elizabeth reconstituted
the {63} collegiate body, which had been originally founded by her
father, Henry VIII., but was suppressed by her sister Mary. Bill lived
only a year at the Deanery, but during that short period he drafted the
statutes, the nucleus of which remains unaltered to the present day,
although the details have been considerably changed. His successor,
Gabriel Goodman, whose kneeling statue is against the south wall, was in
office throughout nearly the whole long reign of Queen Elizabeth, dying
only two years before his friend and patroness. We must not linger in
this little chapel, for voices from the past are calling us to hasten
onwards toward the burial-place of kings.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The South Ambulatory, looking west down the South Choir
Aisle]
* * * *
THE SOUTH AMBULATORY, LOOKING WEST DOWN THE SOUTH CHOIR AISLE
In the immediate foreground on the left is the entrance to St. Edmund's
Chapel, while the iron gates just beyond the back of the sedilia mark the
junction of the south ambulatory with the south transept. Close behind
the verger's desk is a pointed arch with a small tomb below, in which are
buried the remains of various princes and princesses, and upon it used to
be a golden statue of St. Catherine, the patron saint of Henry III.'s
dumb daughter Catherine, the first little one interred in this place. At
the back of the arch are still traces of the mural painting which Edward
I. caused to be done here to commemorate his children, no less than six
of whom were buried near their aunt. On the opposite side we see the
plain Saxon tomb called by the name of King Sebert, whom the monks
believed to be their founder. Part of Richard II.'s monument is visible
behind the oak seat.
* * * * * *
Close at hand in the ambulatory is a dark arch, beneath which several
royal children were laid to rest when the church was still quite new.
The founder's dearly loved dumb daughter Catherine, a beautiful child of
five, was the first of all the royal family who was thus honoured, and in
ancient times we should have seen a tiny gilt brass statuette of St.
Catherine, her patron saint, kneeling here, with a silver portrait image
of the princess herself. Two of her brethren and four of her nephews and
nieces, the children of her brother Edward I., were buried beside her,
and Edward {64} caused the arch to be richly adorned and gilt, while a
painting of his own little ones was added in the background. The eldest
boy, Alfonzo, a lad of twelve, was sent shortly before his death from
Wales to Westminster, where, by his war-like father's command, he offered
the coronet of Llewellyn, the last native Prince of Wales, to St.
Edward's shrine. His brother Edward afterwards became the first English
Prince of Wales.
In the next chapel, that dedicated to St. Edmund, king and martyr, we
find other members of Henry the Third's family. To the right, forming
part of the screen, is the tomb of his half-brother, that William de
Valence to whom we referred in connection with his own son Aymer and
Henry's son, Edmund Crouchback. De Valence was a Frenchman, and not only
as a foreigner, but from his haughty overbearing character, was very
unpopular in England. Yet his friend and cousin Edward I., unheeding the
popular voice, caused this beautiful and costly tomb to be made for his
remains. It was originally covered with that rare and excellent enamel
work which was then made at Limoges in De Valence's native province, but
only a few fragments, notably on the shield, the {65} pillow, and the
girdle, remain intact. Formerly, besides the enamel and filigree
decorations, there were no less than 31 gilt images of mourners, each
with an enamelled coat of arms above it, in the shallow arcades round the
tomb. Practically nothing is left of all this splendour, and the wooden
chest which contained the body, for it was the custom to bury the dead
above ground in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is stripped bare
of ornament. On the other side of the entrance lies a royal Prince of
English birth, John of Eltham, the second son of Edward II., and thus
grandson to Henry III. To the student of armour the alabaster effigy is
of special interest as a specimen of the military costume of the
fourteenth century; while the coronet is the earliest known example of
ducal form--the title of Duke was not introduced into England till rather
later. The small crowned images of royal personages, John's relations,
round the base of the altar tomb are all mutilated, while the triple
canopy has long disappeared, broken down by the pressure of the crowds
which used to throng into the church at all large funerals in the
eighteenth century. John was only nineteen at the time of his death, but
had already won his spurs at the battle of Halidon Hill, and was {66} so
trusted by his incapable father that in spite of his youth he was given
the command of the whole English army in Scotland. On a small altar tomb
close to that of John of Eltham are two tiny alabaster images, twenty
inches long, in the stiff costume of the period; these represent his
nephew and niece, William of Windsor and Blanche of the Tower, infant
children of Edward III. In the centre of the floor are two admirable
fourteenth-century brasses, which have fortunately escaped the
despoiler's hand. The one commemorates the Black Prince's friend,
Archbishop Waldeby; the other Richard the Second's aunt, Eleanor, Duchess
of Gloucester. The grave of a modern novelist and diplomatist, Edward
Bulwer, Earl of Lytton, is close by; the place was selected by Dean
Stanley on account of its proximity to the tomb of Sir Humphrey
Bourchier, a knight who was killed at Barnet Field, the victory which
established Edward the Fourth's claim to the crown. Lord Lytton
described this and other fights during the Wars of the Roses in his
well-known novel, _The Last of the Barons_. We have not time to-day to
study all the interesting monuments in this and the adjoining
chapel,--that dedicated to St. Nicholas, the children's patron saint,
where, amongst the tombs of {67} grown-up people of high rank, are the
funeral urns of two tiny infants,--but we may notice the number of ladies
who are buried or commemorated in both these little chapels. Most of
them were prominent at Court in the time of the Tudors, and some of them
were near relatives of Queen Elizabeth's. The place of St. Nicholas's
altar is again covered by a woman's tomb; this time the intruder is the
widow of the Protector Somerset, that proud Duchess whose temper made the
life of those about her well-nigh unendurable.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Early Brasses and Picturesque Tombs in St. Edmund's Chapel]
* * * *
ST. EDMUND'S CHAPEL
We have already seen part of this chapel. On the floor in the foreground
are two fine fourteenth-century brasses, raised on low altar tombs;
against the screen behind is a dilapidated monument, which was once one
of the most beautiful in the Abbey. In the wooden coffer above the stone
base are the bones of William de Valence, Henry III.'s half-brother, and
upon it lies his effigy, which was originally covered with Limoges
enamel, but a few pieces only remain intact, notably in the shield and
the sword belt. Facing us is a large Jacobean monument, which
commemorates Edward Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and was put up by his
widowed Countess, whose own effigy lies beside that of her husband.
Through the pillars beyond the wooden screen of the Chapel appears the
stone screen between Edward the Confessor's Chapel and the high altar,
while beyond, above the south arches of the Confessor's Chapel, are the
openings of the triforium.
* * * * * *
A large mural monument close by recalls a happy marriage and records the
grief of the heart-broken husband. Elizabeth's trusted Minister, the
great Lord Burleigh, is here depicted in his robes of state, kneeling
above the recumbent effigies of his wife, a lady noted for her learning
and for her active benevolence, and of their unhappy daughter, Anne,
Countess of Oxford. At his mother's feet is the figure of Robert Cecil,
the first Lord Salisbury of that name, who succeeded his father as
confidential adviser to their sovereign. Neither father nor son is
buried here. Lord Burleigh lies at Stamford, his country place, and on
the day of the funeral a stately service was held in the Abbey, a mark of
respect repeated recently (August 1903) {68} when his descendant, the
late Lord Salisbury, was laid to rest at Hatfield.
Returning into the ambulatory we should look at this side of the royal
tombs before passing round the corner into the chapel itself. From here
the nearest is that of Richard II., which is raised too high above us to
see well. The lower part was formerly in a very bad state of repair, and
through the holes in the wooden chest which contained the royal remains
the bones of Richard and his wife Anne could be clearly seen. Indeed,
the schoolboys used to amuse themselves by flipping marbles into the
sepulchre. The jawbone of the King is said to have been picked out by
one bold youth; smaller bones and such-like curiosities were the easy
prey of the less venturesome. Edward the Third's, on the other hand,
which comes next, has never been thus tampered with, although a few
shields have been carried off. But we can still see the six gilt brass
images of his children on this side, those on the other have been stolen
long ago; these are headed by Richard's father, the warlike Black Prince,
whose tomb some of us know at Canterbury Cathedral. Queen Philippa's
monument, the third in order, has been stripped bare of all the "sweetly
carved niches" and little alabaster {69} figures, not to speak of the
gilt angels and other beautiful decorations, which once adorned it. The
same sad tale of spoliation and vanished splendour must be repeated when
we reach the top of the wooden steps which lead up into St. Edward's
Chapel. The battered oak effigy of Henry V. need not detain us now, we
speak of that great monarch later. Standing before the shrine itself the
oft-told tale of our Saxon founder must not be omitted--the fascinating
legend of his strange visions, one of which led him to select Thorneye as
the favoured site of his monastic foundation. The story of his life and
death are illustrated by the stone pictures on the screen, which divides
the chapel from the high altar, and was probably put up by the pious
Henry VI. One of the favourite scenes is the remission of the Dane-gelt,
which may have taken place in the old Treasury, the Pyx Chapel; here we
see the King pointing to the casks which contain his people's hard-earned
money; upon them formerly danced a demon Dane, thus thwarted of his due.
Edward lies upon his bed in another, calmly watching the scullion who
rifles his treasure-chest, and escapes with a mild admonition from the
gentle King. Further on we see him seated at dinner between his wife
{70} and her father, Earl Godwin, while in front her brothers Tostig and
Harold are disputing, as they quarrelled years afterwards over the crown,
and Edward is roused to a prophetical burst of wrath. The most
significant are the last ones, which recall the famous legend of the ring
and the consecration of the Abbey. St. John, who, disguised as a beggar,
received the ring from Edward, is shown delivering it into the hands of
two pilgrims, who are bidden to return with it to England and deliver it
back to the King, with a message intimating his approaching end. This
ring, taken from the incorruptible finger of the royal saint a century
after his death by Abbot Laurence, was deposited amongst the relics, and
no doubt the wedding ring of England, which is still placed upon the
finger of the sovereign after he has received the insignia of royalty,
had its origin in this sacred ring. We turn to the shrine itself, and
try to picture it in all its pristine beauty before the sacrilegious hand
of the despoiler had touched it. West of the shrine is a modern altar,
the ancient one was destroyed long since, but hitherto a wooden table was
temporarily placed here at coronations, for which this marble altar was
substituted on the last occasion. The modern gilt {71} group over it and
the gilded cornice sorely afflict the eye, and are sadly out of keeping
with the artistic work of the Roman artisans, Odericus and Peter. The
wooden top, of no merit in itself, but dating from Mary Tudor's reign, is
now covered by a velvet pall, which unfortunately conceals the saint's
coffin, formerly visible from the chantry. On either side of St.
Edward's altar were once golden pillars presented by Edward II.; the
golden image of St. John the Evangelist stood upon one, that of the
Confessor himself upon the other. The stone basement was entirely
covered with elaborate decorations, glass mosaic, precious stones, and
enamels; and the twisted pillars, also richly decorated, remind the
Italian traveller of those in the cloister at St. John Lateran. Within
the niches sick persons used to crouch all the long night, believing that
this mere proximity to the dead saint would cure their diseases. The
coffin itself is above, raised high, as the old writers tell us, "on a
candlestick, to enlighten the world." It was originally encased in a
wonderful feretory, made of pure gold and decorated with golden and
jewelled images of kings and queens, of saints and angels. This was
melted down, and all the valuable ornaments were sold, when Henry VIII.
suppressed the {72} monastery. The last Abbot, John Feckenham, did his
best to restore some of its former glory to St. Edward's Chapel. He
rebuilt the basement of the shrine, which the monks had concealed before
they fled, and painted over the gaps left by the theft of the mosaic
work. He also rewrote the inscriptions on all the royal tombs, probably
in most cases restoring the ancient words.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The West End of the Confessor's Shrine, with the Modern
Altar]
* * * *
THE WEST END OF THE CONFESSOR'S SHRINE, SHOWING THE MODERN ALTAR
A small portion of the ancient shrine is given in this illustration, but
we can see the only twisted pillar which retains any of its original
Italian mosaic decoration, and behind the candlesticks is more of this
beautiful work. The altar and the gilded group and cornice over it are
of recent date, _i.e._ the Coronation of King Edward VII. and Queen
Alexandra; the red velvet pall with its blue linen cover were placed over
the tomb of the saint at the same time. A portion of the tombs of Edward
III. and Richard II. show on the south side of the chapel, with the
windows of that of St. Edmund above.
* * * * * *
Neither Feckenham nor Queen Mary could afford to pay for a new golden
top, and the present plain wooden one was perforce substituted. The only
wonder is that the royal chapel was not stripped entirely bare of its
treasures long before our time. The relics, no doubt, were taken at the
suppression of the monastery. The silver head and armour of Henry V.
were stolen in the reign of Henry VIII., after the monks, those careful
custodians of the Abbey, had been dispersed. The silver cradle on the
tomb of Edward IV.'s little daughter vanished later. We look around and
see the empty places on Henry III.'s tomb whence the mosaics and jewels
have been picked out; the arms of Richard II. and his queen are missing;
that once wonderful work of art, Philippa's monument, so well described
by Sir Gilbert Scott, is a ruin. The Coronation Chair, now raised safely
out of {73} harm's way, is actually covered with the names of tourists.
Yet neither Henry VIII. nor the Protestant Protector Somerset, not even
those scapegoats the Puritan soldiers, are altogether to blame for these
and other acts of vandalism. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries people seem to have roamed about the Abbey, occasionally
accompanied by a verger, usually free to write their names or to break
off relics. The glass cases of the wax effigies, which are covered with
such records, bear witness to the careless guardianship of the church in
former days.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Tomb of Henry III. from St. Edward's Chapel]
* * * *
THE TOMB OF HENRY III. FROM ST. EDWARD'S CHAPEL, LOOKING EAST
The tomb of our second founder, the builder of this portion of the Abbey
Church, has, like the shrine of St. Edward, suffered much from the
despoiler's hand. The tomb was made by the same Italian workmen who were
employed upon the shrine, but the effigies, both of Henry and his
daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, who is buried at his feet, are by an
Englishman, one William Torel. We see on this side one of the porphyry
slabs which Edward I. brought with him from the Continent, when he
returned from the Crusades a year after his father's death. In the
niches below, some of the most precious relics were kept. Beyond the
small black marble tomb of Elizabeth Tudor is that of Queen Eleanor,
first wife of Edward I., flanked by one of the entrance turrets to the
Chantry of Henry V.
