r LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO FOUNDED BY '" RICHARD LORD RICH. A.D. 1564- 3ZL .FORM PRIZE FOR PRESENTED BY THE GOVERNORS TO D.S. INGRAM. H e.(Ld Master. I WESTMINSTER ABBEY WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. ST PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, with CRITICAL NOTES and DISSERTATIONS. 18*. HISTORICAL MEMORIALS OF CANTERBURY. 6s. SINAI AND PALESTINE, IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR HISTORY. 12*. THE BIBLE IN THE HOLY LAND ; BEING EXTRACTS FHOM THE ABOVE WORK, for Schools and Young Persons. 2*. 6d. LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH. 6s. LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH CHURCH. 3 vols. 18*. CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS : ESSAYS ON ECCLESIASTICAL S OBJECTS. 8vo. 12*. Crown 8vo. 6*. SERMONS PREACHED IN THE EAST during the Tour of the PRINCE OF WALES. 9*. LIFE OF DR ARNOLD. 2 vols. 12*. MEMOIRS OF EDWARD, CATHERINE, AND MARY STANLEY. 9*. SERMONS ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS, Preached in Westminster Abbey. 8vo. 12*. ENTRANCE TO THE TOMB OF HENRY VII. AS SEEN ON OPENING THE VAULT IN 18fif>. FROM A DRAWING BY GEORGE SCHARF, ESQ. HISTORICAL, MEMORIALS OF WESTMINSTEE ABBEY BY AETHUE PENEHYN STANLEY, D.D. LATE DEAN OP WESTMINSTER CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE FIOX CHAIU SIXTH EDITION WITH THE AUTHOR'S FINAL REVISIONS Illustrations LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1886 The right of Irnntlalion is rcscrvfl The Abbey of Westminster hath been always held the greatest sanctuary and randevouze of devotion of the whole island ; where- unto the situation of the very place seems to contribute much, and to strike a holy kind of reverence and sweetness of melting piety in the hearts of the beholders.' HOWELL'S Perhutratlon of London (1657), p. 346. TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY QUEEN VICTOEIA WITH EVERY SENTIMENT OP LOYAL AND EESPECTFUL GRATITUDE THIS HUMBLE RECORD OF THE ROYAL AND NATIONAL SANCTUARY WHICH HAS FOR CENTURIES ENSHRINED THE VARIED MEMORIES OF HER AUGUST ANCESTORS AND THE MANIFOLD GLORIES OF HER FREE AND FAMOUS KINGDOM AND WHICH WITNESSED THE SOLEMN CONSECRATION OF HER OWN AUSPICIOUS REIGN TO ALL HIGH AND HOLY PURPOSES NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. This volume is printed from the copy left by the Dean at his death, and containing his final corrections and additions. Easter, 1882. PREFACE. THE following Work was undertaken, in great measure, in con- sequence of the kind desire expressed by many friends, chiefly by my honoured colleagues in the Chapter of Westminster, on occa- sion of the Eight Hundredth Anniversary of the Dedication of the Abbey, that I would attempt to illustrate its history by Memorials similar to those which, in former years, I had pub- lished in connection with Canterbury Cathedral. Such a pro- posal was in entire consonance with my own previous inclina- tions ; but I have undertaken it not without much misgiving. The task was one which involved considerable research, such as, amidst the constant pressure of other and more important occupations, I was conscious that I could ill afford to make. This difficulty has been in part met by the valuable co-operation which I have received from persons the best qualified to give it. Besides the facilities rendered to me by the members and officers of our own Capitular and Collegiate Body, to whom I here tender my grateful thanks, I may especially name Mr. Joseph Burtt, of the Public Record Office, whose careful arrangement of our Archives during the last three years has given him ample opportunities for bringing any new light to bear on the subject ; the lamented Joseph Eobertson, of the Eegister House, Edin- burgh, who was always ready to supply from his copious stores, any knowledge bearing on the Northern Kingdom ; the Eev. John Stoughton, who has afforded me much useful information on the Nonconformist antiquities of the Abbey ; Mr. Thorns, the learned Editor of ' Notes and Queries,' and Sub-Librarian of the House of Lords ; Mr. George Scharf, Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery ; Mr. Doyne C. Bell, of the Privy Purse, Buck- ingham Palace ; and Colonel Chester, a distinguished antiquarian of the United States, 1 who, with a diligence which spared no 1 For the verification of statements Edward Rhodes, of the Public Record and references in the earlier Chapters, Office ; and for the Index to my friend I am in a great measure indebted to Mr. George Grove, and to Mr. Henry Mr. Frank Scott Haydon and Mr. F. Turle. [10] PBEFACE. labour, and a disinterestedness which spared no expenditure, has at his own cost edited and illustrated with a copious accuracy which leaves nothing to be desired, the Eegisters of the Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials in the Abbey. For such inaccuracies as must be inevitable in a work covering so large a field, I must crave, not only the indulgence, but the corrections of those whose longer experience of West- minster and whose deeper acquaintance with English history and literature will enable them to point out errors which have doubtless escaped my notice in this rapid survey. After all that has been written on the Abbey, it would be absurd for any modern work to make pretensions to more than a rearrangement of already existing materials. It may be as well briefly to enumerate the authorities from which I have drawn. I. The original sources, some of which have been hardly accessible to former explorers, are 1. The ABCHIVES preserved in the Muniment Chamber of the Abbey. These reach back to the Charters of the Saxon Kings. They were roughly classified by Widmore, in the last century, and have now undergone a thorough and skilful examination under the care of Mr. Burtt of the Public Eecord Office (see Archaeological Journal, No. 114, p. 135). 2. The CHAPTER BOOKS, which reach from 1542 to the present time, with the exception of two important blanks from 1554 to 1558, under the restored Benedictines of Queen Mary; and from 1642 to 1G62, under the Commissioners of the Commonwealth. 3. The EEGISTEES of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, mentioned p. 96. 4. The PKECENTOR'S BOOK, containing a partial record of customs during the last century. 5. The ' CONSUETUDINES ' of Abbot WARE, and G. The MS. HISTORY OF THE ABBEY by FLETE, both mentioned p. 826. 7. The MSS. in the Heralds' and Lord Chamberlain's Offices. 8. The ' INVENTORY OF THE MONASTERY,' lately discovered at the Land Eevenue Record Office by the Rev. Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, and printed in the Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeo- logical Society, vol. iv. II. The chief printed authorities are : 1. Rcgcs, Eegina et Nobiles in Ecclesia Bcati Petri Westmonas- teriensis Septilti, by WILLIAM CAMDEN (1600, 1603, and 1606). 2. Monumcntdj Wcstmonastcriensia, by HENRY KEEPE (usually signed H. K.), 16b3. PREFACE. [11] 3. Antiquities of St. Peter's, by J. CRULL (usually signed J. C., sometimes H. S.) [These three works relate chiefly to the Monu- ments.] 4. History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of Westminster, by JOHN DART (2 vols. folio, 1723). 5. History of the Church of St. Peter, and Inquiry into the Time of its First Foundation, by EICHARD WIDMORE, Librarian to the Chapter and Minor Canon of Westminster 1750 (carefully based on the original Archives). G. History of the Abbey, by B. AKERMAN (2 vols. royal 4to, 1812). 7. History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, by JOHN NEALE and EDWARD BRAYLEY (2 vols. folio, 1818). [This is the most complete work.] 8. Gleanings from Westminster Abbey, under the supervision of GEORGE GILBERT SCOTT (2nd edit. 1863), by various contributors (chiefly architectural). To these must be added the smaller but exceedingly useful works PETER CUNNINGHAM'S Handbook of Westminster Abbey, and MR. KIDGWAY'S Gem of Thorney Island ; and the elaborate treatises of STOW, MALCOLM, and MAITLAND, on London ; of SMITH, BRAYLEY, and WALCOTT, on Westminster ; and of CARTER, GOUGH, and WEEVER, on sepulchral monuments in general. III. In turning from the sources of information to the use made of them, a serious difficulty occurred. Here, as in the case of Canterbury Cathedral, it was my intention to confine myself strictly to the historical memorials of the place, leaving the archi- tectural and purely antiquarian details to those who have treated them in the works to which I have already referred. 1 But the History of Westminster Abbey differs essentially from that of Canterbury Cathedral, or, indeed, of any other ecclesiastical edifice in England. In Canterbury I had the advantage of four marked events, or series of events, of which one especially the murder of Becket whilst it was inseparably entwined with the whole structure of the building, was capable of being reproduced, in all its parts, as a separate incident. In Westminster no such single act has occurred. The interest of the place depends (as I have pointed out in Chapter I.) on the connection of the different parts with the whole, and of the whole with the general History of England. These ' HISTORICAL MEMORIALS ' ought to be, in fact, ' The History of England in Westminster Abbey.' Those who are acquainted with M. Ampere's delightful book, L'Histoire 1 Documents of this kind, not before were printed in the Appendix to the published, or not generally accessible, earlier editions of this work. [12] PREFACE. liomaine a Rome, will appreciate at once the charm and the difficulty of such an undertaking. In order to accomplish it, I was compelled, on the one hand, to observe as far as possible ;i chronological arrangement, such as is lost in works like Neale's or Cunningham's, which necessarily follow the course of the topography. But, on the other hand, the lines of interest are so various and so divergent, that to blend them in one indiscrimi- nate series would have confused relations which can only be made perspicuous by being kept distinct. At the cost therefore of some repetition, and probably of some misplacements, I have treated each of these subjects by itself, though arranging them in the sequence which was engendered by the historical order of the events. The Foundation of the Abbey, 1 growing out of the physical features of the locality, the legendary traditions, and the motives and character of Edward the Confessor, naturally forms the groundwork of all that succeeds. From the Burial of the Confessor, and the peculiar circum- stances attendant upon it, sprang the Coronation of William the Conqueror, which carries with it the Coronations of all future Sovereigns. These scenes were, perhaps, too slightly connected with the Abbey to justify even the summary description which I have given. But the subject, viewed as a whole, is so curious, that I may be pardoned for having endeavoured to concentrate in one focus these periodical pageants, which certainly have been regarded as amongst the chief glories of the place. 2 The Tombs of the Kings, as taking their rise from the Burial of Henry III. by the Shrine of the Confessor, followed next ; and their connection with the structure of the Church is so ultimate, that this seemed the most fitting point at which to introduce such notices of the architectural changes as were compatible with the plan of the work. This Chapter 3 accordingly contains the key of the whole. From the Burials of the Kings followed, in continuous order, the interments of eminent men. These I have endeavoured to track in the successive groups of Courtiers, Warriors, and States- men, through the marked epochs of Richard II., of Elizabeth, and of the Commonwealth, ending with the Statesmen's Corners in the North Transept and the Nave. In like manner the Men of Letters, and of Arts and Sciences, are carried through the various links which, starting from the Grave of Chaucer in Poets' 1 Chapter I. 2 Chapter II. Chapter III. PREFACE. [13] Corner, include the South Transept, and the other Chapels whither by degrees they have penetrated. I have also added to these such Graves or Monuments as, without falling under any of the foregoing heads, yet deserve a passing notice. 1 There still remained the outlying edifices of the Abbey, which necessitated a brief sketch of the history of the events and personages (chiefly ecclesiastical) that have figured within the Precincts before and since the Reformation. For these two Chapters, as a general rule, I have reserved the burial-places of the Abbots and Deans. In the first period, 2 I have thought it best to include the whole history of such buildings as the Chapter House, the Treasury, and the Gatehouse, although in so doing it was necessary to anticipate what properly belongs to the second division of the local history. Only such details are given as were peculiar to Westminster, without enlarging on the features common to all Benedictine monasteries. Again I have, in the period since the Reformation, 3 reserved for a single summary all that related to the local reminiscences of the Convocations that have been held within the Precincts. The History of West- minster School, which opened a larger field than could be con- veniently included within the limits of this work, I have noticed only so far as was necessary to give a general survey of the destination of the whole of the Conventual buildings, and to form a united representation of the whole Collegiate Body during some of the most eventful periods of its annals. In treating subjects of this wide and varied interest, I have endeavoured to confine myself to such events and such remarks as were essentially connected with the localities. In so doing I have, on the one hand, felt bound to compress the notices of personages or incidents that were too generally known to need detailed descriptions ; and, on the other hand, to enlarge on some of the less familiar names, which, without some such ex- planation, would lose their significance. I have also not scrupled to quote at length many passages sometimes celebrated, some- times, perhaps, comparatively unknown which, from their intrinsic beauty, have themselves become part of the History of the Abbey. This must be the excuse, if any be needed, for the numerous citations from Shakspeare, Fuller, Clarendon, Addison, Gray, Walpole, Macaulay, Irving, and Froude. The details of the pageants, unless when necessary for the historical bearing 1 Chapter IV. - Chapter V. 3 Chapter VI. [14] PREFACE. of the events, I have left to be examined in the authorities to which I have referred. IV. I cannot bring this survey of the History of the Abbey to a conclusion, without recurring for a moment to various sug- gestions which were made, by those interested in the subject, at the time of the celebration of the Eighth Centenary of the Foundation. Some the most important have, happily, been carried out. By the liberality of Parliament, under the auspices, first of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cowper Temple in 1865, and then of Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Henry Lennox in 1875, the ancient Chapter House has been restored. By the aid of the Ecclesiastical Commission, an apparatus for warming has been carried through the whole edifice, materially conducive to the preservation of the Fabric and the Monuments, as well as to the convenience of Public "Worship. The erection of a new Eeredos, more worthy of so august a sanctuary, has at length been com- pleted, under the care of the Subdean, Lord John Thynne, to whose long and unfailing interest in the Abbey its structure and arrangements have been so much indebted. In addition to these improvements, it has been often sug- gested that none would add so much to the external beauty of the Building, without changing its actual proportions, or its rela- tions to past history, as the restoration of the Great Northern Entrance to something of its original magnificence, which has almost disappeared under the alterations of later times. In this plan for glorifying the main approach to the Abbey from the great thoroughfare of the Metropolis much progress has been made since the work was published. The Royal Monuments after a long discussion occasioned by a Report presented in 1854, by the distinguished Architect of the Abbey, Sir Gilbert Scott, to Sir W. Molesworth, then First Commissioner of Public Works were in 1869, at the advice of a Commission of eminent antiquaries, successfully cleaned from the incrustation which had obliterated their original gilding and delicate workmanship. This work, which was originated for the Tudor tombs, by Mr. Layard, was completed for the Plantagenet tombs under his successor Mr. Ayrton. The Private Monuments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offer less difficulty. I have much pleasure in express- ing my grateful sense of the promptitude with which the Cecil, Russell, Sidney, and Lennox tombs have, by the noble and illus- PREFACE. [15] trious Houses which they represent, been restored to their original splendour, yet so as not to interfere with the general harmony of the surrounding edifice. These examples, it is hoped, will be followed up generally. The question of the later Monuments is sufficiently discussed in the account of them in the pages of this work. 1 Doubtless, some rearrangement and reduction might with advantage take place. But, even where the objections of the representatives of the deceased can be surmounted, constant care is needed not to disturb the historical associations which in most cases have given a significance to the particular spots occupied by each. Each must thus be considered on its own merits. One measure, how- ever, will sooner or later become indispensable, if the sepulchral character of the Abbey is to be continued into future times, for which, happily, the existing arrangements of the locality give ample facilities. It has been often proposed that a Cloister should be erected, communicating with the Abbey by the Chapter House, and continued on the site of the present Abingdon Street, facing the Palace of Westminster on one side, and the College Garden on the other. Such a building, the receptacle not of any of the existing Monuments (which would be yet more out of place there than in their present position), but of the Graves and the Memorials of another thousand years of English History, would meet every requirement of the future, without breaking with the traditions of the past. I have ventured to throw out these suggestions, as relating to improvements which depend on external assistance. For such as can be undertaken by our Collegiate Body for all measures relating to the conservation and repair of the fabric, and to the extension of the benefits of the institution I can but express my confident hope that they will, as hitherto, receive every con- sideration from those whose honour is so deeply involved in the usefulness, the grandeur, and the perpetuity of the venerable and splendid edifice of which we are the appointed guardians, and which lies so near our hearts. 1 See Chapter IV. June 1876. NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. IN order to ease the bulk of this volume, I have omitted from it the various documents which, having been printed in the three previous Editions, are there available for any who wish to refer to them, but are hardly required for general readers. I subjoin a list : CHAPTER II. THE CORONATION STONE PAGE 1. Letter from the late Joseph Robertson on the Legend, with Notes of Mr. Skene and Mr. Stuart .... 587 2. Geological Examination of it by Professor Ramsay . . . 594 3. Verses on, in the Time of James I. ..... 597 CHAPTER III. I. Grave ascribed to Edward the Confessor . . 598 II. Burial of Henry III. .... . . 599 III. Removal of the Body of John of Eltham . . 599 IV. BURIAL OF HENRY VI. (a) Depositions of Witnesses concerning the burial . . . 600 (b) Judgment of the Privy Council on . . . 609 (c) Expenses for the Legal Proceedings of the Chapter of Windsor . 612 (d) Indenture of Henry VII. with the Convent of Westminster for the Removal . . . . . . 015 (e) Expenses incurred for the removal of from Windsor to West- minster ........ 616 (/) Letter to the Archbishop of York, forbidding the Worship of Henry VI. at York . . . . . . 617 V. James I.'s Letter for the Removal of the Remains of Mary Queen of Scots from Peterborough . ... 618 [18] NOTE. CHAPTER IV. I. Account of the Vault of Lennox, Duke of Kichmond II. Account of the Vault of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham III. Account of the Vault of Monk, Duke of Albemarle IV. Account of the ' Cromwell,' 4 Monmouth,' or ' Ormond ' V. Warrant for the Disinterment of the Parliamentarians . VI. The Middle Tread, and Ben Jonson's Gravestone . Vault PAGE . 620 . 624 . 628 . 630 . 633 , 634 CHAPTER V. I. Littlington's Buildings . , . II. Orders against Wandering Monks . III. Visit of the Bohemian Travellers in 1477 IV. Kecords of the early Painters of the Abbey V. Kelics lent to the Countess of Gloucester 636 636 638 640 641 CHAPTER VI. I. Feckenham's Speech on the Eight of Sanctuary II. Extracts from Strype's edition of ' Stow's Survey ' . 642 648 EXPLANATION OF THE TYPES AND SIGNS USED IN THE PLANS. Boman capital letters indicate . smaller ditto ... small letters ditto, with spaces between the letters indicate Italic capital letters indicate small ditto . . indicate Royal persons Military and Naval men Literary men Other famous personages Statesmen Ecclesiastics Monuments Graves CONTENTS. PREFACE ......... [9-15] NOTE TO THE FOURTH EDITION ...... [17-18] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ........ [27] CHRONOLOGICAL, TABLE OF EVENTS ...... [29] GENERAL DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY CHCRCH ..... [36] CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Natural growth of the Abbey, 2 i. Physical Features of London and Westminster, 2 The Thames, the Hills and Streams, 3 The Island of Thorns, 5 The Spring, 7 n. Legends: Temple of Apollo, 8 Church of Lucius, 8 Church of Sebert A.D. 616, his Grave, 9 Monastery of Edgar, 10 in. Historical Origin, 10 EDWAKD THE CONFESSOR; his Outward Appear- ance, 10 his Character, 11 The Last of the Saxons, the First of the Normans, 13 His motives in the Foundation of the Abbey ; 1. Consecration at Reims; 2. Situation of Thorney: 3. Devotion to St. Peter, 14 His Vow, 14 Connection of the Abbey with the name of St. Peter, 16 Legend of the Hermit of Worcester, 17 of Edric the Fisherman, 17 of the Cripple, 20 of the Apparition in the Sacrament, 20 Palace of Westminster, 21 Journey to Borne, 21 Building of the Abbey, 22 End of the Confessor. Legend of the Vision of the Seven Sleepers, 24 of the Pilgrim, 24 Dedication of the Abbey (Dec. 28, 1065), 25 Death of the Confessor (Jan. 5, 1066), and Burial" (Jan. 6), 27 Effects of his Character on the foundation, 28 Its Connection with the Conquest, 29 with the English Constitution, 30 Legend of Wulfstan, 30 Bayeux Tapestry, 31 CHAPTER II. THE CORONATIONS. The Rite of Coronation, 34 The Scene of the English Coronations, 36 Corona- tion of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR (Dec. 25, 1066), 37 Connection of Corona- tions with the Abbey, 39 ; the Regalia, 39 Coronation Privileges of the Abbots and Deans of Westminster, 10 ; of the Archbishops of Canterbury, 41 : Coronation of Matilda (May 11, 1067), 41 a 2 [20] CONTEXTS. Coronation of WILLIAM RUFUS (Sept. 26, 1087), 41 ; of HENRY I. (Aug. 5, 1100), 42; of Maude (Nov. 10, 1100), 43; of STEPHEN (Dec. 26, 1135), 43; of HENRY II. (Dec. 19, 1154), 44 ; of his son Henry (June 14, 1170), 44 ; and its results, 44 ; of RICHARD I. (Sept. 3, 1189), 45, and its disasters, 45 ; his Second Coronation (1194), 47 ; Coronation of JOHN (May 27, 1199), 47 ; the Cinque Ports, 47 Two Coronations of HENRY III. (Oct. 28, 1216 : May 17, 1220), 47, 48; Abolition of Lord High Stewardship, 48 Coronation of EDWARD I. and Eleanor (Aug. 19, 1274), 49 The CORONATION STONE, 49 ; Installation of Kings, 49 Legend and History of the Stone of Scone, 50-52 its Capture, 52 its Retention and Use, 53, 54 Prediction concerning, 54 its Interest ; the ' Spectator ' ; Goldsmith, 55, 56 Coronation of EDWARD II. (Feb. 25, 1308), 56 ; of EDWARD III. (Feb. 1, 1327), 57 ; of Philippa (Feb. 2, 1328), 57 ; the Shield and Sword of State ; Coronation of RICHARD II. (July 16, 1377) ; the Liber Regalis ; the Procession from the Tower ; the Knights of the Bath, 57, 58 ; the Champion, 58 Coronation of HENRY IV. (Oct. 13, 1399) ; the Election, 59 The Ampulla, 59 Coronation of Queen Joan (Feb. 26, 1403); of HENRY V. (April 9, 1413), 60; and of Catherine (Feb. 24, 1420), 60 ; of HENRY VI. (Nov. 6, 1429) ; and of Margaret (April 30, 1445) ; of EDWARD IV. (June 29, 1466), 60, 61 Preparations for the Coronation of EDWARD V. (June 22, 1483), 61 ; Coronation of RICHARD III. (July 6, 1483), 61 ; of HENRY VII. (Oct. 30, 1485), 62 ; of Elizabeth of York (Nov. 25, 1487) ; the Yeomen of the Guard ; Coronation of HENRY VIII. (June 24, 1509), 62, 63 ; of Anne Boleyn (June 1, 1533), 63-65 ; of EDWARD VI. (Feb. 20, 1546), 66 Cranmer's Address, 68 Coronation of Queen MARY (Oct. 1, 1553), 68-70 ; of Queen ELIZABETH (Jan. 15, 1559), 70-71 ; of JAMES I. (July 25, 1603), 72 ; of CHARLES I. (Feb. 2, 1625-26), 72-74 Installation of CROMWELL (June 26, 1657), 75 Coronation of CHARLES II. (April 23, 1661), 75-77 ; of JAMES II. (April 23, 1685), 77, 78 ; of WILLLVM AND MARY (April 11, 1689) ; Sanction of Parliament, 78, 79 Coronation Oath changed, 78 Coronation of Queen ANNE (April 23, 1702), 80 Coronation of GEORGE I. (Oct. 20, 1714), 81 Reconstruction of the Order of the Bath, 81 Installation of Knights, 84 Lord Dundonald's Banner, 85 Coronation of GEORGE II. (Oct. 11, 1727), 85 ; of GEORGE III. (Sept. 22, 1761), 86 ; withdrawal of the claims to the Kingdom of France, 88 ; appearance of Prince Charles Edward at the Coronation, 89. Coronation of GEORGE IV. (July 19, 1821), 89 Attempted Entrance of Queen Caroline, 90, 91 Coro- nation of WILLIAM IV. (Sept. 8, 1831), its Curtailment, 91 Coronation of QUEEN VICTORIA (June 28, 1838), 92 Conclusion, 92-95 CHAPTER III. THE ROYAL TOMBS. On the Tombs of Kings generally, 97 Peculiarities of in the Abbey : 1. In com- bination with Coronations, 98 ; 2. with the Palace, 99 ; 3. Importance of the Royal Deaths, 100 ; 4. Publicity of the Funerals, 101 ; 5. Connection of Burials with the Services of the Church, 101 Beginning of Royal Burials : Sebert, Ethelgoda, Harold Harefoot, EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 101 ; Norman Kings buried at Caen, Winchester, Reading, Faversham, Fontevrault, Worcester, 102, 103; MAUD (May 1, 1118), 104 First Translation of the Confessor (Oct. 13, 1163), 105 HENRY III. his Foundation of the Lady Chapel (1220), 106 characteristics of his Reign ; his English feelings ; his imitation of St. Denys ; his devotion ; his addiction to Foreign Arts ; his extravagance, 106-110 Demolition of the' Old and Building of the New Church, 110 The Confessor's Shrine, 110 CONTENTS. [21] Second Translation of the Confessor (Oct. 13, 1269), 112 The Belies, 112 His Death (Nov. 16), Burial (Nov. 20, 1272), and Tomb, 114 Delivery of his Heart to the Abbess of Fontevrault (1291), 115 Family of Henry III. Princess Catherine (1257), Prince Henry (1271), 116; William de Valence (1296), Edmund Earl of Lancaster (1296), and Aveline his Wife (1273), 116, 117 Eleanor of Castille (1291) Alfonzo (1284), 118 ; EDWAED I. 1307, his Tomb and Inscription, 119 opening of Tomb (1771), 120 EDWABD II.'s Tomb at Gloucester (1327) John of Eltham (1334), 121 ; Aymer de Valence (1323), 121 Philippa (1369), 122;' EDWABD III. (1377), his Tomb, Children, Sword and Shield, 122, 123 ; Belies from France ; the Black Prince, 123 BICHABD II. his affection for the Abbey, and Marriage, 123 ; his Badge and Portrait, 124 his Wife's Burial and Tomb (1394-95), 125 his Burial at Langley (1399), and Bemoval to Westminster (1413), 126 Thomas of Woodstock and his Wife, Philippa of York, 126, 127 HOUSE OF LANCASTER. HENRY IV. buried at Canterbury ; HENRY V.'s Interest in the Abbey, completion of the Nave, 127 his Death and Funeral (1422), 128 his Tomb, 129 his Saddle and Helmet, 132 his Statue, 133 Catherine of Valois (1437), 134 HENRY VI. visits the Abbey to fix the place of his sepulture, 134 With- drawal of the York Dynasty to Windsor, 136 Margaret of York (1472), Anne of Warwick (1485), Anne Mowbray of York, 136 Claims of Windsor, Chertsey, and Westminster for the burial of HENRY VI., 137 Origin of the CHAPEL OP HENRY VII., 138, 139 The Chantry; the Saints, 139 The close of the Middle Ages and the Wars of the Boses ; revival of the Celtic Baces, 140, 141 The Beginning of Modern England, 141 Death of Elizabeth of York (1503), 144 ; of HENRY VII. (1509), 145 ; his Burial and Tomb, 145 ; Tomb of Margaret of Bichmond (1509), 146, 147 Marriage Window of Prince Henry, Intended Tomb of HENRY VIII., 147, 148 The BEFOBMATION in the Abbey, 148 Funeral of Edward VI. (1553), 149 his Tomb, 150 ; Anne of Cleves (1557), Queen MARY I. (1558), 151 Obsequies of Charles V., ' Emperor of Borne ' (1558), 151 Queen ELIZABETH (1603), and Tomb, 152, 153 Tombs of the Stuarts ; Margaret Lennox (1577), 154 Charles Lennox MABY STUABT (1587), 154 End of the Boyal Monuments, 155 Tombs of Princesses Mary and Sophia (1607), 156; Graves of Prince Henry, Arabella Stuart, 157 ; Anne of Denmark (1619), JAMES I. (1625), 157, 158 ; Prince Charles (1629), and Princess Anne (1640), 158 The COMMONWEALTH : The Family of Cromwell, 159 ; OLIVEB CROMWELL, Eliza- beth Claypole (1658), 160 Disinterment of Cromwell's Bemains, 161 The BESTORATION : Intended Tomb of CHABLES I., 162 ; Henry Duke of Gloucester (1660), Mary of Orange (1660), Elizabeth of Bohemia (1661), Prince Bupert (1682), 162, 163 ; illegitimate Sons of Charles II. ; CHABLES II. (1685), 163 Death of JAMES II. (1701), 164, and his Children, 165 ; WILLIAM III. (1702), 164 MABY II. (1694), 165 Queen ANNE (1714) and Prince George of Denmark (1708), 166 The HOUSE OF HANOVEB, 166 GEORGE II. (1760) and Caroline of Anspach (1737), 167, and their Family, 168 ; GEORGE III.'s Vault at Windsor, 169 Antony, Duke of Montpensier (1807), 170 ; Lady Augusta Stanley (1876), 172 ; Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster (1881), 172 [22] CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE MONUMENTS. Peculiarity of the Tombs at Westminster, 174 Comparison of the Abbey with the church of Santa Croce at Florence, 175 Eesult of the Royal Tombs, 176 Burials in the Cloisters : Hugolin, Geoffrey of Mandeville, 177-- First Burials within the Abbey, 177 COURTIERS OF RICHARD II. : John of Waltham (1395), Golofre (13%), 178; Brocas (1400), Waldeby (1397), 179- OF HENRY V., 179 OF EDWARD IV., 179 OF HENRY VII., 180 LADIES OF THE TUDOR COURT : Frances Grey (1559), 181*; Anne Seymour (1587), Frances Howard (1598), 181, 182 ; Frances Sidney (1589), 182 ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES, 182 Jane Seymour (1561), Catherine Knollys (1568), Sir R. Pecksall (1571), John Lord Russell, and his Daughter (1584), 183, 184 Winyfred Brydges (1586), Bromley (1587), Puckering (1596), 185 Owen (1598), Lord Hunsdon (1596), 186 Lord Burleigh and his Family (1598), 187 ; the Norris Family, 193, 194 ; William Thynne (1584), 195 FLEMISH HEROES : Sir Francis Vere (1609), 191; Sir George Holies (1626), De Burgh (1594), 192, 193 ; the Norris Family (1598-1604), 193, 194 Bingham (1598), 195 COURTIERS OF JAMES I., 195 Duke of Richmond (1623), 196 COURTIERS or CHARLES I., 197 : The Villiers Family (1605-1632), 197, 201 Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex (1645), 203 ; Lord Cottington (1652), 203 ; Sir T. Richardson (1635), 204 Thomas Cary (1649), 204 MAGNATES OF THE COMMONWEALTH : PYM (1643), 204 Earl of Essex (1646), 205 Popham (1651), Dorislaus (1749), 206 IHETON (1651), 207 BLAKE (1657), 207 BRADSHAW (1659), 209. Their Disinterment, 209 Exceptions, 209; Popham, Ussher, Elizabeth Claypole, Essex, Grace Scot, George Wild, 209, 210 THE CHIEFS OF THE RESTORATION : MONK (1670), MONTAGUE, Earl of Sandwich (1672), THE ORMOND VAULT, 211, 212; Duke of Ormond and his Family (1684-1688), 212 Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1674), Bishop Nicholas Monk (1661), Bishop Feme (1662), Bishop Duppa (1662), 213, 214 HEROES OF THE DUTCH WAR, 214, 215 Thomas Thynne (1681), 216 Sir E. B. Godfrey (1670), T. Chiffinch (1666), Duke and Duchess of Newcastle [Cavendish] (1676-1677), 216, 217 Holies, Duke of Newcastle (1711), 218 THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 : The Bentinck, Schomberg, and Temple Families ; Saville, Marquis of Halifax (1695), 218, 219 STATESMEN AND COURTIERS OF QUEEN ANNE : Montague, Earl of Halifax (1715), 219 Craggs, 219 Godolphin (1712), 221 HEROES OF THE WAR OF THE SUCCESSION, 223, 224 Sir Cloudesley Shovel (1707), 224 The DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, mourning of Sarah for her son, 225; Funeral of the Duke (1722), 226 Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, and his Family (1721), 227-230 STATESMEN OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER : John Duke of Argyll and Greenwich (1743), 231 Wife of Sir R. Walpole (1737), 232- Pulteney, Earl of Bath (1764), 233 SOLDIKRS : Roubiliac's Monument to Wade (1748), 235 Hargrave (1750), Fleming (1751), 252 SAILORS : Hardy (1720), Cornewall (1743), Tyrrell (1766), Wager (1743), Vernon (1751), 235, 236; Lord A. Beauclerk (1740), 236 Lord Dundonald (1860), 238 CONTENTS. [23] INDIAN AND AMERICAN WABS : WOLFS (1759), 237 Lord Howe's Captains (1794), 238 Rodney's Captains (1782), Burgoyne (1792), Andre (1780), 239 Wilson, Outram, Clyde, Pollock, 240 - Franklin, 240 THE MODERN STATESMEN, 241 The North Transept: Lord Chatham (May 11, 1778), 241 Lord Mansfield (1793), 243; Follett (1845), 244 Pitt (1806), 244 Fox (1806), 244. The Whigs' Corner: Perceval (1812), Grattan (1820), Tierney (1830), Mackintosh (1832), Lord Holland (1840), 245 Castlereagh (1822), Canning (1827), Peel (1850), 246, 247 Palmerston (1865), 247 Cornewall Lewis (1863), Cobden (1865), 249 INDIAN STATESMEN: Staunton (1801), Warren Hastings (1818), Malcolm (1833), Baffles (1826), Lord Canning (1862), 247, 248 PHILANTHROPISTS : Hanway, Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, Wilberforce, Buxton, Homer, Buller, 248, 249 Peabody (1875), 249 POETS' CORNER South Transept : CHAUCER (1400), 251 Spenser (1599), 252 Beaumont (1615), Shakspeare's monument, 253 Drayton (1631), 254 Ben Jonson (1637), 255 Ayton (1638), May (1650), Davenant (1668), 256, 257 Cowley (1667), 257 Denham (1668), Dryden (1700), 258, 259 Shadwell (1692), 260; Stepney (1707), Phillips (1708), 261-Milton (1674), 262 Butler (1680), Rowe (1718), 263 Aphara Behn (1689), St. Evremond (1703), 264 ; Tom Brown (1704), Addison (1719), Steele (1729), 264, 265 Congreve (1729), 266 Prior (1721), 267 Gay (1732), 268 Pope (1744), 269 Thomson (1748), Gray (1771), Mason (1797), 270 HISTORICAL AISLE. Casaubon (1614), 270 Izaak Walton's Monogram (1658), Camden (1623), 271 Spelman (1641), 272 THEOLOGIANS : The Presbyterian Preachers (1643-1658), 273; Triplett (1670), Barrow (1677), Outram (1679), 273 Busby (1695), Grabe (1711), 274; Horneck (1696), South (1716), Vincent (1815), 294; Thorndyke (1672), Atterbury (1732), 274-276 Wharton (1695), 276 Watts (1748), 277 The two Wesleys (1791), 277 MEN OF LETTERS: Goldsmith (1774), 277, his Epitaph, 278 JOHNSON (1784), 279; Macpherson (1796), Cumberland (1811), Sheridan (1816), 280, 281 Anstey (1805), Granville Sharp (1813), 280; Campbell, Cary (1844), 281 Byron (1824), 281; William Gilford (1827), 281; Southey (1843), Words- worth (1850), Keble (1866), 282 ; Lytton (1873), Macaulay (1859), Thackeray (1863), Dickens (1870), Grote and ThirlwaU (1870, 1875), 282, 283 THE ACTORS, 283 Anne Oldfield (1730), 284 Anne Bracegirdle (1748), 285; Betterton (1710), Booth (1733), Cibber (1766), Prichard (1768), 285, 286 Barry, Foote (1777), Garrick (1779), 286, 287; Henderson (1785), Siddons (1831), 288 Kemble (1823), 288 MUSICIANS: Lawes (1662), 288; Christopher Gibbons (1676), PURCELL (1695), Blow (1708), 289 Croft (1727), HANDEL (1759), Cooke (1793), Arnold (1802), Burney (1814), Bennett (1875), Clementi (1832), 290 ARTISTS : Kneller (1723), 291. ARCHITECTS : Taylor (1788), Chambers (1796), Banks (1805), Wyatt (1813), Barry (1860), 292. ENGRAVERS : Vertue (1756), Woollett (1785), 292 MEN OF SCIENCE : NKWTON (1727), by the side of the Stanhopes, 292, 293 Conduitt (1737), Ffolkes (1754), 294; Herschel (1870), Lyell (1875), 295; Livingstone (1875), 299 PHYSICIANS : Chamberlen, Woodward and Freind (1728), 295 ; Wetenall (1733), Mead (1754), Pringle (1782), Hunter (1793), Winteringham (1794), Buchan (1805), Baillie (1823), Davy, Young (1829), 296, 297 [24] CONTENTS. PRACTICAL SCIENCE : Sir B. Moray (1673), Sir Samuel Morland (1696), 297 Tompion (1713), Graham (1751), 297 Hales (1761), WATT (1819), 298 Bennell (1830), Telford (1834), Stephenson (1859), Brunei (1859), Locke (1860), 299 The NOBILITY : Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland (1776), 301 The Delaval Family, 301 ; Countess of Strathmore, 302. The YOUNG : Jane Lister, Nicholas Bagnall, 302 ; Thomas Smith, Carteret, Dalrymple, 304. MOURNERS: Lord and Lady Kerry, 304 Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, 304. FRIENDS : Mary Kendall, Grace Gethin, 305 ; Withers, Disney, 306. LONGEVITY : Anne Birkhead, Thomas Parr, Elizabeth Woodfall, 306, 307. FOREIGNEHB : Spanheim, Courayer, 307 ; Paleologus, 307 ; Chardin, Paoli, Steigerr, Duras, 308, 309; Armand and Charlotte de Bourbon, 309. Translation of Lyndwood, 309. SERVANTS, 310 Conclusion of the Survey gradual growth of the monuments, uncertain distribu- tion of honours, the toleration of the Abbey, changes of taste, variety of judgment, 311-320 Note on the WAXWORK EFFIGIES, 321-325 CHAPTER V. THE ABBEY BEFOEE THE REFORMATION. The MONASTERY, 327 Its connection with the Palace, 327 and independence, 328 The ABBOTS, 329 The Norman Abbots, 331 The Plantagenet Abbots, 333 Ware, Langham, Littlington, 332-334 Islip, 335 their general character, 329-336 The MONKS, 336 the monastic life, 337 The MONASTERY Its Possessions on the North-west of Westminster : the Mill, Orchard, Vineyard, Bowling Alley, and Gardens : the pass of the Knights' Bridge, Tothill Fields, the Manors of Hyde and Neate, 338, 339 on the North-east : Covent Garden, St. Martin's-le-Grand, 339, 340 PBKCINCTS King Street the GATEHOUSE: its uses as a Prison, 340-345 its Keeper, 345 The SANCTUARY, 346 Murder of Hawle, 348 Outrage of Wat Tyler, 350 Two Visits of Elizabeth Woodville, 350 Owen Tudor, 352 Skelton, 352; End of the Sanctuary, 352 The ALMONRY : St. Anne's Lane, 353, 354 ' The Elms ' in Dean's Yard, the Granary, 354 ' The ABBOT'S PLACE ' (the Deanery), the Dining Hall, 354 Conspiracy of William of Colchester, 355 JERUSALEM CHAMBER, 356 : Death of Henry IV., 358 Conversion of Henry V., 359 Sir Thomas More, 361 The PRIORS and SUBPRIORS, 361 The CLOISTERS, 361 : The School in the West Cloister, Shaving of the Monks, 362, 364 The RKFKCTORY, 365 The DORMITORY OF THE MONKS, 366 CONTENTS. [25] The TREASURY, 367 The Tomb of Hugolin, 367 The Bobbery, 368 The CHAPTER HOUSE, 371: tombs, 371 rebuilt by Henry III., 371 its peculiarities, 372 its monastic purposes, 372 capitular meetings, 373 occupied by the House of Commons, 374-376 statutes of Circumspecte Agatis, Provisions, Prffimunire, 276 ; convention of Henry V., Wolsey's Legatine Court, the Acts of the Beformation, 377 used as a Becord Office, 379 Agarde, Bymer, Palgrave, 380 its Bestoration, 382 The JEWEL HOUSE, 382 the Parliament Office, 383 The ANCHORITE, 383 William Ushborne and his Fishpond, 383 The INFIRMARY and Garden, 384 Chapel of St. Catherine, 385 ; Consecrations of Bishops, Councils of Westminster, 385, 386 Struggles of the Primates, 386 Cardinal Wolsey the Beception of his Hat, 390 his Visitations, 390 Conclusion Caxton's Printing Press, 393 CHAPTEE VI. THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. The Dissolution of the Monastery (1540), 395 The Cathedral under the Bishop of Westminster, Thirlby (1540), 396 under the Bishop of London, Bidley (1550), 'Bobbing Peter to pay Paul,' 397 The Deans, Benson (1539), Cox (1549), 398, 399 Weston (1553), 399 The Bevival of the Abbacy: High Mass of the Golden Fleece (Nov. 30, 1554), 399, 400 Abbot Feckenham (1555), 400 Bestoration of the Shrine (1557), 402 The Westminster Conference, 404 Feckenham's Farewell to the College Garden, and Death (1585), 405, 406 The Change under Queen Elizabeth, 406 The COLLEGIATE CHURCH of St. Peter, 407 The Chapter Library, the Schoolroom, the old Dormitory of the Scholars, the College Hall, connection of School with Oxford and Cambridge its collegiate constitution, 408-411 The DEANS : Bill (1560), 411 ; Goodman (1601), 412 Pest House at Chiswick, 412 Nowell and Camden, Headmasters, 413 Deans : Lancelot Andrewes (1605), Neale (1610), Monteigne (1617), Tounson (1620), 413, 415 DEAN WILLIAMS (1620-50) ; his Benefactions, his Preferments, 415-417 Enter- tainments given by him in the Jerusalem Chamber and College Hall, 419 The adventure of Lilly in the Cloisters, 423 Williams's first Imprisonment, Ussher at the Deanery, 424 Williams's Beturn (1640), 425 Peter Heylin in the Pulpit, 425 Conferences in the Jerusalem Chamber, 426 Attack on the Abbey, 426 Williams's Second Imprisonment (1641), 427 Puritan Changes, 428 Desecration of the Abbey, Destruction of Edward VI.'s Memorial and of the Begalia, 428, 429 The COMMONWEALTH, 459 The Commissioners, the Presbyterian Preachers, 429 The Westminster Assembly, the Westminster Confession, 431-436 Bichard Stewart, Dean, 437 Bradshaw, 437 Osbaldiston, Busby, Glynne and Wake, Uvedale, South, Philip Henry, 438-441 The BESTORATION, 442 Consecrations of Bishops, 444 Deans : Earles (1663), Dolben, 445, 446 The Plague, 446 The Fire (1666), 447 Dean Sprat (1713), 447 Declaration of Indulgence, 448 Barrow's Sermons, 448 Pre- bendaries : John North, Symond Patrick, Robert South, 449-452 South's Death, 454 [26] CONTENTS. Atterbury (1713-23), 455 his researches, repairs of the Abbey, and preaching, 455 rebuilds the Dormitory of the School, 456 his Fall, 457 his Plots, 459 his Exile, 461 his Funeral (1732), 461 The Wesleys, 462 The Convocations, 463 original seat of at St. Paul's, 463 Transference of to Westminster under Wolsey, 463 Held in Henry VII. 's Chapel, 465 in the Jerusalem Chamber, 466 ; the Prayer Book of 1662, 466 Commission for Eevision of the Liturgy of 1689, 468 Disputes between the two Houses as to the place of meeting, 468 Bevision of the Authorised Version, 472 Knipe and Freind, Headmasters ; Fire in the Cloisters (1731), 473 Deans, Bradford (1723), Wilcocks (1731), 474 Building of Westminster Bridge (1738), 475 Deans : Pearce (1756), 476 Thomas (1768), 477 Headmasters : Nicoll, Markham, 479, 480 Deans : Horsley (1793), Vincent (1802), Ireland (1815-42), Turton (1842-45), Wilberforce (1845), Buckland (1845-56), Trench (1856-63), Headmasters, 481-483 Baptisms and Marriages, 484 Consecration of Bishops, 484 Changes of public sentiment towards the Abbey, 485-489 ; Carter the Antiquary, 490 Conclusion The various uses of the Abbey, 493 Continuity of Worship, 493 the Altar, 494 the Pulpit, 495 Fulfilment of the purposes of the Founder, 497 PAGE AN ACCOUNT OF TUB SEABCH FOR THE BURIALPLACE OF JAMES I. . . 499 INDEX ....... . 527 LIST OF ILLUSTBATIONS. Entrance to the Tomb of Henry VII., as seen on opening the Vault in 1869 (from a drawing by George Scharf, Esq.) . . . Frontispiece The Coronation Chair . . . . . . Vignette Title PAGE Plan of the Abbey and its precincts about A.D. 1535 . . . To face 1 Beliefs from the Frieze of the Chapel of Edward the Confessor : 1. The Remission of the Danegelt. 2. The Pardon of the Thief. 3. The Shipwreck of the King of Denmark. 4. The Visit to the Seven Sleepers. 5. St. John and the Pilgrims . . . 12 The Abbey, from the Bayeux Tapestry .... . .32 The Coronation Stone . . . . . . 51 Installation of the Knights of the Bath, in 1812, in Henry VH.'s Chapel . 83 Plan of the Tombs in the Chapel of the Kings . . . Ill Chantry of Henry V. . . . , . ' ' . ' . .130 Helmet, Shield, and Saddle of Henry V., still suspended over his Tomb . 131 Plan of the Tombs of the Abbey in 1509 . . . . .142 Chapel of Henry VII. . . . . . . . 143 Chapel of St. Nicholas . . . . . .188 St. John the Baptist . . . 188 St. Paul ....... 189 St. Edmund . . . . . . 189 Chapels of St. John the Evangelist, St. Michael, and St. Andrew . . . . . . . .190 Monument to Sir Francis Vere . . . . . . . 192 Plan of Buckingham's (Villiers) Vault, Henry VH.'s Chapel . . . 198 Plan of the Chapel of St. Benedict . . . . . 202 Plan of General Monk's vault, in the North Aisle of Henry VH.'s Chapel 211 Plan of the Nave . , . . . . . . 222 North Transept . . . . . . 242 Poets' Corner . 250 [28] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Chaucer's Monument ........ 252 The Nightingale Monument . . . . . . 305 Old Gatehouse of the Precincts, Westminster; pulled down in 1776 . 341 Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster . . . . . 357 The Cloisters, with entrance to the Chapter House .... 363 The Chapter House, as restored by Sir Gilbert Scott . . 381 Shrine of Edward the Confessor ...... 403 Plan of the ' Abbot's Place,' and of the Jerusalem Chamber at the time of the Westminster Assembly . . . . . . 435 Wooden case of Leaden Coffin of Queen Elizabeth . . . .512 Torregiano's Altar, formerly at the head of Henry VII.'s Tomb, under which Edward VI. was buried (from an engraving in Sandford's ' Genealogical History') . . . . . . . . . 513 Marble Fragment of Torregiano's Altar ..... 514 Carving of Torregiano's Altar . . . . . . . 514 Leaden Plate of Edward VI.'s Coffin . . . . . .515 Henry VH.'s Vault, west end . . . . 520 The Coffins of James I., Elizabeth of York, and Henry VII., as seen on the opening of the Vault in 1869 (from a drawing of George Scharf, Esq. . 521 Plan of Henry VH.'s Vault ....... 522 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS CONNECTED WITH WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 1 A.n. A.D. 153 ? Fall of the Temple of Apollo ? 1189 90-190 ? Foundation of the Abbey by Lucius? 616 ? Foundation by Sebert and Vision of Edric ? 1191 785? Charter of Offa? 1194 951 ? of Edgar ? 1042 Fulfilment of the Vow of Edward the 1195 Confessor to St. Peter. 1049 Edtrin, Abbot. 1197 Embassy to Reims. 1050 Foundation of the Abbey. 1198 1065 Dedication of the Abbey, Dec. 28. 1199 1066 Death of the Confessor,' Jan. 5. Burial of the Confessor, Jan. 6. Coronation of Harold (?) Jan. R. 1200 of William the Conqueror, Dec. 25. 1068 Coronation of Matilda, May 11. Geoffrey, Abbot. 1069 Imprisonment of Egelric, Bishop of 1203 Durham. 1072 Egelric buried. 1076 First Council of Westminster under Lanfranc. 1214 Miracle of Wolfstan's Crozier. 1220 Fi/a/w, Abbot. 1082 Gislebert, Abbot. 1221 1087 Coronation of William Rufus, Sept. 26. 1098 Opening of the Confessor's Coffin by 1222 Gundulph and Gtislebert. 1224 1100 Building of New Palace of Westminster. Coronation of Henry I., Aug. 5. of Matilda, Nov. 11. 1102 Council under Anselm. 1226 1115 Consecration of Bernard, Bishop of St. David's, Sept. 19. 1236 1118 Burial of Matilda, May 1. 1120 Herbert, Abbot. 1244 Consecration of David of Bangor, April 4. 1245 1124 Council under John of Crema. 1246 1135 Coronation of Stephen, Dec. 26. 1247 1140 Gerrase, Abbot. 1154 Coronation of Henry II., Dec. 19. 1250 1160 Lam-ence, Abbot. 1163 Canonisation of the Confessor, and First Translation of his Remains, Oct. 13. 1252 1170 Coronation of Prince Henry, June 14. 1176 Council of Westminster, and Struggle of 1256 the Primates. 1186 Consecration of Hugh of Lincoln, Sept. 21. Consecration of William of Worcester, 1257 Sept. 21. 1258 Coronation of Richard I., Sept. 3. Consecration of Hubert of Salisbury and Godfrey of Winchester, Oct. 22. Posturd, Abbot. Consecration of Herbert of Salisbury. June 5. Trial between the Archbishop of Canter- bury and the Abbot. Consecration of Robert of Bangor, March 16. Consecration of Eustace of Ely, March 8. Consecration of William of London, May 23. Coronation of John, May 27. Papillon, Abbot. Consecration of John Gray of Norwich, Sept. 24. Consecration of Giles Braose of Hereford, Sept. 24. Consecration of William de Blois of Lin- coln before the High Altar, Aug. 24. Consecration of Geoffrey of St. David's, Dec. 7. ffumez, Abbot. Foundation of Lady Chapel, May 16. Coronation of Henry IIL, May 17. Consecration of Eustace of London, April 26. Barking, Abbot. Consecration of William Brewer of Exeter, April 21. Consecration of Ralph Neville of Chiches- ter, April 21. Consecration of Thomas Blunville of Norwich, Dec. 20. Marriage of Henry IIL and Eleanor, Jan. 14. Council of State held in Refectory. Rebuilding of the Abbey by Henry ILT. Crokesley, Abbot. Fulk de Castro Novo buried. Deposition of Relics. Chapter House begun. Richard of Wendover, Bishop of Roches- ter, buried. Excommunication of Transgressors of Magna Charta. Parliament met in Chapter House, March 2f>. Council of State in Chapter House. Princess Catherine buried. Leuisham, Abbot. 1 When the Table contains reference to the burial of illustrious persons in the Abbey, the date of their burial is given ; where they have only cenotaphs, then the date of their deaih. [30] CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. A.D. 1258 Ware, Abbot. 1261 Ford, Abbot of Glastonbury, buried. 1263 Commons of London assemble in Cloisters. 1267 Mosaic Pavement brought from Rome. 1269 Second Translation of Edward the Con- fessor, Oct. 13. Marriage of Edmond and Aveline, Earl and Countess of Lancaster. 1271 Heart of Prince Henry, Nephew to the King, placed near Confessor's T6mb. 1272 Burial of Henry III., Nov. 20. 1273 Aveline of Lancaster buried. 1274 Coronation of Edward I. and Eleanor, Aug. 19. 1281 Erection of the Tomb of Henry III. 1284 Wenlock, Abbot. Dedication of Coronet of Llewelyn to the Confessor. Prince Alfonso buried, Aug. 14. 1285 Statute ' Circumspecte Agatis.' 1290 Council of Westminster. Expulsion of the Jews from England. 1291 Reinterment of Henry III., and Delivery of his Heart to the Abbess of Fontev- rault. Eleanor of Castile buried, Dec. 17. 1292 Withdrawal of Claims by John Baliol in Chapter House. 1294 Inundation of the Thames. Assembly of Clergy and Laity in Refectory 1296 William of Valence buried. Edmund Crouchback buried. Dedication of the Stone of Scone. 1303 Robbery of the Treasury. 1307 Burial of Edward I., Oct. 27. Removal of Sebert. 1308 Coronation of Edward II., February 25. Kijtluntjton, Abbot. 1315 Curtlinyton, Abbot. 1323 Ayruer de Valence buried. 1327 Coronation of Edward III., Feb. 1. 1328 Coronation of Philippa, Feb. 2. Writ of Edward III. rpquiring the Abbot of Westminster to give up the Stone of Scone, July 21. 1334 Henley, Abbot. John of Eltham, buried. 1344 Byrchetton, Abbot. 1345 Eastern Cloister finished. 1348 The Black Death. Burial of twenty-six Monks. 1349 Langham, Abbot. 1350 Statute of Provisions passed in Chapter House. Continuation of Nave and Cloisters by Abbot Langham. 1362 Littlington, Abbot. 1363 Negotiations with David n. for the Re- storation of the Stone of Scone. Rebuilding of Abbot's House and of Jerusalem Chamber, and Building of South and West C.oisters, by Abbot Littlington. 1369 Burial of Philippa. 1376 Langham buried. 1377 Purchase of Tower which became the Jewel House, and later the Parliament Office, by Edward III. Burial of Edward III. Coronation of Richard II., July 16. 1378 Murder of Sir John Hawle in the Abbey, Aug. 11. Reopening of the Abbey, Dec. 8. 1381 Outrage of Wat Tyler. 1382 Marriage of Richard II. with Anne of Bohemia, Jan. 22. 1386 William of Colchester, Abbot. 1391 Walter of Leycester buried. 1393 Statute of Praemunire passed in Chapter House. 1394 Burial of Anne of Bohemia. 131*5 John of Waltham buried. A.D. 1396 Shackle buried. Sir John Golofre buried. 1397 Prince Thomas of Woodstock buried. Robert Waldeby buried. 1399 Widow of Thomas of Woodstock buried. Sir Bernard Brocas buried. Coronation of Henry IV., Oct. 13. Conspiracy of William of Colchester. 1400 Chaucer buried. 1403 Coronation of Joan. 1413 Death of Henry IV. in Jerusalem Cham- ber, March 20. Conversion of Henry V. Coronation of Henry V., April 9. Removal of body of Richard II. from Langley to Windsor. 1413-1416 Prolongation of the Nave under Henry V. by Whittington. 1414 Sir John Windsor buried. 1415 Richard Courtney, Bishop of Norwich, buried. Te Deum for the Battle of Agincourt, Nov. 23. 1421 Coronation of Catherine, Feb. 24. ffaicerden, Abbot. Convention of Henry V. in Chapter House. 1422 Burial of Henry V., Nov. 7. 1429 Coronation of Henry VI., Nov. 6. 1431 Louis Robsart buried. 1433 Philippa, Duchess of York, buried. 1437 Burial of Catherine of Valois, Feb. 8. 1440 Kyrton, Abbot. 1445 Coronation of Margaret, April 30. 1457 Sir John Harpedon buried. 1451-1460 Visits of Henry VI. to the Abbey to choose his Grave. 1461 Coronation of Edward IV., June 28. 1466 Jfonricfi, Abbot. 1469 Milling, Abbot. 1470 Humphrey Bourchier buried. Lord Carew buried. Elizabeth Woodville takes Sanctuary, Oct. 1. Edward V. born in the Sanctuary, Nov. 4. 1472 Infant Margaret of York buried, Dec. 11. 1474 Milling consecrated to Hereford in the Lady Chapel, Aug. 21. Esteney. Abbot. 1477 Caxton exercises his art in the Abbey. 1482 Dudley, Bishop of Durham, buried. 1483 Elizabeth Woodville and Richard of York take refuge in the Abbot's Hall, and take Sanctuary a second time, April. Coronation of Richard III., July 6. 1485 Anue Neville, Queen of Richard III., buried. Coronation of Henry VII., Oct. 30. 1487 Coronation of Elizabeth of York, Nov. 25. 1491 Caxton buried in St. Margaret's Church- yard. 1492 Bishop Milling buried 1495 Princess Elizabeth buried, Sept. 1498 Fascet, Abbot. Lord Wells buried in Lady Chapel. Decision of the Privy Council on the burial of Henry VI. 1500 IsKp, Abbot. 1503 Foundation of Henry VII.'s Chapel, Jau. 24. Burial of Elizabeth of York, Feb. 25. 1504 License of Pope Julius II. for the removal of the body of Henry VI. to Westmin- ster. 1505 Sir Humphrey Stanley buried. 1507 Sir Giles Daubeney buried. 1509 Infant Prince Henry buried. Burial of Henry VII., May 9. Coronation of Henry VIII., June 24. Margaret of Richmond buried. 1512 Attempt to rescue a Prisoner in Sanc- tuary. 1515 Reception of Wolsey's Hat, Nov. 18. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. [31] A.D. 1523 Convocation summoned by Wolsey. Kuthell, Bishop of Durham, buried. 1529 Convocation in the Chapter House. 1531 Act of Submission, April 12. Death of Skelton in the Sanctuary, buried in St. Margaret's Churchyard. 1532 Abbot Islip buried. Boston or Benson, Abbot. 1 533 Coronation of Anne Boleyn, June 1. 1534 Imprisonment of Sir Thomas More in Abbot's House. 1539 Be>4ion, Dean. 1540 Convocation in the Chapter House on Anne of Cleves, July 7. Consecration of Thlrlby to the see of Westminster, Dec. 19. 1542 First Orders of Dean and Chapter. 1543 Nowell, Head-Master. 1544 Bellringer appointed at request of Princess Elizabeth. 1545 Consecration of Kitchin, Bishop of Llan- daff, May 3. Great Refectory pulled down. 1 546 Robbery of Silver Head of Statue of Henry V., Jan. 3. 1547 Last Sitting of Commons in Chapter House, Jan. 28. Coronation of Edward VI., Feb. 20. Chapter House used as a Record Office. Order for Twenty Tons of Caen Stone granted to the Protector Somerset. Order for selling ' Monuments of Idolatry ' and for buying books. 1549 Dean Benson buried. Cox, Dean. Substitution of ' Communion ' for ' Mass ' and change of Vestments. 1551 Lord Wentworth buried, March 7. Redmayne buried. Monument erected to Chaucer. 1553 Burial of Edward VI., Aug. 8. Coronation of Mary, Oct. 1. F.ight of Cox. Weston, Dean. 1554 High Mass for opening of Parliament, Oct. 5. High Mass of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Nov. 30. 1555 Abbot Fecktnham installed, Nov. 22. Feckenham and his Monks walk in pro- cession, Dec. 6. 1557 Shrine of the Confessor set up, Jan. 5. Remains of the Confessor restored to the Shrine, March 20. Sermons by Abbot Feckenham, April 5. Shrine visited by the Duke of Muscovy, April 21. Philip and Mary attend Mass, May 22. Burial of Anne of Cieves, Aug. 4. Master Gennings buried. Nov. 26. Procession in the Abbey, Nov. 30. 1558 Paschal Candle restored, March 21. Master Wentworth buried, Oct. 22. Burial of Mary, Dec. 13. Obsequies of Charles V. celebrated, Dec. 24. 1559 Coronation of Elizabeth, Jan. 15. Conference between Protestants and Roman Catholics, March 31. Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, buried Dec. 5. Feckenham deprived, Jan. 4. 1560 Feokenham's Farewell to the College Garden. Fejkenhain sent to the Tower, May 20. 1561 Bill, ban. Dean Bill buried, July 22. Gabriel Goodman, Dean. 1563 Convocation in Henry VII.'s Chapel, Jan. 9-April 17. Signature of the thirty-nine Articles, Jan. 29. A.D. 1566 Fall of the Sanctuary. Hangings of the Abbey given to the College. 1568 Lady Catherine Knollys buried. Anne Birkhead buried. 1571 Sir R. Pecksall buried. 1574 Library founded. 1575 Christening of Elizabeth Russell. 1577 Margaret Lennox buried. 1580 Maurice Pickering, Keeper of Gatehouse. 1584 Wm. Thynne buried. John, Lord Russell, buried. 1586 Winyfred Brydges, Marchioness of Win- chester, buried. 1587 Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, buried. Sir Thomas Bromley buried. 1588 Anne Vere, Countess of Oxford, buried. 1589 Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, buried. Mildred Cecil, Lady Burleigh, buried. Frances Howard, Countess of Sussex, buried. 1591 Elizabeth, Countess of Salisbury, buried. Elizabeth, Countess of Exeter, buried. 1593 Camden, Head-Master. Keeper appointed for the Monuments. 1594 John de Burgh died. 1596 Lord Hunsdon buried Sir John Puckering buried. Henry Noel buried. 1598 Frances Howard, Countess of Hertford buried. Bells given by Dean Goodman. Sir Thomas Owen buried. Lord Burleigh buried. Sir R. Bingham died. 1599 Spenser buried. Schoolroom constructed. 1601 Elizabeth Russell buried. Dean Goodman buried. L. Andrewes, Dean. Monument to Henry, Lord N^-rris, and his Sons. Consecration of Goodwin, Bishop of Llan- daff, Nov. 22. 1602 Entire Suppression of Sanctuary Rights. 1603 Burial of Elizabeth, April 28. Coronation of James I., July 25. Meeting of Convocation. 1605 R. A'eale, Dean, Nov. 5. Sir G. Villiers buried. 1607 Infant Princess Sophia buried. Infant Princess Mary buried. 1609 Sir Francis Vere buried. 1610 George Monteigne, Dean. Transference of the Body of Mary Stuart to Westminster, Oct. 4. 1612 Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, buried in her vault, Dec. 8. 1614 Isaac Casaubon buried. Lady C. St. John buried. (Monument.) 1615 Arthur Agarde buried, Aug. 24. Arabella Stuart buried, Sept. 27. 1616 Beaumont buried. Bilson buried. 1617 Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, buried. R. Tounson, Dean. 1618 Sir George Fane buried. Sir W. Ralegh imprisoned in Gatehouse, Oct. 29. Sir W. Raleigh buried in St. Margaret's, Oct. 30. 1619 Sir Christopher Hatton buried. M >nument erected to Spen~t r. Burial of Anne of Denmark, May 13. 1620 John n'illiitmx. I),,m. 1621 Bishop Tounson buried. Lawrence the servant buried. 1622 Francis Holies died. Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, buried. 1623 Camden buried, Nov. 10. [32] CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. . . 1U24 Lewis Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, Feb. 17. Entertainment of the French Ambassadors in the Jerusalem Chamber, Dec. 15. Their attendance at the dinner in the College Hall. 1625 Burial of James I., May 5. 1626 Coronation of Charles I., Feb. 2. Sir Geo. Holies buried. 1627 Charles, Marquis of Buckingham. Earl of Coventry, buried, March 16. Philip Fielding buried, June 11. 1628 George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, Sept. 28. 1629 Lady Jane Clifford buried. Infant Prince Charles, May 13. 1631 Sir James Fullerton buried, Jan. 3. Michael Drayton buried. 1632 Countess of Buckingham buried, April 21. 1633 Monument to Geo. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, completed. 1635 Sir Thomas Richardson buried. Wife of Casaubon buried. Thomas Parr buried. 1637 Lilly's Search for Treasure in the Clois- ters. Imprisonment of Williams. Ben Jonson buried. 1638 Marchioness of Hamilton buried. Sir Robert Ayton buried, Feb. 28. 1639 Jane Crewe, Heiress of the Pulteneys, buried. Archbishop Spottiswoode buried, Nov. 29. Duchess of Richmond buried. 1640 Williams released. Convocation, April 17-May 29, in Henry VIL's Chapel. Conference in Jerusalem Chamber. Attack on the Abbey. 1641 Sir Henry Spelman buried, Oct. 24. Williams raised to the See of York. Meeting of Bishops in the Jerusalem Chamber. Williams's second imprisonment. 1642 Regalia taken from the Abbey and broken in pieces. Williams's second release. Lord Hervey buried. 1643 Assembly of Divines opened, July 6. Pym buried, Dec. 13. 1644 R. Stewart, Dean. Theodore Paleologus buried, May 3. Col. Meldrum buried. 1645 Col. Boscawen and Col. Carter buried. Cranfield, Lord Middlesex, buried. Grace Scot buried. Commissioners appointed by Parliament, Nov. 18. 1646 Twiss buried, July 24. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, buried, Oct. 22. 1648 Francis Villiers, youngest Son of Duke of Buckingham, buried, July 10. 1649 Assembly of Divines closed, Feb. 22. Isaac Dorislaus buried, June 14. Thomas Gary buried. 1650 Thomas May buried. George Wild buried, June 21. 1651 Ireton buried, Feb. 6. Col. Popham buried, Aug. Thomas Haselrig buried, Oct. 30. Humphrey Salwey buried, Dec. 20. 1653 Col. Deane buried, June 24. 1654 Strong buried, July 4. Col. Mackworth buried, Dec. 26. Elizabeth Cromwell buried. 1655 Sir William Constable buried, June 21. Marshall buried, Nov. 23. 1656 Archbishop Ussher buried, April 17. Jane Disbrowe buric 1. 1657 Cromwell installed on the Stone of Scone iu Westminster Hall, June 26. A.D. 1657 1658 1669 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1673 Blake buried. Denis Bond buried. Elizabeth Claypole buried, Aug. 10. Burial of Cromwell, Sept. 26. Bradshaw buried. Earlei, Dean. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, buried, Sept. 13. Thomas Blagg buried. Confirmation of Election of Sheldon, Bishop of London ; Saunderson, of Lin- coln ; Morley, of Worcester ; Hench- man, of Salisbury ; and Griffith, of St. Asaph, Oct. 28. Consecration of Lucy, Bishop of St. David's ; Lloyd, of Llandaff ; Gauden, of Exeter; Sterne, of Carlisle; Cosin, of Durham ; Walton, of Chester ; and Lancy, of Peterborough, Dec. 2. Mary of Orange buried, Dec. 29. Consecration of Ironside, Bishop of Bris- tol ; Reynolds, of Norwich ; Monk, of Hereford ; Nicholson of Gloucester, Jan. 6. Disinterment of Regicides, Jan. 29. Coronation of Charles II., April 23. Convocation in Henry VII.'s Chapel, May 16-Oct. 20. Thomas Smith buried. Mother of Clarendon buried. Disinterment of Magnates of the Common- wealth, Sept. 12. Consecration of Fairfoul, Bishop of Glas- gow ; Hamilton, of Galloway ; Leighton, of Dunblane; Sharpe, of St. Andrews, Dec. 15. Bishop Nicholas Monk buried, Dec. 20. Heart of Esme Lennox buried. Elizabeth of Bohemia buried, Feb. 17. Upper House of Convocation in Jerusalem Chamber, Feb. 22. Feme. Bishop of Chester, buried, March 25. Duppa, Bishop of Winchester, buried, April 24. Henry Lawes buried, Oct. 25. Consecration of Earles, Bishop of Wor- cester, Nov. 30. John Dolben, Dean. Paul Thorndyke and Duall Pead chris- tened, April 18. Robert South, Prebendary and Arch- deacon. Consecration of Barrow, Bishop of Sodor and Man, July 5. Consecration of Rainbow, Bishop of Carlisle, July 10. School removed to Chiswick on account of the plague. Earl of Marl borough buried. Lords Muskerry and Falmouth buried. Sir E. Broughton buried. T. Chiffinch buried, April 10. Sir Robert Stapleton buried, July 15. Berkeley buried. William Johnson buried, March 12. Abraham Cowley buried, Aug. 3. William Davenant buried, April 9. John Thorndyke. John Denham buried. Monk's Wife, Duchess of Albemarle, buried, Feb. 28. Monk, Duke of Albemarle, buried, April 29. Marriage of Sir S. Morland with Carola Harsnett. Triplett buried. Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, buried, April 5. Harbord and Cotterill died. Consecration of Carleton, Bishop of Bris- tol, Feb. 11. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. [33] A.D. 1672 Montague, Earl of Sandwich, buried, July 3. Herbert Thorndyke buried, July 13. 1673 Sir R. Moray buried, July 6. Hamilton, Le Neve, Spragge, died. 1674 Earl of Doncaster buried, Feb. 10. Carola Morlaud buried. Margaret Lucas, Duchess of Newcastle, buried, Jan. 7. 1675 Earl of Clarendon buried, Jan. 4. 1676 Sanderson buried, July 18. Christopher Gibbons buried, Oct. 24. 1677 William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, buried, Jan. 22. Isaac Barrow buried, May 7. 1678 Transference of the York Princes from the Tower. Sir E. Berry Godfrey died. 1679 Diana Temple buried, March 27. 1680 Anne Morland buried, Feb. 24. Sir Palmes Fairborne died. Earl of Plymouth buried. Earl of Ossory buried, July 30. 1682 Thomas Thynne buried. Prince Rupert buried, Dec. 26. 1683 Sprat, Dean. 1684 Lord Roscommon buried, Jan. 24. Duchess of Ormonde buried, July 24. 1685 Burial of Charles II., Feb. 14. Coronation of James II., April 23. Confessor's Coffin opened. 1687 George Tilliers, second Duke of Buck- ingham, buried, June 7. 1688 Nicholas Bagnall buried, March 9. Reading of the Declaration of Indul- gence by Sprat, May 20. James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, buried, Aug. 4. Jane Lister buried, Oct. 7. Sermon by South, Nov. 5. 1689 Coronatio'n of William and Mary, April 11. First Chair for the Queen s Consort. Aphara Behn buried in East Cloister, April 20. Commission for the Revision of the Liturgy in Jerusalem Chamber, Oct. 3-Nov. 18. Convocation, Nov. 20-Dec. 14. 1692 Shadwell died. Sarah. Duchess of Somerset, buried. 1694 Lady Temple buried. Fire in the Cloisters and burning of MSS. in Wil.iams's Library. 1695 Burial of Mary, March 5. Wharton buried, March 11. Busby buried, April 5. George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, buried, April 11. Purcell buried, Nov. 26. Sir Thomas Duppa died. Knipe, Head-Master. 1697 Horneck buried, Feb. 4. Grace Gethin buried. 1699 Sir William Temple buried. 1700 John Dryden buried, May 13. William, Duke of Gloucester, buried, Aug. 9. 1701 Sir Joseph Williamson buried, Oct. 14. 1702 Burial of William III., April 12. Coronation of Anne, April 23. Couvocation, Feb. 12-June 6. Duchess of Richmond buried, Oct. 22. 1703 St. Evreruond buried, Sept. 11. Mourning of the Duchess of Marlborough for her son. 1704 Major Creed died. Tom Brown buried in East Cloister. 1706 Colonel Bingfie.d died. 1707 Admiral Delaval buried, Jan. 23. General Killigrew died, George Stepney buried, Sept. 22. A.D. 1707 Sir Cloudesley Shovel buried, Dec. 22. 1708 Consecration of Dawes, Bishop of Chester. Feb. 8. Josiah Twysden buried. Methuen buried. Blow buried, Oct. 8. Prince George of Denmark buried, Nov. 13. 1709 Heneage Twysden died. Bentinck, Duke of Portland, buried. 1710 Betterton buried, May 2. Admiral Churchill buried, May 12. Spanheim buried. Mary Kendall buried. John Phillips died. 1711 Grabe died. Carteret buried. Knipe buried, Freind, Head-Master. John Holies, Duke of Newcastle, buried, Aug. 9. 1712 Lord Godolphin buried, Oct. 8. 1713 Lady A. C. Bagnall buried, March It. Dean Sprat buried. Atterbury, Dean. Tompion buried. 1714 Burial of Queen Anne, Aug. 24. Coronation of George I., Oct. 20. 1715 Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, buried, May 26. Great Bell of Westminster purchased for St. Paul's. 1716 Baker died. South buried, July 16. 1717 John Twysden died. Convocation prorogued. 1718 Sir J. Chardin died. Nicholas Rowe buried, Dec. 14. Mrs. Steele buried, Dec. 30. 1719 Joseph Addison buried, June 26. Duke of Schomberg, Aug. 4. Almeric de Courcy buried. 1720 Lady Hardy buried, May 3. Monument to Monk erected. William Longueville buried. James, first Earl of Stanhope, died. De Castro buried. 1721 James Craggs buried, March 2. Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, buried, March 25. Thomas Sprat, Archdeacon of Rochester, buried. Matthew Prior, Sept. 21. 1722 First Stone of New Dormitory laid. Duke of Marlborough buried, Aug. 9. Arrest of Atteronry, Aug. 22. 1723 Monument to John Holies, Duke of New- castle. Lord Cornbury buried. Charles Lennox, son of the Duchess of Portsmouth, buried, June 7. Exile of Atterbury, June 18. .5 William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, buried, Nov. 10. 1766 Susanna Maria Gibber buried. Admiral Tyrrell died. 1767 Widow of the Duke of Argyll and Green- wich buried, April 3. Duke of York buried, Nov. 3. A.D. 1768 Dean Pearce retires. Bonuell Thornton buried. Hannah Prichard died. 1770 Lord Ligonier buried. 1771 George Montague, Earl of Halifax, buried. Opening of the Tomb of Edward I. Gray died. 1772 Bust of Booth erected. Steigerr buried, Dec. 28. 1774 Goldsmith died. 1775 General Lawrence died. 1776 Conrayer buried. Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumber- land, Dec. 8. ' Roberts, Secretary to Pelham, died. 1777 Barry buried, Jan. 20. Wragg died. Gatehouse taken down. Foote buried, Nov. 3. 1778 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, buried, June 9. Restoration of Spencer's Monument. Erection of Wolfe's Monument. 1779 Garrick buried, Feb. 1. 1780 Restoration of Camden's Monument. 1781 Lady Charlotte Percy, last torchlight Funeral not royal. 1782 Captains Bayn and Blair, and Lord R. Manners, died. (Monument.) William Dalrymple died. Pringle died. Admiral Kempenfelt died. 1783 Sir Eyre Coote died. Admiral Storr died. Lady Delaval buried. 1784 Handel Festival, May 26-June 5. Johnson buried, Dec. 20. 1785 John Henderson buried, Dec. 9. 1786 Jonas Hanway died. Taylor died. 1789 Broughton buried. Gideon Loten died. Sir John Hawkins buried, Jan. 28. 1790 Monument to Martin Ffolkes erected. Duke of Cumberland buried, Sept. 28. 1791 Oak taken down in Dean's Yard. Admiral Harrison buried, Oct. 26. 1792 Sir John Burgoyne buried, Aug. 13. 1793 Lord Mansfield buried, March 28. Cooke buried, Sept. 1. Samuel Horsley, Dtan. 1794 Winteringham died. Captains Harvey, Hutt, and Montagu, died June 1. 1795 Alexander Duroure buried. 1796 Macpherson buried, March 15. Chambers buried, March 18. 1797 Mason died. 1799 Lady Kerry buried. Captain Cook died. 1800 Warren, Bishop of Bangor, buried. M. E. Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, buried, May 10. lady Tyrconnell buried. Totty died. 1801 Sir George Staunton buried, Jan. 23. 1802 Arnold buried, Oct. 29. William Vincent, Dean. See of Rochester parted from the Deanery. 1805 Dr. Buchan buried. Banks died. Christopher Anstey died. 1806 William Pitt buried, Feb. 22. Charles Fox buried, Oct. 10. 1807 Admiral Delaval buried, Jan. 27. Antony, Duke of Montpeusier, buried, May 26. Markham, Archbishop, buried, Nov. 11. Bust of Paoli erected. 1808 Lord Delaval buried. Monument to Adtlison erected. 1809 Agar, Lord Normantou, buried. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. [35] A.D. 1810 Louise de Savoie, buried, Nov. 26. 1811 removed to Sardinia, March 5. Richard Cumberland buried. May 14. Lady Mary Coke, daughter of the Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, buried. Captain Stewart died. 1812 Perceval died. Last Installation of Knights of the Bath in the Abbey. 1813 Grauville Sharpe died. Wyatt buried, Sept. 28. 1814 E. H. Delaval buried. Burney died. 1815 Dean Vincent buried, Dec. 29. 1816 Lord Kerry buried. John Ireland, Dean. Lord Minto buried, Jan. 29. Sheridan buried, July 13. 1817 Horner died. 1819 James Watt died. Bust of Warren Hastings erected. 1820 Grattan buried, June 16. 1821 Coronation of George IV., July 19. Major Andre buried, Nov. 28. 1822 Lord Castlereagh buried, Aug. 20 Eva Maria Garrick buried, Oct. 25. 1823 John Philip Kemble died. Bailie died. 1824 Restoration of Altar Screen by Bernascon. 1826 Sir Stamford Raffles died. 1827 Giffard buried, Jan. 8. G-eorge Canning buried, Aug. 16. 1829 Davy died. Young died. Fire in the Triforium. 1830 Tierney died. Rennell buried, April 6. 1831 Coronation of William IV. and Queen Adelaide, Sept. 8. Mrs. Siddons died. 1832 Andrew Bell buried. Mackintosh died. 1833 Sir John Malcolm died. Wilberforce buried, Aug. 3. 1834 Telford buried, Sept. 10. 1838 Zachary Macaulay died. Coronation of Queen Victoria, June 28. 1840 Lord Holland died. 1842 Dean Ireland buried, Sept. 8. Thomas Turton, Dean. Consecration of five Colonial Bishops, May 24. 1843 Southey died. 1844 Campbell buried, July 3. Henry Cary buried, Aug. 21. 1845 Sir Fowell Buxton died. Samuel Wilberforce, Dean. Sir William Follett died. William liuckland, Dtan. 1847 Consecration of three Australian Bishops, and of R. Gray, Bishop of Cape Town. 1848 Charles Buller died. 1849 Sir R. Wilson buried, May 15. 1850 Consecration of Fulford, Bishop of Mon- treal. Wordsworth died. Peel died. 1852 Transference of the Remains of Lynd- wood to the Abbey, March 6. Convocation revived, Nov. 12. 1856 Bishop Monk buried, June 14. R. C. Trench, Dean. 1858 Consecration of G. L. Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta. 1859 Transference of the Remains of John Hunter to the Abbey, March 28. Consecration of Bishops of Columbia, Brisbane, and St. Helena, and of the Bishop of Baugor. AJ>. Stephenson buried, Oct. 21. 1860 Lord Macaulay buried, Jan. 9. Sir Charles Barry buried, May 22. Lord Dundouald buried, Nov. 14. Celebration of Tercentenary of West- minster School, Nov. 17. 1862 Elizabeth Woodfall buried. Earl Canning buried, June 21. 1863 Sir Jas. Outram buried, Mar. 25. Lord Clyde buried, Aug. 22. Sir G. Cornewall Lewis died. Thackeray died. Consecration of First Missionary Bishop to Central Africa, Orange River State. 1864 Arthur P. Stanley, Dean. Consecration of the Bishop of Ely. Acts of Parliament removed from the Parliament Office to the Victoria Tower. 1865 Lord Palmerston buried, Oct. 27. Celebration of 800th anniversary of the Foundation of the Abbey, December 28. 1866 Restoration of Chapter House under- taken. 1867 Monument to Cobden. Restoration of Altar Screen in Marble. Royal Commission on Ritual in Jerusalem Chamber. 1868 Consecration of the Bishop of Hereford. 1869 Discovery of Grave of James I. Consecration of the Bishops of Lincoln, Grafton and Armidale, and Mauritius, Feb. 24. Consecration of the Bishops of Auckland, Bathurst, and Labuan, June 29. 1869 Consecration of the Bishop of Montreal, Aug. 1. Consecration of the Bishop of Salisbury, Oct. 28. Funeral of Geo. Peabody, Nov. 12. Consecration of the Bishop of Exeter, Dec. 21. Consecration of the Bishop of Oxford. 1869 Charles Dickens buried. 1870 Entertainment of Archbishop of Syria, Jan. 25. 1871 Sir John Herschel buried. George Grote buried. Revision of Authorised Version Com- munion in Henry VII.'s Chapel. 1872 Sir George Pollock buried. 1873 Lord Lytton buried. Funeral Service for Bishop Macilwaine. Visit of the Shah. 1874 David Livingstone buried. Visit of the Emperor of Russia. 1875 Burials of Sir Sterndale Bennett, Sir Charles Lyell, and Bishop Thirlwall. 1876 Burial of Lady Augusta Stanley 1877 Caxton Celebration, June 2. Consecration of Dr. Thorold as Bishop of Rochester, July 25. Consecration of Bishops of Rangoon and Lahore ; and Suffragan Bishop of Not- tingham, Dec. 21. 1878 Funeral of Sir Gilbert Scott, April 6. 1879 Consecration of Dr. Lightfoot as Bishop of Durham, by Archbishop of York, April 25. Funeral of Lord Lawrence, July 5. Funeral of Sir Rowland Hill, Sept. 4. 1881 Jubilee Service for King's College, Lon- don, June 2 1. Funeral of Lord Hatherley, July 15. Death (July 18) and Funeral of Dean Stanley, July 25. G. Granrille liradley, Dean, installed No- vember 1. Funeral of G. E. Street, December 29. [36] GENERAL DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY CHUECH. Interior. Feet In. Length of the Nave . . 166 Breadth of ditto . . . 38 7 Height of ditto . . . 101 8 Breadth of the Aisles . 16 7 Extreme breadth of the Nave and Aisles . . . 71 9 Length of the Choir . . 155 9 Extreme breadth of ditto . 38 4 Height of ditto . . . 101 2 Extreme length from north to sooth of the Transepts and Choir 203 2 Length of each Transept . 82 5 Entire breadth of ditto, includ- ing Aisles . . . 84 8 Extreme length from the west door to the piers of Henry VII.'s Chapel . . . 403 Ditto, including Henry VII.'s Chapel . . . . 511 6 Exterior. Extreme length of the Abbey Ditto, including Henry VII.'s Chapel .... Height of the western towers to the top of the pinnacles . Height of Nave and Transept roofs Height of lantern . Height of north front, includ- ing pinnacle . . . Henry VII.'s Chapel : Interior, length Exterior Interior, breadth Exterior Interior, height Exterior Feet 423 138 151 530 225 4 166 104 6 106 6 69 10 82 61 5 82 Dimensions of the Isle of Thorns, 470 yards long, 370 yards broad. 1TEST3TOSTER. AKKEIT ^* ITS ABOUT AD 1535 CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. THE devout King destined to God that place, both for that it was near unto the famous and wealthy city of London, and also had a pleasant situation amongst fruitful fields lying round about it, with the principal river running hard by, bringing in from all parts of the world great variety of wares and merchandise of all sorts to the city adjoining : but chiefly for the love of the Chief Apostle, whom he reverenced with a special and singular affection (Contemporary Life of Edward the Confessor, in Harleian MSS., pp. 980-985). SPECIAL AUTHOKITIES. THE special authorities for the physical peculiarities of Westminster are : 1. Smith's Antiquities of Westminster. London. 1807. 2. Saunders's Situation and Extent of Westminster, in Arcliceologia, vol. xxvi. pp. 223-241. 3. Dean Buckland's Sermon (1847) on the reopening of Westminster Abbey, with a Geological Appendix. 4. History of St. Margaret's, Westminster, by the Kev. Mackenzie E. C. Walcott. For Edward the Confessor : 1. Life by Ailred, Abbot of Bievaulx, A.D. 1163, derived chiefly from an earlier Life by Osbert, or Osbern of Clare, Prior of Westminster, A.D. 1158. 2. The Four Lives published by Mr. Luard, in the Collection of the Master of the Kolls : (a) Cambridge MS. French poem, dedicated to Eleanor, Queen of Henry III., probably about A.D. 1245. (b) Oxford MS. Latin poem, dedicated to Henry VI., probably between A.D. 1440-1450. (c) Vatican and Gains Coll. MSS., probably in the thirteenth century. All these are founded on Ailred. (d) Harleian MS., A.D. 1066-1074 (almost contemporary). (e) The charters of the Saxon Kings. (For the suspicions attaching to them, see ArcTiceological Journal, No. 114, pp. 139-140.) CHAPTER I. THE FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. IT is said that the line in Heber's ' Palestine ' which describes the rise of Solomon's temple originally ran Like the green grass, the noiseless fabric grew ; and that, at Sir Walter Scott's suggestion, it was altered to its present form Like some tall palm, the noiseless fabric sprung. Whether we adopt the humbler or the grander image, the com- parison of the growth of a fine building to that of a natural product is full of instruction. But the growth of an historical edifice like Westminster Abbey needs a more complex figure to do justice to its formation : a venerable oak, with gnarled and hollow trunk, and spreading roots, and decaying bark, and twisted branches, and green shoots ; or a coral reef extending itself with constantly new accretions, creek after creek, and islet after islet. One after another, a fresh nucleus of life is formed, a new combination produced, a larger ramification thrown out. In this respect Westminster Abbey stands alone amongst the buildings of the world. There are, it may be, some which surpass it in beauty or grandeur ; there are others, cer- tainly, which surpass it in depth and sublimity of association ; but there is none which has been entwined by so many con- tinuous threads with the history of a whole nation. I. The first origin of Westminster is to be sought in the physical natural features of its position, which include the London. origin of London no less. Foremost of these is what to Londoners and Englishmen is, in a deeper and truer sense CHAP. i. FEATUEES OF LONDON. 3 than was intended by Gray when he used the phrase, our The Thames. ' Father Thames : ' the river Thames, the largest river in England, here widening to an almost majestic size, yet not too wide for thoroughfare the direct communication between London and the sea on the one hand, between London and the interior on the other. When roads were bad, when robbers were many, when the forests were still thick, then, far more than now, the Thames was the chief highway of English life, the chief inlet and outlet of English commerce. Here, from the earliest times, the coracles of the British tribes, the galleys of the Eoman armies, were moored, and gave to the place the most probable origin of its name the ' City of Ships.' The Thames is the parent of London. The chief river of England has, by a natural consequence, secured for its chief city that supremacy over all the other towns which have at various times claimed to be the seats of sovereignty in England York, Canterbury, and Winchester. The old historic stream, which gathered on the banks of its upper course Oxford, Eton, Windsor, and Richmond, had already, before the first beginning of those ancient seats of learning and of regal luxury, become, on these its lower banks, the home l of England's commerce and of England's power. Above the river rose a long range of hills, covered with a vast forest, full of wild deer, wild bulls, and wild boars, 2 of The bins which the highest points were Hampstead and High- aud streams, gate. A desolate moor or fen, marked still by the names of Finsbury, Fenchurch, and Moorfields, which in winter was covered with water and often frozen, occupied the plateau immediately north of the city. As the slope of the hills de- scended steeply on the strand of the river, slight eminences, of stiff clay, broke the ground still more perceptibly. Tower Hill, Corn Hill, and Ludgate Hill remind us that the old London, like all capitals, took advantage of whatever strength was af- forded by natural situation : and therefore as we go up to Cornhill, the traditional seat of British chiefs and Koman governors, as we feel the ground swelling under our feet when we begin the ascent from Fleet Street to St. Paul's, or as we see the eminence on which stands the Tower of London, the oldest fortress of our Norman kings, we have before us the 1 Londinium . . . copia negotiate- 2 Fitzstephen. Vita S. Thomas, rum et commeatuum maxime celebre. Descriptio nobilissimae civitatis Londo- (Tac. Ann xiv. 33.) nias. B 2 4 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. reasons which have fixed what is properly called the ' city ' of London on its present site. And yet again, whilst the first dwellers of the land were thus entrenched on their heights by the riverside, they were at once protected and refreshed by the clear swift rivulets de- scending from the higher hills through the winding valleys that intersected the earthen bulwarks on which the old fastnesses stood. The streams still survive in the depths of the sewers into which they are absorbed, and in the streets to which they give their names. On the eastern 1 side the Long stream (Langborne) of ' sweet water ' flowed from the fens (of Fen- church), and then broke into the ' shares or small rills ' of Shareborne and Southborne, by which it reached the Thames. By St. Stephen's Walbrook, probably forming the western boundary of the Eoman fortress of London, 2 there flows the Brook of London Wall the Wall Brook, which, when swelled by winter floods, rushed with such violence down its gully, that, even in the time of Stow, a young man was swept away by it. 3 Holborn Hill takes its name from the Old Bourne,* or Holebourne, which, rising in High Holborn, ran down that steep declivity, and turned the mills at Turnmill (or Turnbull) Street, at the bottom : the Eiver of Wells, as it was sometimes called, from those once consecrated springs which now lie choked and buried in Clerken Well, and Holy Well, and St. Clement's Well the scene in the Middle Ages of many a sacred and festive pageant which gathered round their green margins. Fleet Ditch and Fleet Street mark the shallow bed of the ' Fleet ' 5 as it creeps down from the breezy slopes of Hampstead. The rivulet of Ulebrig crossed the Strand under the ' Ivy ' Bridge,' 6 on its way to the Thames. Such are the main natural features of London. In recall- ing them from the graves in which they are now entombed, 1 Arch, xxxiii. 110. p. 200, No. 59), the Earl of Lincoln * Ibid, xxxiii. 104. stated that in old times ten or twelve 1 Ibid, xxxiii. 104. Stow's Survey. ships used often to come up to Fleet Account of Downe Gate. Bridge with merchandise, and some 4 If ' Old Bourne,' as it appears in even to Holborn Bridge, to scour the Stow (see also Hayward's Edward VI., watercourse. It has been suggested to pp. 96, 97), the aspirate has been added me that the word ' Fleet,' as a local as a London vulgarism. If ' Hole- designation, does not mean ' swift,' but ' bourne,' as it appears in earlier docu- ' shallow,' or ' flat.' In East Anglia it is ments, it is probably derived from always so used by the common people, flowing in a hollow. See Letter in the as a ' fleet plate,' and so of meadows Times, Aug. 17, 1868. and fords in the fen country, where a 1 In a petition to the Parliament at rapid stream is unknown. Carlisle, in 35 Edward I. (Rot. Parl. i. Arch. xxvi. 227. CHAP. i. THE ISLAND OF THORNS. 