* * * * * *
Fortunately there is still much left, and nothing can touch the
historical interest even of these mutilated tombs. One little pillar on
the shrine itself is practically intact, and from the north ambulatory,
above the reach of a man's arm, we shall see some of the mosaic
decoration which once adorned the whole of the tomb of Henry III. Thanks
to their grilles, the silver-gilt effigies of Henry and his
daughter-in-law, Eleanor of Castile, were secure from the despoiler's
hand, and remain as examples of the skill of an English artist, one
William Torel. The exceedingly interesting iron grille which guards
Eleanor's image is also by an English hand, that of Master Thomas of
Lewes, a {74} Sussex smith, and we inform our friends that Sussex was in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, probably till much later, an
iron-smelting county--a fact which is recalled by the hammer ponds at the
present day. Beneath our feet, protected by the linoleum, are fragments
of the ancient pavement, and north and south of the shrine lie two Saxon
queens whose bodies were removed here from the Confessor's church, when
it was pulled down by Henry III. Both were called by the old English
name of Editha. The elder is connected with the first historic
foundation of the Abbey, for she, the Confessor's wife, was present at
the consecration (Innocents' Day, 1066) of the choir and transepts, when
her husband lay helpless on his deathbed. Her niece changed the Saxon
name of Editha for the Norman Matilda or Maud when, by her marriage with
Henry I., the two rival races were united in one family. It is pleasant
here to turn to the foreigners amongst us and remind them that while we
speak of English sovereigns who were continually at war with their
ancestors, yet the discord was more apparent than real. For these very
men, the sworn enemies of France and of Spain for many a long generation,
were the husbands or {75} the sons of French, Spanish, and other foreign
princesses. Not only were they blood relations, but the language of
their courts and of their legal documents was French, and when they
wasted the fair lands of France, or fought against Spain, Flanders, and
Holland, they believed themselves to be striving to regain their lost
heritages and the dowries brought them by their brides. Long after
England and France were completely severed, Mary Tudor, herself the
daughter of a Spanish mother, and the wife of a Spanish king, clung so
fiercely to the last link which gave the English kings a claim to the
fleurs-de-lis in their quarterings that her heart broke when Calais fell.
We have already referred to the central tomb on the north of the shrine,
which contains the body of our second founder, Henry III., himself by the
way the husband of a French wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. To him we owe
the present beautiful church, and not even the memory of the money ground
out of the oppressed Jews, or gathered in the form of unjust taxes from
his wretched subjects, can damp our enthusiastic gratitude. The slabs of
porphyry and jasper upon both sides were brought by Henry's son, Edward
I., from Italy or France, when he returned across the Continent from the
Crusades a year after {76} his father's death. The coffin itself is,
like that of the Confessor, in the upper part of the tomb, and, unlike
those of Edward himself and Richard II., has never been tampered with;
there is no doubt that the embalmed body of the King still rests here,
untouched by the ravages of eight centuries. As we look upon the lovely
face of Henry's daughter-in-law, who lies at his feet, we forget that
this is no portrait but a conventional and ideal queen. We think only of
the young Spanish princess in the early days of her married life, before
the birth of thirteen children in quick succession, the loss of many of
these little ones, and the privations she suffered in the Holy Land had
marred her beauty. Vainly did the old King try to keep Eleanor at home
when his son, Prince Edward, went off to the Crusade. She continued to
urge her wifely duty in answer to his fatherly solicitations, and to
repeat that the way to heaven is as near from Palestine as from England.
By the time she returned her kind father-in-law was dead, and her
restless warlike husband was henceforth rarely by her side. Years
afterwards when the Queen died, Edward seems to have remembered her
wifely devotion with remorse, for never did any former English
queen-consort have so magnificent a burial {77} nor so costly a tomb.
Two other monuments (which no longer exist), containing her viscera and
her heart, were put up at Lincoln and Blackfriars. At every stage where
the funeral procession rested between Lincolnshire and Westminster the
King raised a memorial cross in his wife's honour. All have been
destroyed save three, but the last was at one time a conspicuous object
in Charing village, and a modern copy of it has been placed in the
station-yard at "Charing Cross." Eleanor herself bequeathed money
towards the expenses of her funeral, and Edward gave large sums to the
three convents, chiefly to Westminster, in order to provide for
anniversary services at his wife's tombs, where wax tapers were always to
be kept burning, and prayers constantly offered to Heaven for the repose
of her soul. Edward's son and successor was strangely lacking in filial
obedience. With his dying breath the warrior King, who had hammered the
Scots and harassed the Turks, gave orders that his body was to remain
unburied till Scotland was subdued, the flesh boiled, and the bones borne
at the head of the victorious English army. His heart was to be taken
out and confided to a band of knights, who were to fight for the Holy
Sepulchre, carrying the casket in their {78} midst. These commands were
disobeyed, and the plain tomb, without effigy or monument, is a silent
witness to the second Edward's failure to "keep troth." The embalmed
corpse was buried here soon after the King's death, but the upper slab
remained loose, and for many a long year the cere-cloth was kept waxed,
perhaps with the idea of carrying out the dead sovereign's behests at
some future time. In any case the cover was left as it was till the
eighteenth century, when some antiquaries were allowed to raise it, and
looking in they beheld the body of Longshanks lying there in royal state,
wrapped in the coronation robes, with orb and sceptre in either hand, a
linen cloth concealing the features. We cannot forgive the wanton
destruction which ensued. Boiling pitch was poured in, and the lid
hermetically sealed after these vandals had satisfied their curiosity and
taken notes of every detail. Havoc also was wrought to the outside about
the same period, when the canopy was destroyed during a riot which broke
out at the patriot Pulteney's burial in the ambulatory below, and the
iron grille, upon which were two little heads of the King, disappeared at
the same time. The words "Scotorum Malleus" and "Pactum Serva" were
painted by Abbot Feckenham's orders, but may have formed {79} part of the
original inscription. The most important trophy which the English
conqueror brought from Scotland was the stone of Scone, a reminder now of
the union of the two kingdoms, but then a constant source of irritation
to the Scots, who tried in vain to get it back. The chair which encloses
the stone was made in Edward's time, and has ever since been used as the
seat of our sovereigns at their coronations. Once and once only a man
not of royal birth was privileged to receive the insignia of government
seated in the Coronation Chair, when Oliver Cromwell was installed Lord
Protector in Westminster Hall. The huge sword behind the chair, carried
before Edward III. on his warlike expeditions into France and Scotland,
was probably used on the memorable occasion when he entered Calais in
state after the siege, and his wife Philippa begged her stern lord for
the lives of the twelve burgesses who brought him the keys of the
captured town. We turn to the left round the shrine and approach the
despoiled tomb of that good Flemish lady, who endeared herself to the
hearts of her English subjects by her wise and kindly rule during
Edward's frequent absences abroad and in Scotland. The face, a portrait
this time, shows us a homely countenance with full cheeks and rather
prominent eyes, {80} but pleasant withal and full of character. The
design of the whole was by a Flemish artist, but English stone-masons
worked on the details, and a certain John Orchard, the artist of the
copper-gilt angels, which formerly adorned the canopy, and probably also
of the figures on the King's tomb, made the little alabaster figures of
Philippa's two children in St. Edmund's Chapel for the sum of twenty
shillings. The white stone canopy with the wrought-metal tabernacle work
and gilt angels was actually removed as insecure in the eighteenth
century. The thirty alabaster niches, each containing the statuette of a
royal mourner, and the alabaster angels with gilt wings have all gone,
except the fragments of one, which was put together by Sir Gilbert Scott,
and is in a safe but dark corner. No trace remains of the iron grille
which Edward bought for his queen from a bishop's monument in St. Paul's
Cathedral. The King's own tomb is next to that of his wife: he thus kept
the promise which he made to her as she lay dying, and lies beside her in
the "Cloister" at Westminster. Froissart tells a touching story of the
scene between the royal couple, when Philippa held the hand of the
husband who had so often been faithless to her, and asked this, her last
boon. {81} Near her bed stood Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester,
the only one of her fourteen children able to be present at his mother's
deathbed; he is buried close to her tomb. Thomas was murdered by order
of his nephew, Richard II.--who was himself destined to come to an
untimely end at the hands of a relative--and the grave of the victim is
not far from Richard's own monument. We saw in St. Edmund's Chapel the
fourteenth-century brass which marks the last resting-place of the Duke's
widow, Eleanor de Bohun, who retired to a nunnery after her husband's
tragic fate. We have looked at the tombs of Edward III. and of Richard
II. from the ambulatory side; both are of English workmanship. That of
the elder monarch is finer and more elaborate than the other, which
Richard raised in his own lifetime to receive the remains of his beloved
first wife, Anne of Bohemia, and destined for his own corpse. Edward's
effigy is purely a conventional one, but the long hair and beard have
often been pointed out as a mark of his neglected lonely deathbed. True
enough this once powerful King died alone save for the ministrations of
an old priest, saddened in his last hours by the loss of his heir, the
Black Prince. But his end was less tragic than that of his successor and
grandson {82} twenty years later, over the details of which a veil of
mystery still hangs. We only know that his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke,
Duke of Lancaster, usurped the throne, and that the deposed Richard died
in prison; his body was obscurely buried at King's Langley, and
re-interred here long afterwards, with the honour due to a king, by his
supplanter's own son, Henry V.
We see here the portrait effigy of the effeminate young King, whose hand
used to be clasped in that of his young foreign bride, but the arms are
both gone. The robes are stamped with Richard's badges, the rising sun
of Crecy and Poictiers, which was his father's favourite emblem, the
broomscods of the Plantagenets, the fleurs-de-lis of France, symbolic of
the constant claim of our sovereigns to the French crown, and many
others. Beneath the canopy are traces of the two-headed eagle, the arms
of Bohemia, and also of the imperial eagle, for Anne was a sister of
Wenceslaus, the good King of Bohemia, and a daughter of the Emperor
Charles IV.; at her feet is the Austrian leopard. As we look at this
royal couple, that fateful day of Anne's funeral is recalled to our
memory, when her bereaved husband in a fit of ungovernable rage struck
one of the powerful {83} nobles, who came late for the ceremony, such a
fierce blow that for the second time in Richard's unfortunate reign the
pavement was stained with blood. On the first occasion a knight, who had
taken sanctuary here, was slain by John of Gaunt's servants. And in each
case the Abbey was placed under an interdict for a time, till by priest
and bell the church was cleansed from pollution. There is another brass,
hidden beneath the linoleum near Edward the First's tomb, which connects
Richard with the Abbey, and marks the burial of a commoner within the
chapel of the kings--the only person not of royal blood ever interred
here. A storm of popular indignation burst out when Richard commanded
the Abbot to grant a grave for his favourite, John of Waltham, Bishop of
Salisbury, within these sacred precincts, and the King was forced to
resort to bribery before he could gain his point.
The circle of kingly tombs, which include those of two small princesses,
is completed at the eastern end by the memorial of Henry V. The chantry
chapel above is apparently in the shape of the King's initial, but this
proves to be a mere coincidence, as the letter H was made after a
different pattern in the fifteenth century. Henry IV. was {84} taken ill
when saying his prayers before the shrine, and died in the Abbot's
withdrawing-room, the Jerusalem Chamber; but the son erected no tomb here
for his father's remains, rather the first act of his reign after the
coronation was, as we have already pointed out, to bring his murdered
cousin's body from King's Langley, and to inter it with royal pomp in the
tomb which Richard had prepared for himself years before. In the
Jerusalem Chamber we shall see the busts of the two Lancastrian kings.
Here is only a bare and headless effigy to recall the victor of
Agincourt, and a dilapidated helmet, saddle, and shield, on the bar
above, all of which were carried at Henry's funeral. Henry's own will
provided for the erection of this large memorial, which encroaches on the
eastern part of both Eleanor and Philippa's monuments. We reach the
chantry chapel above his tomb by stone steps worn by countless pilgrims,
who painfully climbed them on their knees when they came here to pray for
the dead hero's soul. Looking down from this chapel before the pall
covered the shrine we used to see the Confessor's coffin, and can still
enjoy the most striking view that exists of the church from east to west.
On either side just below are the apsidal chapels. Facing the north {85}
ambulatory and forming part of the screen to St. Paul's Chapel is the
monument of Henry's standard-bearer, Lord Robsert, who received this
coveted post as a reward for his valour at Agincourt. Amongst the now
defaced shields round the tomb ancient students of heraldry believed that
they discovered the quarterings of Chaucer's father-in-law, Sir Payne
Roet of Hainault, and Robsert's crest was even identified with his.
Inside, the chapel itself is blocked up by the huge statue of James Watt,
one of the inventors of the steam-engine, but there are many fine old
monuments against the walls. From here we have a good view of an altar
tomb in the centre of the same chapel, the alabaster effigies upon which
are in the costume of the early Tudor period, and represent Sir Giles
Daubeney, the friend and Lord Chamberlain of Henry VII., with his wife
Magdalen. Above them are suspended the banners of the Delavel family,
which are over two hundred years old.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: St. Edward's Shrine and the Chantry Chapel of Henry V.]
* * * *
ST. EDWARD'S SHRINE AND THE CHANTRY CHAPEL OF HENRY V.
In this illustration we see the niches in the shrine, where sick persons
used to crouch all night in order to be cured of their diseases by
contact with the saint's coffin, which is above, covered by the pall.
Beyond is the Chantry Chapel of Henry V. with a bar across the top, upon
which are fixed the dead King's helmet, sword, and shield, all of which
were carried at his funeral. The tomb itself, with its headless and
battered oaken effigy, is seen through the open gate; stone steps, worn
by the knees of many pilgrims, ascend the turret to the right and lead
into a little chapel, where now reposes the mummified body of Henry's
queen, Katherine of Valois. It was buried here by Dean Stanley after it
had been unburied for two centuries and then hidden away in one of the
vaults. From here we see the effigy and tomb of Queen Philippa, the
latter stripped bare of all its original splendour, including the
alabaster angels and gilt statuettes of mourners.