5 there is something affecting in the thought that, after all, we are not so far removed from our mother earth as we might have supposed. There is a quaint humour in the fact that the great arteries of our crowded streets, the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the lifeblood of those old and living streams ; that underneath our tread the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are still pursuing their ceaseless course, still ministering to the good of man, though in a far different fashion than when Druids drank of their sacred springs, and Saxons were baptized in their rushing waters, ages ago. Thus much has been necessary to state respecting the origin of London, because without a general view of so near and great a neighbour it is impossible to understand the position of our own home of Westminster. Here too the mighty river plays an important part, but with an auxiliary which was wanting in the eastern sweep The island which has cradled the hills of London. Those steep of Thoms. s ^ff b an k s O f London clay forbade any intrusion of the Thames beyond his natural shores ; but both above and below that point the level ground enabled the river to divide his stream and embrace within his course numerous islands and islets. Below, we still find the Isle of Dogs and the Isle of Sheep. Above, in like manner, the waters spread irregularly over a long low flat, and enclosed a mass of gravel deposit forming a small island or peninsula. The influx and reflux of the tide, which lower down was said even to have undermined the river walls of the fortress of London, 1 rushed, it was be- lieved, through what once was Flood Street ; and some of our chroniclers fix the scene of Canute's rebuke to his courtiers ' on * the banks of the Thames as it ran by the Palace of West- ' minster at flowing tide, and the waves cast forth some part of ' their water towards him, and came up to his thighs.' 2 On the north-east a stream came up by the street thence called Channel (afterwards corrupted into Canon 3 ) Eow, through Gardiner's Lane, which was crossed by a bridge as late as the seventeenth century. 4 On the north this channel spread out 1 Fitzstephen (as above). See Arch. * From its being the residence of xxxiii. 116. In the memory of man the canons of St. Stephen's Chapel, the vaults of the Treasury buildings 4 The statement of Maitland (His- vrere flooded. tory of London, p. 730) and Dart (ii. - Fabian, p. 229. Knyghton, c. 28), that the first bridge over this 2325. 6 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. into a low marshy creek, now the lake in St. James's Park ; and the steepness of the sides of the islet is indicated by the stairs descending into the Park from Duke Street Chapel. At the point where Great George Street enters Birdcage Walk by Storey's Gate, there was a narrow isthmus which connected the island with a similar bed of gravel, reaching under Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park. 1 Then through Prince's Street (formerly, from this stream, called Long Ditch), 2 another channel began, and continued through Dean Street and College Street, till it fell again into the Thames by Millbank Street, where, in later days, the Abbot's Mill stood on the banks of the stream. The watery waste, which on the south spread over Lambeth and Southwark, on the north was fed by one of those streams which have been already noticed. There descended from Hampstead in a torrent, which has scattered its name right and left along its course, the brook of the Aye or Eye, 3 so called probably from the Eye (or Island) of which it formed the eastern boundary, and afterwards familiarly corrupted into the Aye Bourn, T'Aye Bourn, Tybourn. 4 It is recognised first by the Chapel of St. Mary on its banks, Mary-le-bourne (now corrupted into Marylebone) then by ' Brook ' Street. Next, winding under the curve of ' Aye Hill,' 5 it ran out through the Green stream was built by Matilda, the good Eow, Westminster ; for in his Survey queen of Henry I., is probably a mis- he merely mentions it as before quoted, take founded on the statement of And in his notice of Matilda's place of Weever, who says (p. 454) that Matilda sepulture he makes no allusion to it. I ' builded the bridges over the River owe this correction to Mr. F. S. Haydon. ' of Lea at Stratford Bow, and over Mr. Walcott has since discovered that ' the little brooke called Chanelse- the bridge over the Westminster stream ' bridge.' The situation of the second was called the Abbot's Bridge at Tot- bridge not being definitely given in hill. this passage, Maitland may have as- ' See Appendix to Dean Buckland's sumed, as Dart actually does assume, Sermon on Westminster Abbey, that it was identical with the bridge - The word ' ditch ' is used for a near Channel Row, Westminster. On brook, as in Kenditch, near Harnp- referring to Stow, however (Annals, stead. The ditch was remembered in A.D. 1118), we find that the Queen 1799. (Gent. Mag. Ixix. part ii. p. built two stone bridges one over the 577.) Lea at Stratford, and one not far 3 For the whole plan of the manor from it, over a little brook called or plain of Eye or Eia, containing the ' Chanel sebridge.' And it is evident course of the brook, see Arch. xxvi. 224, from other facts which he mentions, 226, 234. that Stow had seen the record of 4 Stratford Place marks the site of proceedings in the King's Bench in the banqueting house attached to the 6 Edward II., in which is recited an conduits of Tybourne. (Arch. xxvi. inquisition of 32 Edward I., assigning 226.) The T'aye is probably from the the foundation of these two bridges, Saxon 'set,' ' at ' (as in Attwater, Att- the Stratford bridge and the ' Chaneles- wood, Atbourne), meaning 'the road ' brigg,' near it, to Queen Matilda. ' near the bourne from the island.' Stow evidently knew nothing about 5 In the case of Hay Hill, the Lon- the founder of the bridge near Channel don vulgarism has permanently prefixed CHAP. i. THE ISLAND OF THORNS. 7 Park ; and whilst a thin stream found its way through what is now called the King's Scholars' Pond Sewer into the Thames, its waters also spread through the morass (which was afterwards called from it the manor of Eyebury, or Ebury) into the vast Bulinga Fen. 1 The island (or peninsula) thus enclosed, in common with more than one similar spot, derived its name from its thickets of thorn Thorn Ey, 2 the Isle of Thorns which formed in their jungle a refuge for the wild ox 3 or huge red deer with towering antlers, that strayed into it from the neighbouring hills. This spot, thus entrenched, marsh within marsh, and forest within forest, was indeed locus terribilis,* ' the terrible place,' as it was called in the first notices of its existence ; yet even thus early it presented several points of attraction to the founder of whatever was the original building which was to redeem it from the wilderness. It had the advantages of a Thebaid, as con- trasted with the stir and tumult of the neighbouring fortress of London. And, on the other hand, the river, then swarming with fish, 5 was close by to feed the colony ; the gravel soil and the close fine sand, still dug up under the floor of the Abbey and in St. Margaret's Churchyard, was necessarily healthy ; and in the centre of the thickets there bubbled up at least one spring, perhaps two, which gave them water clear and pure, supplied by the percolation of the rain-water from the gravel beds of Hyde Park and the Palace Gardens through the isthmus, when the river was too turbid to drink. 6 It has been said, with a happy paradox, that no local traditions are so durable as those which are ' writ in water.' 7 So it is here. In the green of Dean's Yard there stands a well-worn pump. The the aspirate. The original ' Aye Hill ' foundations of the Victoria Tower, and appears in a charter of Henry VI., in red deer, with very fine antlers, below the archives of Eton College. the River Terrace. I derive this from 1 Tothill Fields (Vincent Square). Professor Owen. Bones and antlers of (Arch. xxvi. 224.) the elk and red deer were also found in Or Dorney. (Burton's London 1868 in Broad Sanctuary in making the and Westminster, p. 285.) There was Metropolitan Railway, a Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire 4 ' In loco terribili ' is the phrase and in Somersetshire. The description used by Offa in the first authentic of one of these in Order icus Vital is charter, and repeated in Edgar's (Wid- (book xi.) exactly describes what more's Inquiry, pp. 14, 15 ; Kemble, Westminster Abbey must have been. Codex Anglo- Saxonicus, 149). ' It is called in English the Isle of s Fluvius maximus, pisccsus. (Fitz- ' Thorns, because its woods, thick with Stephen. Vita Sancti Thomas. Dese. ' all manner of trees, are surrounded civ. Lond.) ' by vast pools of water.' 6 See Appendix to Dean Buckland's 3 The bones of such an ox (Bos Sermon. primkcrius) were discovered under the ; Clark's Peloponnesus, p. 286. 8 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. spring, 1 which, till quite recently, supplied it, was the vivifying centre of all that has grown up around. II. These were the original elements of the greatness of Westminster, and such was the Isle of Thorns. On like islands Legendary arose tne cathedral and town of Ely, the Abbey of Croyland, the Abbey of Glastonbury, and the Castle- Cathedral of Limerick. On such another grew up a still more exact parallel Notre Dame at Paris, with the palace of the kings close by. What was the first settlement in those thorny shades, amidst those watery wastes, beside that bubbling spring, it is impossible to decipher. The monastic traditions rnain- Temnie of tained that the earliest building had been a Temple Apoiio. O f Apollo, shaken down by an earthquake in the year A.D. 154, not, however, before it had received the remains of Bladud the magician, who lighted here in his preternatural flight from Bath, and was thus the first interment in the venerable soil. But this is probably no more than the attempt to outshine the rival cathedral of St. Paul's, by endeavouring to counterbalance the dubious claims of the Temple of Diana 2 by a still more dubious assertion of the claims of the temple of her brother the Sun God. 3 Next comes King Lucius, the church of legendary founder of the originals of St. Peter's, Cornhill, Gloucester, Canterbury, Dover, Bangor, Glas- tonbury, Cambridge, Winchester. He it was who was said to have converted the two London temples into churches ; 4 or, according to one version, to have restored two yet more ancient churches which the temples had superseded. 5 He it was who, in the Swiss legends, deserted his British throne to become the bishop of Coire in the Grisons, where in the -cathedral are shown his relics, with those of his sister Emerita; and high in the woods above the town emerges a .rocky pulpit, still bearing the marks of his fingers, from which he preached to the inhabitants 1 There is also another in St. Mar- main British divinities were so called garet's Churchyard. by the Komans, and Apollo is said to '-' For the story of the Temple of have been Belin, according to one Diana, as well as for all -other illustra- version the origin of Billingsgate. (See tions rendered to the Abbey, partly by Fuller's -Church Hist. i. 2.) parallel, partly by contrast, from" its 4 Westminster alone is ascribed to great rival, the Cathedral of London, him in Brompton. (Twysden, c. 724.) I have a melancholy pleasure in re- For his supposed establishment of the ferring to the 'Annals of St. Paul's,' Sanctuary, see Abbot Feckenham's the last work of its illustrious and speech, A.D. 1555, quoted in Chap. V. venerable chief, Dean Milman. Ellis's Diigdale, p. 3; Milman's 3 Letter of Sir Christopher Wren Church of St. Paul's, p. 3. (Life, App, xxix. p. 105). The two CHAP. i. THE LEGENDARY ORIGIN. 9 of the valleys, in a voice so clear and loud, that it could be heard on the Luciensteig (the Pass of Lucius), twelve miles off. The only authentic record of the Roman period is the sarcophagus of Valerius Amandinus, discovered in the north green of the Abbey l in 1869. The clouds which hang so thick over the Temple of Apollo and the Church of Lucius are only so far removed when we reach the time of Sebert, 2 as that in him we arrive at cimrchof an unquestionably historical personage, if indeed the Sebert to whom the foundation of the Abbey is ascribed be the king of that name in Essex, and not, as another writer represents, a private citizen of London. 3 But Bede's entire omission of Westminster in his account 4 of Sebert's connection with St. Paul's throws a doubt over the whole story, and the introduction of the name in relation to Westminster may be only another attempt of the Westminster monks to redress their balance against St. Paul's. Still the tradition afterwards appeared in so substantial a form, that Sebert's grave has never ceased to be shown in the Grave of Abbey from the time of the erection of the present building. Originally it would seem to have been in- side the church. Then, during the repairs of Henry III., the remains were deposited on the south side of the entrance to the Chapter-house, 5 and subsequently, in the reign of Edward II., removed to the Choir, 6 where they occupy a position on the south of the altar analogous -to that of Dagobert the founder of St. Denys. A figure, supposed to be that of Sebert, is painted over it. 7 The same tradition that records his burial in the Chapter-house adds to his remains those of his wife Ethelgoda and his sister Ricula. 8 1 For a complete account of it, see s Flete MS. the dissertations on it collected by Mr. 6 Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. Albert Way, and reprinted from the 456. See the Epitaph in Ackermann, Archaeological Journal. It is now in i. 83. The right arm was supposed to the entrance to the Chapter-house. be still undecayed, with the skin cling- '-' ' Our father Saba,' as his wild sons ing to the bone, A.D. 1307. (Walsing- used to call him, when they envied the ham, i. 114 ; Rishanger, p. 425.) fragments of ' white bread ' which they 7 A sarcophagus of Purbeck marble saw the bishop give him in the Eucha- was found under the canopy, in 18(56, rist. (Bede, ii. 5.) The fine description when the modern structure of brick- of the Abbey by Montalembert (Moincs work was removed, which had been de rOccident, iv. 432) is .in connection erected by Dean Ireland, and which is with Sebert. elaborately described in Gent. Mag. 3 Sulcard, in Cotton MSS. Fans- xcv. p. 306. tina, B. iii., f. 12, in marg. ; Higden, p. 8 His mother, according to Bede (ii. 228 ; Thorn. Twysden, c. 1768. 3), sister to Ethelbert. See Chapters 4 Bede, ii. 3. III. and V. 10 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. The gradual formation of a monastic body, indicated in the charters of Offa and Edgar, marks the spread of the Benedictine Order throughout England, under the influence of Dunstan. 1 The * terror ' of the spot, which had still been its chief charac- teristic in the charter of the wild Offa, had in the days of the more peaceful Edgar given way to a dubious ' renown.' Twelve Foundation mon ks is the number traditionally said to have been of Edgar. established by Dunstan. 2 A few acres near Staines formed their chief property, and their monastic character was sufficiently recognised to have given to the old locality of the ' terrible place ' the name of the ' Western Monastery,' or ' Minster of the West.' 3 But this seems to have been overrun by the Danes, and it would have had no further history but for the combination of circumstances which directed hither the notice of Edward the Confessor. III. It has been truly remarked that there is a striking difference between the origin of Pagan temples and of Christian Historical churches. ' The Pagan temples were always the public origin. wor k s o f nations and of communities. They were ' national buildings, dedicated to national purposes. The ' mediaeval churches, on the other hand, were the erections of ' individuals, monuments of personal piety, tokens of the hope * of a personal reward.' 4 This cannot be said, without reserve, of Southern Europe, where, as at Venice and Florence, the chief churches were due to the munificence of the State. But in England it is true even of the one ecclesiastical building which is most especially national the gift not of private in- dividuals, but of kings. Westminster Abbey is, in its origin, the monument not merely of the personal piety, but of the personal character and circumstances of its Founder. We know the Confessor well from the descriptions preserved by his contemporaries. His appearance was such as no one Edward the could forget. It was almost that of an Albino. His Su^tSird full-flashed rose-red cheeks strangely contrasted with appearance, fog m iiky whiteness of his waving hair and beard. His eyes were always fixed on the ground. There was a kind 1 William of Malmesbury. De Gest. Edgar (ibid., Charters, No. 5), 'nomi- Eeg. Angl. (Hardy), i. 237, 240, 247 ; and ' natissimo loco qui dicitur West- De Gest. Pont. Angl. (Savile, Scriptores mynster.' The name must have been post Bedam, p. 202.) given in contradistinction to St. Paul's 2 Diceto. Twysden, c. 456. in the East. * Charter of Offa (Abbey Archives, 4 Merivale's Boyle Lectures, Con- Charters, No. 3), ' loco terribili quod version of the Northern Nations, ' dicitur set Westmunster.' Charter of p. 122. CHAP. T. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 11 of magical charm in his thin white hands and his long trans- parent fingers, 1 which not unnaturally led to the belief that there resided in them a healing power of stroking away the diseases of his subjects. His manners presented a singular mixture of gravity and levity. Usually affable and gentle, so as to make even a refusal look like an acceptance, he burst forth at times into a fury which showed that the old Berserkir rage was not dead within him. 2 ' By God and His mother, I will give ' you just such another turn if ever it come in my way ! ' was the utterance of what was thought by his biographers a mild ex- pression of his noble indignation against a peasant who inter- fered with the pleasure of his chase. 3 Austere as were his habits old even as a child 4 he startled his courtiers sometimes by a sudden smile or a peal of laughter, for which they or he could only account by some mysterious vision. 5 He cared for little but his devotional exercises and hunting. He would spend hours in church, and then, as soon as he was set free, would be off to the woods for days together, flying his hawks and cheering on his hounds. With his gentle piety was blended a strange hardness towards those to whom he was most bound. He was harsh to His cha- n ^ s m other. His alienation from his wife, even in that racter. fantastic age, was thought extremely questionable. 6 His good faith was not unimpeachable. ' There was nothing,' it was said, ' that he would not promise from the exigency of ' the time. He pledged his faith on both sides, and confirmed 1 by oath anything that was demanded of him.' 7 On the other hand a childish kindliness towards the poor and suffering made them look upon him as their natural protector. The un- reasoning benevolence which, in a modern French romance, appears as an extravagance of an unworldly bishop, was lite- rally ascribed to the Confessor in a popular legend, of which the representation was depicted on the tapestries that once hung round the Choir, and may still be seen in one of the com- 1 Longis interlucentibus digitis. (See Freeman's Norman Conquest, ii. (Harleian Life, p. 240.) The presence 27.) of ' the pious king ' is intimated in 4 Ailred of Rievaulx, c. 373. Shakspeare (Macbeth, act iv. scene 3) 5 As when he saw in a trance the only by the crowd waiting to be shipwreck of the King of Denmark touched for the Evil. (Oxford Life, 244 ; Cambridge Life, "- Harleian Life, 225. See this well gS^ * g 6 movements of the Seven dnuvrMjut in the North British Review, * -HarleiarfLife, 480-495. 7 William of Malmesbury, ii. 13. 3 William of Malmesbury, ii. 13. Harleian Life, 875-890. CHAP. i. EDWAKD THE CONFESSOR. 18 partments of the screen of his shrine. 1 The king was reposing after the labours of the day. His chamberlain, Hugolin, had opened the chest of the royal monies to pay the servants of the palace. The scullion crept in to avail himself, as he sup- posed, of the King's sleep, and carried off the remains of the treasure. At his third entrance Edward started up, and warned him to fly before the return of Hugolin (' He will ' not leave you even a halfpenny ') ; and to the remonstrances of Hugolin answered, ' The thief hath more need of it than we ' enough treasure hath King Edward ! ' 2 Another peculiar combination marks his place equally in the history of England and in the foundation of the Abbey. The last of He was the last of the Saxons that is, the last of Ms ' those concerned in the long struggle against the Danes. As time went on, the national feeling transfigured him almost into a Saxon Arthur. 3 In him was personified all the hatred with which the Anglo-Saxon Christians regarded the Pagan Norsemen. His exile to escape from their tyranny raised him at once to the rank of ' Confessor,' as Edmund the East Angle, by his death in battle with them, had been in like manner raised to the rank of ' Martyr.' A curious legend represents that, on entering his treasury, he saw a black demon dancing on the casks 4 which contained the gold ex- tracted from his subjects to pay the obnoxious tax to the Danes, and how in consequence the Danegelt was for ever abolished. He was also the first of the Normans. His reign is the earliest link which reunites England to the Continent of Europe. The first Hardly since the invasion of Caesar certainly not Normans, since the arrival of Augustine had such an influx of new ideas poured into our insular commonwealth as came with Edward from his Norman exile. His mother Emma and his 1 The legends which are here cited thus represented, so few are actually are not found in the contemporary historical. life of the Confessor in the eleventh - Cambridge Life, 1000-1040. century, and therefore cannot be * See the comparison in the Cam- trusted for the accuracy of their bridge Life, 900-910. facts or their language, but only as 4 Cambridge Life, 940-961. The representing the feeling of the next casks are represented in the frieze of generation. The screen is of the fif- the screen. This long continued to teenth century, but it faithfully pre- be the mode of keeping money, as ap- serves these records of the twelfth. pears from the story of Wolsey and Nothing shows the rapidity of the the Jester. For the abolition of the growth of these legends more than the Danegelt see Cambridge Life, 922, fact that out of the fourteen subjects 1884 ; Oxford Life, 302. 14 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP, i, maternal grandfather Eichard were more to him than his father Ethelred ; the Norman clergy and monks than his own rude Anglo-Saxon hierarchy. His long hair and beard, dis- tinguishing his appearance from that of the shorn and shaven heads of his Norman kinsmen, were almost the only outward marks of his Saxon origin. The French handwriting super- seded in his court the old Anglo-Saxon characters ; ' the French seals, under his auspices, became the type of the sign-manual of England for centuries. 2 From him the Norman civilisation spread not only into England, but into Scotland. His grand- nephew Edgar Atheling, as the head of the Anglo-Norman migration into the north, was the father of the Scottish Low- lands. These were the qualities and circumstances which went to Foundation make up the Founder of Westminster Abbey. We have Abbey. now to ask, What special motive induced the selection of this particular site and object for his devotion ? The idea of a regal Abbey on a hitherto unexampled scale may have been suggested or strengthened by the accounts consecra- brought back to him of Eeims, where his envoys had ReLs. been present at the consecration of the Abbey of St. Rerny, hard by the cathedral in which the French kings were crowned. 3 By this time also the wilderness of Thorney was Meadows of cleared ; and the crowded river, with its green Thorney. meadows, and the sunny aspect of the island, 4 may have had a charm for the King, whose choice had hitherto lain in the rustic fields of Islip and Windsor. But the prevailing motive was of a more peculiar kind, be- longing to times long since passed away. In that age, as still Theconfes- amongst some classes in Roman Catholic countries, ttontos? religious sentiment took the form of special devotion to this or that particular saint. Amongst Edward's favourites St. Peter was chief. 5 On his protection, w r hilst in Normandy, when casting about for help, the exiled Prince had thrown himself, and vowed that, if he returned in HlS TOW. safety, he would make a pilgrimage to the Apostle's grave at Rome. This vow was, it is said, further impressed on 1 Lappenberg (Thorpe), ii. 246. leian MS. 980-985.) Quoted as the 2 Palgrave's History of England, motto to this chapter. p. 328. s The church of the Confessor's re- 3 Saxon Chronicle, 1049. sidence at Old Windsor is dedicated to 4 The combination of motives is well St. Peter, and the site of his palace is given in the contemporary Life. (Har- thence called Peter's Hill. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 15 his mind by the arrival of a messenger from England, almost immediately afterwards, with the announcement of the de- parture of the Danes, and of his own election as King. 1 It was yet further confirmed by a vision, real or feigned, of Brithwold, Bishop of Winchester, at Glastonbury, 2 in which St. Peter, the patron saint of Winchester Cathedral, appeared to him, and announced that the Bishop himself should crown a youth, whom the saint dearly loved, to be King of England. 3 Accordingly, when Edward came to the throne, he an- nounced to his Great Council his intention of fulfilling his vow. The proposal was received with horror by nobles and people. It was met both by constitutional objections, and on the ground of the dangers of the expedition. The King could not leave the kingdom without the consent of the Commons; he could not undertake such a journey without encountering the most formidable perils ' the roads, the sea, the mountains, ' the valleys, ambuscades at the bridges and the fords,' and most of all ' the felon Eomans, who seek nothing but gain and ' gifts.' ' The red gold and the white silver they covet as a ' leech covets blood.' 4 The King at last gave way, on the sug- gestion that a deputation might be sent to the Pope who might release him from his vow. The deputation went. The release came, on the condition that he should found or restore a monastery of St. Peter, of which the King should be the especial patron. It was, in fact, to be a pilgrimage by proxy, such as has sometimes been performed by traversing at home the same number of miles that would be travelled on the way to Palestine ; 5 sometimes by sending the heart, after death, 6 to perform what the living had been unable to accomplish in person. Where, then, was a monastery of St. Peter to be found which could meet this requirement ? It might possibly have been that at Winchester. Perhaps in this hope the story of Bishop Brithwold's vision was revived. But there was also the little ' minster,' west of London, near which the King 1 Cambridge Life, 780-825. 4 Ibid. p. 222. The various dan- 2 Ailred, 373. There is a difficulty gers of the journey to Rome are well in distinguishing Brithwold, Bishop of given in William of Malinesbury (ii. Winchester, and Brithwold, Bishop of 13). Wilton. The chronicles in general are 5 As in the case of the late King of in favour of Winchester. One of the Saxony. Lives of the Confessor is in favour of 6 As in the case of Edward I. of Wilton. England, and Robert the Bruce and 3 Cambridge Life, G40-700. James I. of Scotland. 16 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. from time to time resided, and of which his friend Edwin, 1 the courtier abbot, was head. It had, as far back as memory ex- connection tended, been dedicated to St. Peter. A Welsh legend with e the bey of later times maintained that it was at ' Lampeter,' stTeter. ' the Church of Peter,' that the Apostle saw the vision in which he was warned that he must shortly ' put off his ' earthly tabernacle.' 2 If the original foundation of the Abbey can be traced back to Sebert, the name, probably, must have been given in recollection of the great Roman Sanctuary, whence Augustine, the first missionary, had come. 3 And Sebert was believed to have dedicated his church to St. Peter in the Isle of Thorns, in order to balance the compliment he had paid to St. Paul on Ludgate Hill : 4 a reappearance, in another form, of the counterbalancing claims of the rights of Diana and Apollo the earliest stage of that rivalry which afterwards expressed itself in the proverb of ' robbing Peter to pay Paul.' 5 This thin thread of tradition, which connected the ruinous pile in the river-island with the Roman reminiscences of Augustine, was twisted firm and fast round the resolve of Edward; and by the concentration of his mind 6 on this one object was raised the first distinct idea of an Abbey, which the Kings of England should regard as their peculiar treasure. There are, probably, but few Englishmen now who care to know that the full title of Westminster Abbey is the ' Col- ' legiate Church or Abbey of St. Peter.' But at the time of its first foundation, and long afterwards, the whole neighbourhood and the whole story of the foundation breathed of nothing else but the name, which was itself a reality. ' The soil of St. ' Peter ' was a recognised legal phrase. The name of Peter's ' Eye,' or ' Island,' 7 which still lingers in the low land of Battersea, came by virtue of its connection with the Chapter of Westminster. 8 Anyone who infringed the charter of the Abbey would, it was declared, be specially condemned by St. Peter, when he sits on his throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 9 Of the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster, as of the 1 See Chapter V. " The ' Cock ' in Tothill Street, 2 2 Pet. i. 14. (I cannot recover where the workmen of the Abbey re- the reference to this legend.) ceived their pay, was probably from 3 See Memorialsof Canterbury, p. 11. the cock of St. Peter. A black marble 4 Ailred, c. 384. statue of St. Peter is said to lie at the 5 See Chapter VI. bottom of the well under the pump in 6 Dagobert, in like manner, had a Prince's Street. (Walcott, 73, 280.) peculiar veneration for St. Denys. 9 Pope Nicholas's Letter, Kemble ; Smith's Antiquities, p. 34. (Codex), 825. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 17 more celebrated basilica of St. Peter at Rome, it may be said that ' super hanc Petram ' the Church of Westminster has been built. Eound the undoubted fact that this devotion to St. Peter was Edward's prevailing motive, gathered, during his own life- time or immediately after, the various legends which give it form and shape in connection with the special peculiarities of the Abbey. There was in the neighbourhood of Worcester, ' far from ' men in the wilderness, on the slope of a wood, in a cave, deep Legend of * down in the grey rock,' a holy hermit ' of great age, of wor- mit ' living on fruits and roots.' One night, when, after reading in the Scriptures ' how hard are the pains of ' hell, and how the enduring life of Heaven is sweet and to be ' desired,' he could neither sleep nor repose, St. Peter appeared to him, ' bright and beautiful, like to a clerk,' and warned him to tell the King that he was released from his vow ; that on that very day his messengers would return from Eome ; that ' at Thorney, two leagues from the city,' was the spot marked out where, in an ancient church, ' situated low,' he was to establish a Benedictine monastery, which should be ' the gate ' of heaven, the ladder of prayer, whence those who serve St. ' Peter there shall by him be admitted into Paradise.' The hermit writes the account of the vision on parchment, seals it with wax, and brings it to the King, who compares it with the answer of the messengers just arrived from Rome, and deter- mines on carrying out the design as the Apostle had ordered. 1 Another legend 2 still more precise developed the attractions of the spot still further. In the vision to the Worcestershire Legend of hermit, St. Peter was reported to have said that he fisherman, had consecrated the church at Thorney with his own hands. How this came to pass was now circulated in versions slightly varying from each other, but of which the main features agreed. It was on a certain Sunday night in the reign of King Sebert, the eve of the day fixed by Mellitus, first Bishop of London, for the consecration of the original monastery in the Isle of Thorns, that a fisherman of the name 1 Cambridge Life, 1740 ; Oxford The first trace of it is the allusion in Life, 270. the Confessor's charters, if genuine z That this story was not in existence (Kemble, vol. iv. 824-6). It does before the Confessor's reign, appears not appear in the contemporary Har- from its absence in the original charter leian Life, but is fully developed in of Edgar (Widmore's Inquiry, p. 22). Sulcard and Ailred. 18 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. of Edric was casting his nets from the shore of the island into the Thames. 1 On the other side of the river, where Lambeth now stands, a bright light attracted his notice. He crossed, and found a venerable personage, in foreign attire, calling for some one to ferry him over the dark stream. Edric consented. The stranger landed, and proceeded at once to the church. On his way he evoked with his staff the two springs of the island. The air suddenly became bright with a celestial splendour. The building stood out clear, ' without darkness or shadow.' A host of angels, descending and reascending, with sweet odours and flaming candles, assisted, and the church was dedi- cated with the usual solemnities. The fisherman remained in his boat, so awestruck by the sight, that when the mysterious visitant returned and asked for food, he was obliged to reply that he had caught not a single fish. Then the stranger re- vealed his name : ' I am Peter, keeper of the keys of Heaven. ' When Mellitus arrives to-morrow, tell him what you have ' seen ; and show him the token that I, St. Peter, have conse- ' crated my own Church of St. Peter, Westminster, and have ' anticipated the Bishop of London. 2 For yourself, go out into ' the river ; you will catch a plentiful supply of fish, whereof ' the larger part shall be salmon. This I have granted on two ' conditions first, that you never fish again on Sundays ; ' secondly, that you pay a tithe of them to the Abbey of West- ' minster.' The next day, at dawn, 'the Bishop Mellitus rises, and ' begins to prepare the anointing oils and the utensils for the ' great dedication.' He, with the King, arrives at the appointed hour. At the door they are met by Edric with the salmon in his hand, which he presents ' from St. Peter in a gentle manner * to the Bishop.' He then proceeds to point out the marks ' of ' the twelve crosses on the church, the walls within and without ' moistened with holy water, the letters of the Greek alphabet ' written twice over distinctly on the sand ' of the now sacred island, ' the traces of the oil, and (cjiiefest of the miracles) the ' droppings of the angelic candles.' The Bishop professed him- self entirely convinced, and returned from the church, ' satisfied ' that the dedication had been performed sufficiently, better, 1 Cambridge Life, 2060 ; Sulcard ' sanctificationis auctoritate prteveni.' in Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 289. (Ailred, cc. 385, 386. Sporley and 2 ' Episcopalem benedictionem mete Sulcard in Dugdale, i. 288, 289.) CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 19 ' and in a more saintly fashion than a hundred such as he could ' have done.' l The story is one which has its counterparts in other churches. The dedication of Einsiedlen, in Switzerland, and that of the rock at Le Puy, in Auvergne, 2 were ascribed to angelic agency. The dedication of the chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury was ascribed to Christ Himself, who appeared to warn off St. David, as St. Peter at Westminster did Mellitus. St. Nicholas claimed to have received his restored pall, and St. Denys the sacraments of the Church, from the same source, and not from any episcopal or priestly hands. All these legends have in common the merit of containing a lurking protest against the necessity of external benediction for things or persons sacred by their own intrinsic virtue a covert de- claration of the great catholic principle (to use Hooker's words) that God's grace is not tied ' to outward forms.' But the Westminster tradition possesses, besides, the peculiar charm of the local colouring of the scene, and betrays the peculiar motives whence it arose. We are carried back by it to the times when the wild Thames, with its fishermen and its salmon, 3 was still an essential feature of the neighbourhood of the Abbey. We see in it the importance attached to the name of the Apostle. We see also the union of innocent fiction with worldly craft, which marks so many legends both of Pagan and Christian times. 4 It represents the earliest protest of the Abbots of Westminster against the jurisdiction of the Bishops of London. It was recited by them long afterwards as the solid foundation of the inviolable right of sanctuary in, Westminster. 5 It con- tains the claim established by them one the tithe of the Thames fisheries from Gravesend to Staines. A lawsuit was successfully carried by the Convent of Westminster against the Kector of Eotherhithe, in 1282, on the ground that St. Peter had granted the first haul. 6 The parish clergy, however, struggled against the claim, and the monastic historian Flete, in the gradually 1 The Roman annalists are not the Chamber of Angels. (Mandet's satisfied with the purely British cha- Hist, du Velay, ii. 27.) racter of this legend, and add that 3 A ' Thames salmon,' with aspara- Mellitus being in doubt deferred the gas, was still a customary dish in the consecration till being at Rome in a time of Charles I. (State Papers, council he consulted with Pope Boni- April 12, 1629.) face IV., who decided against it. 4 See Lectures on the History of the Surius, torn. i. in Vit. St. Januar. ; Eastern Church, p. 80. Baronius, vol. viii. anno 610. s See Chapter V. 2 The bells were rung by the hands See Neale, p. 6 ; Ware's Consue- of angels, and the church was called inclines. c 2 20 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. increasing scarcity of salmon, saw a Divine judgment on the fishermen for not having complied with St. Peter's request. Once a year, as late as 1382, one of the fishermen, as repre- sentative of Edric, took his place beside the Prior, and brought in a salmon for St. Peter. It was carried in state through the middle of the Eefectory. The Prior and the whole fraternity rose as it passed up to the high table, and then the fisherman received ale and bread from the cellarer in return for the fish's tail. 1 The little Church or Chapel of St. Peter, thus dignified by the stories of its first origin, was further believed to have been Legend ot specially endeared to Edward by two miracles, reported the cripple. j. Q faye occurre( j w ithin it in his own lifetime. The first was the cure of a crippled Irishman, Michael, who sate in the road between the Palace and 'the Chapel of St. Peter, ' which was near,' and who explained to the inexorable Hugolin that, after six pilgrimages to Rome in vain, St. Peter had promised his cure if the King would, on his own royal neck, carry him to the monastery. The King immediately consented ; and, amidst the scoffs of the Court, bore the poor man to the steps of the High Altar. There he was received by Godric the sacristan, and walked away on his own restored feet, hanging his stool on the wall for a trophy. 2 Before that same High Altar was also believed to have been seen one of the Eucharistical portents, so frequent in the Legend Middle Ages. A child, ' pure and bright like a spirit,' sacrament, appeared to the King in the sacramental elements. 3 Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who, with his famous countess Godiva, was present, saw it also. The King imposed secrecy upon them during his life. The Earl confided the secret to a holy man at Worcester (perhaps the hermit before mentioned), who placed the account of it in a chest, which, after all concerned were dead, opened of itself and revealed the sacred deposit. Such as these were the motives of Edward. Under their influence was fixed what has ever since been the local centre of the English monarchy and nation of the Palace and the Legislature no less than of the Abbey. There had, no doubt, already existed, by the side of the Thames, an occasional resort of the English Kings. But the Boman fortress in London, or the Saxon city of Winchester, had 1 Pennant's London, p. 57. s Cambridge Life, 2515-55. It ap- * Cambridge Life, 1920-2020. pears on the screen of the chapel. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 21 been hitherto their usual abode. Edward himself had formerly Pa'aceof spent his time chiefly at his birthplace, Islip, or at darter. the rude palace on the rising ground, still marked by various antique remains, above ' Old Windsor.' l But now, for the sake of superintending the new Church at Westminster, he lived, more than any previous king, in the regal residence (which he hi great part rebuilt) close beside it. The Abbey and the Palace grew together, and into each other, in the closest union : just as in Scotland, a few years later, Dunfermline Palace and Dunfermline Abbey sprang up side by side ; and again, Holyrood Abbey first within the Castle of Edinburgh, and then on its present site by Holyrood Palace. ' The ' Chamber of St. Edward,' as it was called from him, or ' the ' Painted Chamber,' from its subsequent decorations, was the kernel of the Palace of Westminster. This fronted what is still called the ' Old Palace Yard,' as distinguished from the ' New ' Palace ' of William Rufus, of which the only vestige is the framework of the ancient Hall, looking out on what, from its novelty at that time, was called the ' New Palace Yard,' ' New,' like the ' New Castle ' of the Conqueror, or the ' New ' College ' of Wykeham. The privileges 2 which the King was anxious to obtain for the new institution were in proportion to the magnificence of his design, and the difficulties encountered for this purpose are a proof of the King's eagerness in the cause. As always in such cases, it was necessary to procure a confirmation of these Jonmeyto privileges from the Pope. The journey to Rome was, in those troubled times, a serious affair. The deputa- tion consisted of Aldred, 3 who had lately been translated from Worcester to York ; the King's two chaplains, Gyso and Walter ; Tosti and Gurth, the King's brothers-in-law ; and Gospatrick, kinsman of the Confessor and companion of Tosti. Some of the laymen had taken this opportunity to make their pilgrimage to the graves of the Apostles. The Archbishop of York had also his own private ends to serve the grant of the pall for York, and a dispensation to retain the see of Wor- cester. The Pope refused his request, on the not unreasonable 1 Runny - Mede, ' the meadow of exact statement of these privileges ' assemblies,' derives its name and its depends on the genuineness of the original association from this neigh- charters, but their general outline is bourhood of the royal residence. unquestionable. z Cambridge Life, 2325. Kemble, 3 Harleian Life, 755-80. 824, 825. See Chapter V. The 22 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. j. ground that the two sees should not be held together. Tosti was furious on behalf of his friend Aldred, but could not gain his point. On their return they were attacked by a band of robbers at Sutri, a spot still dangerous for the same reason. Some of the party were stripped to the skin amongst them the Archbishop of York. 1 Tosti was saved only by the mag- nificent appearance of Gospatrick, who rode before, and misled the robbers into the belief that .he was the powerful Earl. 2 Meanwhile Tosti returned to .Rome, in a state of fierce indigna- tion, and, with his well-known ' adamantine obstinacy,' declared that he would take measures for stopping Peter's pence from England, by making it known that the Pope, whose claims were so formidable abroad, was in ihe hands of robbers at home, 3 With this threat (so . often repeated hi every form and tone since) he carried the suit of his friend ; and the deputation returned, not only with the privileges of Westminster, but with the questionable confirmation of Aldred's questionable demands. The Abbey had been fifteen years hi building. The King had spent upon it one-tenth of the property of the kingdom. Buiuung of I* was * be a marvel of its kind. As in its origin it the Abbey. jj 0re t ne traces of the fantastic childish character of the King and of the age, in its architecture it bore the stamp of the peculiar position which Edward occupied in English history between Saxon and Norman. By birth he was a Saxon, but in all else he was a foreigner. Accordingly, the Church at West- minster was a wide sweeping innovation on all that had been seen before. 4 'Destroying the old building,' he says in his Charter, ' I have built up a new one from the very foundation.' 5 Its fame as ' a new style 6 of composition ' lingered in the minds of men for generations. It was the first cruciform church in England, from which all the rest of like shape were copied an 1 Stubbs, c. 1702. William of Lady Chapel of Henry III. must have Malmesbury in Life of Wulfstan, pt. abutted on the east end of the old choir ii. c. 10. (Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. 250.) as of the present. 2. That the cloisters '- Harleian Life, 770. occupied the same relative position, as 1 Brompton, c. 952 ; Knyghton, c. may be seen from the existing sub- 2336. structures. 3. That the pillars, as ex- 4 The collegiate church of Walt- cavated in the choir in the repairs of ham, which was founded by Harold in 1866, stand at the same distance from A.D. 1060, must have been the nearest each other as the present pillars. The approach to this. But whatever view nave of the church and the chapel of is taken of the present structure of the St. Catherine must have been finished church at Waltham, it was consider- under Henry I., the south cloister ably smaller than the Abbey. The under William Bufus. proof of the size of the Confessor's s Kemble, No. 824, iv. 176. church rests on the facts 1. That the 6 Matthew Paris, p. 2. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 23 expression of the increasing hold which the idea of the Cruci- fixion in the tenth century had laid on the imagination of Europe. 1 Its massive roof and pillars formed a contrast with the rude wooden rafters and beams of the common Saxon churches. Its very size occupying, as it did, almost the whole area of the present building was in itself portentous. The deep foundations, of large square blocks of grey stone, were duly laid. The east end was rounded into an apse. A tower rose in the centre crowned by a cupola of wood. At the western end were erected two smaller towers, with five large bells. The hard strong stones were richly sculptured. The windows were filled with stained glass. The roof was covered with lead. The cloisters, chapter-house, refectory, dormitory, the infirmary, with its spacious chapel, 2 if not completed by Edward, were all begun, and finished in the -next generation on the same plan. This structure, venerable as it would be if it had lasted to our time, has almost entirely vanished. Possibly one vast dark arch in the southern transept certainly the sub- structures of the dormitory, with their huge pillars, ' grand and ' regal at the bases and capitals ' 3 the massive low-browed passage, leading from the great cloister to Little Dean's Yard and some portions of the refectory and of the infirmary chapel, remain as specimens of the work which astonished the last age of the Anglo-Saxon and the first age of the Norman monarchy. 4 The institution was made as new as the building. Abbot Edwin remained; but a large body of monks was imported from Exeter, 5 coincidently with the removal of the see of Crediton to Exeter in the person of the King's friend Leofwin. The services still continued in the old building whilst the new one was rising. A small chapel, dedicated to St. Margaret, which stood on the north side of the present Abbey, 6 is said to have been pulled down ; and a new church, bearing the same name, was built on the site of the present Church of St. Margaret. 7 The affection entertained for the martyr-saint of Antioch by the House of Cerdic appears in the continuation of her name in Edward's grandniece, Margaret of Scotland. 1 Milman's History of Latin Chris- Conquest, ii. 509. tianity, vi. 507. 5 Cambridge Life, 2390 ; Oxford 2 Cambridge Life, 2270-2310. Life, 381. 3 Ibid. 2300. 8 Ackermann, i. 86, 87. 4 See Gleanings of Westminster * Widmore, p. 12. Compare the Abbey, pp. 3, 4 ; Freeman's Norman same process at Pershore and Norwich. 24 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. The end of the Confessor -was now at hand. Two legends mark its approach. The first is as follows. It was at Easter. 1 Legend of He was sitting in his gold-embroidered robe, and sueper?. 11 solemnly crowned, in the midst of his courtiers, who were voraciously devouring their food after the long absti- nence of Lent. On a sudden he sank into a deep abstraction. Then came one of his curious laughs, 2 and again his rapt meditation. He retired into his chamber, and was followed by Duke Harold, the Archbishop, and the Abbot of West- minster. 3 To them he confided his vision. He had seen the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus suddenly turn from their right sides to their left, and recognised in this omen the sign of war, famine, and pestilence for the coming seventy years, during which the sleepers were to lie in their new position. Imme- diately on hearing this, the Duke despatched a knight, the Archbishop a bishop, the Abbot a monk, to the Emperor of Constantinople. 4 To Mount Celion under his guidance they went, and there found the Seven Sleepers as the King had seen them. The proof of this portent at once confirmed the King's prevision, and received its own confirmation in the violent con- vulsions which disturbed the close of the eleventh century. The other legend has a more personal character. The King was on his way to the dedication of the Chapel of St. Legend John the Evangelist. 5 As Peter, the Prince of the pugrim. Apostles, was the saint before whom the Confessor trembled with a mysterious awe, John, the Apostle of Love, was the saint whom he venerated with a familiar tenderness. 6 A beggar implored him, for the love of St. John, to bestow alms upon him. Hugolin was not to be found. In the chest there was no gold or silver. The King remained in silent thought, and then drew off from his hand a ring, ' large, royal, ' and beautiful,' which he gave to the beggar, who vanished. Two English pilgrims, from the town of Ludlow, 7 shortly after- wards found themselves benighted in Syria; when suddenly 1 William of Malmesbury, ii. 13. (see Freeman's Norman Conquest, ii. 2 Ailred, c. 395. 512) this church is said to have been 3 The 'Duke Harold' is named in at Clavering. There was a chapel of the legend, ' Le Dues Harauldz ' (Cam- St. John close to the palace, now that bridge Life, 338) ; and it can hardly of St. Stephen (Smith, 127). The be doubted that by the prelate and parish of St. John, in Westminster, was abbot were meant the Primate and the created in the last century. Abbot of Westminster. Ailred, c. 397. 4 Oxford Life, 409. Their journey 7 Hence the representation of the is represented in the screen. story in the painted window of St. ' By one of the Saxon chroniclers Lawrence's Church at Ludlow. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 25 the path was lighted up, and an old man, white and hoary, preceded by two tapers, accosted them. They told him of their country and their saintly King, on which the old man, 'joy- ' ously like to a clerk,' guided them to a hostelry, and announced that he was John the Evangelist, the special friend of Edward ; and gave them the ring to carry back, with the warning that in six months the King should be with him in Paradise. The pilgrims returned. They found the King at his palace in Essex, said to be called from this incident Havering atte Bower, and with a church dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. lie acknowledged the ring, and prepared for his end accord- ingly. 1 The long-expected day of the dedication of the Abbey at last arrived. ' At Midwinter,' says the Saxon Chronicle, Dedication ' King Edward came to Westminster, and had the Ibbey. ' minster there consecrated, which he had himself ' built, to the honour of God and St. Peter, and all God's ' saints.' It was at Christmas-time (when, as usual at 1fu*e x that age, the Court assembled) that the dedication so eagerly desired was to be accomplished. On Christmas Day he appeared, according to custom, wearing his royal crown ; 2 December but on Christmas night, his strength, prematurely ex- hausted, suddenly gave way. The mortal illness, long anticipated, set in. He struggled, however, through the three next days, even appearing, with his occasional bursts of hilarity, in the stately banquets with the bishops and nobles. On St. John's Day he grew BO rapidly worse, that he December g ave orders for the solemnity to be fixed for the morrow. 3 On the morning of that morrow (Wednes- day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, Childermas 4 ) he roused December himself sufficiently to sign the charter of the Founda- tion. The peculiar nature of the Festival may have had an attraction for the innocent character of the King ; but in the later Middle Ages, and even down to the last century, 1 Cambridge Life, 3455-3590 ; Ox- From the time of Henry III. a figure ford Life, 410-40. The story is one of St. John, as the pilgrim, stood by of those which attached to St. John, the Confessor's shrine ; and one such from the old belief (John xxi. '23) that still stands in Henry V.'s Chantry, he was not dead, but sleeping. Com- z Cambridge Life, 3610. pare his apparition to James IV. at 3 Ailred, c. 399. Linlithgow. It occupies three com- 4 So in the Charter itself (Kemble, partments on the screen, and is also iv. 180). Robert of Gloucester and to be seen on the tiles of the Chapter- Ailred of Rievaulx fix it on St. John's house floor. (See Archceol. xxix. 39.) Day. 26 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. a strong prejudice prevailed against beginning anything of moment on that day. 1 If this belief existed already in the time of the Confessor, the selection of the day is a proof of the haste with which the dedication was pushed forward. It is, at any rate, an instance of a most auspicious work begun (if so be) on the most inauspicious day of the year. The signatures which follow the King's acquire a tragic interest in the light of the events of the next few months. Edith the Queen, her brothers Harold and Gurth, Stigand and Aldred, the two rival primates, are the most conspicuous. They, as the King's illness grew upon him, took his place at the conse- cration. He himself had arranged the ornaments, gifts, and relics ; 2 but the Queen presided at the ceremony 3 (she is queen, as he is king, both in church 4 and in palace) ; and the walls of Westminster Abbey, then white and fresh from the workman's tools, received from Stigand their first consecration the first which, according to the legend of St. Peter's visit, had ever been given to the spot by mortal hands. By that effort the enfeebled frame and overstrained spirit of the King were worn out. On the evening of Innocents' Day he sank into a deep stupor and was laid in the chamber in Westminster Palace which long afterwards bore his name. On the third December day, a startling rally took place. His voice again sounded loud and clear ; his face resumed its bright- ness. But it was the rally of delirium. A few incoherent sentences broke from his lips. He described how in his trance he had seen two holy monks whom he remembered in Normandy, and how they foretold to him the coming disasters, which should only be ended when ' the green tree, after severance ' from its trunk and removal to the distance of three acres, ' should return to its parent stem, and again bear leaf and ' fruit and flower.' The Queen was sitting on the ground, fondling his cold feet in her lap. 5 Beside her stood her brother Harold, Eodbert the keeper of the palace, and others who had been called in by Edward's revival. They were all terror- struck. Archbishop Stigand alone had the courage to whisper 1 Hone's Everyday Book, i. 1648. of her assumption (which is also shown See Chapter II. in the Batopsedi Convent of Mount - For the relics, see Dart, i. 37. Athos), and the cross which came over They consisted of the usual extra- sea, against winds and waves, with the ordinary fragments of the dresses, etc., Confessor from Normandy, of the most sacred personages. The 3 Ailred, c. 399. most remarkable were the girdle dropt * Cambridge Life, 3655. by the Virgin to convince St. Thomas * Harleian Life, 1480-90. CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 27 into Harold's ear that the aged King was doting. The others carefully l caught his words ; and the courtly poet of the next century rejoiced to trace in ' the three acres ' the reigns of the three illegitimate kings who followed ; and in the resuscitation of ' the parent tree,' the marriage of the First Henry with the Saxon Maud, and their ultimate issue in the Third Henry. 2 Then followed a calm, and on the fifth day afterwards, with words variously reported, respecting the Queen, Death the succession, and the ' hope that he was passing coniewor, ' from the land of the dead to the land of the living,' he breathed his last ; and ' St. Peter, his friend, ' opened the gate of Paradise, and St. John, his own dear one, ' led him before the Divine Majesty.' A horror, it is described, of great darkness filled the whole island. With him, the last lineal descendant of Cerdic, it seemed as if the happiness, the strength, the liberty of the English people had vanished away. 3 So gloomy were the fore- His buriai bodings, so urgent the dangers which seemed to press, Jan - 6 - that on the very next day (Friday, 4 the Festival of the Epiphany), took place at once his own funeral and the coronation of his successor. We must reserve the other event of that memorable day the coronation of Harold for the next chapter, and follow the Confessor to his grave. The body, as it lay in the palace, seemed for a moment to recover its lifelike expression. The unearthly smile played once more over the rosy cheeks, the white beard beneath seemed whiter, and the thin stretched-out fingers paler and more transparent than ever. 5 As usual in the funerals of all our earlier sovereigns, he was attired in his royal habiliments : his crown upon his head ; a crucifix 6 of gold, with a golden chain round his neck ; the pilgrim's ring on his hand. Crowds flocked from all the neighbouring villages. The prelates and magnates assisted, and the body was laid before the high altar. Thrice at least it has since been identified : once when, in the curiosity to know whether it still remained uncorrupt, the grave was opened by order of Henry L, in the presence of Bishop Gundulf, who plucked out a 1 Cambridge Life, 3714-85. cester, and the Cambridge Life it is 2 Ibid. 3934. See Chapter III. January 4. 3 Ailred, c. 402. Saxon Chronicle, 5 Harleian Life, 1590. Ailred, c. A.D. 1066. 402. 4 The usual date of his death is * Taylor's Narrative of the Finding January 5. In Fabian, Robert of Glou- of the Crucifix in 1688, p. 12. 28 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. hair from the long white beard ; l again when, on its ' trans - iiea. ' lation ' by Henry II., the ring was withdrawn ; and 1269. again at its final removal to its present position by Henry III. It must probably also have been seen both during lass. its disturbance by Henry VIII., and its replacement 1557. by Mary ; and for a moment the interior of the coffin less. was disclosed, when a rafter broke in upon it after the coronation of James II. 2 The crucifix and ring were given to the King. In the centre of Westminster Abbey thus lies its Founder, and such is the story of its foundation. Even apart from the Effects of legendary elements in which it is involved, it is im- r^r^n possible not to be struck by the fantastic character of aation. uu " all its circumstances. We seem to be in a world of poetry. Edward is four centuries later than Ethelbert and Augustine; but the origin of Canterbury is commonplace and prosaic compared with the origin of Westminster. We can hardly imagine a figure more incongruous to the soberness of later times than the quaint, irresolute, wayward Prince whose chief characteristics have been just described. His titles of Confessor and Saint belong not to the general instincts of Christendom, but to the most transitory feelings of the age the savage struggles between Saxon and Dane, the worldly policy of Norman rulers, the lingering regrets of Saxon sub- jects. His opinions, his prevailing motives, were such as in no part of modern Europe would now be shared by any educated 1 Ailred, c. 408. Pepys (Letters in Camdcn Society, No. * Shortly after the coronation of Ixxxviii. p. 211), and of Patrick, who James II., in removing the scaffold, the was prebendary of Westminster at the coffin in which it was enclosed ' was time. ' The workmen,' he says, ' chanced ' found to be broke,' and ' Charles ' to have a look at the tomb of Edward ' Taylor, Gent,' ' put his hand into the ' the Confessor, so that they could see ' hole, and turning the bones, which he ' the shroud in which his body was ' felt there, drew from underneath the ' wrapped, which was a mixed coloured ' shoulder- bones ' a crucifix and gold ' silk very frail.' In the original MS. chain, which he showed to Sancioft, of Patrick's autobiography, a small Dugdale, and finally to the King, who piece of stuff less than an inch square, took possession of it, and had the coffin answering this description, is pinned to closed. It was remarked as an omen the paper, evidently as a specimen of that the relics were discovered on June the shroud. ' It appears to be a woven 11, the day of Monmouth's landing, fabric of black and yellow silk.' and given to the King on July 6, the (Patrick, ix. 560.) The gold crucifix day of his victory at bedgmoor. (Tay- and ring are said to have been on lor's Narrative, p. 16.) The story is James's person when he was rifled by doubted by trough (Sepulchral Monu- the Faversharn fishermen in 1688, and ments, ii. 7), but is strongly confirmed to have been then taken from him. by the positive assertion of James II. (Thoresby's Diary.) to Evelyn (Memoirs, iii. 177), and to CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 29 teacher or ruler. But in spite of these irreconcilable differences, there was a solid ground for the charm which he exercised over his contemporaries. His childish and eccentric fancies have passed away; but his innocent faith and his sympathy with his people are qualities which, even in our altered times, may still retain their place in the economy of the world. Westminster Abbey, so we hear it said, sometimes with a cynical sneer, sometimes with a timorous scruple, has admitted within its walls many who have been great without being good, noble with a nobleness of the earth earthy, worldly with the wisdom of this world. But it is a counterbalancing reflection, that the central tomb, round which all those famous names have clustered, contains the ashes of one who, weak and erring as he was, rests his claims of interment here not on any act of power or fame, but only on his artless piety and simple good- ness. He towards whose dust was attracted the fierce Norman, and the proud Plantagenet, and the grasping Tudor, and the fickle Stuart, even the Independent Oliver, 1 the Dutch William, and the Hanoverian George was one whose humble graces are within the reach of every man, woman, and child of every time, if we rightly part the immortal substance from the perishable form. Secondly, the foundation of the Abbey and the character of its Founder, consciously or unconsciously, inaugurated the connection greatest change which, with one exception, the English conquest, nation has witnessed from that time till this. Not in vain had the slumbers of the Seven Sleepers been disturbed ; nor in vain the ghosts of the two Norman monks haunted the Confessor's deathbed, with their dismal warnings ; nor in vain the comet appeared above the Abbey, towards which, in the Bayeux Tapestry, every eye is strained, and every finger pointing. The Abbey itself the chief work of the Confessor's life, the last relic of the Royal House of Cerdic was the shadow cast before the coming event, the portent of the mighty future. When Harold stood by the side of his brother Gurth and his sister Edith on the day of the dedication, and signed (if so be) his name with theirs as witness to the Charter of the Abbey, he might have seen that he was sealing his own doom, and preparing for his own destruction. The solid pillars, the ponderous arches, the huge edifice, with triple tower- and sculp- 1 Both Cromwell (see Marvell's poem Chapter III.) were compared to the on his funeral) and George II. (see Confessor on their deaths. 30 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTEE ABBEY. CHAP. i. tured stones and storied windows, that arose in the place and in the midst of the humble wooden churches and wattled tenements of the Saxon period, might have warned the nobles who were present that the days of their rule were numbered, and that the avenging, civilising, stimulating hand of another and a mightier race was at work, which would change the whole face of their language, their manners, their church, and their commonwealth. The Abbey, so far exceeding the demands of the dull and stagnant minds of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, was founded not only in faith but in hope : in the hope that England had yet a glorious career to run : that the line of her sovereigns would not be broken even when the race of Alfred ceased to reign ; that the troubles which the Confessor saw, in prophetic vision, darkening the whole horizon of Europe, would give way before a brighter day than he, or any living man, in the gloom of that disastrous winter and of that boisterous age, could venture to anticipate. The Norman church erected by the Saxon king the new future springing out of the dying past the institution, founded for a special and transitory purpose, expanding, till it was co-extensive with the interests of the whole commonwealth through all its stages are standing monuments of the continuity by which in England the new 7 has been ever intertwined with the old ; liberty thriving side by side with precedent, the days of the English Church and State ' linked ' each to each ' by natural piety.' Again, it may be almost said that the Abbey has risen and fallen in proportion to the growth of the strong English instinct connection of which, in spite of his Norman tendencies, Edward was the representative. The first miracle believed to tion!" 1 ' have been wrought at his tomb exemplifies, as in a parable, the rooted characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon basis of the monarchy. When, after the revolution of the Norman Con- c'e of quest, a French and foreign hierarchy was substituted ' / ,. . . . , for the native prelates, one Saxon bishop alone re- mained Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester. A Council was summoned to Westminster, over which the Norman king and the Norman primate presided, and Wulfstan was declared in- capable of holding his office because he could not speak French. 1 The old man, down to this moment compliant even to excess, was inspired with unusual energy. He walked from St. 1 M. Paris, 20; Ann. Burt., A.D. 1211 ; Knyghton, c. 23C8 (Thierry, ii. 224). WulMau's CHAP. i. EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 31 Catherine's Chapel ' straight into the Abbey. The King and the prelates followed. He laid his pastoral staff on the Con- fessor's tomb before the high altar. First he spoke in Saxon to the dead King: 'Edward, thou gavest me the staff; to thee ' I return it.' Then, with the few Norman words that he could command, he turned to the living King : ' A better than thou ' gave it to me take it if thou canst.' 2 It remained fixed in the solid stone, 3 and Wulfstan was left at peace in his see. Long afterwards, King John, in arguing for the supremacy of the Crown of England in matters ecclesiastical, urged this story at length in answer to the claims of the Papal Legate. Pandulf answered, with a sneer, that John was more like the Conqueror than the Confessor. 4 But, in fact, John had rightly discerned the principle at stake, and the legend expressed the deep-seated feeling of the English people, that in the English Crown and Law lies the true safeguard of the rights of the English clergy. Edward the Confessor's tomb thus, like the Abbey which incases it, contains an aspect of the complex union of Church and State of which all English history is a practical fulfilment. In the earliest and nearly the only representation which exists of the Confessor's building that in the Bayeux Tapestry there is the figure of a man on the roof, with one hand resting on the tower of the Palace of Westminster, and with the other grasping the weathercock of the Abbey. The probable inten- tion of this figure is to indicate the close contiguity of the two buildings. If so, it is the natural architectural expression of a truth valuable everywhere, but especially dear to Englishmen. The close incorporation of the Palace and the Abbey from its earliest days is a likeness of the whole English Constitution a combination of things sacred and things common a union of the regal, legal, lay element of the nation with its religious, clerical, ecclesiastical tendencies, such as can be found hardly elsewhere in Christendom. The Abbey is secular because it is sacred, and sacred because it is secular. It is secular in the common English sense, because it is ' ssecular ' in the far higher French and Latin sense : a ' saecular ' edifice, a ' saecular ' insti- tution an edifice and an institution which has grown with the growth of ages, which has been furrowed with the scars and cares of each succeeding century. 1 There, doubtless, the Council must 3 Brompton, c. 576 ; M. Paris, 21 have been held. See Chapter V. Yit. Alb. 3. - Knyghton, c. 2368. 4 Ann. Burt. A.D. 1211. 32 FOUNDATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. CHAP. i. A million wrinkles carve its skin ; A thousand winters snow'd upon its breast, From cheek, and throat, and chin. The vast political pageants of which it has been the theatre, the dust of the most worldly laid side by side with the dust of the most saintly, the wrangles of divines or statesmen which have disturbed its sacred peace, the clash of arms which has pursued fugitive warriors and princes into the shades of its sanctuary even the traces of Westminster boys, who have played in its cloisters and inscribed their names on its walls belong to the story of the Abbey no less than its venerable beauty, its solemn services, and its lofty aspirations. Go else- where for your smooth polished buildings, your purely ecclesi- astical places of worship : go to the creations of yesterday the modern basilica, the restored church, the nonconformist taber- nacle. But it is this union of secular with ecclesiastical gran- deur in Westminster Abbey which constitutes its special de- light. It is this union which has made the Abbey the seat of the imperial throne, the sepulchre of kings and kinglike men, the home of the English nation, where for the moment all Englishmen may forget their differences, and feel as one family gathered round the same Christmas hearth, finding underneath its roof, each, of whatever church or sect or party, echoes of some memories dear to himself alone some dear to all alike all blending with a manifold yet harmonious 'voice from ' Heaven,' which is as ' the voice of many waters ' of ages past. To draw out those memories will be the object of the fol- lowing Chapters. FROM THE BATEUX TAPESTRY. CHAPTEK II. THE CORONATIONS. THE QUEEN sitting in King' Edward's Chair, the Archbishop, assisted with the same Archbishops and Bishops as before, comes from the Altar : the Dean of Westminster brings the Crown, and the Archbishop, taking it of him, reverently putteth it upon the Queen's head. At the sight whereof the people, with loud and repeated shouts, cry ' God save the Queen ! ' and the trumpets sound, and, by a signal given, the great guns at the Tower are shot off. As soon as the Queen is crowned, the Peers put on their coronets and caps. The acclamation ceasing, the Archbishop goeth on and saith : ' Be strong and of a good courage. Observe ' the commandments of God, and walk in his Holy ways. Fight the good fight of ' faith, and lay hold on eternal life : that in this world you may be crowned with ' success and honour, and, when you have finished your course, receive a crown of ' righteousness, which God the righteous Judge shall give you in that day.' (Rubric of Coronation Service, p. 40.) 1 ' St. Edward's Chair ' (in Charles II.'s Coronation) ; ' King Edward's Chair ' (in James II.'s Coronation, and afterwards). SPECIAL AUTHORITIES. THE special authorities for each Coronation are contained in the various Chronicles of each reign. On the general ceremonial the chief works are 1. Maskell's Monuments, Ritualia Ecclesia Anglicana, vol. iii. 2. Selden's Titles of Honour. 3. Martene's De Antiq^uis Ecclesice Ritibus. 4. The Liber Regalis of Richard II., in the custody of the Dean of West- minster. 5. Ogilvy's Coronation of Charles II. 6. Sandford's Coronation of James II. 1. Taylor's Glory of Regality (published for the Coronation of George IV.). 8. Chapters on Coronations (published for the Coronation of Queen Victoria). 9. The Coronation Services for Edward VI. to the present time, preserved in the Lambeth Library. 10. MS. Records in the Heralds' College. 34 THE CORONATIONS. CHAPTEE II. THE CORONATIONS. THE Church of the Confessor was, as we have seen, the pre- cursor of the Conquest. The first event in the Abbey of which The corona- there is any certain record, after the burial of the Confessor, is one which, like the Conquest, arose im- \V illittni tu f conqueror, mediately out of that burial, and has affected its fortunes ever since. It was the Coronation of William the Conqueror. No other coronation-rite in Europe reaches back to so early a period as that of the sovereigns of Britain. The inauguration of Aidan by Columba is the oldest in Christendom. 1 The rite of coronation. From the Anglo-Saxon order of the Coronation of Egbert 2 was derived the ancient form of the coronations of the Kings of France. Even the promise not ' to desert the throne ' of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians ' was left un- altered in the inauguration of the Capetian Kings at Reims. 3 But, in order to appreciate the historic importance of the English coronations, we must for a moment consider the original idea of the whole institution. Only in two countries does the rite of coronation retain its full primitive savour. In Hungary, the Crown of St. Stephen still invests the sovereign with a national position ; and in Eussia, the coronation of the Czars in the Kremlin at Moscow is an event rather than a cere- mony. But this sentiment once pervaded the whole of mediaeval Christendom, of which the history was, in fact, inaugurated through the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III., in the year 800. The rite represented the two opposite aspects of 1 A.D. 571. (Martene, De Antiquis 2 MaskelTs Monuments, Ritualia, Ecclesia Ritibus, ii. 213.) It was per- iii. p. Ixxvii. The form of the Coro- formed by a benediction and imposi- nation of Ethelred II. is given in tion of hands at the command, it was Turner's Anglo-Saxons, ii. 172. said, and under the lash of an angel, * See Selden's Titles of Honour, who appeared in a vision to Columba. pp. 177, 189 ; Maskell, iii. p. xiv. (Reeves' Adamnan, 197-199.) CHAP. ii. THEIK SACRED CHARACTER. 35 European monarchy. On the one hand, it was a continuation its elective ^ the old German usage of popular election, and of character, ^he pledge given by the sovereign to preserve the rights of his people in part, perhaps, of the election of the Eoman Emperors by the Imperial Guard. 1 Of this aspect two traces still remain : the recognition of the Sovereign at the demand of the Archbishop, and the Coronation oath imposed as a guarantee of the popular and legal rights of the subjects. its sacred ^ n ^ ne other hand, partly as a means of resisting the character, claims of the electors, it was a solemn consecration by the hands of an abbot 2 or a bishop. The unction with the gift of a crown, suggested doubtless by the ceremonies observed in the case of some of the Jewish kings, 3 was unknown in the older Empire. It first began 4 with Charlemagne. 5 The sacred oil was believed to convey to the sovereign a spiritual jurisdic- tion 6 and inalienable sanctity : Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king. A white coif was left on his head seven days, to allow the oil to settle into its place, and was then solemnly taken off. 7 This unction was believed to be the foundation of the title, reaching back to the days of King Ina, of ' Dei Gratia.' 8 By its virtue every consecrated king was admitted a canon of some cathedral church. 9 They were clothed for the moment in the garb of bishops. 10 The ' Veni Creator Spiritus ' was sung over them as over bishops. At first five sovereigns alone received the full consecration the Emperor, 11 and the Kings of France, England, Jerusalem, and Sicily. And, though this sacred circle was 1 The Earls Palatine in England oil might flow freely over his person, wore the sword to show that they had (Hoveden, A.D. 1189. Roger of Wen- authority to correct the King. (Holin- dover, ibid. ; Grafton, Cont. of Har- shed, A.D. 1236.) dyng, p. 517 ; Maskell, iii. p. xv.) 2 The benediction of the Abbot 5 Selden's Titles of Honour, p. 237. rather than the Bishop prevailed in 6 33 Edward III. 103. the Celtic tribes both of Ireland and ' Maskell, iii. p. xxi. Scotland. (See Reeves' Adamnan, 199.) 8 Ibid. p. xiii. 3 See Lectures on the History of the 9 Ibid. p. xvi. Jewish Church, ii. 18, 48, 331, 397. 10 Taylor, p. 81. ' . . . . Lyke as a 4 Charlemagne is described as hav- ' Bysshop shuld say masse, with a dal- ing been anointed from head to foot. ' niatyk and a stole about his necke. (Martene, ii. 204.) In like manner, ' And also as hosyn and shone and in English history, on more than one ' copys and gloves lyke a bysshop. . . .' occasion the King is described as hav- (Maskell, iii. p. liii, speaking of Henry ing been stripped from the waist up- VI.'s coronation.) wards, in the presence of the whole " Taylor, p. 37. congregation, in order that the sacred D 2 36 THE COKONATIONS OF CHAP. n. constantly enlarged by the ambition of the lesser princes, and at last included almost all, the older sovereigns long retained a kind of peculiar dignity. 1 A King, therefore, without a coronation was regarded almost as, by strict ecclesiologists, a bishop-elect would be regarded before his consecration, or a nonconformist minister without episcopal ordination. 2 Hence the political importance of the scenes which we shall have to describe. Hence the haste (the indecent haste, as it seems to modern feeling) with which the new king seized the crown, sometimes before the dead king was buried. Hence the appointment of the high state officer, who acted as viceroy between the demise of one sovereign and the inauguration of another, and whose duty it was, as it still is in form, to preside at the coronations the Lord High Steward, the ' Steadward,' or ' Ward of the King's Stead or ' Place.' Hence the care with which the chroniclers note the good or evil omen of the exact day on which the coronation took place. Hence the sharp contests which raged between the ecclesiastics who claimed the right of sharing in the ceremony. Hence, lastly, the dignity of the place where the act was per- formed. The traditionary spot of the first coronation of a British sovereign is worthy of the romantic legend which enshrines The scene of his name. Arthur was crowned at Stonehenge, 3 which the English coronations, had been transported by Merlin for the purpose to Salisbury Plafn from Naas in Leinster. Of the Saxon Kings, seven, from Edward the Elder to Ethelred (A.D. 900-971), were crowned on the King's Stone 4 by the first ford of the Thames. The Danish Hardicanute was believed to have been crowned at Oxford. But the selection of a church as the usual scene of the rite naturally followed from its religious character. A throng of bishops always attended. The celebration of the Communion 1 What marks the more than cere- the ninth century, by the crimes of monial character of the act is the dis- Eadburga, but Judith, Queen of Ethel- tinction drawn between the coronation wulf, regained it. (Maskell, iii. p. xxiv.) of the actual sovereigns and their 2 Many Bretons maintained that consorts. The Queens of France were Louis Philippe, not having been crowned, not at Reims, but at St. crowned, had no more right to exercise Denys (Taylor, p. 50). Of the Queens- the right of royalty than a priest not Consort of England, out of seventeen ordained could exercise the sacerdotal since the time of Henry VIII., only six functions. (Eenan, Questions Contem- have been crowned (Argument of the poraines, 434.) Attorney - General before the Privy Eishanger, Annals, p. 425 ; Gi- Council, July 7, 1821, in the case of raldus Cambrcnsis, Dist. ii. 18. Queen Caroline). The Anglo-Saxon 4 Still to be seen in the market- Queens were deprived of the right in place of Kingston-on-Thames. THE SAXON KINGS. 37 Coronation always formed part of it. 1 The day, if possible, was Sunday, or some high festival. 2 The general seat of the Saxon corona- tions, accordingly, was the sanctuary of the House of Cerdic the cathedral of Winchester. When they were crowned in London it was at St. Paul's. There at least was the coronation of Canute, It is doubtful whether Harold was crowned at St. Paul's, 3 or Westminster. 4 From the urgent necessity of the crisis, the ceremony took place on the same day as the Con- fessor's funeral. All was haste and confusion. Stigand, the last Saxon primate, was present. 5 But it would seem that Harold placed the crown on his own head. 6 1. The coronation of Duke William in the Abbey is, how- ever, undoubted. Whether the right of the Abbey to the coro- nation of the sovereigns entered into the Confessor's designs depends on the genuineness of his Charters, qneror. g u ^ j n anv case> "William's selection of this spot for the most important act of his life sprang directly from regard to the Confessor's memory. To be crowned beside the grave of the last hereditary Saxon king, was the direct fulfilment of the whole plan of the Conqueror, or ' Conquestor ; ' that is, the inheritor, 7 not by victory but by right, of the throne of 'his ' predecessor King Edward.' 8 The time was to be Christmas Day 9 doubtless because on that high festival, as on the other two of Easter and Whitsun- Monday, tide, the Anglo-Saxon kings had appeared in state, re- 1U66. ' enacting, as it were, their original coronations. ' Two nations were indeed in the womb ' of the Abbey on that day. Within the massive freshly-erected walls was the Saxon populace of London, intermixed with the retainers of the Norman camp and court. Outside sate the Norman soldiers on their war-horses eagerly watching for any disturbance in the interior. The royal workmen had been sent into London a few 1 Maskell, iii. p. xxxix. The break- ing of the fast immediately after the Communion, was in the retiring-place by St. Edward's Shrine in the Abbey. (Ibid. p. Ivi.) 2 Liber Begalis ; Maskell, iii. p. Ixiv. ' A Peace of God ' succeeded for eight days. (Ibid. p. Ixvi.) 3 Brompton, c. 958 ; Eishanger's Annals, p. 427. William of Malmes- bury (De Gest. Pont. ii. 1) implies that the Conqueror's coronation was the first that took place in the Abbey. * Rclatio de Origins Will. Conq. p. 4. (Giles, Script. Her. Gest. Will. Conq. 1815.) 5 Bayeux Tapestry. Brompton, c. 958 ; Rishanger's Annals, p. 427; Matthew of West- minster, p. 221. 7 The Bayeux Tapestry is devoted to the proof of this right. 8 Charter of Battle Abbey. 9 Midwinter Day. (Baine's Arch- bishops of York, i. 144.) It was also the day of Charlemagne's coronation. 