* * * * * *
Standing on the south side we are now directly above the tomb of that
masterful Countess of Buckingham, mother of Charles the First's
favourite, whose own pompous monument will be found in Henry VII.'s
Chapel. In the vault {86} beneath lay for more than a century the
withered mummy of a French princess, the coquettish Kate, whom Henry V.
courts so ardently in Shakespeare's play. Katherine lost her prestige at
her son Henry VI.'s Court by her second marriage with a Welsh gentleman
of no rank, but she thus became the ancestress of the great Tudor
dynasty, which was destined to supplant both her royal husband's line,
the Lancastrians, and their rivals, the house of York. Yet it was in the
reign of her own Tudor grandson that Katherine's original sepulchre in
the old Lady Chapel was destroyed, and her embalmed body in its broken
wooden coffin placed by the side of Henry V.'s effigy. Possibly Henry
VII. intended to suitably re-inter his noble grandame's corpse in his new
chapel, but after his death nobody stirred in the matter, and there the
remains lay, a curiosity for all visitors to the Abbey to stare at, till
at last Dean Zachary Pearce buried them under the Countess of
Buckingham's tomb. Dean Stanley removed the coffin and placed it in this
chantry chapel against the east wall, where an altar dedicated to the
Virgin used to stand. The ancient altar slab, found concealed beneath
the step, now forms the cover of the Queen's tomb. On the wall behind
are the {87} badges of Henry V. The antelope and the swan, which he
inherited from his mother's family, the de Bohuns, are each chained to a
tree, between them is burning the cresset light, an emblem taken by the
young King at his coronation as a proof of his desire to be "a light and
a guide to his people to follow him in all virtue and honour." The
badges are repeated all over the stone-work inside and out, while the
niches are filled with numerous statues, representing royal personages,
mitred abbots, and saints, notably the patron saints of England and
France, St. George and St. Denis--the latter carries his head in his
hand. Upon the arch over the ambulatory is depicted Henry's coronation
in the Abbey. His figure armed _cap-à-pié_ is shown on the eastern side,
crossing a raging torrent, while a castle, with troops drawn up in front
of it, is carved in the background. The shields of England and France,
to which kingdom Henry was, as son-in-law to the French king and by right
of conquest, the acknowledged heir, are also prominent. We return below
the chantry arch and descend into the ambulatory, whence we have a good
view of the carvings alluded to, besides many others. Before us is a
flight of stone steps which leads directly up to the other royal chapel,
the mausoleum {88} of the Tudors and Stuarts. Beneath our feet is the
family vault of the Royalist historian of the civil wars, Edward Hyde,
Earl of Clarendon, who was closely connected with the Stuarts, and shared
the exile of his young master, afterwards Charles II. In later days the
powerful Lord Chancellor fell from his high position at Court, and was
sentenced to lifelong banishment by that same prince whom he had served
so faithfully in his youth. Clarendon's daughter married James II., then
Duke of York, and thus by the irony of fate the disgraced favourite was
destined to be the grandfather of two Stuart queens, Mary and Anne.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Tomb of Queen Philippa and the Chantry Chapel of Henry
V. from the South Ambulatory]
* * * *
THE TOMB OF QUEEN PHILIPPA AND THE CHANTRY CHAPEL OF HENRY V. FROM THE
SOUTH AMBULATORY
We see again the ruined tomb of Queen Philippa and the southern side of
the Chantry Chapel. Here the coronation of King Henry V. is represented
above the arch, and numerous little statuettes of kings, ecclesiastics,
saints, and angels are carved above and below it. In the spandrels of
the arch are the arms of England and France, while along the cornice are
some of the royal badges. Beneath it are the steps leading up to the
Chapel of Henry VII.
* * * * * *
At the top of the steps a triple portico leads into the centre of Henry
VII.'s Chapel; on each side narrow doorways admit to the north and south
aisles. The arch overhead is most elaborately carved and decorated with
the same badges which we see on the bronze gates, and all over the inside
of the chapel. Chief amongst these are the Tudor rose, the flower of
York and Lancaster alike, and the portcullis, which was the emblem of
Henry's maternal relations, the Beauforts, who traced their descent from
John of Gaunt. This badge, originally a castle protected by a
portcullis, was a symbol of Henry's undisputed (although not really {89}
flawless) title to the throne, and he added the proud motto "Altera
securitas." A crowned fleur-de-lis is constantly repeated on the walls,
and on the gates the shield of France is to be seen next to the lions of
England; for our English sovereigns continued to assert their right to
the French succession. The other badges on the gates include the crown
on a bush, which recalls Bosworth Field, when Lord Derby took the golden
circlet from the hawthorn bush, where it fell when Richard was slain, and
placed it on his step-son's head. The daisy root belongs to Derby's wife
and Henry's mother, Lady Margaret, whose tomb we shall see in the south
aisle. The falcon with a fetter-lock was a badge of Edward IV., which
his daughter Elizabeth adopted after her marriage to the young Tudor king.
We pass through the middle gate and emerge into that beautiful chapel so
extravagantly praised by old writers as the "orbis miraculum," the
miracle of the world, so unfairly decried since by narrow-minded
adherents of the Gothic style. Here, a contrast to the rest of the
church, is pure Perpendicular of the Tudor period. The stone-work is
decorated in every corner, and the details are elaborately carved,
leaving no vacant space anywhere; {90} no less than 130 stone figures, 95
of which remain, contributed to the rich effect of the whole. Angels and
archangels, saints and martyrs, apostles and evangelists, the hierarchy
of heaven and the sainted ones of earth, all had places on these walls.
Above our heads the fan tracery of the stone roof seems literally to hang
from the sky, so delicate and light is the workmanship. The Cambridge
graduate in our party, and those indefatigable sightseers our American
friends, compare it with King's College Chapel, which was built about
this period by the same King's munificence, and probably by the same
architect. The windows were once all filled with painted glass, only a
few fragments of which, notably the founder's figure at the east end, are
left. The altar was dedicated to the Virgin, and had upon it her statue
made of pure gold, but both were destroyed in the time of Henry's
grandson, Edward VI., by order of the Protector Somerset, when the side
altars were also swept away and the glass broken in a fury of Protestant
zeal. Long afterwards the tomb of Edward VI. himself, which then took
the place of the high altar, was broken in pieces by the Puritan zealots,
who were unaware that they thus desecrated the monument of the first
Protestant king.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Chapel of Henry VII., looking east]
* * * *
THE CHAPEL OF HENRY VII., LOOKING EAST
This unique and beautiful chapel was built by King Henry VII., and stands
at the east end of the Abbey, raised above the level of the older church.
The whole is a marvel of delicate carving and rich ornament. We see in
the illustration the hanging pendants of the stone roof known as fan
tracery, and the walls are covered with statues, the space between them
filled up by Tudor roses, French fleur-de-lis, and other appropriate
decorations. Behind the altar is the tomb of the founder himself; it is
protected by a finely-worked grille, within which we see the gilt bronze
effigies of Henry and his wife, fashioned by the master hand of
Torrigiano, lying upon an altar tomb of black marble. Above are the
banners of the Knights of the Bath, which date from the eighteenth
century, and at the back of the stalls below are their coats of arms.
George I. reconstructed the Order, and for a brief period afterwards the
knights used to be installed here.
* * * * * *
{91}
The present altar was reconstructed, under Dean Stanley's supervision,
from such pieces of the old Italian pilasters and frieze as could be
found; one was actually discovered at Oxford in the Ashmolean Museum.
Upon it stands the cross which was presented by the Ras Makonnen, Envoy
from Abyssinia, as a votive offering for the present King's recovery from
his sudden illness, when the Coronation was postponed in the summer of
1902. The stalls next claim our attention, and it must be pointed out
that only part of these date from the sixteenth century, but the ancient
seats are easily distinguished from the later ones by their quaintly
carved misereres. The rest were added when the Order of the Knights of
the Bath was reconstituted by George I. in 1725, and the banners above,
as well as the coats of arms at the back of the top stalls, belong to the
Knights. The Dean was made Chaplain of the Order, a post which he has
held _ex officio_ ever since. At that time, and for a long period, the
installations of the Knights were held here. Upon one of the original
stalls at the west end is a crowned figure of the founder, Henry VII.,
his face turned towards the east. So familiar has the name of this
chapel become to us, that we are apt to forget that it was dedicated to
the {92} Virgin Mary, and replaced the Early English Lady Chapel, which
had stood on the same spot ever since the beginning of Henry the Third's
reign. Henry VII. first intended to consecrate his new chapel to the
memory of Henry VI., and arrangements were made for removing the saintly
King's bones to Westminster from Windsor, but, owing partly to quarrels
between the two convents, the scheme fell through and was abandoned by
the royal founder. The stone was laid in 1503, and, although the
building was not completed till 1519, before he died Henry had
practically settled every detail with the Abbot as to the endowment. His
wife's body already lay at the east end, and Henry arranged for his own
interment in the same place, and for the memorial services, which were
afterwards to be held in their honour. Some of the indentures between
the King and Convent can be seen at the Record Office, others are in the
custody of the Dean and Chapter. Sir Reginald Bray, head of the royal
masons, is often spoken of as if he were the architect, but his death
took place soon after the laying of the foundation stone, and the chapel
was not finished for another sixteen years, long after Henry VIII.'s
accession, when the monasteries were tottering to their fall. Abbot
Islip supervised {93} the building, and it is more than likely that Sir
Thomas Lovell, whose bust has lately been placed near Lady Margaret's
tomb, had, as executor to both the King and his mother, a share in
designing their monuments. In any case, Lovell was a patron of
Torrigiano, the famous Italian sculptor, who was employed to make the
beautiful effigies of the King, his wife, and his mother, as well as the
rich altar tombs upon which the figures lie. A fine bronze grille, which
is, like the gates, of English workmanship, preserves the founder's tomb
from injury. The whole is decorated with roses and fleurs-de-lis, while
upon the screen itself are the Welsh dragon of Cadwallador, the last
British king, from whom the Tudors claimed descent, and the greyhound, a
crest belonging to the Nevilles, who were relatives of Henry's wife.
Nearly all the statuettes upon the outside have been stolen; but within,
round the black marble altar tomb, are still intact twelve medallions,
six on either side, each of which encloses two silver-gilt images. The
saints represented are St. George of England, St. Denis of France, St.
Edward and St. Peter, the patrons of the Abbey, as well as the King's own
special guardians. Amongst these perhaps the most charming are the burly
form of St. Christopher, with {94} the tiny infant Christ upon his
shoulder, and the very graceful figure of St. Barbara with her tower in
her hand, who is thus easily distinguishable from the conventional Mary
Magdalene beside whom she stands. Finely moulded cherubs, also in gilt
brass, support the royal arms, and we may trace the master hand of
Michael Angelo's great rival in these as in all the other accessories.
The effigies themselves are unique specimens of Torrigiano's art,
equalled only by his other masterpiece, the recumbent figure of Lady
Margaret in the adjacent aisle. The King's thin face and strongly marked
features bear a striking resemblance to the ascetic lined countenance of
his mother, but are in strong contrast with those of the youthful wife by
his side, whose long flowing hair escapes under her close head-dress. In
the vacant space to the east, within the grille, an altar used to stand,
where precious relics, which included the leg of St. George, were kept.
In the vaults below, Dean Stanley found the coffins of James I. and of
Anne, his Danish queen. Close at hand is the altar tomb, with a white
marble effigy by Boehm, of the Dean himself; behind it is the memorial
window which he dedicated to his wife, Lady Augusta, whose own portrait
is delineated there {95} as well as various familiar scenes from the life
of her famous ancestor, Robert Bruce, including the well-known story of
the spider. The coronation chair at the extreme east end of the chapel
was made for Mary II., a queen regnant in her own right. Her husband,
William III., whose claim to the crown was considered equal to his
wife's, sat in St. Edward's chair. The vault in front of it is now
filled up with a miscellaneous collection of bodies, including some of
Charles the Second's illegitimate descendants, whose names were cut upon
the pavement, as were those of the other persons interred in this chapel,
by Dean Stanley's care. Within this vault once rested some of "the chief
men of the Parliament by land and sea," notably the regicides Cromwell,
Ireton, Bradshaw, a few of Cromwell's relatives, and the famous Admiral,
Robert Blake. These, as well as all the other persons buried in the
Abbey during the Commonwealth who were in any way connected with the
republican party, were disinterred by order of Charles II., shortly after
his restoration, and thrown into a pit in St. Margaret's churchyard, with
the exception, that is, of the three arch offenders, the regicides.
Charles wreaked a futile vengeance upon their mouldering corpses, which
{96} received the treatment usually meted out to living traitors, and
were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn; the heads were chopped off
and fixed up, as a warning to their admirers, outside Westminster Hall.
A few steps to the left we see the stone which marks the grave of
Cromwell's charming daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, whose untimely death
broke her father's heart. The body was left undisturbed, probably out of
respect for the memory of a woman who had been a favourite with Royalist
and Roundhead alike. In the reign of Queen Anne a great General, the
Duke of Marlborough, was temporarily buried in the Cromwell vault, but
after many years the body was removed to his own mausoleum at Blenheim.
Amongst the many soldiers' memorials in the nave and choir aisles will be
found two, those of Creed and Bringfield, which recall Marlborough's
famous victories, Ramillies and Blenheim. The right-hand chapel is
filled up by the heavy monuments of the Richmond and Lennox family, and
here, close to the old Duke's tomb, used to stand the wax figure of
Frances, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, now removed to the Islip Chapel.
This lady was a noted beauty, and is said to have been the model for the
figure of Britannia on the coins. Her {97} cousin, Charles II., much
admired her, and might even have made her his queen had not "La belle
Stuart" eloped with her other relative, the young Duke. On the opposite
side is the costly monument which was raised by his widowed Duchess over
the body of Charles the First's unpopular favourite, George Villiers,
Duke of Buckingham, who was cut off in his prime by an assassin's knife.