38 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. days before, to construct the mighty fortress of the Tower, which henceforth was to overawe the city. 1 Before the high altar, standing on the very gravestone of Edward, was the fierce, huge, unwieldy William, the exact contrast of the sensitive transparent King who lay beneath his feet. On either side stood an Anglo-Saxon and a Norman prelate. The Norman was Godfrey, Bishop of Coutances ; the Saxon was Aldred, Archbishop of York, holding in his own hand the golden crown, of Byzantine workmanship, wrought by Guy of Amiens. Stigand of Canterbury, the natural depositary of the rite of Coronation, had fled to Scotland. Aldred, with that worldly prudence which characterised his career, was there, making the most of the new opportunity, and thus established over "William an influence which no other ecclesiastic of the time, not even Hildebrand, was able to gain. 2 The moment arrived for the ancient form of popular election. The Norman prelate was to address in French those who could not speak English ; the Saxon primate was to address in English those who could not speak French. A confused acclamation arose from the mixed multitude. The Norman cavalry without, hearing but not understanding this peculiarity of the Saxon institution, took alarm, and set fire to the gates of the Abbey, and perhaps the thatched dwellings which surrounded it. 3 The crowd nobles and poor, men and women alarmed in their turn, rushed out. The prelates and monks were left alone with William in the church, and in the solitude of that wintry day, amidst the cries of his new subjects, trampled down by the horses' hoofs of their conquerors, he himself, for the first time in his life, trembling from head to foot, the remainder of the ceremony was hurried on. Aldred, in the name of the Saxons, exacted from him the oath to protect them before he would put the crown on his head. 4 Thus ended the first undoubted West- minster coronation. William kept up the remembrance of it, according to the Saxon custom, by a yearly solemn appearance, 1 William of Poitiers, A.D. 1066. away, but he persisted, and would not 2 See Chapter I. An instance of leave the place without a full apology, this occurred in the Abbey a few (Stubbs, c. 1703-4 ; Brompton, c. 962.) years later. Aldred came up to Lon- See also, for a different account, don to remonstrate with William for William of Malmesbury, De Gest. a plundering expedition in Yorkshire. Pont. p. 271. He found the King in the Abbey, and 3 Ord. Vit. A.D. 1065 ; William of attacked him publicly. The King fell Malmesbury, p. 184 ; Palgrave's Nor- at his feet, trembling. The officers of mandy, iii. 379. the court tried to push the Archbishop 4 Saxon Chronicle (A.D. 1066). CHAP. ii. THE NORMAN KINGS. 39 with the crown on his head, at the chief festivals. But, perhaps from the recollection of this disastrous beginning, the Christmas coronation was not at Westminster, but at Worcester; Easter was still celebrated at the old Saxon capital of Winchester; and Whitsuntide only was observed in London, but whether at St. Paul's or the Abbey is not stated. 1 From this time forward the ceremony of the coronation has been inalienably attached to the Abbey. Its connection with The con- the g rave of the Confessor was long preserved, even in the'conmL ^ s mmu test forms. The Eegalia were strictly Anglo- thTlbtey Saxon, by their traditional names : the crown of The Regaiia Alfred or f St. Edward for the King, 2 the crown of with n the cte( * Edith, wife of the Confessor, for the Queen. The confessor, sceptre with the dove was the reminiscence of Edward's peaceful days after the expulsion of the Danes. The gloves were a perpetual reminder of his abolition of the Dane- gelt a token that the King's hands should be moderate in taking taxes. 3 The ring with which as the Doge to the Adriatic, so the king to his people was wedded, was the ring of the pilgrim. 4 The Coronation robe of Edward was solemnly exhibited in the Abbey twice a year, at Christmas and on the festival of its patron saints, 5 St. Peter and St. Paul. The * great stone chalice,' which was borne by the Chancellor to the altar, and out of which the Abbot of Westminster administered the sacramental wine, was believed to have been prized at a high sum ' in Saint Edward's days.' 6 If after the anointing the King's hair was not smooth, there was ' King Edward's ' ivory comb for that end.' 7 The form of the oath, retained till the time of James II., was to observe ' the laws of the glorious ' Confessor.' 8 A copy of the Gospels, purporting to have be- longed to Athelstane, was the book which was handed down as that on which, for centuries, the coronation-oath had been taken. 9 On the arras hung round the choir, at least from the thirteenth century, was the representation of the ceremony, 10 with words which remind us of the analogous inscription in St. John Lateran, expressive of the peculiar privileges of the place 1 Rudbourne (Anglia Sacra, i. 259). s Ware's Consuetudincs. 7 Spelman's History of Alfred. * Maskell, iii. p. Ixx. (Planche's Royal Records, p. 64.) 7 State Papers, Feb. 2, 1625-26. 3 The ' orb ' appears in the Bayeux * Taylor, 85. Tapestry. 9 Gent. Mag. 1838, p. 471. 4 Planch^, p. 85 ; Mill's Catalogue lo Weever, p. 45. of Honours, p. 86 ; Fuller, ii. 16, 26. 40 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. Hanc regum sedem, ubi Petrus consecrat aedem, Quain tu, Papa, regis ; l inungit et unctio regis. The Church of Westminster was called, in consequence, 'the ' head, crown, and diadem of the kingdom.' 2 The Eegalia were kept in the Treasury of Westminster en- tirely till the time of Henry VIIL, and the larger part till the time of the Commonwealth, when (in 1642) they were broken to pieces. 3 But the new Eegalia, after the Eestoration, were still called by the same names ; and, though permanently kept in the Tower, are still, by a shadowy connection with the past, placed under the custody of the Dean before each coronation. The Abbot of Westminster was the authorised instructor to prepare each new King for the solemnities of the coronation, Thecoro- as ^ ^ or confirmation; visiting him two days before, privaeges * i n ^ orm him of the observances, and to warn him to AbbJftsand 8 h r i ye an d cleanse his conscience before the holy anointing. 4 If he was ill, the Prior (as now the Sub- dean) took his place. 5 He was also charged with the singular office of administering the chalice to the King and Queen, as a sign of their conjugal unity, after their reception of the sacrament from the Archbishop. 6 The Convent on that day was to be provided, at the royal expense, with ' 100 ' simnals (that is, cakes) of the best bread, a gallon of wine, 4 and as many fish as become the royal dignity.' These privileges have, so far as altered times allow, de- scended to the Protestant Deans. The Dean and Canons of Westminster, alone of the clergy of England, stand by the side of the Prelates. On them, and not on the Bishops, devolves the duty, if such there be, of consecrating the sacred oil. 7 The Dean has still the charge of the ' Liber Regalis,' containing the ancient Order of the Service. It is still his duty to direct the sovereign in the details of the Service. Even the assent of the people of England to the election of the sovereign has found its 1 Alluding to its exemption from 6 Ibid. ; Maskell, iii. p. xlv. the jurisdiction of the see of London. 7 Maskell, iii. p. xxii. See Sand- See Chapter V. ford's account of the Coronation of 2 Liber Regalis ; Maskell, iii. p. James II. p. 91. In Charles I.'s time xlvii. the King's physicians prepared it ; and * Taylor, p. 94 ; see Chapters V. and Laud (who was at that time Bishop of VI. St. David's as well as Prebendary of 4 Ibid., p. 134 ; Liber Regalis ; Westminster) ' hollowed ' it on the Maskell, p. Ixvi. high altar. (State Papers, Feb. 2, * Liber Regalis. 1625-6.) CHAP. ii. THE NORMAN KINGS. 41 voice, in modern days, through the shouts of the Westminster scholars, from their recognised seats in the Abbey. 1 If by the circumstances of the Conqueror's accession the Abbey was selected as the perpetual place of the coronations, so by the same circumstances it became subject to the one intrusion into its peculiar privileges. It was now that the ecclesiastical minister of the coronation was permanently fixed. Neither the Abbot of Westminster nor (as might have been ex- pected from his share in the first coronation) the Archbishop of York could maintain his ground against the overwhelming The right of influence of the first Norman primate. Lanfranc buhtpsof pointed out to William, that if the Archbishops of canterbury. York were allowed to confer the crown, they might be tempted to give it to some Scot or Dane, elected by the rebel Saxons of the north ; 2 and that to avoid this danger, they should be for ever excluded from the privilege which belonged to Canterbury only. In the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the privilege was to belong, not to York, but to London. 3 From that time, accordingly, with three exceptions, the Primate of Canterbury has been always the chief ecclesi- astic at the coronations. 4 On that occasion, only, these prelates take their places, as by right, in the Choir of the Abbey ; and coronation the Archbishop of York has been obliged to remain WMteun- content with the inferior and accidental office of n,io67.' crowning the Queen-Consort, which had been per- formed by Aldrad for Queen Matilda two years after the Conqueror's coronation. 5 2. The arrangement of Lanfranc immediately came into coronation operation. William Eufus whose fancy for West- Eufos! ham minster manifested itself in the magnificent Hall, September which was to be but as a bedchamber to the 'New 26,1087. Palace,' meditated by him in the future 6 naturally 1 Sandford's James II., p. 83 .; Mas- rests on the theory that the Kings and kell, iii. pp. xlvii, xlviii. Queens are always parishioners of the : Eadmer, c. 3 ; Lanfranc, 306, 378 ; see of Canterbury : hence the protest Stubbs, c. 1706 (Thierry, ii. 145) .; Hugh of the nobles against the claim of the Sotevagine (Eaine, i. 147). Bishop of Salisbury to marry Henry I., 3 Eudbourne (Anglia Sacra, i. 248). on the ground that the castle of 4 But by 1 W. and M. c. 6 it is now Windsor was in the diocese of Salis- enacted ' that the coronation may be bury. (Maskell, iii. p. Ixii.) ' performed by the Archbishop of Can- 3 Eaine, i. 144 ; Saxon Chronicle, 1 terbury or the Archbishop of York, A.D. 1067. ' or either of them, or any other bishop 6 Lain6 (Archives de la Noblesse do ' whom the King's Majesty shall ,ap- France, v. 57) says Turlogh O'Brian, ' point.' The claim of the Archbishop King of Ireland, presented William of Canterbury to marry royal personages Eufus with Irish oak for the roof of 42 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. followed the precedent of his father's coronation in the Abbey ; and as the Norman Godfrey and the Saxon Aldred had lent their joint sanction to the Conqueror's coronation, so his own was inaugurated by the presence of the first Norman primate, with the one remaining Saxon bishop Wulfstan. 1 3. The coronation of Henry I. illustrates the importance attached to the act. He lost not a moment. Within four coronation days of his brother's death in the New Forest, he was of Henry i. j n Westminster Abbey, claiming the election of the nobles and the consecration of the prelates. 2 'At that time Aug. 5, ' the present providing of good swords was accounted Eleventh more essential to a king's coronation than the long Sunday after , ,, Trinity. 'preparing of gay clothes. Such preparatory pomp Oswald.' ' < as was used in after-ages for the ceremony was now 'conceived not only useless but dangerous, speed being safest * to supply the vacancy of the throne.' 4 Anselm, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, was absent ; and here, therefore, Lan- franc's provision was adopted, and Maurice, Bishop of London, acted in his stead. Thomas, Archbishop of York, who had made a desperate effort to recover the lost privileges of his see at Anselm's consecration, was at Bipon when the tidings of William's death reached him. He, like Henry, but for a dif- ferent reason, hurried up to London. But Winchester was nearer than Eipon, and the King was already crowned. 5 The disappointment of the northern Primate was met by various palliatives. The King and the prelates pleaded haste. Some of the chroniclers represent that he joined in the ceremony, giving the crown after Maurice had given the unction. 6 But in fact the privilege was gone. The compact between Henry and the electors was more marked than in any previous Norman coronation. He promised everything, except the one thing which he declared that he could not do, namely, to give up the forests of game which he the Abbey of Westminster. But this * Palgrave's Normandy, iv. 688. is probably a confusion for the Palace 4 Fuller, iii. 1, 41. of Westminster. (See MacGeoghan's Hugh the Cantor. (Eaine, i. 153.) Histoire d'lrlande, i. 426.) The oak Rudbourne (Anglia Sacra, i. 273) ; is from the oak woods of Shillela, Diceto, c. 498; Chronicle of Peter- which stood till 1760. (Young's borough (Giles), p. 69 ; Walsingham Travels in Ireland, i. 125.) (Hypodigma Neustrise, p. 443). Eaine, 1 Rudbourne (Anglia Sacra, i. 263). Ordericus Vitalis (book x. i. 153), ac- 2 Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 1100; Flo- counts for his absence by supposing him rence of Worcester, ii. 46 ; Malmes- to have died before. bury, v. ; Brompton, c. 997. CHAP. ii. THE NOKMAN KINGS. 43 had received from his father. 1 A yet more important corona- tion than his own, in the eyes of the Saxon population, was that of his wife Matilda. ' Never since the Battle of Hastings ' had there been such a joyous day as when Queen Maude, the coronation ' descendant of Alfred, was crowned in the Abbey and st. Martin's ' feasted in the Great Hall.' 2 The ceremony was per- io?iioo. T ' formed, according to some, 3 by Anselm ; according to others, by Gerard, 4 at that time Bishop of Hereford, but on the very eve of mounting the throne of York. Either from his timely presence at the coronation of Henry, or from a confusion with this coronation, he was believed to have crowned the King himself, and as a reward for his services to have claimed the next archbishopric. When the vacancy occurred at the end of the year, Henry tried, it was said, to buy him off by offering to make the income of Hereford equal to that of the Primates, and its rank to that of Durham. But Gerard held the King to his word, and became the rival often the successful rival of Anselm. 5 4. Stephen, in securing ' the regalising and legalising virtue ' of the crown,' 6 was, from the necessities of his position, coronation hardly less precipitate than his predecessor. Henry I. of Stephen, ,.,,,. ,., 1_ i st. Stephen's died, of his supper of lampreys, on December 1 ; and 26, 1135.' whilst he still lay unburied in France, Stephen with the devotion to favourite days then so common chose Decem- ber 26, the feast of his own saint, Stephen, for the day of the ceremony. The prelates approved the act ; the Pope went out of his way to sanction it. 7 But the coronation teemed with omens of the misfortunes which thickened round the unhappy King. It was observed that the Archbishop, whose consent was directly in defiance of his oath to Maude, 8 died within the year, and that the magnates who assisted all perished miserably. 9 It was remarked that the Host given at the Communion sud- denly disappeared, 10 and that the customary kiss of peace was forgotten. 11 5. The coronation of Henry II. was the first peaceful in- ' Palgrave's Normcmdy, iv. 730. ' Thierry, ii. 393, 394. 2 Ibid. iv. 719-722 ; see Chapter III. 8 Gesta Stepliani, p. 7. See the 3 Symeon (c. 226). whole case in Hook's Archbishops, ii. 4 Ordcric. Vit. book x. 318. s Eaine, i. 159, 160. 9 Eudbourne (Anglia Sacra, i. 284). 6 I owe this expression to a strik- 10 Knyghton, c. 2384 ; Brompton, c. ing description of this incident in 1023. an unpublished letter of Professor " Gervas, c. 1340; Hoveden, 481. Vaughan. 44 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. auguration of a King that the Abbey had witnessed. In it the coronation Saxon population saw the fulfilment of the Confessor's Dew! TlL prophecy, and the Normans rejoiced in the termina- tion of their own civil war. Theobald of Canterbury presided, but with the assistance of the Archbishop of Eouen and the Archbishop of York, who was a personal friend of Theobald. 1 It was a momentary union of the two rival sees, soon to be broken by blows, and curses, and blood of which the next coronation in the Abbey was the ill-fated beginning. The King in his later years determined to secure the succession, by providing that his eldest son Henry should be And of uis crowned during his lifetime. In his own case the ^Heury, ce remony of consecration had been repeated several times. 2 The coronation took place hi the Abbey, during the height of the King's quarrel with Becket. Accord- ingly, as the Primate of Canterbury was necessarily absent, the Primate of York took his place. It was the same Eoger of Bishopsbridge who had assisted at Henry's own inauguration. To fortify him in his precarious position, the Bishops of London, Durham, Salisbury, and Eochester were also present ; 3 and the young Prince who was crowned by them rose, under the name of Henry III., 4 at once to the full pride of an actual sovereign. When his father appeared behind him at the coro- nation banquet, the Prince remarked, ' The son of an Earl may ' well wait on the son of a King ! ' His wife, the French princess, was afterwards crowned with him at Winchester, by French bishops. 5 Perhaps no event certainly no coronation hi Westminster Abbey ever led to more disastrous consequences. ' Ex hac ' consecratione, potius execratione, provenerunt detestandi ' eventus.' 6 ' From this consecration, say rather execration,' followed directly the anathema of Becket on the three chief prelates, the invaders of the inalienable prerogative of the see of Canterbury, and, as the result of that anathema, the murder of Becket, by the rude avengers of the rights of the see of York ; indirectly, the strong reaction in favour of the clerical party ; and, according to popular belief, the untimely death of 1 Raine, i. 234. Richard I. brother of Henry III. Maskell, iii. pp. xviii, xix. 5 Taylor, 247. 3 Benedict, A.D. 1170. Annals of Morgan, p. 16 (A.D. 4 See Memorials of Canterbury, p. 1170). Memorials of Canterbury, 63. Richard of Devizes (i. 1) calls c. 2. CHAP. n. THE PLANTAGENETS. 45 the young Prince Henry himself, the tragical quarrels of his brothers, and the unhappy end of his father. 6. With the coronation of Eichard I. we have the first de- tailed account of the ceremonial, as continued to be celebrated : coronation the procession from the Palace to the Abbey the ofKichanii. S p Urs> the swords, the sceptre the Bishops of Durham and Bath (then first mentioned in this capacity) sup- porting the King on the right and left the oath the anoint- ing, for which he was stripped to his shirt and drawers l the crown, taken by the King himself from the altar, and given to the Archbishop. There was an unusual array of magnates. The King's mother and his brother John were present, and the primate was assisted by the Archbishops of Kouen, Tours, and Dublin : the Archbishop of York was absent. 2 The day was, however, marked by disasters highly charac- teristic of the age. It was on September 3, a day fraught with Sept 3 associations fatal to the English monarchy in a later 1189 - ' age, but already at this time marked by astrologers as ill-omened, or what was called 'an Egyptian day.' 3 Much alarm was caused during the ceremony by the appearance of a bat, 'in the middle and bright part of the day,' fluttering through the church, ' inconveniently circling in the same tracks, ' and especially round the King's throne.' Another evil augury, ' hardly allowable to be related even in a whisper,' was the peal of bells at the last hour of the day, without any agreement or knowledge of the ministers of the Abbey. 4 But the most serious portent must be told in the dreadful language of the chronicler himself : ' On that solemn hour in ' which the Son was immolated to the Father, a sacri- he jews. , ce Q J ^ j ewg to fljgjj. father the devil was com- ' menced in the City of London ; and so long was the duration ' of the famous mystery, that the holocaust could hardly be ac- ' complished on the ensuing day.' 5 It seems that on previous coronations the Jews of London had penetrated into the Abbey and Palace to witness the pageant. The King and the more orthodox nobles were apprehensive that they came there to exercise a baleful influence by their enchantments. In conse- quence, a royal proclamation the day before expressly forbade 1 Benedict, A.D. 1189. by the Egyptians as unwholesome for 2 Hoveden, A.D. 1189. bleeding. * Ibid. There were two such in ' Richard of Devizes, A.D. 1189. each month, supposed to be proscribed s Ibid. 46 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. the intrusion of Jews or witches into the royal presence. They were kept out of the Abbey, but their curiosity to see the banquet overcame their prudence. Some of their chief men were discovered. The nobles, in rage or terror, flew upon them, stripped off their clothes, and beat them almost to death. Two curious stories were circulated, one by the Christians, another by the Jews. It was said that one of the Jews, Benedict l of York, to save his life, was baptized William,' after a godfather invited for the occasion, the Prior of St. Mary's, in his native city of York. The next day he was examined by the King as to the reality of his conversion, and had the courage to confess that it was by mere compulsion. The King turned to the prelates who were standing by, and asked what was to be done with him. The Archbishop, ' less discreetly than he ought,' replied, ' If he does not wish to be a man of God, let him re- ' main a man of the devil.' 2 The Jewish story is not less charac- teristic. The King in the banquet had asked, 'What is this ' noise to-day ? ' The doorkeeper answered, ' Nothing ; only ' the boys rejoice and are merry at heart.' When the true state of the case was known, the doorkeeper was dragged to death at the tails of horses. ' Blessed be God, who giveth vengeance ! ' Amen.' 3 But however the King's own temper might have been softened, a general massacre and plunder amongst the Jewish houses took place in London, < and the other cities and 1 towns ' (especially York) ' emulated the faith of the Londoners, ' and with a like devotion despatched their bloodsuckers with ' blood to hell. Winchester alone, the people being prudent ' and circumspect, and the city always acting mildly, spared ' its vermin. It never did anything over-speedily. Fearing ' nothing more than to repent, it considers the result of every- ' thing beforehand, temperately concealing its uneasiness, till ' it shall be possible at a convenient time to cast out the whole ' cause of the disease at once and for ever.' 4 Such was the coronation of the most chivalrous of English Kings. So truly did Sir Walter Scott catch the whole spirit of the age in his description of Front de Bceuf s interview with Isaac of York. Such could be the Christianity, and such the Judaism, of the Middle Ages. On his return from his captivity, Eichard was crowned 1 Probably ' Baruch.' (Bialloblotzky, i. 196, 197). Chapters Benedict, A.D. 1189. on Coronations, 148. 3 The Chronicles of Rabbi Joseph 4 Richard of Devizes, A.D. 1189 CHAP. ii. THE PLANTAGENETS. 47 again at Winchester, as if to reassure his subjects. This was Richar.rs the last trace of the old Saxon regal character of Win- nation, 1194. Chester. 1 He submitted very reluctantly to this re- petition ; 2 but the reinvestiture in the coronation robes was considered so important, that in these he was ultimately buried. 7. John was crowned on Ascension Day 3 the same fatal festival as that which the soothsayer afterwards predicted as coronation the end of his reign. On this occasion, in order to of John. exclude the rights of Arthur, the son of John's eldest brother Godfrey, the elective, as distinct from the hereditary, character of the monarchy was brought out in the strongest terms. At a later period Archbishop Hubert gave as his reason Ascension for scrupulously adopting all the forms of election on ir.iiw. 3 that day, that, foreseeing the King's violent career, he had wished to place every lawful check on his despotic passions. 4 Geoffrey, the Archbishop of York, was absent, and, on his behalf, the Bishop of Durham 5 protested, but in vain, against Hubert's sole celebration of the ceremony. 6 A peculiar function was now added. As a reward for the readiness with which the Cinque Ports had assisted John, in The cinque his unfortunate voyages to and from Normandy, their five Barons were allowed henceforward to carry the canopy over the King as he went to the Abbey, and to hold it over him when he was unclothed for the sacred unction. They had already established their place at the right hand of the King at the banquet, as a return for their successful guardian- ship of the Channel against invaders ; the Conqueror alone had escaped them. 7 8. The disastrous reign of John brought out the sole in- stance, if it be an instance, of a coronation apart from West- First coro- minster. On Henry III.'s accession the Abbey was in Hen?" in. the hands of Prince Louis of France, Shakspeare's St. Simon , . , TT T i -i . and st. ' Dauphin. He was, accordingly, crowned in the as, i2i6. ' Abbey of Gloucester, by the Bishop of Winchester, in the presence of Gualo the Legate ; but without unction or im- position of hands, lest the rights of Canterbury should be infringed, and with a chaplet or garland rather than a crown. 8 1 Richard of Devizes, A.D. 1194. 6 He was afterwards crowned at M. Paris, 176. See Chapter III. Canterbury with his Queen, Isabella. s Hoveden, 793. (Hoveden, 818 ; Ann. Margan, A.D. M. Paris, 197. 1201.) s Hoveden, 793 ; Maskell, iii. p. Ridgway, p. 141. Iviii. 8 Possibly this might be from John's 48 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. 11. At the same time, with that inconsistency which pervades the history of so many of our legal ceremonies, an edict was issued that for a whole month no lay person, male or female, should appear in public without a chaplet, in order to certify that the King was really crowned. 1 So strong, however, was the craving for the complete formalities of the inauguration, that, as soon as Westminster was restored to the King, he was again crowned second GO- * ner e in state, on Whitsunday, by Stephen Langton, 2 having the day before laid the foundation of the new i?, kady Chapel, 3 the germ of the present magnificent church. The feasting and joviality was such that the oldest man present could remember nothing like it at any previous coronation. 4 It was a kind of triumphal close to the dark reign of John. The young King himself, impressed probably by his double coronation, asked the great theologian of that time, Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln, the difficult question, ' What was the precise grace wrought in a King by the unction ? ' The bishop answered, with some hesitation, that it was the sign of the King's special reception of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit, ' as in Confirmation.' 6 One alteration Henry III. effected for future coronations, which implies a slight declension of the sense of their im- portance. The office of Lord High Steward (the temporary Viceroy between the late King's demise stewardship. an( j fo e new King's inauguration), which had been hereditary in the house of Simon de Montfort, was on his death abolished partly, perhaps, from a dislike of De Montfort's encroachments, partly to check the power of so formidable a potentate. Henceforward the office was merely created for. coronation the occasion. The coronation of his Queen Eleanor ofproreniM, of Provence was observed with great state. 6 But a 1236. ' curious incident marred the splendour of the corona- tion banquet. Its presiding officer, the hereditary Chief Butler, Hugh de Albini, was absent, having been excommunicated by crown having been lost in the Wash. 4 Bouquet. Rer. Gallic. Script, xviii. (Pauli, i. 489.) 186. 1 Capgrave's Henries, p. 87. Henry * Epistola, 124, p. 350 (ed. Luard). IV. of France, in like manner, was He adds a caution, founded on Judah's crowned at Chartres, instead of Reims, concession in the Testament of the from the occupation of that city by the Twelve Patriarchs, that it did not equal opposite faction. the royal to the sacerdotal dignity. - See Hook's Archbishops, ii. 735. Matthew Paris, 350. 3 See Chapter HI. CHAP. ii. EDWARD I. AND ELEANOR. 49 the Archbishop of Canterbury, for refusing to let the Primate hunt in his Sussex forest. 1 9. The long interval between the accession of Edward I. and his coronation (owing to his absence in the Holy Land) reduced it more nearly to the level of a mere ceremony than it had ever been before. He was also the first sovereign who discontinued the commemoration of the event in wearing the crown in state at the three festivals. 2 But in itself it was a peculiarly welcome day, as the return from his perilous journey. It was the first coronation in the Abbey as it now appears, bearing the fresh marks of his father's munificence. He and coronation his beloved Eleanor appeared together, the first King and Eietnor,' and Queen who had been jointly crowned. His ml' 19> mother, the elder Eleanor, was present. Archbishop Kilwarby officiated as Primate. 4 On the following day Alex- ander III. of Scotland, whose armorial bearings were hung in the Choir of the Abbey, did homage. 5 For the honour of so martial a king, 500 great horses on some of which Edward and his brother Edmund, with their attendants, had ridden to the banquet were let loose among the crowd, any one to take them for his own as he could. 6 There was, however, another change effected in the corona- tions by Edward, which, unlike most of the incidents related Thecoro- in this chapter, has a direct bearing on the Abbey stonT itself. Besides the ceremonies of unction and coronation, which properly belonged to the consecration of the kings, there was one more closely connected with the original practice of The insta'- election that of raising the sovereign aloft into an Kings: e elevated seat. 7 In the Frankish tribes, as also in the Eoman Empire, this was done by a band of warriors lifting the chosen chief on their shields, of which a trace lingered in the French coronations, in raising the King to the top of the screen between the choir and nave. But the more ordinary usage, 1 ' De officio pincernariffi servivit ea ' cunque voluerit.' Red Book of the die Comes Warenn' vice Hugonis de Exchequer (f. 232). He was under age. Albiniaco Comitis de Arundel ad quern Matthew Paris (p. 421). [? nunc] illud officium spectat. Fuit 2 Camden's Remains, 338. autem idem . . . . eo tempore senten- 3 Close Roll, 2 Edw. I. m. 5. tia excommunicationis innodatus a 4 Hook, iii. 311. Cant' eo quod cum fugare fecisset * Trivet, p. 292. See Chapter III. Archiepiscopus in foresta dicti Hu- 6 Stow's Annals ; Knyghton, c. gonis in Suthsex idem Hugo canes 2461. (Pauli, ii. 12.) suos cepit. Dicit autem Archi- 7 So Liber Regalis. See Maskell, episcopus hoc esse jus suum fugandi iii. p. xlviii. in qualibet foresta Anglise quando- 50 THE CORONATIONS. CHAP. n. amongst the Gothic and Celtic races, was to place him on a huge natural stone, which had been, or was henceforth, invested with a magical sanctity. On such a stone, the ' great stone ' (mora- sten), still visible on the grave of Odin near Upsala, were in- augurated the Kings of Sweden till the time of Gustavus Vasa. Such a chair and stone, for the Dukes of Carinthia, is still to be seen at Zollfell. 1 Seven stone seats for the Emperor and his Electors mark the spot where the Lahn joins the Rhine at Lahnstein. On such a mound the King of Hungary appears, sword in hand, at Presburg or Pesth. On such stones decrees were issued in the republican states of Torcello, Venice, and Verona. On a stone like these, nearer home, was placed the Lord of the Isles. The stones on which the Kings of Ireland were crowned were, even down to Elizabeth's time, believed to be the inviolable pledges of Irish independence. One such remains near Derry, marked with the two cavities in which the feet of the King of Ulster were placed ; 2 another in Monaghan, called the M'Mahon Stone, where the impression of the foot remained till 1809. 3 On the King's Stone, as we have seen, beside the Thames, were crowned seven of the Anglo-Saxon kings. And in Westminster itself, by a usage doubtless dating back from a very early period, the Kings, before they passed from the Palace to the Abbey, were lifted to a marble seat, twelve feet long and three feet broad, placed at the upper end of Westminster Hall, and called, from this peculiar dignity, ' The King's Bench: 4 Still there was yet wanting something of this mysterious natural charm in the Abbey itself, and this it was which Legend of Edward I. provided. In the capital of the Scottish the Stone . . , . of scone. kingdom was a venerable fragment of rock, to which, at least as early as the fourteenth century, the following legend was attached : The stony pillar on which Jacob 5 slept at Bethel was by his countrymen transported to Egypt. Thither came Gathelus, son of Cecrops, King of Athens, and married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. He and his Egyptian wife, alarmed at 1 Gilbert and Churchill's Dolomite * Taylor, p. 303. It is mentioned Mountains, p. 483. at the coronations of Eichard II. and 2 It is now called St. Columb's Richard III. (Maskell, iii. pp. xlviii. Stone. The marks of the feet are, xlix.) according to the legend, imprinted by 5 Or Abraham. (Bye's Visits of Columba. But Spenser's statement of Foreigners, p. 10.) For the belief still the Irish practice (see Ordnance Survey maintained that the coronation stone is of Londonderry, p. 233) leaves no doubt Jacob's pillow, see Jewish Chronicle, as to their origin. June 14, 21, 1872; and an elaborate 3 See Shirley's Farney, p. 74. oration by the Rev. R. Glover. THE STONE OF SCONE. 51 the fame of Moses, fled with the stone to Sicily or to Spain. From Brigantia, in Spain, it was carried off by Simon Brech, 1 the favourite son of Milo the Scot, to Ireland. It was thrown on the seashore as an anchor ; or (for the legend varied at this point) an anchor which was cast out, in consequence of a rising storm, pulled up the stone from the bottom of the sea. On the sacred Hill of Tara it became ' Lia Fail,' the ' Stone of Destiny.' On it the Kings of Ireland were placed. If the chief was a true successor, the stone was silent ; if a pretender, it groaned aloud as with thunder. 2 At this point, where the legend begins to pass into history, the voice of national discord begins to make itself heard. The Irish antiquarians maintain that the true stone long remained on the Hill of Tara. One of the green mounds within that venerable precinct is called the 'Corona- THE CORONATION STONE. ' tion Chair ; ' and a rude pillar, now serving as a monument over the graves of the rebels of 1798, is by some 3 thought to be the original ' Lia Fail.' But the stream of the Scottish tradition carries us on. Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy, bears the sacred stone across the sea from Ireland to Dunstaffnage. In the vaults of Dunstaffnage Castle a hole is still shown, where it is said to have been laid. With the migration of the Scots eastward, the stone was moved by 1 Holinshed, The Historic of Scot- land (1585), p. 31. Weaver's Funeral Monuments, p. 239. 2 Ware's Antiquities of Ireland (Harris), 1764, i. 10, 124. Compare the Llechllafar, or Speaking Stone, in the stream in front of the Cathedral of St. David's. (Jones' and Freeman's History and Antiquities of St. David's, p. 222.) 3 Petrie's History and Antiquities of Tara (Transactions of Eoyal Irish Academy, xviii. pt. 2, pp. 159-161). The name of Fergus is still attached to it. B 2 52 THE CORONATIONS. CHAP. 11. Kenneth II. (A.D. 840), and planted on a raised plot of ground at Scone, ' because that the last battle with the Picts was there fought.' l Whatever may have been the previous wanderings of the relic, at Scone it assumes an unquestionable historical position. It was there encased in a chair of wood, and stood by a cross on the east of the monastic cemetery, on or beside the ' Mount of Belief,' which still exists. In it, or upon it, the Kings of Scotland were placed by the Earls of Fife. From it Scone became the ' Sedes principalis ' of Scotland, and the kingdom of Scotland the kingdom of Scone ; and hence for many generations Perth, and not Edinburgh, was regarded as the capital city of Scotland. 2 Wherever else it may have strayed there need be no ques- tion, at least, of its Scottish origin. Its geological formation is that of the sandstone of the western coasts of Scotland. 3 It has the appearance thus far agreeing with the tradition of Dunstaffhage of having once formed part of a building. But of all explanations concerning it, the most probable is that which identifies it with the stony pillow on which Columba rested, and on which his dying head was laid in his Abbey of lona ; 4 and if so it belongs to the minister of the first authentic Western consecration of a Christian Prince 5 that of the Scot- tish chief Aidan. On this precious relic Edward fixed his hold. He had already hung up before the Confessor's Shrine the golden coronet of the last Prince of Wales. It was a still further glory to deposit there the very seat of the kingdom of Scotland. On it he himself was crowned King of the Scots. 6 From the Pope he procured a Bull to raze to the ground the rebellious Abbey of Scone, which had once possessed it ; and his design was only prevented, as Scotland itself was saved, by his sudden death at Brough-on-the-Sands. Westminster was to be an English Scone. It was his latest care for the Abbey. In that last year of Edward's reign, the venerable 1 Holinshed's Hist. Scot. p. 132. examination by Professor Ramsay in * The facts respecting Scone and 1865. the Scottish coronations I owe to 4 For the argument by which this the valuable information of the late is supported, I must refer to Mr. Ro- lamented Mr. Joseph Robertson of bertson's statement. (Appendix.) Edinburgh. See Appendix to Chapter 3 See p. 39. II., and Preface to Statute Ecclesice 6 The Life and Acts of Sir William Scoticarue, p. xxi. Wallace (Blind Harry), Aberdeen, 1630, 3 This is the result of a careful p. 5. CHAP. ii. THE STONE OF SCONE. 53 chair, which still encloses it, was made for it by the orders of its captor ; the fragment of the world-old Celtic races was em- bedded in the new Plantagenet oak. 1 The King had originally intended the seat to have been of bronze, and the workman, Adam, had actually begun it. But it was ultimately constructed of wood, and decorated by Walter the painter, who at the same time was employed on the Painted Chamber, and probably on the Chapter House. The elation of the English King may be measured by the anguish of the Scots. Now that this foundation of their monarchy was gone, they laboured with redoubled energy to procure, what they had never had before, a full religious con- secration of their Kings. This was granted to Eobert the Bruce, by the Pope, a short time before his death ; and his son David, to make up for the loss of the stone, was the first crowned and anointed King of Scotland. 2 But they still cherished the hope of recovering it. A solemn article in the Treaty of Northampton, which closed the long war between the two countries, required the restoration of the lost relics to \D isss Scotland. Accordingly Eichard III., then residing at Bardesly, directed his writ, under the Privy Seal, to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, commanding them to give the stone for this purpose to the Sheriffs of London, who would receive the same from them by indenture, 3 and cause it to be carried to the Queen-mother. All the other articles of the treaty were fulfilled. Even ' the Black Rood,' the sacred cross of Holy Eood, which Edward I. had carried off with the its reteii. other relics, was restored. But ' the Stone of Scone, tiou. ( on w hi c h the Kings of Scotland used at Scone to be ' placed on their inauguration, the people of London would by ' no means whatever allow to depart from themselves.' 4 More than thirty years after, David II. being then old and without male issue, negotiations were begun with Edward III. that one of his sons should succeed to the Scottish crown ; and that, in this event, the Eoyal Stone should be delivered out of England, and he should, after his English coronation, be crowned upon it at Scone. 5 But these arrange- ments were never completed. In the Abbey, in spite of treaties 1 Gleanings, p. 125 ; Neale, ii. 132. 4 Chronicle of Lanercost, p. 261 ; 2 Statuta Eccl sice Scoticance, Pref Maitland, p. 146. p. xlvi. 3 Ayliffe's Calendar of Ancient 5 Bymer's Fcedera, vi. 426. CJiarters, p. Iviii. 54 THE CORONATIONS. CHAP. n. and negotiations, it remained, and still remains. The affec- tion which now clings to it had already sprung up, and forbade all thought of removing it. It would seem as if Edward's chief intention had been to pre- sent it, as a trophy of his conquest, to the Confessor's Shrine. On it the priest was to sit when celebrating mass at the altar of St. Edward. The Chair, doubtless, stand- ing where it now stands, but facing, as it naturally would, westward, was then visible down the whole church, like the marble chair of the metropolitical See at Canterbury in its original position. When the Abbot sate there, on high festivals, it was for him a seat grander than any episcopal throne. The Abbey thus acquired the one feature needed to make it equal to a cathedral a sacred Chair or Cathedra. In this chair and on this stone every English sovereign from Edward I. to Queen Victoria has been inaugurated. In this chair Richard II. sits, in the contemporary portrait still preserved in the Abbey. The ' Eegale Scotiae ' is expressly named in the coronation of Henry IV., 1 and 'King Edward's 1 Chair ' in the coronation of Mary. 2 Camden calls it ' the ' Eoyal Chair ; ' and Selden says, ' In it are the coronations of ' our sovereigns.' When Shakspeare figures the ambitious dreams of the Duchess of Gloucester, they fasten on this august throne. Methinks I sate in seat of majesty In the Cathedral Church of Westminster, And in that Chair where kings and queens are crowned. 3 When James VI. of Scotland became James I. of England, 'the antique regal chair of enthronisation did confessedly 'receive, with the person of his Majesty, the full accomplish- ' ment also of that prophetical prediction of his coming to the ' crown, which antiquity hath recorded to have been inscribed Thepre- ' thereon.' 4 It was one of those secular predictions of which the fulfilment cannot be questioned. Whether the prophecy was actually inscribed on the stone may be doubted, though this seems to be implied, 5 and on the lower side is still visible a groove which may have contained it ; but 1 Annales Henrici Quarti (St. Al- ' Shakspeare's Henry VI. Part II. ban's Chronicles. Riley, A.D. 1399), p. Act i. Sc. ii. 294. ' Speed, p. 885. 5 Boethius, Hist. Scot. (Par. 1575), 3 Planch1) his father, and then within ten days was crowned. Isabella his mother, ' the shewolf of France,' affected to weep through the whole ceremony. The medal represented the childish modesty of the Prince : a sceptre on a heap of The swoni hearts, with the motto, Populi dat jura voluntas: and and Shield of state. a hand stretched out to save a falling crown, Non coronation rapit sed ctccipit. 5 The sword of state and shield of Feb. 2, 1328. state, still kept in the Abbey, were then first carried before the sovereign. Queen Philippa was crowned in the following year, on Quinquagesima Sunday. 12. If Edward III.'s coronation is but scantily known, that of his grandson, Richard II., is recorded in the utmost detail. coronation The ' Liber Reqalis' which prescribed its order and of Richard i . t_ -11 ii., July IB, has been the basis of all subsequent ceremonials, has been in the custody of the Abbots and Deans of Ke'gaiis!' er Westminster from the time that it was drawn up, on this occasion, by Abbot Littlington. The magnificence of the dresses and of the procession is also described at length in the contemporary chronicles. 7 Archbishop Sudbury officiated. Three historical peculiarities marked the event. It is the first known instance of a custom, which prevailed from the time of The Pro- Charles II. the cavalcade from the Tower. The King BMTower. remained there for a week, in order to indicate that he 1 Coronation Roll of Edward II., s Chapters, p. 156. I cannot find m. 3d (Eymer, p. 33). Close Roll of the .authority for these statements. 1 Edward II., m. lOd (Eymer, p. 36). 6 See the Ironmongers' Exhibition, * Neale, i. 71. pp. 142, 144. See also Chapter III. 8 Chron. Lanerc. 258. ' Walsingham, i. 331,332. It is also 4 Close Eoll of 1 Edward III., m. well given in Eidgway, pp. 126-160 ; 24d (Eymer, p. 684). Gent. Mag. 1831 (part ii.), p. 113. 58 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. was master of the turbulent city; and then rode bareheaded, amidst every variety of pageant, through Cheapside, Fleet The Street, and the Strand, to Westminster. He was ac- tKath. ?f companied by a body of knights, created for the occasion, who, after having been duly washed in a bath, assumed their knightly dresses, and escorted their young com- panion to his palace. This was the first beginning of the ' Knights of the Bath,' who from this time forward formed part of the coronation ceremony till the close of the seventeenth century. A third peculiarity is the first appearance of the Champion certainly of the first Dymoke. When the service was over, and the boy-King, exhausted with the long effort, was carried out fainting, the great nobles, headed by Henry Percy, Lord Marshal, mounted their chargers at the door of the Abbey, and proceeded to clear the way for the procession, The when they were met by Sir John Dymoke, the Cham- champion. pi on . The unexpected encounter of this apparition, and the ignorance of the Champion as to where he should place himself, seem to indicate that either the office or the person was new. Dymoke had, in fact, contested the right with Baldwin de Freville, who, like him, claimed to be descended from the Kilpecs and the Marmions. He won his cause, and appeared at the gates of the monastery on a magnificently- caparisoned charger, ' the best but one,' which, according to fixed usage, he had taken from the royal stable. Before him rode his spear-bearer and shield-bearer, and they sate at the gates waiting for the end of Mass. His motto, in allusion to his name, was Dimico pro rege. The Earl Marshal ' bade him ' wait for his perquisites until the King was sate down to ' dinner, and in the meantime he had better unarm himself, ' take his rest and ease awhile.' So he retired, discomfited, to wait outside the Hall, the proper scene of his challenge. 1 His appearance at that juncture probably belonged to the same revival of chivalric usages that had just produced the Order of the Garter and the Bound Table at Windsor. It lingered down to our own time, with the right of wager of battle, which was asserted only a few years before the last appearance of the Champion at the coronation of George IV. The profusion of the banquet accorded with the extravagant character of the youthful Prince. The golden eagle in the 1 Holinshed, p. 417 ; Walsingham, ii. 337. See also Arcli&ologia, xx. 207 ; Maskell, iii. p. xxxiii. CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 59 Palace Yard spouted wine. The expense was so vast as to be made an excuse for the immense demands on Parliament after- wards. The Bishop of Rochester, in his coronation sermon, as if with a prescience of Wat Tyler, uttered a warning against excessive taxation : l Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows : In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm, Kegardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey. Fill high the sparkling bowl, The rich repast prepare ...... Close by the royal chair Fell thirst and famine scowl A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. 2 13. The breach in the direct line of the Plantagenets, which is marked by the interruption of their Westminster tombs, is coronation a ^ so indicated by the unusual precautions added at the of Henry rv. coronation of Henry IV. to supply the defects of his tion^pnt title. The election had been in Westminster Hall. lion, ('pi. 30, 1399. rpkg ^ e xts o f the three inauguration sermons were all significant : ' Jacob ' (a supplanter indeed) ' received the bless- ' ing ; ' ' This man ' (in contrast to the unfortunate youth) ' shall rule over us ; ' ' We ' (the Parliament) ' must take care ' that our kingdom be quiet.' 3 The day of his coronation was Wednesday, the great festival of the Abbey, October 13, the anni- im. ' versary of his own exile. He came to the Abbey with an ostentatious unpunctuality, having heard three Masses, and spent long hours with his confessor on the morning of that day, in accordance with the real or affected piety, which was to compensate, in the eyes of his subjects, for his usurpation. His bath and the bath of his knights is brought out more prominently than before. In his coronation the use of the Scottish stone 5 is first expressly mentioned ; and, yet more The Am- suspiciously, a vase of holy oil, corresponding to the puiia. ampulla of Eeims, first makes its appearance. The Virgin Mary had given (so the report ran) a golden eagle filled 1 Turner's Middle Ages, ii. 245. * Kriyghton, cc. 2745, 2756. (Eich- ' 2 Gray's Bard. See the description ard II. par M. Wallon, ii. 307-312.) of the King's portrait in Chapter III. 4 Arch. xx. 206. Queen Anne was crowned in the Abbey s Annales Ric. II. et Hen. IV., S. by Archbishop Courtenay, 1382. (Sand- Allan's Chronicles (Biley),pp. 294, 297. ford, p. 193.) 60 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. with hoh - oil to St. Thomas of Canterbury, during his exile, with the promise that any Kings of England anointed with it would be merciful rulers and champions of the church. 1 It was revealed by a hermit, through the first Duke of Lancaster, to the Black Prince, by him laid up in the Tower for his son's coronation, unaccountably overlooked by Richard II., but discovered by him in the last year of his reign, and taken to Ireland, with the request to Courtenay, Archbishop of Canter- bury, to anoint him with it. The Archbishop refused, on the ground that the regal unction, being of the nature of a sacra- ment, could not be repeated. The King accordingly, on his return from Ireland, delivered the ampulla to the Archbishop at Chester, with the melancholy presage that it was meant for some more fortunate King. 2 A less questionable relic, the ' Lancaster ' sword, was now first introduced, being that which Henry had worn at Eavenspur. 3 The pall over his head was carried by the four Dukes of York, Surrey, Aumale, and Gloucester, more or less willingly, according to their politics. 4 Both Archbishops joined in the coronation of this orthodox Queen Joan, ' Jacob.' 5 His wife Joan was crowned alone, three Feb. 26, , 1403. months after her marriage. 6 14. The coronation of Henry V. is the only one represented in the structure of the Abbey itself. The ceremony is sculp- coronation tured on each side of his Chantry : and assuredly, if ever Aprii^ v " there was a coronation which carried with it a trans- siJnday, forming virtue, it was his. 7 The chief incident, how- ever, connected with it at the time was the terrible thunderstorm, which was supposed to predict the conflagration of Norwich, Gloucester, and other cities during the ensuing summer, the heavy snow 8 and rain during the ensuing , winter, and the wars 9 and tumults of the rest of his reign. His Queen, Catherine, was crowned when they returned from France. 10 15. The coronation of Henry VI. was the first of a mere coronation cn ild. He was but nine years old, and sate on the vif e Nov. 6, platform in the Abbey, beholding all the people about 'sadly and wisely.' 11 It was on the 6th of Novem- 1 Maskell, iii. p. xvii. 7 See Chapter V. 2 Walsingham, ii. 240. Bedman, p. 62. ' Arch. xx. 206. Capgrave, p. 125. 4 Ibid. 207. ' 10 For the feast see Holinshed p. * Pauli, iii. 3. 579. Strickland, iii. 78. Taylor, p. 163. CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF YORK. 61 ber, corresponding, as was fancifully thought, to the 6th of December, 1 his birthday, and to the perfection of the number 6 in the Sixth Henry. Perhaps, in consideration of his tender Dec i- years, was omitted, at the request of the Pope, the glfeen prayer that the King should have Peter's keys and Margaret, p au r s doctrine. 2 Then succeeded his coronation at April ovj Paris. Years afterwards his French Queen, Margaret, was crowned in the Abbey. 16. Of the Coronation of Edward IV. there is nothing to record except the difficulty about the day. 3 It was to have coronation- been early in March 1461. It was then, in consequence ivfjaS?' of the siege of Carlisle, put off till the 28th of June, 4 ' the Sunday after Midsummer,' the day of one other and happier coronation, hereafter to be noticed. But it was June 29, again deferred till the 29th, 5 in consequence of the singular superstition which regarded the 28th of any month to be a repetition of Childermas Day, always considered as unlucky. 6 17. All was prepared for the coronation of Edward V. wildfowl for the banquet, and dresses for the guests. 7 But he, Edward v alone of our English sovereigns, passed to his grave * uncrowned, without sceptre or ball.' 8 His connec- tion with the Abbey is through his birth 9 and burial. 10 18. As Henry IV. compensated for the defect of his title by the superior sanctity of his coronation, so the like defect in coronation that ^ Richard III. was supplied by its superior mag- of Richard n i n cence. ' Never,' it was said, ' had such an one been III., Jul\ o, ' seen.' n On the 26th of June he rode in state from Baynard's Castle, accompanied by 6,000 gentlemen from the North, to "Westminster Hall ; and ' there sate in the seat royal, ' and called before him the judges to execute the laws, with ' many good exhortations, of which he followed not one.' 12 He then went to make his offerings at the shrine of the Confessor. The Abbot met him at the door with St. Edward's sceptre. ' The monks sang Te Deum with a faint courage.' He then 1 Capgrave, p. 146 ; Hook, v. 78. the Cinque Ports (Sussex Arch. Coll., 2 D'Israeli's Charles I., i. 276. xv. 180), ic was on the 28th. 3 The story of his coronation at York ' Arch. i. 387. is a mistake, founded on another inci- 8 Speed, p. 909. dent, (Holinshed, iii. 616.) 9 See Chapter V. Hall, p. 257. See Chapter III. 5 Speed, p. 853; Sandford, p. 404. " Speed, p. 933 ; Hall; Grafton. See Pastan Letters, i. 230, 235. 1: Strickland, iii. 375. But, according to the White Book of 62 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. it. returned to the Palace, whence, on the 6th of July, he went with the usual procession to the Abbey. The lofty platform, high above the altar ; the strange appearance of King and Queen, as they sate stripped from the waist upwards, to be anointed the dukes around the King, the bishops and ladies around the Queen the train of the Queen borne by Margaret of Richmond ' were incidents long remembered. 19. With all her prescience, Margaret could hardly have foreseen that within three years her own son would be in the coronation 8ame place ', nor Bourchier, Cardinal Archbishop, that vi? e oct k e wou ld be dragged out, in his extreme old age, 2 a so, 1485. third time to consecrate the doubtful claims of a new dynasty. The coronation of Henry VII. was, however, by its mean appearance, a striking contrast to that of his predecessor. 3 This may, in part, have been caused by Henry VII. 's well-known parsimony. But it probably also arose from the fact that his real title to the throne rested elsewhere. ' His marriage,' says Lord Bacon, ' was with greater triumph than either his entry or ' his coronation.' 4 His true coronation he felt to have been when, on the field of Bosworth, the crown of Eichard was brought by Sir Reginald Bray from the hawthorn-bush to Lord Stanley, who placed it on Henry's head, on the height still called, from the incident, Crown Hill. 5 As such it appears in the stained glass of the chapel built for him in the Abbey, by the very same Sir Reginald. And in his will he enjoined that his image on his tomb should be represented as holding the crown, ' which it pleased God to give us with the victory of our corona- ' enemy at our first field.' 6 Elizabeth of York, from Eiteablth the same feeling, was not crowned till two years after- NoT25,' "wards. 7 Two ceremonies, however, were noticed in 1487 - this truncated inauguration. Now first, in the archers ranoTuTe needed to guard the King's dubious claims, appear the Guard.- 'Yeomen of the Guard.' 8 The Bishops of Durham and of Bath and Wells, who had both been officers under the York dynasty, were superseded in their proper functions of supporters by the Bishops of Exeter and Ely. 9 1 Hall, p. 376 ; Heralds' College ' Leland, iv. 224 ; Jesse, p. 299. (Excerpta Historic), p. 379. Koberts' York and Lancaster p * Hook, v. 383. 472. s Hall, p. 423. 9 This appears from ' the Device 4 Bacon, Henry VII., p. 26. for the Coronation of Henry VII.' (p. 5 Button's Bosworth, p. 132. 12), published by the Camden Society Jesse's Eichard III., p. 297. (No. XXI. 1842). CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF TUDOR. 63 20. The splendour of the coronation of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Arragon was such as might have been anticipated coronation fr m their position and character. Then for the last o^Henry time, in the person of Warham, the sanction of the sSnda 4 ' see ^ R me was l en -t to the ministration of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. 1 During its rejoicings Mar- garet of Kichmond, the foundress of the Tudor dynasty, passed away to a more tranquil world. 2 coronation ne ^ ner female coronation took place in this BoiVT re ig n that of Anne Boleyn. It must be told at length : It was resolved that such spots and blemishes as hung about the marriage should be forgotten in tbe splendour of the coronation. If there was scandal in the condition of tbe Queen, yet under another aspect that condition was matter of congratulation to a people so eager for an heir ; and Henry may bave tbougbt that tbe sight for tbe first time in public of so beautiful a creature, surrounded by tbe most magnificent pageant which London bad witnessed since tbe unknown day on wbicb tbe first stone of it was laid, and bearing in ber bosom tbe long-hoped-for inheritor of the English crown, migbt induce a chivalrous nation to forget what it was the interest of no loyal subject to remember longer, and to offer ber an English welcome to tbe throne. In anticipation of tbe timely close of tbe proceedings at Dunstable, notice bad been given in tbe city early in May, tbat preparations should be made for the coronation on tbe first of tbe following month. Queen Anne was at Greenwich, but, according to custom, tbe few preceding days were to be spent at tbe Tower ; and on tbe 19th of May, sbe was conducted thither in state by tbe Lord Mayor and tbe city companies, with one of those splendid exhibitions upon tbe water wbicb, in tbe days when tbe silver Thames deserved its name, and tbe sun could shine down upon it out of tbe blue summer sky, were spec- tacles scarcely rivalled in gorgeousness by tbe world-famous wedding of the Adriatic. On tbe morning of tbe 31st of May, tbe families of tbe London citizens May si, were stirring early in all bouses. From Temple Bar to tbe Tower, tbe streets were fresh-strewed witb gravel, tbe foot paths were railed off along tbe whole distance, and occupied on one side by tbe guilds, tbeir workmen and apprentices, on tbe other by the city constables and officials in their gaudy uniforms, ' witb tbeir staves in ' band for to cause tbe people to keep good room and order.' Cornbill and Gracechurch Street bad dressed tbeir fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and tbe ricb carpet-work from Persia and tbe 1 Hall, p. 509. 2 See Chapter in. 64 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals, was draped even more splen- didly in cloth of gold and tissue and velvet. The sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses, hung with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies crowding to see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates rolled back, and under the archway, in the bright May sunshine, the long column began slowly to defile. All these rode on in pairs It is no easy matter to picture to ourselves the blazing trail of splendour which in such a pageant must have drawn along the London streets those streets which now we know so black and smoke-grimed, themselves then radiant with masses of colour, gold and crimson and violet. Yet there it was, and there the sun could shine upon it, and tens of thousands of eyes were gazing on the scene out of the crowded lattices. Glorious as the spectacle was, perhaps, however, it passed unheeded. Those eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near. In an open space behind the constable, there was seen approaching ' a ' white chariot,' drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making music with silver bells ; and in the chariot sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occa- sion of all this glittering homage Fortune's plaything of the hour, the Queen of England Queen at last borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory, breathing the perfumed incense of greatness which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win : and she had won it. There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds most beautiful loveliest most favoured, per- haps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters Fatal gift of greatness ! so dangerous ever ! so more than dangerous in those tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the great deeps of thought, and nations are in the throes of revolution when ancient order and law and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake ; and as the opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those un- happy ones who stand out above the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its alternating fortunes ! And what if into an unsteady heart and brain, intoxicated with splendour, the out- ward chaos should find its way, converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion if conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pandora-box be broken loose of passions and sensu- alities and follies ; and at length there be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of God's forgiveness ! Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the Tower of London not radiant then with beauty on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad tragic errand, from which she will CHAP. ii. THE TUDORS. 65 never more return, passing away out of an earth where she may stay no longer, into a Presence where, nevertheless, we know that all is well for all of us and therefore for her With such ' pretty conceits,' at that time the honest tokens of an English welcome, the new Queen was received by the citizens of London. The King was not with her throughout the day, nor did he intend being with her in any part of the ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed sovereign of the hour. Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired for the night to ' the King's manor-house at Westminster,' where she Sunday. slept. On the following morning, between eight and nine June i, 1553. O ' c i oc k > sne returned to the Hall, where the Lord Mayor, the City Council, and the Peers were again assembled, and took her place on the high dais at the top of the stairs under the cloth of state ; while the Bishops, the Abbots, and the monks of the Abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the Abbey gates ; and when all was ready, pre- ceded by the Peers in their robes of Parliament, the Knights of the Garter in the dress of the Order, she swept out under her canopy, the Bishops and the monks ' solemnly singing.' The train was borne by the old Duchess of Norfolk, her aunt, the Bishops of London and Win- chester on either side ' bearing up the lappets of her robe.' The Earl of Oxford carried the crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it, under a wreath of diamonds. On entering the Abbey, she was led to the coronation chair, where she sat while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries of the ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the High Altar, and anointed Queen of England ; and she received from the hands of Cranmer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sentence upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre and St. Edward's crown. Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at that moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling ? Did any vision flit across her of a sad mourning figure, which once had stood where she was standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a life cut short by sorrow ? Who can tell ? At such a time, that figure would have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been taught by the thought of it, that although life be fleeting as a dream, it is long enough to experi- ence strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Anne Boleyn was not noble and was not wise, too probably she felt nothing but the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present ; and if that plain suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later she was F 66 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. able to exult over Catherine's death ; she is not likely to have thought of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph. 1 The ' three gentlemen ' who met in ' a street in West- ' minster ' in the opening of the 4th Act of Shakspeare's ' Henry VIII ' are the lively representatives, so to speak, of the multitudes who since have 'taken their stand here,' to behold the pageant of coronations : God save you, sir ! Where have you been broiling ? 3d Gent. Among the crowd i' the Abbey .... 2d Gent. You saw the ceremony ? 3d Gent. That I did. 1st Gent. How was it ? 3d Gent. Well worth the seeing. 2d Gent. Good sir, speak it to us. 3d Gent. As well as I am able. The rich stream Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen To a prepared place in the Choir, fell off A distance from her ; while her Grace sat down To rest a while, some half an hour or so, In a rich chair of state, opposing freely The beauty of her person to the people. Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman That ever lay by man. . . . Such joy I never saw before. . . . At length her Grace rose, and with modest paces Came to the altar ; where she kneel'd and, saintlike, Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly. .... So she parted. And with the same full state paced back again To York-place, where the feast is held. 2 After Anne Boleyn's death, none of Henry's Queens were crowned. Jane Seymour would have been but for the plague, which raged ' in the Abbey itself.' 3 21. The design which had been conceived by the Second coronation Henry, for securing the succession by the coronation v'l^kso, * hi 8 el( lest son before his death, also, for like reasons, TudLy, took possession of the mind of Henry VIII. The preparations for Edward VI. 's inauguration were in progress at the moment of his father's death : in fact, it 1 Froude, i. 456-58. Henry VIII.'s State Papers (i. 2 Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. 1. 460). CHAP. ii. THE TUDORS. 67 took place within the next month. The incidents in the procession from the Tower here first assume a character- istic form. 1 An Arragonese sailor capered on a tight-rope down from the battlements of St. Paul's to a window at the Dean's Gate, which delighted the boy-King. Logic, Arithmetic and other sciences greeted the precocious child on his advance. One or two vestiges of the fading past crossed his road. ' An ' old man in a chair, with crown and sceptre, represented the ' state of King Edward the Confessor. St. George would have ' spoken, but that his Grace made such speed that for lack of ' time he could not.' 2 On his arrival at the Abbey, he found it, for the first time, transformed into a ' cathedral.' 3 He was met not by Abbot or Dean, but by the then Bishop of West- minster, Thirlby. The King's godfather, Archbishop Cranmer, officiated ; and the changes of the service, which was still that of the Mass of the Church of Home, were most significant. It was greatly abridged, partly ' for the tedious length of the ' same,' and ' the tender age ' of the King partly for ' that ' many points of the same were such as, by the laws of the 4 nation, were not allowable.' Instead of the ancient form of election, the Archbishop presented the young Prince as ' right- ' ful and undoubted inheritor.' 4 The consent of the people was only asked to the ceremony of the coronation. The unction was performed with unusual care. ' My Lord of Canter- ' bury kneeling on his knees, and the King lying prostrate ' upon the altar, anointed his back.' The coronation itself was peculiar. ' My Lord Protector, the Duke of Somerset, held the ' crown in his hand for a certain space,' and it was set on the King's head by those two, the Duke and the Archbishop. For the first time the Bible was presented to the Sovereign, 5 an act which may perhaps have suggested to the young King the substitution, which he had all but effected, 6 of the Bible for St. George in the insignia of the Order of the Garter. There was no sermon ; but the 7 short address of Cranmer, considering the punctilious- ness with which the ceremony had been performed, and the 1 Holinshed ; Taylor, p. 285 ; Le- Anstis's Order of the Garter, i. land, iv. 321 ; Prynne's Signal Loyalty, 438. For the story of the King's part ii. p. 250. re nark on the Bible, in ' Chapters ' 2 Leland, iv. 324. (p. 174), I can find no authority. 3 See Chapter VI. ' Strype's Memorials of Cranmer, i. 4 Burnet, Coll. Rec., part ii. book i. 204 ; Harleian MS. 2308. Its genuine- No. 4. ness is contested in Hook's Lives of 4 Camden's Remains, 371. the Archbishops, ii. 232. F 2 68 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. importance of his position as the Father of the Reformed Church of England, is perhaps the boldest and most pregnant utterance Archbishop ever delivered in the Abbey. He warned the young address! 18 King against confounding orthodoxy with morality. He insisted on the supremacy of the royal authority over both the Bishops of Eome and the Bishops of Canterbury. The wiser sort will look to their claws, and clip them. He pointed out in what respect the solemn rites of coronation have their ends and utility, yet neither direct force nor necessity ; they be good admoni- tions to put kings in mind of their duty to God, but no increasement of their dignity : for they be God's anointed not in respect of the oil which the bishop useth, but in consideration of their power, which is ordained ; of tbe sword, which is authorised ; of their persons, which are elected of God, and endued witb tbe gifts of His Spirit, for the better ruling and guiding of His people. Tbe oil, if added, is but a ceremony : if it be wanting, that king is yet a perfect monarch not- withstanding, and God's anointed, as well as if be was inoiled. Now for tbe person or bishop tbat doth anoint a king, it is proper to be done by tbe cbiefest. But if they cannot, or will not, any bishop may perform this ceremony. He described wbat God requires at tbe hands of kings and rulers tbat is, religion and virtue. Therefore not from the Bishop of Rome, but as a messenger from my Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall mostbumbly admonish your Royal Majesty wbat things your Higbness is to perform. He required the King, like Josiah, to see God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed; to reward virtue, to revenge sin, to justify tbe innocent, to relieve tbe poor, to procure peace, to repress violence, and to execute justice throughout your realms. 22. Mary's coronation was stamped with all the strange vicissitudes of her accession. Now first rose into view the difficulties, which in various forms have reappeared since, respecting the Coronation Oath. The Council proposed to bind tbe Queen, by an especial clause, to maintain the independence of tbe English Church ; and she, on the otber band, was meditating how she could introduce an adjective sub silentio, and intended to swear only tbat sbe would observe tbe 'just ' laws and constitutions. But tbese grounds could not be avowed. Tbe Queen was told tbat her passage tbrougb tbe streets would be CHAP. ii. THE TUDORS. 69 unsafe until her accession had been sanctioned by Parliament, and the The Pro- Act repealed by which she was illegitirnatised. With Paget's SepT's') ^ ie ^P sne faced down these objections, and declared that she would be crowned at once ; she appointed the 1st of October for the ceremony ; on the 28ch she sent for the Council, to attempt an appeal to their generosity. She spoke to them at length of her past life and sufferings, of the conspiracy to set her aside, and of the wonderful Providence which had preserved her and raised her to the throne : her only desire, she said, was to do her duty to God and to her subjects; and she hoped (turning, as she spoke, pointedly to Gardiner) that they would not forget their loyalty, and would stand by her in her extreme necessity. Observing them hesitate, she cried, ' My Lords, on my knees I implore you ! ' and flung herself on the ground at their feet. The most skilful acting could not have served Mary's purpose better than this outburst of natural emotion : the spectacle of their kneeling sovereign overcame for a time the scheming passions of her ministers ; they were affected, burst into tears, and withdrew their opposition to her wishes. On the 30th, the procession from the Tower to Westminster through the streets was safely accomplished. The retinues of the Lords pro- tected the Queen from insult, and London put on its usual outward signs of rejoicing ; St. Paul's spire was rigged with yards like a ship's mast [an adventurous Dutchman outdoing the Spaniard at Edward VI. 's coronation, and sitting astride on the weathercock, five hundred feet in the air]. 1 The Hot Gospeller, half-recovered from his gaol- fever, got out of bed to see the spectacle, and took his station at the west end of St. Paul's. The procession passed so close as almost to touch him, and one of the train, seeing him muffled up, and looking more dead than alive, said, ' There is one that loveth Her Majesty well, ' to come out in such condition.' The Queen turned her head and looked at him. To hear that any one of her subjects loved her just then was too welcome to be overlooked. 2 On the next day the ceremony in the Abbey was performed without fresh burdens being laid upon Mary's conscience. The Thecoro- three chief prelates, the Archbishops of Canterbury nation, an( j Yoik, and the Bishop of London, were prisoners in the Tower. Gardiner, therefore, as Bishop of Winchester, officiated, ' without any express right or precedent,' as Archbishop Parker afterwards indignantly wrote. 3 The sermon was by Bishop Day, who had preached at her brother's funeral. 4 She had been alarmed lest Henry IV.'s holy oil 1 Taylor, p 287 ; Holinshed. s De Ant. Brit. p. 509. - Froude, vi. 100, 101. 4 Burnet, Hist. Ref. ii. 251. 70 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. 11. should have lost its efficacy through the interdict; and, ac- cordingly, a fresh supply was sent through the Imperial Ambassador, blessed by the Bishop of Arras. She had also feared lest even St. Edward's Chair had been polluted, by having been the seat of her Protestant brother ; and accordingly, though it is expressly stated to have been brought out, another chair was sent by the Pope, in which she sate, and which is now said to be in the cathedral of Winchester. 1 Anne of Cleves was present, and also Elizabeth. The Princess complained to the French Ambassador of the weight of her coronet. ' Have ' patience,' said Noailles, ' and before long you will exchange it ' for a crown.' 2 23. That time soon arrived. The coronation of Elizabeth, like that of her sister, had its own special characteristics. The day (January 15) was fixed in deference to her astrologer, Dee, who pronounced it a day of good luck ; and it was long observed as an anniversary hi the Abbey. 3 The procession was on the day before. The Pro- As she passed out to her carriage under the gates of the jaif 14' Tower, fraught to her with such stern remembrances, she stood still, looked up to heaven, and said ' Lord, Almighty and Everlasting God, I give Thee most humble ' thanks, that Thou hast been so merciful unto me as to spare me to ' behold this joyful day ; and I acknowledge that Thou hast dealt ' wonderfully and mercifully with me. As Thou didst with Thy ' servant Daniel the prophet, whom Thou deliveredst out of the den, ' from the cruelty of the raging lions, even so was I overwhelmed, ' and only by Thee delivered. To Thee, therefore, only be thanks, ' honour, and praise for ever. Amen.' She then took her seat, and passed on passed on through thronged streets and crowded balconies, amidst a people to whom her accession was as the rising of the sun. Away in the country the Protestants were few and the Catholics many. But the Londoners were the first- born of the Keformation, whom the lurid fires of Smithfield had worked only into fiercer convictions. The aldermen wept for joy as she went by. Groups of children waited for her with their little songs at the crosses and conduits. Poor women, though it was midwinter, flung nosegays into her lap. In Cheapside the Corporation presented her with an English Bible. She kissed it, ' thanking the City for their ' goodly gift,' and saying, ' she would diligently read therein.' One 1 Planche, p. 60. A reasonable not that which served for her marriage, doubt is expressed (in Gent. Nag. 1838, 2 Froude vi. 102. p. 612) whether the Winchester chair is 3 See Chapter VI. CHAP ii. THE TUDORS. 71 of the crowd, recollecting who first gave the Bible to England, exclaimed, ' Kemember old King Harry the Eighth ! ' and a gleam of light passed over Elizabeth's face ' a natural child,' says Holinshed, ' who at the very remembrance of her father's name took so great a ' joy, that all men may well think that as she rejoiced at his name ' whom the realm doth still hold of so worthy memory, so in her doings ' she will resemble the same.' l The pageants in the City were partly historical partly theological : her grandparents and her parents ; the eight Beatitudes; Time with his daughter Truth 'a seemly and ' meet personage richly apparelled in Parliament robes ' Deborah, ' the judge and restorer of the House of Israel.' On Temple Bar, for once deserting their stations at Guildhall, Gog and Magog stood, with hands joined over the gate. The Queen thanked her citizens, and assured them that she would ' stand ' their good Queen.' It has been truly remarked that the increased seriousness, of the time is shown in the contrast between these grave Biblical figures and the light classical imagery of the pageants that witnessed the passage of her mother. 2 At the ceremony in the Abbey, on the following day, the Coronation Mass was celebrated, and the Abbot of Westminster The coro- took his part in the service for the last time. Thus sSmfcy, far Elizabeth's conformity to the ancient Ritual was 1559. ' complete. But the coming changes made themselves felt. The Litany was read in English ; the Gospel and Epistle, still more characteristically representing her double ecclesiastical position, in Latin and English. On these grounds, and from an unwillingness to acknowledge her disputed succession, the whole Bench of Bishops, with one exception, were absent. 3 The see of Canterbury was vacant. The Archbishop of York de- murred to the English Litany. The Bishop of London, the proper representative of the Primate on these occasions, was in prison. But his robes were borrowed ; and Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle, Dean of the Chapel Pioyal, consented to act for him, but, it was believed, afterwards died of remorse. 4 ' The oil was ' grease, and smelt ill.' Still the ceremony was completed, and she was elected and ' proclaimed ' by the singular but expressive 1 Froude, vii. 38, 39. 15, 1559) speaks of the Bisliops, mitred - Aikin's Elizabeth, i. 251. and in scarlet, singing Salve fasta dies. 3 Ibid. i. 252 ; Nichols' Progresses, But this must be a mistake, i. 30 ; Taylor, p. 287. Machyn (Jan. 4 Burnet, ii. pt. i. p. 685. 72 THE COKONATIONS OF CHAP. n. title ' Empress from the Orcade Isles unto the Mountains * Pyrenee.' l 24. The day of the coronation of James I. first king of ' Great Britain ' was chosen from his namesake the Apostle, coronation The procession from the Tower was abandoned, in consequence of the plague ; though Ben Jonson, who bt. James's had been employed by the City to prepare the pageants, 25, ieos y published his account of wiiat they would have been. 2 The King and Queen went straight from the Palace to the Abbey, Anne ' with her hair down hanging.' 3 The presence of all the Bishops, contrasted with the scanty attendance at the inauguration of Elizabeth, indicates that this was the first coro- nation celebrated by the Anglican Heformed Church. Andrews was Dean ; Whitgift was Archbishop. Bilson preached the sermon. 4 When James sat on .the Stone of Scone, 5 the first King of Great Britain, the S to present him with the ancient Gospels, ' on ' which for divers hundred years together the Kings of * England had solemnly taken their coronation oaths.' But the royal barge ' balked those steps,' and ' was run aground at the ' Parliament stairs.' Sir Robert was glad that the inconvenient precedent of landing at his stairs was missed ; but it was believed that ' the Duke of Buckingham had prevented that act ' of grace being done him.' l There was a feud raging within the Chapter of Westminster an echo of the larger struggles without which was apparent as soon as the King entered the doors of the Abbey. Williams, the Dean, was in disgrace, and had in vain entreated Buckingham to be allowed to officiate. But his rival, Laud, carried the day through that potent favourite, and, as prebendary, took the place of his hated superior. 2 The coronations of the Tudor sovereigns have been according 3 to the Roman Pontifical, and that of James I. having been prepared in haste, Charles issued a commission, in which Laud took the chief part, to draw up a more purely Anglican Service. The alterations, however, rather pointed in another direction. The unction was to be made in the form of a cross. Laud consecrated the oil on the altar. 4 The clergy were espe- cially named as coining ' nearer to the altar than others.' The King vouchsafed to kiss the two chief officiating Prelates. On the altar was planted an ancient crucifix from the Regalia. King Edward's ivory comb was brought out, and when the King sate down in the royal chair, ' he called for the comb that he ' might see it.' At the same time the Royal Prerogative was exalted by the introduction of the prayer (omitted since the time of Henry VI.) that the King might have ' Peter's keys ' and Paul's doctrine.' 5 The words ' to the people ' were said to have been left out in the oath. 6 Whether by accident, or from its being the proper colour for the day (the Feast of the Purification), or, ' to declare the virgin purity with which he ' came to be espoused to his kingdom,' Charles changed the 1 Ellis's Collection of Original Let- plete list, and left to the King to ters, i. 214 ; Gent. Mag. 1838, vol. ix. choose. (Fuller's Church Hist. A.I>. p. 473. 1626.) See Chapter VI. 2 It was left to Williams's choice to 3 Heylin's Laud, p. 135. name a prebendary. He could not 4 State Papers, Feb. 2, 1625-26. See pass over Laud (as Bishop of St. p. 46. David's), and he would not nominate s Heylin's Laud, p. 136. him. He therefore presented a com- 6 Oldmixon, i. 82. 74 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. it. usual purple velvet robe for one of white satin, which the spectators, at the time or afterwards, regarded as ominous of his being led out as a victim, or as having drawn upon him the misfortunes predicted in ancient days for the ' White King.' ' ' The left wing of the dove, the mark of the Confessor's halcyon ' days, was broken on the sceptre staff by what casualty God ' himself knows. The King sent for Mr. Acton, then his gold- 1 smith, commanding him that the ring-stone should be set in ' again. The goldsmith replied that it was impossible to be ' done so fairly but that some mark would remain thereof. ' The King, hi some passion, returned, " If you will not do it, ' " another shall." Thereupon Mr. Acton returned and got ' another dove of gold to be artificially set in ; whereat his ' Majesty was well contented, as making no discovery thereof.' It was the first infringement on the old Regalia. The text was, as if for a funeral sermon, ' I will give thee a crown of life,' by Senhouse, Bishop of Carlisle, who died shortly after of black jaundice, ' a disease which hangs the face with mourning as ' against its burial.' 2 During the solemnity an earthquake was felt, which Baxter long remembered, ' being a boy at school at ' the time, and having leave to play. It was about two o'clock ' in the afternoon, and did affright the boys and all in the ' neighbourhood.' 3 The whole ceremonial is detailed by Fuller as coming ' within * (if not the park and pale) the purlieus of ecclesiastical history.' But he adds, with a touching pathos : ' I have insisted the longer ' on this subject, moved thereat by this consideration that if it * be the last solemnity performed on an English King in this ' land, posterity will conceive my pains well bestowed, because ' on the last. But, if hereafter Divine Providence shall assign ' England another King, though the transactions herein be not ' wholly precedented, something of state may be chosen out ' grateful for imitation.' * 26. At the time when Fuller wrote these words, it did in- deed seem as if Charles. I.'s coronation would be the last. Ail its disastrous omens had been verified, and a new dynasty seemed firmly established on the throne of this realm. The 1 Oldmixon, i. 82 ; Palgrave's Nor- Charles I. was crowned King of Scot- mandy, iii. 880 ; Heylin's Laud, p. land at Edinburgh, by Spottiswood, 138. Archbishop of St. Andrew's. (See - Fuller's Church Hist. AJ>. 1626. Ellis's Letters, iii. 283; D'Israeli's 3 Baxter's Life, p. 2. diaries I., i. 276.) 