The white marble effigies of the Duke and Duchess, and the group of their
children above, are not without merit. The elder of these chubby boys
succeeded to his father's dukedom and was notorious at the Restoration
Court, while the younger was slain, bravely fighting for his king, in a
skirmish with the Parliamentary troopers at Hampton, and buried below
this tomb. Close by, a later and most unattractive monument records the
name of a patron of poets, a literary man himself, Sheffield, Duke of
Buckinghamshire. He built Buckingham House, where is now the palace, and
there his wife, who was a left-handed descendant of the Stuart king, used
to sit dressed in weeds on the anniversary of Charles the First's
execution, and thus call attention to the royal blot upon her escutcheon.
In the choir aisle another ugly memorial perpetuates her want of taste
and the {98} forgotten fame of her pet doctor, one Chamberlain. Near his
is a tablet to her other medical friend, the really notable royal
physician, Dr. Mead, one of the first inoculators for smallpox.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Coronation Chair]
* * * *
THE CORONATION CHAIR
This chair, the ancient seat of kings, stands in the royal chapel of St.
Edward, backed by the fifteenth-century stone screen which closes the
west end of the Chapel; within the wooden frame, which was constructed
purposely to enclose it, is the famous stone called the Stone of Scone.
This piece of Scotch granite was brought from Scotland in the early
fourteenth century by the conquering English King, Edward I., and given
over to the safe custody of the Westminster monks. In the Abbey it has
remained ever since, and all our sovereigns from that time until the
present day have received the insignia of royalty seated in the chair
upon the historic stone. The latter has been the subject of many an
old-world legend: it is said to have been Jacob's pillow when he saw the
vision of the angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth;
after which it became the seat of kings in Spain, in Ireland, and finally
in Scotland, where there is no doubt that the Scottish sovereigns used it
as a coronation throne. The chair itself bears little trace of its
former splendour; it was originally decorated with paintings. The lions
were regilded at the last coronation.
* * * * * *
Cut on the stones as we walk away down the chapel is the name of George
II., the first Hanoverian king who was buried in England. With him lies
his wife Caroline, a queen of good memory, and other members of their
numerous family are in close vicinity. The later sovereigns of the
Hanoverian stock gradually lost all sentiment for Westminster, and are
interred at Windsor. Through the gates and round abruptly to the left is
the southern aisle, where we find three royal ladies' tombs, and the
names of many Stuart princes and princesses who were interred in the
vaults. Margaret, Countess of Lennox, niece of Henry VIII., is the first
we come to. Her marble altar tomb, with its recumbent effigy and the
figures of her children round the sides, is a fair specimen of late Tudor
art, but not comparable to the earlier ones by the Italian artist. Her
elder son, Darnley, a broken crown above his head, kneels with his face
turned towards the monument of his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots, whose fair
fame must ever be blackened by her suspected complicity in his {99}
murder. Of the second son, Charles, and his unhappy daughter Arabella,
we cannot speak at length to-day. Arabella's coffin is next to that of
Prince Henry, her cousin and fair-weather friend, but he made no effort
to save her from the consequences of his royal father, James the First's
wrath. The young Prince died three years before the distracted lady, who
lost her reason and pined to death in the Tower. The body of their aunt,
Mary Stuart, with its severed head, was already in this vault, brought
here by her son's filial piety soon after his accession to the English
throne. With these are other kinsfolk. Henry's sister Elizabeth, Queen
nominally of Bohemia, but in her last days she was the sovereign of no
tangible realm, only of the fragile kingdom of hearts. With his mother
lies Prince Rupert, the dashing Cavalier and daring seaman; beside them
are the coffins of Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Mary, Princess of
Orange, both the victims of smallpox--that terrible scourge which
devastated rich and poor alike before the discovery of vaccination. They
died at Whitehall Palace, where they had come to congratulate their
brother, Charles II., whose troubles they had shared, on his peaceful
restoration to the English realm. The heavy monument which James I.
erected {100} above this vault to the memory of his "dearest mother"
closely resembles that of her rival Elizabeth in the opposite aisle.
This one cost about 100 pounds more than the other, and is therefore
somewhat more elaborately decorated. The white marble portrait effigy
represents the Queen in her middle age, and gives no idea of her youthful
beauty; at her feet is the Scotch lion, much mutilated. Against the wall
is the original warrant, signed by James himself, ordering the removal of
Mary's coffin from Peterborough to Westminster. We have already referred
more than once to the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby,
mother of Henry VII., the foundress of two colleges at Cambridge and of a
chair of divinity at both Universities. Now let us stand beside it for a
few moments and look upon the face of this cultured, religious woman,
who, after many trials in early life, ended her days in a holy peace,
secluded from the world by her own choice, yet ever ready to return to
her son's Court when he desired her presence. Notice especially the
moulding of the delicate yet capable hands. Torrigiano's head of Lovell
just above is worthy also of the closest attention, but we can pass by
the inartistic statue of Horace Walpole's mother, and the ugly {101}
monument of General Monck against the wall. Monck himself deserves far
more recognition than he usually receives. His share in the restoration
of Charles II. was by no means his sole achievement, and he had, although
a landsman and a soldier by training, previously distinguished himself on
the sea in company with Admiral Blake, and later on he co-operated with
his former foe, Prince Rupert, in many an action with the Dutch fleet.
He died standing upright in his tent, refusing to be conquered even by
death itself, and was buried with military honours. Charles II., who
hated funerals and rarely attended one, walked behind the bier as chief
mourner. Upon the step below are carved the names of Charles, of his
nieces, Mary and Anne, and of their respective husbands. Their wax
effigies, now in the Islip Chapel, used to stand here, and were the only
monuments raised to the Stuart sovereigns--a fact which called forth much
jesting comment from their political opponents. From this small chapel
we pass to the one opposite, crossing once more the top of the steps. At
the entrance is a stone which immediately arrests attention, for upon it
is the touching epitaph dedicated by his admirer Tickell to the memory of
Joseph Addison. We have seen Addison's statue {102} in Poets' Corner,
where it was ultimately placed, after a proposal to put it up beside St.
Edward's shrine had met with the contumely it deserved. Here the great
master of English prose "rests in peace," with his friend James Craggs,
whose memorial we have already pointed out at the entrance to the nave.
Close to the grave is the mural monument of his "loved Montagu," the
first Earl of Halifax, who was, like Sheffield, a patron of literature
and literary men. Addison's memory must ever be dear to all who love the
Abbey, for the sake of his reflections upon the church and its mighty
dead; in connection notably with his creation of that genial knight, Sir
Roger de Coverley. Buried beside Charles Montagu is his great-nephew,
George Montagu Dunk, Earl of Halifax, who is chiefly remembered nowadays
as the founder of the Colony of Nova Scotia; the capital, Halifax, was
called after him. His monument is in the north transept. Beneath our
feet, in General Monck's vault, lies their collateral ancestor, Admiral
Edward Montagu, who was created Earl of Sandwich by Charles II. when
Monck was made Duke of Albemarle, as a reward to the two Generals for
their share in promoting the Restoration. Sandwich's tragic end and the
battle {103} of Sole Bay are referred to on a double tablet, which we
passed near the entrance to the south choir aisle. For some real or
fancied slight put upon him by Prince James, Duke of York, who was then
in supreme command of the fleet. Sandwich refused to leave his ship when
she was blown up by the Dutch, and involved two naval lieutenants in his
own fate. The fidelity of the young men to their doomed chief, and their
faithful friendship for one another, is commemorated upon this memorial,
which was put up by the two bereaved fathers.
Raising our eyes from the floor we see at the end of this chapel the
large monument, which was put up by her successor, James I., in honour of
Queen Elizabeth. The white marble effigy rests under a heavy canopy; the
face was moulded from a mask taken of the features after death and is
therefore a likeness, but those who desire to see a more realistic
portraiture of the great Tudor sovereign in her old age should visit the
Islip Chapel, where is her wax figure. The touching Latin inscription,
thus translated, "Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we two
sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in hope of one resurrection," reminds us
that Mary Tudor lies {104} beneath her sister's tomb. For nearly half a
century only a heap of stones from the broken altars marked the place of
Mary's grave; beside the coffin is still a red velvet box, which contains
the unfortunate woman's dried-up withered heart, which was broken at
last, after many sorrows, with a final blow--the loss of our last piece
of French territory. Perchance the word "Calais" is written upon it
still in invisible ink. The children's tombs behind were made by the
sculptor who was then (1607) at work on Elizabeth's monument. They mark
the grief of James I. and his wife for the loss of their two daughters:
the baby Sophia only lived three days, but her sister Mary had reached
the fascinating age of two years when a slow fever carried her off.
Between the two little sisters, his own aunts, Charles II. placed a heavy
stone sarcophagus, containing some bones found in the Tower, near the
room where the boy princes, Edward V. and Richard of York, are said to
have been smothered, and which are most probably their remains. Edward
was born in the precincts, where his mother took sanctuary from her
husband's Lancastrian opponents, and was christened in the Abbey, the
Abbot and the Prior standing as his sponsors. In later days the young
{105} Prince marked his gratitude to the monks by contributing small sums
of money, supplemented by gifts from the Queen, towards the building of
the nave.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The North Ambulatory, showing the Steps which lead up to
Henry VII.'s Chapel]
* * * *
THE NORTH AMBULATORY, SHOWING THE STEPS WHICH LEAD UP TO HENRY VII.'S
CHAPEL
This view shows the carvings upon the north side of the Chantry Chapel of
Henry V., where the King's coronation is repeated, and those upon the
arch which connects Henry VII.'s Chapel with the rest of the church.
Above this arch we see the figure of Henry V. on horseback, fording a
stream, and to the left below is the tomb of Ludovick Robsert, a gallant
soldier who carried the King's standard at Agincourt and was knighted
after the battle. The banners hanging inside St. Paul's Chapel belong to
the old family of Delavel, and the metal bust which is seen over the
screen is that of Lady Cottington, the wife of Charles I.'s treasurer,
whose tomb is underneath it; the bust is the work of the well-known
sculptor Hubert le Soeur. The Dean and his verger are here seen
descending the steps from Henry VII.'s Chapel, where baptisms, weddings,
and other special services take place.
* * * * * *
We have lingered long amongst the royal tombs; it is time to complete our
circle of the church by passing back along the north ambulatory. Just
beyond the bottom of the steps upon the right we see the Chapel of St.
Paul, into which we looked before from the chantry above. A tiny stone
image, believed to be that of St. Anne, may be pointed out, as it is part
of the ancient wall arcading; it is now almost concealed by the huge
renaissance tomb of Sir John Puckering. Puckering was Keeper of the
Great Seal in Elizabeth's reign, and the figures of the purse and
mace-bearer standing above it are particularly noteworthy, for they are
good examples of the costume of the period. We spoke of Pulteney, whose
ugly monument takes the place of the screen on one side, in connection
with his burial in the Islip Chapel, when Edward the First's canopy was
destroyed. Sixteen years later a similar disgraceful scene took place at
the funeral of a Duchess of Northumberland (the family vault is in St.
Nicholas's Chapel), when the crowd, climbing {106} upon the screen in
order to get a better view of the great lady's interment, smashed to
pieces John of Eltham's beautiful canopy, not without some damage to
their own heads and limbs. From here we get a good view of the grille
which protects Eleanor's effigy, and on sunny mornings the outlines of an
ancient picture can be traced on the stone panel below. The painting was
done by Master Walter of Durham, the same artist who decorated the
Coronation Chair, and represented, it is thought, one of the miracles
attributed to the Virgin. In the eighteenth century a knight, a woman
with a child in her arms, and a sepulchre were still clearly visible.
From this side also one gets a better idea of Henry the Third's tomb in
its original state than from the royal chapel, for the mosaic work has
remained untouched on the upper part, where the arm of the relic hunter
could not reach. We turn from the King's monument to a stone in the
floor which marks the place where a very different sovereign, Pym, the
King of the Commons, lay for a brief while. The coffin was buried under
the brass of a famous warrior, Sir John Windsore, who fought for Henry
IV. at Shrewsbury, a battle familiar to us in Shakespeare's historic
play. The bodies of Pym {107} and of his friend Strode, the "Parliament
driver," were disinterred and ejected with those of the other
Commonwealth magnates after the Restoration. On our right is the Chapel
of St. John the Baptist, called the Abbots' Chapel, for here are buried
four of our mitred abbots, two of whose tombs form the screen. The
original doorway is closed by that of Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, sometime
private secretary to Henry VII.; a wealthy man ruined by his riches,
which drew down upon him the cupidity of Henry VIII. and Wolsey,--not,
however, before Ruthall had spent part of his vast wealth in the public
service by building many bridges, notably one at Newcastle-on-Tyne. The
present entrance was cut through a little chapel, where were once an
altar and an image of St. Erasmus, which were originally given by Queen
Elizabeth Woodville, and removed here when the old Lady Chapel was
destroyed. Next to this is the chapel where Abbot Islip used to lie in
solitary splendour, before the vaults were invaded by other coffins. A
black marble table tomb, with an alabaster figure of the Abbot on the
lower slab, stood formerly in the centre. Above, in the chamber where
prayers were offered for the dead man's soul, are now the wax effigies.
We {108} have referred before to most of these, except to the more modern
ones of Nelson, a particularly attractive representation of the hero, and
of Lord Chatham. In a locked cupboard are remains of the so-called
ragged regiment, the earlier effigies, which were carried at the funerals
of our kings and queens, or other exalted persons. Outside, the chapel
is decorated with Islip's quaint device, a play upon his name Islip: an
eye with a hand holding a slip or branch, and a man slipping from a tree.