4 Fuller's Church Hist. A.D. 1626. CHAP. 11. THE STUAETS. 75 Regalia were gone. 1 Yet even then there was a semblance installation preserved of the ancient Ritual. Not in the Abbev of Oliver .7 > cromweii, but in the adjacent Hall, his Highness Oliver Crom- 1657. well was ' installed ' as Lord Protector ; and out of the Abbey was brought, for that one and only time, ' the Chair of ' Scotland,' and on it, ' under a prince-like canopy of state,' as a successor of Fergus and Kenneth, of Edward I. and of James L, Oliver was solemnly enthroned. The Bible was presented as in the time of Edward VI. : ' a book of books,' which ' doth con- ' tain both precepts and examples for good government ; ' ' the ' book of life, which, in the Old Testament, shows Christum ' velatum ; in the New, Christum revelatum.^ 27. The coronation of Charles II. 3 was celebrated with all the splendour which the enthusiasm of the Restoration could coronation provide. It is the first of which an elaborate pictorial of Charles . ii. representation remains. The ceremony ot the King s ' coronation was done with the greatest solemnity and glory,' says Clarendon, ' that ever any had been seen in that kingdom.' The utmost care was taken to examine ' the records and old formularies,' and to ascertain the ' claims to privileges and precedency,' in order ' to discredit and discountenance the novelties with which the Kingdom had been so much intoxi- cated for so many years together.' 5 esiwi " Th e Procession from the Tower was revived. 4>rii 22, Pepys, of course, was there to see : Up early, and made myself as fine as I could, and put on my velvet coat, the first day that I put it on, though made half a year ago. ... It is impossible to relate the glory of this day, expressed in the clothes of them that rid [in the procession], and their horses and horse- cloths. Amongst others, my Lord Sandwich's diamonds and embroidery was not ordinary among them. The knights of the Bath was a brave sight in itself. . . . Remarkable were the two men that represent the two Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine. The Bishops were next after Barons, which is the higher place ; which makes me think that the 1 See Chapters V. and VI. to carry out the Solemn League and * Forster's Statesmen of the Com- Covenant. The crown was placed on momccalth, v. 421, 423. his head by the Marquis of Argyle, 3 He had already been crowned King who was executed after the Eestora- of Scotland, in the parish church of tion. Scone, on January 1, 1651. The sermon 4 Ogilvy's Coronation of King was preached by the Moderator of the Charles II., where every triumphal General Assembly. The text was 2 arch is described. Kings xi. 12-17. After the sermon 5 Clarendon's Life, April 23, 1661. the King swore, with his usual facility, 76 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. next Parliament they will be called to the House of Lords. My Lord Monk rode bare after the King, and led in his hand a spare horse, being Master of the Horse. . . . The streets all gravelled, and the houses hung with carpets upon them, made brave show, and the ladies out of the windows. . . . Both the King and the Duke of York took notice of us, as they saw us at the window About four I rose and got to the Abbey, and with much ado did get up into a scaffold across the north end, where with a great deal of The Coro- patience I sate from past four to eleven. And a great pleasure Across ^ was * see ^e Abbey raised in the middle all covered with i66i. r ed, and a throne, that is a chair and footstool, on the top of it, and all the officers of all kinds, so much as the very fiddlers, in red vests. At last comes the Dean [Dr. Earles] and Prebendaries of Westminster. 1 The ceremonial we need not follow, except in a few charac- teristic particulars. The Eegalia were all new, though bearing the ancient names, in the place of those that perished in the Commonwealth, Busby carried the ampulla. Archbishop Juxon, ' in a rich ancient cope,' ' present but much indisposed ' and weak,' 2 anointed and crowned the King. The rest of the service was performed by Sheldon, as Bishop of London. 3 Several untoward incidents marred the solemnity. The Duke of York prevailed on the King, ' who had not high reverence * for old customs,' that Lord Jermyn should act the part of his Master of the Horse, as the Duke of Albemarle did to the King. The Lords were exceedingly surprised and troubled at this, of which they heard nothing till they saw it ; and they liked it the worse because they discerned that it issued from a fountain from whence many bitter waters were like to flow the customs of the Court of France, whereof the King and the Duke had too much the image in their heads, and than which there could not be a copy more universally ingrateful and odious to the English nation. The Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of Ossory quarrelled as to the right of carrying the insignia, 'as they ' sate at table in Westminster Hall.' 4 The King's footmen 1 Pepys's Diary, April 22 and 23, * The sermon was preached before, 1661. The King rode, not to West- on Prov. xxviii. 2, by Morley, Bishop minster, but to Whitehall. The ban- of Worcester; according to Pepys, on quet, however, was at Westminster. the day before, in Henry VII.'s Chapel, (Ogilvy, p. 177.) according to Evelyn, at the usual time * Evelyn, April 23, 1661 ; Ogilvy, of the service. P- 177. 4 Clarendon's Life, ibid. CHAP. ii. THE STUAKTS. 77 and the Barons of the Cinque Ports had a desperate struggle for the canopy. ' Strange it is to think that these two days have held up * fair till all is done, and then it fell raining, and thundering, ' and lightning as I have not seen it so for some years; which ' people did take great notice of.' ' 28. As in the case of Charles II. , so of James II., an coronation elaborate description of the pageant is preserved. 2 He Awi" as! n ' was crowned, as his brother had been, on the 23rd of April, the Feast of St. George. The presence of the Queen and of the Peeresses gave to the solemnity a charm which had been wanting to the magnificent inauguration of the late King. Yet those who remembered that inauguration pronounced that there was a great falling-off. . . . James ordered an estimate to be made of the cost of the procession from the Tower, and found that it would amount to about half as much as be proposed to expend in covering his wife with trinkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse where he ought to have been frugal, and niggardly where be might pardonably have been profuse. More than a hundred thousand pounds were laid out in dressing the Queen, and the procession from the Tower was omitted. The folly of tbis course is obvious. If pageantry be of any use in politics, it is of use as a means of striking the imagination of the multitude. It is surely tbe height of absurdity to shut out the populace from a show of which the main object is to make an impression on the populace. James would bave shown a more judicious munificence and a more judicious parsimony, if be had traversed London from east to west with tbe accustomed pomp, and bad ordered tbe robes of his wife to be somewhat less thickly set with pearls and diamonds. His example was, however, long followed by bis successors ; and sums which, well employed, would bave afforded exquisite gratification to a large part of tbe nation, were squandered on an exhibition to wbicb only three or four thousand privileged persons were admitted. James bad ordered Bancroft to abridge tbe Eitual. Tbe reason publicly assigned was that tbe day was too short for all tbat was to be done. But whoever examines tbe changes which were made will see that the real object was to remove some things highly offensive to tbe religious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. Tbe Communion Ser- vice was not read. 3 . . . Francis Turner, Bisbop of Ely, preached. He was one of those 1 Pepys, April 23, 1661. There was 3 The Coronation Oath is said to no coronation for the Queen-Consort in have been altered. (Oldmixon, ii. 695 ) 1662. The ceremony of the presentation of 2 Sandford's History of tlie Corona the Bible was not yet a fixed part of tion of James II the Ritual. 78 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. 11. writers who still affected the obsolete style of Archbishop Williams and Bishop Andrews. The sermon was made up of quaint conceits, such as seventy years earlier might have been admired, but such as moved the scorn of a generation accustomed to the purer eloquence of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. King Solomon was King James. Adonijah was Monmouth. Joab was a Rye-house conspirator ; Shimei, a Whig libeller ; Abiathar, an honest but misguided old cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles was construed to mean that the King was above the Parliament, and another was cited to prove that he alone ought to command the militia. Towards the close of the discourse, the orator very timidly alluded to the new and embar- rassing position in which the Church stood with reference to the sovereign, and reminded his hearers that the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, though not himself a Christian, had held in honour those Christians who remained true to their religion, and had treated with scorn those who sought to earn his favour by apostasy. The service in the Abbey was followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, the banquet by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad poetry. 1 The crown had tottered on James's head. Henry Sidney as Keeper of the Eobes, held it up. ' This,' he said, ' is not the ' first time our family has supported the crown/ 2 29. The same apprehensions that Fuller entertained when he recorded the coronation of Charles I., under the feeling that wiiii am and it might be the last, were doubtless felt by many a spectator of the events which succeeded the corona- tion of James II., that this again would not be followed by another. The legitimate line was broken : the successor was neither an Englishman nor an Anglican. But with that tenacity of ancient forms which distinguished the Revolution sanction of ^ 1688, the rite of Coronation, so far from being set nation^bT aside, was now first sanctioned by Act of Parliament. 3 Parliament, ft owed this recognition, doubtless, to the Coronation Oath, which had always been treated as the safeguard of the liberties of the English Church and nation, and was now, for the first time since the Reformation, altered into conformity with the actual usages of the kingdom, to maintain ' the Pro- 1 Macaulay, i. 473, 474. Chamber, of which two of the pieces, Oldmixon, i. 195 ; North, ii. 126. those of the Circumcision of Isaac and Three relics of James II.' a coronation of Goliath, can be identified in Sand- remain : 1. The music, then first used, ford's engravings. 3. The attendance of Purcell and Blow. (Planche, p. 52.) of the Westminster Scholars. (Sand- 2. The tapestry, preserved in West- ford, 83.) minster School and in the Jerusalem 3 1 William and Mary, c. 14. CHAP. IT. THE STUAETS. 79 ' testant religion as established by law.' 1 'From this time,' said a speaker in the House of Commons, 'the English will ' date their liberty and their laws from William and Mary, not ' from St. Edward Confessor.' 2 The procession at their coronation, as in the case of James II., took place not from the Tower, but from the Palace of The Pro- Whitehall. It was delayed more than two hours (from 11 A.M. to 1.30 P.M.), perhaps by the press of business consequent on the alarming intelligence, which had reached the King and Queen not long before, of the landing of James II. in Ireland. 3 At last they appeared. There were many peculiarities in the spectacle. The double coronation was such as had never The GOTO- been seen before. The short King and tall Queen satur'uy, walked side by side, not as king and consort, but as 1G89 1 . joint sovereigns, with the sword between them. For the first time a second chair of state was provided, which has since been habitually used for the Queens-consort. Into this chair Mary was lifted, like her husband, girt with the sword, and invested with the symbols of sovereignty. The Princess Anne, who stood near, said, ' Madam, I pity your fatigue.' The Queen turned sharply, with the words, ' A crown, sister, is * not so heavy as it seems.' 4 Behind the altar rose, for the first time, above the Confessor's Chapel, the seats of the assembled Commons. There was a full attendance of the lay magnates of the realm, including even some who had voted for a Eegency. Amongst the gifts was (revived from the coronation of Edward VI. and the installation of Cromwell) the presentation, con- tinued from this time henceforward, of the Bible as ' the most ' valuable thing that this world affords/ 5 The show of Bishops, indeed, was scanty. The Primate did not make his appearance ; and his place was supplied by Compton. On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd, Bishop of St. 1 For the whole question of the same Act) been read previously before alteration of the Coronation Oath, see the two Houses of Parliament. Macaulay, iii. 114-117. 3 Clarke's James II., ii. 328, 329 ; Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 15 ; 2 The Declaration against Trans- Lamberty, quoted in Strickland, xi. substantiation, required from the 21. James II. landed at Kinsale on sovereign by the Bill of Rights (1 W. March 12. and M. c. 2, 2), was made in the 4 Oldmixon's Hist, of England ; Abbey, down to the coronation of William and Mary, p. 8. George IV. Since that time it has (in 5 Maskell, iii. p. cxix. Coronation pursuance with the provisions of the Service of William and Mary. 80 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year. On the other side Sprat, Bishop of Eochester, lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the chalice [as Dean of Westminster]. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached [on the last words of David the son of Jesse '] with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment. His grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by malignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded ; and it may well be believed that the animated peroration, in which he implored Heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory, with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest hums of the Commons. 2 There were, of course, bad omens observed by the Jacobites. The day was, for the first time, neither a Sunday nor a holyday. The King had no money for the accustomed offering of twenty guineas, and it was supplied by Danby. 3 The way from the Abbey to the Palace was lined with Dutch soldiers. The medals had on their reverse a chariot, which was interpreted to be that on which Tullia drove over her father's body. The more scurrilous lampoons represented a boxing-match between the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London in the Abbey, and the Champion riding up the hall on an ass which kicked over the royal tables. 4 The Champion's glove was reported to have been carried off by an old woman upon crutches. ' I ' heard the sound of his gauntlet when he flung it on the * ground,' says a spectator ; ' but as the light in Westminster ' Hall had utterly failed, no person could distinguish what was ' done.' 5 30. The coronation of Anne, the last Stuart sovereign, had been fixed long before to be, as that of her father and uncle, coronation on St. George's Day ; and so it took place, though A P rii23, William had been buried but ten days before. The Queen was carried, owing to her gout, from St. James's to the Abbey. 6 The duties of Lord Great Chamberlain were performed by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. Her train was 1 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, i. 521. ' the earth by clear shining after 2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4 : ' He that ruleth ' rain.' ' over man must be just, ruling in the ' J Macaulay, iii. 188, 199. ' fear of God. And he shall be as the s Lamberty in Strickland, xii. 24. ' light of the morning, when the sun 4 Macaulay, iii. 120. 4 riseth, even a morning without clouds ; s Lamberty in Strickland, xi. 27. as the tender grass springing out of 6 Taylor, p. 111. CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 81 carried by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Archbishop Tenison crowned her. 1 Sharp, Archbishop of York, preached the sermon on Isa. xlix. 23, ' Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their ' queens thy nursing mothers ' doubtless in the expectation, not altogether fruitless, of the advantages that the Church of England would derive from ' the bounty of good Queen Anne.' One important place was vacant. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, who should have supported her left side, was absent. For Ken was in his nonjuring retirement, and Kidder was in disgrace. 2 It was remembered that the high offices of the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine were represented by Jonathan Andrews and James Clark. 3 The Queen received the homage of her husband, Prince George of Denmark, in the same form as that of the English nobles. 81. George I.'s coronation was an awkward reconciliation between the two contending factions and nations. The cere- coronation monies had to be explained by the ministers, who oct2< geL cou ld n t speak German, to the King, who could not speak English, in Latin, which they must both have spoken very imperfectly. Hence the saying, that much ' bad ' language ' passed between them. 4 Bolingbroke and Oxford endeavoured to propitiate the new dynasty by assisting at the coronation Atterbury, by offering to the King the perquisites which he might have claimed as Dean. 5 Bishop Talbot preached the sermon. The day was celebrated at Oxford by Jacobite degrees, and at Bristol by Jacobite riots. 6 In this reign a permanent change was effected in one of the accompaniments of the coronation, namely, the new arrange- ment of the Knights of the Bath. In the earlier coronations, it had been the practice of the sovereigns to create a number of knights before they started on their procession from the The order Tower. These knights being made in time of peace, of the Bath. were no t enrolled in any existing order, and for a long period had no special designation; but, inasmuch as one of the most striking and characteristic parts of their admission was the complete ablution of their persons on the vigil of their 1 It is said that she had negotiated s Oldmixon, ii. 578. for Ken to crown her (Strickland, xii. 6 Stanhope's England, vol. i. 167. 48). But this would hardly have been The additional securities for the Church done without expelling Tenison. of England were now added to the 2 Ibid. Coronation Oath in consequence of 3 Taylor, p. 105. those granted to the Church of Scot 4 Chapters, p. 188. land in the Act of the Union. G 82 THE CORONATIONS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. CHAP. IT. knighthood, as an emblem of the cleanliness and purity of their future profession, they were called Knights of ' the Bath.' ' The King himself bathed on the occasion with them. They were completely undressed, placed in large baths, and then wrapped in soft blankets. 2 The distinctive name first appears in the time of Henry V. The ceremony had always taken place at Westminster ; the bath in the Painted or Prince's Chamber, and the vigils either before the Confessor's Shrine, or (since the Keformation) in Henry VII. 's Chapel. Edward II. was thus knighted, at his father's coronation; and the crowd was so great that two knights were suffocated. 3 Evelyn saw ' the * bathing of the knights, preparatory to the coronation of ' Charles II., in the Painted Chamber.' 4 The badge which they wore was emblematic of the sacredness of their Order three garlands twisted together in honour of the Holy Trinity, and supposed to be derived from Arthur, founder of British chivalry. The motto with a somewhat questionable orthodoxy was, ' Tria numina juncta in uno.' The badge was altered in the reign of James L, who, by a no less audacious secularisa- tion, left out numina, in order to leave the interpretation open for ' the junction in one ' of the three kingdoms (tria regnd) of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 5 The Shamrock was added to the Eose and Thistle after the Union with Ireland, 1802. 6 It occurred to Sir Eobert Walpole to reconstruct the Order, by the limitation of its members to persons of merit, and by the title, thus fitly earned, of ' the most honourable.' It is said that his main object was to provide himself with a means of resisting the constant applications for the Order of the Garter. As such he offered it to Sarah, Duchess of Marl- borough, for her grandson. ' No,' she said, ' nothing but the ' Garter.' ' Madam,' said Walpole, ' they who take the Bath ' will the sooner have the Garter.' 7 The first knight created under the new statutes was William 1 The most remarkable ' bath ' ever * Nichols, pp. 37, 38, 46. taken by a knight, for this purpose, Ibid. pp. 192, 194. was that of the Tribune Rienzi in the ' Ibid. p. 39. porphyry font of Constantine, in the Quoth King Robin, Our Ribbons, Baptistry of St. John Lateran. The I see, are too few words ' dub a knight ' are said to be Of St. Andrew's the Green, and St. taken from the dip, ' doob,' in the George's the Blue ; bath. I must find out another of colour more '-' Nichols's History of the Orders, gay, iii- 341. That will teach all my subjects with 3 Brayley's Westminster, p. 97. pride to obey.' Diary, April 19, 1661. (Swift's Works, xii. 369.) INSTALLATION OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE BATH IN 1812 IN HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL. G 2 84 THE COEONATIONS OF CHAP. n. Duke of Cumberland, son of the future King, George II. The child afterwards to grow up into the fierce champion of his house -was but four years old, and was, 'by reason of his ' tender age,' excused from the bath. But he presented his little sword at the altar ; and the other knights were duly bathed in the Prince's Chamber, and kept their vigil in Henry installations VII. 's Chapel, where also the installation took place, T^v,t as has been the case ever since. The number of jviiifsnvpS 01 the Bath, knights (36) was fixed to correspond with the number of the stalls in the Chapel. Every 20th of October the anni- versary of George's I.'s coronation a procession of the knights was to take place to the Chapel, with a solemn service. 1 On occasion of an installation, they proceeded after the service, in their scarlet robes and white plumes, to a banquet in the Prince's Chamber. The royal cook stood at the door of the Abbey, with his cleaver, threatening to strike off the spurs from the heels of any knight who proved unworthy of his knightly vows. 2 The highest functionary was the Great Master, an office first filled by Montagu, Earl of Halifax. In 1749 Lord Delamere asked the place for the Duke of Montagu, who died in that year ; and from that time to prevent the recur- rence of such a precedence no Great Master has been appointed, a Prince always acting on his behalf. 3 Next to him ranks the Dean of Westminster, as Dean of the Order. The selection of a dean rather than a bishop arose from the circum- stance that the statutes were framed on the model of those of the Order of the Thistle, which, being established in Scotland during the abeyance of Episcopacy, had no place for a prelate amongst its officers. According to this Presbyterian scheme, the Dean of Westminster was naturally chosen, both from his position as the chief Presbyter in the Church of England, and also from his connection with the Abbey in which the cere- mony was to take place. It was his duty to receive the swords of the knights, lay them on the altar (erected for the purpose), 1 Nichols, pp. 47, 52. at the west entrance, but at the South 2 The whole scene is represented Transept door. ' Each of the knights in a picture, painted by Canaletti for bowed to him, and touched their hats. Bishop Wilcocks, in 1747, now in the Some of them asked whether there Deanery. (See Chapter VI.) From were any fees to pay; to which he this picture it would appear that on answered, he would do himself the that occasion the procession came out honour to call upon them. We under- by the west door. In 1803 (see Gent. stand that he receives four guineas Mag., Ixxiii. pt. 1, p. 460), it entered for this extraordinary speech.' and retired by Poets' Corner ; and the * Nichols, p. 82. cook accordingly stood, not (as in 1747) CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 85 and restore them to their owners with suitable admonitions. Under the altar were placed the banners of the deceased knights, during which ceremony the Dead March in ' Saul ' was played. 1 The installations continued, at intervals more or less remote, till 1812, under the Regency, since which time they have ceased. In 1839 the Order underwent so extensive an enlargement and alteration, that no banners have since been added to those then hung in the Chapel. One remarkable degradation and restitution has taken place. Earl Dundonald's banner was, after the charges of fraud Lord Dun- brought against him in 1814, taken from its place, tenner." and ignominiously kicked down the steps of the Chapel. After many vicissitudes, it was restored to the family upon his death ; and in 1860, on the day of his funeral in the Abbey, by order of the Queen, was restored by the Herald of the Order to its ancient support. Underneath the vacant place of the shield an unknown admirer has rudely carved, in Spanish, ' Cochrane Chili y Libertad viva ! ' ofae u o a rge n 32 > We return to the ordinary routine of the royal n.^ Oct. 11, inaugurations. The coronation of George II. 2 was performed with all the pomp and magnificence that could be contrived ; the present King differing so much from the last, that all the pageantry and splendour, badges and trappings of royalty, were as pleasing to the son as they were irksome to the father. The dress of the Queen on this occasion was as fine as the accumulated riches of the city and suburbs could make it ; for besides her own jewels (which were a great number, and very valu- able), she had on her bead and on her shoulders, all the pearls she could borrow of the ladies of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews and jewellers at the other ; so that the appearance of her finery was a mixture of magnificence and meanness, not unlike the tclat of royalty in many other particulars when it comes to be really examined, and the sources traced to wbat money hires or flattery lends. 3 1 Gent. Mag. id supra. In 1803 the this occasion, see Chapter Book, No- Queen and Princesses sat in the Dean's vember 4, 1727. The ' Veni Creator ' Gallery, at the south-west corner of the was omitted by mistake. (Lambeth Nave, and were afterwards entertained Coronation Service.) Bishop Potter in the Deanery. The knights, in their preached the sermon, on 2 Chron. ix. 8. passage round the Nave, halted and (Calamy's Life, ii. 501.) made obeisance to them, the trumpets 3 Lord Hervey, i. 88, 89. This was sounding the whole time of the pro- caused by the loss of Queen Anne's cession. jewels. '-' For a quarrel with the Dean on 86 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. H. 33. 'The coronation of George III. 1 is over,' says Horace Walpole, 'Tis even a more gorgeous sight than I imagined. I saw the pro- cession and the Hall ; but the return was in the dark. In the morn- corona in & ^ey had forgot the sword of state, the chairs for King tion of and Queen, and their canopies. They used the Lord sept. 22, ' Mayor's for the first, and made the last in the Hall : so they did not set forth till noon ; and then, hy a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the Hall till his entry, by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the Knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. . . . My Lady Townshend said she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. ' Why,' said I, ' Madam, you walked at the last ? ' ' Yes, child,' said she, ' but I saw nothing of it : I only looked to " see who looked at me." ' The Duchess of Queensberry walked ! Her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. . . . For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions made Palace Yard the liveliest spectacle in the world : the Hall was the most glorious. The blaze of lights, the rich- ness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the benches of peers and peeresses, frequent and full, was as awful as a pageant can be ; and yet for the King's sake and my own, I never wish to see another ; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effmgham's promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept for their pro- ceedings. Lord Effmgham owned, the Earl Marshal's office had been strangely neglected ; but he had taken such care for the future, that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great ; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln's gallery, and even walked about the Hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Eoxana, was the finest figure at a distance ; she complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig, and a stick. ' Pho,' said he, ' you will only look as if you were ' taken up by the constable.' She told this everywhere, thinking the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth. Lady Pembroke, alone at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty ; the Duchess of Eichmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of 1 It is noted, that whereas few gave cession cost ten guineas, and a similar half-a-guinea for places to see George apartment three hundred and fifty. II.'s coronation, and for an apartment (Gent. Mag. 1821, pt. ii. p. 77. 'Wai- forty guineas, in the time of George pole's Letters, iii. 445.) III. front seats along the line of pro- CHAP. n. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 87 her own, could make her ; Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. The ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party : Lady Westmoreland, still handsome, and with more dignity than all ; the Duchess of Queensberry looked well, though her locks milk white ; Lady Albemarle very genteel ; nay, the middle age had some good representatives in Lady Holderness, Lady Kochford, and Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord Hertford's dress ; for you know, no profession comes amiss to me, from a tribune of the people to a habit-maker. Don't imagine that there were not figures as excellent on the other side : old Exeter, who told the King he was the handsomest man she ever saw ; old Effingham and a Lady Say and Seale, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were an excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B put on rouge upon his wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the Painted Chamber ; the Duchess of Queensberry told me of the latter, that she looked like an orange-peach, half red and half yellow. The coronets of the peers and their robes disguised them strangely ; it re- quired all the beauty of the Dukes of Kichmond and Marlborough to make them noticed. One there was, though of another species, the noblest figure I ever saw, the High Constable of Scotland, Lord Errol ; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The Champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woeful ; Lord Talbot piqued himself on backing his horse down the Hall, and not turning its rump towards the King, but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty, that it entered backwards : and at his retreat the spectators clapped, a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew-fair doings. He had twenty demclds, and came out of none creditably. He had taken away the table of the Knights of the Bath, and was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the others in the Court of Bequests. Sir William Stanhope said, ' We are ill-treated, for some of us are gentlemen.' Beckford told the Earl it was hard to refuse a table to the City of London, whom it would cost ten thousand pounds to banquet the King, and that his lordship would repent it, if they had not a table in the Hall ; they had. To the barons of the Cinque-ports, who made the same complaint, he said, ' If you come to ' me as Lord Steward, I tell you, it is impossible ; if as Lord Talbot, ' I am a match for any of you ; ' and then he said to Lord Bute, ' If I ' were a minister, thus I would talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch 88 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. n. ' none of your half measures.' l He had not much more dignity than the figure of General Monk in the Abbey. . . . Well, it was all delightful, but not half so charming as its being over. The English representatives of the Dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy appeared for the last time, 2 and with them the last relics of our dominion over France vanished. 3 Another incident, interpreted in a more ominous manner, was the fall of the largest jewel from the crown, which -was afterwards believed to have foretold the loss of America. 4 When Pitt resign'd, a nation's tears will own, Then fell the brightest jewel of the crown. Archbishop Seeker, who officiated, had baptized, confirmed, and married the King. Bishop Drummond preached on 1 Kings x. 9. The princely style in which the young King seated himself after the ceremony attracted general notice. * No actor in the character of Pyrrhus in the Distrest Mother ' (says an eye-witness 5 ), ' not even 'Booth himself, ever ascended * the throne with so much grace and dignity.' It was also observed that as the King was about to receive the Holy Com- munion, he inquired of the Archbishop whether he should not lay aside his crown. The Archbishop asked the Dean of West- minster (Zachary Pearce), -but neither knew, nor could say, what was the usual form. 6 The King then took it off, saying, ' There ought to be one.' He wished the Queen to do the same, but the crown was fastened to her hair. 7 It is not clearly known what George IV. and William IV. did ; 8 but in the coronation of Queen Victoria, the Eubric ran, and doubtless henceforth will run, ' The Queen, taking off her crown, kneels ' down.' But the most interesting peculiarity of George III.'s coro- 1 Walpole's Letters, iii. 437, 438, French and English. (Chapter Book, 440-445. The most ' diverting incident' July 31, 1761.) of the day is told in iii. 440. See also 4 Hughes's England, xiv. 49 ; Amc- the account by Bonnell Thornton in dotes of Chatham, iii. 383. Copters, pp -185 -192 ; and Gent. Mag. , Uf ofBisl Newtm (by himself), George II. on the battlefield of Dettin- gen. (Ann. Reg. 1861, p. 232.) Maskell, m. pp. h and 1m. 2 Gent. Mag., 1761, p. 419. They "' Hughes, xiv. 49. ranked before the Archbishop of Can- * The crown was worn at that part terbury. of the service by Henry VI. and Henry : The claims of the Dean and Chap- VIII., hut was not worn by Charles II. ter of Westminster were made in Old (Maskell, iii. p. liii.) CHAP II. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 89 corona- j^rge 1821. ' nation was the unseen attendance of the rival to the throne Prince Charles Edward. 1 ' I asked my Lord Marshal,' says Appearance David Hume, ' the reason of this strange fact. " Ay," charts 06 ' savs ne ' " a gentleman told me so who saw him there, ' " and whispered in his ear, 'Your Eoyal Highness is ' " ' the last of all mortals whom I should expect to see here.' ' " ' It was curiosity that led me,' said the other ; ' but I assure ' " ' you,' added he, ' that the person who is the cause of all ' " ' this pomp and magnificence is the man I envy least.' " ' 2 34. The splendour of the coronation of George IV. has been described by Sir Walter Scott 3 too fully to need repeti- tion. Many smaller incidents still survive in the recollection of those who were present. The heat of the day and the fatigue ef the ceremony almost ex- hausted the somewhat portly Prince, who was found cooling himself, stripped of all his robes, in the Confessor's Chapel, and at another part of the service was only revived by smelling salts accidentally provided by the Archbishop's secretary. During the long ceremony of the homage which he received with visible expressions of disgust or satisfaction, as the peers of the contending parties came up, he was perpetually wiping his streaming face with innumerable handkerchiefs, which he handed in rapid succession to the Primate, who stood beside him. The form of the coronation oath, on which so many political struggles hinged during this and the preceding reign, had been forgotten ; and the omission could only be rectified by requesting the King to make his signature at the foot of the oath, as printed in the service book, which was accordingly enrolled, instead of the usual engrossment on vellum. 4 ' He was in London under the name of Mr. Brown. (Gent. Mag. 1764, p. 24.) See also the scene in Westminster Hall, described in Redgauntlet. 2 Hume, in Gent. Mag., 1773. 3 See Gent. Mag., 1821, pt. ii. pp. 104-110. The Duke of Wellington acted as Lord High Constable, Lord Anglesey as Lord High Steward. The banquet was celebrated, and the Cham- pion then appeared, probably for the last time. The sermon was preached by the Archbishop of York (Vernon), on the same text as that selected by Burnet for William III. (See p. 80.) The ceremony was rehearsed the week before in the Abbey and Hall. (Ann. Register, 1821, p. 344.) ' Amongst the ' feudal services the two falcons of the Duke of Atholl , for the Isle of Man, were conspicuous. Seated on the wrist of his hawking gauntlet, the beautiful Peregrine falcons appeared, with their usual ornaments. The King descended from his chair of state, and the ladies of the court pressed round to caress and examine the noble birds.' The claim had been made and conceded at the coronation of Charles II. The coronation oath was altered to meet the new phraseology introduced by the union with the Church of Ireland, des- tined to be again altered by the recent Act for dissolving it. 4 I owe these incidents to various eyewitnesses, chiefly to Mr. Christopher Hodgson, then acting as secretary to Archbishop Button. 90 THE CORONATIONS OF CHAP. ti. But the most remarkable feature of the day was that it furnished the materials for what was, in fact, a political battle between the King and his Queen, almost between the King and his people. ' Everyone went in the morning with very un- ' comfortable feelings and dread.' ' On the one side the mag- nificence of the pageant, on the other side the failure of the ill-advised attempt of Queen Caroline to enter the Abbey, by a combination of feelings not altogether unusual, and not credit- able to the judgment of the English people, produced a com- plete reaction in favour of the successful husband against the unsuccessful wife. 2 The Queen, after vainly appealing to the Privy Council, to the Prime Minister, and to the Earl Marshal, Attempted ras hly determined to be present. At six o'clock on the yue?n ce f mornm g of the day, she drove from South Audley Caroline. Street to Dean's Yard. 3 Within the Precincts at that hour there were as yet but a few of the Abbey officials on the alert. One of them 4 was standing in the West Cloister when he saw the Queen approach, accompanied by Lord Hood. Just at the point where the Woodfall monument is now placed, they encountered a gentleman, in court costume, belonging to the opposite party, who hissed repeatedly in her face. Whilst Lord Hood motioned him aside with a deprecating gesture, she passed on into the North Cloister, and thence to the East Cloister door, the only one on that side available, where she was repulsed by two stalwart porters, who (in the absence of our modern police) were guarding the entrance. She then hastened back, and crossed the great platform in St. Margaret's Churchyard, erected for the outside procession. It was observed by those who watched her closely that her under lip quivered incessantly, the only mark of agitation. She thus reached 5 the regular approach by Poets' Corner. Sir Eobert Inglis, then a young man, was charged with the duty of keeping order at that point. He heard a cry that the Queen was coming. He flew (such was his account), rather than ran, to the door of the South Transept. She was leaning on Lord Hood's arm. He had but a moment to make up his mind how to meet her. ' It 1 Life of Lard Eldon, ii. 428. 4 From this young official, for many 2 In Seeker's copy of the service of years the respected organist of the Abbey, George III.'s coronation, used as the I derive this part of the narrative, basis of that of George IV., the orders for the Queen's appearance were signi- * This is taken from Mr. Almack, licantly erased throughout. who was on the platform, and followed 3 Gent. Mag. 1824, pt. ii. p. 73; her. Ann. Register, 1831, p. 347. CHAP. ii. THE HOUSE OF HANOVEK. 91 ' is my duty,' he said, ' to announce to your Majesty that there ' is no place in the Abbey prepared for your Majesty.' The Queen paused, and replied, ' Am I to understand that you ' prevent me from entering the Abbey ? ' * Madam,' he an- swered, in the same words, ' it is my duty to announce to you ' that there is no place provided for your Majesty in the Abbey.' She turned without a word. 1 This was the final repulse. She who had come with deafening cheers retired in dead silence. 2 She was seen to weep as she re-entered 3 her carriage. Her old coachman, it is said, had for the first time that morning harnessed the horses reluctantly, conscious that the attempt would be a failure. On the following day she wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Manners- Button), expressing her desire to be crowned some days after the King, and before the arrangements were done away with, so that there might be no additional expense. The Primate answered that he could not act except under orders from the King. 4 In a few weeks she was dead ; and her remains carried with difficulty through the tumultuous streets of London, where the tide of popularity had again turned in her favour, and greeted with funeral welcomes at every halting-place in Germany reposed finally, not in Windsor or Westminster, but in her ancestral vault at Brunswick. 5 35. As George IV. had conciliated the popular favour by the splendour of his coronation, so, in the impending tempests coronation ^ * ne Reform agitation, William IV. endeavoured to ofwniiam do the like by the reverse process. A question was seT s s day> even ra i se d, both by the King in correspondence 6 with his ministers, and by a peer in the House of Lords, whether the coronation might not be dispensed with. There was no procession, and the banquet, for the first time, was omitted. Queen Adelaide was crowned with her husband. 7 The day was the anniversary of her father's wedding. 1 I have given this account as I s It is recorded that the town boys heard it from Sir R. Inglis. A longer of Westminster School first acquired at narrative of the dialogue between Lord George IV.'s Coronation the privilege Hood and the doorkeepers is given in of attending, which had been before the Gent. Mag. 1821, pt. i. p. 74. confined to the scholars. 2 Or with mingled cries of < The 'Correspondence of William IV. 'Queen -the Queen!' or 'Shame! and Earl Grey, i. 301,302. ' shame ! ' (Ibid. p. 37.) Life of Lord Eldon, ii. 428. ' G nt : Mag. 1831, pp. 219-230 ; Ann. Register. 1831. 4 Gent. Mag. 1821, pt. ii. p. 75. 92 CORONATION OF QUEEN VICTORIA. CHAP. ir. 36. The last coronation ' doubtless still lives in the recol- lection of all who witnessed it. They will long remember the coronation ear lj summer morning, when, at break of day, the of Queeu streets were thronged, and the whole capital awake Victoria, Thursday, the rs t sight of the Abbey, crowded with the mass of isas. gorgeous spectators, themselves a pageant the electric shock through the whole mass, when the first gun announced that the Queen was on her way and the thrill of expectation with which the iron rails seemed to tremble in the hands of the spectators, as the long procession closed with the entrance of the small figure, marked out from all beside by the regal train and attendants, floating like a crimson and silvery cloud behind her. At the moment when she first came within the full view of the Abbey, and paused, as if for breath, with clasped hands, as she moved on, to her place by the altar, as in the deep silence of the vast multitude, the tremulous voice of Archbishop Howley could be faintly heard, even to the remotest corners of the Choir, asking for the recognition, as she sate immovable on the throne, when the crown touched her head, amidst shout and trumpet and the roar of cannon, there must have been many who felt a hope that the loyalty which had waxed cold in the preceding reigns would once more revive, in a more serious form than it had, perhaps, ever worn before. 2 Other solemnities they may have seen more beautiful, or more strange, or more touching, but none at once so gorgeous and so impressive, in recollections, in actual sight, and in promise of what was to be. With this fairy vision ends for us the series of the most continuous succession of events that the Abbey has witnessed. None such belongs to any other building in the world. The coronations of the Kings of France at Reims, and 1 The coronation service was a- the ceremony, by nine loud and hearty bridged, in consideration of the occasion. cheers after the homage of the Peers. But it was thought unnecessary (as (Gent. Mag. 1838, pt. ii. p. 198.) heretofore) to insert in the Rubric an 2 For the best expression which has order that the sermon should be ' short.' perhaps ever been given of the full The day was changed from June 26 to religious aspect of an English Corona- June 28, to avoid the anniversary of tion, I cannot forbear to refer to the George IV.'s death, and by so doing sermon preached on that day, in the infringed on the Vigil of the Feast of parish church of Ambleside, by Dr. St. Peter, which led to a characteristic Arnold. (Sermons, iv. 438.) The sonnet from the Oxford Poet of that ' short and suitable sermon ' in the time Isaac Williams. The procession Abbey on the last two occasions was, was partly revived by the cavalcade in 1831 on 1 Pet. ii. 13, in 1838 on from Buckingham Palace. The House 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31, preached by Bishop of Commons joined for the first time in Blomfield. CHAP. n. CONCLUSION. 93 of the Popes in the Basilica of the Vatican, most nearly ap- proach it. But Reims is now deserted, and the present Church of St. Peter is by five centuries more modern than the Abbey. The Westminster Coronations are thus the outward expression of the grandeur of the English monarchy. They serve to mark the various turns in the winding road along which it has passed to its present form. They reflect the various proportions in which its elective and its hereditary character have counterbalanced each other. They contain, on the one hand, in the Recognition, the Enthronisation, and the Oath, the utterances of the ' fierce * democracy ' of the people of England. They contain, on the other hand, in the Unction, the Crown, the Fatal Stone, in the sanction of the prelates and the homage of the nobles, the primitive regard for sacred places, sacred relics, consecrated persons, and heaven-descended right, lingering on through all the counteracting tendencies of change and time. They show the effect produced, even on minds and circumstances least congenial, by the combination of this sentiment with outward display and antique magnificence. They exhibit the curious devices, half political and half religious, by which new or un- popular sovereigns have been propped up the Confessor's grave for William the Conqueror : the miraculous oil for Henry IV. ; the Stone of Scone for Edward II., for James L, and for Oliver Cromwell ; the unusual splendour for Richard III., for Anne Boleyn, and George IV. ; the Oath and the Bible for William III. They show us the struggles for precedence, leading to outbreaks of the wildest passions, and the most deadly feuds between magnates not only of the State but of the clergy. The Norman Lanfranc aimed his heaviest blow at the Anglo-Saxon Church by wresting the coronation from Aldred of York. The supreme conflict of Becket resulted from the infringement of his archiepiscopal rights in the coronation of Prince Henry. The keenest insult that Laud could inflict on his neighbour Williams was by superseding him at the coro- nation of Charles I. Queen Caroline sank under her exclusion from the coronation of George IV. The Coronation Service at once the most ancient and the most flexible portion of the Anglican Ritual reveals the changes of ceremony and doctrine, and at the same time the unity of sentiment and faith, which escape us in the stiffer forms of the ordinary Liturgy. In its general structure it represents the complex relations of the civil and ecclesiastical polity of 94 CONCLUSION. CHAP. ii. England. In its varying details it exhibits the combination of the opposite elements which have formed the peculiar tone of the English Church. The personal characters of the sovereigns make themselves felt even in these merely ceremonial functions : the iron nerves of the Conqueror for an instant shaken ; the generosity of Coeur- de-Lion ; the martial spirit of Edward I. ; the extravagance of Richard II. ; the parsimony of Henry VII. ; the timidity of James I. ; the fancifulness of Charles I. ; the decorous reverence of George III. ; the heartlessness of George IV. The political and religious movements of the time have likewise stamped their mark on these transitory scenes. The struggles of the Saxon and Norman elements, not yet united, under the Con- queror ; the fanatical hatred against the Jews, under Richard I. ; the jealousy of the Crown under John, and of the Court favourites under Edward II. ; the claims of the conflicting dynasties under Edward IV. and Henry VII. ; the heavings of the Reformation under Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth ; the prognostications of the Rebellion under Charles I. ; the en- thusiasm of the Restoration under Charles II. ; the triumph of the Constitution under William III. ; the economical spirit of the Reform era under William IV. ; could be noted in the successive inaugurations of those sovereigns, even though all other records of their reigns were lost. Yet still the Coronations are but as the outward wave of English history. They break over the Abbey, as they break over the country, without leaving any permanent mark. With the two exceptions of the Stone of Scone and the banners of the Knights of the Bath, they left no trace in the structure of the building, unless where the scaffolding has torn away the feature of some honoured monument or the decoration of some ancient column. They belong to the form of the history, and not to its substance. The truth of the saying of Horace Walpole at the Coronation of George III. will probably be always felt at the time. * What is the finest sight in the ' world ? A Coronation. What do people most talk about ? A ' Coronation. What is the thing most delightful to have passed ? ' A Coronation.' l But there are scenes more moving than the most splendid pageant, and there are incidents in the lives of sovereigns more characteristic of themselves and of their country even than their inaugurations. Such is the next series of 1 Walpole's Letters, in. 444. CHAP. II. CONCLUSION. 95 events in the Abbey, which, whilst it exhibits to us far more clearly the personal traits of the Kings themselves, has also entered far more deeply into the vitals of the edifice. The close of each reign is the summary of the contents of each. The History of the Eoyal Tombs is the History of the Abbey itself. CHAPTER III. THE ROYAL TOMBS. I HAVE left the repository of our English Kings for the contemplation of a day when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amuse- ment. (Spectator, No. 26.) SPECIAL AUTHOKITIES. Besides the notices in contemporary Chronicles and Histories, must be men- tioned I. The architectural descriptions of the Tombs in Dart, Neale, and Scott's Gleanings of Westminster Abbey. II. The notices of the Interments and of the Royal Vaults in (a) The Burial Registers of the Abbey from 1606 to the present time ; (b) Sandford's Genealogical History of the Kings of England, 1677 ; (c) Monumenta Westmonasteriensia, by H. K., i.e. Keepe, 1683 ; (d) Antiquities of West- minster Abbey, by Crull sometimes under the name of H. S., sometimes of J. C., 1711 and 1713; (e) MS. Records of the Heralds' College and the Lord Chamberlain's Office, to which my attention has been called by the kindness of Mr. Doyne Bell, who is engaged in a work on the ' Royal 4 Interments,' which will bring to light many curious and exact details, not hitherto known respecting them. See also Appendix. 97 CHAPTEE III. THE ROYAL TOMBS. THE burialplaces of Kings are always famous. The oldest and greatest buildings on the earth are Tombs of Kings the Tombs of Pyramids. The most wonderful revelation of the life of the ancient world is that which is painted in the rock-hewn catacombs of the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. The burial of the Kings of Judah was a kind of canonisation. In the vision of ' all the Kings of the nations, ' lying in glory, every one hi his own house,' the ancient prophets saw the august image of the nether world. These burialplaces, however, according to the universal practice of antiquity, were mostly outside the precincts of the towns. The sepulchre of the race of David within the city of Jerusalem formed a solitary exception. The Roman Emperors were interred first in the mausoleum of Augustus, in the Campus Martius, beyond the walls then in the mausoleum of Hadrian, on the farther side of the Tiber. The burial of Geta at the foot of the Palatine, and of Trajan at the base of his Column, in the Forum which bears his name, were the first indications that the sanctity of the city might be invaded by the presence of imperial graves. It was reserved for Constantine to give the earliest example of the interment of sovereigns, not only within the walls of a city, but within a sacred building, wiien he and his successors were laid in the Church of the Apostles at Con- stantinople. This precedent was from that time followed both in East and West, and every European nation has now its royal consecrated cemetery. But there are two peculiarities in Westminster which are hardly found elsewhere. The first is that it unites the Coro- nations with the Burials. The nearest approach to this is in Poland and Russia. In the cathedral of Cracow, by the shrine H 98 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. of St. Stanislaus, the Becket of the Sclavonic races, the Kings of Poland were crowned and buried from the thirteenth Peculiarities century to the dissolution of the kingdom. 1 In the Tombs in ya Kremlin at Moscow stand side by side the three cathe- mhfster. drals of the Assumption, of the Annunciation, and of the Archangel. In the first the Czars are crowned ; in the second they are married ; and in the third, till the accession of Peter, they were buried. Only three royal marriages have taken place in the Abbey those of Henry III., of Eichard II., i. com- and of Henry VII. But its first coronation, as we bination of * . coronations have seen, 2 sprang out of its first royal grave. Its Burials. subsequent burials are the result of both. So Waller finely sang : That antique pile behold, Where royal heads receive the sacred gold : It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep, There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep ; Making the circle of their reign complete, These suns of empire, where they rise they set. 3 So Jeremy Taylor preached : Where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take bis crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roof to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. . . . There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle tbeir dust, and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all tbe world that, when we die, our ashes shall be equal to kings', and our accounts easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be less. 4 So, before Waller and Jeremy Taylor, had spoken Francis Beaumont : Mortality, behold and fear ! What a change of flesh is here : Think bow many royal bones Sleep within these heaps of stones : Here tbey lye, bad realms and lands, Who now want strength to stir tbeir bands. Here, from tbeir pulpits seal'd with dust, Tbey preach, ' In greatness is no trust ! ' 1 See Mr. Clark's description of it 3 On St. James's Park. in Vacation Tourists, 1862, p. 239. 4 Rides of Holy Duina, vol. iv. * Chapter II. p. 344. CHAP. in. PECULIARITIES OF WESTMINSTER. 99 Here's an acre, sown indeed, With the richest royallest seed, That the earth did e'er drink in, Since the first man dy'd for sin. Here the bones of birth have cry'd, ' Though gods they were, as men they dy'd.' Here are sands, ignoble things, Dropt from the ruin'd sides of kings. Here's a world of pomp and state, Buried in dust, once dead by fate. The royal sepultures of Westminster were also remarkable from their connection not only with the coronation, but with 2. com- the residence of the English Princes. The burial- the a Bu riais places which, in this respect, the Abbey most re- KJ)yai the sembles, were those of the Kings of Spain and the Kings of Scotland. ' In the Escurial, where the ' Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and decree war ' or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where their ' ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more.' l The like may be said of Dunfermline and of Holyrood, where the sepulchral Abbey and the Eoyal Palace are as contiguous as at Westminster. There has, however, been a constant ten- dency to separate the two. The Escurial is now almost as desolate as the stony wilderness of which it forms a part. The vault of the House of Hapsburg, in the Capuchin Church at Vienna, is far removed from the Imperial Palace. The royal race of Savoy rests on the steep heights of St. Michael and of the Superga. The early Kings of Ireland reposed in the now deserted mounds of Clonmacnoise, 2 by the lonely windings of the Shannon, as the early Kings of Scotland on the distant and sea-girt rock of lona. The Kings of France not only were not crowned at St. Denys, but they never lived there never came there. The town was a city of convents. Louis XIV. chose Versailles for his residence because from the terrace at St. Germain's he could still see the hated towers of the Abbey where he would be laid. But the Kings of England never seem to have feared the sight of death. The Anglo-Saxon 1 Jeremy Taylor, Rules of Holy ' yard which holds the best blood of Dijig, vol. iv. 344. ' Ireland on the banks of the Shannon.' 2 ' How impressive the living splen- Petrie's remarks on Clonmacnoise, ' dour of the national mausoleum of quoted in his Life by Dr. Stokes (p. ' England on the banks of the Thames, 33). ' as compared with the neglected grave - H 2 100 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. HI. Kings had for the most part been buried at Winchester, where they were crowned, and where they lived. The English Kings, as soon as they became truly English, were crowned, and lived, and died for many generations, at Westminster ; and, even since they have been interred elsewhere, it is still under the shadow of their grandest royal residence, in St. George's Chapel, or in the precincts of Windsor Castle. Their graves, like their thrones, were in the midst of their own life and of the life of their people. 1 There is also a peculiar concentration of interest attached to the deaths and funerals of Kings in those days of our history 3. impor- with which we are here chiefly concerned. If the theRoyai coronations of sovereigns were then far more im- portant than they are now, so were their funeral pageants. ' The King never dies,' is a constitutional maxim of which, except in very rare instances, the truth is at once re- cognised in all constitutional and in most modern monarchies. But hi the Middle Ages, as has been truly remarked, the very reverse was the case. ' When the King died, the State seemed ' to die also. The functions of government were suspended. ' Felons were let loose from prison ; for an offence against the ' law was also an offence against the King's person, which ' might die with him, or be wiped out in the contrite promises ' of his last agony. 2 The spell of the King's peace became ' powerless. The nobles rushed to avenge their private quarrels ' in private warfare. On the royal forests, with their unpopular ' game, a universal attack was made. The highroads of com- ' merce became perilous passes, or were obstructed ; and a ' hundred vague schemes of ambition were concocted every day ' during which one could look on an empty throne and power- ' less tribunals.' In short, the funeral of the sovereign was the eclipse of the monarchy. Twice only, perhaps, in modern times has this feeling in any degree been reproduced, and then not in the case of the actual sovereign : once on the death of the queenlike Princess, Charlotte ; and again on the death of the kinglike Prince, Albert. 1 See Chapter IV. prison in every county in England. 2 So William I. : ' Sicut opto salvari (Hoveden.) I owe these references, as ' et per misericordiam Dei a meis rea- well as the passage itself, to an unpub- ' tibus absolvi, sic omnes mox car- lished lecture of Professor Vaughau. ' ceres jubeo aperiri.' (Ordericm Vit.) Compare the description of Rome after Henry II.'s widow, 'for the sake of a pope's decease in Mr. Cartwright's ' the soul of her Lord Henry,' had Papal Conclaves, p. 42. offenders of all kinds discharged from CHAP. in. BURIALS OF MEDIAEVAL KINGS. 101 In those early times of England, there was another meaning of more sinister import attached to the royal funerals. They 4. Publicity furnished the security to the successor that the pre- Punerais. decessor was really dead. Till the time of Henry VII. the royal corpses lay in state, and were carried exposed on biers, to satisfy this popular demand. More than once the body of a King, who had died under doubtful circumstances, was laid out in St. Paul's or the Abbey, with the face exposed, or bare from the waist upwards, that the suspicion of violence might be dispelled. 1 There was yet beyond this a general sentiment, intensified by the religious feeling of the Middle Ages, which brought the 5. con- funerals and tombs of princes more directly into con- the Burials nection with the buildings where they were interred. errices The natural grief of a sovereign, or of a people, for church. the death of a beloved predecessor vents itself in the grandeur of the monuments which it raises over their graves. The sumptuous shrine on the coast of Caria, which Artemisia built for her husband Mausolus, and which has given its name to all similar structures the magnificent Taj at Agra the splendid memorials which commemorate the loss of the lamented Prince of our own day are examples of the universality of this feeling, when it has the opportunity of indulging itself, under every form of creed and climate. But in the Middle Ages this received an additional impulse, from the desire on the part of the Kings, or their survivors, to establish, through their monu- mental buildings and their funeral services, a hold, as it were, on the other world. The supposed date of the release of the soul of a Plantagenet King from Purgatory was recorded in the English chronicles with the same certainty as any event in his life. 2 And to attain this end in proportion to the de- votional sentiment, sometimes w r e must even say in proportion to the weaknesses and vices, of the King services were multi- plied and churches adorned at every stage of the funeral, and with a view to the remotest ages to which hope or fear could look forward. The desire to catch prayers by all means, at all times and places, for the departed soul, even led to the dismemberment of the royal corpse ; that so, by a heart here, 1 Bichard II., Henry VI., Edward vision of the release of Richard I. de- IV., and Richard III. (at Leicester). scribed by the Bishop of Rochester, in (Maskell, vol. iii. p. Ixviii.) preaching at Sittingbourne). I owe - Roger of Wendover and Matthew the reference to Professor Vaughan. Paris, A.D. 1232 (in speaking of the 102 THE KOYAL TOMBS. CHAP. m. entrails there, and the remainder elsewhere, the chances of assistance beyond the grave might be doubled or trebled. 1 The sepulchral character of Westminster Abbey thus be- came the frame on which its very structure depended. In its successive adornments and enlargements, the minds of its royal patrons sought their permanent expression, because they regarded it as enshrining the supreme act of their lives. The arrangements of an ancient temple were, as has been well re- marked, from its sacrificial purpose, those of a vast slaughter- house ; the arrangements of a Dominican church or modern Nonconformist chapel are those of a vast preaching-house ; the arrangements of Westminster Abbey gradually became those of a vast tomb-house. The first beginning of the Eoyal Burials at Westminster is uncertain. Sebert and Ethelgoda were believed to lie by the entrance of the Chapter House. 2 A faint tradition speaks of the interment of Harold Harefoot in West- Harefoot. minster. 3 But his body was dug up by Hardicanute, decapitated, and afterwards cast into the adjacent marsh or into the Thames, and then buried by the Danes in their grave- yard, where now stands the Church of St. Clement Danes. It Edward the was * ne grave of Edward the Confessor which eventu- confessor. a j]y (j rew the other royal sepulchres around it. 4 Such a result of the burial of a royal saint or hero has been almost universal. But though his charters enumerate the royal sepultures as amongst the privileges of Westminster, the custom grew but slowly. In the first instance it may have indicated no more than his personal desire to be interred in the edifice whose building he had watched with so much anxious care ; and his Norman successors were buried on the Conqueror . , , . , . . .. at caen. same principle, each in his own favourite sanctuary, wiiiiam unless some special cause intervened. The Conqueror Winchester, was buried at Caen, in the abbey which he had dedi- cated to St. Stephen ; William Eufus at Winchester, 5 from 1 Arch. xxix. 181. his murder at Delft drew round it the 2 See Chapter I. great Protestant House of Orange ; so s Saxon Chron. A.D. 1040 ; Widmore, round St. Louis at St. Denys gathered p. 11. the Kings of France ; so round St. 4 So the grave of St. Columba at Stanislaus at Cracow the Kings of lona, and the grave of St. Margaret Poland ; so round Peter the Great at at Dunfermline, became the centres of St. Petersburg the subsequent princes the sepultures of the Kings of Scot- of the Romanoff dynasty. land; so the interment of William s Ord. Vit. (A.D. 1110), x. 14, by a the Silent by the accidental scene of confusion makes it Westminster. CHAP. in. BURIALS OF THE NORMAN KINGS. 103 his sudden death in the neighbouring forest ; Henry I. at Reading, in the abbey founded out of his father's treasure for his father's soul ; Stephen in his abbey at Faversham ; Reading! Henry II. 1 in the great Angevin Abbey of Fontevrault Faversham. (the foundation of Robert Arbrissel, by the ' fountain of FonteVrautt. ' the robber Evrard '). His eldest son Henry was buried tponte- at Rouen. In that same city, because it was so hearty and cordial to him, 2 was laid the ' large 3 lion heart ' of Richard ; whilst his bowels, as his least honoured parts, lay among the Poitevins r whom he least honoured, at Chaluz, where he was killed. But his body rested at Fontevrault, at his father's feet, in token of sorrow for his unfilial conduct, to be, as it were, his father's footstool 4 in the robes which he had worn at his second coronation at Westminster. 5 John's wife, Isabella, was interred at Fontevrault, 6 and his own heart was John at placed there in a golden cup ; but he himself was laid Worcester. a ^ Worcester, for a singularly characteristic reason. With that union of superstition and profaneness so common in the religious belief of the Middle Ages, he was anxious to elude after death the demons whom he had so faithfully served in life. For this purpose he not only gave orders to wrap his body in a monk's cowl, but to bury it between two saints. The royal cathedral of Worcester, which John had specially favoured in life, possessed two Saxon saints, in close juxtaposition ; and between these two, Wulfstan and Oswald, the wicked King was laid. But meanwhile an irresistible instinct had been drawing the Norman princes towards the race of their English sub- jects, and therefore towards the dust of the last Saxon King. Along with the annual commemoration of the victory of the Normans at Hastings, and of the Danes at Assenden, were 1 Kishanger, p. 428 ; Hoveden, p. foundation. The heart, under an effigy 654. of the King, was found in the choir - Fuller's Church History, A.D. 1189. of Rouen Cathedral on July 31, 1838, 3 ' Grossitudine praestans.' See^rc/i. and is now in the Museum at Rouen, xxix. 210. (Arctueologia, xxix. 203.) The body 4 In a work published at Angers in of Prince Henry was found there in 1866 (L'Abbaye de Fontevrault, Notice 1866. Historiqiie, p. 76), by Lieut. Malifaud, s Anglia Sacra, i. 304. See Chap- it is stated that the bones of Richard I., ter II. gathered together by an inhabitant of 6 For a full account of the fate of Fontevrault, on the spoliation of the the monuments at Fontevrault down tombs in 1793, were given to England, to the present time, see M. Malifaud's ' et rcposent aujourd'hui dans I'Abbaye work, pp. 76, 77. ' de Westminster. 1 This is without 104 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. m. celebrated in the Abbey the anniversaries of Ernma, 1 the Confessor's mother, and of Ethelred his father. Edith, his wife ' of venerable memory,' lay beside him. And now to join Queen them came the ' good Queen Maud,' daughter of Mal- colm Canmore and Margaret, and thus niece of Edgar and granddaughter of Edward Atheling, who had awakened in the heart of Henry I. a feeling towards her Anglo-Saxon kins- folk such as no other of the Conqueror's family had known. The importance of the marriage is indicated by the mass of elaborate scruples that had to be set aside to accomplish it. She, a veiled nun, had become a wedded wife for this great object. It was supposed to be a fulfilment of the Confessor's last prophetic apologue, in which he described the return of the severed branch to the parent tree. 2 Henry's own sepulchral abbey at Reading was built by him chiefly to expiate his father's sins against the English. 3 His royal chapel at Windsor bore the name of the Confessor, till it was dedicated by Edward III. to St. George. 4 He and she received from the Normans the derisive epithets of ' Goodric ' and ' Godiva.' 5 Her own name was Edith, 6 after her grand-aunt, the Confessor's wife. In deference to Norman prejudices she changed it to ' Matilda.' But she devoted herself with undisguised ardour to the Abbey where her kinsman Edward and her namesake Edith lay buried. Often she came there, in haircloth and barefooted, to pay her devotions. 7 She increased its relics by the gift of a large part of the hair of Mary Magdalene. 8 The honour of her sepulture was claimed by the old Anglo-Saxon sanctuary at Winchester, 9 by the Abbey of Reading, 10 and by the Cathedral of St. Paul's. 11 But there is no reason to doubt the tradition that she lies on the south side of the Confessor's Shrine, 12 and 1 Consuetudines of Abbot Ware (pp. 8 Dart. i. 37 ; Fordun, Scotichroni- 566, 568, 582, 583, 587, 590). These con, pp. 480, 642. celebrations may have been instituted 9 Eudborne, p. 277. only in the time of Henry III., but I0 Strickland's Queens, i. 187. they are probably of earlier date. Edith n Langtoft (Wright), i. 462. is called ' Collaterana uxor.' Waverley Ann. ; Ord. Vit. A.D. * See Chapters I and III. 1118. The statement is that she was 3 Rudborne, Anglia Sacra, i. 262. first buried at the entrance of the 1 Annals of Windsor, p. 27. Chapter House, and then removed by * See William of Malmesbury, p. Henry IH. to the side of the Con- 156. Knyghton, c. 2375, says Henry's fessor's Shrine. Fordun gives it as nickname was ' Godrych Godefadyr.' ' post magnum altare in oratorio.' It * Ord. Vit. A.D. 1118. Her brothers, has sometimes been alleged, in confir- in like manner, had almost all Saxon mation of this, that at the north-west names Edgar, Edward, Ethelred. angle of the pavement, by Edward I.'s 7 Ibid. p. 712. See Chapter I. tomb, was read the word" Rigina, and CHAP. in. THE TOMBS OF THE NORMANS. 105 is thus the first ro}'al personage so interred since the troubles of the Conquest. 1 Henry II. carried the veneration for Edward's remains a step farther. At the instigation of Becket, he procured from Pope Alexander II. the Bull of Canonisation, which Innocent II. had refused. 2 The Abbot Lawrence preached a sermon, enume- rating the virtues and miracles of the Confessor. Osbert de Clare, the Prior, who had already made an unsuccessful ex- pedition to Koine for the same object, under his predecessor Gervase, compiled the account out of which was ultimately composed the Life of the Confessor by Ailred, Abbot of Eievaulx, and brought back the Bull of Canonisation in triumph. First trans- At midnight on the 13th of October, 1163, Lawrence, Edwardthe m n ^ s n ew-born dignity of mitred Abbot, accompanied oct f i3* r ' by Becket, opened the grave before the high altar, and saw it was said, in complete preservation the body of the dead King. Even the long, white, curling beard w r as still visible. The ring of St. John was taken out and deposited as a relic. 3 The vestments (with less reverence than we should think permissible) were turned into three splendid copes. An Irishman and a clerk from Winchester were cured of some malady, supposed to be demoniacal possession. The whole ceremony ended with the confirmation of the celebrated Gilbert Folliott as Bishop of London. 4 The final step was taken by Henry III. It may be that the idea of making the Shrine of Edward the centre of the burial- place of his race did not occur to him till after he had already become interested in the building. His first work what was called ' the new work ' was not the church itself, but an addition suggested by the general theological sentiment of the time. The beginning of the thirteenth century was remarkable for the immense development given, by the preaching of St. that she was laid underneath the pave- of the Shrine is decisive both as to the ment on which his tomb was after- fact and the position of the grave. See wards raised. But the inscription is also Smith's Westminster, p. 155. (as I have ascertained by careful ex- ' The anniversary of her daughter, animation) a mere fragment of a slab the Empress Maude, was celebrated in removed from elsewhere, to make the the Abbey. (Ware, p. 568.) covering of .what is evidently the mere 2 See Akerman, i. 109. substructure of Edward I.'s tomb ; and 3 Gleanings, p. 132. the words upon it are MINIS. KEGINI 4 Bidgway, p. 44. He was trans- a portion of a broken inscription. But lated from Hereford, the first instance the statement of Abbot Ware (Consue- of a canonical translation of an English tudines, p. 560), that Matilda was on bishop. (Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 282.) the south and Edith on the north side 106 THE EOYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. Bernard, to the worship of the Virgin Mary. 1 In architecture it was exhibited by the simultaneous prolongation of almost Foundation every great cathedral into an eastern sanctuary, a new place of honour behind the altar, ' the Lady ' Chapel.' Such a chapel was dedicated at the eastern extremity of the Abbey by the young King Henry III., on Whitsun Eve, 2 the day before his coronation. The first offering laid upon its altar were the spurs worn by the King in that ceremony. 3 Underneath was buried Abbot Barking, who probably claimed the merit of having been his adviser. His abbacy was long regarded in the convent as the passage from an old world to a new. 4 Henry's long reign was a marked epoch, alike for England and for the Abbey. It was the first which can be called pacific, 5 Rei nof partly from his defects, partly from his virtues. He Henry m. wag t^e fi rs t English King that is to say (like George III.) the first of his family born in England and no longer living in a continental dependency. This great boon of a race of Princes who could look on England as their home, had been conferred on our Kings and on our country by the losses of his father, John ' Lackland.' Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since retained, and that our fathers become emphatically islanders islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with distinct- ness that Constitution which has ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity ; that Constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet, either in the Old or in the New World, held its first sittings. Then it was that the Common Law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jur.s- 1 Montalembert's Histoire de Ste. for that purpose by Queen Philippa. Elisabeth, p. 21. The girdle of the (Widmore, p. 65.) Virgin deposited in the Abbey (see 2 See Chapter II. 3 Pauli, i. 517. Chapter I.) was, like that at Mount 4 See Chapter V. Athos, used for averting the perils of * This is well brought out in Eogers's childbirth, and was often employed History of Prices, i. 3. CHAP. in. THE REBUILDING OF THE ABBEY. 107 prudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical indeed than the languages of the South, but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to that of Greece alone. Then appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England. 1 Then too arose, in its present or nearly in its present form, the building which was destined to combine all these together, the restored Abbey of Westminster ' the most lovely and English ' loveable thing in Christendom.' 2 It sprang, in the Henry UL first instance, out of the personal sentiment, uncon- sciously fostered by these general influences, of the young King towards his Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Henry prided himself on his descent from Alfred, through the good Matilda. He deter- mined to take up his abode in Westminster, beside the Con- fessor's tomb. In the Abbey was solemnised his own marriage with Eleanor of Provence, as well as that of his 3 brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, with his second wife Sanda, sister of Eleanor, and of 4 his second son Edward, Earl of Lancaster, to Avelina, daughter of the Earl of Albemarle. His sons were the first of the English Princes who were called by Anglo-Saxon names. His first-born the first Prince ever born at Westminster, and therefore called, after it, Edward of Westminster 5 received his name from the Anglo-Saxon patron of Westminster ; and was the first of that long series of ' Edwards,' which, though broken now and then by the necessities of intervening dynasties, is the one royal name that constantly reappears to assert its un- changing hold on the affections of the English people. His second son was in like manner named Edmund, after the other royal Anglo-Saxon saint, in whose abbey the King himself died, and to whom he had in life paid reverence only second to that due to St. Edward. 1 Macaulay's History of England, * Nov. 22 or 23, 1243 ; Eot. Parl. 28 vol. i. p. 47. Hen. III. 2 So called by one well qualified to 4 April 9, 1269, Harl. MS. 530, fol. 60. judge, Mr. Street (Essay on the Influ- s He was sometimes called Edward ence of Foreign Art on English Archi- III., reckoning Edward the Elder and tecture in tlie Church and the World, Edward the Confessor as the first and p. 402). second. (Opus Chronicorum, p. 37.) 108 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. The concentration of this English Edwardian passion upon the Abbey of Westminster was encouraged by many converging His imi- circumstances in the reign of Henry III. It is possible st tl Dents. that, as the visit of the Saxon ambassadors to Reims may have led to the first idea of a Royal Abbey in the mind of the Confessor, so the rebuilding and re-embellishment of the Abbey of St. Denys by Louis IX. suggested the idea of a place of royal sepulture to the mind of Henry III. 1 Before that time the Kings of France, like the Kings of England, had been buried in their own private vaults ; thenceforth they were buried round the tomb of Dagobert. Again the erection of a new and splendid Church was the natural product of Henry's passionate devotion to sacred ob- ms devo- servances, strong out of all proportion to the natural tion - feebleness of his character. Even St. Louis seemed to him but a lukewarm Rationalist. He kept the French peers in Paris so long waiting, by stopping to hear mass at every church he passed, that Louis caused all the churches on the road to be shut. When in France, he lived not in the royal palace, but in a monastery. On Henry's declaring that he could not stay in a place which was under an interdict, the French King com- plained, and added, ' You ought to hear sermons, as well as ' attend mass.' 2 ' I had rather see my friend than hear him ' talked about,' 3 was the reply of the enthusiastic Henry. He would not be content with less than three 4 masses a day, and held fast to the priest's hand during the service. 5 With this English and devotional sentiment the King com- bined a passionate addiction to art in all its forms, which Hisaddic- carried him far beyond the limits of his own country, foreign art. His visits to France recalled to him the glories of Amiens, Beauvais, and Reims. 6 His marriage with Eleanor 7 of Provence opened the door for the influx of foreign princes, ecclesiastics, and artists into London. The Savoy Palace was their centre. 1 This rivalry with St. Denys appears 4 Four or five. (Opus Chronicorum, in his anxiety to outdo it by the relic p. 35.) of the Holy Blood. (Matthew Paris, * Rishanger, Chronica, p. 75. Rishanger, Chronica, p. 75 ; Trivet, ' Gkaningt, 20 - p. 280. (Pauli, i. 842.) 7 The arms of her father, the Earl of 3 Rishanger and Trivet, ibid. The Provence, are sculptured in the south author of the Opus Chronicorum (p. 36) aisle of the Nave, and were painted in gives this as Henry's reply to a preach- the windows of the Chapter-house and ing friar, who was angry at the King's elsewhere. (Sandford, 95.) delay in coming to his sermon. CHAP. in. THE REBUILDING OF THE ABBEY. 109 Of this union of religious feeling with foreign and artistic tendencies, the whole Abbey, as rebuilt by Henry, is a monu- ment. He determined that his new Church was to be in- comparable for beauty, even in that great age of art. 1 Its Chapter House, its ornaments, clown to the lecterns, were to be superlative of their kind. On it foreign painters and sculptors were invited to spend their utmost skill. ' Peter the Roman ' citizen ' was set to work on the Shrine, where his name can still be read. The mosaics were from Rome, brought by the Abbot, who now by his newly-won exemption from the juris- diction of the see of London had been forced to make his journey to the imperial city for the sake of obtaining the Papal confirmation. 2 The pavement thus formed and the twisted columns which stand round the Shrine, exactly resemble the like ornaments of the same date, in the Basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Paul, St. Laurence, and St. Clement at Rome. Mosaics and enamel were combined throughout in a union found nowhere else in England. Many of the details of the tombs of Henry III. and Edward the Confessor are strictly classical. The architectural style of this portion of the building is French rather than English. The radiation of the polygonal chapels round the Choir and the bar tracery of the windows are especially French. 3 The arrangement to which the King was driven, perhaps, from the necessity of providing space for the new Shrine, is Spanish. 4 Eleanor of Castille, his daughter- in-law, must have recognised hi the Choir, brought far into the Nave, the likeness of the ' Coro ' in the cathedrals of her native country. In the prosecution of his work another less pleasing feature of the King's character was brought into play. He was a Prince of almost proverbial extravagance. His motto His extra- * vagance. was> < Q u { non (J a t quod habet, non accipit ille quod ' optat.' 5 Recklessly did he act on this principle always, and never more so than in erecting the Abbey. Unlike most cathedrals, it was built entirely at the cost of the Crown. The Royal Abbey, as in the Confessor's time so in Henry's, is 1 Wykes, p. 84. See Chapter V. Street, On the Influence of Foreign Art ' Mirse pulchritudinis ' is the phrase in England, p. 402. used of it in a document in the Archives 4 Street's Gothic Architecture in of St. Paul's. Spain, p. 418. 2 See Chapter V. ; Gleanings of 5 Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting Westminster Abbey, p. 60; and Fer- (Wornum), p. 20; Hardy, Preface to gusson's Handbook, ii. 18. the Liberate Rolls of King John, xii. 3 See Gleanings, pp. 19-24 ; and Mr. note (1). 110 THE EOYAL TOMBS. CHAP. m. absolutely a royal gift. The sums, in our money amounting to half-a-million, were snatched here and there, from high quarters or from low, with desperate avidity. There was a special office for the receipts. The widow of a Jew furnished 2590 ; l the vacancy of the Abbot's seat at Westminster 100 marks. A fair was established in Tothill Fields, with a monopoly for this sole purpose. The King himself took out of other abbeys what he had spent on Westminster, by living on them to ease the expenses of his own maintenance, 2 and again took from the Abbey itself the jewels which he had given to it, and pawned them for his own necessities. The enormous exactions have left their lasting traces on the English Constitution, in no less a monument than the House of Commons, which rose into ex- istence as a protest against the King's lavish expenditure on the mighty Abbey which it confronts. 3 The rise of the whole institution thus forms a new epoch at once in English history and English architecture. With the Demolition usua l disregard which each generation, in the Middle church ld ^- es ^ ar more * nan m our ' VVI1 ' entertains towards 1245 - ' the taste of those who have gone before, the massive venerable pile, consecrated by the recollections of the Confessor and the Conqueror, was torn down, as of no worth at all, ' nullius ' omnino valoris.' 4 Ecclesiam stravit istam qui tune renovavit, was the inscription once written on Henry's tomb, which The New described this mediaeval vandalism. He rebuilt ex- churcu. actly as far as the Confessor had built. A fragment of the nave alone was left standing. But the central tower, the choir, the transepts, the cloisters, all disappeared ; 5 and in their place arose a building, which the first founder would as little have recognised, as the Norman style would have been recognised by Sebert, or the style of Wren by the Plantagenets. It was a ' new minster,' 6 of which St. Edward became the patron saint, almost to the exclusion of St. Peter. 7 For him The shrine the Shrine was prepared, as the centre of all this confessor, magnificence. It was erected, like all the shrines of great local saints, at the east of the altar, by a new and strange 1 Akennan, i. 241. of Henry III.'s work can be traced im- 2 Fuller, book iii. ; Arch. xiii. 36, mediately at the west of the crossing. 37. (Gleanings, 31.) 3 See Chapter V. Capgrave, p. 89. 4 "\Vykes, p. 89. 7 Bedman'sflenry V., p. 69; Smith's 4 Matthew Paris, p. 661. The end Westminster, p. 60. N. II Berking / (St. Paul) -u ~ o $ -p H (. Nicholas) \ "Ayton \ / | S _ C PHILIPPA OF \ / > VALENCE'S og S YORK \ / ( 2 CHILDREN oo O t> 1 ^ Is J. OF ELTHAM l ei H. ! _a MB i S ^ ^ r ^ ' 1^ -1 1 a E. DE BOHUN (. Edmund) 55 W ^ P5 O- o =5 ^ I (EDWARD ^3 ^ "Brocas Q _ H ^ || W THE ^ s S a M O ^ W. DE VALENCE g CONFESSOR) P 5 a" B E* i~* =s ? do to go o "5 W ^ O ^ O (Q'/<>ra'* (St. Edward's Chair) Chair) S 1 I w !! HENRY III.'S -S s Y. ^ 2 CHILDREN | 5 2= g (Screen) & iS E9 = 5 W (Altar) (St. Benedict) I t2 1 -53 a = a ? a yelist) 18 ** 5 - g G "*J i< 'i Henley ^Kidington = a TOMBS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE KINGS. 112 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. m. arrangement, as peculiar to the thirteenth century as the numerous theological doctrines which then first assumed con- sistency and shape. But, in order to leave standing the Lady Chapel, which the King had already built in his youth, the high altar was moved westward to its present central position. A mound of earth, the last funeral ' tumulus ' in England, was erected between this and the Lady Chapel, and on its summit was raised the tomb in which the body of the Confessor was to be laid. 1 On each side, standing on the two twisted pillars which now support the western end of the Shrine, were statues of the Confessor and St. John as the mysterious pilgrim. Bound the Choir was hung arras, representing on one side the thief and Hugolin, on the other the royal coronations. 2 The top of the Shrine was doubtless adorned with a splendid taber- nacle, instead of the present woodwork. The lower part was rich with gilding and colours. The inscription, now detected only at intervals, ran completely round it, ascribing the work- manship to Peter of Eome, and celebrating the Confessor's virtues. The arches underneath were ready for the patients, who came to ensconce themselves there for the sake of receiving from the sacred corpse within the deliverance from the ' King's ' Evil,' which the living sovereign was believed 3 to communicate by his touch. An altar stood at its western end, of which all trace has disappeared, but for which a substitute has ever since existed, at the time of the Coronations, in a wooden movable table. 4 At the eastern end of the Shrine two steps still remain, deeply hollowed out by the knees of the successive pairs of pilgrims who knelt at that spot. 5 That corpse was now to be ' translated ' from the coffin in The econd wn i cn Henry II. had laid it, with a pomp which was tn s oct is P r bably suggested to the King by the recollection 1269. ' O f the grandest ceremony of the kind that England had ever seen, at which he in his early boyhood had assisted 1 Originally the Shrine was probably ' then shown Edward the Confessor's visible all down the church. Not till ' tomb, upon which Sir Roger ac- the time of Henry VI. was raised the ' quainted us that he was the first who screen which now conceals it. On the ' touched for the Evil.' (Spectator, summit of the screen stood a vast 321.) crucifix, with the usual accompanying 4 Dart, i.*54. figures, and those of the two Apostles, s A fragment of the Shrine, found St. Peter and St. Paul. See Gleanings, in repairing the walls of Westminster plates xx. and xxvii. school in 1868, was replaced in its - Till 1644. Weever, p. 45. original position, after a separation of s This was the one remark made three centuries, on the Shrine by Addison 'We were CHAP. in. TOMB OF HENRY III. 113 the translation of the remains of St. Thomas of Canterbury. 1 It was on the same day of the month that had witnessed the former removal on the occasion of Edward's canonisation. The King had lived to see the completion of the whole Choir and east end of the church. He was growing old. His family were all gathered round him, as round a Christmas hearth, 2 for the last time together Richard his brother, Edward and Edmund his two sons, Edward with Eleanor just starting for Palestine : ' As near a way to heaven,' she said, ' from Syria ' as from England or Spain.' They supported the coffin of the Confessor, 3 and laid him in the spot where (with the exception of one short interval) he has remained ever since. The day was commemorated by its selection as the usual time when the King held his Courts and Parliaments. Behind the Shrine, where now stands the Chantry of Henry V., were deposited the sacred relics, presented to the King twenty years before by his favourite Order the Templars. Amongst them may be noticed the tooth of St. Athanasius, the stone which was believed to show the foot- print of the ascending Saviour, 4 and (most highly prized of all) a phial containing some drops of the Holy Blood. This was carried in state by the King himself from St. Paul's to the Abbey ; and it was on the occasion of its presentation, and of Prince Edward's knighthood, that Matthew Paris, the monk of St. Albans, was present (much as a modern photographer or artist attends a state ceremony at royal command), to give an exact account of what he saw, and to be rewarded afterwards by a dinner in the newly-finished refectory. 5 With the Templars, who gave these precious offerings, it had been the King's original intention to have been buried in the Temple Church. But his interest in the Abbey grew during the fifty years that he had seen it in progress, and his determination became fixed that it should be the sepulchre of himself and of the whole Plantagenet race. The short stout ungainly old man, with the blinking left eye, 6 and the curious craft with which he wound himself out of the many difficulties of his long and troublesome reign, such as made his contem- 1 Memorials of Canterbury, p. 193. cension on Mount Olivet ; another is 2 Ridgvay, p. 82. in the Mosque of Omar. 3 Wykes, p. 88 ; Ridgway, p. 63. 5 , , p . _ M. Paris, p. 768 ; Widmore, p. 64. ris ' PP- 73 - 9 ' One of these footprints is still shown 6 Rishanger, Chronica, p. 75 ; Trivet, in the Mosque or Church of the As- p. 281. 114 THE KOYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. poraries regard him on both accounts as the lynx foretold by Merlin, 1 was at last drawing to his end. ' Quiet King Henry ' III., our English Nestor (not for depth of brains but for ' length of life), who reigned fifty-six years, in which time he ' buried all his contemporary princes in Christendom twice * over. All the months in the year may be in a manner carved ' out of an April Day : hot, cold, dry, moist, fair, foul weather ' just the character of this King's life certain only in uncer- ' tainty ; sorrowful, successful, in plenty, in penury, in wealth, ' in want, conquered, conqueror.' 2 Domestic calamities crowded upon him : the absence of his son Edward, the murder of his nephew Henry at Viterbo, the Death of death of his brother Eichard. He died at the Abbey NOT* IB, ' of St. Edmund at Bury, on the festival of the recently 2o, r i272. v ' canonised St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury (Nov. 16), and was buried on the festival of St. Edmund the Anglo-Saxon martyr (Nov. 20), in the Abbey of Westminster, the Templars acknowledging their former connection by supply- ing the funeral. 3 The body was laid, not where it now rests, but in the coffin, before the high altar, vacated by the removal of the Confessor's bones, and still, as Henry might suppose, sanctified by their odour. 4 As the corpse sank into the grave, the Earl of Gloucester, in obedience to the King's dying com- mands, put his bare hand upon it, and swore fealty to the heir-apparent, absent in Palestine. Edward, in his homeward journey, was not unmindful of his father's tomb. He had heard of the death of his son Henry, 5 but his grief for him was swallowed up in his grief for Henry his father. ' God may ' give me more sons, but not another father.' 6 From the East, Building of or from France, he brought the precious marbles, the his Tomb, r slabs of porphyry, with which, ten years afterwards, the tomb was built up, as we now see it, on the north side of the Confessor's Shrine ; and an Italian artist, Torel, 7 carved the eifigy which lies upon it. 8 Yet ten more years passed, and ms Re- m ^ the finished tomb was removed the body of the King, interment. Henry had in his earlier years, when at his ancestral burial-place in Anjou, promised that his heart should be 1 Bishanger, Chronica, p. 75. the Archbishop of Canterbury. (See * Fuller's Church History, A.D. Chapter V.) 1276. 6 Widmore, p. 76. 3 Dart, ii. 34. 7 Gleanings, p. 150; ^rc/z.xxix. 191. 4 Wykes, p. 98. See Westmacott in Old London, s He was buried in the Abbey by p. 187. CHAP. in. TOMBS OF THE FAMILY OF HENRY III. 115 deposited with the ashes of his kindred in the Abbey of Fonte- vrault. The Abbess, 1 one of the grandest of her rank in France, usually of the blood-royal, with the singular privilege of ruling Delivery of both a monastery of men and a nunnery of women, j>i>s \vas in England at the time of the removal of Henry's vrauit. 1291. body to the new tomb, and claimed the promise. It was on this occasion that, under warrant from the King, in the presence of his brother Edmund, and the two prelates specially connected with the Westminster coronations, the Bishops of Durham and of Bath and Wells, the heart was de- livered in the Abbey into her hands the last relic of the lingering Plantagenet affection for their foreign home. 2 Such was the beginning of the line of royal sepultures in the Abbey; and so completely was the whole work identified with Henry III., that when, in the reigns of Richard II. and Henry V., the Xave was completed, the earlier style contrary to the almost universal custom of the mediaeval builders was continued, as if by a process of antiquarian restoration ; and this tribute to Henry's memory is visible even in the armorial bearings of the benefactors of the Abbey. To mark the date, and to connect it with the European history of the time, the Eagle of Frederick II., the heretical Emperor of Germany, the Lilies of Louis IX., the sainted King of France, the Lion of Alexander III., the doomed King of Scotland, 3 had been fixed on the walls of the Choir, where they may still in part be seen. There, too, remains the only contemporary memorial which England possesses of Simon de Montfort, founder of the House of Commons. 4 It was these and the like shields of nobles, coeval with the building of Henry III., 5 not those of the later , that were still continued on the walls of the Nave when it was completed in the following centuries. It would seem that, with the same domestic turn which ippears in Louis Philippe's arrangement of the Orleans See the description of the convent out to me, particula-ly in the case of in the Memoirs of Mdlle. de Mont- Valence Earl of Pembroke, and Ferrers pensier, i. 49^52. The Abbess in her Earl of Derby. Even the details of time was called ' Madame de Fonte- Henry IH.'s architecture, though modi- ' vrauit,' and was a natural daughter fied in the Nave, were continued in the of Louis XIII. Cloisters. The shield of the Confessor Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 312. is * h , e earliest of the kind the martlets 3 TV,- A- A- IQOO not having yet lost their legs. Seethe Th s disappeared m 1829. account of a Mg descript ] on of these Gules-a lion rampant double- shields in 1598, in the Proceedings of tailed argent, m N. isle. the Society of Antiquaries, Jan. 25, s Sir Gilbert Scott has pointed this 1866. i 2 1 1 6 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. m. cemetery at Dreux, Henry at Westminster had provided for the burial of his whole family in all his branches round him. 1 1257 Twelve years before his own interment he had already Catherine ^ a ^' m a 8ma H richly-carved tomb by the entrance chi'id?en ei of f St. Edmund's Chapel, his dumb and very beautiful Henry in. jj^tle daughter, of five years old, Catherine. 2 Mass was said daily for her in the Hermitage of Charing. Beside her were interred his two other children who died young, and whose figures were painted above her tomb Eichard and John. 3 The heart The heart of Henry, son of his brother Richard, Henri27i. who was killed in the cathedral at Viterbo by the sons of Simon de Montfort, was brought home and placed in a gold cup, by the shrine of the Confessor. The widespread horror of the murder had procured, through this incident, the one single notice of the Abbey in the 'Divina Commedia' of Dante : Lo cor che 'n sul Tamigi ancor si cola. 4 The king's half-brother, William de Valence, lies close by, wuiiam de within the Chapel of St. Edmund, dedicated to the i296 euce second great Anglo-Saxon saint. This chapel seems to have been regarded as of the next degree of sanctity to the Royal Chapel of St. Edward. William was the son of Isabel, widow of John, by her second marriage with the Earl of Marche and Poictiers, and the favour shown to him and his wild Poitevin kinsman by his brother was one cause of the King's embroilment with the English Barons. 5 His whole tomb is French : its enamels from Limoges ; his birthplace Valence on the Rhone, represented on his coat-of-arms. His son 6 Aymer so called from the father of Isabel Aymer, Count of Angou- leme built the tomb ; and also secured for himself a still more splendid resting-place on the north side of the sacrariurn, 1 Gleanings, p. 146; Arch. xxix. Alfonso [and Eleanor ?]. (See Crull, p. 188 ; Annals, A.D. 1283. 28.) Matt. Paris, p. 949. In the Li- . ' Ante's J^mu), xii 115 ; Glean- berate Holl, 41 Henry III., is a payment f'nV fflT^T f Im ?\ a> for her funeral on May 16. It was f omn f ntlD g on this line, says: 'In , , T~I A u- T quodam monasteno monachorum vo- made by a mason m Dorsetshire, Master j -nr 11 i. 1,1 TIT i cato loi Giiftniistcr. (Robertson s Simeon de Well, probably Weal, near - tivr .. f .-, n -, -, L., * Corfe Castle, who also furnished the ' Hutoyof tte ChurcJim4&A.) Purbeck marble for the tomb of John, , ' ^Tffi P' v? ! if' $ eldest son of Edward I. (Pipe Bolls ' The tomb has been much injured Dorset 41 H III ) I owe this to Mr since 168o. (Gleanings, p. b2.) D A '* rr ' ^ 6 His two other children, John and Margaret, occupy the richly-enamelled 3 The arch is said to have been con- spaces at the foot of the Shrine, structed by Edward I. as a memorial to (Crull, p. 156.) The name of their his four young children John, Henry, father is still visible upon the grave. CHAP. m. TOMBS OF THE FAMILY OF HENRY III. 117 making one range of sepulchral monuments, 1 with his cousins Ave :ine, Edmund and Aveline. Aveline, the greatest heiress :;, r f in the kingdom, daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, j:~;'m.ma, had been married to Edmund, in the Abbey, in 1269, uocaster, shortly after the translation of the relics of the Con- fessor. She died two years after her father-in-law the King ; and was followed to the same illustrious grave by her husband, twenty-three years later. 2 He was the second son of Henry. It is possible that his epithet, Crouchback, if not derived from his humped back, was a corruption of Crossback or Crusader. Whether it be so or not, he remains the chief monument of the Crusading period. 3 He and his brother Edward started together before their father's death, and the ten knights painted on the north side of his tomb have been sup- posed to represent the gallant English band who engaged in that last struggle to recover the Holy Land. If in this respect he represents the close of the first period of the Middle Ages, in two other respects he contains the germs of much of the future history of England. First Earl of Lancaster, he was the founder of that splendid house. Henry IV., with that curious tenacity of hereditary right which distinguished his usurpation, tried to maintain, that Edmund was really the eldest son of his father, excluded, from the throne only by his deformity. 4 From Provins where he resided on his return from the Holy Land, with his second wife, Blanche of Navarre, and which he con- verted almost into an English town he brought back those famous Eed roses, wrongly named ' of Provence,' planted there by the Crusaders, from Palestine, which may be seen carved on his tomb, and which became in after-days the badge of the Lancastrian dynasty. His extravagance, with that of his father, combined to produce that reaction in the English people which led to the foundation of the House of Commons. And the length of time which elapsed before his tomb was com- pleted, arose from his own dying anxiety not to be buried till all his debts were paid. He died in the same year as his half- uncle William, but the tomb was evidently not erected till late in the reign of Edward II. These are but the eddies of the royal history. The main 1 See Old London, p. 194. 3 These tombs are architecturally connected with those of Archbishop 2 Her tomb originally was raised Peckham at Canterbury, and Bishop upon the present basement. (See Dart, De Luda at Ely. (Gleanings, p. 62.) ii. 7, 10.) 4 Harding (Turner, ii. 273). 118 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. m. stream flows through the Confessor's Chapel. Prince Edward and Eleanor have returned from the Crusades. Eleanor is the first to depart. The remembrance of their crusading kinsman, Eleanor of St. Louis, never leaves them; and when Eleanor died dfed'ifoV. a ^ Hardby, the crosses which were erected at all the halting-places of his remains, from Mont Cenis to St. Denys, seem to have furnished the model of the twelve memorial crosses which marked the passage of the ' Queen of ' good memory,' from Lincoln to Charing ' Mulier pia, modesta, ' misericors, Anglicorum omnium amatrix.' l Her entrails were left at Lincoln ; her heart was deposited in the Black- friars' monastery in London ; but her body was placed in the Abbey, at the foot of her father-in-law, just before the removal of his own corpse into his new tomb. A hundred wax- lights were for ever to burn around her grave on St. Andrew's Eve, the anniversary of her death ; and each Abbot of West- minster was bound by oath to keep up this service, before he entered on his office, and the charter requiring it was read aloud in the Chapter House. The Bishop of Lincoln buried her ; a mortal feud between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Abbot of Westminster kept them from meeting at the funeral. 2 Eighteen years passed away. Edward had married a second time. He had erected splendid tombs, of which we have pre- viously spoken, to his father, his wife, and his uncle. He had continued the Abbey for five bays westward into the Nave. 3 The Chapel of the Confessor, where he had kept his vigil before his knighthood, he had filled with trophies of war, most alien to the pacific reign of his father the Stone of Fate from Scotland, and a fragment of the Cross from some remote Alfonso, sanctuary of Wales. 4 His little son Alfonso, called isW. ' after his grandfather Alfonso of Castille, hung up with his own hands before the shrine the golden crown of Llewellyn, the last Welsh Prince, slain amongst the broom at Builth ; and was himself, almost immediately afterwards, buried between his brothers and sisters in the Abbey, whilst his heart lies with his mother's in the Blackfriars' convent. 5 And now Edward himself is brought from the wild village 1 See Memorials of Queen Eleanor ; 3 Gleanings, p. 32. and Arch. xxix. 170-4, 181. See Chapters II. and V. '-' Memorials of Queen Eleanor, pp. s Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 175, 179 ; Old London, p. 187. 1284 ; Gleanings, p. 151. CHAP. m. OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 119 of Burgh, on the Solway sands. For sixteen weeks he lay in Death of Waltham Abbey by the grave of Harold; and then, Friday, 1 July a l mos t f ur months after his death, was buried by Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, between his bro- ther's and his father's tomb. 1 The monument was not His tomb, always so rude as it now appears. There are still remains of gilding on its black 2 Purbeck sides. A massive canopy of wood overshadowed it, which remained till it dis- appeared in a scene of uproar, which might have startled the sleeping King below into the belief that the Scots had invaded the sanctity of the Abbey, when, on the occasion of a midnight funeral, the terrified spectators defended themselves with its rafters against the mob. 3 But, even in its earliest days, the plain tomb of the greatest of the Plantagenets, without mosaic, carving, or effigy, amongst the splendid monuments of his kindred, cries for explanation. Two reasons are given. The first connects it with the in- scription, which runs along its side : ' EdVardus Primus inscription, ' Scotorum malleus hie est, 1308. Pactum Serva.' 4 Is serva/ 111 the unfinished tomb a fulfilment of that famous ' pact,' which the dying King required of his son, that his flesh should be boiled, his bones carried at the head of the English army till Scotland was subdued, and his heart sent to the Holy Land, 5 which he had vainly tried in his youth to redeem from the 1 Bishanger, Gesta Edwardi Primi, later date, as appears from the allusion A.D. 1307. (Pauli, ii. 178.) to Queen Catherine's coffin (see p. 134) ; 2 That it is of Purbeck marble, and 4. All these royal inscriptions are ex- that its base, as well as that of Henry actly similar in style, consisting of a III.'s tomb, is of Caen stone, I am Latin hexameter, a date (in the case assured by Professor Ramsay. This of Henry III. and Edward I. a wrong disposes of a tradition that the stones date), and a moral maxim. Four in- of Edward I.'s tomb were brought from scriptions still remain, in whole or in Jerusalem. part that of Edward I., Henry III., 3 See Chapter IV. Henry V., and the Confessor. (See also 4 Lord Hailes (Scotland., i. 27) evi- Neale, ii. 69-109.) That of Edward I. dently supposes this to allude to the has attracted more attention, both from dying compact. But there can be no its intrinsic interest and from its more doubt that the inscription is of far later conspicuous position. date ; and the motto ' Pactum serva ' * Walsingham, A.D. 1307. Two is, in all probability, a mere moral thousand pounds in silver were laid up, maxim, ' Keep your promise.' For and 140 knights named for the expedi- 1. The inscription is of the same cha- tion. How deeply this expedition was racter as that which runs round the impressed on popular feeling appears Shrine of the Confessor, which has ob- from the allusion in the Elegy in Percy's literated the larger part of the older Reliqws (ii. 9), with the Pope's lament inscription ; 2. That inscription is evi- ' Jerusalem, thou last y-lore [lost], dently of the time of Abbot Feckenham The flower of all chivalry, (see Chapter VI.) ; 3. The like inscrip- Now King Edward liveth no more, tion on Henry V.'s tomb is also of a Alas, that he should die ! ' 120 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. HI. Saracens ? It is true that with the death of the King the charms of the conquest of Scotland ceased. But it may possibly have been ' to keep the pact ' that the tomb was left in this rude state, which would enable his successors at any moment to take out the corpse and carry off the heart. It may also have been with a view to this that a singular provision was left and enforced. Once every two years the tomb was to be opened, and the wax of the King's cerecloth renewed. This renewal constantly took place as long as his dynasty lasted, perhaps with a lingering hope that the time would come when a vic- torious English army would once more sweep through Scotland with the conqueror's skeleton, or another crusade embark for Palestine with that true English heart. The hour never came, and when the dynasty changed with the fall of Eichard II., the renewal of the cerement ceased. From that time the tomb remained unfinished, but undisturbed, till, in the middle of the last century, it was opened in the presence of the Society of Antiquaries, 1 and the King was found in his royal robes, opening of wrapped in a large waxed linen cloth. Then for the 1771. last time was seen that figure, lean and tall, and erect as a palm-tree, 2 whether running or riding. But the long shanks, which gave him his surname, were concealed in the cloth of gold ; the eyes, with the cast which he had inherited from his father, were no longer visible; nor the hair, which had been yellow 3 or silver-bright in childhood, black in youth, and snow-white in age, on his high broad forehead. Pitch was poured in upon the corpse, and as Walpole comically laments in deploring the final disappearance of the crown, robes, and sceptre, ' They boast now of having enclosed him so effectually, ' that his ashes cannot be violated again.' 4 There is yet another explanation, to -which, even under any circumstances, we must in part resort, and which carries us wasteful- on to the next reign. ' As Malleus Scotorum, " the ness of " hammer or crusher of the Scots," is written on the ' tomb of King Edward I. in Westminster, so Incus Scotorum, ' " the anvil of the Scots," might as properly be written on the ' monument (if he had any) of Edward II.' 3 His monument is at Gloucester, as William Kufus's at Winchester, the nearest 1 Arch. iii. 376, 398, 399 ; Neale, ii. - Chron. Ro/. (Pauli, ii. 178.) 172 ; D'Israeli's Curiosities of Litera- 3 Bishanger, p. 76. ture, iii. 81. The corpse was six feet 4 Walpole's Letters, iv. 197. two inches long. s Fuller's Church Hist. A.D. 1314. CHAP. in. OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 121 church to the scene of his dreadful death. But he is not without his memorial in the Abbey. That unfinished condition HIS tomb at of the tomb of his father is the continued witness of i8a ce8 the wastefulness of the unworthy son, who spent on himself the money which his father had left for the carrying on of his great designs, 1 if not for the completion of his monument. 2 But his son, John, surnamed, from his birth in that fine old palace of Eltham, who died at Perth at the early age of nine- teen, was expressly ordered to be removed from the spot where Tomb of ^ e was fi rs ^ interred, to a more suitable place ' entre ' les royals,' 3 yet ' so as to leave room for the King 1334. < an( j kj s successors.' The injunction was either dis- regarded, or was thought to be adequately fulfilled by his interment in the quasi-royal Chapel of St. Edmund, under a tomb which lost its beautiful canopy 4 in the general crash of the Chapel at the time of the Duchess of Northumberland's funeral in the last century. The whole period of the two Edwards is well summed up in the tomb of Aymer de Valence, cousin of Edward L, planted, Aymerde as we have seen, in the conspicuous spot between Earfof 6 ' Edmund and Aveline of Lancaster, the tall pale man, isHs. r nicknamed by Gaveston ' Joseph the Jew,' 5 the ruth- less destroyer of Nigel Bruce, of Piers Gaveston, and of Thomas of Lancaster. If the Scots could never forgive him for the death of Nigel, neither could the English for the death of the almost canonised Earl of Lancaster. ' No Earl of Pembroke,' it was believed, ' ever saw his father afterwards : ' and Aymer 's mysterious death in France was regarded as a judgment for ' consenting to the death of St. Thomas.' 6 Pembroke College at Cambridge was founded by his widow, to commemorate the terrible bereavement which, according to tradition, befell her on her wedding-day. The northern side of the Eoyal Chapel and its area a 1 Walsingham, A.D. 1307. and 1777), iii. 745 ; Malcolm's Lond. In 1866, a slight memorial of some p. 258. festival in Edward II.'s reign was Capgrave, p. 252. found in fragments of paper-hangings, bearing his arms, affixed to the pillars " Leland ; Neale, ii. 273. For the near the altar. narrow escape of Aymer's tomb from 3 Archives. The Prior and Convent destruction in the last century, see received 100 fine in lieu of the horses Chapter IV. Masses were said for and armour. (Sandford, 155.) his soul in the Chapel of St. John, 4 For the canopy, see Chapter IV. ; close behind his tomb. (Lysons's En- Crull, p. 46 ; Nichols's Anecdotes (1760 v irons, p. 349.) 122 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. position peculiarly honourable in connection with the mediaeval position of the priest at the Eucharist was now filled. The southern side carried on and completed the direct line of the Queen House of Anjou. In the tomb of Philippa a more ]369. lppi historical spirit is beginning to supersede the ideal representations of early times. Her face is the earliest attempt at a portrait ; l and the surrounding figures are not merely religious emblems, but the thirty princely personages with whom, by birth, the Princess of Hainault was connected,' 2 as the tomb is probably by an Hainault artist. But ' she built to ' herself,' says Speed, ' a monument of more glory and durability ' by founding a college, called of her the Queen's, in Oxford.' 3 On her deathbed she said to the King, ' I ask that you will not * choose any other sepulchre than mine, and that you lie by my ' side in the Abbey of Westminster.' 4 ' King Edward's fortunes seemed to fall into eclipse when Death of ' sne was hidden in her sepulchre.' His features are ju^si m " sa *d ^ ^ represented, from a cast taken after death, as he lay on his deserted deathbed : 5 Mighty victor, mighty lord, Low on his funeral couch he lies ! 6 His long flowing hair and beard agree with the contemporary accounts. The godlike grace which shone in his countenance 7 is perhaps hardly perceptible, but it yet bears a curious resemblance to an illustrious living poet who is said to be descended from him. His twelve children 8 including those famous 'seven sons,' the springheads of all the troubles of the next hundred years HIS were graven round his tomb, of which now only children. remain the Black Prince, Joan de la Tour, Lionel Duke of Clarence, Edmund Duke of York, Mary Duchess of Brittany, and William of Hatfield. Two infant children, William of Windsor and Blanche de la Tour (so called from her birth in the Tower), have their small tomb in St. Edmund's Chapel. 9 1 Gleanings, p. 170. tomb is said to be empty, the King 2 Neale, ii. 98 ; Gleanings, p. 64. being buried in Queen PhiUppa's. But 3 Speed, p. 724. this is very doubtful. * Froissart. 7 Pauli, ii. 500 ; Gleanings, 173. 5 Gleanings, p. 173. 8 Stow (p. 24) saw them all, as well 6 In an account of these two tombs as those on Queen Philippa's tomb, by a Flemish antiquary, Edward III.'s 9 Ibid. p. 173 ; Neale, ii. 301. CHAP. in. OF THE PLANTAGEKETS. 123 The monument of Edward III. 1 is the first that has entered into our literature : The honourable tomb That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones. 2 The sword 3 and shield that went before him in France formed His sword part of the wonders of the Abbey as far back as the of g ueen Elizabeth>4 j) r ^ n describes- How some strong churl would brandishing advance The monumental sword that conquer'd France. Sir Eoger de Coverley ' laid his hand on Edward III.'s sword, ' and, leaning on the pommel of it, gave us the whole history ' of the Black Prince, concluding that, in Sir Richard Baker's ' opinion, Edward III. was one of the greatest princes that ever Eeiicsfrom ' sa t e on ^ ne English throne.' Other valued trophies of the French wars were the vestments of St. Peter, patron of the Abbey; and the head of St. Benedict, patron of its Order, which was supposed to have been brought from Monte Casino to France. 5 The circle of the Confessor's Chapel was now all but filled. The only space left was occupied by a small tomb (now removed Tombs of to the Chapel of St. John the Baptist) of the grand- children? 11 children of Edward I. Hugh and Mary de Bohun, children of his daughter Elizabeth by Humphrey de Bohun. It may be from the absence of any further open space by the side Edward of the Royal Saint, that Edward the Black Prince had Prince 30 already fixed his tomb under the shelter of the great mterbury ecclesiastical martyr of Canterbury Cathedral. 6 But rdii. hi 8 80n Richard was not so disposed to leave the Disaffection Abbey. His affection for it seems to have equalled e . that of any of his predecessors. In it his coronation had been celebrated with unusual formality and splendour. 7 ins mar- In it his marriage, like that of Henry III., had been * solemnised. 8 Here he had consulted the Hermit on lis way to confront the rebels. 9 The great northern entrance, 1 Feckenham's inscription on the 4 Eye's England (1592), pp. 10,92. omb is the same as that under Ed- There was then a wolf upon it. vard III.'s statue at Trinity College, s Walsingham, pp. 171, 178. Cambridge. 6 Memorials of Canterbury, c. 3. 2 Shakspeare's Richard II. \ See Chapter II. 8 Walsingham, 11. 48 ; Sandford, 3 A similar sword is in the Chapter 230 ; Neale, ii. 114. House at Windsor. 9 See Chapter V. 124 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. known as Solomon's Porch, was rebuilt in his time, and once contained his well-known badge of the White Hart, 1 which still remains, in colossal proportions, painted on the fragile partition which shuts off the Muniment Room from the southern triforium of the Nave. He affected a peculiar vene- ration for the Confessor. He bore his arms, and when he went over to Ireland, which ' was very pleasing to the Irish,' 2 by a special grace granted them to his favourite, the Earl of Norfolk. 3 ' By St. Edward ! ' was his favourite oath. 4 He had a ring, which he confided to St. Edward's Shrine when he was not out of England. 5 His portrait 6 long remained in the Abbey, probably in the attitude and dress in which he appeared at the feast of St. Edward, or (as has been conjectured) when he sate ' on a lofty throne ' in Old Palace Yard, and gave a momentary precedence to the Abbots of Westminster, over the Abbots of St. Albans. 7 It is the oldest contemporary repre- sentation of any English sovereign, an unquestionable likeness of the fatal and (as believed at the time) unparalleled beauty* which turned Eichard's feeble brain. The original picture had almost disappeared under successive attempts at restoration. It was reserved for a distinguished artist of our own day to recover the pristine form and features ; the brow and eyes still to be traced in the descendants of his line ; 8 the curling masses of auburn hair, the large heavy eyes, the long thin nose, the short tufted hair under his smooth chin, 9 the soft and melan- 1 The badge was first given at a s Inventory of Belies, tournament in 1396, taken from his ' It hung above the pew used by mother, Joan of Kent. According to the Lord Chancellor, on the south side the legend, it was derived from the of the Choir, till, injured by the wigs white stag caught at Besastine, near of successive occupants, it was removed, Bagshot, in Windsor Forest, with the in 1775, to the Jerusalem Chamber, collar round its neck, ' Nemo me tan- (See Chapter VI.) For the whole ' gat ; Ccesaris sum.'' From the popu- history of the portrait, and its success- larity of Eichard II., it was adopted ful restoration by Mr. Richmond, with by his followers with singular tena- the aid of Mr. Merrit, see the full ac- city, and hence the difficulty which count, by Mr. George Scharf, in the Henry IV. experienced in suppressing Fine Arts Quarterly Review, February it. (Archteologia, xx. 106, 152; xxix. 1867. 38, 40.) Hence also its frequency as " Riley's Preface to Walsingham's the sign of inns, Hence, in Epworth Abbots of St. Albans, vol. iii. p. Ixxv; Church, in Lincolnshire, it has been Weever, p. 473. recently found painted with the arms of " The Prince of Wales and the the Mowbrays, his faithful adherents. Princess Alice may be specially men- '- Creton. (Arch. xx. 28.) tioned. * It was one of the articles of the Evesham, pp. 162, 168. In a rage impeachment of the Earl of Surrey by his colour fled, and he became deadly Henry VIII. pale. (Arch. xx. 43 ; Shakspeare's 4 Creton. (Arch. xx. 43.) Ricliard II., act ii. sc. 1.) CHAP. in. OF THE PLANTAGENETS. 125 choly expression, which suits at once the Richard of history and of Shakspeare. 1 Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men ? Was this the face That, like the sun, did make beholders wink ? Was this the face that faced so many follies, And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke ? 2 Richard is thus a peculiarly Westminster King ; and it is clear from all these indications that he must have desired for himself and all for whom he cared, 3 a burial as near as possible to the Royal Saint of Westminster. The grandchildren of Edward I. were removed from their place in the Confessor's Chapel to the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and on the vacant Funorai of site thus secured was raised the tomb for his wife, Anne 1894. J e ' of Bohemia, the patroness of the Wycliffites, the link between Wycliffe and Huss. The King's extravagant grief for her loss, which caused him to raze to the ground the Palace at Sheen, in which she died, broke out also at her funeral. 4 It was celebrated at an enormous cost. Hundreds of wax candles were brought from Flanders. On reaching the Abbey from St. Paul's he was roused to a frenzy of rage, by finding that the Earl of Arundel not only had come too late for the procession, but asked to go away before the ceremony was over. He seized a cane from the hand of one of the attendants, and struck the Earl such a blow on the head, as to bring him to the ground at his feet. The sacred pavement was stained with blood, and the service was so long delayed, by the altercation and reconcilia- tion, that night came on before it was completed. 5 The King's affection for his wife was yet further to be shown by the ar- rangement of his own effigy by the side of hers, grasping her hand Tomb of in his- The tomb was completed during his reign, 6 ^Tchard and decorated with the ostrich-feathers and lions of Bohemia, the eagles of the Empire, the leopards of England, the broorncods of the Plantagenets, and the sun rising through the black clouds of Crecy. 7 The rich gilding and 1 Compare also Gray's lines, Chap- 5 Trokelowe, pp. 169, 424. ter II. For the chair in which he sits, s Neale, ii. 107-112. see Mr. Scharf, Fine Arts Quarterly 7 For a full description of the ar- Itcview, p. 36. morial bearings, see Arch. xxix. 43, 47, ' Richard IL, act iv. sc. 1. " ?f e ?V e , m *PP e " ^ onLa T n g- ham s tomb (ibid. 53). See Chapter V. ; 8 Gleanings, 174. See Chapter IV. also Memorials of Canterbury, pp. 153, 4 Weever, p. 477. 154, 174-182. 126 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. ornaments can still be discerned through their thick coating of indurated dust. 1 The inscription round the tomb contains the first indication of the conflict with the rising Eeformers in the pride with which Richard records his beauty, his wisdom, and his orthodoxy : Corpore procerus, 2 animo prudens ut Homerus, Obruit hsereticos, et eorum stravit amicos. 3 But whether the King himself really reposes in the sepulchre which he had so carefully constructed is open to grave doubt. His Burial A corpse was brought from Pomfret to London by im" 1 * Henry IV., with the face exposed, and thence con- towelt veyed to the friars at Langley ; 4 and long afterwards, 1413! r partly as an expiation for Henry's sins, partly to show that Richard was really dead, it was carried back by Henry V. from Langley, and was buried in state in this tomb. 5 The features were recognised by many, and were believed to resemble the unfortunate King ; but there were still some who maintained that it was the body of his chaplain, Maudlin, whose likeness to the King was well known. 6 Twice the interior of the tomb has been seen : once in the last century by an accidental open- ing in the basement, and again more fully in 1871, on occasion of the reparation of the monument by the Board of Works. The skulls of the King and Queen were visible ; no mark of violence was to be seen on either. The skeletons were nearly perfect ; even some of the teeth were preserved. The two copper-gilt crowns which were described on the first occasion had disappeared ; but the staff, the sceptre, part of the ball, the two pairs of royal gloves, the fragments of peaked shoes as in the portrait, still remained. 7 In this tomb, thus closing the precinct of the Chapel, the direct line of the descendants of its founder, Henry III., was brought to an end ; and with it closes a complete period of English history. 8 1 Arch. xxix. 57. the relics were carefully replaced. The 2 This contradicts the Evesham investigation is described at length in chronicler, who says he was short the Archteologia of 1879. (p. 169). 8 Thomas of Woodstock, youngest * See the whole inscription in Neale, son of Edward III., murdered at the ii. 110. instigation of Kichard II., Thomas of 4 See Pauli, iii. 60. was interred on the south Woodstock 4 Turner, ii. 380. side of the Confessor's and his wife > 6 Creton (Arch. xx. 220, 409). But Chapel, beneath the pave- Duche^-f Maudlin had been beheaded a month ment, under a splendid Gloucester, before. (Pauli, iii. 11.) brass (see Sandford, p. 230), 13 9 7 - 1399. 7 The bodies were in a small vault of which nothing but the indentations beneath the monument. The bones and can now be traced. His widow lies CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 127 The Lancastrian House, which begins the new transitional epoch, reaching across the fifteenth century, had no place in THE this immediate circle. Henry IV., although he died LAN-CASTER, almost within the walls of the Abbey, sought his last IV ' resting-place in Canterbury Cathedral ; and it may be, that had his son succeeded only to the affection of the great ecclesiastical party, which the crafty and superstitious usurper had conciliated, Westminster would have been deserted for Canterbury. 1 But Henry V. cherished a peculiar vene- ration for the Abbey, which had been the scene of that great transformation, 2 from a wild licentious youth to a steady determined man, to an austere champion of orthodoxy, to the greatest soldier of the age, ' Hostium victor et sui.' Not only did he bring back the dead Eichard not only did he give lands and fat bucks to the Convent, but he added to the Church itself some of its most essential features. The Nave which had remained stationary since the death of Edward I., except so far as it had been carried on by the private munificence of Abbot Langham 3 was, by the orders of Henry V., prolonged July 7, HIS. nearly to its present extremity by the great architect i4i. ' of that age, remembered now for far other reasons "Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. 4 It was continued, as has been already remarked, in the same style as that which NOT. 23, had prevailed when it was first begun, two centuries before. The first grand ceremonial which it witnessed was worthy of itself the procession which assisted at the Te Deum for the victory of Agincourt. 5 It was just before the expedition which terminated in that victory, that the King declared in his will his intention to be buried in the Abbey, with directions so precise as to show that he must carefully have studied the difficulties and the capa- bilities of the locality. 6 in the Chapel of St. Edmund, under a ' After Edward the Confessor's tomb, brass representing her in her conventual Sir Roger de Coverley was shown ' Henry dress as a nun of Barking. Philippa, ' the Fourth's ; upon which he shook Phiiippa widow of Edward Duke of ' his head, and told us there was fine Duchess'of York, afterwards wife of ' reading from the casualties of that York, 1433. gj r Walter Fitzwalter, was ' reign.' (Spectator, No. 329.) This the first to occupy the Chapel of St. was doubtless a confusion either in the Nicholas, built probably in the time good knight, or his guide, with Henry of Edward I., to receive the relics of III.'s tomb. that saint, and next in dignity to those 2 See Chapter V. * Ibid. of St. Edward and St. Edmund. Her 4 Redman, pp. 70-72 ; Gleanings, tomb (now removed to the side) was 213 ; Rymer, Feed. ix. 78. then in the middle of the Chapel. s Memorials of London, 621. (Neale, ii. 170.) 6 Rymer, Feed. ix. 289. 128 THE KOYAL TOMBS CHAP. m. The fulfilment of his intention derives additional force from the circumstances of his death. Like his father, he had con- ceived the fixed purpose of another crusade. He had borrowed from the Countess of Westmoreland the ' Chronicle of Jeru- ' salem ' and the ' Voyage of Godfrey de Bouillon ; ' he had sent out a Palestine Exploration party under Chevalier Lannoy. 1 Just at this juncture his mortal illness overtook him at Yin- cennes. 2 When the Fifty-first Psalm was chanted to him, he paused at the words, ' Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem,' and fervently repeated them. ' As surely as I expect to die,' he said, ' I intended, after I had established peace in France, to * go and conquer Jerusalem, if it had been the good pleasure of ' my Creator to have let me live my due time.' A few minutes after, as if speaking to the evil spirit of his youth, he cried out, ' Thou liest thou liest ! my part is with my Lord Jesus Christ ; ' and then, with the words strongly uttered, ' In manus tuas, ' Domine, ipsum terminum redemisti ! ' he expired. 3 So much had passed since the time when he wrote his will, in the third year of his reign, that it seemed open for France and England to contest the glory of retaining him. Paris and Rouen both offered, it is said, immense sums of money for that purpose. 4 But his known attachment to Westminster prevailed, Funeral of an ^ *ke mos ^ sumptuous arrangements were made for Henry v, fog funeral. The long procession from Paris to Calais, November, * and from Dover to London, was headed by the King of Scots, James I., as chief mourner, followed by Henry's widow, Catherine of Valois. At each stage between Dover and London, at Canterbury, Ospringe, Eochester, and Dartford, funeral services were celebrated. On the procession reaching London, it was met by all the clergy. 5 The obsequies were performed in the presence of Parliament, first at St. Paul's and then at the Abbey. No English king's funeral had ever been so grand. It is this scene alone which brings the interior of the Abbey on the stage of Shakspeare 6 Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night ! . . . King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long ! England ne'er lost a king of so much worth. 1 Arch. xxi. 312 ; Kymer, x. 307 ; * Pauli, iii. 178. Pa ^ 8 attacked by a violent dvs- * Walsingham, p. 407. entery from the excessively hot sum- s Ibid. p. 408. mer, the ' mal de S. Fiacre,' August " Shakspeare's Henry VL, First 31 at midnight. (Pauli, iii. 173.) Part, act. i. sc. 1. CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 129 On the splendid car, accompanied by torches and white-robed priests innumerable, lay the effigy, now for the first time seen in the royal funerals. 1 Behind were led up the Nave, to the altar steps, his three chargers. To give a worthy place to the mighty dead a severe strain was put on the capacity of the Abbey. Eoom for his grave was created by a summary process, on which no previous King or Abbot had ventured. The ex- treme eastern end of the Confessor's Chapel, hitherto devoted to the sacred relics, was cleared out; and in their place was deposited the body of the most splendid King that England had down to that time produced; second only as a warrior to the Black Prince second only as a sovereign to Edward I. His tomb, accordingly, was regarded almost as that of a saint in Paradise. 2 The passing cloud of reforming zeal, which Chichele had feared, had been, as Chichele hoped, di- verted by the French wars. From the time of Henry's conversion he affected and attained an austere piety unusual among his pre- decessors. Instead of their wild oaths, he had only two words, ' Impossible,' or ' It must be done.' In his army he forbade the luxury of feather beds. Had he conquered the whole of France, he would have destroyed all its vines, with a view of suppressing drunkenness. 3 He w r as the most determined enemy of Wycliffe and of all heretics that Europe contained. 4 He had himself intended that the relics should be stih 1 retained in the same locality, though transferred to the chamber above his tomb. 5 The recesses still existing in that chamber seem de- signed for this purpose. But the staunch support which the dead King had given to the religious world of that age, if not his brilliant achievements, seemed in the eyes of the clergy to justify a more extensive change. The relics were altogether removed, and placed in a chest, between the tomb of Henry III. and the Shrine of the Confessor, and the chamber was ex- clusively devoted to the celebration of services for his soul on the most elaborate scale. He alone of the Kings, hitherto buried in the Abbey, had ordered a separate Chantry to be erected, w r here masses might be for ever offered up. 6 It was to be raised over his tomb. It was to have an altar in honour of 1 Previously the Kings themselves 5 Rymer, ix. 289. had been exhibited in their royal * They were specified in his will, and attire. (Bloxham, p. 92.) See Chapter amounted to 20,000. (Rymer, ix. 290.) IV. John Arden was clerk of the works, * Monstrelet, pp. 325, 326. and provided the Caen stone. A similar 3 Pauli, iii. 175. Chantry was prepared by the side of his 4 Rymer, x. 291, 604 ; Pauli, iii. 177. father's tomb at Canterbury. K 130 THE EOYAL TOMBS CHANTRY OF HEXKY V. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 131 the Annunciation. 1 For one whole year ' 30 poor persons ' were to recite there the Psalter of the Virgin, closing with these words in the vulgar tongue ' Mother of God, remember ' thy servant Henry who puts his whole trust in thee.' 2 It was to be high enough for the people down in the Abbey to see the HELMET, SHIELD, AND SADDLE OF HEXIiY V., AS SUSPENDED OVER HIS TOMB. priests officiating there. Accordingly a new Chapel sprang up, growing out of that of St. Edward, and almost reaching the dignity of another Lady Chapel. It towers above the Plan- tagenet graves beneath, as his empire towered above their kingdom. As ruthlessly as any improvement of modern times, it defaced and in part concealed the beautiful monuments of 1 This is sculptured over the door. : Rymer, ix-289. x 2 132 . THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. Eleanor and Philippa. Its structure is formed out of the first letter of his name H. Its statues represent not only the glories of Westminster, in the persons of its two founders, 1 but the glories of the two kingdoms which he had united St. George the patron of England ; St. Denys, the patron of France. The sculptures round the Chapel break out into a vein altogether new in the Abbey. They describe the personal peculiarities of the man and his history the scenes of his coronation, with all the grandees of his Court around him, and his battles in France. Amongst the heraldic emblems the swans and antelopes derived from the De Bohuns 2 is the flaming beacon or cresset light which he took for his badge, ' showing thereby that, although his virtues and good parts 4 had been formerly obscured, and lay as a dead coal, waiting ' light to kindle it, by reason of tender years and evil company, ' notwithstanding, he being now come to his perfecter years ' and riper understanding had shaken off his evil counsellors, ' and being now on his high imperial throne, that his virtues ' should now shine as the light of a cresset, which is no ordinary ' light.' 3 Aloft were hung his large emblazoned shield, his saddle, and his helmet, after the example of the like personal accoutrements of the Black Prince at Canterbury. The shield has lost its splendour, but is still there. 4 The saddle is that on which he Vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, To witch the world with noble horsemanship. 5 The helmet which, from its elevated position, has almost be- come a part of the architectural outline of the Abbey, and on which many a Westminster boy has wonderingly gazed from his place in the Choir is in all probability ' that very ' casque that did affright the air at Agincourt,' 6 which twice saved his life on that eventful day ' the bruised helmet ' which he refused to have borne in state before him on his triumphal 1 Unless the figure on the south side 4 Its ornaments still appear in Sand- is King Arthur, in accordance with the ford, 280. seal of Henry V., which has the Con- 5 Shakspeare's Henry IV., First fessor on one side and Arthur on the Part, act iv. sc. 1. other. It is lined with leather, and must * See Koberts's House* of York and h l ave *" een "^ g ilde ? outside. I fear Lancaster, ii. 254, 255. ^ th / marks upon it are merely the holes for attaching the crest, &c., and MS. history, quoted in Gough's not the marks of the ponderous sword Sepulchral Monuments, ii. 69. of the Duke of Alencon. CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 133 entry into London, ' for that he would have the praise chiefly * given to God.' l Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride ; Giving full trophy, signal and ostent Quite from himself to God. 2 Below is his tomb, which still bears some marks of the in- scription which makes him the Hector of his age. Upon it lay his effigy stretched out, cut from the solid heart of an English oak, plated with silver-gilt, with a head of solid silver. It has suffered more than any other monument in the Abbey. Two teeth of gold were plundered in .Edward IV.'s reign. 3 The whole of the silver was carried off by some robbers, who had ' broken in the night-season into the Church of West- ' minster,' at the time of the Dissolution. 4 But, even in its mutilated form, the tomb has always excited the keen interest of Englishmen. The robbery ' of the image of King Henry ' of Monmouth ' was immediately investigated by the Privy Council. Sir Philip Sydney felt, that ' who goes but to West- ' minster, in the church may see Harry the Fifth ; ' 5 and Sir Eoger de Coverley's anger was roused at the sight of ' the ' figure of one of our English Kings without a head, which had ' been stolen away several years since.' ' Some Whig, I'll * warrant you. You ought to lock up your kings better ; they'll ' carry off the body too, if you don't take care.' 6 If the splendour of Henry V.'s tomb marks the culmination of the Lancastrian dynasty, the story of its fall is no less told in the singular traces left in the Abbey by the history of his widow and his son. They, no doubt, raised the sumptuous structure over the dead King's grave ; and they also clung, though with far different fates, to the neighbourhood of the sepulchre for which they had done so much. Queen Catherine, after her second marriage with Owen Tudor, sank into almost total oblivion. On her death her remains were placed in the Abbey, 7 but only in a rude tomb in the Lady Chapel beyond, in a ' badly apparelled 8 state.' There the coffin lay for many years. It was, on the destruction 1 Account of the helmet by the added by Henry VI. (Rymer, x. 490.) Ironmongers' Company, pp. 145, 146. 5 Defence of the Earl of Leicester. 2 Shakspeare's Henry V., act v., (P. Cunningham.) Chorus. Spectator, No. 329. It would seem 3 Inventory of Relics. (Archives.) that the name was not given. 4 Jan. 30, 1546. Archceol. xviii. 27. 7 Strickland's Queens, iii. 183, 209. See Keepe, p. 155. The grates were 8 Archives. 134 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. HI. of that Chapel by her grandson, placed on the right side of her royal husband, 1 wrapt in a sheet of lead taken from the roof ; and in it from the waist .upwards was exposed 1 n:ii j i >) ~ . Catherine fa the visitors of the Abbev ; and. so it * continued to of Vuloi*. " , . ke seen ' tlj e bones b em g firmly .united, and thinly ' clothed with flesh, like scrapings of fine leather.' 2 Pepys, on his birthday visit to the Abbey, ' kissed a Queen.' 3 This strange neglect was probably the result of the disfavour into which her memory had fallen from her ill-assorted marriage. But in the legends of the Abbey it was ' by her own appoint- ' ment (as he that showeth the tombs will tell you by tradition), ' in regard of her disobedience to her husband, for being de- ' livered of her son, Henry VI., at Windsor, the place which he ' forbade.' 4 This desecration was brought to an end by the interment of the remains in a vault under the Villiers monu- ment, in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, at the time of the making of the adjacent Percy vault in 1778. A hundred years later, in 1878, they were finally, with the sanction of Queen Victoria, deposited in the chantry of Henry V. under the ancient altar- slab of the chapel. Henry VI. was not willing, any more than his father, to abandon his hold on the Confessor's Shrine. He, first of his house, revived the traditional name of Edward in the person of visits of his first-born son, who was born on St. Edward's Day. 5 14M-1460.' A long recollection lived hi the memory of the old officers and workmen of the Abbey, how they had, in the disas- trous period between the Battle of St. Albans and the Battle of Wakefield, seen the King visit the Abbey, at all hours of the day and night, to fix the' place of his sepulture. 6 On one occasion, between 7 and 8 P.M., he came from the Palace, attended by his confessor, Thomas Manning, afterwards Dean of Windsor. The abbot (Kirkton) received him by torchlight at the postern, and they went round the Chapel of the Confessor together. It was proposed to him, with the reckless disregard of antiquity, which marked those ages, to move the tomb of Eleanor. The King, with a better feeling, said, 'that might ' not be well in that place,' and that ' he could in nowise do it ; ' 1 As specified in Feckenham's in- 4 Weever, p. 475 ; Fuller, book iv. scription, added in the next century. art. xv. 48. z Dart, ii. 39. The position is seen in Sandford, 289. * Ridgway, p. 178. _ " Pepys's Diary (Feb. 24, 1668), iv. 253. Archives. CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER 135 and, on being still pressed, fell into one of his silent fits, and gave them no answer. He then was led into the Lady Chapel, saw his mother's neglected coffin, and heard the proposal that it should be more ' honourably apparelled,' and that he should be laid between it and the altar of that Chapel. He was again mute. On another occasion he visited the Chapel of the Con- fessor with Flete, the Prior and historian of the Abbey. Henry asked him, with a strange ignorance, the names of the Kings amongst whose tombs he stood, till he came to his father's grave, where he made his prayer. He then went up into the Chantry, and remained for more than an hour surveying the whole Chapel. It was suggested to him that the tomb of Henry V. should be pushed a little on one side, and his own placed beside it. With more regal spirit than was usual in him, he replied, ' Nay, let him alone ; he lieth like a noble ' prince. I would not trouble him.' Finally, the Abbot pro- posed that the great Reliquary should be moved from the position which it now occupied close beside the Shrine, so as to leave a vacant space for a new tomb. The devout King anxiously asked whether there was any spot where the Relics, thus a second time moved, could be deposited, and was told that they might stand ' at the back side of the altar.' He then ' marked with his foot seven feet,' and turned to the nobles who were with him. ' Lend me your staff,' he said to the Lord Cromwell ; ' is it not fitting I should have a place here, where ' my father and my ancestors lie, near St. Edward ? ' And then, pointing with a white staff to the spot indicated, said, ' Here ' methinketh is a convenient place ; ' and again, still more empha- tically, and with the peculiar asseveration which, in his pious and simple lips, took the place of the savage oaths of the Plan- tagenets, ' Forsooth, forsooth, here will we lie ! Here is a good ' place for us.' The master-mason of the Abbey, Thirsk by name, took an iron instrument, and traced the circuit of the Death of grave on the pavement. Within three days the Relics M?u- r 4 VI '' were removed, and the tomb was ordered. The ' marbler ' (as we should 'now say, the statuary) and the coppersmith received forty groats for their instalment, and gave one groat to the workmen, who long remembered the con- versation of their masters at supper by this token. But ' the ' great trouble ' came on, and nothing was done. Henry died in the Tower, and thence his corpse was taken first to the Abbey of Chertsey, and then (in consequence, it was said, of the miracles 136 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. which attracted pilgrims to it) was removed by Richard III. to St. George's Chapel at Windsor perhaps to lie near the scene of his birth, perhaps to be more closely under the vigilant eye of the new dynasty. For now it was that the attachment which so many Princes had shown to Windsor became definitely fixed. Edward IV., withdrawal though he died at Westminster, though his obsequies d f vnaJto k were celebrated in St. Stephen's Chapel and in the Windsor. Abbey, and though to his reign we probably owe the screen which divides the Shrine from the High Altar, was buried in St. George's Chapel, over against his unfortunate rival. This severance of the York dynasty from the Confessor's Shrine marks the first beginning of the sentiment which has eventually caused the Eoyal Sepultures at Westminster to be superseded by Windsor. The obligations of Edward to the Sanctuary which had sheltered his wife and children compelled him indeed to contribute towards the completion of the Abbey. Here, as at the Basilica of Bethlehem, fourscore oaks were granted by Edward iv., him for the repairs of the roof. 1 But, whilst Edward ' lay at Windsor, George at Tewkesbury, Richard at wind**, Leicester, Edward V. and his brother in the Tower, MS". the younger George and his sister Mary at Windsor, 2 Cecilia at Quarre 3 in the Isle of Wight, Anne at Thetford (now at Framlingham), Catherine at Tiverton, Bridget at Dartford, 4 Margaret one sma U tomb alone that of Margaret, a child of e r nme m <>nths old found its way into the Abbey. It now stands by Richard II. 's monument, apparently moved from ' the altar end, afore St. Edward's Shrine.' Anne Anne of Neville, the Queen of Richard III., and daughter of Warwick, ^ e g ar j \y arw i c i ij i s belie ved to be buried on the Mowbray south side of the altar ; 5 Anne Mowbray, the betrothed of York. w ^f e O f y 0un g Richard of York, in the Islip Chapel. 6 But the passion for the House of Lancaster still ran under- ground ; and when the Civil Wars were closed, its revival caused the Abbey to leap again into new life. In every im- 1 Neale, i. 92 ; Tobler's Bethlelwm, Lincolnshire gentleman, with whom she p. 112. See Chapter V. lived at East Standen. 2 Green's Princesses, iii. 402. 4 Ibid 43? . . ,, , S8 4? i TI ^ * Af\f* TT / i i i 1UH.I. All. *O I IV* J.JL* -L . OO. Jtf* 3 Ibid. iv. 436. Her first husband, Lord Wells, was buried in the Abbey s CruU, p. 23. A leaden coffin was 1498, in the Lady Chapel, not yet de- found there in 1866. The stone is sup- stroyed. (Ibid. iii. 428.) Her connec- posed to be preserved in the pavement tion with the Isle of Wight was through of the S. Transept. her second husband, Thomas Kyme, a 6 Keepe, 133. CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER. 137 portant church an image of the sainted Henry had been erected. Even in York Minster pilgrimages were made to his figure in Devotion to ^ ne roo & screen, which it required the whole autho- Heuryvi. r jty O f the Northern Primate to suppress. 1 This general sentiment could not be neglected by the Tudor King. He had from the first bound up his fortunes with those of Henry of Lancaster, amongst whose miracles was conspicuous the prediction that Henry Tudor would succeed him. 2 Accord- nl gly ne determined to reconstruct at Windsor the- Chapel at the east end of St. George's, originally founded by Henry III. and rebuilt by Edward III., in O rder to become the receptacle of the sacred remains, with which he intended that his own dust should mingle. Then it was that the two Abbeys of Chertsey and of West- minster put in their claims for the body Chertsey on the ground that Kichard III. had taken it thence by violence to Windsor; Westminster on the ground that the King, as we have seen, had in his lifetime determined there to be buried. Old vergers, servants, and workmen, who remembered the dates only by the imperfect sign that they were before or after ' the ' field of York, or of St. Alban's,' had yet a perfect recollection of the very words which Henry had used ; and the Council, which was held at Greenwich, to adjudicate the triangular Decision in contest, decided in favour of Westminster. 3 Windsor favour of West- made a stout resistance, and continued its endeavours minster. to reverse the decree by legal processes. But the King and Council persevered in carrying out what were believed to have been Henry's intentions ; and, accordingly, the un- finished chapel at Windsor was left to the singular fate which was to befall it in after-times the sepulchre designed for Cardinal W r olsey, the Eoman Catholic chapel of James II., the burial-place of the family of George III., and finally the splendid monument of the virtues of the Saxon Prince, whose funeral rites it in part witnessed. At Westminster every preparation was made to receive the =aintly corpse. Henry VII. characteristically stated the great expenses to which he was subjected, and insisted on the Convent )f Westminster contributing its quota of 500/. (equal to 5000L )f our money) for transference of ' the holy body.' 4 This sum s duly paid by Abbot Fascet. The King determined to found 1 Order of Archbishop Booth, Octo- 2 Pauli, iii. 634. er 27, 1479. s Archives. 4 Ibid. 138 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. at Westminster a Chapel yet more magnificent than that which he had designed at Windsor, a greater than the Confessor's Shrine, in order ' right shortly to translate into the same the ' body and reliques of his uncle of blissful memory, King Henry confirmed 'VI.' 1 Pope Julius II. granted the licence for the p^e 6 removal, declaring that the obscurity in which the 1504 - enemies of Henry had combined to envelope his mira- cles, first at Chertsey and then at Windsor, was at last to be dispersed. 2 This was the last cry of ' the aspiring blood of Lancaster.' Suddenly, imperceptibly, it 'sank into the ground.' The of language of the Westminster records certainly implies that the body was removed (according to a faint tra- *** dition, of which no distinct trace remains) to some ' place undistinguished ' in the Abbey. 3 But the language of the wills both of Henry VII. 4 and of Henry VIII. no less clearly indicates that it remains, according to the Windsor tradition, in the south aisle of St. George's Chapel. Unquestionably, no changed solemn ' translation ' ever took place. The ' canonisa- cimp^of * tion,' which the Pope had promised, was never carried Henry vii. ou ^ rpk e (^pe} a ^ Westminster was still pushed forward, but it became the Chapel, not of Henry VI., but of Henry VII. It may be that this change of purpose represents the penurious spirit of the King, whose features, even in his monu- mental effigy, were thought by an observant antiquary to indi- cate ' a strong reluctance to quit the possessions of this world ; ' 5 and that the failure of canonisation was occasioned by his unwillingness, parsimonious even beyond the rest of his race, to part with the sum requisite for so costly an undertaking. But it may be that, as he became more firmly seated on his throne, the consciousness of his own importance increased, and the remembrance of his succession to Henry of Lancaster was gradually merged in the proud thought that, as the founders of a new dynasty he and his Queen would take the chief place ' in ' the common sepulchre of the kings of this realm ' with ' his ' noble progenitors.' 6 1 Will of Henry VII. (Neale, i. pt. Neale (part ii.), i. 7. Will of " P- 7 -) Henry VIII. (Fuller's Church Hist. * Rymer, xiii. 103, 104 ; Dugdale, i. A.D. 1546.) 315. s Malcolm, pp. 218, 225 ; Speed, s Pennant, p. 29. P.- 869. Will of Henry VII. CHAP. in. OF THE TUDOES. 139 The Chapel of Henry VII. is indeed \vell called by his name, for it breathes of himself through every part. It is the most signal example of the contrast between his closeness in life, and his ' magnificence in the structures he had left to posterity ' l King's College Chapel, the Savoy, Westminster. Its very style was believed to have been a reminiscence of his exile, being ' learned in France,' by himself and his companion Fox. 2 His pride in its grandeur was commemorated by the ship, vast for those times, which he built, ' of equal cost with his Chapel,' ' which afterwards, in the reign of Mary, sank in the sea and vanished in a moment.' 3 It was to be his chantry as well as his tomb, for he was determined not to be behind the Lancastrian princes in devo- The tion ; and this unusual anxiety for the sake of a soul ctiautiy. no t oo heavenward in its affections expended itself in the immense apparatus of services which he provided. Almost a second Abbey was needed to contain the new establishment of monks, who were to sing in their stalls 4 ' as long as the world ' shall endure.' 5 Almost a second Shrine, surrounded by its blazing tapers, and shining like gold with its glittering bronze, was to contain his remains. To the Virgin Mary, to whom the chapel was dedicated, he had a special devotion. 6 Her ' in all his necessities he had made his ' continual refuge ; ' and her figure, accordingly, looks down upon his grave from the east end, between the apostolic patrons of the Abbey, Peter and Paul, with ' the holy ' company of heaven that is to say, angels, archangels, patri- archs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors, and ' virgins,' to ' whose singular mediation and prayers he also trusted,' including the royal saints of Britain, St. Edward, St. Minund, St. Oswald, St. Margaret of Scotland, who stand, as le directed, sculptured, tier above tier, on every side of the Chapel ; 7 some retained from the ancient Lady Chapel ; the reater part the work of his own age. Eound his tomb stand ' accustomed Avours or guardian saints ' (as round the chapel Fuller's Worthies, iii. 555. used on the occasion of the royal fune- 2 Speed, p. 757. This, however, is rals in those aisles. See MS. Heralds' mistake. It is partly English. College in the funeral of Charles II. 3 Fuller's Worthies, iii. 553. s Malcolm, pp. 226, 227. For the 4 The stalls at that time, and till the cost (30,000, for purchasing lands for arrangements for the Knights of the his chapel), see Pauli, v. 644. Bath, left free entrance from the main * Will of Henry VII. (Neale, ii. 6, 7.) Chapel into the north and south aisle ' For the enumeration of these see on each side. These entrances were Neale, ii. 39. 140 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. 111. probably were their altars), to whom ' he calls and cries ' St. 'Michael, St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, St. ' George, St. Anthony, St. Edward, St. Vincent, St. Anne, St. 'Mary Magdalene, and St. Barbara,' each with their peculiar emblems, ' so to aid, succour, and defend him, that the ancient ' and ghostly enemy, nor none other evil or damnable spirit, ' have no power to invade him, nor with their wickedness to ' annoy him, but with holy prayers to be intercessors for him to ' his Maker and Kedeemer.' l These were the adjurations of the last mediaeval King, as the Chapel was the climax of the latest mediaeval architecture. In the very urgency of the King's anxiety for the perpetuity of those funeral ceremonies, we seem to discern an unconscious presentiment of terror lest their days were numbered. But, although in this sense the Chapel hangs on tenaciously to the skirts of the ancient Abbey and the ancient Church, yet that solemn architectural pause at its entrance which arrests the most careless observer, and renders it a -separate structure, a foundation 'adjoining the Abbey,' rather than forming part of it 2 corresponds with marvellous fidelity to the pause and break in English history of which Henry VII.'s reign is the The dose of expression. It is the close of the Middle Ages : the Ages. apple of Granada in its ornaments shows that the last Crusade was over ; its flowing draperies and classical attitudes The close indicate that the Eenaissance had already begun. It of the Civil . J wars. is the end of the Wars of the Roses, combining Henry's right of conquest with his fragile claim of hereditary descent. On the one hand, it is the glorification of the victory of Bos- worth. The angels, at the four' corners of the tomb, held or hold the likeness of the crown which he won on that famous day. In the stained glass we see the same crown hanging on the green bush in the fields of Leicestershire. On the other hand, like the Chapel of King's College at Cambridge, it asserts everywhere the memory of the ' holy Henry's shade ; ' the Bed Rose of Lancaster appears in every pane of glass : and in every corner is the Portcullisthe 'Altera securitas,' 3 as he termed it, with an allusion to its own meaning, and the double safe- guard of his succession which he derived through John of Gaunt from the Beaufort Castle in Anjou, inherited from Blanche ' Will of Henry VII. (Neale, ii. 6, to the Chapel, see Dugdale, i. 316-320. 7 ) . * Neale (part ii.), i. 28 ; Biog. Brit. 2 Neale, i. 18. For the Bulls relating ii. 669 ; Roberts, ii. 257. CHAP. in. OF THE TUDOES. 141 of Navarre by Edmund Crouchback ; l whilst Edward IV. and Elizabeth of York are commemorated by intertwining these Lancastrian symbols with the Greyhound of Cecilia Neville, wife of Richard Duke of York, with the Rose in the Sun, which scattered the mists at Barnet, and the Falcon on the Fetter- lock, 2 by which the first Duke of York expressed to his de- scendants that ' he was locked up from the hope of the kingdom, ' but advising them to be quiet and silent, as God knoweth ' what may come to pass.' It is also the revival of the ancient, Celtic, British element in the English monarchy, after centuries of eclipse. It is a The revival strange and striking thought, as we mount the steps ?aces? e of Henry VII. 's Chapel, that we enter there a mauso- leum of princes, whose boast it was to be descended, not from the Confessor or the Conqueror, but from Arthur and Llewellyn ; 3 and that round about the tomb, side by side with the emblems of the great English Houses, is to be seen the Red Dragon 4 of the last British king, Cadwallader ' the dragon of the great ' Pendragonship ' of Wales, thrust forward by the Tudor king in every direction, to supplant the hated White Boar 5 of his departed enemy the fulfilment, in another sense than the old Welsh bards had dreamt, of their prediction that the progeny of Cadwallader should reign again : Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, Ye unborn ages, crjowd not on my soul ! No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail : All hail, ye genuine kings ! Britannia's issue, hail ! 6 These noble lines well introduce us to the great Chapel which, as far as the Royal Tombs of the Abbey are concerned, The begin- contains within itself the whole future history of modern England. The Tudor sovereigns, uniting the quick England. understanding and fiery temper of their ancient Celtic lineage with the iron will of the Plantagenets, were the fit 1 Stow, p. 11. mund, who was monk in the Abbey, 2 He built his castle of Fotheringay was buried in the Chapel of St. Blaise. in the form of a Fetterlock, and gave (Crull, p. 233.) to his sons, who asked the Latin for 4 Grafton, ii. 158. The banner of ' fetterlock,' the expressive answer, the Bed Dragon of Cadwallader, on Hie h&c hoc taceatis. (Dallaway's white and green silk, was carried at Heraldic Inquiries, 384, 385.) Edward Bosworth. Hence the Eouge Dragon IV. built the so-called Horse-shoe Herald. Cloister also in the form of a fetter- 5 Roberts's York and Lancaster, ii. lock. 461, 463. * Owen Tudor, the brother of Ed- ' Gray's Bard. THE TOMBS OF THE ABBEY AS THEY APPEARED IK 15 1509. CHAPEL OF HENRY VII. [44 THE ROYAL TOilBS CHAP. in. inaugurators of the new birth of England at that critical season for guiding and stimulating the Church and nation to the performance of new duties, the fulfilment of new hopes, the apprehension of new truths. In the eighteenth year of his reign, ' on the 24th day of * January, at a quarter of an hour before three of the clock at ' afternoon of the same day,' l the first stone of the new Chapel was laid by Abbot Islip, Sir Reginald Bray Building of . the chapei. the architect, and others. In this work, as usual, the old generation was at once set aside. Not only the venerable "White Rose Inn of Chaucer's garden, but the old Chapels of St. Mary and of St. Erasmus, 2 were swept away as ruthlessly as the Norman Church had been by Henry III. ' His grand- ' dame of right noble memory, Queen Catherine, wife to King ' Henry V., and daughter of Charles King of France ' (for whose sake, amongst others, he had wished to be interred here), was thrust carelessly into the vacant space beneath her husband's Chantry. One last look had been cast backwards to the Plan- Tombof tagenet sepulchres. His infant daughter Elizabeth, luzTbeth aged three years and two months, was buried, with sept. 1495. great 3 pomp, in a small tomb at the feet of Henry III. His infant son Edward, who died four years afterwards, (1499), was also buried in the Abbey. The first grave in the Elizabeth of new Chapel was that of his wife, Elizabeth of York. latolriS? She died in giving birth to a child, who survived but baried ' a short time : Feb. 25, 1503. Adieu, sweetheart ! my little daughter late, Thou shalt, sweet babe, such is thy destiny, Thy mother never know ; for here I lie. .... At Westminster, that costly work of yours, Mine own dear lord, I now shall never see. 4 The first stone of the splendid edifice in which she now lies had been laid but a month before, and she was meanwhile buried in one of the side 5 chapels. The sumptuousness of her obsequies, in spite of Henry's jealousy of the House of York, and of his parsimonious habits, was justly regarded as a proof 1 Neale, ii. 6 ; Holinshed, iii. 529. * Green's Princesses, iv.507 ; Stow's 1 Probably in compensation for this Survey, ii. 600 ; Sandford, p. 478. the small chapel at the entrance of that 4 More's Elegy on Elizabeth of York. of St. John the Baptist was dedicated * From a record communicated by to St. Erasmus, Mr. Doyne Bell. CHAP. in. OF THE TUDORS. 145 of his affection. 1 At the entrance of the city she was met by twenty-seven maidens all in white with tapers, to commemorate Death of her untimely death in her twenty- seventh year. Six satuniay, " years afterwards he died at the splendid palace which isog 1 . 1 21 he had called by his own name of Eichmond, at the ancient Sheen. His vehement protestations of amendment bestowing promotions, if he lived, only on virtuous, able, and learned men, executing justice indifferently to all men ; his expressions of penitence, passionately grasping the crucifix, and beating his breast, were in accordance with that dread of his last hour, out of which his sepulchre had arisen. The funeral Burial of corresponded to the grandeur of the mausoleum, which May r "M509. was now gradually advancing to its completion. From Richmond the procession came to St. Paul's, where elaborate obsequies were closed by a sermon from Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. At Westminster, after like obsequies, and a sermon from Fitz-james, Bishop of London, who had already preached on the death of the Queen and of Prince Arthur (on Job xix. 21), 'the black velvet coffin, marked by a white satin cross ' from end to end,' was deposited, not, as in the burials of pre- vious Kings, in the raised tomb, but in the cavernous vault beneath, by the side of his Queen. The Archbishops, Bishops, and Abbots stood round, and struck their croziers on the coffin, with the word Absolvimus. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham) then cast in the earth. The vault was closed. The Heralds stripped off their tabards, and hung them on the rails of the hearse, exclaiming in French, ' The noble King Henry ' VII. is dead ! ' and then immediately put them on again, and cried ' Vive le noble Roy Henry VIII. ! > 2 So he ' lieth buried at Westminster, in one of the stateliest ' and daintiest monuments of Europe, both for the chapel and ' the sepulchre. So that he dwelleth more richly dead, in the ' monument of his tomb, than he did alive in Richmond or any ' of his palaces. I could wish,' adds his magnificent historian, ' that he did the like in this monument of his fame.' 3 His effigy represents him still to us, as he was known by tra- dition to the next generation, ' a comely personage, a ' little above just stature, 4 well and straight-limbed, but 1 Antiq. epos.,p.654; Sandford,pp. 2 Leland, Collect, (part ii.) iv. 309. 469-471 ; Strickland, iv. 60-62. He * Bacon's Henry VII. iii. 417. spent 2832 6s. 8d. upon the funeral. 4 ' Frontis honos, facies augusta, (Heralds' College, Privy Purse MS.) ' heroica forma.' (Epitaph.) 146 THE EOYAL TOMBS CHAP. rn. ' slender,' with his scanty hair and keen grey eyes, 1 ' his coun- < tenance reverend and a little like a churchman ; ' and ' as it was not strange or dark, so neither was it winning or pleasing, ' but as the face of one well disposed.' 2 It was completed, within twenty years from his death, by the Florentine sculptor Torregiano, the fierce rival of Michael Angelo, who ' broke ' the cartilage of his enemy's nose, as if it had been paste.' He lived for most of that time within the precincts of the Abbey, and there performed the feats of pugilism against the ' bears of Englishmen,' of which he afterwards boasted at Florence. "Within three months another funeral followed. In the south aisle of the Chapel, graven by the same skilful hand, lies Tomb of the most beautiful and venerable figure that the Abbey contains. It is Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Eich- mond and Derby, mother of Henry VII., who died, and was buried, in the midst of the rejoicings of her grandson's marriage and coronation ; her chaplain (Fisher) preaching again, with a far deeper earnestness, the funeral sermon, on the loss which, to him at least, could never be re- placed. ' Everyone that knew her,' he said, ' loved her, and ' everything that she said or did became her.' 3 . . . More noble and more refined than in any of her numerous portraits, her effigy well lies in that Chapel, for to her the King, her son, owed everything. For him she lived. To end the Civil Wars by his marriage with Elizabeth of York she counted as a holy duty. 4 Her tomb bears the heraldic 5 emblems of her third husband, the Earl of Derby. But she still remained faithful to the memory of her first youthful love, the father of Henry YIL She was always * Margaret Eichmond.' Her outward existence belonged to the mediaeval past. She lived almost the life, in death she almost wears the garb, of an Effigy oi Abbess. Even her marriage with Edmund Tudor was RfJSii the result of a vision of St. Nicholas. The last Eng- lish sigh for the Crusades went up from those lips. She would often say, that if the Princes of Christendom would combine themselves, and march against the common enemy, the Turk, she would most willingly attend them, and be their laundress 1 Grafton, ii. 232. 5 The antelope at her feet is the J Bacon, p. 416. supporter of the arms of Lancaster. * Grafton, ii. 237. The daisies on the chapel gates repre- * Hallstead's Margaret Richmond, sent her name. p. 225. CHAP. in. OF THE TUDORS. 147 in the camp. 1 The bread and meat doled out to the poor of Westminster in the College Hall is the remnant of the old monastic charity which she founded in the Almonry. 