In the ambulatory, not far from his successor Islip, lies another Abbot,
Esteney, to whom we have referred in connection with the completion of
the nave. His altar tomb has been lowered, and the fine brass is now
only slightly raised from the floor; it was originally in the adjacent
chapel of St. John the Baptist, but was moved, and thus mutilated, in the
eighteenth century to make way for the colossal monument of General
Wolfe. We avert our eyes with a shudder from the marble group which
represents Wolfe's death above, and divert our party's attention to the
bronze bas-relief below, where the British troops are depicted landing on
the river bank, then scaling the heights of Abraham, and finally drawn up
on the plain before Quebec. {109} In an unmarked grave near this lies
the Admiral, Sir Charles Saunders, without whose co-operation even the
young hero, James Wolfe himself, could not have taken the city, for the
sailors not only transported the soldiers to the foot of the cliffs, but
protected their base and also cut off the supplies from the besieged town
above. Just inside the first of these three little chapels, which
technically belong to the north transept, a beautiful renaissance tomb
attracts attention. Four kneeling warriors support a slab of black
marble, upon which are the armour and accoutrements of the dead General,
whose alabaster figure sleeps below. Sir Francis Vere was a member of a
famous family, "the fighting Veres," and himself did good service for his
queen and country in the Netherlands. The effigy without armour marks
the fact that Vere died in his bed, not upon the field of battle. At the
extreme end of St. Andrew's Chapel a large and somewhat heavy monument,
after the pattern of a four-post bed with a canopy, commemorates "a brood
of martial-spirited men," the Norrises, who, like Vere, spent their lives
in the service of the Maiden Queen. All, father and sons, were famed in
war or distinguished at the council board; four were killed {110} in
battle, one died of a broken heart, and the youngest only survived his
parents. While all the rest bow their heads in prayer, he alone looks
cheerfully upwards. Behind this are the statues of Mrs. Siddons and her
brother, John Kemble, to whom we alluded before in connection with the
earlier actors and actresses, and other comparatively modern memorials of
more or less interest. In the middle chapel, that dedicated to St.
Michael, the theatrical monument to Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, a
grotesque _tour de force_ of Roubiliac's, is sure to call forth some
remarks, but we prefer to pass to a curious tablet on the wall beyond it,
which commemorates a certain Mrs. Ann Kirton, with a large eye above it
(presumably that of the widower), whence tears pour over the inscription.
Hidden away, at the back of another monument on the opposite side, is a
tablet in the worst style of the eighteenth century. Above a small
sinking ship the large and material soul of a gallant seaman is seen
ascending to heaven, and we remind our party of Cowper's well-known poem
on the wreck of the _Royal George_ and Admiral Kempenfelt's untimely end.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,
With twice four hundred men.
{111}
To the right as we pass back again is a mural memorial to Sir John
Franklin, the discoverer of the North-West Passage. The loss of himself
and of his brave crew amidst impenetrable walls of snow and ice is
portrayed upon it; beneath is an oft-quoted epitaph by Tennyson--lines
which stir the hearts of all who pause to read them.
The circle of the apse has now been completed, and we pass through the
iron gate into the Statesmen's Aisle. Around us on every side are the
graves and statues of British politicians, whose names are for the most
part household words at home and still remembered abroad. With these are
also the memorials of soldiers, sailors, lawyers, and a few others, to
some of which we shall allude in passing. Conspicuous against the first
column is Sir Robert Peel's statue, inappropriately draped in a Roman
toga. Beyond his was placed in 1903 Brock's figure of William Ewart
Gladstone, who is represented in an attitude familiar to those who have
heard him speak, when addressing the House of Commons, or at a political
meeting. Gladstone's Life has already been in the hands of the reading
public, but the official biography of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord
Beaconsfield, the leader of the opposite party, is only now being
written, although {112} twenty-five years have elapsed since his death.
Beaconsfield's statue stands by the next pillar, and, if it be a day in
late April, we should see primrose wreaths arranged around the feet, a
homage from those who cherish the imperialist ideas which were
inaugurated by Disraeli. Before very long a memorial, also voted by
Parliament, to Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Beaconsfield's
successor as head of the Tory party, is also to be placed with his
compeers in this temple of silence and reconciliation.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: Interior of the North Transept]
* * * *
INTERIOR OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT
The north transept is called the Statesman's Aisle, and is filled with
the statues of ministers of State and of other politicians; besides these
we find lawyers, soldiers, and sailors. From this point there is a good
view of Sir Robert Peel's statue in the right foreground, with Gladstone
and Beaconsfield prominent behind him. We look down the aisle and see
the rose window, which was filled with painted glass in the eighteenth
century under Dean Atterbury's rule, and the fine early wall arcadings
below. In the spandrels are two beautiful stone angels, which are just
visible in the illustration.
* * * * * *
Beyond are the tombs of the first and third Dukes of Newcastle. The
first, William Cavendish, was a loyal supporter of Charles I., in whose
service he lost his estates and fortune, but he returned to prosperity
after the Restoration. His wife shared his troubles and his rewards.
Her reputation as a literary woman and an authoress is marked by the pen
and inkhorn beside her effigy; in her hands is an open book. The third
Duke, John Holles, married their grand-daughter, and was reputed the
richest subject in the kingdom by his contemporaries. He lived in the
reign of Queen Anne, when the standard of wealth was far less high than
it is in these days. One of the slender columns in St. Michael's Chapel
behind still {113} retains the original polish, and gives us some idea
what the whole church looked like before our London atmosphere had
corroded and blurred the surface of the Purbeck marble. Statues of the
three Cannings stand between these two tombs. The nearest to our
generation, he died in 1880, is Stratford Canning, better known by his
title of the Viscount de Redcliffe, who was for fifty years British
Ambassador in the East. His cousin, Earl Canning, Viceroy of India
during the Mutiny, was succeeded in that post, after the outbreak was
quelled, by Lord Lawrence, whose grave and bust we saw in the nave. From
the third statue, that of George Canning, Prime Minister in 1827, we look
across the transept to his colleague in his last Cabinet, Lord
Palmerston, a statesman who must ever be associated with our foreign
policy for the first half of Queen Victoria's reign. Further to the left
we see another Tory politician, Viscount Castlereagh, with whom George
Canning once actually fought a duel; but the two men made up their
quarrel, and Canning afterwards succeeded his former foe at the Foreign
Office. Castlereagh was unfortunate in his end and unpopular during his
life. He committed suicide while temporarily insane, and his burial here
was the {114} occasion of a great outburst of feeling, when the indignant
mob outside hammered on the doors of the church while the funeral service
proceeded inside. The huge monument, which fills up the last arch on the
western side, was erected by Parliament, at the cost of 6000 pounds, as a
tribute to the fame of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Bacon was guilty
of this enormity, while Westmacott perpetrated the equally tasteless
allegorical group over the west door, which commemorates the younger
Pitt. Father and son lie together in this aisle. Not far from theirs
are the graves of two other statesmen, Henry Grattan, the eloquent Irish
orator, and his dear friend, Charles James Fox, "near whom in death it
would have been his pride to lie." We saw the monuments of Pitt and Fox
on our first entrance into the nave. Chatham's name must ever recall the
severance of the United States from the Mother Country, while his son,
"the great Commoner," is associated with our struggle to break the power
of Napoleon, whose downfall Pitt did not live to see. Between the last
columns further south is the statue of Chatham's brilliant legal
adversary, Lord Mansfield. Behind him stands another distinguished
lawyer, who belonged to a later generation, Sir William Webb Follett,
{115} Attorney-General in Peel's last Ministry. Before turning the
corner into the western aisle it is impossible not to notice the two
Admirals, Vernon and Wager, whose memorials unfortunately cover the wall
arcading on either side of the north door. Their very names are unknown
to the average person nowadays, but they did good service on the high
seas for England's glory in their own time, the eighteenth century.
Vernon owes a posthumous fame amongst sea-faring men to the fact that the
sailor's drink, a mixture of rum and water first introduced by the
Admiral, was called grog in his honour; he was familiarly known as "Old
Grog" on board ship, a nickname inspired by his grogram boat-cloak.
In another place we have already dwelt at some length upon these makers
of our Empire in war and peace alike, whose names may be seen upon the
walls on every side. While the tariff question is the topic of the hour,
and Cobden, the original champion of free trade, is constantly appealed
to by our modern politicians, we must not omit to look at that
statesman's bust, which will be found, with a number of other interesting
memorials, at the back of Chatham's monument. Near this the tablet to
Warren Hastings records a page in the history of {116} our Indian Empire
which it is best to leave unturned, for it is stained with the life-blood
of a man's broken heart, a heart broken by a trial dragged out
interminably till the culprit, whether he were innocent or guilty, was
punished far beyond his deserts. Macaulay's famous description of
Hastings's trial is well known, and we are reminded of his no less
familiar essay on Lord Clive by the monuments of two men, a soldier and a
sailor, who co-operated with Clive in the foundation of our Indian
Empire. The East India Company is responsible for the inartistic,
grotesque erections which traduce the memory of these gallant men,
Admiral Watson and Sir Eyre Coote, while they also perpetrated the
scarcely less offensive, although smaller monument which commemorates
Major Stringer Lawrence, Clive's intimate friend and valued comrade, the
hero of Trichinopoly, which is near the west end of the nave. The
Admiral sits unclothed, save for a Roman toga, amongst palm-trees and
allegorical figures above the ancient doorway, while his chief
achievements are recorded in the inscriptions "Calcutta freed,"
"Ghereah," and "Chandernagore taken," with the dates 1756 and 1757.
Coote expelled the French from the Coromandel coast in 1761, and twenty
years later {117} defeated them again with their ally, Hyder Ali, in the
Carnatic. The General masquerades as a Roman warrior, with a native
captive and a figure of Victory on either hand. Such was, in fact, the
taste of the period when these preposterous groups were all the fashion.
We turn from this with pleasure to the fine bust of Richard Kane, which
is against the opposite wall, and single him out for a passing mention on
account of his connection, as Governor, with the Island of Minorca, one
of "the lost possessions" of England.
Facing us now, as we make our way westward, is the seated figure of Sir
Fowell Buxton, and a little further to the left Joseph's extraordinarily
vivid but unpleasing figure of William Wilberforce. Both men are
indissolubly connected in our minds with the abolition of Slavery. With
them are associated the pioneer of the anti-slavery agitation, Granville
Sharp, and their fellow-worker, Zachary, father of Lord Macaulay.
Sharp's tablet is not far from the latter's bust in the south transept,
and we have already noticed the elder Macaulay in the Whigs' Corner.
Between the philanthropists is Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of
Singapore, a man no less zealous than they in the struggle for the
suppression of slavery. To us Londoners his name {118} must ever be
dear, for we owe the Zoological Gardens to his initiative.
We are standing now in the aisle dedicated to the memory of that great
English composer, Henry Purcell, and thus often called the "Musicians'
Aisle," although the memorials to musicians are comparatively few.
Purcell's modest tablet with the well-known epitaph, "Here lyes Henry
Purcell, Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that blessed place,
where only his harmony can be exceeded," hangs against the pillar near
Raffles. We passed a modern one hard by to Balfe, a composer of many
popular ballads; while on the north wall are the monuments of Purcell's
master, Dr. Blow, who first preceded and then succeeded his young pupil
at the Abbey organ, and Dr. Croft, who followed after Blow. Stones in
the floor mark the graves of Dr. Samuel Arnold, another Abbey organist,
and Sterndale Bennett, who is considered by some authorities worthy to
rank with Purcell as a musical composer. A tablet to Dr. Burney detains
us for a moment, while we remind the lovers of literature in our party of
his daughter, the novelist, Fanny Burney, and of their friendship with
Dr. Johnson, whose grave we saw in Poets' Corner. Other memorials,
chiefly those to sailors, are upon this {119} wall, but we cannot tarry
much longer, our friends are craving mercy for tired brains and aching
limbs. Just before the iron gate the portrait medallion of Charles
Darwin, which is closely companioned by tablets to three other modern
scientists, Joule, Adams, and Stokes, attracts notice, and the next
moment we tread upon the graves of Darwin and Herschel, all placed
purposely in the vicinity of Sir Isaac Newton. Doctors of medicine as
well as men of science will be found in the nave. We have already
referred to the fashionable Dr. Mead, and his no less popular intimate,
Dr. Freind, is also here. Freind's brother was headmaster of Westminster
School, and many of the Latin inscriptions on contemporary monuments were
written by him, including the one under his brother's bust; so many in
fact that Pope, whose own pen was ever busy commemorating his cronies
with fulsome laudations, such as those on Kneller and Craggs, wrote the
following mocking lines:--
Freind, for your epitaphs I'm grieved
Where still so much is said,
One half will never be believed,
The other never read.
The jibing prophecy has been literally fulfilled, for these Latin
epitaphs are most certainly never read, {120} while Pope's verses, which
are usually in English, stand a better chance. Close to us on the
right-hand wall is the bust of a great modern geologist, Sir Charles
Lyell, which stands above the monument of his distinguished forerunner,
Woodward, who is often called the founder of English geology. Opposite
is that of Dean Buckland, who was twice President of the Geological
Society and a distinguished authority in that science. The windows along
the north side commemorate celebrated civil engineers, Stephenson, Locke,
Brunel, and Trevithick. To the genius of these men and to James Watt,
whose statue we saw in St. Paul's Chapel, the wonderful railway and
steamship system of modern days was, in the first instance, due. Few,
indeed, are the arts, crafts, and sciences of the last two centuries
which cannot claim some representative in the Abbey. Thus, as we cross
over to the west cloister door on our way out, we tread upon the graves
of the father of English watchmakers, Thomas Tompion, and his clever
apprentice, George Graham; near them lies Telford, the builder of the
Menai Bridge; close to him is Robert Stephenson, the designer of the
tubular bridge across the Menai Straits, who was buried beside Telford,
twenty-five years later, at his own request.
{121}
We have brought our walk round the inside of the church to a conclusion,
but in order to complete the circuit of the outside, such of the monastic
buildings which are still extant must be visited on the way out. A
narrow doorway opposite Telford's grave leads immediately into the
cloisters, which formed the central part of the monastery. Here it was
that the busy daily life of a Benedictine brotherhood was carried on: in
this, the west walk, the monks kept a school, where the novices and boys
from the neighbourhood received the only education obtainable in England
before the grammar schools were founded. The adjacent north walk was
used as a library in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and divided
off by screens at either end. In this part used to be the Prior's seat,
and around him were bookcases containing parchment rolls and illuminated
missals, to which, after Caxton's time, printed volumes were added. The
Consuetudines of Abbot Ware, the Litlington Missal, the Liber Regalis,
and the Islip Roll are still extant, but most of the precious manuscripts
which the Westminster brethren illuminated and copied with such loving
care in this library, each scribe seated in his own alcove, were
destroyed or carelessly lost after the Dissolution, when the monks had
all been {122} dispersed, and printed books were rapidly superseding the
written folios. In the eastern walk beyond this the Abbot sat enthroned
on special days, in order to hear complaints and redress grievances.