2 But in her monumental effigy is first seen, in a direct form, the indication of the coming changes, of which her son and his tomb are so tragically unconscious. Foremost and bending from her golden cloud, The venerable Margaret see ! So the Cambridge poet 3 greets the Foundress of St. John's and Christ's Colleges, as of the two first Divinity Chairs in either University. She, who was the instructress-general of all the Princes of the Eoyal House, 4 might by her own impulse have founded those great educational endowments. But her charity, like that of her contemporary, Bishop Fox, the founder of Corpus Christi College at Oxford, was turned into academical channels by the warning which Fisher gave her of the ap- proaching changes, in which any merely conventual foundations would perish, and any collegiate institutions would as certainly survive. 5 Caxton, as he worked at his printing-press, in the Almonry which she had founded, was under her special pro- tection ; 6 and ' the worst thing she ever did ' was trying to draw Erasmus from his studies to train her untoward stepson, James Stanley, to be Bishop of Ely. 7 Strikingly are the old and the new combined, as, round the monument of that last mediaeval Princess, we trace the letters of the inscription 8 written by that first and most universal of the Beformers. We feel, as we stand by her tomb, that we are approaching the great catastrophe. Yet in the Abbey, as in history, there is a momentary smoothness in the torrent ere it dashes below Death of i* 1 ^ ne cataract of the Reformation. It was Prince Arthur's death 9 that silent prelude of the rupture Arthur, x April 2, 1502. w ^} 1 ^ e g ee o f Rome which intercepted the magni- Marriage * window. ficent window 10 sent by the magistrates of Dort from Gouda as a present to Henry VII. for his Chapel, as a 1 Camden's Remains, i. 357 ; Ful- 8 Erasmus for this received twenty ler's Worthies, i. 167. shillings. 2 Stow, p. 476. See Chapter V. 9 58 17s. 6d. was paid to the Abbot 3 Gray's Installation Ode. of Winchester for a hearse, possibly for 4 Jesse's Richard III., p. 263. Prince Arthur. (Excerpta Historica, p. s Hallstead, p. 226. 129.) 6 See Chapter V. lo Now in St. Margaret's Church. 7 Coleridge's Northern Worthies, ii. See its curious history in Walcott's 184. Memorials of Westminster, pp. 103, 136. L 2 148 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. wedding-gift for Prince Arthur and Catherine of Arragon. The first of the series of losses which caused Henry VIII. to doubt the lawfulness of his marriage with Catherine is marked bv the grave of the infant Prince Henry, who lies at Death of -> , , . ,, . . . , , Prince the entrance either of this Chapel, or that of the n,uw. ' Confessor. 1 He in that exulting youth, when all seemed so bright before him, had, it would seem, contemplated a yet further enlargement of the Abbey. Another Chapel 2 was intended to rise for the tomb of himself and Catherine of Btauyvm. Arragon. 'Peter Torrisany, of the city of Florence, * graver,' was still to prolong his stay to make their effigies. Their sepulchre was to be one-fourth more grand than that of Henry VII. His father's tomb was the subject of his own special care. The first draft of it was altered because ' misliked by him ; ' and it forms the climax of Henry VII. 's virtues, as recorded in his epitaph, that to him and his Queen England owed a Henry VIII. : Henricum quibus Octavum, terra Anglia, debes. To his determination that his father should be honoured almost as a canonised saint, was probably owing the circumstance that besides the humbler .altar at the foot of the tomb, for which the vacant steps still remain, was erected by the same sculptor ' the matchless altar'' 3 at its head, as for the shrine of another Confessor. Nothing shows more clearly the force of the shock that followed, than the upheaving even of the solid rock of the Abbey as it came on. Nothing shows more clearly the hold which the Abbey .had laid on. the affections of the English people, than that it stood the shock as firmly as it did. Not all the prestige of Eoyalty could save the treasures of the Confessor's Chapel. Then, doubtless, disappeared not only ^e.Refor- the questionable relics of the elder faith, but also the i538 Abbey ' coronet f Llewelyn, and the banners and statues August. round the Shrine. Then even the bones of the Eoyal Saint were moved out of their place, and buried apart, till me. Mary brought them back to the Shrine which so long had guarded them. Then broke in the robbers who 1 Crull, p. 218. If so, perhaps in a of The Chapel of Henry VIII.' for the small leaden coffin found in 1866 before Revestry. (Dart, i. 64.) See also Chapter the High Altar. HI. 1 Archaohgia, xvi. 80. A reminis- Ryves's Mercurius Rusticus, p. cence of this may be found in the name 155. CHAP. in. OF THE TUDOES. 149 carried off the brazen plates and silver head from the monu- ment of Henry V. 1 Then all thought of enlarging or adorning the Abbey was extinguished in the mind of Henry, who turned away, perhaps with aversion, from the spot connected in his mind with the hated marriage of his youth, and determined that his bones should be laid at Windsor, beside his best beloved wife, Jane Seymour. 2 Then, as the tide of change in the reign of his son rose higher and- higher, the monastic buildings became, in great part, the property of private in- dividuals ; the Chapter House was turned into a Eecord Office ; 3 and the Protector Somerset was believed to have meditated the demolition of the ehurch itself. The Abbey, however, still stands. It was saved, probably in Henry's time by the Eoyal Tombs, especially by that of his father just as Peterborough Cathedral was spared for the grave of his wife, Catherine of Arragon, and St. David's (ac- cording to the local tradition) for the tomb of his grandfather, Edmund Tudor. It was saved, it is said, under the more piti- less Edward, either by the rising of the inhabitants of West- minster in its behalf, or by the sacrifice of seventeen manors to satisfy the needs of the Protector. The Shrine too, although despoiled of its treasures within and without alone of all the tombs in England which had held the remains of a canonised saint, was allowed to remain. 4 It was natural that under Queen Mary so great a monu- ment of the past should partake of the reaction of her reign. Not only was Westminster, almost alone of the monastic bodies, restored to something of its original splendour, but the link with Royalty was carefully renewed. 5 Mary's first anxiety was for her brother's fitting interment. For a whole EDWARD month he lay unburied, during the long negotiations between Mary and her ministers as to the mode of the 8, u i553/ u ' funeral rites. 6 But they ended in his burial, not, as he himself probably would have designed, beside his father and mother at Windsor, but at Westminster. ' The greatest moan ' was made for him as ever was heard or seen.' He was brought from Whitehall the night before ' without cross or light.' 7 The procession from the Palace to the Abbey was a mass of 1 See Chapter VI. 4 See Chapter VI. 2 A splendid tomb was prepared 5 Ibid. for him in St. George's Chapel. (See 6 Froude, vi. 38, 42, 49, 58. Sandford, p. 494.) ' Grey Friars' Chronicle, p. 82. 8 See Chapter V. 1 50 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. m. black velvet. Side by side with the banner of his own mother Jane Seymour waved the banner of his sister's mother, 1 Cathe- rine of Arragon. He was the first King that had been buried in the Abbey since his grandfather had built his gorgeous receptacle for the Tudor dynasty. Not in the vault itself of Henry VII., fully occupied as it was by Henry himself and Elizabeth of York, but in the passage by which it is ap- proached, underneath the sumptuous ' touchstone altar, all of 'one piece,' with its 'excellent workmanship of brass,' 2 'the ' last male child of the Tudor line ' was laid. Mary herself was absent, at the requiem sung in the Tower under the auspices of Gardiner. But, by a hard-won concession, the funeral service was that of the Eeformed Church of England, the first ever used over an English sovereign ; and ' the last ' and saddest function of his public ministry that Archbishop ' Cranmer was destined to perform,' was this interment of the Prince whom he had baptized and crowned. 3 On his coffin had been fastened a leaden plate bearing an inscription, doubtless immediately after his death, unique in the tombs of English sovereigns, reciting that he was ' on earth, under Christ, of ' the Church of England and Ireland the supreme head ; ' and proceeding to record with a pathetic and singular earnestness the precise hour ' in the evening,' when in the close of that long and stormy day of the 6th of July he ' departed from this 'life.' 4 It is one of our many paradoxes, that the first Protestant Prince should have thus received his burial from the bitterest Tomb ot enemy of the Protestant cause, and that the tomb award vi. un( j er wm 'ch he reposed should have been the altar built for the chanting of masses which he himself had been the chief means of abolishing. It is a still greater paradox, that ' he, who deserved the best, should have no monument erected ' to his memory,' 5 and that the only royal memorial destroyed 6 1 Machyn's Diary, Aug. 8, 1553. 3 Froude, vi. 58. Day, Bishop of 2 Ryves's Mercurius Rusticus, p. Chichester, ' preached a good sermon,' 155 ; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 37. An and Cranmer administered the Com- engraving is to be seen in Sandford (p. munion, ' and that poorly.' (Strype's 498.) It resembled Elizabeth's tomb E. M. vol. ii. part ii. p. 122; 'Grey in style. There was an altarpiece of Friars' Chronicle, p. 82.) the Resurrection, surmounted by angels, 4 See Appendix, in terra cotta, at the top holding the 5 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 37. emblems of the Passion, and a dead * In 1643. (Ryves's Mercitrius Christ beneath. These were the work Rusticus, p. 155. See Chapter VI.) of Torregiano. (See the Indenture quo- The name on the grave was first in- ted in Neale, vol. i. pt. ii. 58.) scribed in 1866. See Appendix. CHIP. HI. OF THE TUDORS. 151 by the Puritans should have been that of the only Puritan Prince who ever sate on the English throne. The broken chain of royal sepulchres, which Mary thus pieced anew in her brother's grave, was carried on. Anne of Anne of Cleves, a friend both to Mary and Elizabeth whose strange vicissitudes had conducted her from her quiet 4, 1557. ' Lutheran birthplace in the Castle of Cleves, to a quiet death as a Roman Catholic convert, at Chelsea was interred, by Mary's restored monks, on the south side of the altar. She was carried l past St. James's Palace and Charing Cross. Bonner, as Bishop of London, and Feckenham, as Abbot of Westminster, rode together. The scholars, the almsmen, and the monks went before. Bonner sang mass, and Feckenham preached. 2 An artist was brought from Cleves to construct the tomb. But it was left to be finished by Dean Neale in the reign of James I. 3 Mary soon followed. With ' Calais on her heart ' she was borne from St. James's Palace to Henry VII. 's Chapel, and QUEEN thus became the first occupant of the north aisle, here NOV. iV, as in Edward's Chapel, the favoured side. Bishop i3, r i558. ' White preached on the text 'A living dog is better ' than a dead lion.' Heath, Archbishop of York, closed the service. The black cloth in which the Abbey was draped was torn down by the people before the ceremony 4 was well over. obsequies of ^ er obsequies were, with one exception, the last d jl v., funeral solemnity of the Roman Church celebrated in the Abbey : that exception was the dirge and requiem ordered by Elizabeth, a few days later, for Charles V., ' Emperor of Rome.' 5 The grave of Mary bore witness to the change that suc- ceeded on her death. The altars which she had re-erected, or which had survived the devastation of her brother's reign, April i6 were destroyed by her sister. The fragments of those :i56i. which stood in Henry VII. 's Chapel were removed, and carried to ' where Mary was buried, perhaps toward the 1 Machyn's Diary, Aug. 3, 1557. Eoman Catholic, but probably one of - Excerpta Historica, 295. The a later date. The tomb seems to have funeral ceremony is given, 303. been apparently built on the site of an 3 Neale, ii. 283. It is marked by older tomb probably of an Abbot. See initials A. C. A bas-relief, by some Chapter VI. supposed to have been intended for it, 4 Machyn's Diary, Dec. 13, 1558. was found in 1865 packed in the Ee- 5 Stirling's Cloister Life of Charles vestry. It was evidently made for a 7., p. 251 ; Machyn, Dec. 23, 1558. 152 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. IH. ' making of her monument with those religious stones.' l It was, however, forty-five years before the memory of her un- happy reign would allow a word to indicate her sepulchre. QUEEN At ^ as ^ the hour of reconciliation came. Queen Elizabeth, the third foundress of the institution, and w ^ c l un g to it with peculiar affection, had breathed jj er i as t on the cushioned floor in Richmond Palace. The body was brought by the Thames to Westminster : The Queen did come by water to Whitehall, The oars at every stroke did tears let fall. 2 With these and other like exaggerations, which, however, indi- cate the excess of the national mourning, she was laid in the Abbey. ' The City of Westminster was surcharged with multi- ' tudes of all sorts of people, in their streets, houses, windows, ' leads, and gutters, that came to see the obsequy ; and when ' they beheld her statue or picture lying upon the coffin, set forth ' in royal robes, having a crown upon the head thereof, and a ' ball and sceptre in either hand, there was such a general ' sighing, groaning, and weeping, as the like has not been seen ' or known in the memory of man ; neither doth any history ' mention any people, time, or state, to make like lamentation ' for the death of their sovereign.' 3 In the twelve banners which were carried before her, her descent from the House of York was carefully emblazoned, to the exclusion of the Lancas- trian line. 4 On the oaken covering of the leaden coffin was carefully engraved the double rose with the simple august initials 'E. E., 1603.' Dean Andrews preached the funeral sermon. Ealeigh was present as- captain of the guard. It was his last public act. She was carried, doubtless by her own desire, to the North Aisle of Henry VII. 's Chapel, to the un- marked grave of her unfortunate predecessor. At the head of the monument raised by her successor over the narrow vault 5 are to be read two lines full of a far deeper feeling than we should naturally have ascribed to him ' Regno consortes et urna, liic 1 Strype's Annuls, i. pt. i. p. 400 ; the tract called England's Mourning Machyn, April 16, 1561. Garment, and Vetusta Monumenta, vol. * Camden's Eemains, p. 524. See ii. plate 18, where there is also an en- Chapter VI. graving of a sketch of it (now in the btow, p. 815. The effect was in- British Museum) supposed to have been creased by the fact that so many were drawn by Camden. there in mourning for the plague. (St. s See Appendix. Compare Wash- John's Raleigh, ii. 73.) ington Irving's Sketch Book, p. 221. * Programme of the funeral, in CHAP. in. OF THE TUDORS. 153 ' obdormimus Elizaletha ct Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis.' The long war of the English Reformation is closed in those words. In that contracted sepulchre, admitting of none other but those two, the stately coffin of Elizabeth rests on the coffin of Mary. The sisters are at one : the daughter of Catherine of Arragon and the daughter of Anne Boleyn repose in peace at last. Her own monument is itself a landmark of English history and of the Abbey. There had been a prediction, which the Tomb of Elizabeth, justified, that ' no child of Henry VIII. should ever be ' buried with any memory.' This ' blind prophecy ' it was now determined to frustrate. ' Eather than fail in payment l for ' Queen Elizabeth's tomb, neither the Exchequer nor London 'shall have a penny left.' Considering the little love between the two, its splendour is a tribute to the necessity which com- pelled the King to recognise the universal feeling of the nation. Disfigured as it is, it represents the great Queen as she was best known to her contemporaries ; and of ah 1 the monuments in the Abbey, it was the one for many years the widest known throughout the whole kingdom. Far into the next century, Fuller could still speak of ' the lively draught of it, pictured in ' every London and in most country churches, every parish being ' proud of the shade of her tomb ; and no wonder, when each ' loyal subject created a mournful monument for her in his ' heart.' 2 It is probable that this thought was suggested by one such copy, amongst many, at St. Saviour's, Southwark, with the lines : St. Peter's Church at Westminster, Her sacred body doth inter ; Her glorious soul with angels sings, Her deeds have patterns been for kings, Her love in every heart hath room ; This only shadows forth her tomb. 3 So ended the Tudor tombs in the Chapel of their Founder. But the Stuarts were not slow in vindicating their right to be 1 Letter of Viscount Cranbourne to (ibid.), reached 965, ' besides stone- Sir Thomas Lake. (State Papers, ' work.' It was erected by Maximilian 1609.) It was made of white marble Poutram. (MS. in the possession of and touchstone from the Royal store Baroness North.) For the wax effigy, at Whitehall. Warrant of James I. See Chapter IV. to Viscount Cranbourne. (Ibid.) The - Church History, book x. 12. cost, which was not to exceed J GOO 3 Londiniana, i. 243. 154 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. considered as Kings of England, by regarding Westminster THE Abbey as their new Dunfermline or Holyrood. The STCARTO. Scottish dynasty lies side by side with the Welsh. Al- ready there had been laid in the western end of the South Aisle, of which the eastern end was occupied by Margaret Countess of Richmond, another Margaret, far less eminent in character, but claiming her place here as the link between the English Margaret and the Scottish thrones. Margaret Lennox, daughter i577 n x> of Margaret Tudor by her second husband, and wife of Stuart Earl of Lennox, 1 after a series of family disasters, died in poverty at what was then the suburban village of Hackney ; and was, in consideration of her kinship with no less than twelve sovereigns (as her epitaph records), buried here at the expense of Queen Elizabeth. The monument, ' bargained for ' and * appointed to be made ' by herself in her will, 2 was partly erected by her grandson, James I. Round it kneel her children Henry Darnley, marked, by the fragments of the crown Charles above his head, as the unfortunate King of Scot- land; 3 and Charles Stuart, 'father to the Ladie * Arbell,' who at his mother's request, as stated in her will, was removed from Hackney, where he had been buried, to the vault beneath. 4 Next to this tomb by a double proximity, as remarkable as that which has laid Mary Tudor with Elizabeth is the grave Mary Queen ^ Mary Stuart. We need not follow her obsequies from Fotheringay Castle to the neighbouring Cathedral T of Peterborough. But the first Stuart king of England trough, wno r ^ised the monument to his predecessor was not Oct. 4, 1612. 1^^ to overlook his mother. The letter is still ex- tant, and now hangs above the site of her grave at Peterborough, in which James I. ordered the removal of her body to the spot where he had commanded a memorial of her to be made in the Church of Westminster, ' in the place where the kings and ' queens of this realm are commonly interred,' that the ' like ' honour might be done to the body of his dearest mother, and ' the like monument be extant of her, that had been done to his 1 For her character, see Froude's (p. 95). But he probably remains at History, xi. 72. Holyrood. 4 Epitaph. Through the leaden 2 The will is printed in the Darnley coffin the parched skin could be seen Jewel, p. 63. It was made in the year in 1711. (Crull, p. 119.) In 1624 of her death. was laid in the same vault his cousin Henry Esme Duke of Lennox. (See 1 ' He is here entombed,' says Crull Chapter IV. and Appendix.) CHAP. in. OF THE STUARTS. 155 ' dear sister, the late Queen Elizabeth.' l A vault was made in the South Aisle, close to that of the mother of Darnley. In the centre of the north wall of that new vault, hereafter to be thronged by her unfortunate descendants, the leaden coffin was placed. 2 Over it was raised a monument 'like to that of ' Elizabeth,' but on a grander scale, as if to indicate the superiority of the mother to the predecessor, of the victim to the vanquisher. Her elaborate epitaph is closed by the words from St. Peter, 3 recommending the Saviour's example of patient suffering. Her tomb was revered by devout Scots as the shrine of a canonised saint. 'I hear,' says Demster, thirteen years after the removal of the remains from Peterborough, ' that her ' bones, lately translated to the burial-place of the Kings of ' England at Westminster, are resplendent with miracles.' 4 This probably is the latest instance of a miracle-working tomb in England, and it invests the question of Queen Mary's cha- racter with a theological as well as an historical interest. In the tombs of the two rival Queens, the series of Boyal Monuments is brought to an end. 5 Elizabeth and Mary are the End of the last sovereigns in whom the gratitude of a successor HoyalMonu- & . . meuts. or the affection of a nation have combined to insist on so august a memorial. It may have been the result of the circumstances or the character of the succeeding sovereigns. Charles I. was indifferent to the memory of James I. Charles II. wasted on himself the money which Parliament granted to him for the monument to Charles I. James II., even if he had cared sufficiently, reigned too short a time to erect a monument to his brother. William. III. and Mary were not likely to be honoured by Anne, nor Anne by George L, nor George I. by George II., nor George II. by George III. But, in fact, a deeper than any personal feeling was behind. Even in France the practice was dying out. At St. Denys the royal tombs ceased after that of Henri II. Princes were no longer, as they 1 See Appendix. ' names of Henry the Fifth and of - Ibid. ' Queen Elizabeth gave the knight 3 1 Pet. i. 21, 22. ' great opportunities of shining and of 4 Demster, Hist. Eccl. Ant. Scot. ' doing justice to Sir Richard Baker, ed. Bannatyne Club, 1829. It was pub- ' who, as our knight observed with lished at Bologna in 1627, but writ- ' some surprise, had a great many ten before 1626, as the author died ' kings in him, whose monuments he in 1625. Communicated by the late ' had not seen in the Abbey.' (Spec- Joseph Robertson, of the Register tator, No. 329.) The context seems House, Edinburgh. to show some confusion between Henry 5 This blank appears to have struck V. and Henry VII. Sir Roger de Coverley. ' The glorious 156 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. had been, the only rulers of the nation. With Elizabeth began the tombs of Poets' Corner ; with Cromwell a new impetus was given to the tombs of warriors and statesmen ; with William III. began the tombs of the leaders of Parliament. 1 Other figures than those of Kings began to occupy the public eye. Yet even as the monarchy, though shrunk, yet continued, so also the graves, though not the monuments, of sovereigns the tombs, if not of sovereigns, yet of royal personages still keep up the shadow of the ancient practice. Two infant children of James I., Mary and Sophia, lie in the north aisle of Henry VII. 's Chapel, under the urn, which, probably from their neighbourhood, Charles II. erected, in what may thus be called the Innocents' Coiner, to receive the remains of the two murdered York princes which he brought from the Process Tower. 2 Of Mary the first of his children born in c" y i6? ed England, and therefore the first 'Princess of Great ' Britain,' James used ' pleasantly to say,' with his usual mixture of theology and misplaced wit, ' that he would not 'pray to the Virgin Mary, but would pray for the Virgin ' Mary.' 3 She was, according to her father, ' a most beautiful ' infant ; ' and her death, at the age of two years and a half, is described as peculiarly touching. The little creature kept re- peating, ' I go, I go ' ' Away I go ; ' and again a third time, ' I ' go, I go.' 4 Her coffin was brought in a coach to the Deanery, Princess an( ^ thence through the cloisters to the Abbey. 5 In bSri^jml 5 the same J ear na( i died Sophia, 6 rosula regia pnepropero 23, leo/. j- ato decerpta, who lived but a day. The King ' took ' her death as a wise prince should, and wished her to be buried 'in Westminster Abbey, as cheaply as possible, without any ' solemnity or funeral ; ' 7 ' sleeping in her cradle [the cradle is ' itself the tomb], wherewith vulgar eyes, especially of the weaker ' sex, are more affected (as level to their cognisance, more capable ' of what is pretty than what is pompous) than with all the ' magnificent monuments in Westminster.' 8 1 See Chapter IV. The first Sophia of English history, 2 The bones of the York Princes herself called after her grandmother, were placed hi ' Monk's vault,' 1678 Sophia of Denmark, and bequeathing (Dart, i. 167), but only till the urn was her name to her niece, the Electress ready. It was made by Wren. See of Hanover. (Strickland's Queens of Appendix. Scotland, viii. 286 ; Life of Arabella 3 Fuller's Worthies, i. 490. Stuart, ii. 89.) 4 Green's Princesses, ii. 91-95. 7 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 129. It cost Margaret Lennox was chief mourner. 140. (Lodge's Illustrations, iii. 309.) (Sandford, p. 537.) Fuller's Worthies, i. 490. 4 Dart, i. 167. CHAP. m. OF THE STUARTS. 157 Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, in -whose grave were buried the hopes of the Puritan party, was laid in the South Prince Aisle of the Chapel, under his grandmother's monu- Henry, died . NOV. e, * ment,' ' in the vault which had been just made for her buried Dec. He died ' on a day of triumph 2 for a former memorable ' deliverance (Nov. 5), and in the heat of preparation for his ' sister's marriage. So we are all turned to black, and exceed- ' ing much mournfulness.' 3 His funeral was attended by 2,000 mourners. Nine banners went before, each preceded by ' two ' trumpeters that sounded wofully.' His effigy was clothed with the richest garments he had, which ' did so lively represent ' his person, as that it did not only draw tears from the severest ' beholders, but caused a fearful outcry among the people, as if ' they felt their own ruin in that loss.' 4 His friend, Arch- bishop Abbott, who had attended his last hours, preached the sermon on Psalm Ixxxii. 6, 7. 5 The absence of any special monument for one so deeply lamented, caused much comment Arabella ^ *^ e time. Three years later Arabella Stuart, bS'sept. daughter of Charles Lennox, and cousin of James I., 27, 1615. a ft. er jj er troubled life, ' was brought at midnight by ' the dark river from the Tower,' and laid ' with no solemnity ' upon the coffin of Mary Stuart her coffin without a plate, and so frail, that the skull and bones were seen as far back as the record of visitors extends, visible through its shattered frame. ' To have had a great funeral for one dying out of the King's ' favour would have reflected on the King's honour.' 6 Anne of Denmark next followed. She died at Somerset House, called, from her, Denmark House, after making a dying Anne of profession of her faith, ' free from Popery.' The King, i detained by illness at Newmarket, was unable to be present at her funeral. It was postponed again and again till more than two months from her death. ' There was no money to put the King's servants in mourning.' It was intended to have been three times more costly than 1 So the Burial Register. For whoso learns, strait melts in 2 State Papers, Nov. 11, 1612. tears and dies.' 3 Giles Fletcher, and others in Pet- 4 State Papers, Dec. 19, 1612. tigrew's Epitaphs, p. 314. * Birch's Life of Henry Prince of ' If wise, amaz'd, depart this holy Wales, pp. 363, 522. grave, ' Register; Keepe, p. 105; Life of Nor these new ashes ask what name Arabella Stuart, ii. 246, 298. For the they have: tomb of Lewis Stuart, Duke of Bich- The graver in concealing them was mond, see Chapter IV. wise, 158 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. Queen Elizabeth's, but the public expectation was disappointed with the general effect. There was a long procession of two hundred and fifty ladies in black ' a drawling dolorous sight ' lagging, tired with the length of the way.' The Dean of Westminster (Tounson) was charged to find ' a convenient place ' for her,' and she was laid at least she now lies alone in a spacious vault ' in the north-easternmost recess of Henry VII.'s Chapel. Archbishop Abbott preached on Psalm cxlvi. 3. 2 In five years followed King James himself. Abbott, now so aged as to need a supporter, performed the service. The French JAMES i ambassadors would be content with no place 3 short of P^ity with the chief mourner, Charles I., even though less. fo e y bad occasionally to walk in the kennel to keep their places. The Venetian ambassador insisted on wearing the same mourning as the French. Not with his predecessor, nor with his mother, nor with his wife, nor with his children, but in the august tomb of Henry VII., founder of the Chapel and of the dynasty through which the Stuarts claimed their throne, was laid the founder of the new race of kings. Edward VI. must for the moment have been disturbed, and Elizabeth of York displaced, to receive the unwieldy coffin. But the entrance was effected, and with his great grandparents the Scottish King reposes as in a patriarchal sepulchre. 4 His funeral sermon was preached by Dean Williams, who, with an in- genuity worthy of James himself, compared the dead King in eight particulars to Solomon. His hearse was of unusual splendour, a masterpiece, as it was thought, of Inigo Jones. 5 A scheme for a monument in the classical style was devised but never executed. 6 Charles I.'s two infant children were the first to follow. Theirs were the first of that vast crowd of small coffins that P^^ thronged their grandmother's vault. One was his bS V y eldest-born, Charles, over whose short life the Eoman i 3 ine?died Catholic priests of his mother and the Anglican ' chaplains of the father fought for the privilege of baptizing him. 7 The other was the Princess Anne, who, on her 1 Heralds' College and Lord Cham- s From Sir J. Finet, the Master of berlain's Office. State Papers, March the Ceremonies. (Philoxenus, p. 150.) 27, April 16, 1619. See Appendix. See Appendix. 2 The Prince Palatine sate in the 5 See note at end of Chapter IV. Dean's stall; the Lord Chancellor Walpole's Anecdotes, 223. (Bacon) in the scholars' pew. (Harl. ' Fuller's Worthies, i 490 MS. 5176.) CHAP. in. THE COMMONWEALTH. 159 deathbed at four years old, 'was not able to say her long ' prayer (meaning the Lord's Prayer), but said she would say 'her short one, "Lighten mine eyes, Lord, lest I sleep the ' " sleep of death," and so the little 1 lamb gave up the ghost.' Two years after the death of this ' little innocent,' the Eoyal Abbey passed into the hands of the Commonwealth and the THE Protector. The changes of its constitution will appear WKALTH as we proceed. But its outward fabric was hardly TECTOIIATE. injured. The Eoyal Monuments, which cruelly suffered under Henry VIII., received, so far as we know, no harm 2 under Cromwell ; and the Abbey, so far from losing its attractions, drew into it not only, as we shall see, 3 the lesser magnates of the Commonwealth, but also the Protector himself. Nothing shows more completely how entirely he regarded him- self as the founder of a royal dynasty than his determination cromweii's that he and his whole family should lie amongst the family. Kings of England. Already at the time of Essex's funeral, in 1646, the public mind was prepared for his burial in Henry VII. 's Chapel, ' with the immortal turf of Naseby under ' his head.' 4 Three members of his family were interred there jane vis- before his death his sister Jane, 5 who married Gene- ral Disbrowe ; his venerable mother, Elizabeth Stuart, cromweii, through whom his descent was traced to the brother i8!i654, v ' of the founder of the Stuarts ; and Elizabeth Claypole, aged 96. , f , a li.fi Elizabeth his favourite daughter." died p Aug. e, 'At three o'clock in the afternoon' of the 3rd of icu658t ug ' September, ' a day of triumph and thanksgivings for CROMWELL, ' the memorable victories of Dunbar and Worcester, i658. Sert ' 3 ' ' his most serene and renowned highness Oliver Lord Protector was taken to his rest.' 7 The arrangements of the 1 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 108; Sand- 6 She died at Hampton Court ford, p. 608 ; Fisher, p. 288. August 6, and was laid in state in the 2 Dart speaks of injuries to the Con- Painted Chamber, and thence was fessor's Shrine ; but these must have buried on August 10 in a vault made been chiefly confined to the altar at on purpose. Her aunt, the wife of its west end. (See Chapter VI.) Dr. Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of 3 See Chapters IV. and VI. Chester, was chief mourner. (Mer- 4 Vines's Sermon on Essex's Fune- curius Politicus.) She is the ' Betty ' ral. See Chapter IV. of Oliver's earlier letters, ' who be- 5 Nichols's Col. Top. viii. 153. ' longs to the sect rather of seekers Amongst the family must be reckoned ' than of finders. Happy are they who 'Anne Fleetwood,' mentioned in the 'find most happy are they who warrant for disinterment (see Ap- ' seek ! ' (Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 295.) pendix), who may be a daughter of See Appendix. the General Fleetwood, and grand- J Commonwealth Mercury, Sept. 2-9, daughter of Cromwell. 1658. ](50 THE ROYAL TOMBS. CHAP. ni. funeral were left to Mr. Kinnersley, Master of the Wardrobe, who, * being suspected to be inclined to Popery, recommended ' the solemnities used at the like occasion for Philip the Second, ' who had been represented to be in Purgatory for about two < months. In the like manner was the body of this great re- ' former laid in Somerset House, the apartment hung with black, ' the daylight excluded, and no other but that of wax tapers 'to be seen. This scene of Purgatory continued till the 1st of 'November, which being the day preceding that commonly ' called " All Souls," he was removed into the great hall of the 'said House, and represented in effigy standing on a bed of ' crimson velvet, covered with a gown of the like coloured ' velvet, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown on his head. . . . ' Four or five hundred candles set in flat shining candlesticks, ' so placed round near the roof of the Hall, that the light they ' gave seemed like the rays of the sun, by all which he was ' represented to be in a state of glory.' l The profusion of the ceremony, it is said, so far provoked the people that they threw dirt, in the night, on his escutcheon, placed over the great gate. At the east end of Henry VII.'s Chapel, a vault had been prepared, which many years afterwards was still called ' Oliver's,' Burial of or ' Oliver Cromwell's vault.' 2 Its massive walls, CROMWELL abutting immediately on the royal vault of Henry sept. 26; ' YIL, ar e the only addition to the structure of the NoTss, Abbey dating from the Commonwealth. Here ' the ' last ceremony of honour was paid to the memory of ' him, to whom (so thought his adherents 3 ) posterity will ' pay (when envy is laid asleep by time) more honour than ' they were able to express.' Two Eoyalists who stood by, and saw the procession pass, have also recorded their feelings. 4 ' It was,' says Cowley, ' the funeral day of the man late who made 'himself to be called Protector. ... I found there had been 1 Ludlow, pp. 259, 260. I cannot by one-half than ever was used for find that Philip II.'s funeral was so royal funerals. (Heath's Chron., p. conducted. In fact, the Protector's 411 ; Winstanley's Worthies, p. 605 ; corpse was removed from Whitehall to Noble's Cromwell, Appendix B.) The Somerset House on Sept. 20, and the hearse was of the same form as, only state show began on Oct. 18. (Com- more stately than, that of James I. monwealth Mercury, Nov. 18-25, 1658.) (Heath's Chron., p. 413.) The expenses were paid by Parlia- " Register, May 25, 1691 ; August ment to Richard Cromwell. The 29, 1701. Royalist interpretation was that it was 3 Commonwealth Mercury, Nov. 23, designed to bring Richard in debt, and 1B58. so ruin him, which in effect it did. 4 For the like feelings inside the The sum expended was 60,000, more Abbey, see Chapter VI. CHAP. in. THE COMMONWEALTH. 161 ' much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or even ' death itself, could deserve. There was a mighty train of ' black assistants ; the hearse was magnificent, the idol crowned ; ' and (not to mention all other ceremonies which are practised ' at royal interments, and therefore could be by no means ' omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as ' it uses to do, no small part of the spectacle itself. But yet, ' I know not how, the whole was so managed, that methought ' it somewhat represented the life of him for whom it was ' made : much noise, much tumult, much expense, much rnag- ' nificence, much vain glory : briefly, a great show and yet, ' after all this, but an ill sight.' ' It was,' says Evelyn, ' the ' joy fullest funeral that ever I saw, for there were none that ' cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with as bar- * barous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets ' as they went.' It is said that the actual interment, from the state of the corpse, had taken place two months before in private ; ' and this mystery probably fostered the fables which, according to the fancies of the narrators, described the body as thrown into the Thames, 2 or laid in the field of Naseby, 3 or in the coffin of Charles I. at Windsor, 4 or in the vault of the Claypoles in the parish church of Northampton, 5 or ' carried away in the tempest the night before.' 6 The fact, however, of his interment at Westminster is proved beyond doubt by the savage ceremonial which followed Disinter- the Restoration. Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw cromwlii's were dug up on the eve of the 30th of January, 1661 ; jlT^f' and on the following day dragged to Tyburn, hanged (with their faces turned towards Whitehall), 7 decapi- tated, and buried under the gallows. 8 The plate found on the breast of the corpse, with the inscription, passed into the pos- session of the sergeant who took up the body, from whom it descended, through his daughter, Mrs. Giffard, into the hands of the Hobarts, and from them to the present Marquis of Eipon. 9 The head was planted on the top of Westminster Hall, on one 1 Elenchus mortuorum, pt. ii. p. 231. to be her father. It is disproved by the 2 Oldmixon's Stuarts, i. 426. discovery of her grave in the Abbey. 3 Barkstead's Complete History, iii. (See Appendix.) 228 ; Biocj. Brit. iii. 1573. 6 Heath's Flagellum, p. 187. 4 Pepys's Diary, Oct. 14, 1664. ' Pepys's Diary, Jan. 30, 1660-1 ; 5 This tradition is based on two Heath's Flagellum, p. 192. gravestones over the Claypole vault 8 i.e. near Connaught Square. at Northampton, one with the letters 9 Barkstead, iii. 229 ; Noble's Crom- E. C., supposed to be Elizabeth Clay- well ; and Gent. Mag. May 1867. pole ; one without inscription, supposed M 162 THE KOYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. side, as Ireton's on the other side, of Bradshaw's, which was set up in the centre, 1 as over the place in which he had passed judgment, ' to be the becoming spectacle of his treason, where, ' on that pinnacle and legal advancement, it is fit to leave this ' ambitious wretch.' 2 No mark was left to indicate the spot where Oliver, with his kindred, lay beneath his stately hearse. Nor yet where his favourite daughter still continued to repose, in her separate grave. 3 With the Eestoration the burials of the legitimate Princes recommenced, in a gloom it may be added, a privacy sin- THK RE- gularly contrasting with the joyous solemnity of the intended" return. Charles I. himself, who had been buried at curies i. Windsor, was to have been transported to Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and reinterred, under a splendid tomb, to be executed by Wren. 4 'And many good people thought ' this so necessary, that they were much troubled that it was ' not done.' The ' reasons given were not liked/ the appre- hension of a disturbance, the length of time that had passed, but chiefly the difficulty of finding the grave. Since the dis- covery of the body at Windsor, in 1813, exactly where it was said to have been interred, we know that this reason was fic- titious, and we can hardly avoid the conclusion that the King had appropriated to himself the money (70,000) granted for this purpose. The Abbey, no doubt, was fortunate to escape the intrusion of what would have been, architecturally, the only thoroughly incongruous of all the regal monuments. 5 The other members of the House, of Stuart followed fast even amidst the rejoicings of the Eestoration, to the royal sepulchre, and were all laid in the vault of their ancestress Henry Mary. First came Henry of Oatlands, Duke of Glou- Gioucester, cester, the child who said he would be torn in pieces Above and around, in every direction, crushing by the children of accumulated weight of their small coffins the recepta- cles of the illustrious dust beneath, lie the numerous DSte n rf ime ' children of James II. who died in infancy six 2 sons and duS'juVy*' fi ye daughters and the eighteen children of Queen Aug" led Anne, dying in infancy or still-born, 3 ending with "William Duke of Gloucester, the last hope of the race thus withered, as it must have seemed, by the doom of Pro- vidence. 4 The two last sovereigns of that race close the series of the MABY ii., unfortunate dynasty in the Southern Aisle, over which 1694. e< ' the figure of their ancestress presides with such tragical solemnity. The funeral of Mary was long remembered as the saddest and most august that Westminster had ever seen. 5 While the Queen's remains Her funeral ^ m s ^ e a ^ Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled March 5, ' every day, from sunrise to sunset, by crowds which made all traffic impossible. The two Houses with their maces followed the hearse the Lords robed in scarlet and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding Sovereign bad ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament : for, till then, the Parb'ament had always expired with the Sovereign. . . . The whole Magistracy of the City swelled the procession. The banners of England and France, Scotland and Ireland, were carried by great nobles before the corpse. The pall was borne by the chiefs of the illustrious houses of Howard, Seymour, Grey, and Stanley. On the gorgeous coffin of purple and gold were laid the crown and sceptre of the realm. The day was well suited to such a ceremony. The sky was dark and troubled, and a few ghastly flakes of snow fell on the black plumes of the funeral car. Within the Abbey, nave, choir, and transept were in a blaze with innumerable waxligbts. The body was deposited under a sumptuous canopy in the 1 The last interment in this vault - Including a natural son, James vras that of the infant Prince George Darnley, probably the son of Catherine William, second son of George IL, Sedley. See Appendix, when Prince of Wales who was care- , Dart u 52 53 Thig wag called fully embalmed by Dr. Mead, Sir Hans sometimes . the Eoya i,. but more often Sloane and other eminent physicians, Heralds , College.) Dart saw the vault (11. o3). The child 4 - . was removed to its mother's side on .Register, her death in 1737, in George II.'s vault, s Macaulay, iv. 534, 535. where it now is. 166 THE KOYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. centre of the church while the Primate (Tenison) preached. 1 The earlier part of his discourse was deformed hy pedantic divisions and subdivisions : but towards the close he told what he had himself seen and heard with a simplicity and earnestness more affecting than the most skilful rhetoric. Through the whole ceremony the distant booming of cannon was heard every minute from the batteries of the Tower. 2 A robin redbreast, 3 which had taken refuge in the Abbey, was seen constantly on her hearse, and was looked upon with QUEEN tender affection for its seeming love to the lamented AXXE, (lied ^ Queen. Anne was buried in the vault beside her sister Ge^geof Mary and her husband Prince George of Denmark. dieToirt.'ss, Her unwieldly frame filled a coffin larger even than i8,iroa. T ' that of her gigantic spouse. 4 An inquisitive anti- quary went to see the vault before it was bricked up. 5 It was full from side to side, and was then closed, amidst the indignant lamentations of the adherents of the extinct dynasty : Where Anna rests, with kindred ashes laid, What funeral honours grace her injur'd shade ? A few faint tapers glimmer'd through the night, And scanty sable shock'd the loyal sight. Though millions wail'd her, none compos'd her train, Compell'd to grieve, forbidden to complain. 6 It was not to be expected that George I., as much a foreigner in England as had been the first Norman Princes who lie at THK Caen and Fontevrault, should be buried elsewhere than amongst his ancestors at Hanover. But George George i., II. and his Queen Caroline are again genuine person- ii! 1727? ages of English History and of the English Abbey. H U anove a r. In the centre of the Chapel of Henry VII., which under the auspices of his great minister had been animated with a new life by the banners of the remodelled Order of the Bath, 7 were deposited the royal pair. Queen Caroline, the most discriminating patroness of learning and philosophy that 1 On Eccles. vii. 14. The Dean five coffins are described in the Eegis- performed the service. ter for August 24, 1714. The names - Macaulay's account is taken from on the five Eoyal graves were first in- the Heralds' College. scribed in 1866. s Sketch in the Library of the So- . Samuel Wesley, in Atterbury's ciety of Antiquaries. Letters, ii. 426. 4 Strickland, xii. 459. ' See Chapter II. s Thoresby's Diary, ii. 252. The CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 167 down to that time had ever graced the throne of England Queen endeared to every reader of the master-works of his- uiepach, torical fiction by her appearance in the ' Heart of Mid- ' lothian ' was buried in that newly-opened vault, 1 with the sublime music, then first composed, of Handel's Anthem ' When the ear heard her, then it blessed her ; and ' when the eye saw her, it gave witness to her. How are the ' mighty fallen ! She that was great among the nations, and ' Princess among the provinces.' 2 Her husband, as a last proof of his attachment, gave directions that his remains and those of his wife should be mingled together. Accordingly, the two coffins were placed in a large black marble sarcophagus inscribed with their joint names, with their sceptres crossed, and one side of each of the wooden coverings withdrawn. In that vast tomb they still repose, and the two planks still lean against the eastern wall. 3 More than twenty years passed before the King followed. It is probably the last direct royal reminiscence of Edward the GEORGE IT, Confessor, that in the extravagant eulogies published died Oct. 25, . on George II. 's death, his devotion was compared to that of St. Edward. 4 His funeral must be left to Horace Walpole to describe : Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night ; I had never seen a royal funeral ; nay, I walked as a rag of m* funeral l ua hty, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest NOV. 11, ' -way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's Chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The Ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute-guns all this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the Abbey, where we were received by the Dean and Chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches ; the whole Abbey so illu- minated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day; the tombs, 1 There was much confusion at the tails, see Gent. Mag. (1760), p. 539. funeral. (Chapter Book, 1737.) The The heart had been previously de- Psalms vrere not sung, and the Lesson posited in the vault (on Sunday, Octo- was omitted. (Precentor's Book, 1737.) her 9) by the Lord Chamberlain. The 2 Gent. Mag. 1737, pp. 763-7. procession entered by the north door. 3 So they were seen at an accidental The service was read by the Dean of opening of the vault in 1871. Westminster (Bishop Pearce), though 4 Smollett, vi. 372. For the de- the two Archbishops were present. 168 THE KOYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest chiaroscuro. There wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct ; yet one could not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in dread of being coupled with some boy of ten years old ; but the heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we came to the Chapel of Henry VII., all solemnity and decorum ceased ; no order was observed, people sat or stood where they could or would ; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin ; the Bishop read sadly, and blundered in the prayers; the fine chapter, 'Man that is born of a woman,' was chaunted, not read; and the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. He had a dark-brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not be pleasant : his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours ; his face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke, which has affected too one of his eyes, and placed over the mouth of the vault, in which, in all probability, he must himself so soon descend : think how unpleasant a situation ! He bore it all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a stall, the Archbishop hovering over him with a smelling- bottle ; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was not there spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the other. Then returned the fear of catching cold ; and the Duke of Cumber- land, who was sinking with heat, felt hirnself weighed down, and turning round, found it was the Duke, of Newcastle standing upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay, attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the bedchamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King's order. 1 Into that vault, as Walpole anticipated, soon descended the sad figure of the Duke of Cumberland, the last apparition wiiiiam of the Prince who, as a little child of four years old, Augustus, J c^ u mber f iand, received in that same chapel his knightly sword, 2 bu e ricd C No 3 T an< * wno grew U P to ^ e tne ablest an d the fiercest of Famuy 5 of ' ^ family. Frederick Prince of Wales was already George u. there. His wife Augusta followed, after seeing her i Walpole's Letters, iv. 361-362. 2 See Chapter II. CHAP. in. OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. 169 son, George III., mount the throne. His sisters, Caroline Duke of and Amelia, 1 and his younger children, are all in the sept,.' i7? same vault ; ending with Edward Augustus, the Albino s.Tzer^ ' Duke of York, who was transported hither in state from Monaco, where he died, and (last of the family) Henry Duke of Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, the subject of so much dresept. nd> real scandal and fictitious romance. No monument sept. U 28* d commemorates any of these Princes, and till within the last few years their graves were unmarked by any name. 2 It was the close of George III.'s reign that witnessed the final separation of the royal interments from Westminster Abbey. His two youngest children, Alfred and Octavius, had been laid on each side of George II. and Queen Caroline; but their remains were removed to the vault constructed by Georgein.'s their father under the Wolsey Chapel at Windsor, Windsor. where he and his numerous progeny were with a few exceptions interred; thus, by a singular rebound of feeling, restoring to that Chapel the honour of royal sepulture, which had been originally intended for it by its founder, Henry VII. It is an almost exact copy of his grandfather's vault at Westminster he himself and Queen Charlotte reposing at the east end, and the Princes and Princesses in chambers on each side, leaving the central aisle for sovereigns. 3 And, though another mausoleum has arisen within the bounds of the royal domain of Windsor, the renewed splendour of the Chapel which contains the last remains of the House of Hanover well 1 A touching account of her funeral Much better than another ; is given by Carter. (Gent. Mag. Ixix. Had it been his sister [Princess pt. ii. p. 942.) Prince George William, Amelia] who died in 1718, was transferred No one would have missed her ; thither from the Stuart vault. Had it been the whole generation 2 The names were added (from the So much better for the nation ; engraving of the vault in Neale) in 1866. But as it's only Fred, George IV., it is said, had the intention Who was alive and is dead, of erecting a monument to Frederick There's no more to be said.' Prince of Wales in St. Paul's, ' West- 3 The last removal from the Abbey ' minster being overcrowded.' Letter was that of a stillborn child of the King of W. in the Times, April 4, 1832. A of Hanover, buried in 1817, and trans- contemporary epitaph, somewhat irre- ported to St. George's Chapel on the verently composed on these Princes, night of William IV.'s funeral, in 1837. corresponds to this neglect of their The King of Hanover, the Queen of graves : Wurtemberg, the Princess Elizabeth of ' Here lies Fred, Hesse Homburg, were buried in their Who was alive and is dead ; own vaults in Germany ; the Duke of I had much rather Sussex and the Princess Sophia in Had it been his father [George II.] ; Kensal Green, and the Duchess of Had it been his brother [the Duke of Gloucester in the south aisle in Cumberland] Windsor. 170 THE EOYAL TOMBS CHAP. in. continues the transition to ' the Father of our Kings to be,'- the coming dynasty of Saxe-Coburg. This is the close of the history of the Abbey in its con- nection with the tombs of the Kings and Queens of England. One more royal tomb, however, has been added, which, though not of English lineage, combines so much of European interest, so much of the generosity of the English Church and nation, so much of the best characteristics of the Abbey, as fitly to terminate the whole series. In the side-chapel on the south of Henry VII. 's tomb is the only modern monument of the Abbey which follows the ROYAL mediaeval style of architecture, and which thus marks the revival of the Gothic taste. It is the recumbent effigy of Antony, Duke of Montpensier, younger brother of Antony, Louis Philippe, King of the French. His end took Duke of rr ' & Mont- place during his exile in England, at Salthill. Dying pansier, died r . Hay is, as ne did in the Church of his fathers, and attended buried May 26,1807. i n his obsequies by the solemn funeral rites of that Church, he was received from the Eoman Catholic chapel l into Westminster Abbey, and laid there, ' at half-past four in the ' evening,' first in a vault by the side of a member of the Eochefoucault family, the Marquis de Montandre, who with his wife, the daughter of Ezekiel Spanheim, 2 was buried be- neath the entrance of Henry VII. 's Chapel ; and then removed to a new vault, opened for the purpose, on the south-east corner of the Chapel, over w T hich the tomb was afterwards erected The in- by Westmacott. The Latin inscription w r as written scription. by the old Eevolutionary general, Dumouriez, 3 then living in exile in England, with a. grace and accuracy of diction worthy of the scholarship for which the exiled chief (who had been educated at La Bastie) was renowned ; and it records how, after his many vicissitudes, the amiable Prince at last had ' found his repose in this asylum of Kings hoc demum in ' Regum asylo requiescit.' 4 1 From the French Chapel, King 4 In the correspondence on the sub- Street, Portman Square. The body lay ject between Dean Vincent and the there in state. High mass was per- Government, preserved in the Receiver's formed in the presence of the Duke of Office, the Dean proposes some altera- Bourbon, and a requiem sung there tions ' unless the inscription is sacred ; afterwards. (Gent. Mag. 1807, pt. i. ' that is, so approved by the Duke of p. 584.) The account, which is in ' Orleans that it may not be touched.' some detail, has mistaken the time, It does not appear whether his sugges- making it June 6, at half-past three. tions were accepted. In the same cor- 2 Appendix to Crull, p. 39. respondence, Louis Philippe, then Duke s This information I owe to the kind- of Orleans (through his secretary, M. ness of H.E.H. the Duke of Aumale. de Brovel), communicates his grati- CHAP. III. OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVEE. 171 He remains apart from that most pathetic of royal ceme- teries, the burial-place of the House of Orleans, beside the ancient tower of Dreux. But the Princes of that illustrious race will not grudge to Westminster Abbey this one link, uniting the glories of the insular Protestant sanctuary of England to the continental Catholic glories of France, by that invisible chain of hospitality and charity which stretches across the widest gulf of race, and time, and creed, and country ; uniting those whom all the efforts of all the kings and all the eccle- siastics who lie in Westminster or St. Denys have not been able to part asunder. 1 In the corresponding Chapel on the northern side was to have been erected a corresponding monu- ment to the unfortunate heir of the great rival dynasty of the Napoleons. The universal burst of sympathy at his untimely death in the South African war, the close of a great historic race, the stainless character and gallant bearing of the youth, the tragical and romantic incident of the representative of the great Napoleon falling under the British flag, the sense of reparation due for a signal misfortune all combined to render such a commemoration singularly in accordance with the tra- ditions of the Abbey, which has always embraced within its walls these landmarks of human life and history : Sunt lacrymas renim, et mentem mortalia tangunt. A majority of the House of Commons, however, a year after the monument had been proposed and accepted, adopted a resolution declaring it inconsistent with the national charac- ter of the Abbey. The proposal to erect the monument was in consequence withdrawn, and by command of the Queen was tude to ' the Most Reverend the Dean ' and the Receiver, for their ' very safe ' and humane care,' and to ' the vener- ' able prelate ' his full approbation of the spot chosen. A difficulty was raised as to whether any one not be- longing to the Royal Family could be laid there. The correspondence on this point is doubly curious first, as showing how rigidly the limitation of the title of ' Royal ' to the elder branch of the Bourbons was observed by the English Court ; secondly, how little was known of the many non-regal interments in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Even the Dean seems to have been ignorant of the burial of any person of inferior rank, except the Duchess of Richmond and the two Dukes of Buckingham. There are, in fact, not less than se- venty. 1 In the same vault as the Duke of Montpensier, was interred (with the burial-place marked) Louise n ueen de Savoy, the Queen of Louise de Louis XVIII., who died at Savoy, Nov. Hartwell. Her remains were 26> 1810 ' removed to Sardinia on March 5, 1811 (Burial Register) ; and at the same time the coffins of two Spanish ambas- sadors one, that of Don Pedro Ron- quillo (see Evelyn's Memoirs, iii. 41), which had lain in the Lennox Chapel since the time of William III. (Crull, p. 107) ; the other, which had been de- posited in the Ormond vault, March 2, 1811 were sent back to Spain. 172 THE EOYAL TOMBS. CHAP. in. placed in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. There has been but one precedent for such interference with memorials of the dead in the Abbey that of the Parliamentarian magnates, under pressure of the strong outburst of party feeling that followed the Kestoration. Posterity will judge how far the ungenerous spirit which governed the Parliament of 1661 survived, in an altered form, in the Parliament of 1880. Close beside the tomb of the Duke of Montpensier, 1 by the gracious desire of the Queen, and with the kindly approval of Lady the gifted chief of the Orleans family, have been laid BIOT* the last remains of one whose name will be ever dear f b!iried Ch to Westminster, mourned in France hardly less than i876? h 9> in England followed to her grave by the tears of all ranks, from her Eoyal Mistress down to her humblest and poorest neighbours, whom she had alike faithfully served, by the representatives of the various Churches, and of the science and literature, both of England and America, whom she de- lighted to gather round her, enshrined in the Abbey which she had so dearly loved, and of which for twelve bright years she had been the glory and the charm. 1 This notice belongs more properly to the following chapter, but its insertion here will be forgiven. [And there, on Monday, July 25, 1881, was laid to rest her husband, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (the author of this volume), who had been Dean of Westminster from 1863 to his death in the deanery on July 18, Penrhyn 1881. He was followed by the Prince of Wales, as representative J^y'f8, >died f tne Sovereign, by other members of the Eoyal Family, by repre- buried July sentativesof the three Estates of the Kealm, of the Cabinet Ministers, the literature, arts, science, and religion of the country, and by a large concourse of the working-men of Westminster the majority mourning for one who had been their personal friend. The coffin was covered with memorials and expressions of regret from high and low in England, Scotland, France. Germany, and America, and from the members of the Armenian Church. He rests in the same grave with his beloved wife, in the Abbey which he loved so dearly, which he cherished as ' the likeness of the whole English Constitution,' for the care and illustration of which he laboiired unceasingly, and with which his name will always be associated.] CHAPTER IV. THE MONUMENTS. Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, Sad luxury ! to vulgar minds unknown, Along the walls where speaking marbles show What worthies form the hallow'd mould below ; Proud names, who once the reins of empire held ; In arms who triumph 'd ; or in arts excelled ; Chiefs grac'd with scars, and prodigal of blood ; Stern patriots, who for sacred freedom stood ; Just men, by whom impartial laws were given ; And saints who taught, and led, the way to heaven. TickelPs Lines on the Death of Addison. (See p. 311.) Some would imagine that all these monuments were so many monuments of folly. I don't think so ; what useful lessons of morality and sound philosophy do they not exhibit ! ' Burke's First Visit to the Abbey ' (Prior's Life of Burke, i. 39). SPECIAL AUTHORITIES. Besides the ample details of Keepe, Crull, Dart, and Neale, there are for the ensuing Chapter the following authorities : I. The earlier Burial Register l of the Abbey, contained in one volume folio, from 1606 to 1706. 2 II. The later Burial Registers, from 1706 to the present day, are contained (1) in another folio volume, and (2) (from 1711) more fully in six volumes octavo, more properly called the ' Funeral Books.' III. MS. Heralds' College. 1 The first part of this is a compilation of Philip Tynchare, the Precentor who was buried ' near the door of Lord Norris's monument, May 12, 1673.' 2 These, as far as the year 1705, are published, with notes, in Nichols's Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. vii. 355-57, viii. 1-13, to which are added, in vol. vii. 163-74, the Marriages from 1655 to 1705, and in vol. vii. 243-48, the Baptisms from 1605 to 1655, and 1661 to 1702, from the same source. But these transcripts have been found so full of errors, that a new and corrected version was absolutely needed. Under these circumstances the Dean and Chapter have been fortunate in obtaining the valuable aid of a learned and laborious antiquarian Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester, of the United States of America who has undertaken a complete edition of the whole Register, with references and annotations wherever necessary, with a zeal which must be as gratifying to our country as it is creditable to his own. CHAPTER IV. THE MONUMENTS. OF all the characteristics of Westminster Abbey, that which most endears it to the nation, and gives most force to its name Peculiarity which has, more than anything else, made it the Tombs at home of the people of England, and the most vene- Sster. rated fabric of the English Church is not so much its glory as the seat of the coronations, or as the sepulchre of the kings ; not so much its school, or its monastery, or its chapter, or its sanctuary, as the fact that it is the resting-place of famous Englishmen, from every rank and creed, and every form of mind and genius. It is not only Reims Cathedral and St. Denys both in one ; but it is also what the Pantheon was intended to be to France, what the Valhalla is to Germany, what Santa Croce is to Italy. It is this aspect which, more than any other, won for it the delightful visits of Addison in the ' Spectator,' of Steele in the ' Tatler,' of Goldsmith in * The Citizen of the World,' of Charles Lamb in ' Essays of ' Elia,' of Washington Irving in the ' Sketch Book.' It is this which inspired the saying of Nelson, 'Victory or Westminster ' Abbey ! ' l and which has intertwined it with so many elo- quent passages of Macaulay. It is this which gives point to the allusions of recent Nonconforming statesmen least inclined to draw illustrations from ecclesiastical buildings. It is this which gives most promise of vitality to the whole institution. Kings are no longer buried within its walls ; even the splendour of pageants has ceased to attract ; but the desire to be interred in Westminster Abbey is still as strong as ever. And yet it is this which has exposed the Abbey to the severest criticism. ' To clear away the monuments ' has be- come the ardent wish of not a few of its most ardent admirers. 1 See Note at end of this Chapter. CHAP. iv. THE MONUMENTS. 175 The incongruity of their construction, the caprice of their erection, the false taste or false feeling of their inscriptions and their sculptures, have provoked the attacks of each suc- ceeding generation. It will be the object of this Chapter to unravel this conflict of sentiments, to find the clue through this labyrinth of monumental stumblingblocks and stones of offence. Although this branch of the Abbey be a parasitical growth, it has struck its fibres so deep that, if rudely torn out, both per- chance will come down together. If sooner or later it must be pruned, we must first well consider the relation of the en- grafted mistletoe to the parent tree. This peculiarity of Westminster Abbey is of comparatively recent origin. No theory of the kind existed when the Con- fessor procured its first privileges, nor yet when Henry III. planned the burial-place of the Plantagenets. No cemetery in the world had as yet been based on this principle. The great men of Eome were indeed buried along the side of the Appian Way, but they had no exclusive right to it ; it was by virtue rather of their family connections than of their in- dividual merit. The appropriation of the Church of Ste. Gene- vieve at Paris, under the name of the Pantheon, to the ashes of celebrated Frenchmen, was almost confined to the times of the Eevolution and to the tombs of Voltaire and Eousseau. The adaptation of the Pantheon at Eome to the reception of the busts of famous Italians dates from the same epoch, and it comparison ceased to be so employed after the restoration of Pius w>eat "VII. The nearest approach to Westminster Abbey Florence. ^ tllig aspec t j s the Church of Santa Croce at Flo- rence. There, as here, the present destination of the building was no part of the original design, but was the result of various converging causes. As the church of one of the two great preaching orders it had a nave large beyond all proportion to its choir. That order being the Franciscan, bound by vows of poverty, the simplicity of the worship preserved the whole space clear from any adventitious ornaments. The popularity of the Franciscans, especially in a convent hallowed by a visit from St. Francis himself, drew to it not only the chief civic festivals, but also the numerous families who gave alms to the friars, and whose connection with their church was, for this reason, in turn encouraged by them. In those graves, piled with the standards and achievements of the noble families of Florence, were successively interred not because of their 176 THE ROYAL TOMBS CHAP. iv. eminence, but as members or friends of those families some of the most illustrious personages of the fifteenth century. Thus it came to pass, as if by accident, that in the vault of the Buonarroti was laid Michael Angelo ; in the vault of the Viviani the preceptor of one of their house, Galileo. From those two burials the church gradually became the recognised shrine of Italian genius. 1 The growth of our English Santa Croce, though different, was analogous. It sprang in the first instance as a natural offshoot Eesuitof from the coronations and interments of the Kings. Tombf al Had they been buried far away, in some conventual or secluded spot, or had the English nation stood aloof from the English monarchy, it might have been otherwise. The sepulchral chapels built by Henry III. and Henry VII. might have stood alone in their glory : no meaner dust need ever have mingled with the dust of the Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, and Guelphs. The Kings of France rest almost alone at St. Denys. The Kings of Spain, the Emperors of Austria, the Czars of Kussia, rest absolutely alone in the vaults of the Escurial, of Vienna, of Moscow, and St. Petersburg. But it has been the peculiar privilege of the Kings of England, that neither in life nor in death have they been parted from their people. As the Council of the nation and the Courts of Law have pressed into the Palace of Westminster, and engirdled the very Throne itself, so the ashes of the great citizens of England have pressed into the sepulchre of the Kings, and surrounded them as with a guard of honour, after their death. On the tomb designed for Maximilian at Innspruck, the Em- peror's effigy lies encircled by the mailed figures of ancient chivalry of Arthur and Clovis, of Eudolph and Cunegunda, of Ferdinand and Isabella. A like thought, but yet nobler, is that which is realised in fact by the structure of West- minster Abbey, as it is by the structure of the English Con- stitution. We are sometimes inclined bitterly to contrast the placid dignity of our recumbent Kings, with Chatham gesticu- lating from the Northern Transept, or Pitt from the western door, or Shakspeare leaning on his column in Poets' Corner, or Wolfe expiring by the Chapel of St. John. But, in fact, they are, in their different ways, keeping guard over the shrine of 1 I owe this account of Santa Croce See also T. A. Trollope's novel of Giulio to the kindness of Signer Bonaini, Malate&ta, vol. iii. Keeper of the Archives at Florence. CHAP. iv. THE MONUMENTS. 177 our monarchy and our laws ; and their very incongruity and variety become symbols of the harmonious diversity in unity which pervades our whole commonwealth. Had the Abbey of St. Denys admitted within its walls the poets and warriors and statesmen of France, the Kings might yet have remained inviolate in their graves. Had the monarchy of France connected itself with the surrounding institutions of Church and State, assuredly it would not have fallen as it did in its imperial isolation. Let us accept the omen for the Abbey of Westminster let us accept it also for the Throne and State of England. 1. We have now to trace the slow gradual formation of this side of the story of Westminster a counterpart of the irregular uncertain course of the history of England itself. Eeserving for future consideration the graves of those con- nected with the Convent, 1 it was natural that, in the first instance, the Cloisters, which contained the little monastic cemetery, should also admit the immediate families and re- tainers of the Court. It was the burial-place of the adjacent Palace of Westminster, just as now the precincts of St. George's Chapel contain the burial-place of the immediate dependants of the Castle of Windsor. The earliest of these humbler intruders, who heads, as it were, the long series of private monuments was Hugolin, the chamberlain of the Confessor, buried (with a fitness, perhaps, hardly appreciated at the time) within or hard by the Eoyal Trea- sury, which he had kept so well. 2 Not far off (we know not wnere ) was Geoffrey of Mandeville, with his wife Adelaide, who followed the Conqueror to Hastings, and who, in return for his burial here, gave to the Abbey the manor of Eye, then a waste morass, which gave its name to the Eye Brook, and under the names of Hyde, Eye-bury (or Ebury), and Neate, contained Hyde Park, Belgravia, and Chelsea. 3 We dimly trace a few interments within the Church. Amongst these were Egelric, Bishop of Durham, imprisoned Egeiric, at Westminster, where, by prayer and fasting, he ac- cie 7 castro lk quired the fame of an anchorite buried in the Porch NO, 1247. of St. Nicholas; 4 Sir Fulk de Castro Novo, cousin of Henry III., and attended to his grave by the King; 5 Richard 1 See Chapter V. 3 Widmore, p. 21; Arch. xxvi. 23. 2 See Chapters I. and V. 4 See Chapter V. s Matthew Paris, 724. 178 THE MONUMENTS. CHAP. iv. of Wendover, Bishop of Eochester, who had the reputation of a Baint > l Ford ' Abbot of Glastonbury ; 2 Trussel, Speaker of the House of Commons in the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III., buried in St. Michael's 1364 - Chapel ; 3 Walter Leycester (1391), buried in the North Transept, at the foot of the Great Crucifix. 4 But the first distinct impulse given to the tombs of famous citizens was from Bichard II. It was the result of his pas- couR-rrciw eionate attachment to Westminster, combined with iT B D his unbounded favouritism. His courtiers and officers were the first magnates not of royal blood who reached the John of heart of the Abbey. John of Waltham, Bishop of i395! ham ' Salisbury, Treasurer, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Master of the Rolls, was, by the King's orders, buried not only in the church, but in the Chapel of the Confessor, amongst the Kings. 5 It was not without a general murmur of indignation 6 that this intrusion was effected; but the disturbance of the mosaic pavement by the brass effigy marks the unusual honour, the pledge of the ever-increasing magnitude of the succession of English statesmen, whose statues from the adjoining transept may claim John of Waltham as their venerable precursor. Other favourites of the same sovereign lie in graves only less dis- tinguished. Sir John Golofre, who was his ambassa- 1396. d or i n France, was, by the King's express command, transferred from the Grey Friars' Church at Wallingford, where he himself had desired to be buried, and was laid close beneath his master's tomb. 7 The father-in-law of Golofre, 8 1 Anglia Sacra, i. 348-350. Weever, Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin, in the p. 338. Church of St. Margaret, Westminster 2 Domerham, 525. afterwards altered thus in the * In connection both with the House codicil, April 5, 1391 : of Commons in the Chapter House, and ' Volo et lego quod corpus meum the interment of eminent commoners in ' sepeliatur in ecclesia Sancti Petri the Abbey, must be mentioned that of ' Monasterii Westm' coram magna William Trussel, Speaker of the House ' cruce in parte boriali ecclesie ejus- of Commons, in St. Michael's Chapel. ' dem.' He had a house at Westmin- (Crull, 290.) Mr. F. S. Haydon has ster. Amongst his executors was assisted me in the probable identifica- ' Magister Arnold Brokas.' tion of this ' Mons. William Trussel,' 5 Godwin, p. 359. who was Speaker in 1366 (Eolls of Parl. 6 Inter reges,multis murmur antibus. 1369), with a procurator for Parliament (Walsingham, ii. 218.) A like intru- and an escheator south of Trent in 1327. sion of one of Richard's favourites into If so, his death was on July 20, 1364. a royal and sacred place occurs in the (Frag. p. m. 37 E. III. No. 69.) Foss's interment of Archbishop Courtney close Judges, iii. 307-309. to Becket's shrine at Canterbury. 4 Will of Walter Leycester, Serjeant- 7 Dart, ii. 21. at-arms, dated at Westminster, Sep- 8 Crull, App. p. 20. tember 3, 1389. To be buried in the CHAP. iv. THE MONUMENTS. 179 Sir Bernard Brocas, who was chamberlain to Eichard's Queen, and was beheaded on Tower Hill, in consequence of Brocas, 1400. ,. ..,. . j. . i i having joined in a conspiracy to reinstate him, lies m the almost regal Chapel of St. Edmund. 1 He was famous for his ancient descent, his Spanish connection (as was supposed) with Brozas near Alcantara, above all, his wars with the Moors, where he won the crest, on which his helmet rests, of the crowned head of a Moor, and which was either the result or the cause of the ' account ' to which Sir Eoger de Coverley was so ' very attentive,' of ' the lord who cut off the King of , ' Morocco's head.' 2 Close to him rests Eobert Waldeby, the accomplished companion of the Black Prince, then the tutor of Eicjiard himself, and through his influence raised to the sees successively of Aire in Gascony, Dublin, Chichester, and York, who, renowned as at once physician and divine, is in the Abbey the first representative of literature, as Waltham is of statesmanship. Next come the chiefs of the court and camp of Henry V. One, like John of Waltham, lies in the Confessor's Chapel 3 COURTIEBS Eichard Courtney, Bishop of Norwich, who during coi^fne RYV ' n ^ 8 il mess a ^ Harfleur was tenderly nursed by the i4i5 Se Rob-' King himself, and died immediately before the battle sart, 1431. O f Agincourt. 4 Lewis Eobsart, who from his exploits on that great day was made the King's standard-bearer, was a few years afterwards interred in St. Paul's Chapel ; and on the same side in the northern aisle, at the entrance of the Windsor, Chapels of the two St. Johns, were laid under brass pedo'n, 1457. effigies, which can still be faintly traced, Sir John Windsor and Sir John Harpedon. The fashion slowly grew. Though Edward IV. himself, with his best-beloved companion in arms, lies at Windsor, four COURTIERS of his nobles were brought to Westminster. Hum- iy ED Bour? phrey Bourchier, who died at the field of B#rnet, was LorTcarew, buried in St. Edmund's Chapel. In St. Nicholas's H7U3U! ley, (-j^pgj jj e L or cl Carew, who died in the same year ; and Dudley who, being the first Dean of Edward's new Chapel of Windsor, was elevated to the see of Durham uncle of Henry VII. 's notorious financier, and founder of the great 1 See Chapter III. 3 On the north side of the Shrine 2 Spectator, No. 329. An inscrip- ' in ipsius ostii ingressu.' (Godwin, tion was composed by the family in p. 438.) 1838. See Neale, ii. 156, and Gough's 4 Tyler's Henry V. ii. 148. Sepulchral Monuments, 1399. K 2 180 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. house which bore his name. The first layman in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist is Sir Thomas Vaughan, trea- gurer to Edward jy an( j chamberlain to Edward V. The renewed affection for the Abbey in the person of Henry VII. 1 reflects itself in the tombs of three of his courtiers. COURTIERS In the Chapel of St. Nicholas is interred Sir Humphrey VII HEN Stanley, who with his relatives had in the Battle i505. ley> of Bosworth fought on the victorious side. 2 In the Chapel of St. Paul is the King's chamberlain and cousin, Sir Charles Daubeney, Lord-Lieutenant of Calais ; and in that of St. John the Baptist his favourite Ruthell, secretary Kuthell, 3 Bishop of Durham, victim of his own fatal mistake in sending to his second master, Henry VIII., the inventory of his private wealth, instead of a state-paper on the affairs of the nation. The statesmen and divines who died under Henry VIII. , Edward VI., and Mary, have left hardly any trace in the Abbey. Wolsey had wavered, as it would seem, between Windsor and Westminster. But, whilst the Chapel long called after his name remains at Windsor, and his sarcophagus has been appropriated to another use at St. Paul's, no indication can be found at the ' West-Monastery ' of the tomb which Skelton ' saw a making at a sumptuous cost, more pertaining ' for an Emperor or maxymyous King than for such a man as ' he was, altho' Cardinals will compare with Kings.' 4 Sir Thomas Clifford, Governor of Berwick, and his wife lie under the pavement of the Choir, 5 with two or three other persons of obscure name. 6 Tower Hill, Smithfield, and the ditch beneath the walls of Oxford, in that fierce struggle, contain 1 A curious record of Henry VII.'s 4 Merye Tales of Skelton (ed. Hazlitt, adventures in crossing by the Channel p. 18). Islands is preserved on Sir Thomas 5 Dart, ii. 23. Machyn's .Diary, Nov. Hardy's monument in the Nave, 26, 1557. erected in 1732. 6 ' Master Wentworth,' cofferer to * Hence the burial of other members Queen Mary. (Machyn, Oct. 23, 1558.) of the Derby family in this chapel. 'Master Gennings ' (ibid.), servant of (Register, 1603, 1620, 1631.) Philip and Mary, who left considerable * Godwin, p. 755. He died at Dur- sums to the abbot and monks, and ham Place, in the Strand ; hence, per- desired to be buried under a brass, haps, his burial at Westminster. His Nov. 26, 1557. Diego or Didacus tomb seems originally to have been in Sanchez, a Spanish noble, was buried the centre, and the place which it now in the last year of Mary (1557) in the occupies was originally the entrance to North Transept. (These particulars I the Chapel. The present entrance was learn from his will, communicated by effected at a later time probably when Colonel Chester.) Sir Thomas Parry, Hunsdon's monument was erected treasurer of Elizabeth's household, with through the little Chapel of St. Eras- a monument (1560), is in the Islip mus. Chapel. CHAP. iv. OF THE LADIES OF THE TUDOR COURT. 181 ashes more illustrious than any interred in consecrated pre- cincts. It is characteristic of the middle of the sixteenth century, when the destinies of Europe were woven by the hands of LADIES OF the extraordinary Queens who ruled the fortunes of THE TUDOR ' " COURT. France, England, and Scotland, and when the royal tombs in the Abbey are occupied by Elizabeth, the two Marys, and the two Margarets, 1 that the more private history of the time should also be traced, more than at any other period, by Frances the sepulchres of illustrious ladies. Frances Grey, Duchess oi Duchess of Suffolk, granddaughter 2 of Henry VII., buried bee. by Charles Brandon and Mary Queen of France, and mother of Lady Jane Grey, reposes in the Chapel of St. Edmund, under a stately monument erected by her second husband, Adrian Stokes, 3 Esquire. ' What ! ' exclaimed Eliza- beth, ' hath she married her horsekeeper ? ' ' Yes, Madam,' was the reply, ' and she saith that your Majesty would fain do the ' same ; ' alluding to Leicester, the Master of the Horse. She lived just long enough to see the betrothal of her daughter, Catherine Grey, to the Earl of Hertford, 4 and to enjoy the turn of fortune which restored Elizabeth to the throne, and thus allowed her own sepulture beside her royal ancestors. 5 The service was probably the first celebrated in English in the Abbey since Elizabeth's accession ; and it was followed by the Communion Service, 6 in which the Dean (Dr. Bill) officiated, and Jewel preached the sermon. Could her Puritanical spirit have known the site of her tomb, she would have re- Her tomb. joiced in the thought that it was to take the place of St. Edmund's altar, and thus be the first to efface the memory of one of the venerated shrines of the old Catholic saints. The same lot befell the altar of St. Nicholas, which sank under the still more splendid pile of a stih 1 grander patroness A* 116 of the Eeformation Anne Seymour, descended by Seymour, . . * Duchess of the Stanhopes and Bourchiers from Anne, sole heir of Somerset, Thomas of Woodstock, herself widow of the Protector Somerset, and sister-in-law of Queen Jane Seymour ' a man- ' nish or rather a devilish woman, for any imperfectibilities 1 See Chapter III. * Cooper's Life of Arabella Stuart, i. 172. 2 Machyn's Diary, Dec. 5, 1559. 4 Compare Edward VI.'s funeral, Chapter in. 3 Xupta Duci prius est, uxor post d Strype's Aniials, i. 292. The mo- Armiqeri Stokes. (Epitaph.) nument was not erected till 1563. 182 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' intolerable, but for pride monstrous, exceeding subtle and ' violent.' * She lived far into the reign of Elizabeth, and died, at the age of 90, on Easter Day, leaving behind a noble race, which in later days was to transfer the chapel where she lies to another family not less noble, and make it the joint burial- place of the Seymours and the Percys. 