There also it was that he held his Maundy on the Thursday before Good
Friday, and washed the feet of beggars. Towards the west in the southern
part, which completes the square and was used as a passage-way, is the
entrance to the great refectory where the brethren dined. Nothing of the
hall is left save the ancient wall, but outside the door are remains of
the niches which were used for towels; the lavatory itself was round the
corner in the west cloister. The cloisters, and the monastic buildings
which surround them, were built at different periods, chiefly by the
generosity and energy of the Abbots. The Norman monastery remained
intact long after Henry the Third's time, but the new cloister, which was
begun by Abbot Byrcheston, was gradually built as the church progressed,
and the north end of the eastern arm was practically part of the south
transept. Both the east and north walks were completed under Edward I.
in the same style, the Early English; but the other two were not begun
till Langham's abbacy in the fourteenth century, {123} and the cloister
was not entirely finished till the fifteenth. To Langham's generous
bequest and Litlington's talent for architectural design the monks owed
the completion of this most important part of their monastery. We shall
see as we go out the head of Litlington, carved on the archway in Dean's
Yard after his death, for he did not live to see the whole work which he
had planned carried out. In walking round the cloisters it must be
remembered, however, that successive restorations and remodellings of the
window traceries have in many instances destroyed all traces of the
earlier style, and the more ancient portions are now in so decayed a
state that a fresh restoration must soon be undertaken.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The South Transept and Chapter House from Dean's Yard]
* * * *
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT AND CHAPTER HOUSE
From Dean's Yard we get the best view of the south transept and the group
of buildings which surround it. Thus we see the Chapter House behind the
roof of the ancient dormitory, now the Chapter library and the great
school, while at the back of the old houses to the left are the leads
which cover the cloisters. To the right is the small arch which leads
into Little Dean's Yard, and the immediate foreground is filled by the
green, where the Westminster boys are allowed to play football between
school in winter. The elm trees, themselves of some antiquity, are
interesting, for their forerunners were planted by Feckenham, the last
Abbot of Westminster, and gave the name of the Elms to the whole square
which is now called Dean's Yard.
* * * * * *
From the west door we pass down the north walk, pausing to observe a
modern tablet which recalls the Boer War: it commemorates seven of the
Queen's Westminster Volunteers who fell in South Africa, fighting side by
side with their civic comrades the C.I.V.'s. Some round holes in the
stone bench below are said to be the marks of an old English game, called
"nine men's morris," which was popular in mediaeval times; and if this be
so, we can only suppose that even the more studious brethren in the
library had their lighter {124} moments, or that the novices were allowed
to play here. The lover of quaint epitaphs in our party is sure to stop
a little further on in order to decipher an almost obliterated rhyming
inscription, which tells how faithfully William Lawrence served a
Prebendary, and "gained this remembrance at his master's cost." Our feet
are treading now upon the graves of Garrick's contemporaries, Spranger
Barry, his wife Ann Crawford, and Mrs. Cibber. As we turn into the east
walk we see the names of two other lights of the eighteenth-century
stage, Betterton and Mrs. Bracegirdle, cut in the pavement; the mural
tablet close by to "Jane Lister, deare child," by its very simplicity is
sure to attract the child-lover. Before moving on, let us look up at the
east cloister door with its delicate thirteenth-century moulding, which
is far more beautiful than the later Perpendicular work of Abbot
Litlington's time above the west door. Lower down a grand portal with a
double doorway, of the same earlier date, leads through a dark vestibule
into that incomparable specimen of Early English architecture, the
Chapter House. In one of the outer arches are fragments of figures and
foliage representing a tree of Jesse, and in the tympanum above we see
two decaying but still beautiful {125} stone angels. The centre was once
filled by a group of the Virgin with the infant Saviour in her arms, no
trace of which now remains. The Chapter House, which was built at the
same time as Henry the Third's church, ranks as one of the finest in
England, but it has suffered much damage at various periods from the
hands of careless guardians and from the well-meaning efforts of
successive restorers. It was originally designed for the use of the
convent, but ever since the dissolution of the monastery it has been in
the possession of the Government, and has never been under the
jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter. Here it was that the monks used to
assemble in conclave, under the presidency of the Abbot, about once a
week, to discuss their affairs, and summary justice was administered to
such of the elder brethren who had broken the rules of the Order. These
were flogged near the central pillar, under the eyes of the other monks,
who sat round on the stone benches against the wall; the younger
offenders were chastised in the cloisters. Quite early in the reign of
the first Edward, however, the kings began to use this council chamber of
the monastery for their own purposes, and would often hold synods of the
clergy within its walls, usually with the purpose of {126} extorting
subsidies. About the middle of the fourteenth century the Abbot lent the
Chapter House to the Crown for the use of the Commons, who met henceforth
in the monastic precincts till they were removed by an edict of Edward
VI.'s to the old chapel of St. Stephen's. The wise head of the
monastery, Abbot Henley, made a stipulation at the same time that the
Government should bear the expense of all future repairs. Whether this
compact was faithfully carried out at first we do not know, but after the
Dissolution, when the building lapsed finally to the Crown, it fell into
a shocking state of ruin, and was used as a kind of lumber-room for State
documents. In the eighteenth century it was fitted up as a record
office, and the architecture ruthlessly maltreated. The original roof,
which was in a ruinous condition, was removed altogether; wooden shelves,
galleries, and staircases concealed the painted walls; a boarded floor
was added half-way up, and rolls of dusty and inflammable parchments
increased the constant risk of fire. In 1834 when the houses of
Parliament hard by were burnt, watchers were stationed on the roof of the
Chapter House, ready to remove the Doomsday Book and other valuable
records should the conflagration spread and the safety of {127} this
historic building be seriously threatened. So urgent did the danger from
fire appear long afterwards to Sir Gilbert Scott, when he was Surveyor of
the Abbey fabric, that he prevailed on the Government of 1865 to remove
the records, and obtained a grant of money from Parliament for the
purpose of restoring the place as far as possible to its original aspect.
Altered as it must have been by this restoration, yet Scott did his work
well, and as we look around us we see traces of its ancient splendour,
although irreparable damage from neglect and misguided attempts to repair
the ravages of former generations has been wrought at various times. The
very interesting mural paintings, for instance, which date from the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, have been slowly yet surely fading
ever since the wooden panelling was removed forty years ago, and
well-meant modern experiments, which were intended to preserve the
colour, seem only to have added to their destruction. Above the inner
door are two graceful stone figures, one of which is said to represent
St. John the Baptist; the central medallion of Christ is by Sir Gilbert
Scott, but does not compare favourably with the thirteenth-century
sculptures. The tracery of the windows was restored after the pattern of
{128} the only one which Scott found intact, but the ancient painted
glass had long disappeared, and the present glass, the work of Messrs.
Clayton and Bell, was inserted at the end of the last century as a
memorial to Dean Stanley. Part of one window is still unfinished,
waiting until sufficient funds are forthcoming, but the remainder have
now been filled up. The east window was given by the generosity of Queen
Victoria as a token of her admiration for her old friend, while the cost
of the one next to it was defrayed entirely by American subscribers.
Historical scenes closely connected with the Abbey are here represented;
above them are figures of those sovereigns and abbots who rank as
benefactors to the foundation. We passed just now in the vestibule a
small medallion portrait with a modern window above it, both of which
were put there as a memorial to James Russell Lowell, who was for many
years the United States Minister in London, and whose brilliant speech in
this very place, when he supported Dean Bradley's appeal for funds to
worthily commemorate Dean Stanley, will never be forgotten by those
present on that occasion. Railed off in the centre of the floor are
remnants of the ancient encaustic tiles, with which the whole was once
paved, and {129} round about them are glass cases containing many
interesting documents, seals, and other relics, which should be studied
at leisure by the antiquarian members of our party. These are already
admiring the famous Litlington Missal and the Liber Regalis, an
illuminated book containing the order of the Coronation Service, which
was prepared for the use of Richard II., and is probably the actual
volume which the boy King held in his hands during the long and, to a
child, tedious ceremony. There is also a fine manuscript containing an
agreement between Henry VII. and the Bermondsey convent. Others are
attracted to the skeletons of rats, mice, and sparrows which were found
when cleaning out the old organ pipes. In the vestibule as we go out we
see a curious old doorway, which was originally the entrance to the royal
treasury, now called the Pyx Chapel. Upon the other side hang strips of
the human skin with which it was once entirely covered, like the door
which used to divide the chapels of St. Faith and St. Blaise, in the
south transept. The latter was taken down long ago, but in Scott's time
the frame, which still had some skin adhering to it, was extant, but it
was then carried off by the Abbey master-mason and has been since
entirely lost sight {130} of. The gruesome relics on the south transept
door were traditionally supposed to be the skins of the Danes, but the
one here was said to be that of a man flayed alive for robbing the royal
treasury in the time of Edward I., which was fixed upon the treasury
entrance as a warning to the monks, who were implicated in the crime.
Sir Gilbert Scott, however, believed the skins to have been those of men
who were executed for sacrilege. Beneath the Chapter House itself is a
crypt, which was also used as a depository for treasure, and formed part
of the King's wardrobe in Edward the First's reign. It is still a
moot-point as to which strong room was broken into by the robbers, but
this need not detain us now. The door leads nowhere at present; but in
the Confessor's day, when the chamber was built, and for long afterwards,
it admitted at once into the treasury chamber. Behind it now there is
only an empty space beneath the library stairs, within which, late in the
eighteenth and early in the nineteenth century, one of the Chapter
officials seems to have kept his wine, for the names of different wines
and the dates are written upon the stones. Beyond the fourteenth-century
staircase, which led up to the monks' dormitory, a wall, probably of the
same period, divides this part of {131} the treasury from the rest, and
one of the Norman columns has been built into the middle of it. In
Scott's day a modern door led to the Chapter library from the vestibule,
but he restored the original staircase with the entrance into the east
cloister, which is on our left when we emerge. The spacious chamber
above was originally the dormitory, whence the monks passed to and fro
into the church over this vestibule by a covered passage-way, which
crossed the end of St. Faith's Chapel and descended by stone steps, some
of which remain, into the chapel of St. Blaise in the south transept.
After having been occasionally used as a library under different Deans,
part of this dormitory (the rest is incorporated in the schoolroom) was
restored and fitted up by Dean Vincent in the seventeenth century, and is
now the Chapter library. In the cloister beyond the library entrance a
heavy oak door, clamped with iron bars, leads into the chamber or chapel
of the Pyx. Behind this is another equally formidable-looking door, and
upon each are three complicated locks, only two of which are used at the
present time. There is little doubt that these locks date from the
seventeenth century and are not the original ones belonging to the
Treasury, of which the Keeper of the Royal {132} Wardrobe and the Abbot
had duplicate keys; for we know that when Parliament sent Sir Robert
Harley to seize the regalia in 1643, no keys were produced by the Dean,
the locks were therefore broken, and new ones were put on by order of the
House. The whole question of the Pyx Chapel is one of vast interest, and
much of its history is still an insoluble riddle. It is enough to tell
our party that the regalia and Crown jewels were kept here for many
centuries, and that in later times the pyx, a box containing the standard
pieces of gold and silver money, took the place of the ancient treasure.