2 To these we must add one, who, though she herself belongs to the next generation, yet by her title and lineage is connected directly with the earlier period. Not in the royal chapels, but first of any secular grandee in the ecclesiastical Chapel of St. Frances Benedict, is the monument of Frances Howard, sister coontoM of of the Lord High Admiral who repulsed the Armada, but, by her marriage with the Earl of Hertford, daughter-in-law of the Duchess of Somerset, from whom we have just parted. Like those other two ladies, she in her tomb destroyed the vestiges of the ancient altar of the chapel, as if the spirit of the Seymours still lived again in each succeeding generation. Both monuments were erected by the Earl of Hertford, son to the one and husband to the other. Frances Sidney occupies the place of the altar in the Chapel of St. Paul. She claims remembrance as the aunt of Sir Philip Sidney, 3 and the wife of Eatcliffe Earl of Sussex, known to all readers of ' Kenilworth ' as the rival of Leicester. Sidney, 8 ^- er more splendid monument is the college in Cam- ofsu% brid ge, called after her double name, Sidney Sussex, which, with her descendants of the Houses of Pem- broke, Carnarvon, and Sidney, undertook the restoration of her tomb. But the reign of Elizabeth also brings with it the first dis- tinct recognition of the Abbey as a Temple of Fame. It was BE!* ^ e natural consequence of the fact that amongst her MAGNATES, favourites so many were heroes and heroines. Their tombs literally verify Gray's description of her court : Girt with many a baron bold, Sublime their starry fronts they rear ; 1 Sir J. Hayward. See Life of in the same place for the last three Arabella Stuart, i. 170. generations. Lady Jane Lady Jaue The marriage of Charles Seymour Clifford, whose grave and Clifford, (1726), the 'proud Duke ' of Somerset, monument are also here 1629 - to Elizabeth Percy, caused the inter- (1629), was a great-granddaughter of ment and monument of her grand- the Protector Somerset. daughter, the first Duchess of Northum- * The porcupines of the Sidneys are berland, in St. Nicholas's Chapel ; conspicuous on her tomb, hence the interment of the Percy family CHAP. iv. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 183 And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old In bearded majesty, appear. What strings symphonious tremble in the air, What strains of vocal transport round her play ! Not only does Poets' Corner now leap into new life, but the councillors and warriors, who in the long preceding reigns had dropped in here and there, according to the uncertain light of court-favour, suddenly close round upon us, and the vacant chapels are thronged, as if with the first burst of national life and independence. Now also that life and independence are seen in forms peculiar to the age, when the old traditions of Christendom gave way before that epoch of revolution. The royal monuments, though changed in architectural decoration, still preserved the antique attitude and position, and hardly interfered with the outline of the sacred edifice. But the taste of private individuals at once claimed its new liberty, and opened the way to that extravagant latitude of monumental innovation which prevailed throughout Europe, and in our own day has roused a reaction against the whole sepulchral fame of the Abbey. The ' gorgeous dames ' are for the most part recumbent. But, as we have seen, they have trampled on the ancient altars in their respective chapels. The Duchess of Suffolk still faces the east; but the Duchess of Somerset and the Countess of Hertford, . dying thirty and forty years later, lie north and south. Two mural tablets, first of their kind, commemorate in the Chapel of St. Edmund the cousin of Edward VI., Jane Lady jane Seymour, 1 daughter of the Protector Somerset (erected i56i nour> by her brother, the same Earl of Hertford whom we have twice met already) ; and the cousin of Elizabeth, Cathe- Lady rine Knollys, sister of Lord Hunsdon, who had at- Knoiiys, 8 tended her aunt, Anne Boleyn, to the scaffold. Then 1 *fm ^ir E. p'ecksaii, follow, in the same chapel, Sir B. Pecksall, with his 1571. ' two wives, drawn hither by the attraction of the con- tiguous grave of Sir Bernard Brocas, from whom, through his mother, 2 he inherited the post of Master of the Buckhounds to the Queen, and through whom the Brocas family were continued. They have risen from their couches, and are on their knees. 1 Intended as the wife of Edward Stuart, i. 185.) VI. afterwards friend of Catherine 2 Neale, ii. 156. His funeral fees Grey, daughter of the Duchess of Suf- went to buy hangings for the reredos. folk. (Cooper's Life of Arabella (Chapter Book, 1571.) 184 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. The Eussell family, already great with the spoils of monas- teries, are hard by. John Baron Eussell, second son of the John Lord second earl, 1 after a long tour abroad, died at High- ?584 S . eI ' gate, 2 and lies here recumbent, but with his face turned towards the spectator ; whilst his daughter, first of all the sepulchral effigies, is seated erect, ' not dead but sleeping,' 3 in her osier-chair the prototype of those easy postures which Htsmonu- have so grievously scandalised our more reverential ment. a g e> f jjg monument to the father 4 is erected by his widow, the accomplished daughter of Sir Antony Cook, who has commemorated her husband's virtues in Latin, Greek, and English an ostentation of learning characteristic of the age of Lady Jane Grey, but provoking the censure of the simpler Elizabeth taste of Addison. 5 The monument to their daughter Busseii. Elizabeth is erected by her sister Anne. She is a complete child of Westminster. Her mother, in consequence of the plague, was allowed by the Dean (Goodman) to await her Her chris- delivery in a house within the Precincts. 6 The infant i575? g> was christened in the Abbey. The procession started from the Deanery. The Queen, from whom she derived her name, was godmother, but acted by her ' deputy,' the Countess of Warwick, who appeared accordingly in royal state Lady Burleigh, the child's aunt, carrying the train. The other godmother was Frances Countess of Sussex. These distin- guished sponsors drew to the ceremony two of the most notable statesmen of the time, the Earl of Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney, who emerged from the Confessor's Chapel, after the conclusion of the service, with towels and basins. The pro- cession returned, through the Cloisters, to a stately, costly, and delicate banquet within the Precincts. Thus ushered into the Abbey by such a host of worthies, four of whom are themselves interred in it, Elizabeth Eussell became maid of honour to her royal godmother, and finally was herself Her death, buried within its walls. She died of consumption, a few days after the marriage of her sister Anne at Blackfriars, at which the Queen attended, as represented in the celebrated Sherborne Castle picture. 7 Such was her real 1 Wiffin's House of Eussell, i. 493, s Spectator, No. 329. 6 Lord Eussell's letter to the Queen 2 Lord Eussell had a house within announcing the birth, is dated at West- the Precincts. (Chapter Book, 1581.) minster College, October 22, 1575. 1 Dormit, non mortua est (Epitaph). (Wiffin's House of Eussell, i. 502.) Eestored by the Duke of Bedford ' See ' The Visit of Queen Elizabeth in 186 ?- ' to Blackfriars, in 1600,' by George CHAP. iv. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 185 end. But the form of her monument has bred one of ' the Her monu- ' vu ^g ar errors ' of Westminster mythology. Her finger ment - pointing to the skull, the emblem of mortality at her feet, had already, 1 within seventy years from her death, led to the legend that she had ' died of the prick of a needle,' 2 sometimes magnified into a judgment on her for working on Sunday. Sir Roger de Coverley was conducted to ' that martyr 4 to good housewifery.' Upon the interpreter telling him that she was maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into her name and family ; and after having regarded her finger for some time, ' I wonder,' says he, * that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his ' Chronicle.' 3 In the Chapel of St. Nicholas lies Winyfred Brydges, Mar- chioness of Winchester, who was, by her first husband, Sir winyfred ^ Sackville, cousin of Anne Boleyn, and mother of Marchioness Thomas Lord Buckhurst, the poet, and of Lady Dacre, cheTter foundress of Emmanuel Hospital, close by the Abbey. 1586. jj er secon( i husband was the Marquis of Winchester, who boasted that he had prospered through Elizabeth's reign, by having ' the pliancy of the willow rather than the stubborn- ' ness of the oak.' Sir Thomas Bromley (in the Chapel of St. Paul) succeeded Sir Nicholas Bacon as Lord Chancellor, and in that capacity sir Thomas P res ided at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots, and ?587 mley> di 6 ^ immediately afterwards. Sir John Puckering f^ckerin (^ n ^ ne Chapel of St. Nicholas) prosecuted both Mary 15961 and the unfortunate Secretary Davison, and suc- ceeded Sir Christopher Hatton as Lord Keeper his ' lawyer- ' like and ungenteel ' appearance presenting so forcible a contrast to his predecessor, that the Queen could with diffi- culty overcome her repugnance to his appointment. It was he who defined to Speaker Coke the liberty allowed to the Commons : ' Liberty of speech is granted you ; but you must ' know what privilege you have, not to speak every one what * he listeth, or what cometh hi his brain to utter ; but your Scharf, in Arch. Journal, xxiii. 131. ously from it that ' in ill habits of The picture contains also the portraits ' body small wounds are mortal.' of John Lord Eussell (p. 218) and of * Spectator, No. 329. Compare Lady Catherine Knollys (ibid.). Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 1 Keepe, i. 1680. " ' He told, without blushing, a hundred 2 Wiseman, Chirurgical Treatises, ' lies. He talked of a lady who died 1st ed. p. 278, 167G, who argues seri- ' by pricking her finger.' 186 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' privilege is Aye or No.' l To Sir Thomas Owen of Cundover, sir Thomas Justice of the Common Pleas, friend of Sir Nicholas ?598 n> Bacon, a fine effigy, resembling the portrait of him still preserved at Cundover, was erected by his son Eoger, in the south aisle of the Choir. The tomb bears the motto, given to him by the Queen, in allusion to his humble origin, ' Memorare novissima ; ' and his own quaint epi- taph, ' Spes, vermis, et ego.' But the most conspicuous monuments of this era are those of Lord Hunsdon and of the Cecils. Henry Gary, Baron Lord Huns- Hunsdon, the rough honest chamberlain to Queen don, 1526. Elizabeth, brother of Lady Catherine Knollys, has a place and memorial worthy of his confidential relations with the Queen, who was his first-cousin. Like his two princely kinswomen in the Chapels of St. Edmund and St. Nicholas, his interment was signalised by displacing the altar of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist. The monument was remarkable, even in the last century, as ' most mag- * nificent,' 2 and is, in fact, the loftiest in the Abbey. It would almost seem as if his son, 3 who erected it, laboured to make up to the old statesman for the long-expected honours of the earldom three times granted, and three times revoked. The Queen at last came to see him, and laid the patent and the robes on his bed. ' Madam,' he, answered, ' seeing you counted ' me not worthy of this honour whilst I was living, I count ' myself unworthy of it now I am dying.' 4 He, like Sir E. Sackville, ' belonged,' as Leicester said, ' to the tribe of Dan, ' and was Noli me tangere.' 5 ' I doubt much, my Harry,' wrote Elizabeth to him after his suppression of the Northern Re- bellion, 'whether that the victory given me more joyed me, ' or that you were by God appointed the instrument of my ' glory.' 6 And with the bitterness of a true patriot, as well as a true kinsman, he was at times so affected as to be ' almost ' senseless, considering the time, the necessity Her Majesty * hath of assured friends, the needfulness of good and sound ' counsel, and the small care it seems she hath of either. ' Either she is bewitched,' or doomed to destruction. 7 1 Campbell's Lives of the Chan- 4 Fuller's Worthies, i. 433. cellars, ii. 175. 2 Fuller's Worthies, i. 433. 5 Aikin's Elizabeth, i. 243. * Lady Hunsdon was buried with ,. TU.-J him (1606-7), also the widow of his son (1617-18). (Burial Register.) ' Froude, is. 557. CHAP. IT. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 187 Lord Burleigh was attached to Westminster by many ties. He was the intimate friend of the Dean, Gabriel Goodman ; The Cecils, and this, combined with his High Stewardship, led to Lord Bar- i i 11 -i- i n-r~> ... ieigh,i598. his being called, in play, 'the Dean of Westminster,' l and he had in his earlier days lived hi the Precincts. 2 Al- though he was buried at Stamford, his funeral was celebrated in the Abbey, over the graves of his wife 3 and daughter, where already stood the towering monument, 4 erected to them before his death, in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. It expresses the great grief of his life, which, but for the earnest entreaties of the Queen, would have driven him from his public duties altogether. ' If anyone ask,' says his epitaph, ' who is that aged man, on bended knees, venerable from his ' hoary hairs, in his robes of state, and with the order of the ' Garter ? ' the answer is, that we see the great minister of Elizabeth, 'his eyes dim with tears for the loss of those who ' were dearer to him beyond the whole race of womankind.' 5 It shows the degree of superhuman majesty which he had attained in English history, that ' Sir Eoger de Coverley was ' very well pleased to see the 'statesman Cecil on his knees.' The collar of St. George marks the special favour by which, to him alone of humble birth, Elizabeth granted the Garter. ' If ' any ask, who are those noble women, splendidly attired, and ' who are they at their head and feet ? ' the answer is that Mildred the one * s Mildred, his second wife, daughter of Sir Buriefeh? y Antony Cook, and sister of the learned lady who wrote the epitaphs of Lord Eussell in the adjacent chapel, ' partner of her husband's fortunes, through good and ' evil, during the reigns of Henry, Edward, Mary, and Eliza- ' beth ' ' versed in all sacred literature, especially Basil, Chry- Anne vere, ' sostom, and Gregory Nazianzen ; ' the other ' Anne, oSS? * ' hi 8 daughter, wedded to the Earl of Oxford ; ' at her feet, his second son, Eobert Cecil, first Earl of Salis- bury, and at her head her three daughters, Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan Yere. But ' neither they,' nor his elder son Thomas, nor ' all his grandsons and granddaughters,' will efface the grief ' with which the old man clings to the sad monument of 1 Strype's Memorials of Parker. restored by the present Marquis of 2 Chapter Book, 1551. Salisbury, who is directly descended 1 She too had made Dean Goodman from this marriage. one of her chief advisers. (Strype's s The inscription is very differently Annals, iii. 2, 127.) given in Winstanley's Worthies, p. 4 The monument has been recently 204. 188 THE MONUMENTS "Sir G. Fane Lord Carew "Burleigh's wife and daughter. Bp. Dudley "Anna Harley S N. Bagenall W. Brydges "Sir G. Villiers t " 1! QUEEN CATHERINE a o "Duchess of f 10 8ir H. Stanley Northumberland Lady Jane llPercy Family Clifford "PHILIPPA E. Cecil DUCHESS OF YORK w ;; Sir H. Spelman CHAPEL OF ST. NICHOLAS. "Mary Kendall Abbot Fatcet Abbot Mining Bp, Ruthall i STRODE CHAPEL OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 189 "Sir T. Bromley "Dudley Carleton "Sir J. Fullertou Abp. Oaher Sir Giles Daubeney "COL. M'LEOD Sir H. Belasyse "Frances Sidney J. Watt L. ROBSART CHAPEL OF ST. PAUL. EDWARD ITI.'S CHILDREN "JOHN OF ELTHAM "Sir R. Pecksall Abp. Waldeby E. DE BOHUN "Lady Stafford "WILLIAM DE VALENCE CHAPEL OF ST. EDJTCND. 190 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IV. N. (Saint Andrew) (Saint Michael) W. (Saint John the Evangelist) Dr. Young Sarah Siddons J. Kemblo Abbot Kyrton 'Lord and Lady Norris "Theodore Paleologus Sm FRANCIS VERB WOLFE Abbot Esttney S. CHAPELS OF ST. JOHN, ST. MICHAEL, AND ST. ANDREW. CHAP. iv. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 191 ' his lost wife and daughter.' Robert, on whom his father Elizabeth invokes a long life, lies at Hatfield ; but his wife countess of Elizabeth has a tomb in this chapel, and also Salisbury, (removed from its place for the monument of the countess of Duchess of Northumberland) his niece Elizabeth, wife Exeter May, 1591. of the second Earl of Exeter. The first Earl, Thomas, Cecil, Bari after a life full of years and honours, lies * on the IMS,' other, side of the Abbey, in the Chapel of St. John Dorothy the Baptist. This tomb was built for himself and his ' two most dear wives ' Dorothy Neville, who was Brydges, interred there before him, and Frances Brydges, who, aged ss. living till the Restoration, proudly refused to let her effigy fill the vacancy on the left side, and is buried at Windsor. The tombs by this time had occupied all the chief positions in the chapels round the Confessor's shrine. There remained a group of smaller chapels, abutting on the North Transept, hitherto only occupied by the Abbots : 2 Islip, who built the small chapel in which he lies, and which bears his name ; Esteney, who lives in St. John's, and Kirton in St. Andrew's Chapel. But this comparative solitude was now invaded by the sudden demand of the Flemish wars. 3 The one unfor- gotten hero of those now forgotten battles, Sir Philip Sidney, lies under the pavement of St. Paul's Cathedral, the precursor, by a long interval, of Nelson and Wellington. But to Sir sir Francis Francis Vere, who commanded the forces in the vere, 1609. Netherlands, his widow erected a tomb, which she must have copied from the scene 4 of his exploits in a direct imitation of the tomb of Engelbert 5 Count of Nassau, in the church at Breda, where, as here, four kneeling knights support the arms of the dead man who lies underneath. This retention of an older taste has always drawn a tender feeling towards the tomb. 6 ' Hush ! hush ! ' he vill speak presently,' softly whispered Roubiliac to a 1 The funeral sermon (in the illness When Vere sought death, arm'd with his sword of Archbishop Abbott) was preached De a h ^fafraul to meet him in the field ; by Joseph Hall. (State Papers, March But when his weapons he had laid aside, 8 1623 ) Death, like a coward, struck him, and he died. ' See Chapter V. * This part of the Abbey, during 5 Compare the arrangement of the the two next centuries, was known tomb of the Emperor Lewis at Munich, as 'The Tombs.' (Register; and see * The tomb was injured by the work- Fuller's Church History, 1621.) men engaged on Wolfe's monument. 4 The following epitaph, not on his (Gent. Mag.) tomb, records his end : 192 THE MONUMENTS question thrice repeated by one who found him standing with folded arms and eyes riveted on the fourth knight, whose lips seem just opening to address the bystander. 1 By a natural The verea affinity, the tomb of Sir Francis Vere drew after it, ofercSos. a century later, the last of his descendants into the same vault Aubrey de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford, and MONUMENT TO SIR FRANCIS VERE. afterwards the Beauclerk family, through the marriage of the Duke of St. Albans with his daughter and heiress, Diana de sir George Vere. 2 Close beside is Sir George Holies, his kinsman Holies, 1626. an( j comra( j e m arms on a monument as far removed 1 Cunningham's Handbook, p. 42. This same story is told of the figure on the N.W. corner of the Norris tomb. (Life of Nollekens, ii. p. 86.) 2 See Chapter III. CHAP. iv. OF ELIZABETHAN MAGNATES. 193 from mediaeval times as that of Sir Francis Vere draws near to them. The tall statue stands, not, like that of Vere, modestly apart from the wall, but on the site of the altar once dedicated to the Confessor's favourite saint the first in the Abbey that stands erect ; the first that wears, not the costume of the time, but that of a Eoman general; the first monument which, in its sculpture, reproduces the events in which the hero was engaged the Battle of Nieuport. He, like Vere, attracted to the spot his later descendants ; and for the sake of the neigh- bourhood of his own and his wife's ancestors a hundred years later, rose the gigantic monument of John Holies, Duke of Newcastle, 1 who lies at the feet of his illustrious namesake. 2 Deeper yet into these chapels the Flemish trophies penetrate. Against the wall, which must have held the altar of the Chapel De Burgh, ^ St. Andrew, is the mural tablet of John de Burgh, who fell in boarding a Spanish ship ; and in front of it rises a monument, if less beautiful than that of Vere, yet of more stirring interest, and equally connected with the wars in that old 'cockpit of Europe.' We have seen that on the other side of the Abbey was interred Catherine Knollys, the faithful attendant of Anne Boleyn. We now come to a con- tinuation of the same mark of respect on the part of Elizabeth not often shown, it is said for those who had been steadfast to her mother's cause, and, curiously enough, to a house with which the family of Knollys was in constant strife. Sir Francis Knollys, the husband of Catherine Carey, and Treasurer of the Queen's Household, 3 perhaps from their neighbourhood in Thexorris Oxfordshire, was a deadly rival to Henry Norris. family. < Queen Elizabeth loved the Knollyses for themselves ; ' the Norrises for themselves and herself. The Norrises got ' more honour abroad ; the Knollyses more profit at home, con- ' tinuing constantly at court ; and no wonder, if they were the ' warmest who sate next the fire.' Henry Norris was the son of that unhappy man who, alone of all those who perished 1 Dart, ii. 2. Russell (see p. 184). The like sentiment 2 Another Holies Francis, son of the of a premature death probably caused Earl of Clare, who died at the age of this twin-like companionship. The Francis eighteen, on his return from close of his epitaph deserves notice : Holies, 1622. the Flemish war a few years Man's life is measured by his work, not days, later sits, like his namesake, in Roman No aged sloth, but active youth, hath praise, costume in St. Edmund's Chapel, ' a For the Holies monuments the sculptor, ' figure of most antique simplicity and Stone, received respectively 100 and 'beauty.' (Horace Walpole.) His pedes- 50 from Lord Clare. (Walpole's tal was copied from that on which, in a Anecdotes of Painting, ii. 59.) similar attitude, close by, sits Elizabeth 3 jg^ 'Britannica. 194 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. on the scaffold with Anne Boleyn, denied or was silent as to her guilt. Elizabeth, it is believed, expressed her gratitude for the chivalry of the father by her favour to the son. He was further endeared to her by the affection she had for his wife, Margaret, daughter of Lord William of Thame, whom, from her swarthy complexion, the Queen called ' her own Henry Lord ' crow.' * By his marriage with Margaret, Henry lecS' Norris inherited Kycote in Oxfordshire, where, ac- cording to his expressed intention, the local tradition main- tains that he is buried. 2 The monument in the Abbey, how- ever, is a tribute, ' by their kindred, not only to himself, but ' to the noble acts, the valour, and high worth of that right ' valiant and warlike progeny of his a brood of martial - 4 spirited men, as the Netherlands, Portugal, Little Bretagne, ' and Ireland can testify.' 3 William, John, Thomas, Henry, Maximilian, and Edward, are all represented on the tomb, pro- bably actual likenesses. All, except John 4 and Edward, fell John Norris i n Da ^le. John died of vexation at losing the Lord 1598. ' Lieutenancy of Ireland, and the Queen, to whose hardness he owed his neglect, repaired the wrong too late, by one of those stately letters, which she only could write, consol- ing ' my own crow ' for the loss of her son. 5 ' Though nothing ' more consolatory and pathetical could be written from a ' Prince, yet the death of the son went so near the heart of the ' Earl, his ancient father, that he died soon after.' Edward Edward alone survived his father and brothers; and, accord- Noms, 1604. ingly, he alone is represented, not, as the others, in an attitude of prayer, but looking cheerfully upwards. ' They ' were men of haughty courage, and of great experience in the ' conduct of military affairs ; and, to speak in the character ' of their merit, they were persons of such renown and worth, ' as future time must, out of duty, owe them the debt of hon- ' ourable memory.' 6 That honourable memory has long ago perished from the minds of men; but still, as preserved in this monument, 7 it well closes the glories of the Elizabethan court and camp in the Abbey. 8 1 Fuller's Worthies, iii. 16, 17. But s Fuller's Worthies, iii. 8, who gives rather from the Norris crest, a raven. the letter. 2 Dart, ii. 7. Neale (ii. 198) says 6 Camden, in Neale, ii. 199. that he was interred here. His daugh- 7 From this monument the Chapel ter and sole heiress, Elizabeth, is buried was called, in the next century (see in St. Nicholas's Chapel. (Register, Register, Aug. 16, 1722; Aug. 8, Oct. November 28, 1645.) 24, 1725), ' Norm's Chapel ; ' as now, ' Camden, in Neale, ii. 195. 'Chanel? 6 reaS n> ^ ' Nightingale 4 See Froude, xi. 108, 128, 184. Here also lie Sir John Burrough, CHAP. iv. OF THE COUKT OF JAMES I. 195 One other monument of the wars of those times, though of a comparatively unknown warrior, and located in what must then have been an obscure and solitary place in the South Aisle of the Choir, carries us to a wider field. ' To the glory ' of the Lord of Hosts, 1 here resteth Sir Eichard Bingham, ' Knight, who fought not only in Scotland and Ireland, but in sir Richard ' ^ ne ^ e ^ Candy under the Venetians, at Cabo ^98 ? a a d ' Chrio, and the famous Battaile of Lepanto against ' the Turks ; in the civil wars of Trance ; in the ' Netherlands, and at Smerwich, 2 where the Romans and Irish ' were vanquished.' Not far off is the monument of William Thynne, coeval with the rise of the great house of which his brother was the wir.iam founder ; and by his long life covering the whole aieTort. the Restoration ; and in the vault lies the beautiful Duchess of Eichmond, widow of the last of the race, ancestress of the Stuarts of Blantyre, whose effigy was, by her own special request, placed close by after her death, ' as well ' done in wax as could be,' ' under crown-glass and none ' other,' ' in the robes she wore at the coronation of Queen Anne, and with a parrot which had ' lived with her Grace for ' forty years, and survived her only a few days.' The parrot confirms the allusion of Pope to 'the famous Duchess, who ' would ' Die, and endow a college or a cat.' 2 The shadows of the reign of Charles I. rested heavily on the tombs of the next generation. First come those which (OII.IUF gather round the great favourite of the two first CHAULES I. The vimers Stuart reigns George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, family. < Steenie.' ' Never any man in any age, nor, I believe, ' in any country or nation, rose in so short a time to so much ' greatness of honour, fame, and fortune, upon no other advan- ' tage or recommendation than the beauty and gracefulness of ' his person.' 3 This tragical rise we trace both in the tombs of his parents and of himself. In the Chapel of St. Nicholas sir George ^ es ^ ie Leicestershire squire, Sir George Villiers, with viiiiers.1605. fag se cond wife, Mary Beaumont, to whom, at his own early death, he left the handsome boy, and by whose ' singular ' care and affection the youth was trained in those accomplish- ' ments which befitted his natural grace.' 4 Each of the two stately figures which lie on that tomb, carved by the hand of the famous sculptor, Nicholas Stone, 5 lives in the pages of Clarendon, as he follows the fortunes of their son. That stiff burly knight, his grandmother, Lady Margaret. (See buried a dog in Tothill Fields in ridi- Chapter III.) cule of the ceremony, saying, ' the soul 1 See Note at the end of the Chapter. ' of a dog was as good as that of a Scot.' 2 Pope's Moral Essays, Epistle iii. On that occasion the communion cloth, 96, with his own note and Wharton's two copes, and Prince Henry's robes, comment (vol. iii. p. 245). were stolen from the Abbey. (State 3 Clarendon, i. 16. Westminster Papers, Domestic, James I., vol. Ixxxvi. witnessed a singular proof of the Court No. 132.) Grimes's grave is unknown, affection and the popular hatred for Vil- 4 Clarendon, i. 17. liers. One of his favourites, Sir John 3 He received i'oCOfor it. Walpole's Grimes, had a pompous funeral in the Anecdotes, ii. 61. Abbey. The butchers of King Street 198 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IV. in his plated armour and trunk breeches, is ' the man, of a very ' venerable aspect,' who (more than twenty years after his death) drew the bed- curtains of the officer of the King's wardrobe, at midnight, ' and, fixing his eyes upon him, asked PLAN OF THE BUCKINGHAM (VILLIEBS) VAULT IN HENBY VII. 's CHAPEL. No. 1. is the shaped leaden coffin of Lord Francis Villiers (1648). Under it are two other leaden coffins of the common shape. The wooden cases are wholly absent. Over the legs of these is a small leaden coffin of a child, Lord Charles Villiers (1626). No. 2. Mary, Duchess of Buckingham, (1704). No. 3. Charles Hamilton, Earl of Sel- kirk (1739). No. 4. Catherine, Countess Grandison, (1725-6). No. 5. General William Steuart (1726). No. 6. A shaped leaden coffin of a child (no inscription). [Doubtless (from the Register) Philip Feilding, third son to William, Earl of Denbigh, buried Jan. 19, 1627-8.] No. 7. A cubical chest, plated with an Earl's coronet and monogram. No. 10. A stone under the floor, re- movable to enter the vault. No. 11. The steps under the stone. ' him if he knew him ; ' and when ' the poor man, half dead ' with fear and apprehension,' having at last ' called to his ' memory the presence of Sir George Villiers, and the very ' clothes he used to wear, in which at that time he seemed to CHAP. iv. OF THE COURT OF CHARLES I. 199 * be habited,' answered ' that he thought him to be that ' person ' then ensued the warning, thrice repeated, and con- veyed with difficulty, to the Duke his son, whose colour changed as he heard it ; and he swore that that knowledge could come ' only by the Devil, for that those particulars were known only to ' himself and to one person more, who he was sure would never ' speak of it.' l And that lady, with broad full face and flow- countess of ing ermine mantle, created Countess of Buckingham in ham, buried her own right, and professing to be ' descended from April 21 1632. ' five of the most powerful kings of Europe by so many ' direct descents,' 2 is the mother towards whom the Duke ' had ever a most profound reverence,' in whose behalf, when he thought that she had suffered a neglect from Henrietta Maria, he came into the Queen's ' chamber in much passion,' and told her ' she should repent of it,' * and that there had been ' Queens in England who had lost their heads.' 3 She it was who warned the Lord-Keeper (Williams) 'that St. David's * (Laud) was the man that did undermine him with her son, * and would undermine any man, that himself might rise.' 4 She too it was with whom, after the Duke had received the fatal warning, he * was shut up for the space of two or three ' hours, the noise of their discourse frequently reaching the * ears of those who attended in the next rooms : and when the * Duke left her, his countenance appeared full of trouble, with ' a mixture of anger, never before observed in him, in any con- ' versation with her ; ' and she, * at the Duke's leaving her, ' was found overwhelmed in tears, and in the highest agony ' imaginable.' 5 Within six months she received the news of the Duke's 1 Clarendon, i. 74, 78. IPSIS CALENDIS MAII, SED DIES ILLI * Epitaph. MAGIS PKOPKIE NATALIS BEAT IDEM 3 Clarendon, i. 69. QUI SANCTIS DEI, DIE SCILICET IN 4 Bacon's Life, xvi. 368. QUO HAS SUAS TEBKENAS SUPER. s Clarendon, i. 78, 79. In her grave INDUVIAS FELICITER POSUIT, ANNO were interred two granddaughters and JET : SUM LXII. xrx. APRIL. FERIA two great-grandsons of the Feilding QUINTA A.D. MDCXXXTI. HAEC A ME. family. William, Earl of Denbigh, had EDOCTUS ABI INSTRUCTIOK ET AVE married her daughter. (Burial Regis- MARIA DICAS UNUM. It seems to ter, 1638, 1640, 1641.) On opening imply the Roman Catholic belief the vault in 1878 there was found on either of the Countess or her sur- the plate of her coffin the following vivors, and is curious in connection inscription : * I. H. S. REPERTOR with Laud. Possibly it even hints at QUISQUIS ES, LAMINA Huic LOCULO the Abbey falling into the hands of the INFIXA QUAM HospiTEM LIGNEUS Roman Catholics. An imperfect copy HABEAT FAUCIS TE EDocxuM voLo. of this inscription was made in the [Then follows a description of her, Burial Register, on opening the vault resembling her epitaph.] NATA EBAT in 1719. 200 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. murder, and ' seemed not in the least degree surprised ; ' but oeorge heard it as if she had foreseen it, ' nor did afterwards Duke"?" ' express such a degree of sorrow as was expected Bucking- < f rom guc h a mother for the loss of such a son.' l ham, died Aug. 23, u the thrill of that fall, at least in the royal circle, tmrted bept. ^ is, 1628. < the lively regret, such as never Prince had expressed ' for the loss of a servant,' after his first cold reception of the news had passed away, are well represented in his tomb 2 in the north side of the central aisle of Henry VII. 's Chapel His tomb. * / . the first intrusion of any person not of royal lineage into that mausoleum of Princes. No higher place could well be given ; and though the popular distrust was so strong as to curtail the funeral itself within the smallest possible dimensions, 3 the deep sensation in his own circle is shown by the inscription on his coffin, which records how he had been the ' singular ' favourite of two Kings, and was cut off by a nefarious Hismonn- ' parricide,' 4 and yet more by the elaborate monument mentis, erected by his widow, and completed in 1633. We seem to be present in the Court of Charles as we look at its fantastic ornaments (' Fame even bursting herself, and trumpets ' to tell the news of his so sudden fall ') and its pompous in- scriptions, calling each State in Europe severally to attest the several virtues of this ' Enigma of the World.' It corresponds to the blasphemous comparison in which the grave Sir Edward Coke likened him to Our Saviour, and to Clarendon's more measured verdict on that ' ascent so quick, that it seemed ' rather a flight than a growth ; ' ' such a darling of fortune, ' that he was at the top before he was well seen at the bottom : ' his ambition rather found at last' than brought there, as if a ' garment necessary for that air ; no more in his power to be ' without promotion, and titles, and wealth, than for a healthy ' man to sit in the sun in the brightest dogdays, and remain ' without any warmth.' 5 There is a lesser interest attaching to the tomb, as indi- 1 Clarendon, i. 79. See Appendix. His wife, Lady Cathe- 2 He had already designed the place rine Manners, whose effigy lies by his for his family. His son Charles side, is not buried here : Marquis Buckingham, Earl of Coven- ' When Manners' name with Yilliers' try, was buried March 17, 1626-7, ' in a joined I see, ' little chapel on the north side of King How do I reverence your nobility.' ' Henry VII.'s monument ; ' and on Jan. (Cowley.) 19, 1627-8, his nephew, Philip Feilding, 3 Keepe, p. 101. the third son to William Earl of Den- 4 See Appendix. bigh, by the Duke's sister. (Register.) s Clarendon, i. 61, 62. CHAP. iv. OF THE COURT OF CHARLES I. 201 eating the ecclesiastical tastes and sentiments of that age. He, the friend of Laud, the pillar of the High Church party, nevertheless from his tomb asserts and reasserts his claim to the name in our own time by their followers so vehemently repudiated of ' Protestant ; ' and the allegorical figures are the first wanton intruders into the imagery (now so dear to the school of Laud) which adorns that ancient Chapel. Within the same vault (if we may thus far anticipate the course of history) repose in two coffins, placed upon and beneath that of the murdered Duke, his two sons, George and Francis, who appear as blooming boys side by side on their father's monument above, as they do in Vandyke's famous picture at Lora Francis Windsor. Francis, born after his father's death, was Vilhers, died Jmy r, the first to follow, ' a youth of rare beauty and come- buned July . ' liness l of person,' who fell at the battle of Kingston, which had been precipitated by his own and his brother's rashness. His body was ' brought from thence by water to ' York Place, in the Strand, and deposited in his father's vault ' in the Abbey, with an inscription, which it is pity should * be buried with him.' 2 The coffin of Francis, with that of his brother Charles, is placed above his father's remains. Beneath them lies the last surviving successor in the dukedom, George George Villiers, the profligate courtier of Charles II. the sTconTouke ' zimr i ' f Dryden, the rival of ' Peveril of the Peak ; ' hL^atod*" where Pope's famous though fictitious description of buried June ^ s miserable deathbed is recalled to us, as on the decayed coffin-plate we dimly trace the record of his George and Garter ' Periscelidis eques.' 3 Two other magnates of that age rest in the Abbey, who must have regarded the fall of Buckingham with feelings some- what different from those of Charles and Laud. In the Chapel of St. Benedict, second of the secular monuments which fill its narrow space, and similar to that of Buckingham's parents, is the tomb of Lord Middlesex, erected to him by his wife, who rests by his side, in ' the calm haven which he has reached ' after the stormy voyage of his long life.' 4 Lionel Cranfield, ' though extracted from a gentleman's family, had been bred ' in the City, and, being a man of great wit and understanding 1 Clarendon, vi. 96. the same as that found on the coffin in - Bryan Fairfax's Life of the Duke 1866 ; and records his extraordinary of BuckingJuim, p. 24. The inscription beauty and his nine wounds. which Fairfax gives is almost exactly a See Appendix. 4 Epitaph. 202 THE MONUMENTS N. "Countess of Hertford VAbbot Curtlinyton 1 1 T >< o fc ? ! I 3 s 1 1 O tx^ OS i lAbp. Spot ti sir code w. CHAPEL OF ST. BEKEDICT. CHAP. iv. OF THE COUET OF CHARLES I. 203 ' in all the mysteries of trade, had found means to work him- cranfieid, ' 8e ^ m * tne favour of the Duke of Buckingham ; ' l MiliduLex, anc ^ was accordingly, ' with wonderful expedition,' iti45. through various lesser offices, raised to the highest financial post of Lord High Treasurer. As by his business- like habits he rose to power, so by them he was led to thwart his patron's extravagance ; and hence the celebrated impeach- ment by which he fell, and which called forth the prophetic remonstrance of King James, in a scene which must have sug- gested many a page in the ' Fortunes of Nigel ' : ' By God, Stenny ' [the King said to the Duke in much choler] 4 you are a fool, and will shortly repent this folly, and will find that, ' in this fit of popularity, you are making a rod, with which you will ' be scourged yourself ! ' And turning in some anger to the Prince, told him, ' That he would live to have his belly full of Parliament ' impeachments : and when I shall be dead, you will have too much 1 cause to remember how much you have contributed to the weakening ' of the crown.' 2 On the other side of the Abbey, in St. Paul's Chapel, is Sir Francis (afterwards Lord) Cottington. 3 Look at his face, as Lord cot- ne lift 8 himself up on his elbow ; and read Clarendon's tiu g tou,i652. description of his interview's with Buckingham, with James I., with Laud, and with Charles II., and think of the quaint caustic humour which he must have diffused through those three strange English reigns, and of the Spanish Court, in which he spent his early youth and his extreme age : A very wise man, by the great and long experience he had in business of all kinds ; and by his natural temper, which was not liable tp any transport of anger, or any other passion, but could bear con- tradiction, and even reproach, without being moved, or put out of bis way ; for he was very steady in pursuing what he proposed to himself, and bad a courage not to be frighted with any opposition. . . . He was of an excellent humour and very easy to live with : and, under a grave countenance, covered the most of mirth, and caused more than any man of the most pleasant disposition. He never used anybody ill, but used many very well for whom be had no regard : bis greatest fault was, that he could dissemble, and make men believe that lie loved them very well, when he cared not for them. He had not very 1 Clarendon, i. 39. He was owner memory of his wife (1633), whose bust of Knole, where his portrait still exists. is the work of Hubert le Sueur. The 2 Ibid. i. 41. lower part is by ' the one-eyed Italian 3 The upper part of the tornb was ' Fanelli.' Calendars of State Papers erected, during his lifetime, to the (Domestic), 1634, Preface, p. xlii. 204 THE 3IOXUMEXTS CHAP. iv. tender affections, nor bowels apt to yearn at all objects which deserved compassion ; he was heartily weary of the world, and no man was more willing to die ; which is an argument that he had peace of con- science. He left behind him a greater esteem of his parts than love to his person. 1 When Charles I. wished to employ torture after the death of Buckingham, the answer that it was unlawful was conveyed sirThos. to him by Sir Thomas Eichardson, who was known less. ' as the ' jeering Lord Chief Justice.' 2 "When, on one occasion, he came out from being reprimanded by Laud, he declared that ' the lawn sleeves had almost choked him.' When, on another occasion, he condemned Prynne, he said, ' Let him have the Book of Martyrs to amuse him.' 3 He is buried in the north aisle of the Choir, under his monument. The dragon's teeth which had been sown in the lives of the statesmen on whose graves we have just trodden, bore their natural harvest in the lives of those whose graves we have to tread immediately afterwards. Close by the tomb of his ancestor, Lord Hunsdon, in the Chapel of St. John, is the Thomas tablet to Thomas Gary the one memorial in the cary, lesi. Abbey which speaks of the death of Charles I., whose attendant he was, and whose monument represents him as dying a second death fourteen years afterwards, in the year in which the execution of his master took place. 4 Then comes the period, which, more than any other, indi- cates the strong hold which the Abbey had laid on the mind THE u^e. of the whole nation ; when not even the excess of THE C-UM- ' Puritan zeal, or the sternness of Republican princi- TH - pies, could extinguish in the statesmen of the Com- monwealth the longing to be buried in the Royal Monastery. 5 Pym, the chief of the Parliamentary leaders, was the first. He died at Derby House, close by, in Canon Row, an official pym, died residence of members of Parliament. Whilst at buried Dec. Oxford there was a 'great feast, and great prepara- io, 1643. t tions made for bonfires that night, for that they 1 Clarendon, vi. 465, 467. His 3 See Toss's Judges, vi. 359-362. body was brought from Valladolid, 4 This appears by comparing the and, though he died a Roman Catholic, date of the plate on the coSin (dis- \vas interred in the Abbey. The epi- covered in 1879), with the inflated taph by his son is twice inaccurate. It inscription on the monument, was not under Charles but James, that * Here, as elsewhere, the graves of his career began in Spain ; and he died, the men of letters are reserved for the not at the age of 74, but at 77. consideration of Poets' Corner. * See Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. 10. CHAP. iv. OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 205 ' heard that Master Pym was dead,' the House of Commons, by a respect hitherto without precedent, ordered that his body should be ' interred in Westminster Abbey, without any charge ' for breaking open the ground there, and a monument be ' prepared for him at the charge of the Commonwealth.' rr . The funeral of ' King Pym,' as he was called, was His funeral. B * celebrated, worthily of such a name, with ' wonderful ' pomp and magnificence, in that place where the bones of our ' English kings and princes are committed to their rest.' 1 The body, followed by his two sons, was carried from Derby House on . the shoulders of the ten chief gentlemen of the House of Commons, and was accompanied by both Houses of Parliament, and by the Assembly of Divines, then sitting in the Jerusalem Chamber. 2 He was laid at the entrance of the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, under the gravestone of John Windsor. The funeral sermon was preached by Stephen Marshall, on the words (Micah vii. 1, 2) ' Woe is me ! for the ' good man is perished out of the earth.' The grand stickler for Parliamentary usage was buried in a grand Parliamentary fashion None can completely Pym lament, But something like a Parliament, The public sorrow of a State Is but a brief commensurate ; We must enacted passions have, And laws for weeping at his grave. 3 Pym's grave became the point of attraction for the next few years. Close beside him was laid Sir William Strode, with sir wiiiiam him one of the 'Five members,' and ' from his fury' Robert known as ' the Parliament driver.' Within the chapel KarZt'iSex, lies Eobert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the Parliamen- aTieiG 00 *' tary general. The critical moment of his death, and his position as a possible mediator between the contending parties, gave a peculiar importance to his funeral. It was made by the Independents ' a golden bridge for a departing ' enemy.' The dead heroes of the Abbey were called to greet his approach- How the ghosts throng to see tlieir great new guest Talbot, Vere, Norris, Williams and the rest ! 1 Clarendon, iv. 436. Forster's Statesmen, ii. 299, from which 2 See Chapter VI. the above details are taken. 3 Mercurius Britannicus, quoted in 206 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. The sermon was preached by the Presbyterian minister, Dr. Vines, who compared him to Abner. Its title was taken from 'the hearse,' which was unusually splendid, and was placed ' where the Communion Table stood.' But in the night, by some ' rude vindictive fellows who got into the church,' variously suspected to be Cavaliers, or Independents, the head of the effigy was broken, the buff coat which he had worn at Edgehill was slit, the scarlet breeches were cut, the white boots slashed, and the sword taken away. 1 The same rough hands, in passing, defaced the monument of Camden. In consequence the hearse was removed, and, as the peculiar feeling of the moment passed, 2 there was no fulfilment of the intention of moving the body to a grander situation, in Henry VII.'s Chapel, where (said the preacher) there ' should be such * a squadron-monument, as will have no brother in England, ' till the time do come (and I wish it may be long first) that ' the renowned and most excellent champion that now governs ' the sword of England shall lay his bones by him.' 3 This wish, thus early expressed for Cromwell, was, as we have seen, realised ; and to that royal burial-place, as if in pre- paration, the Parliamentary funerals henceforth converged. In St. John's Chapel, 4 indeed, with Strode and Essex, was laid the fierce Independent, Edward Popham, dis- i65i. ' tinguished both by sea and land. But in Henry VII.'s Chapel, at the head of Elizabeth's tomb, was magnifi- cently buried the learned Isaac Dorislaus, advocate s, ^ the King's trial. Under the Commonwealth he buried June was ambassador at the Hague, where he was assassi- nated * one evening, by certain highflying Royalist cut-throats, ' Scotch most of them ; a man of heavy, deep-wrinkled, ' elephantine countenance, pressed down with the labours of ' life and law. The good ugly man here found his quietus.' 5 In the same vault probably which contained the Protector 1 In Dulwich Gallery there was long crozier was still there. (Camden.) possessed a portrait of ' the old man This disposes of the various conjectures ' who demolished with an axe the in Neale, ii. 185. (See Chapter V.) ' monument of the Earl of Essex, in 3 These particulars are taken from ' Westminster Abbey.' the Funeral Sermon, the Elegy, the 2 His grave was in St. John's Chapel, Programme of the Funeral, the Perfect by the right side of the Earl of Exeter's Relation, and the Life of Essex, all monument (Register), in a vault occu- published at the time. See also Heath's pied by an Abbot, whose crozier was Chronicle, p. 125, who mistakes the still perfect. (Perfect Relation of position of the hearse. Essex's Funeral.) In 1879, after a long * Dart, ii. 145 ; Kennett, p. 537. search, the coffin of Essex was discovered s Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 311; Ken- as indicated. The fragment of the nett's Register, p. 536. CHAP. iv. OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 207 and his family was deposited Ireton, his son-in-law, with an ireton, died honour the more remarkable, from the circumstance ac5o' ; buried that his death took place at a distance. His body March 6, 1J( - T t i it i(i5o-i. was brought trom Limerick, where he had died of the plague in the camp, and lay in state at Somerset House, 1 with the hatchment bearing the motto, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which the Cavaliers interpreted, ' It is good for his coun- ' try that he should die.' 2 Evelyn watched the procession pass ' in a very solemn manner.' Cromwell was chief mourner. 3 His obsequies were honoured by a sermon from the celebrated Puritan Dean of Christchurch, John Owen, on the ' Labouring ' Saint's Dismission to rest.' 4 He must have been no common man to have evoked so grave and pathetic an eulogy : ' The ' name of God was as land in every storm, in the discovery ' whereof he had as happy an eye, at the greatest seeming ' distance, when the clouds were blackest and the waves were ' highest, as any.' 5 Next followed Colonel Deane, the companion of Popham Deane,june au & Blake ; Colonel Mackworth, one of Cromwell's Mackworth, Council ; Sir William Constable, and near to him io54. se con-' General Worsley, 6 ' Oliver's great and rising favour- 2i? b i655 June ite,' who had charge of the Speaker's mace when JSJSf ' that bauble ' was taken from the table of the Long 1656. Parliament. After that, ' in a vault built for the purpose,' 7 was laid the Blake first of our naval heroes, whose name has been thought buried 1657.- wor thy, in the most stirring of our maritime war- songs, 9 to be placed by the side of Nelson. Blake [says a great but unwilling witness 10 ] was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be 1 Noble, i. 63. A magniloquent rial in the Eegister. He died in St. epitaph, printed at the expense of James's Palace (Thurloe State Papers, Hugh Peters, was found amongst the v. p. 122), where, in the Chapel Royal, papers of a descendant of Ireton's, in two of his children were buried, which his victories are described as 7 Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, so wonderful, ' ut dixisses Deum pro p. 128. ' Iretono militasse, Iretonum pro Deo.' 8 His death is variously reported (Crull, Appendix, p. 28.) Aug. 14, 17, 27, but his will was 2 Dart, ii. 143. proved Aug. 20. His funeral was ar- 3 Evelyn, ii. 48. ranged on the model of that of Colonel 4 Owen's Works, xv. 452. Deane. Ibid. xv. 458. Where Blake and mighty Nelson 6 Heath's Chronicle, p. 381. His- fell tory of Birch Chapel in Manchester Your manl heartg ^ Parish, pp. 39-51, by the Rev. J. Booker There is no entry of his bu- 10 Clarendon, vii. 213, 215-217. 208 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. attained in less time than was imagined ; and despised those rules which had been long in practice, to keep his ship and his men out of danger ; which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come home safe again. He was the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could rarely be hurt by them. He was the first that infused that proportion of courage into the seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do if they were resolved ; and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water ; and, though he hath been very well imitated and followed, he was the first that gave the example of that kind of naval courage and bold and resolute achievements. It was after his last action with the Spaniards ' which^ with ' all its circumstances, was very wonderful, and will never be ' forgotten in Spain and the Canaries ' that Blake on his re- turn ' sickened, and in the very entrance of the fleet into the ' Sound of Plymouth, expired.' He wanted no pomp of funeral when he was dead, Cromwell caus- ing him to be brought up by land to London in all the state that could Blake's b e ; an ^ t encourage his officers to venture their lives, that funeral. they might be pompously buried, he was, with all the solemnity possible, and at the charge of the public, interred in Harry the Seventh's Chapel, among the monuments of the Kings. 1 This is the first distinct claim of a burial in Westminster Abbey as an incentive to heroic achievements, and it came well through the ruler from whose reign ' the maritime glory ' of the Empire may first be traced in a track of continuous ' light.' 2 Four days before Cromwell, died Denis Bond, of the Council, in the beginning of that terrific storm which caused the report that the Devil was coming, and that Cromwell, not being pre- pared, had given bond for his appearance, 3 and he was probably interred in Henry VII.'s Chapel. 4 1 Clarendon, vii. 215. His dear (1645) ; close to Lord Norris's tomb, friend, General Lambert, rode in the Colonel Meldrum (1644) ; on the procession from the landing place, north side of the Confessor's Chapel, (Campbell's Admirals, ii. 126.) Humphrey Salwey (December 20, Hallam's Const. Hist. ii. 356. 1652) ; on its south side, Thomas 9 To these may be added from the Haselrig (October 30, 1651) ; the poet Eegister, and from the warrant in May, and the preachers Twiss, Strong, Nichols's Collect, viii. 153 ( under and Marshall (1646-55). See Chapter the Choristers' seats in the Choir) III. Colonel Boscawen and Colonel Carter 4 Kennctt's licgister, p. 536. CHAP. IY. OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 209 Last of all came Bradshaw, who died in the short interval of Eichard Cromwell's Protectorate, and was interred from the Bnvuhaw, Deanery, which had been assigned to him as Lord- NOY. 8,1659. President O f the High Court of Justice. 1 He was laid, doubtless, in the same vault as his wife, 2 ' in a superb ' tomb amongst the kings.' 3 The funeral sermon was preached by his favourite Independent pastor, Eowe, on Isaiah Ivii. 1. All these were disinterred at the Eestoration. The fate of Cromwell's remains, which was shared equally by those of Bradshaw and Ireton, we have already seen. 4 For the rest, the Disinter. King sent an order to the Dean of Westminster, to magnates of take up the bodies of all such persons as had been nionwoalth, unwarrantably buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel or the iee'i! ' Abbey, since the year 1641, and to bury them in some place in the churchyard adjacent. 5 The order was carried out two days afterwards. All who were thus designated in num- ber twenty-one were exhumed, and reinterred in a pit dug at the back-door of one of the two prebendal houses 6 in St. Margaret's Churchyard, which then blocked up the north side of the Abbey, between the North Transept and the west end. Isaac Dorislaus perhaps from compunction at the manner of his death was laid in a grave somewhat apart. Seven only of those who had been laid in the Abbey by the seven ex- rulers of the Commonwealth escaped what Dr. John- ceptions. gon ca jj g ^ n - g < mean revenge.' Popham was indeed removed, but his body was conveyed to some family burial-place ; and his monument, by the inter- cession of his wife's friends (who had interest at monument. Court), was left in St. John's Chapel, on condition either of erasing the inscription, or turning it inwards. 7 Archbishop Ussher had been buried in state, at Cromwell's express desire, and at the cost of 200, paid by him. 8 When 1 Heath, p. 430. is now the green between the church - 2 See Nichols's Collect, viii. 153. y ard a nd the Abbey. According to * Evelyn, January 30, 1660-61. Jeale (Hist, of the Puritans, iv * ' 319), this ' work drew such a general bee Chapter 111. 'odium on the government, that a 5 The warrant is given verbatim in stop was put to any further proceed- Nichols's Collect, viii. 153. < ings.' The warrant, however, confines 6 Kennett's Register, p. 534. The the outrage to those who have been houses stood till February 17, 1738-39 named. (Chapter Book; see Chap. VI.), and 7 Dart, ii. 145; Crull, p. 140. It are to be seen in an old plan of the would seem from the state of the Precincts, and in Sandford's plan of monument that the inscription was the Procession at the Coronation of erased. James II. The back-yard was in what 8 Winstanley's Worthies, p. 476. P 210 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. the corpse approached London, it was met by the carriages Archbishop of all the persons of rank then in town. The clergy of London and its vicinity attended the hearse from Somerset House to the Abbey, where the concourse i", r i656 April of people was so great that a guard of soldiers was rendered necessary. This funeral was the only occasion on which the Liturgical Service was heard within the Abbey during the Commonwealth. The sermon was preached by Dr. Nicolas Bernard (formerly his chaplain, and then preacher at Gray's Inn), on the appropriate text, ' And Samuel died, and ' all Israel were gathered together ; ' l and the body was then deposited in St. Paul's Chapel, next to the monument of Sir James Fullerton, 2 his only instructor, whose quaint epitaph still attracts attention. The toleration of Cromwell in this instance was the more remarkable, because, in consequence of the Eoyalist plots, he had just issued a severe ordinance against all Episcopal ministers. The statesmen of Charles II. allowed the Archbishop to rest by his friend, but erected no memorial to mark the spot. Elizabeth Claypole escaped the general warrant, probably from her husband's favour with the Court ; 3 the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth perhaps from his rank ; Grace Scot, 4 wife of the regicide Colonel Scot, perhaps from her obscurity; George Wild, the brother of John Wild, M.P., Lord scot, 1645-e. Chief Baron of the Exchequer under the p ar ii amen t (' the first judge that hanged a man for treason for adhering to ' his Prince ') ; 5 and General Worsley. With this violent extirpation of the illustrious dead the period of the Kestoration forces its way into the Abbey. But its traces are not merely destructive. The funerals of the great chiefs of the Eestoration George Monk, Duke of Albemarle ; Edward Montague, Earl of 6 Sand- wich ; James Butler, Duke of Ormond followed the precedent He erroneously states that Ussher was band was executed in 1660. She lies buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel. close by in the vault of her own family, 1 Elrington's Life of Ussher, p. the Mauleverers. (See Register 1652- 279. 53, 1675, 1687, 1689, 1713.) 2 Sir James Fullerton was buried S He died Jan - 15 ' and was buried near the steps ascending to King Henry near St - Paul 's Chapel door, Jan. 21, VII.'s Chapel, Jan. 3, 1630-31. (Be- 1649-50. (Register.) The inscription gi s ter \ can still be read. ' 3 See Chapter III. -. ' The E * rl of Sandwich in Pepys's Diary, as his chief, is always ' My 4 Her touching monument is in the ' lord.' For the programme of his fu- North Transept, 1645-46. Her hus- neral see Pepys's Correspondence, v. OF THE KESTOEATION. 211 29, 1670. Montague, Earl of Sandwich, July 3, 1672. set by the interment of the Duke of Buckingham in the reign THE CHIEFS f Charles I., and of the Parliamentary leaders under sTouTno^-?" the Commonwealth. They were all buried amongst Monk, cuke tne Kings in the Chapel of Henry VII. At the marie^di-d nea ^ ^ Q u een Elizabeth's tomb, in a small vault, buried April probably that from which Dorislaus had been ejected, Monk was laid with Montague, ' it being thought ' reasonable that those two great personages should < no ^ ^ e separated after death.' l Monk, who died at his lodgings in "Whitehall, lay in state at Somerset House, and then, ' by the King's orders, with all respect imaginable, 1670. A 1. Duke of Albemarle, General Monk. A 2. Duchess of Albemarle. 1719. A 3. Joseph Addison. 1720. A 4. James Craggs. 1716. B 1. George Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland. B 2. (The plate is absent.) Catherine, Duchess of Northumberland, his first wife. 1708. c 1. Elizabeth, Lady Stanhope. 1715. c 2. Earl of Halifax. D 1. (Not examined.) 1743. D 2. Frances, Lady Carteret. 1763. D 3. John, Earl of Granville. 1738. E 1. Mary, second Duchess of Northumberland. 1744. E 2. Grace, Countess Granville. 1734. F 1. Elizabeth, second Duchess of Albemarle. 1745. F 2. Sophia, Countess of Gran- ville. PLAN OF THE VAULT OF GENERAL MONK, IN THE NORTH AISLE OF HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL. (Examined Sept. 27, 1867.) ' was brought in a long procession to the Abbey.' The ' last ' person named in the Gazette ' as attending was ' Ensign ' Churchill,' who, after a yet more glorious career, was to be 484. Evelyn was present. (Memoirs, ii. 372.) 1 Crull, p. 107. In the interval be- tween Monk's death and funeral his wife died, and was buriad in the same vault, February 28, 1669-70. 'This ' twain were loving in their lives, and 4 in their deaths they were not divided,' (Ward's Sermon, 29.) p 2 212 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. laid there himself. 1 Dolben (as Dean) officiated. 2 The next day a sermon was preached by Bishop Seth Ward, who had ' assisted in his last Christian offices, heard his last words and ' dying groan.' 3 Ormond, with his whole race, was deposited THK in the more august burial-place at the foot of Henry VAL^T? VII. which had but a few years before held Oliver Cromwell, which then received the offspring of Charles II. 's unlawful passions, and which henceforth became the general receptacle of most of the great nobles who died in London, and who lie there unmarked by any outward memorial. The first Eari of who was so interred was Ormond's own son, the Earl sotiesb. y of Ossory, 4 over whom he made the famous lament : ' Nothing else in the world could affect me so much ; but since ' I could bear the death of my great and good master, King ' Charles I., I can bear anything ; and though I am very ' sensible of the loss of such a son as Ossory was, yet I thank Duche?s of ' God my case is not quite so deplorable as he who juT^s*!' ' condoles with me, for I had much rather have my jame's ' dead son than his living one.' There his wife was of u orao^ e buried, on a yet sadder day ; and there his own body, Aug. 4, less. exile at Rouen, and laid in his family vault, but without a stone or name to mark the spot, at the foot of the steps to Henry YII.'s Chapel. 5 In St. Edmund's Chapel Biho P lies Nicholas Monk, 'the honest clergyman' who Mon h k 0l Dec undertook the journey to Scotland to broach the first design of the Eestoration to his brother the General, for whom he had always had ' a brotherly affection,' but who was sent back with such ' infinite reproaches and many oaths, ' that the poor man was glad when he was gone, and never had ' the courage after to undertake the like employment.' 6 His services, however, were not forgotten, and he was raised to the see of Hereford, and dying immediately afterwards was buried in the Abbey. The Duke, his brother, and all the Bishops followed. Evelyn was present. 7 But he also was left for sixty years to wait for a monument, which ultimately was erected by his last descendant, Christopher Eawlinson, in 1723. Two other prelates, like him, died immediately after the Eestoration. 1 ' If the general had been here, the Here was laid his mother (1661) and 'city had not been burned.' (Ward's his third son (1664-65), and afterwards Sermon, p. 30.) his grandson, Lord Cornbury (1723) 2 See Note on the Waxworks. (who ' represented ' Queen Anne, as 3 Campbell's Admirals, ii. 273. Governor of New York, by appearing 4 Thomas Blagg, who defended the at a levee in woman's robes). His Castle of Wallingford, and died Novem- niece, Anne Hyde, wife of Sir Ross ber 14, 1660, was buried on the 'north Carey, was buried on July 23, 1660, in ' side of the church.' Sir Thomas In- the centre of the Choir, with a quaint gram, Privy Councillor to Charles II., epitaph, commemorating this memor- \vho died Feb. 13, 1671-72, has a monu- able date. ment at the entrance of St. Nicholas's * Clarendon, vii. 383, 384. State Chapel. Papers, 1662. 5 The name was added in 1867. Evelyn, ii. 184. 214 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Close to Nicholas Monk, under a simple slab, lies Feme, Bishop Bishop f Chester, and Master of Trinity, who had attended March 25, Charles I., during his imprisonments, almost to the last, and ' whose only fault it was that he could not be Bishop ' angry.' Brian Duppa, Bishop, first of Salisbury, and ApAi 24, then of Winchester who had been with Charles I. at the same period, and had been tutor to Charles II. and James II. lies in the North Ambulatory, with a small Hismonu- monument, which recalls some of the chief points of mem. interest in his chequered life : how he had learned Hebrew, when at Westminster, from Lancelot Andrewes, then Dean ; how affectionately he had clung to Richmond, the spot where his education of Charles II. had been carried on ; how, RKI(;yoF after the Restoration, 1 he had there built the hospital, CHAKLES ii. w hi cn ne had vowed during his pupil's exile ; how there he died, almost in the arms of that same pupil, who came to see him a few hours before his death, and received his final blessing one hand on the King's head, the other raised to heaven. 2 In the wake of the mighty chiefs who lie in Henry VII. 's Chapel, are monuments to some of the lesser soldiers of that Eari of Mari- time. In the North Transept and its neighbourhood jn r ne u i g 4;' are nve victims of the Dutch war of 1665 viz., M^kerry, William Earl of Marlborough, Viscount Muskerry, Lord 19: ' Charles Lord Falmouth, Sir Edward Broughton, and sir William Berkeley. Of these, all fell in battle except Broughton, who 'received his death-wound at Berkeley, ' sea ' an( ^ ^ied here at home.' Berkeley, brother of Aug. wee. Lord Falmouth, was 'embalmed by the Hollanders, ' who had taken the ship when he was slain,' and ' there in 'Holland he lay dead in a sugar-chest for everybody to see, Hamilton, ' w ^ n n ^ 8 ^ a g standing up by him.' He was then K^ve/lu^ ' sent over by them, at the request and charge of his re- Ipt sp 2~ gge ' Cations.' 3 From the Dutch war of 1672 were brought, to the same North Aisle, Colonel Hamilton, Captain Le Neve, 4 and Sir Edward Spragge, 5 the naval favourite of James II., 1 Kennett, p. 650. Pepys's Diary, that of Lord Ligonier now is. A monu- July 29, 1660.' To Whitehall Chapel. ment of his namesake, Sir Thos. Duppa, ' Heard a cold sermon of the Bishop who outlived the dynasty he had served ' of Salisbury (Duppa), and the Com- (1694), is in the North Aisle. 1 munion did not please me ; they do 3 Register ; Pepys, June 16, 1666. ' so overdo that.' < Under the organ-loft. (Ibid.) 2 The monument originally was-where Campbell's Admirals, ii. 338. CHAP. iv. OF CHARLES II. 'S REIGN. 215 and the rival of Van Tromp, 1 whose untimely loss his enemy mourned with a chivalrous regret ' the love and delight of all * men, as well for his noble courage as for the gentle sweetness ' of his temper.' In the Nave, beside Le Neve's tablet, is the Harbordand joint monument to Sir Charles Harbord 2 and Clement 1672. ' Cottrell, ' to preserve and unite the memory of two ' faithful friends, who lost their lives at sea together, in the ' terrible fight off the Suffolk coast,' 3 'in which their Admiral, ' (Lord Sandwich) also perished.' Not far off is the monument Fairbome, of Sir Palmes Fairborne, 4 who fell as Governor of Tangiers, October 24, 1680 remarkable partly as a trace of that outpost of the British Empire, first cradle of our standing army partly from the inscription written by Dryden, containing, amongst specimens of his worst taste, some worthy of his best moods, describing the mysterious harmony which often pervades a remarkable career : His youth and age, his life and death combine As in some great and regular design, All of a piece throughout, and all divine : Still nearer lieav'n his virtues shone more bright, Like rising flames, expanding in their height. Others are curious, as showing the sense of instability which, in that inglorious reign, beset the mind of the nation, even in the heart of the metropolis : Ye sacred reliques ! which your marble keep, Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet sleep ; Discharge the trust which (when it was below) Fairborne 's undaunted soul did undergo, And be the town's Balladium 5 from the foe. Alive and dead these walls he will defend : Great actions great examples must attend. Three memorials remain of the calamitous vices of the 1 Campbell's Admirals, ii. 349, 350. ' whole and undefaced, in Westminster 2 There is a touching allusion in Sir ' Abbey Church, on the 28th day of Charles Harbord's will ' to the death of ' May, for ever, by the advice and 1 his dear son Sir Charles Harbord, ' direction of the Dean then for the ' which happened the 28th of May, ' time being.' (Communicated by ' 1672, being Whitson Tuesday, to Colonel Chester.) ' his great grief and sorrow, never to 3 Epitaph. ' be laid aside ; ' and he directed forty 4 His wife was buried here, 1694 ; shillings to be given to the poor (and an infant son had also been buried in himself, if he died in or near West- the Cloisters, 1678-79. (Register.) minster, to be buried) near to the monu- 5 So in the epitaph. ment, ' as long as it shall continue 216 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. period. Thomas Thynne, 'Torn of Ten Thousand,' 1 'the Thomas ' Western Issachar ' of Dryden's poems, lies not far buned 6 ' fr m hi 8 ancestor William, of happier fame. His i68i-2. monument, like the nearly contemporary one of Arch- bishop Sharpe at St. Andrews, represents his murder, in his coach in Pall Mall, by the three ruffians of Count Konigsmark. 2 The coachman is that Welshman of whom his son, the Welsh farmer, boasted that his father's monument was thus to be seen in Westminster Abbey. The absence of the long inscription which was intended to have recorded the event 3 is part of the same political feeling which protected the murderer from his just due. It was erected (such was the London gossip) by his wife, ' in order to get her a second husband, the comforts of a ' second marriage being the surest to a widow for the loss of a ' first husband.' In the Cloisters is the tablet to Sir Edmond 4 Berry Godfrey, the supposed victim of the Popish Plot, restored by his brother . B. Benjamin in 1695, with an epitaph remarkable for 1678, 1695. the singular moderation with which he refers to History for the solution of the mystery of Sir Edmond's death. In the centre of the South Transept lies * Tom Chiffinch, 5 ' the King's closet-keeper. He was as well last night as ever, T. Chiffinch, ' playing at tables in the house, and not being ill this April 10, . r J . , , . . ' . . ices. morning at six o clock, yet dead before seven. . . . ' It works fearfully among people nowadays, the plague, as we ' hear, increasing rapidly again.' 6 We pass to a monument of this epoch, erected not by public gratitude, but by private affection, which commemorates a husband and wife, both remarkable in the whole h ' of the period which they cover. In the solitude ie, of the North Transept, hitherto almost entirely free from monuments, the romantic William Cavendish, ' the loyal Duke of Newcastle,' built his own tomb. He was a very fine gentleman, active, and full of courage ; and most accomplished in those arts of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing which accompany a good breeding. He loved monarchy, as it was the foundation and support of his own greatness ; and the Church, as 1 Tom Brown, iii. 127. He was called Berry ' after a family 2 See an account by Hornbeck and to which he was related. He is buried Burnet of the last confession of two of at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. (Lon- the assassins (1682). diniana, iii. 199.) 3 It is given in Crull (Appendix, * He was the brother of the more P- 26). notorious William Chiffinch. 4 So it is written on his monument. 6 Pepys's Diary, April 4, 1666. CHAP. iv. OF CHARLES II.'S REIGN. 217 it was well constituted for the splendour and security of the Crown ; and religion, as it cherished and maintained that order and obedience that was necessary to both ; without any other passion for the par- ticular opinions which were grown up in it, and distinguished it into parties, than as he detested whatsoever was like to disturb the public peace. 1 With him is buried his second wife, herself as remarkable as her husband the most prolific of female writers, as is in- Margaret dicated by her book and inkstand on the tomb. She Duchess of was surrounded night and day with young ladies, who j a e n V 7 astie ' were to wake up at a moment's notice ' to take down ' her Grace's conceptions ; ' authoress of thirteen folios, written each without corrections, lest her coming fancies should be disturbed by them ; of whom her husband said, in answer to a compliment on her wisdom, ' Sir, a very wise woman ' is a very foolish thing ; ' but of whom, in her epitaph, with more unmixed admiration, he wrote that ' she was a very wise, ' witty, and learned lady, as her many books do testify ; ' and, in words with which Addison was ' very much pleased ' ' Her ' name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister of Lord Lucas of ' Colchester a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, * and all the sisters virtuous.' 2 ' Of all the riders on Pegasus, * there have not been a more fantastic couple than his Grace 'and his faithful Duchess, who was never off her pillion.' 3 ' There is as much expectation of her coming,' said Pepys, ' as if it were the Queen of Sweden.' He describes her ap- pearance at the Pioyal Society : ' She hath been a good and ' seemly woman, but her dress so antick, and her deport- ' ment so ordinary, that I do not like her at all ; nor did I hear ' her say anything that was worth hearing, but that she was full ' of admiration, all admiration ! ' 4 In reply to her question to Bishop Wilkins, author of the work on the possibility of a passage to the Moon ' Doctor, where am I to find a place for 4 waiting in the way up to that planet ? ' Wilkins answered, * Madam, of all the people in the world, I never expected that ' question from you, who have built so many castles in the air, * that you may lie every night at one of your own ! ' 1 Clarendon, iv. 517. ' ville, on n'a jamais vu de coquette ; et 2 Spectator, No. 99. It has been ' la bravoure n'y est pas plus hereditaire suggested to me that this may have ' aux males que la chasteteaux femelles.' been inspired by a passage in Moliere's 3 Walpoie (Londiniana, i. 127). Georges Dandin, acted in 1668, act i. 4 Pepys's Diary, April and May scene 4 'Dans la maison de Soten- 1607. 218 THE MONUMENTS John Holies, By a slight anticipation of the chronological order, we may here notice the monument which stands next to this in the Transept, and which with it long guarded the open space. 1 It was at- tracted to its position by a triple affinity to this particular spot. J nn Holies was descendant both of the families of , George Holies and Sir Francis Vere, who lie immedi- Au g . 9, i7ii. a t e ]y behind ; and after his marriage with the grand- daughter of William Cavendish, who lies immediately by his side, he was created Duke of Newcastle. 2 By all these united titles he became ' the richest subject that had been in and his monument is * ne kingdom for some ages ; ' 3 THE REVO- i688. x P cuke' of k> f 7 r 9 tland> His menu- ment, 1723. proportion ably magnificent, according to the style which then prevailed. On it the sculptor Gibbs staked his immortality ; and by the figures of ' Prudence ' and ' Sincerity,' 4 which stand on either side, set the example of the allegorical figures which, from that time, begin to fill up the space equally precious to the living and the dead. 5 The statesmen and warriors of the Eevolution have but slight record in the history of the Abbey. Bentinck, the Earl ^ Portland, with his first descendants, favourite and friend of William III., lies in the Orrnond vault, just 'under the great east window.' 6 When Marshal Schomberg fell in the passage of the Boyne, it was felt that ' the on ty cemetery in which so illustrious a warrior, ne was nev er carried further than Dublin, where he now lies in St - Patrick's Cathedral. 8 His family, however, are interred in the Ormond vault at West- niinster brother, son, and daughter. In the vault of the Duke of Bichinond, 9 with whose family he was 1 The houses of these two Dukes of vault, formerly called the ' Holies Newcastle can still be traced ; that of Cavendish in Newcastle Place in Clerk- enwell, that of Holies in the neigh- bourhood of Lincoln's Inn and of New- castle Street in the Strand. 2 See p. 216. 3 Burnet's Oivn Time, vi. 62 (or ii. 580) ; and see his epitaph. 4 ' Sincerity ' lost her left hand in the scaffolding of George IV. 's corona- tion. 5 The Chapel behind was, from his sir Joseph i4, r i7ou cfc ' i694. ple sir Feb*i, mple> Chapel ; ' and in it a new vault was, in 1766, made for Lord and Lady Mountrath, who before that had been buried in the Argyll vault. (Register.) 6 Eegister. * Macaulay, iii. 638. 8 Beside the monument inscribed with the famous epitaph by Swift. (Pettigrew's Epitaphs, 186.) Eegister. This seems hardly com - patible with the statement in Crull (p. 120), that he was buried in the same CHAP. iv. OF THE REVOLUTION. 2 1 9 connected by marriage, 1 is Sir Joseph Williamson, the English plenipotentiary at Ryswick. 2 In the south aisle of the Nave lies, by the side of his daughter Diana and wife Dorothy (former love of Henry Cromwell), Sir William Temple, 3 beneath a monument which combines their names with that of his favourite sister Lady Gifford, who long survived him. One monument alone represents the political aspect of this era that of George Saville, Marquis of Halifax, who, with his George w ^ e an ^ daughter, lies in the vault of Monk close by. Maquis of But its position marks his importance. It is the first ApruTi visible memorial of any subject that has gained a place in the aisle which holds the tomb of Queen Elizabeth. Its classical style, with its medallion portrait, marks the entrance into the eighteenth century, which with its Augustan age of literature, and its not unworthy line of ministers and warriors, compensates by magnificence of historic fame for its increasing degradation of art and taste. REIGN- OF Close beside George Saville is the monument of the second Halifax, who lies with him 4 in General Monk's charies vault Charles Montague, his successor in the foremost Ean of ranks of the state, his more than successor as a patron Ha'ifas.May se, 1715. of letters : When sixteen barren centuries had past, This second great Maecenas came at last. 5 He had an additional connection with Westminster from his education in the School, and in his will he ' desired to be ' buried privately in Westminster Abbey, and to have a hand- ' some plain monument.' 6 The yet more famous ashes of his friend Addison were attracted, as we shall see, to that spot, by the contiguity of him who ' from a poet had become the chief ' patron of poets.' On Addison's coffin rests the coffin of James James Craggs, Secretary of State, and, hi spite of their dle'f let. is divergent politics, the friend both of Addison and Ma^chs Pope. The narrow aisle, where he was buried, could 1720-1. ' no t a ff or( i space for more monuments ; and in the erection of his memorial, at the western extremity of the small vault that contained Elizabeth s Kegister. See Macaulay's Essay Claypole, which is on the other side of on Sir W. Temple. the Chapel. 4 He lies on Lady Stanhope's coffin ' Nichols's Collect.. 12. (Register), i.e. the daughter of George baviiie. 2 In St. Paul's Chapel is the monu- s Dr. Sewell to Addison. (British ment of Sir Henry Bellasyze, governor Poets.) of Gahvay, 1717. 6 Biog. Brit. v. 306. 220 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. church, we have at once the earliest example of a complete dissociation of the grave and tomb, and also the first monu- Hismonu nient of imposing appearance erected in the hitherto ment - almost vacant Nave. 1 His premature end at the age of thirty-five, by the smallpox, then making its first great ravages in England, no doubt added to the sympathy excited by his death. 2 The statue was much thought of at the time. ' It ' will make the finest figure, I think, in the place ; and it is the ' least part of the honour due to the memory of a man who ' made the best of his station.' 3 So Pope wrote, and the interest which he expressed in the work during its execution never flagged : ' the marble on which the Italian is now at work ; ' ' the cautions about the forehead, the hair, and the feet ; ' the visits to the Abbey, where he ' saw the statue up,' though ' the statuary was down ' with illness ; the inscription on the urn, which he saw ' scored over in the Abbey.' The epitaph remains. ' The Latin inscription,' he says, His epitaph, t. r * ii j u T ' I have made as full and yet as short as I possibly ' could. It vexes me to reflect how little I must say, and how ' far short all I can say is of what I believe and feel on that ' subject : like true lovers' expressions, that vex the heart from ' whence they come, to find how cold and faint they must seem ' to others, in comparison of what inspires them invariably in ' themselves. The heart glows while the tongue falters.' 4 It exhibits the conflict in public opinion between Latin and English in the writing of epitaphs. It also furnishes the first materials for Dr. Johnson's criticism : Statesman, yet friend to truth ! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear ! Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend ; Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, Prais'd, wept, and honour'd by the Muse he lov'd. JACOBUS CRAGGS, REGI MAGN^ BRITA.NNLS A SECRETIS ET CONSILIIS SASCTIORIBUS, PRINCIPIS PARLTER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICLE : VIXIT 1ITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR, ANNOS HEU PAUCOS, XXXV. The lines on Craggs [so writes Dr. Johnson] were not originally intended for an epitaph ; and therefore some faults are to be imputed ' It stood originally at the east end 4 Pope> ix 427j 428) 442 ._ For the ,ne_Dap istery character of Craggs, see his Epistle Johnson a Poets, u. 63. (ibi(L iiL 2% 2% W^ for th J &l bee Popes }\orU S> m. 368; vi. Ascription, ibid. h-. 290). CHAP. iv. OF QUEEN ANNE'S EEIGN. 221 to the violence with which they are torn from the poem that first con- tained them. We may, however, observe some defects. There is a Criticism redundancy of words in the first couplet : it is superfluous of Dr. to tell of him, who was sincere, true, and faithful, that he was Johnson. . , _,. , in honour clear. There seems to be an opposition intended in the fourth line, which is not very obvious : where is the relation between the two positions, that he gained no title and lost no friend ? It may be proper here to remark the absurdity of joining, in the same inscription, Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used ; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue, and part in another, on a tomb more than in any other place, or any other occasion ; and to tell all that can be conveniently told in verse, and then to call in the help of prose, has always the appearance of a very artless expedient, or of an attempt unaccomplished. Such an epitaph resembles the conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by words, and conveys part by signs. 1 The situation of the monument has been slightly changed, but the care which was expended upon it was not in vain, if the youthful minister and faithful lover of the Muses becomes the centre of the memorials of greater statesmen than himself, and of poets not unworthy of Pope Pitt and Fox, Wordsworth and Keble. In the Nave is a slight record of an earlier statesman of this age Sidney, Earl Godolphin, ' chief minister of Queen Lord ' Anne during the nine first glorious years of her dtedliept?' ' reign,' buried in the south aisle ' a man of the detains, 'clearest head, the calmest temper, and the most ' incorrupt of all the ministers of states ' that Burnet had ever known 2 'the silentest and modestest man that was, perhaps, ' ever bred in a court ; ' 3 and who maintained to his life's end the short character which Charles II. gave him when he was page, He was never in the way, and never out of the way.' 4 Henrietta, The bust was erected to him by Henrietta (his Mar!- es daughter-in-law), daughter and heiress of the great i733 Ugb> Duke of Marlborough, who was buried beside him and his brother. Her mother Sarah was standing by Lord Godol- phin's deathbed, with Sir Kobert Walpole, then in his early youth. The dying Earl took Walpole by the hand, and turn- ing to the Duchess, said : ' Madam, should you ever desert this Johnson's Poets, iii. 205, 206. 3 Ibid. ii. 240 (or i. 479). 2 Own Time, vi. 135 (or ii. 614). * See Pope, v. 256. 