The pyx is now in the Mint, and quite recently the treasury chamber,
which is at present under the control of the Board of Works, has been
cleared out after centuries of neglect, and most of the old chests have
been temporarily removed. Now that the chapel is empty, it is possible
to appreciate the fine proportions of its architecture. This vaulted
chamber and a few other substructures beyond it, including the dark
cloister, belong to the Norman monastery, and were built during and after
the Confessor's time. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries most of
the old monastic buildings were gradually pulled down to make way for
more airy and convenient {133} new structures, but these remained
untouched when the rest were destroyed. The Pyx Chamber appears to have
been a chapel at one time, there are traces of an altar and a
thirteenth-century holy-water basin at the east end, as there are also in
the Chapter-House crypt, but both were used as royal treasuries, and the
regalia was kept in the former until the Commonwealth. After the
Restoration the new regalia was deposited in the Tower, and ever since it
has been brought to the Abbey the night before the coronation. The
Romanesque round arches and plain short pillars with fluted mouldings
date from the eleventh century, while on the floor are ancient tiles of
various periods, some of which have been identified as Roman. Two large
and solid chests on which are written the names of different countries,
such, for instance, as Scotland, Burgundy, and Navarre, seem to have held
treaties and possibly tribute money. We cannot visit either the Library
or the Pyx Chapel to-day, nor the small vaulted chamber which leads into
the school gymnasium, but we must spare a few moments to see the only
portion of the original Norman cloister which is still standing, a dark
round arch, beneath which we pass into a modernised court called the
Little Cloister. The {134} monks' infirmary, an Early English building,
was formerly here, and a few arches of the infirmary chapel, which was
dedicated to St. Catherine, are still to be seen behind one of the
Canon's houses; a small locked door in the other corner leads into the
"College Garden," where the sick brethren used to take the air. We stop
to notice a tablet against the wall, near the choir boys' practice-room,
which is a favourite with all our parties, on account of the quaint
conceit about the man who, "through the spotted veil of the smallpox,
rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God." Returning by the dark arch
we look into Little Dean's Yard, around which are the school buildings,
but Westminster School is too vast a subject to be tackled at the end of
a long morning, so we merely point out the gateway leading to the great
schoolroom, where are carved the names of many a distinguished old
Westminster, and advise our friends to visit Ashburnham House and see
Inigo Jones's famous staircase on another occasion. The south walk is
the direct way to Dean's Yard. The wall all along the side most probably
formed part of the Norman cloister, and was utilised by Litlington for
the new one; behind it was the great refectory, to which we have referred
before. So closely connected in {135} style is the late Decorated and
early Perpendicular that it is impossible to define the exact date of
this part of the monastery, but, roughly speaking, we may attribute the
rest of the buildings which we are now about to visit to the energy of
Abbot Litlington, although some were finished after his death. The tombs
of the early Abbots against this wall were probably originally inside the
Norman church; in any case they have certainly been brought here from
elsewhere. The names we see now were cut in the eighteenth century, and
are so strangely transposed that scarcely one tomb is correctly
inscribed. A large blue stone called Long Meg was long believed to cover
the remains of twenty-eight monks stricken by the plague, but like many
another Abbey legend this is scarcely credible when we recall the busy
monastic life which went on in these cloisters, and the fact that the
cemetery was outside the Lady Chapel. Our goal at present is the famous
Jerusalem Chamber, where the Abbots used to entertain their guests. To
reach this we pass beneath another archway after leaving the cloisters,
and enter a picturesque courtyard; on one side is the College Hall, which
was formerly the Abbot's dining-room, and was used for the same purpose
by the earlier Deans; on {136} the other three sides of the court are the
Abbot's lodgings, now the Deanery. The Hall was built by Litlington at
the same time as the Chamber, and although it was remodelled in the
Elizabethan period, when the roof was restored and the minstrels' gallery
added, much of the fourteenth-century work remains. The Abbot's
initials, N. L., with his arms are seen on pieces of painted glass and on
the bosses of the roof, while the primitive fireplace in the centre of
the floor, with a hole above for the smoke to escape, was in use until
the middle of last century. On the dais, raised two steps above the rest
of the Hall, the Abbot, and afterwards his successor the Dean, had his
place of honour; the ancient oak tables are supposed to have been made
out of the wrecks of the Spanish Armada, and undoubtedly date from
Elizabeth's reign, when the newly founded Queen's scholars used to dine
with the Dean and Prebendaries. A small door in the corner admits us, by
a passage-way, into the Jerusalem Chamber, but here we look round in vain
for traces of our friend Litlington, for the room has been so modernised
and restored that practically only the cedar wood and the architectural
details belong to his time. More fragments of ancient glass, dating from
the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, {137} remind us that once not
only these but the church windows were filled with painted glass, most of
which was destroyed by the early Protestants, and all that was left was
broken by the Puritans. The tapestry was brought here from the choir and
from the great school in 1821, when the Chamber was restored. The tiles
and fireplace were added in Queen Victoria's reign, while the overmantel
was put up by Dean Williams, to commemorate the marriage of Charles I. to
Henrietta Maria--on either side are grotesque heads of the bride and
bridegroom; Williams entertained the French Ambassador at a banquet in
this room while the negotiations were proceeding. Dean Stanley placed
the busts of Henry IV. and Henry V. against the wall, and thus all who
visit this historic chamber are reminded that a king died on the spot
before the hearth where we now stand. Shakespeare has made the scene of
Henry the Fourth's death very familiar, and we remember the King's words
when he recovered consciousness after his swoon. Henry was taken ill
when praying at St. Edward's shrine, before starting for the Holy Land;
the dying man asked the name of the room into which he was carried from
the church, and receiving the reply "Hierusalem," he broke out into
thanksgiving:--
{138}
Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me many years
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.
But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Abbot's Courtyard and the Entrance to the Jerusalem
Chamber]
* * * *
THE ABBOT'S COURTYARD AND THE ENTRANCE TO THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER
This little paved yard has borne its present name ever since the days of
the Westminster abbots, for the buildings all round belonged to the
Abbot's lodgings. Here, for instance, is the fine hall where the Abbot
used to dine, and where the Westminster scholars still have their meals.
We cannot see this in the picture, but immediately facing us is the
entrance to the Jerusalem Chamber and Jericho parlour, the Abbot's
guest-rooms. The old bedrooms above also formed part of the Abbot's
house, and are now used by the Dean. The whole of this, including the
Jericho parlour, the windows of which we can see below, was probably
built, in the reign of King Henry VII., by Abbot Islip. The Jerusalem
Chamber dates from an earlier period, the fourteenth century.
* * * * * *
Many and diverse are the purposes for which the Abbot's withdrawing-room
has been utilised since the dissolution of the monastery. More than one
coffin has rested here before the interment; the most notable was that of
Sir Isaac Newton, when the Chamber was thronged with distinguished men
from all parts of Europe. The least reputable was the famous occasion
when the painted, bedizened body of a notorious actress, whose charms
were extolled by Horace Walpole and sneered at by Alexander Pope, was
brought into these monastic precincts, and afterwards buried inside the
church itself. Wedding as well as funeral parties assemble in this room
from time to time, and the Chamber is occasionally lent by the Dean for
special meetings. Thus the revisers of the Old Testament carried out
their onerous task, the work of several years, seated round this table.
Long before, in the seventeenth century, a very different body of men had
met here, when the Westminster Assembly, driven from Henry VII.'s Chapel
by {139} the freezing cold, moved into the warmer atmosphere of the
Dean's house, and held many a stormy debate in this peaceful old-world
place.
From Jerusalem we pass into the Jericho parlour; this room, and the
bedrooms above it, were built in the sixteenth century, probably by Abbot
Islip, who was like Litlington a great builder; the fine linen scroll
panelling round the walls dates from an earlier period, and in the window
hang more remains of ancient glass. A door leads from the Deanery into
the lobby outside, and at the end of a dark passage is the Dean's private
entrance to the Abbey, which opens into the nave beneath the "Abbot's
Pew." We have referred once or twice to the Commonwealth era, when
Presbyterian ministers preached in the church, and the Deanery was leased
for a while to the Lord President of the Council, John Bradshaw. We seem
even now, after the lapse of over two hundred years, to see the striking
figure of the regicide, his stern features concealed by his favourite
broad-brimmed hat, stride across the darkness to the little door in the
wall, whence he ascended to the secluded study in the triforium, where he
loved to meditate amongst his books. But enough of these fascinating
memories. Our own pilgrimage is drawing to {140} a close; we retrace our
steps through the Abbot's courtyard and emerge from the twilight of the
cloisters into the sunshine of Dean's Yard, turning for a moment before
we part to look up at the window of the "long room," which, with his
private chapel behind it, was built by our friend Litlington. On each
side of the gateway below it are the heads of the Abbot himself and of
his sovereign, Richard II. Part of the ancient refectory wall is
concealed behind bookcases in the Abbot's long room, and there are other
remains of monastic times in the Deanery, which is a rambling old house,
added to by successive Deans, with many a picturesque corner and secret
chamber. Let us take leave of one another standing under the old
elm-trees, some of which were planted in Elizabeth's reign by Feckenham,
the last Abbot, and here complete our morning's walk round the church and
precincts of St. Peter's, Westminster.
{141}
Index
Abbot, 6, 12, 26, 27, 122, 125, 135
Abbot's courtyard, 135, 140
long room, 140
Pew, 22, 40, 139
Abbots' Chapel, 107
tombs, 135
Abbotsford, 48
Abraham, heights of, 108
Adams, J. C., 119
Addison, Joseph, 36, 46, 101
Afghanistan, 33
Agincourt, battle of, 84
Albemarle, William de Fortibus, Earl of, 59
Alfonzo, Prince, 64
Almenara, battle of, 34
Altar, Jesus, 25
high, 24, 57
Ambulatory, north, 105
south, 62
André, Major, 36
Andrew, St., Chapel of, 45, 109
Andrews, St., Archbishop of, 53
Angelo, Michael, 94
Anne, Queen, 61, 88, 96, 112
grave, and wax effigy, 101
Anne of Bohemia, 68, 72, 81, 82
Anne of Cleves, 61
Anne of Denmark, 94
Anne, St., 105
Anne's Gate, Queen, 10
Argyll, Duchess of, 7
Armada, Spanish, 136
Arnold, Matthew, 28
Arnold, Dr. Samuel, 118
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 28
Ashburnham House, 134
Atterbury, Dean, 14, 23, 50, 55
Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, 59
Bacon, John, sculptor, 114
Balfe, Michael, 118
Baptistery, 23, 28
Barnet, battle of, 66
Barton Street, 45
Barry, Sir Charles, 32
Barry, Mrs., 45
Barry, Spranger, 124
Bath, Knights of the, 34, 91
Beaufort family, 88
Becket, Archbishop Thomas à, 57
Belfry, 23
Benedict, St., Chapel of, 52, 62
Benedictines, 3, 62, 121
Bennett, Sir W. Sterndale, 118
Benson, auditor, 50
Beranger, Raymond de, Count of Provence, 41
Bermondsey convent, 129
Betterton, Thomas, 124
Bill, Dean, 62
Blackfriars, 77
Blaise, St., Chapel of, 129, 131
Blake, Admiral, 8, 95, 101
Blanche of the Tower, 66
Blenheim, battle of, 96
Blore, 56
Blow, Dr., 118
Boehm, sculptor, 94
Boer War, 123
Bohemia, arms of, 82
King of, 82
Bohun, family of de, 87
Booth, Barton, 44
Bosworth, battle of, 89
Bourchier, Sir Humphrey, 66
Bracegirdle, Mrs., 124
Bradley, Dean, 22, 128
Bradshaw, John, regicide, 95, 139
Bray, Sir Reginald, 92
Brazilian Navy, 34
Brigham, Nicholas, 51
Bringfield, Colonel, 96
Brocas, Sir Bernard, 36
Brock, sculptor, 111
Browning, Robert, 52
Brunel, Isamberd, 120
Buckingham, Countess of, 85
Buckingham, Duke and Duchess of, 97
Buckland, Dean, 120
Burgundy, 133
Burleigh, Lord, 67
Burney, Dr., 118
Burney, Fanny, Madame d'Arblay, 118
Burns, Robert, 48
Busby, Dr., 44, 53, 56
Buxton, Sir T. Fowell, 117
Byrcheston, Abbot, 122
Cabul, 33
Calais, 75, 79, 104
Calcutta, 116
Campbell, Sir Colin, Lord Clyde, 32
Campbell, Thomas, 48
Canning, Earl, 113
Canning, George, 113
Canning, Stratford, Viscount de Redcliffe, 113
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 57, 62
Cathedral, 68
Carnatic, 117
Caroline, Queen, 98
Casaubon, Isaac, 43
Castlereagh, Viscount, 113
Catherine of Braganza, Queen, 36
Catherine, Princess, 63
Catherine, St., 63
Chapel of, 134
Cavendish, William, first Duke of Newcastle, 112
Caxton, William, 121
Cecil, Anne, Countess of Oxford, 67
Cecil, Mildred, Lady Burleigh, 67
Cecil, Sir Robert, Earl of Salisbury, 67
Cecil, Robert, Marquess of Salisbury, 68, 112
Cecil, William, Lord Burleigh, 67
Chamberlain, Dr., 98
Chandernagore, 116
Chapter House, 16, 61, 124-130
crypt, 130, 133
library, 13, 131, 133
Charing Cross, 77
Charles I., King, 13, 85, 97, 112, 137
Charles II., King, 36, 38, 88, 95, 97, 99, 101, 102, 104
Charles IV., Emperor, 82
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 48, 49, 51, 52, 85
Chilian Navy, 34
Choir, 23, 24
boys, 134
north aisle, 118
south aisle, 37
screen, 25
Cibber, Mrs., 124
Claypole, Elizabeth, Lady, 96
Clayton and Bell, 128
Clive, Lord, 116
Cloisters, 26, 54, 121, 122, 123, 134, 135
Little, 133
Cobden, Richard, 115
Cochrane, Thomas, Earl of Dundonald, 34
Coleridge, S. T., 48
College Garden, 134
Hall, 135
Colt, Maximilian, sculptor, 104
Commons, House of, 111, 126
Commonwealth, 95, 107, 133, 139
Congreve, William, 40
Coote, Sir Eyre, 116
Coromandel, 116
Coronation, 7
chairs, 72, 79, 95, 106
service, 129, 133
Coverley, Sir Roger de, 102
Cowley, Abraham, 52
Cowley Street, 45
Cowper, William, 110
Craggs, James, 28, 102, 119
Crawford, Ann, 124
Crecy, battle of, 82
Creed, Major, 96
Crimean War, 33
Croft, Dr., 118
Cromwell, Oliver, 8, 79, 95, 96
Crull, 15
Crusaders, 60
Crusades, 75, 76
Danes, 3, 69, 129, 130
Darnley, Henry Stuart, Earl of, 98
Darwin, Charles, 31, 119
Daubeney, Sir Giles and Lady, 85
Dean, 22, 135, 136, 139
and Chapter, 13, 28, 50, 125
Dean's Yard, 43, 123, 134, 140
Little, 134
Deanery, 23, 27, 136, 139, 140
Delavel family, 85
Derby, Earl of, 89
Dickens, Charles, 46
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield, 111
Dolben, Dean, 13, 14
Doomsday Book, 126
Dorset, Anne, Countess of, 49
Dryden, John, 35, 52
Dunk, G. Montagu, Earl of Halifax, 102
Editha, Lady, 74
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, 59, 60
Edmund, St., Chapel of, 36, 64, 80, 81
Edward, St., the Confessor, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 25, 69, 130, 132
altar of, 70, 71
arms of, 41
chapel of, 68-83
shrine of, 5, 27, 57, 64, 70, 71, 74, 84, 102, 137
Edward I., 12, 25, 61, 63, 75, 77, 122, 125, 130
tomb of, 78, 83, 105
Edward II., 26, 64, 65, 71, 78
Edward III., 26, 36, 66, 79
tomb of, 68, 80, 81
Edward IV., 26, 27, 72, 89
Edward V., 27, 104
Edward VI., 90, 126
Edward, the Black Prince, 66, 68, 81
Edwardes, Sir Herbert, 33
Eleanor of Aquitaine, 75
Eleanor de Bohun, Duchess of Gloucester, 66, 81
Eleanor of Castile, 76
tomb of, 58, 73, 77, 84, 106
Elizabeth, Queen, 3, 6, 49, 62, 63, 67, 105, 109, 136, 140
tomb of, 100, 103
wax effigy, 103
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, 99
Elizabeth Woodville, 17, 104, 107
Elizabeth of York, 89
Erasmus, St., Chapel of, 107
Essex, Earl of, 43
Esteney, Abbot, 11, 12, 108
Evesham, battle of, 59
Fairborne, Sir Palmes, 35
Faith, St., Chapel of, 46, 55, 129-131
Feckenham, Abbot, 72, 78, 140
Flanders, 75
Follett, Sir W., 114
Font, 23
Fox, Charles James, 30, 114
France, 74, 75, 87, 89
Franklin, Sir John, 111
Freind, Dr. John, 119
Freind, Robert, 119
Froissart, John, 80
Front, north, 14, 15, 26
west, 12, 15, 27
Garrick, David and Mrs., 44, 45
Gay, John, 47
George I., 38, 91
George II., 98
George III., 23, 37
_George, Royal_, wreck of the, 110
Gethin, Lady Grace, 40
Ghereah, 116
Gifford, William, 42
Gladstone, W. E., 111
Godwin, Earl, 70
Goldschmidt, Jenny Lind, 46
Goldsmith, Oliver, 47
Goodman, Dean, 42, 63
Gordon, Charles, General, 29
Gower, John, 52
Grabe, George, 30
Graham, George, 120
Grattan, Henry, 114
Gray, Thomas, 49, 50, 51
Grey Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, tomb of. _See_ illustration
Grote, George, 42
Hainault, 85
Halidon Hill, battle of, 65
Halifax, 102
Earls of, 102
Handel, G. F., 46
Hanoverian family, 98
Harbord and Cottrell monument, 103
Harold, King, 70
Hastings, Warren, 115
Hatfield, 68
Havelock, General, 32
Hawkesmore, 11, 14, 15
Henley, Abbot, 126
Henrietta Maria, Queen, 137
Henry I., 74
Henry II., 57
Henry III., 4, 5, 12, 24, 25, 41, 55, 57, 59, 64, 65, 74, 92, 122
tomb of, 58, 72, 73, 75, 106
Henry IV., 26, 82, 83, 84, 106, 137
Henry V., 26, 69, 72, 82, 84, 86, 87, 137
Chantry Chapel of, 83, 87
Henry VI., 26, 69, 86, 92
Henry VII., 11, 12, 23, 27, 85, 86, 91, 92, 107, 129
Chapel of, 16, 23, 24, 31, 34, 54, 85, 88, 89, 100, 138
Henry VIII., 5, 62, 63, 71, 72, 73, 92, 98, 107
Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, 99
Henry, Duke of Gloucester, 99
Herschel, Sir John, 30, 31, 119
Hertford, Frances, Countess of, 62
Hill, Mrs. Jane, 27
Holland, 75
Holles, John, third Duke of Newcastle, 112
Holy Land, 60, 76, 137
Hope, Adrian, brigadier, 33
Horneck, William, 29
Horrocks, Benjamin, 30
Howard, Lord, of Effingham, 62
Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 88
Hyder Ali, 117
India Company, East, 116
Infirmary, monks', 134
Inigo Jones, 134
Ireland, Dean, 42
Ireton, Henry, General, 95
Islip, Abbot, 11, 12, 13, 108, 139
Islip Chapel, 101, 103, 105, 107
Islip Roll, 121
Italy, 58, 75
James I., 43, 53, 94, 99, 100, 103
James II., 88
James, Duke of York, 103
Jericho parlour, 139
Jerusalem Chamber, 22, 84, 135, 137, 138, 139
John of Gaunt, 51, 83, 88
John, Prince, of Eltham, 65
canopy of tomb, 106
John, St., the Baptist, 127
Chapel of, 107, 108
John, St., the Evangelist, 70, 71
Chapel of, 109
John, St., Lateran, 71
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 44, 47, 118
Jonson, Ben, 48, 49, 50
Joseph, sculptor, 117
Joule, James Prescott, 119
Kane, Richard, 117
Katherine of Valois, Queen, 86
Keate, Dr., 53
Keats, John, 42
Keble, John, 28
Kemble, John, 45, 110
Kempenfelt, Admiral, 110
King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 90
King's Langley, 82
King Street, 49
Kingsley, Charles, 28
Kirton, Ann, 110
Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 38, 119
Lady Chapel, 24, 51, 86, 92, 107
Lamb, Charles, 37, 44
Lambeth, 10
Lancaster, Earls of, 60
family badge, 60, 88
Langham, Archbishop, 26, 62, 122, 123
Laurence, Abbot, 70
Lawrence, John, Lord, 32, 33, 113
Lawrence, Sir Henry, 33
Lawrence, Major Stringer, 116
Lawrence, William, 124
Lennox, Dukes and Duchesses of, 96
Lennox, Earl and Countess of, 98, 99
Liber Regalis, 121, 129
Limoges, 64
Lincoln, 77
Lister, Jane, 124
Litlington, Abbot, 26, 46, 62, 123, 124, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140
Litlington Missal, 121, 129
Livingstone, David, 31
Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, 64
Locke, Joseph, 120
Longfellow, H. W., 53
Louis, St., King of France, 59
Lovell, Sir Thomas, 93, 100
Lowell, J. R., 128
Lucas, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, 40, 112
Lucknow, 32, 33
Lyell, Sir Charles, 120
Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Earl of, 66
Macaulay, Lord, 46, 116, 117
Macaulay, Zachary, 30, 117
Makonnen, Ras, 91
Mansfield, William Murray, Earl of, 114
Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, 89, 93, 94, 100
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, 98
Margaret, St., Church of, 9, 10, 95
Marlborough, Duke of, 30, 96
Mary, Princess of Orange, 99
Mary, Princess, 104
Mary Tudor, Queen, 6, 62, 63, 71, 72, 75
tomb of, 103
Mary II., Queen, 94, 101
Mary, Queen of Scots, 98, 99, 100
Mason, William, 49
Matilda, Queen, 74
Maundy, 122
Maurice, F. D., 28
Mead, Dr., 98, 119
Meg, Long, 135
Menai Bridge, 120
Michael, St., Chapel of, 110, 112
Milton, John, 49, 50, 51
Minorca, 117
Mint, the, 132
Monastery, Westminster, 4, 62, 121, 122, 125, 132
Dissolution of the, 5, 121, 126, 138
Monck, General, Duke of Albemarle, 101, 102
Montagu, Charles, first Earl of Halifax, 102
Montagu, Edward, Admiral, Earl of Sandwich, 102
Montague, Captain, 28
Montfort, Simon de, Earl of Leicester, 59
Moors, 35, 36
Muniment Room, 55
Musicians' Aisle, 118
Mutiny, Indian, 32, 33, 113
Napoleon, 114
Navarre, 133
Nave, 11, 14, 15, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 37, 49, 105, 139
Nelson, Admiral, 12, 48
wax effigy, 108
Neville family, 93
Newcastle tombs, 112
Newcastle-on-Tyne, bridge, 107
Newton, Sir Isaac, 35, 119, 138
Nicholas, St., Chapel of, 66, 67, 105
Nightingale, Lady Elizabeth, 110
Norman church and cloister, 61, 74, 122, 131, 133, 134, 135
Norris family tomb, 109
Northumberland, Duchess of, 105
Nova Scotia, 102
Odericus, 71
Oldfield, Ann, 45, 138
Orchard, John, 80
Organ screen, 24, 56
pipes, 129
Oude, 33
Outram, Sir James, 32
Pall Mall, 37
Palmerston, Lord, 113
Paoli, Pasquale de, 39
Parliament, Houses of, 9, 16, 32, 112, 114, 126, 127
Paul, St., Chapel of, 85, 105, 120
Paul's, St., Cathedral, 80
Peabody, George, 31
Pearce, Dean Zachary, 86
Pearson, John, 14, 15, 32
Peel, Sir Robert, 111
Peninsular War, 34
Peter, St., 3, 4, 10
Peter, the Roman, 71
Peter's, St., College, 134
Philippa, Queen, 66, 68, 72, 79, 80
tomb of, 80, 84
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, monument, 114, 115
wax effigy, 108
Pitt, William, the younger, 21, 114
Plantagenets, 82
Poets' Corner, 41, 48, 50, 102, 118
Poictiers, battle of, 82
Pollock, Sir George, 33
Pope, Alexander, 29, 39, 119, 120, 138
Presbyterians, 139
Prior, the, 26, 121
Pritchard, Hannah, 45
Protestants, 137
Puckering, Sir John and Lady, 105
Pulteney, William, Earl of Bath, 78, 105
Punjaub, 33
Purcell, Henry, 118
Puritans, 137
Pym, John, 106
Pyx, Chapel of the, 69, 129, 131, 132, 133
Quebec, 108
Raffles, Sir Stamford, 117
Ramillies, battle of, 96
Refectory, 134, 140
Regalia, 133
Reredos, 57
Restoration, 95, 101, 107, 112, 133
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 47
Richard II., King, 15, 26, 55, 66, 68, 72, 81, 82, 83, 84, 129, 140
picture of, 61
tomb of, 76, 81
Richard III., 89
Richard, King of the Romans, 41
Richard, Duke of York, 104
Richmond, Duke of, and Lennox, 96
Robsert, Ludovick, Lord, 85
Roet, Sir Payne, 85
Rood screen, 25
Roubiliac, sculptor, 35, 110
Rupert, Prince, 99, 101
Ruskin, John, 39, 46
Ruthall, John, Bishop of Durham, 107
Rysbrack, sculptor, 35
Sanctuary, 24, 56, 83
Sandwich, Earl of, 102
Saunders, Sir Clement, 109
Scilly Isles, 38
Scone, stone of, 61, 79
Scotland, 77, 79, 133
Scott, Sir Gilbert, 14, 32, 57, 72, 80, 127, 128, 129, 131
Scott, Sir Walter, 46
Sebert, King, 61
Shaftesbury, Earl of, 30
Shakespeare, William, monument of, 44, 45, 47
plays of, 7, 106, 137, 138
Sharp, Granville, 117
Sheffield, John, Duke of Buckinghamshire, and Duchess, 97, 102
Sheridan, R. B., 47
Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 38
Shrewsbury, battle of, 106
Siddons, Mrs., 45, 110
Singapore, 117
Somerset, Duke of, the Protector, 62, 67, 73, 90
Somerset, Duchess of, 67
Sophia, Princess, 104
South, Dr. R., 53, 54
Southey, Robert, 48
Spain, 74, 75
Spenser, Edmund, 48, 49, 52
Spottiswoode, Archbishop, 53
Stamford, 67
Stanhope, Earls, 34
Stanley, Dean, 28, 39, 42, 66, 86, 91, 94, 95, 128, 137
Stanley, Lady Augusta, 94
Statesmen's Aisle, 41, 111
Staunton, Sir George, 29
Stephenson, Robert, 120
Stokes, Sir William, 119
Strode, William, 107
Stuart, Arabella, 99
Stuart, Charles, Earl of Lennox, 99
Stuart, Frances, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, 96
Stuarts, 54, 88, 98, 101
Sussex, county of, 74
Tait, Archbishop, 53
Tangier, 35
Telford, Thomas, 120, 121
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 111
grave of, 52
Testament, Old, revisers of, 138
Thackeray, W. M., 46
Thirlwall, Bishop, 42
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, 60
Thomas of Lewes, 73
Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, 81
Thorneye, 3, 10, 69
Thynne, Thomas, 37
Thynne, William, 38
Tickell, 101
Tompion, Thomas, 120
Torel, William, 73
Torrigiano, Pietro, 93, 100
Tory, 112, 113
Tostig, 70
Tothill Street, 11
Tower, the, 104
Towers, West, 11, 15
Transept, north, 14, 15, 54, 109, 111
south, 14, 41, 54, 129
Treasury, Royal, 129, 130, 131
Trench, Archbishop, 31
Trevithick, Richard, 120
Trichinopoly, 116
Triforium, 24, 26, 139
Tudor, Owen, 46
Tudors, 3, 5, 7, 25, 38, 67, 88, 89
Turks, 36, 77
Tyburn, 96
Valence, Aymer de, 60
Valence, William de, 60, 64
Vere, Sir Francis, 109
Vernon, Admiral, 115
Victoria, Queen, 113, 128, 137
Villiers, Francis, 97
Villiers, George, first Duke of Buckingham, 97
Villiers, Catherine, Duchess of, 97
Villiers, George, second Duke of Buckingham, 97
Vincent, Dean, 16, 53, 54, 131
Voltaire, 35
Wager, Admiral, 115
Waldeby, Archbishop, 66
Walpole, Horace, 100, 138
Lady, 100
Walter, Master, of Durham, 106
Waltham, John of, 83
Walton, Izaak, 43
Wardrobe, Royal, 130, 132
Ware, Abbot, 58, 121
Washington, General, 36
Watson, Admiral, 116
Watt, James, 85, 120
Watts, Dr. Isaac, 39
Wax effigies, 101, 107
Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, 82
Wenlock, Abbot, 58
Wesley, John and Charles, 39
Westmacott, sculptor, 46, 114
West Minster, the, 3, 4, 9, 12
Westminster Abbey, _passim_
Assembly, 138
Duke of, 55
Hall, 9, 79, 96
School, 8, 53, 119, 134, 137
Volunteers, Queen's, 123
Whigs' Corner, 29, 117
Whitehall, 10, 99
Wilberforce, William, 117
Wilcocks, Dean, 50
William the Conqueror, 57
William III., 94
William of Windsor, 66
Williams, Dean, 13, 137
Window, north, 14, 33, 55
south, 55
west, 11, 23
Windows, Chapter House, 128
Windsor, 92, 98
Windsore, Sir John, 106
Wolfe, General, 108
Wolseley, General, 32
Wolsey, Cardinal, 107
Woodward, Dr. John, 120
Woolner, 52
Wordsworth, William, 28
Works, Clerk of the, 16, 36, 51
Board of, 132
Wren, Sir Christopher, 11, 14, 15
Wyatt, James, 16, 56
York family badge, 88
Young, Sir Jack, 50
Zoological Gardens, 118
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