222 THE MONUMENTS "Newton "Stanhope 'HerscheL "FAIRBORXE "TOWNSHEND GODOLPHIN HARGRAVE Sir W. Temple Dr. Mead SPENCER PERCEVAL "Lonn DUKDOXAI.U Pollock. "Kennell l: Telford "Banks "Livingstone. Graham "Ben Jonson "Wilson "Tompion "Hunter "Dr. Woodward LyalL HAHVZY and HCTT "CLYDE "OUTRAM "HERRIES "WADE Sprat ADM. TYRRELL Dr. Freind "Congreve WJtarten "Mackintosh Utterbuty LORD "MONTAGU HOLLAND TIERNEY Z. Macaulay "Eennell " Co n dn i tt "PITT "HARDY ^ [worth S 'Keb1e 3. (Daptiatrti) W. PLAX OF THE NAVE. CHAT-, iv. OF QUEEN ANNE'S EEIGN. 223 ' young man, and there should be a possibility of returning ' from the grave, I shall certainly appear to you.' l Before passing to Walpole and the ministers of the Hano- verian dynasty, we must pause on the War of the Succession WAR OP in Germany and Spain, as before we were involved OBMTOH. in the Flemish wars of Elizabeth and the Dutch wars of Charles II. ; and again the funerals of Blake and Monk are renewed, and the funerals of Nelson and Wellington, in our own day, anticipated. When the ' Spectator,' ' in his serious ' humour, walked by himself in Westminster Abbey,' he observed that ' the present war had filled the church with many * uninhabited monuments, 2 which had been erected to the ' memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried on the ' plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.' 3 These monuments were chiefly in the northern aisle of the Nave to Kiiii^rew General Ivilligrew, killed in the battle of Almanza ; to ft^f 14 - ' Colonel Bingfield, 4 aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marl- jKf ld> borough, killed at the battle of Ramillies, whilst 1706. ( remounting the Duke on a fresh horse, his former ' " fayling" 5 under him, and interred at Bavechem, in Bra- Heneage ' bant, a principal part of the English generals at- KITOT. ' tiding his obsequies ; ' to Lieutenant Heneage ixTsden, Twysden, killed at the battle of Blaregnies, and his ^ 22 > ' two brothers, John and Josiah, of whom the first Twj*den was lieutenant under Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and iros. perished with him, and the second was killed at the siege of Agremont in Flanders. In the southern aisle was the cenotaph to Major Creed, who fell in his third charge at Blenheim, and was buried on creed, ^ e S P^ ' ^ was erec * e( l by his mother,' ' near 1-04. < another which her son, while living, used to look up ' to with pleasure, for the worthy mention it makes of that 1 Walpole's Letters, vol. i. p. cxxiii. 24, 11 A.M.) There is a similar ex- 2 One such monument was placed pression in the formal despatch: 'You there long after Addison's time. Old ' may depend that Her Majesty will Lord Ligonier, after having fought all ' not fail to take care of poor Bing- through the wars of Anne, died at the ' field's widow.' (Coxe's Life of Marl- age of 92 (1770), in the middle of the borough, ii. 354, 357.) He is called reign of George III. on the monument Bringfield. His 3 Spectator, No. 26 (1711). head was struck off by a cannon-ball. 4 ' Poor Bingfield, holding my stir- The monument records that he had ' rup for me, and lifting me on horse- often been seen at the services in the ' back, was killed. I am told that he Abbey. ' leaves his wife and mother in a poor * The horse did not 'fayl,' but the ' condition.' (Letter to the Duchess of Duke was thrown in leaping a ditch. Marlborough on the next day, March (Coxe, ii. 354.) 224 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' great man the Earl of Sandwich, to whom he had the honour ' to be related, and whose heroic virtues he was ambitious to ' emulate.' l To the trophies on ' one of these new monuments,' perhaps this very one, as Sir Eoger de Coverley went up the body of the church he pointed, and cried out, ' A brave man I warrant ' him ! ' As the two friends advanced through the church, they passed, on the south side of the Choir, a more imposing structure, on which Sir Eoger flung his hand that way, and sir ciomies- cried, ' Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a very gallant man ! ' dted S oct. e 22, The ' Spectator ' had passed there before, and ' it had 22*1707. e ' often given him very great offence. Instead of the ' brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing ' character of that plain gallant man, he is represented by the ' figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing him- ' self on velvet cushions, under a canopy of state. The in- ' scription is answerable to the monument, for, instead of ' celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed ' in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the * manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to * reap any honour.' 2 The Admiral was returning with his fleet from Gibraltar. It was believed that the crew had got drunk for joy that they were within sight of England. The ship was wrecked, and Sir Cloudesley's body was thrown ashore on one of the islands of Scilly, where some fishermen took him up, and, having stolen a valuable emerald ring from his finger, stripped and buried him. This ring being shown about made a great noise all over the island. The body was accordingly discovered by Lieutenant Paxton, purser of the ' Arundell,' who took it up, and transported it in his own ship to Plymouth, where it was embalmed in the Citadel, and thence conveyed by land to London, and buried, from his house in Soho Square, in the Abbey with great solemnity. 3 At the time when the ' Spectator ' surveyed the Abbey the great commander of the age was still living. The precincts 1 Epitaph. It originally stood Admiral Delaval, long the companion where Andre's monument now is, and of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who died therefore nearer to Harbord's monu- in the North, and was buried in the ment, to which it alludes. Abbey on January 23, 1706-7 (ibid. * Spectator, No. 139. iii. 8; Charnock's Naval Biography, * Campbell's Admirals, iii. 28-30. ii. 1), at the upper end of the West Plymouth Memoirs, by James Yonge, Aisle. (Eegister.) p. 40. There is no monument to CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 225 had already witnessed a scene of mourning, in connection with his house, more touching than any monument, more impressive The Duke than any funeral. At King's College, Cambridge, of Marl- . ^ borough. is a stately monument, under which lies the Duke's only son, cut off there in the flower of his promise. The Duke himself had been obliged to start immediately for his great campaign. But a young noble 1 amongst the Westminster boys, as he played in the cloisters, recognised a strange figure, which he must have known in the great houses of London. It Mourning of was Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who 'used, by nuThessof ' wav f mortification and as a mark of affection, to borough, for ' dress herself like a beggar, and sit with some Feb^o' ' miserable wretches 2 in the cloisters of Westminster ' Abbey.' At last on that proud head descended the severest blow of all ; and we are once more admitted to the Abbey by the correspondence between Pope and Atterbury. * At the time of the Duke of Maryborough's funeral,' writes Pope, ' I intend to lie at the Deanery, and moralise one ' evening with you on the vanity of human glory ; ' 3 and Atter- bury writes in return I go to-morrow to the Deanery, and, I believe, shall stay there till I have said ' Dust to dust,' and shut up that last scene of pompous vanity. It is a great while for me to stay there at this time of the year, and I know I shall often say to myself, whilst expecting the funeral : rus, quando ego te aspiciam, quandoque licebit Ducere sollicitae jucunda oblivia vitas ? In that case I shall fancy I hear the ghost of the dead thus entreat- ing me : At tu sacratae ne parce malignus arenaa Ossibus et capiti inhumato Particulam dare .... Quamquam festinas, non est mora longa : licebit Injecto ter pulvere curras. There is an answer for me somewhere in Hamlet to this request, which 1 The Duchess of Portland said ' the 2 A Chapter order, May 6, 1710, Duke (her husband) had often seen mentions the 'Appointment of a con- Tier, during this mourning of hers, when he was a boy at Westminster School.' She used to say that ' she was very certain she should go to heaven ; and as her ambition went now beyond the grave, that she knew she should have one of the highest seats.' (Mrs. stable to restrain divers disorderly beggars daily walking and begging in the Abbey and Cloisters, and many idle boys daily coming into the Cloisters, who there play at cards and other plays for money, and are often heard to curse and swear.' Delany's Autobiography, iii. 167.) s Letters, iv. 6. 226 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. you remember though I do not : ' Poor ghost, tlwu sJialt be satisfied ! ' or something like it. However that be, take care that you do not fail in your appointment, that the company of the living may make me some amends for my attendance on the dead. Sed me Imperiosa trahit Proserpina, vive valeque.' Death of The Tory prelate and the Tory poet waited, no doubt, long and impatiently for the slow cavalcade of the funeral of the Great Duke, whose Whiggery they ferai s could not pardon even at that moment Aug. 9, By unlamenting veterans borne on high Dry obsequies, and pomps without a sigh. His remains had been removed from Windsor Lodge, where he died, to Marlborough House. From thence the procession was opened by bands of military, accompanied by a detachment of artillery, in the rear of which followed Lord Cadogan, Commander-in-Chief, and several general officers, who had been devoted to the person of the Duke, and had suffered in his cause. Amidst long files of heralds, officers at arms, mourners, and assistants, the eye was caught by the banners and guidons emblazoned with his armorial achievements, among which was displayed, on a lance, the standard of Woodstock, exhibiting the arms of France on the Cross of St. George. In the centre of the cavalcade was an open car, bearing the coffin, which contained his mortal remains, surmounted with a suit of complete armour, and lying under a gorgeous canopy, adorned with plumes, military trophies, and heraldic achievements. To the sides shields were affixed, exhibiting emblematic representations of the battles he had gained, and the towns he had conquered, with the motto, ' Bello hcec et plura.' On either side were five captains in military mourning, bearing aloft a series of bannerols, charged with the different quarterings of the Churchill and Jennings families. The Duke of Montagu, who acted as chief mourner, was supported by the Earls of Sunderland and Godolphin, and assisted by eight dukes and two earls. Four earls were also selected to bear the pall. The procession was closed by a numerous train of carriages belonging to the nobility and gentry, headed by those of the King and the Prince of Wales. The cavalcade moved along St. James's Park to Hyde Park Corner, and from thence, through Piccadilly and Pall Mall, by Charing Cross to Westminster Abbey. At the west door it was received by the digni- taries and members of the Church, in their splendid habiliments ; l 1 See note in Atterbury's Letters, altar at the head of Henry VII.'s tomb iv. 6, 7. The Dean and Canons ap- (ibid. iv. 11), as in Monk's funeral, pear in copes. The Dean set up an CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 227 and the venerable pile blazed with tapers and torches innumerable. . . . The procession then moved through the Nave and Choir to the Chapel of Henry VII. 1 to the vault 2 which contained the ashes of Ormond, and which had once contained the ashes of Cromwell. The ex- penses were defrayed by Sarah herself. Twenty-four years afterwards the body was removed to a mausoleum, erected under her superintendence, in the Chapel at Blenheim, and there, a few weeks later, she was laid by his side. 3 Admiral The Duke's brother, Admiral Churchill, who pre- buried ll May ce ^ed him by a few years, rests in the south aisle of 12 ' mo '- the Choir. Whilst Atterbury and Pope were complaining of the hard fate of having to assist at the funeral of the Duke of Marl- sheffie'd, borough, they were also corresponding about another Bucking- tomb, preparing in Henry VII. 's Chapel, over the cu*eTFeb%4 g rave ^ one wnose claims to so exalted a place were iterch 25 made up of heterogeneous materials, each questionable im - of itself, yet, together with the story of its erection, giving a composite value to the monument of a kind equalled by few in the Abbey. John Sheffield, first Marquis of Normanby, and then Duke of Buckinghamshire or of Buckingham, 4 by some of his humble cotemporaries regarded as a poet, has won a place in Johnson's ' Lives of the Poets,' and has left one celebrated line. 5 He has achieved for his name 6 a more legi- timate place in Poets' Corner than his verses could have given him, by uniting it with the name of Dryden, 7 on the monument which he there erected to his favourite author. It was, however, his political and military career, and still more his rank, which won for him a grave and monument in Henry VII. 's Chapel. He must have been no despicable cha- racter, who at twelve years undertook to educate himself; who 1 Coxe's Marlbormigh, vi. 385. of Buckingham. His full title was ' the 2 Register. ' Duke of the County of Buckingham.' 8 It appears from the Duchess's will, 5 A faultless monster which the dated August 11, 1744, that the Duke's world ne'er saw. body was then still in the Abbey, and (Johnson, ii. 155.) from the account of her funeral in Oc- ' ' Muse, 'tis enough at length thy tober 1744, that it had by that time labour ends, been removed. (Thomson's Memoirs And thou shalt live for BucTt- of the Duchess of Marlbormtgh, pp. ingham commends, 502, 562.) Sheffield approves, consenting Phce- * Johnson's Lives, ii. 153. The bus bends.' (Pope. iii. 331.) ambiguity of the title was to guard ' See pp. 260. against confusion with Villiers, Duke Q 2 228 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. maintained the presence of mind ascribed to him in the extra- ordinary peril at sea to which he was exposed by the perfidy of Sheffield's Charles II. ; who, by his dexterous answers, evaded the monument, proselytism of James II. and the suspicions of William III. But probably his family connections carried the day over all his other qualifications. He who had in his youth been the accepted lover of his future sovereign, Anne, the legitimate daughter, and who afterwards married the natural daughter of James II., almost fulfilled the claims of royal lineage. His elevation to the historic name of Buckingham which, perhaps, procured for his monument the Chapel next to that filled, in the reign of Charles I., by his powerful namesake left his mark on the stately mansion which, even when transformed into a royal palace, is still 'Buckingham House,' created by his skill out of the old mulberry garden in St. James's Park, with the inscription Rus in urbe, 'as you see from the garden nothing ' but country.' l As he lay there in state, the crowd was so great, that the father of the antiquary Carter, who was present, was nearly drowned in the basin in the courtyard. 2 The Duchess, ' Princess Buckingham,' as Walpole calls her, was so proud of her 'illegitimate parentage as to go and weep over ' the grave of her father, James II., at St. Germains, and have ' a great mind to be buried by him.' 3 ' On the martyrdom of ' her grandfather, Charles L, she received Lord Hervey in the ' great drawing-room of Buckingham House, seated in a chair ' of state, attended by her women in like weeds, in memory of ' the Eoyal Martyr.' 4 Yet she did full honour to her adopted race ; and to express her gratitude for the contrast between the happiness of her second marriage and the misery of her first, her husband's funeral was to be as magnificent as that of the Sheffield's great Duke of Marlborough ; and his monument to be M^fss as splendid as the Italian taste of that pedantic age im - could make it. Pope was in eager communication with her and the artist Belluchi, to see that the likenesses were faithful. 5 Three children, two sons and a daughter, were transferred at the same time to their father's vault, from the neighbouring Church of St. Margaret. 6 One son 1 Defoe's Journey through England, the pall was, but she would not buy a i. 194. new one. 2 Gent. Mag., vol. lxxxiv.pt. ii. p. 548. 4 Walpole's Reminiscences. Walpole, i. 234.- One of the monks * Pope, viii. 336 ; ix. 228. tried to make her observe how ragged 6 Eegister. CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 229 alone l remained, the last of the house, from whom his mother Edmund was inseparable ; and when he died in early youth at Rome, a few years later, she revived the pageant once more. Priding herself on being ' a Tory Duchess ' of Marlborough,' she wrote to Sarah, to borrow the triumphal car that had transported the remains of the 5 " 6 ' famous Duke. 'It carried my Lord Marlborough/ replied the other, * and shall never be profaned by any other ' corpse.' ' I have consulted the undertaker,' retorted her proud rival, ' and he tells me that I may have a finer for twenty ' pounds.' 2 The waxen effigies of herself and of her son, which were prepared for this solemnity, are still preserved in the Abbey. 3 That of her son, as it lay in state, she invited his friends to visit, with a message that, if they had a mind to see him, she could carry them in conveniently by a back-door. 4 The Duchess settled her own funeral with the Garter King- at-Arms, on her deathbed, and * feared dying before the pomp Catherine, ' should come home.' ' Why don't they send the Bucking- canopy for me to see ? Let them send it, though all April s, 1743. ' the tassels are not finished.' She made her ladies vow to her that, if she should lie senseless, they would not sit down in the room before she was dead. Both mother and son were laid in the same tomb with the Duke. Atterbury's letters are filled with affection for them, 5 and Pope wrote a touching epitaph for her 6 (which was, how- ever, never inscribed), and corrected an elaborate description in prose of her character and person, written by herself. 7 She quarrelled with the poet, but accepted the corrections, and showed the charaeter as his composition in her praise. Sheffield's epitaph on himself is an instructive memorial at Sheffield's once- of his own history and of the strange turns of epitaph. human thought and character. 8 ' Pro Rege s&pe, pro ' Republicd semper,' well sums up his political career under the last three Stuarts. Then comes the expression of his belief : 1 On the monument Time is repre- Duke, ibid. iv. 149, 155. sented bearing away the four children. Johnson's Lives of the Poets, iii. 2 Walpole's Reminiscences. 216. 3 See Note on the Waxworks, p. 321. Pope, vii. 323, 325. 4 Walpole's Reminiscences, i. 234. 8 The sensation produced by theepi- 5 For the Duchess, see Atterbury's taph at the time is evident from the long Letters, iv. 135, 153, 161, 163, 253, defence of it 'by Dr. Richard Fiddes, 268, 310, 317; and for the young ' in. answer to a Freethinker ' (1721). 230 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Dubius sed non improbus vixi ; Jncertus morior, non perturbatus. Humanwm est nescire et errare. Deo confido Omnipotenti benevolentissimo ; Ens entium,. miserere Many a reader has paused before this inscription. Many a one has been touched by the sincerity through which a profound and mournful scepticism is combined with a no less profound and philosophic faith in the power and goodness of God. In spite of the seeming claim to a purer life ' than Sheffield, un- happily, could assert, there is im the final expression a pathos, amounting almost to true penitence. ' If any heathen could ' be found/ says even the austere John Newton, ' who sees the ' vanity of the world, and says from his heart, Ens entium, ' miserere mei r I believe he would be heard/ He adds, ' But I ' never found such, though I have known many heathens.' 2 Perhaps he had never seen this monument, but quoted the words from hearsay. The expression is supposed to have been suggested by the traditional last prayer of Aristotle, who earnestly implored ' the mercy of the Great First Cause.' 3 But many readers also have been pained by the omission of any directly Christian sentiment, and have wondered how an in- scription breathing a spirit so exclusively drawn from natural religion found its way, unrebuked and unconnected, into a Christian church. Their wonder will be increased when they hear that it once contained that very expression of awestruck affection for the Redeemer, which would fill up the void ; that it originally stood 'Christum adveneror r Deo- confido.' 4 The wonder will be heightened yet more when they learn that this expression was erased, not by any too liberal or philosophic layman, but by the episcopal champion of the High Church party Atterbury, to whom, as Dean of Westminster,, the in- scription was submitted. And this marvel takes the form of a significant lesson in ecclesiastical history, when we are told the 1 Unless ' non improbus ' refers to ' tuam colliget.' (Ibid. torn. ii. lib. 18, his opinions, ' not hardened.' c. 31.) 2 Scott's Eclectic Notes, p. 265. 4 The original inscription is given 8 Fiddes (p. 40), who quotes from at length in Crull, ii. 49 (1722) ; and Callus Rhodigenius (torn. ii. lib. 17, also in Fiddes's Letter (1721), who c. 34), and adds the prayer of the argues at length on the force of the friends who are supposed to be stand- expression (p. 38). It was in this form ing by the philosopher's deathbed that it received the approval of Erasmus ' Qui philosophorum animas excipit et Darwin. (Life, by Charles Darwin, p. 15.) CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 231 grounds of the objection that the word adveneror 'was not ' full enough as applied to Christ.' 1 How like is this criticism to the worldly theologian who made it, but how like also to the main current of theological sentiment for many ages, which, rather than tolerate a shade of suspected heresy, will admit absolute negation of Christianity which refuses to take the half unless it can have the whole. And, finally, how useless was this caution to the character of the prelate who erased the questionable words. The man of the world always remains unconvinced, and in this case was represented by the scoffing Matthew Prior, who, in the short interval that elapsed between the Duke of Buckingham's funeral and his own, wrote the well-known lines, which, though professedly founded on a perverse interpretation of the charitable hope of the Burial Service, evidently point in reality to the deep-seated suspicion of Atterbury's own sincerity : Of these two learned peers, I prythee say, man> Who is the lying knave, the priest or layman ? The Duke he stands an infidel confess'd, ' He's our dear brother,' quoth the lordly priest. 2 Three statesmen stretch across the first half of the eighteenth century. John Campbell, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich 1678-1/43. soldier and statesman alike, of the first order in neither A^yiumd service, but conspicuous in both as the representative buri^ioct.' f the northern kingdom, which through his influence io, 1/43. more than that of any single person was united to England was buried in a vault 3 in Henry VII. 's Chapel, made for himself and his family, far away from his ancestral resting- place at Kilmun. His monument, erected by Eoubiliac at the cost of an admiring friend, stands almost alone of his class amongst the poets in the Southern Transept a situation 4 which may well be accorded by our generation to one with whose charming character and address our age has become familiar chiefly through the greatest of Novelists. In the 1 The opposite party, in. the pub- who, in the Heart of Midlothian, lished copies of the inscription, inserted, banters her father after the interview solo after Deo. (Fiddes, p. 3&) with Jeannie Deans. 2 Pope's Works, ix. 209. 4 The monument displaced the ancient 3 This new vault was made in 1T43. staircase leading from the Dormitory. His widow was interred there April 17q ,_ 1R1 o (Gleanings, p. 48.) Close 23, 1767; his daughters, Caroline, to it were characteristically Countess of Dalkeith, in 1791,. and pressed the monuments of two lesser Mary (Lady Mary Coke) in 1811 members of the Campbell clan. (Kegister) , ' the lively little lady ' 232 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. sculptured emblems, History pauses at the title of ' Green- ' wich,' which was to die with him. ' Eloquence,' with out- stretched hand, in an attitude which won Canova's special praise, 1 represents the ' thunder ' 2 and ' persuasion ' 3 described by the poets of his age. The inscription which History is record- ing, and which was supplied by the poet Paul Whitehead, 4 and the volumes of ' Demosthenes ' and Caesar's ' Commentaries,' which lie at the foot of Eloquence, commemorate his union of military and oratorical fame; whilst his Whig principles are represented in the sculptured Temple of Liberty and a cherub holding up Magna Charta. Walpole died at Houghton, and was interred in the parish church without monument or inscription : So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name Which once had honour, titles, wealth, and fame. 5 But he is commemorated in the Abbey by the monument of his first wife, Catherine Shorter, whose beauty, with the good looks Lady Wai- of his own youth, caused them to be known as ' the Aug. 20^ ' handsome couple.' The position of her statue, in the south aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel, is one to which nothing less than her husband's fame would have entitled her. It was erected by Horace Walpole, her youngest son, and remains a striking proof both of his affection for her and his love of art. The statue itself was copied in Rome from the famous figure of ' Modesty,' and the in- scription, written by himself, perpetuates the memory of her excellence : ' An ornament to courts, untainted by them.' If the story be true, that Horace was really the son of Lord Hervey, it is remarkable as showing his unconsciousness of the suspicion of his mother's honour. He murmured a good deal at having to pay forty pounds for the ground of the statue, 6 but ' at last,' he says, ' the monument for my mother is erected : it puts me ' in mind of the manner of interring the Kings of France ' when the reigning one dies, the last before him is buried. ' Will you believe that I have not yet seen the tomb ? None ' of my acquaintance were in town, and I literally had not 1 Life of Nollekens, ii. 161. 3 ' From his rich tongue 2 ' Argyll, the state's whole thunder Persuasion flows, and wins the born to wield, high debate.' (Thomson.) And shake alike the senate and 4 Neale, ii. 258. the field.' (Pope.) * Coxe's Walpole,ch&p. Ixii. and Ixiii. 6 Walpole' s Letters, ii. 277. CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY. 233 * courage to venture alone among the Westminster boys ; ' they are as formidable to me as the ship-carpenters at ' Portsmouth.' l Pulteney, after his long struggles, determined, when he had reached his peerage, to be buried in the Abbey, which he had puiteney, known from his childhood as a Westminster boy. A Bandied vau lt was constructed for himself and his family in the buried jui y ^- sn P Chapel, 2 and there, in his eightieth year, his i7,i764. obsequies were performed by his favourite Bishop His funeral. Zachary Pearce. 3 In the pressure to see his funeral (which, as usual, took place at night), a throng of spectators stood on the tomb of Edward L, opposite the vault. 4 A mob broke in, and, in the alarm created by the confusion, the gentlemen tore down the canopy of the royal tomb, and defended the pass of the steps leading into the Confessor's Chapel with their drawn swords and the broken rafters of the canopy. Pelham's career is celebrated by the monument to Eoberts, n ^ s ' verv faithful ' secretary, Eoberts, in the South I e eih e a m7 f Transept. His brother the Duke of Newcastle is faintly recalled by the monument on the opposite side to Eobinson, who was distinguished by the name of ' Long Sir ' Thomas Eobinson.' 5 ' He was a man of the world, or rather ' of the town, and a great pest to persons of high rank, or in ' office. He was very troublesome to the late Duke of New- ' castle, and when in his visits to him he was told that His ' Grace had gone out, would desire to be admitted to look at ' the clock or to play with a monkey that was kept in the hall, * in hopes of being sent for in to the Duke. This he had so 1 Walpole's Letters, i. 352. boy : ' I stood, with many others, on 2 Probably attracted by the grave of ' the top of the tomb. ... A dreadful Jane Crewe, heiress of the Pulteneys in ' conflict ensued. Darkness soon closed 1639, whose pretty monument is over ' the scene.' (Ibid. 1799, part ii. p. the chapel door. 859.) 3 The most conspicuous monument s Hawkins' Johnson, p. 192, which in the Cloisters is that of David Pul- erroneously states that he ' rests in the teney, who died September 7, 1731, ' Abbey.' He was called ' Long ' from buried May 17, 1732. (Register.) He his stature, to distinguish him from was M.P. for Preston, and in 1722 a the ' German ' Sir Thomas Eobinson of Lord of the Admiralty. It seems that the same date, who was a diplomatist, the independence which is so lauded in ' Long Sir Thomas Eobinson is dying by this epitaph showed itself in his opposi- ' inches,' said some one to Chesterfield, tion to Walpole, and his defence of free ' Then it will be some time before he trade and of the interests of the British ' dies.' The appointment to the go- merchants abroad. (See Parliamentary vernorship of Barbadoes, mentioned on History, viii. 1, 608, 647). his monument, was given to him be- 4 Gent. Mag. 1817, part i. p. 33 cause Lord Lincoln wanted his house. The antiquary Carter was present, as a (Walpole's Letters, i. 22 ; vi. 247.) 234 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' frequently done, that all in the house were tired of him. ' At length it was concocted among the servants that he should ' receive a summary answer to his usual questions, and ac- ' cordingly, at his next coming, the porter, as soon as he had ' opened the gate, and without waiting for what he had to say, ' dismissed him in these words : Sir, his Grace has gone out, ' the clock stands, and the monkey is dead/ His epitaph commemorates his successful eareer in Barbadoes, and ' the ' accomplished woman, agreeable companion, and sincere friend ' he found in his wife. The rebellion of 1745 has left its trace in the tablet erected in the North Transept to General Guest, ' who closed buried oct ' a service f sixty years by faithfully defending ttk]hrt to ' Edinburgh Castle against the rebels ' in 1745 ; ' and in the elaborate monument of Roubiliac, in the Nave, Mrah b 2i rled to Marshal Wade, whose military roads, famous in the well-known Scottish proverb,, achieved the sub- choir gate, jugation of the Highlands. A cenotaph in the East Cloister celebrates 'two affectionate brothers, valiant soldiers The ' and sincere Christians,' Scipio and Alexander moires. Duroure,. of whom the first fell at Fontenoy in 1745 ; and the second was buried here in 1765, after fifty-seven years of faithful service. Following the line of the eye,, and erected by the great sculptor just named who seems for these few years to have attained a sway over the Abbey more complete than any of those whose trophies he raised are the memorials of two friends, ' re- ' rnarkable for their monuments in "Westminster Abbey,' but pSX. f r ^tle beside. That to General Fleming was March so, erected by Sir John Fleming,, who also lies there, ' to Ha" 61 ! 1 ' ^ e memor y of bis uncle,, and his best of friends.' 2 That to General Hargrave appears to have provoked ne > Mthe ried a burst of general indignation at the time. It was choir gate, believed to have been raised to him merely on account of his wealth. 3 At the time it was thought that ' Europe could ' not show a parallel to it.' 4 Now, the significance of the 1 'My old commander General Guest, 1 Citizen of the World, p. 46.) It was says Colonel Talbot in Waverley, voL iii. said that a wag had written under the chap. iii. figure struggling from the tomb, ' Lie - Epitaph. The whole Fleming ' still if you're wise ; you'll be damned family are congregated under these ' if you rise.' (Button's London Tour.) monuments. (Register.) * Malcolm, p. 169. 8 ' Some rich man.' (Goldsmith's CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 235 falling pyramids has been so lost, that they have even been brought forward as a complaint against the Dean and Chapter for allowing the monuments to go to ruin. It was at this time that Goldsmith uttered his complaint: ' I find in Westminster Abbey several new monuments erected Rouwiiac's ' ^ the memory of several great men. The names of monuments. < the great men I absolutely forget, but I well re- ' member that Eoubiliac was the statuary who carved them. ' . . . Alas ! alas ! cried I r such monuments as these confer ' honour not on the great men, but on little Eoubiliac.' l But the sculptor himself was never satisfied. He constantly visited Dr. Johnson to get from him epitaphs worthy of his works. 2 He used to come and stand before ' his best work/ the monu- ment of Wade, and weep to think that it was put too high to be appreciated. 3 The Nightingale tomb was probably admitted more for his sake than for that of the mourners. Yet when he came back from Rome, and once more saw his own sculptures in the Abbey, he had the magnanimity to> exclaim, with the true candour of genius, ' By God ! my own works looked to ' me as meagre and starved as if they had been made of tobacco ' pipes.' The successors of Marlborough. by land and sea still carry on the line of warriors, now chiefly in the Nave. At the west wiiiiam en ^ i s ^ e tablet of Captain William Horneck, the ApriTa?' earliest of English engineers, who learned his mili- tary science under the Duke of Marlborough, and is buried in his father's grave in the South Transept. There also is told the story of Sir Thomas Hardy descendant Hardy, j. of the protector of Henry VII. on his voyage from itiV Hardy, Brittany to England, and ancestor of the companion y 3, 1,20. Q -j^ e j son wuo> f or ^ serv i ces under Sir George Eooke, lies buried (with his wife) near the west end of the Choir. There, too, is the first monument erected by Parlia- ment to naval heroism the gigantic memorial of the noble co-newa'i but now forgotten death of Captain Cornewall, in TjreKita tlie battle off Toulon; and, close upon it, the yet June 6,'i766. more prodigious mass of rocks, clouds, sea, and ship, to commemorate the peaceful death of Admiral Tyrrell. 4 1 Goldsmith. be to represent the Resurrection under 2 Life of Reynolds, i. 119. difficulties. Tyrrell, though he died 3 Akermann, ii. 37. on land, was buried in the sea, and is 4 The idea of the monument seems to sculptured as rising out of it. Com- 236 THE MONUMENTS Balchen, 1744. Temple West, 1757. Vernon, 1751. Beanclerk, 1740. Warren, 1752. Wager, buried in North Transept, 1743. Holmes, 1761. In the North Transept and the north aisle of the Choir follow the cenotaphs of a host of seamen Baker, who died at Baker, died Portmahon ; Saumarez, who fought from his sixteenth *> ^- * to his thirty-seventh year under Anson and Hawke ; ^^2, tn e ' good but unfortunate ' Balchen, lost at sea ; 1747 buried Temple West, his son-in-law: Vernon, celebrated for at Plymouth. his ' fleet near Portobello lying ' ; Lord Aubrey Beau- clerk, the gallant son of the first Duke of St. Albans, who fell under Yernon at Carthagena, and whose epitaph is ascribed to Young ; and Warren, represented by Eoubiliac with the marks of the small-pox on his face. Wager, celebrated for his ' fair character,' who in his youth had fought in the service of the American Quaker, Captain Hull, is buried in the North Transept, 1 and Admiral Holmes is near St. Paul's Chapel. The narrow circle of these names takes a wider sweep as, with the advance of the century, the Colonial Empire starts up under the mighty reign of Chatham. Now for the first time India on one side, and North America on the other, leap into the Abbey. The palm-trees and Oriental chiefs on the monument of Admiral Watson recall his achievements at the Black Hole of Calcutta, and at Chandernagore ; 2 as the elephant and Mahratta captive on that of Sir Eyre Coote, and the hill of Trichinopoly on that of General Lawrence, recall, a few years later, the glories of Coromandel and the Carnatic. George Montague, Earl of Halifax, ' Father of the Colonies,' from whom the capital of Nova Scotia takes its name, is com- memorated in the North Transept ; Massachusetts 3 and Ticonderoga, 4 not yet divided from us, appear on the 1 and has left the fairest character.' (Walpole, i. 248.) Admiral Watson, buried at Calcutta, 1757. atRockburn 1783. Lawrence, 1775. George Montague, Earl of Halifax, 1771. pare the like thought in the bequest of William Glanville in the churchyard at Wotton, who, when his father was buried in the Goodwin Sands, and he six yards deep in the earth, left an in- junction, still observed, that the ap- prentices of the parish should, over his grave, on the anniversary of his death, recite the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and read 1 Cor. xv. 1 ' There was never any man that ' behaved himself in the Straits (of ' Gibraltar) like poor Charles Wager, ' whom the very Moors do mention with ' tears sometimes.' (Pepys, iv. 1668.) ' Old Sir Charles Wager is dead at last, 2 Gideon Loten, governor of Batavia, with Ps. xv. 1-4 for his character, has a tablet in the North Aisle (1789). 3 Massachusetts is the female figure on the top of the monument. It was executed by Schumberg. 4 Ticonderoga appears also on the monument, not far off, of Colonel Townsend, Townsend, executed by T. killed July Carter. ' Here,' says the 2o, i/a7. sculptor's antiquarian son, ' I recall my juvenile years. ... I then ' loved the hand that gave form to the ' yielding marble. I now revere his ' memory, deeper engraved on my CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 237 monument in the south aisle of the Nave, erected to Viscount Lord Howe, Howe, the unsuccessful elder brother of the famous me 5 nt ; e ec n ted admiral. But the one conspicuous memorial of that im. u ' period is that of his brother's friend ' friends to wo?ffkiiied ' eac h other as cannon to gunpowder ' l General !e$ u i3 ec> Wolfe. He was buried in his father's grave at Green- j > 1782. who perished in like manner in Rodney s crowning victory, and whose colossal monument 3 so cried for room as to expel from its place the font of the hurch, which has since taken refuge in the western end of the Nave. 4 The tablet of Kempenfelt in the Chapel of St. Michael com- memorates the loss of the ' Royal George.' 5 Admiral Harrison is buried at the entrance into the Cloisters, with the ITS/."' two appropriate texts, Dew portu-s meus et refugium, oc26,i-9i. and Deus monstravit miracitla sua in profundis ; and Eari Dun- the funeral of Lord Dundonald, in the Nave thus at ot. a si', (Jl the close of his long life reinstated in the public wjSao. *' favour terminates the series of naval heroes which begins with Blake. Nelson, 6 who at Cape St. Vincent looked forward only to victory or Westminster Abbey, found his grave in St. Paul's. The military line still runs on. The unfortunate General 1 Campbell's Admirals, vii. 240. * Near this are the monuments of 2 (Neale, ii. 228.) They were trans- Admirals Storr (1783), Pocock (1793), posed by Dean Vincent, Montagu to and Totty (1800), and of Captain the west end, and Harvey and Hutt, Cook, who fell in the sea-fight in the greatly reduced, to one of the windows. Bay of Bengal (1799), and the hand- * It was shut up for seven years some medallion of Captain Stewart after its erection, from the delay of the (1811). inscription. (Gent. Mag. vol. Ixiii. pt. 6 See a humorous allusion to this in ii. p. 782.) Lusus West, ii. 210. See note on the * Neale, ii. 208. Waxworks. CHAP. iv. OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 239 Burgoyne, whose surrender at Saratoga lost America to Burgoyne, England, lies, without a name, in the North Cloister. 13, 1792. But of that great struggle ' the most conspicuous trace is left on the southern wall of the Nave by the memorial Andr^, died of the ill-fated Major Andre, 2 whose remains, brought burieVxov' home after a lapse of forty years, lie close beneath. When, 3 at the request of the Duke of York, the body was removed from the spot where it had been buried, under the gallows on the banks of the Hudson, a few locks of his beautiful hair still remained, and were sent to his sisters. The string which tied his hair was sent also, and is now in the possession of the Dean of Westminster. A withered tree and a heap of stones now mark the spot, where the plough never enters. When the remains were removed, a peach tree, 4 of which the roots had pierced the coffin and twisted themselves round the skull, was taken up, and replanted in the King's garden, behind Carlton House. The courtesy and good feeling of the Americans were remarkable. The bier was decorated with garlands and flowers, as it was transported to the ship. On its arrival in England, it was first deposited in the Islip Chapel, and then buried, with the funeral service, in the Nave, by Dean Ireland, Sir Herbert Taylor appearing for the Duke of York, and Mr. Locker, Secretary of Greenwich Hospital, for the sisters of Andre. The chest in which the remains were enclosed is still preserved in the Bevestry. On the monument, in bas-relief, 5 by Van Gelder, is to be seen the likeness of Washington receiving the flag of truce and the letter either of Andre or of Clinton. Many a citizen of the great Western Republic has paused before the sight of the sad story. 6 Often has the head of Washington or Andre been carried off, perhaps by republican or royalist indignation, but more probably by the pranks of Westminster boys : ' the wanton mischief,' says Charles Lamb, ' of some school-boy, fired perhaps with some ' raw notions of Transatlantic freedom. The mischief was 1 The only other mark of the Ame- ter. Annual Register, 1821, p. 333. Wrn^g, dieil rican war, showing the tra- ' In 1868 died an old American lady Sept. 3, 1777. gi c interest it excited, is who had as a girl given him a peach on the monument to William Wragg, ship- that occasion. wrecked in his escape from South 5 The monument was deemed of Carolina. sufficient importance to displace that * The bas-relief appears to represent of Major Creed. Andre as intended to be shot; not, as 6 Amongst them Benedict Arnold was the case, to be hanged. (through whose act Andre had suffered). 3 Life of Major Andre, by Winthrop Peter von Schenck, p. 147. Sargeant, pp. 409-411. Burial Eegis- 240 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' done,' he adds, addressing Southey, ' about the time that you were a scholar there. Do you know anything about the un- ' fortunate relic ? ' l Southey, always susceptible at allusions to his early political principles, not till years after could for- give this passage at arms. The wreath of autumnal leaves from the banks of the Hudson which is placed over the tomb was brought by the Dean from America. Here and there a few warriors of the Peninsular "War are to be found in the Aisles. Colonel Herries's funeral, in the south aisle of the Nave, was remarkable for the attendance of the whole of his corps, the Light Horse Volunteers, of which he was described as the Father. 2 Sir Kobert Wilson, s^n. MayVs, like Lord Dundonald, after many vicissitudes, has sir James found a place in the north aisle of the Nave. 3 There at u paT >died also the late Indian campaigns are represented by the buried ' two chiefs, Outram and Clyde, united in the close isea? proximity of their graves, after the long rivalry of died Aug. 14, their lives, followed by Sir George Pollock, whose 22, r i863 Auj ' earlier exploits preserved Afghanistan. The Crimean Idiock** 6 War, the Indian Mutiny, and the loss of the ' Captain,' will be long recalled by the stained glass of the North Transept. The granite column which stands in front of the Abbey also records, in a touching inscription from its public situation more frequently read perhaps than any other in London the Westminster scholars who fell in those campaigns, and whose names acquire an additional glory from the most illustrious of their number, Lord Raglan. 4 A monument not Monument ^ ar fr m Kempenfelt, in the Chapel of St. John, was pJ-a^kiin 111 erec ted to the memory of Sir John Franklin by his hardly less famous widow, a few weeks before her own death in her 83rd year. Its ornaments are copied from the Arctic vegetation, and from the armorial bearings which served to identify the relics found on his icy grave, and the lines which indicate his tragic fate are by his kinsman, the Poet- Laureate Tennyson. Down to this point we have followed the general stream of history, as it has wound, at its own sweet will, in and out of Chapel, Aisle, and Nave, without distinction of class or order. 1 Lamb's Elia. and Ciudad Kodrigo (1812), have - Lord Teignmouth's Life, i. 268. monuments in the North Aisle. 4 The erection of the column (1861) Two young officers, Bryan and is commemorated, and the inscription Beresford, who fell at Talavera (1809), given in Ltisus West. ii. 282-85. CHAP. iv. OF THE STATESMEN. 241 But there are channels which may be kept apart, by the separation both of locality and of interests. The first to be noticed is the last in chronological order, but flows more immediately out of the general arrangement of THE the tombs. The statesmen of previous ages had, as MODERN- . r STATE.SME.V. we have seen, found their resting-places and me- morials, according to their greater or less importance, in almost every part of the Abbey. But in the middle of the last century a marked change took place. Down to that time one exception presented itself to the general influx. The Northern Transept, like the north side of a country churchyard like the Pelasgicum under the dark shadow of the north wall of the Acropolis of Athens had remained a comparative solitude. But, like the Pelasgicum under the pressure of the Peloponnesian War, this gradually began to be occupied. At first it seemed destined to become the Admirals' Corner. They, more than any other class, had filled its walls and vacant niches. One great name, however, determined its future fate for ever. The growth of the naval empire which those nautical monuments symbolised had taken place under one command- j^ ing genius. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was the tod M^' 11 ^ rs ^ English politician who, without other accom- paniments of military or literary glory, or court- favour, won his way to the chief place of statesmanship. Whatever fame had gathered round his life, was raised to the highest pitch by the grand scene at his last appearance in the House of Lords. The two great metropolitan cemeteries contended for his body a contention the more remarkable if, as was partly believed at the time, he had meanwhile been privately interred in his own churchyard at Hayes. It was urgently entreated by the City of London, as ' a mark of ' gratitude and veneration from the first commercial city of the ' empire towards the statesman whose vigour and counsels had ' so much contributed to the protection and extension of its ' commerce,' that he should be buried ' in the cathedral church ' of St. Paul, in the City of London.' Parliament, however, had already decided in favour of Westminster, on the ground HIS funeral, that he ought to be brought ' near to the dust of June 9, i/ 78. < jj^gg . ' i an( j accordingly, with almost regal pomp, the body was brought from the Painted Chamber, and interred 1 Anecdotes of Lord Chatham, pp. 332, 335 ; Malcolm, p. 254. 'Sanderson "Halifax "WATSON W ^ Sg N. WAGER VERNON |i Sanderson \\FOX \\PALMERSTON \\TIIE TWO CANNINGS \\PITT \\CASTLEREAGH \\WILBERFORCE = O North Aisle of Choir 5 ci v M M O o NORTH TP.AXSEPT. CHAP iv. THE MONUMENTS OF THE STATESMEN. 243 in the centre of the North Transept, in a vault which eventually received his whole family. Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing posthumous honours to Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by opponents of the Government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne by Colonel Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. Burke, Saville, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt. 1 Such honours Ilium to her hero paid, And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 2 The North Transept ' has ever since been appropriated to states- ' men, as the other transept to poets.' The words of Junius have been literally fulfilled : ' Recorded honours still gather ' round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a solid ' fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it.' 3 In no other cemetery do so many great citizens he within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers the stately monu- , ment of Chatham, 4 and from above, his effigy, graven by a Monument Oi/ ' * and effigy of cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The generation which reared that memorial of him has disappeared. And history, while, for the warning of vehement, high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce that, among the eminent men whose bones he near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid name. 5 fiew died 3 " Next in order of date, buried by his own desire buried 20 ' ' privately in this cathedral, from the love he bore to March ss, t ^ pj ace O f hi s early education,' is Lord Mansfield. 6 Here Murray, long enough his country's pride, Is now no more than Tully or than Hyde. 7 1 Macaulay's Essays, vi. 229. * Bacon, the sculptor, also wrote the 2 His own last words, communicated inscription. George III. approved it, to me by a friend, who heard them but said, ' Now, Bacon, mind you don't from the first Lord Sidmouth. ' turn author, but stick to your chisel.' 3 Anecdotes of Chatham, p. 379. (Londiniana, ii. 63.) The figure itself In the same vault are his wife and is suggested by Roubiliac's ' Eloquence' daughter (Lady Harriet Eliot), and the on the Argyll monument. second Lord and Lady Chatham. His s Macaulay's Essays. coffin was found turned over by the It is copied from a portrait by water thrown into the vault in the fire Reynolds. His nephew (1796) was of 1806. Lady Harriet's death deeply buried in the same vault. affected her brother. (See Life of Wil- 7 ' Foretold by Pope, and fulfilled berforce, i. 125, and Stanhope's Life of 'in the year 1793.' (Epitaph.) The Pitt, i. 313.) passage is from Pope's Epistles R 2 244 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Close behind the great judge stands the statue of the famous advocate, Sir William Follett. These are the sole representatives, in the Abbey, of the modern legal profession. But the direct succession of statesmen is PITT and immediately continued. The younger Pitt was buried pitt li d?ed at i* 1 hi 8 Cher's vault. ' The sadness of the assistants Putney, Jan. f was beyond that of ordinary mourners. For he 23, buried <* Feb. 22, 1806. < w hom they were committing to the dust had died of ' sorrows and anxieties of which none of the survivors could be ' altogether without a share. Wilberforce, who carried one of ' the banners before the hearse, described the awful ceremony ' with deep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, 1 he said, the eagle face of Chatham seemed to look down with ' consternation into the dark home which was receiving all ' that remained of so much power and glory.' l Lord Wel- lesley, who was present, with his brother Arthur, already famous, spoke of the day with no less emotion. The herald pronounced over his grave, Non sibi sed patria vixit. charies FOX, There is but one entry in the Eegister between chiswick, the burial of Pitt and the burial of Fox. They lie buried 1 oct within a few feet of each other. 10, 1806 (the anniversary of his first Here, where the end of earthly things Westminster T , i i i_ 3 -i i election). Liays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings, Where stiff the hand and still the tongue Of those who fought and spoke and sung ; Here, where the fretted aisles prolong The distant notes of holy song, As if some angel spoke agen, ' All peace on earth, goodwill to men ' If ever from an English heart, Oh here let prejudice depart .... For ne'er held marble in its trust Of two such wondrous men the dust. . . . Genius and taste and talent gone, For ever tomb'd beneath the stone, Where taming thought to human pride The mighty chiefs sleep side by side. Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 'Twill trickle to bis rival's bier. And what is fame 1 the meanest have their day ; Where Murray (long enough his country's pride) The greatest can but blaze, and pass away. Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde ! ttXSRSttf&ttfitt 3 . ' Malay's Assays; Stanhope's Conspicuous scene ! Another yet is nigh Pitt, iv. 396 ; Ann. Eegister, 1806, p. (More silent far), vhere kingt and poets lie; 375 ; Quart. Rev. Ivii. 492. CHAP. iv. OF THE STATESMEN. 245 O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound, And Fox's shall the notes rebound. The solemn echo seems to cry Here let their discord with them die ; Speak not for those a separate doom, Whom Fate made brothers in the tomb ! l Their monuments are far apart from their graves, but, by a singular coincidence, near to each other, so as to give the Monument poet's lines a fresh application. Pitt stands in his robes of Chancellor of the Exchequer, over the west door of the Abbey, trampling on the French Eevolution, in the attitude so well known by his contemporaries, ' drawing up ' his haughty head, stretching out his arm with commanding ' gesture, and pouring forth the lofty language of inextin- Monument ' guishable hope.' Fox's monument, erected by his numerous private friends, originally near the North Transept, was removed to the side of Lord Holland's, in the THE WHIGS- north-west angle of the Nave. The figure of the Negro represents the prominence which the abolition of the slave-trade then occupied in the public mind. 2 This Lord spot by the monuments of Fox and Holland, of Holland, . . died Oct. 22, Tierney, the soul of every opposition, and of Mackm- Tiemey, tosh, 3 the cherished leader of philosophical and liberal Mackintosh, thought, and the reformer of our criminal code, has died 1832 Perceval,' been consecrated as the Whigs' Corner. The shock died May 11, 1812. of Perceval's assassination is commemorated in the Grattau,died , . . . . . , XT , June 10, Nave. But the burials continued in the North i6, r T82o. ane Transept. 4 Grattan had expressed to his friends his earnest desire (' Remember ! remember ! ') to be buried in a retired churchyard at Moyanna, in Queen's County, on the estate given him by the Irish people. On his deathbed, in the midst of one of his impassioned exclamations about his country ' I stood up for Ireland, and I was right ' as his eye kindled and his countenance brightened, and his arm was raised with surprising firmness, he added, ' As to my grave, I wish to be ' laid in Moyanna : I had rather be buried there.' His friends told him that it was their intention to place him in West- 1 Scott's Marmion, Introduction to appears from the record of his walk canto i. round it with Maria Edgeworth. Tha 2 ' Liberty ' lost her cap in the erec- inscription, added in 18b7, is by his tion of the scaffolding for the coronation nephew Mr. Claude Erskine. of Queen Victoria. 4 The first Lord Minto was buried 3 Buried at Hampstead, 1832. How here January 29, 1816. well he knew and loved the Abbey 246 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. minster Abbey. 1 ' Oh ! ' said he, ' that will not be thought of ; ' I would rather have Moyanna.' On the request being urged again the next day from the Duke of Sussex, he gave way, and said, ' Well, Westminster Abbey.' 2 The children of the Roman Catholic charities were, at the request of the 'British ' Catholic Board,' who also attended, ranged in front of the west entrance, the Irish children habited in green. The coffin nearly touched the foot of the coffin of Fox, * whom in life he ' so dearly valued, and near whom, in death, it would have ' been his pride to lie.' 3 Here, near yon walls, so often shook By the stern weight of his rebuke, While bigotry with blanching brow Heard him and blusb'd, but would not bow, Here, where bis asbes may fulfil His country's cberisb'd mission still, Tbere let bim point bis last appeal Wbere statesmen and where kings will kneel ; His bones will warn them to be just, Still pleading even from tbe dust. 4 Castlereagh, Marquis of Londonderry, followed. The mingled feelings of consternation and of triumph, that were awakened castiereagh, m the Conservative and Liberal parties through- died Aug. 12, 1822, buried out Europe, by his sudden and terrible end, ac- Ang. 20, , companied him to his grave. From his house in St. James's Square to the doors of the Abbey, ' the streets seemed ' to be paved with human heads.' The Duke of Wellington and Lord Eldon were deeply agitated. But when the hearse reached the western door, and the coffin was removed, ' a shout ' arose from the crowd, which echoed loudly through every ' corner of the 5 Abbey.' Through the raging mob, and amidst 1 This was believed by the Irish Grattan's grave with that of an ancient patriots of that time to have been a mediaeval knight close adjoining, whose stratagem of the English Government worn and shattered surface was thus to restrain the enthusiasm which might supposed to represent the fallen great- have attended Grattan's funeral obse- ness of Ireland. In fact, Grattan's quies in his own country. Sir Jonah slab is happily as whole and unbroken Barrington is furious at his being as any in the Abbey, being smaller and ' suffered to moulder in the same ground more compact than most of the grave- ' with his country's enemies. . . . Eng- stones, in order to place it at the head ' land has taken away our Constitution, of Fox's grave according to Grattan's ' and even the relics of its founder are desire. ' retained through the duplicity of his 2 Life of Grattan, v. 545-53. ' enemy ' (Barrington's Own Times, i. * Preface to Speeches of Grattan, 353-58.) An Irish patriot of more pp. Ixi.-lxiii. recent date, by an excusable mistake, * Ibid. p. Ixxiii. was led to confound the slab over * Annual Register (1882), p. 181. CHAP. iv. OF INDIAN STATESMEN. 247 shrieks and execrations, the mourners literally fought their way into the church ; and it was not till the procession had effected its entrance, and the doors were closed, that a stillness suc- ceeded within the building, the more affecting and solemn from the tumult which preceded it. 1 With this awful welcome the coffin moved on, and was deposited between the graves of canning ^^ an ^ Fox. His rival and successor, George Can- oidswick nm g> was n t l n g behind him. On the day of the buried' Aug f unera l> though the rain descended in torrents, the 16, IBS?. streets were crowded, and he was laid opposite the grave of Pitt. 2 His son, a stripling of sixteen, was present. When, on the sudden death of Sir Robert Peel, ' all London ' felt like one family,' the departed statesman had so expressly peei died provided in his will, that he should be ' buried by the buifedat 850 ' ' side of h* s father and mother at Drayton,' that the Drayton. honoured grave in the Abbey was not sought. In its HIS statue. pl ace was erected Gibson's statue of him, which still waits the inscription that shall record what he was. 3 The closing scene of Lord Palmerston's octogenarian career was laid amongst the memorials of the numerous statesmen, Paimerston friends o r foes, with whom his public life had been bu e ried c oct 8 ' 8 P en t- He lies opposite the statue of his first patron, 27,1865. Canning. As the coffin sank into the grave amidst the circle of those who were to succeed to the new sphere left vacant by his death a dark storm broke over the Abbey, in which, as in a black shroud, the whole group of mourners seemed to vanish from the sight, till the ray of the returning sun, as the service drew to its end, once more lighted up the gloom. The Indian statesmen not unnaturally fell into the aisles of INDIA ^ the same transept, which thus enfolds at once the earlier STATESMEN, trophies of Indian warfare, and the first founders of burMJa'n. the Indian Empire Sir George Staunton, Sir John Maico'im, Malcolm, Sir Stamford Baffles, the younger Canning Kafflesfdied (laid beside his father), and an earlier, a greater, but Eari' a more ambiguous name than any of these Warren burio!"june Hastings. ' With all his faults, and they were neither 21, 1862. ' From an eyewitness who beheld it the classical costume. (Life of Gibson, from the organ loft. by Lady Eastlake, 90, which contains 2 Life of Canning, p. 143. an able defence of his choice.) He had 3 Peel's name was first inscribed in wished to have the statue placed in 1866. Gibson refused to undertake the the Nave. But this was impossible, work unless he was allowed to adopt 2 48 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. * few nor small, only one cemetery was worthy to contain ' his remains. In that Temple of silence and reconcilia- warren ' tion wnere the enmities of twenty generations lie Ha*tiug3, < buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many ' ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose Dayiesfori < minds and bodies have been shattered by the * contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious f accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious ' accusers.' l Though this was not to be, and though his ms but remains lie by the parish church of his ancestral erected i8i9. Daylesford, his memorial 2 stands in the Abbey, which had also been associated with his early years with the days when he was remembered by the poet Cowper as the active Westminster boy, who had rowed on the Thames and played in the Cloisters, amongst the scholars to whom he left the magnificent cup which bears his name. It was whilst standing before this bust that Macaulay received from Dean Milman, then Prebendary of Westminster, the suggestion of writing that essay, which has in our own days revived the fame of the great proconsul. Close by the monument of the stern ruler of India begins the line of British philanthropists. It started with the tablet f J nas Hanway, whose motto, ' Never despair,' re- S. calls his unexpected deliverance from his dangers in n " Persia. Of the heroes of the abolition of the slave- is. trade, 3 Clarkson alone is absent. Granville Sharp , has his memorial in Poets' Corner, Zachary Macau- miberforce; lay 4 in the WTiigs' Corner of the Nave. Wilberforce bur1ed U Aug 9 ' was, at the requisition of Lord Brougham, 5 buried, with the attendance of both Houses of Parliament, amongst his friends in the North Transept with whom he Buxton,died na ^ fought the same good fight; and his statue burie^'at 845 ' si ts nearly side by side with Fowell Buxton in the HE5 U " L North Aisle. In later times and in a more philo- Sorn! sophic vein, in the same corner of the church, follow the cenotaphs all striking likenesses of men prema- turely lost of Francis Horner, 6 the founder of our modern ' Macaulay's Essays, iii. 465. 4 The epitaph was written by Sir By Bacon, erected 1819. (Chap- James Stephen, and corrected by Sir ter Book, June 3, 1819.) Fowell B^.' 3 A monument of the same cause '.. , __. has been raised outside the Abbey by Ll J e f Wilberforcc, v. 373. Charles Buxton. 6 His statue is one of Chantrey' CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 249 economical and financial policy ; Charles Buller, 1 the genial Buiier died advocate of our colonial interests ; Cornewall Lewis, JSov. 2H, ms, buried indefatigable and judicial alike as scholar and Green. as statesman ; and Eichard Cobden, 2 the successful Lewis, died . 1863, buried champion of Free Trade. In the Nave is the m- Kadnor. scription which marks the spot where for a month April 2/1865, rested the remains of George Peabody, who had west Lav- desired to express his gratitude to God for the bless- GeorTe ings heaped upon him, by ' doing some great good Peabody, , . , ., , 1875. ' to his fellowmen. We now pass to the other side of the Abbey for another line POETS- f worthies, which has a longer continuity than any CORNER. other ; beginning under the Plantagenet dynasty, and reviving again and again, with renewed freshness, in each successive reign Till distant warblings fade upon my ear, And lost in long futurity expire. The Southern Transept, 3 hardly known by any other name but ' Poets' Corner ' the most familiar 4 though not the most august or sacred spot in the whole Abbey derives the origin of its peculiar glory, like the Northern Transept at a much later period, from a single tomb. Although it is by a royal affinity that These poets near our princes sleep, And in one grave their mansion keep, 5 the first beginning of the proximity was from a homelier cause. We have already traced the general beginning of the private monuments to Eichard II. It is from him, also indirectly, that the poetical monuments take their rise. In 1389 the office of Clerk of the Eoyal Works in the Palaces of Westminster and Windsor was vacant. Possibly from his services to the Eoyal best works. The epitaph is by Sir poets of the Old and of the New Testa- Henry Englefield. ment. > His epitaph is by Lord Houghton. * ' I have always observed that the . * .. visitors to the Abbey remain longest - The framer of an earlier commer- about the gi le memorials in Poets - cial treaty, Sir Paul Methuen was buried Corner- A kinder and fonder feeli in the Abbey in 1757, m the grave of ta]:eg the kce of that cold curiosit his father, John Methuen, to whom Qr y adm iration with which they there is a monument in the south aisle gaze on the splendid monume nts of of the Nave. t ^ e grea t an( j the heroic. They linger 3 A stained window has been re- about these as about the tombs of cently placed at the entrance of this friends and companions.' (Washing- transept, with David, and St. John in ton Irving's Sketch Book, p. 216.) the Apocalypse, as representing the 5 Denham, on Cowley. s. , , _ Jonson "Sutler Milton i|Rowe =? "Goldsmith - 1 Entr. \\ Spenser Gray e C3 ? o oj; | p S ^ 3 S S O o 5 |!o cw H o o UGarrick cj *- ^ g 2. || Johnson =5 Q ^ c W S ? ^s |. || Sheridan S E .S- *5 'a = ? S" pd ' ' t/2 hj f 3 ^ j ? ii L S> p i a w n i p ^ - 5 n W 3 lu 6 S 3 O - X B d 1 a ii Macpherson t i Adam P g" (Hawle || Chambers S. [Gifford s II Dean Irelan South Aisle of Choir. ^ 1 I ScS ^ ^ a PLAN OF POETS' CORNER. CHAP. iv. THE MONUMENTS OF THE POETS. 251 Family, 1 possibly from Eichard's well-known patronage of the arts, the selection fell on Geoffrey Chaucer. He CHAUCER. . retained the post only for twenty months. But it probably gave him a place in the Eoyal Household, which was not forgotten at his death. After the fall of Kichard, ' when ' Chaucer's hairs were gray, and the infirmities of age pressed ' heavily upon him, he found himself compelled to come to ' London for the arrangement of his affairs.' There is still preserved a lease, granted to him by the keeper of the Lady Chapel of the Abbey, which makes over to him a tenement in the garden attached to that building, 2 on the ground now Death of covered by the enlarged Chapel of Henry VII. In oc l U 25 e , r> ^ n ^ s nouse ne died, on October 25, in the last year of the fourteenth century, uttering, it is said, ' in the ' great anguish of his deathbed,' the ' good counsel ' which closes with the pathetic words Here is no home, here is but -wilderness. Forth, pilgrim ; forth, beast, out of thy stall ! Look up on high, and thank thy God of all. Control thy lust ; and let thy spirit thee lead ; And Truth thee shall deliver ; 'tis no dread. 3 Probably from the circumstance of his dying so close at hand, combined with the royal favour, still continued by Henry IV., he was brought to the Abbey, and buried, where the functionaries of the monastery were beginning to be interred, at the entrance of St. Benedict's Chapel. There was nothing to mark the grave except a plain slab, which was sawn up when Dryden's monument was erected, and a leaden plate on an adjacent pillar, hung there, it is conjectured, by Caxton, with an inscription by ' a poet laureate,' Surigonius of Monument Milan. 4 It was not till the reign of Edward VI. that i ) 55i. iau< the present tomb, to which apparently the poet's ashes were removed, was raised, near the grave, by Nicholas Brigham, himself a poet, who was buried close beside, with his daughter Eachel. 5 The inscription closes with an echo of the poet's own expiring counsel, ' jErumnarum requies mors.' Originally the back of the tomb contained a portrait of 1 Godwin's Life of Chaucer, ii. 498. MaternS, hac sacra sum tumu- * Ibid. ii. 549, 641. latus humo '' Ibid. ii. 553, 555. (Winstanley's Worthies p 94.) It has long since disappeared. (See Godwin, 4 Galfridus Chaucer, vates et fama i. 5.) poesis, 5 Dart ii. 61. 252 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IV. Chaucer. 1 The erection of the monument so long afterwards shows how freshly the fame of Chaucer then flourished, and accordingly, within the next generation, it became the point of attraction to the hitherto unexampled burst of poets in spenser died tno Elizabethan age. The first was Spenser. His Jan. is, 1599. interment in the Abbey was perhaps suggested by the fact that his death took place close by, in King Street, CHAUCER'S MONUMENT. Westminster. But it was distinctly in his poetical character HIS funeral ^ a ^ ^ e received the honours of a funeral from Devereux, Earl of Essex. His hearse was attended by poets, and mournful elegies and poems, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb. What a funeral was that at which Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, and, in all proba- bility, Shakspeare attended ! what a grave in which the pen of Shakspeare may be mouldering away ! In the orignal in- 1 A painted window above the tomb, with medallions of Chaucer and Gower, and with scenes from Chaucer's life and poems, presented by Dr. Eogers, de- signed by Mr. Waller, and executed by Messrs. Baillie and Raye, supplied this loss in 1868. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 253 scription, long ago effaced, the vicinity to Chaucer was expressly stated as the reason for the selection of the spot Hie prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi Proximus ingenio, proximus et tumulo. 1 The actual monument was erected by Nicholas Stone, at the' cost 2 of Ann Clifford, Countess of Dorset, the great ' restorer HIS ' of waste places,' and afterwards repaired through monument, ,., ' . * erected 1620, Mason the poet. 3 The inscription, in pathos and restored 1778. simplicity, is worthy of the author of the ' Faery ' Queen,' but curious as implying the unconsciousness of any greater than he, at that very time, to claim the title then given him of ' the Prince of Poets.' ' The great Spenser keeps the ' entry of the Church, in a plain stone tomb, but his works are ' more glorious than all the marble and brass monuments ' within.' 4 The neighbourhood to Chaucer, thus emphatically marked as the cause of Spenser's grave, is noticed again and again Beaumont, a ^ each successive interment. Beaumont was the isiiMJ. 9 ' next. He lies still nearer to Chaucer, 5 under a name- diedTpTii 6 ' I GSS stone ; and immediately afterwards came the cry burie The world long wondered that ' he should lie buried from the rest of the poets ' and want 2 a tomb.' This monument, in fact, was to have been erected by subscription soon after his death, but was delayed by the breaking out of the Civil War. The present medallion in Poets' Corner was set up in the middle of the last century by ' a person of quality, whose name was desired to be ' concealed.' By a mistake of the sculptor, the buttons were set on the left side of the coat. Hence this epigram rare Ben Jonson what a turncoat grown ! Thou ne'er wast such, till clad in stone : Then let not this disturb thy sprite, Another age shall set thy buttons right. 3 Apart from the other poets, under the tomb of Henry V., is Sir 4 Kobert Ay ton, secretary to the two Queens consort of Robert the time, and friend of Ben Jonson, Drummond, and 2SU637-I. ' the then youthful Hobbes. He is the first Scottish poet buried here, and claims a place from his being the first in whose verses appears the ' Auld Lang Syne.' His bust is by Farelli, from a portrait by Yandyck. There is a pause in the succession during the troubled times of the Civil Wars. 5 May, who had unsuccessfully com- ThomasMa P e ted with the wild Cavalier Sir William Davenant diSLtened f r * ne laureateship, and, according to Clarendon, on 1661 - that account thrown himself into the Parliamentary cause, was buried here as poet and historian under the Com- monwealth. But his vacant grave, after the disinterment of wmiam n ^ 8 remains, received his rival Davenant, connected A a ru D 9 nt> w ^k ^ e ^ wo greyest f English poetical names with lees. Shakspeare by the tradition of the Stratford player's intimacy with his mother, and with Milton by the protection which he first received from him, and afterwards procured for him, in their respective reverses. 6 His funeral was conducted with the pomp due to a laureate, though, to the great grief of Anthony Wood, ' the wreath was forgot 1 For full details, see Mr. Frank 4 For a full account of him, see Buckland's interesting narrative in Transactions of Historical Society, i. pt. Curiosities of Natural History (3rd se- 6, pp. 113-220. ries), ii. 181-189. It would seem that, 5 For May see Clarendon's Life, i. in spite of some misadventures, the 39, 40 ; and for an indignant Eoyalist skull still remains in the grave. epitaph, the Appendix to Crull, p. 46. * London Spy, p. 179. Malone's History of the Stage. 1 Seymour's Stow, ii. 512, 513. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 257 ' that should have been put on the coffin ' l of walnut wood, which, according to Denham, was the ' finest coffin he had ever ' seen.' 2 Pepys, who was present, thought that the ' many hackneys made it look like the funeral of a poor poet. He ' seemed to have many children, by five or six in the first ' mourning coach.' 3 On his grave 4 was repeated the inscription of Ben Jonson, ' rare Sir William Davenant ! ' In the preceding year three poets had been laid in the Abbey two of transitory name, the third with the grandest obsequies that Poets' Corner ever witnessed. In March was w.Johnson, buried in the North Transept Dr. W. Johnson, ' Delight of the Muses and Graces, often shipwrecked, t a t length rests in this harbour, and his soul with ' God; whose saying was GOD WITH us.' 5 In July the South sir Robert Transept received Sir Robert Stapleton, a staunch tariedjuiy Ry ans t, though a Protestant convert, translator of is, 1669. Musaeus and Juvenal. 6 But at the end of that month, OowfoTdied Abraham Cowley died at Chertsey, which when burled\u Charles II. heard, he said, ' Mr. Cowley has not left a 3, lee/. < better man in England.' Evelyn was at his burial, though ' he sneaked from Church,' and describes the hundred coaches of noblemen, bishops, clergy, and all the wits of the town; and adds, still harping on the local fitness, he was buried ' next Geoffrey Chaucer, 7 and near Spenser ' near the poet whose ' Faery Queen,' before he was twelve years, ' filled his head with such chimes of verses as never since The urn ' ^ r i n g m g there.' The urn was erected by George Theinscrip- Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham. The inscrip- tion - tion which compares him to Pindar, Virgil, and Horace, and which, for its Pagan phraseology, could never be read by Dr. Johnson without indignation was by Dean Sprat, his biographer. How deeply fixed was the sense of his fame appears from the lines, striking even in their exag- geration, which, speaking of his burial, describe, with the re- collection of the great conflagration still fresh, that the best 1 Ant. Ox. ii. 165. west side of North Cross, March 12, 2 Aubrey's _Lwes,309.Hewas present. 1066-67. (Crull, p. 280 ; Kegister.) 3 Pepys's Correspondeiice, iv. 90. 6 Died July 11, 1669 ; was buried 4 'Near the vestry door.' (Eegister.) in South Transept near the western ' Near to the monument of Dr. Barrow.' door, July 15. Eegister. (Seymour's (Aubrey's Lives, 309.) The stone was Stow, ii. 556 ; Dart, ii. 62.) broken up, but was replaced in 1866. 7 ' Mr. Cowly, a famous poet, was 5 Died March 4, 1666 : ' Subalmoner, ' buried near to Chaucer's monument.' buried near the Convocation door,' (Register.) S 258 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. security for Westminster Abbey was that it held the grave of Cowley : l That sacrilegious fire (which did last year Level those piles which Piety did rear) Dreaded near that majestic church to fly, Where English kings and English poets lie. It at an awful distance did expire, Such pow'r had sacred ashes o'er that fire ; Such as it durst not near that structure come Which fate had order'd to be Cowley's tomb ; And 'twill be still preserved, by being so, From what the rage of future flames can do. Material fire dares not that place infest, Where he who had immortal flame does rest. There let his urn remain, for it was fit Among our kings to lay the King of Wit. By which the structure more renown'd will prove For that part bury'd than for all above. 2 But the most effective glorification at once of Cowley and John f P e ts' Corner was that which came from his friend MSch'zs Sir John Denham, who, within a few months, was laid 1668-9. by hjg gjde, in the ground which he knew so well how to appreciate, and who, after describing how Old Chaucer, like the morning star, to us discovers day from far ; how Next, like Aurora, Spenser rose, whose purple blush the day foreshows ; how Shakspeare, Jonson, Fletcher, With their own fires, Phosbus, the poet's god, inspires ; and then curses the fatal hour that in Cowley Pluck'd The fairest, sweetest flow'r that in the Muses' garden grew. 3 If the fame of Cowley has now passed away, it is not so with John the poet who, like him, was educated 4 under the shadow Sffilyi, of th Abbey, and was laid beside him. Convert as Dryden had become to the Church of Eome, and power- 1 Pepys, iii. 325, v. 24. The name of ' J. Dryden ' is still * British Poets, v. 213. to be seen carved on a bench in West- * ' On Mr. Abraham Cowley's Death minster School, in the characters of ' and Burial among the Ancient Poets.' the time, though not in Dryden's own (British Poets, v. 214.) orthography. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 259 fully as he had advocated the claims of the ' Hind ' against the ' Panther,' Sprat (who was Dean at the time), as soon as he heard of his death, undertook to remit all the fees, and offered himself to perform the rites of interment in the Abbey, Lord Halifax offered to pay the expenses of the funeral, with 500 for a monument. It is difficult to know how to treat the strange story of the infamous practical jest by which the son of Lord Jeffreys broke up the funeral on the pretext of making it more splendid : the indignation of the Dean, who had ' the ' Abbey lighted, the ground opened, the Choir attending, an ' anthem ready set, and himself waiting without a corpse to ' bury ; ' and the anger of the poet's son, who watched till the death of Jeffreys, with ' the utmost application,' for an op- portunity of revenge. 1 At any rate, twelve days after Dryden's death, his ' deserving reliques ' were lodged in the College of Dryden-s Physicians. There a Latin eulogy was pronounced funeral, May J toj 13,1700. by bir Samuel Garth, himself at once a poet and physician, and also wavering between scepticism and Roman Catholicism : and thence ' an abundance of quality in their ' coaches and six horses ' 2 accompanied the hearse with funeral music, singing the ode of Horace, Exegi monumentum cere perennius ; 3 and the Father, as he has been called, of modern English Poetry was laid almost in the very sepulchre 4 of the Father of ancient English Poetry, whose grave- stone was actually sawn asunder to make room for his monu- ment. That monument was long delayed. But so completely had his grave come to be regarded as the most interesting spot in Poets' Corner, that Pope, in writing the epitaph for Piowe, could pay him no higher honour than to show how his monument pointed the way to Dryden's : 5 Thy reliques, Eowe, to this fair urn we trust, And, sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust. Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. 6 The ' rude and nameless stone ' roused the attention of 1 Johnson's Lives, iii. 367-69. The ' and have his monument erected by story is partly confirmed by the London ' Lord Dorset and Lord Montagu.' Spy, p. 417. (Pepys's Correspondence, v. 321.) 2 London Spy (p. 418), who saw it 4 'At Chaucer's feet, without any from Chancery Lane (p. 424). ' name, lies John Dryden his admirer, 3 Postman and Postbag^Siyli,llOO, 'and truly the English Maro.' (Tom 4 ' Mr. Dryden is lately dead, who Brown, iii. 228.) ' will be buried in Chaucer's grave, 6 Pope, iii. 369. s 2 260 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who in consequence raised the Hismonu- P resenfc monument. For the inscription Pope and ment - Atterbury were long in earnest correspondence : What do you think [says Atterbury] of some such short inscrip- tion as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all tion. mscnp " that is to be said of Dry den, and yet nothing more than he deserves ? IOHANNI DKYDENO, CVI POESIS ANGLICANA VIM SVAM AC VENEBES DEBET ; ET SI QVA IN POSTERVM AVGEBITVR LAVDE, EST ADHVC DEBITVRA : HONORIS ERGO P. etc. To show you that I am as much in earnest in the affair as yourself, something I will send you too of this kind in English. If your design holds of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above, may not lines like these be graved just under the name ? This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's ashes just, Here fixed his name, and there his laurel'd bust ; What else the Muse in marble might express, Is known already ; praise would make him less. Or thus ? More needs not ; where acknowledg'd merits reign, Praise is impertinent, and censure vain. 1 Pope improved upon these suggestions, and finally wrote This Sheffield raised : the sacred dust below Was Dryden's once the rest who does not know ? This was afterwards altered into the present plain inscription ; and the bust erected by the Duke was exchanged for a finer one by Scheemakers, put up by the Duchess, with a pyramid behind it. 2 So the monument remained till our own day, when Dean Buckland, with the permission of the surviving repre- sentative of the poet, Sir Henry Dryden, removed all except the simple bust and pedestal. Bust of Opposite Dryden's monument is the bust of his burSt' forgotten rival, and victim of his bitterest satire : Chelsea, NOV, 24, Others to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 1 Pope, ix. 199. 2 Akerman, ii. 89. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 261 Dryden's son had intended a longer inscription, 1 but Sprat sup- pressed it, on the ground of an exception which some of the clergy had made to it, as ' being too great an encomium on ' plays to be set up in a church.' Not in Poets' Corner, but near the steps leading to the Confessor's Chapel, was buried, Jan. 24, 1684-85, Lord Eoscommon, In all Charles's days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted lays. His last words were from his own translation of the ' Dies Irae : ' My God, my Father, and my Friend, Do not forsake me in my end. These names close the seventeenth century and begin the eighteenth. Another race appears, of whom the monuments follow in quick succession. By his connection with West- minster School, by his friendship with Montagu and Prior, George by his diplomatic honours, rather than by his verses, lepriJ,' George Stepney, 2 who was thought by his con- temporaries ' a much greater man ' than Sir Cloudesley Shovel, 3 and ' whose juvenile compositions ' were then believed to have ' made gray-headed authors blush,' 4 has his bust and grave just outside the Transept. But within, on the right of johnPhiiips, Chaucer's tomb, is the monument of John Philips, buned at erected by his friend Sir Simon Harcourt, and claiming 1/08. in its inscription to close the south side of the Father of English Poetry, as Cowley closes the north. His ' Splendid ' Shilling ' and ' Cyder ' are now amongst the forgotten curiosities of literature. But his epitaph has a double interest. With its wreath of apples (Honos erit huic quoque porno), it recounts his celebrity at that time as the master, almost the inventor, of the difficult art of blank verse, and it also indicates the gradual rise of another fame far greater. Philips himself had been devoted to Milton's poems, as models for his own feeble imita- tions ; and the partial patron who composed the inscription on . his tomb has declared that in this field he was second Monument of Philips. t o Milton alone : ' Uni Miltono sccundus primoque pane 'par.' It is disputed whether Smalridge, Freind, or Atterbury was the author. If (as is most probable) Atterbury, the em- 1 Crull ii 42 where it is given. 'With heighten'd reverence to hare seen * One of 'his' poems relates to the ' The ""? randeur of an ^ ed Queen '' Abbey his elegy on the funeral of 3 Dart, ii. 83. Mary II., in whom he had hoped 4 Johnson's Lives of the Poets. 262 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. phasis laid on Philips's proficiency is the expression of bis own partiality ' against rhyme and in behalf of blank verse ' ' with- ' out the least prejudice, being himself equally incapable of ' writing in either of those ways.' l The antiquary Crull happened to be copying the inscription, and he had nearly reached these lines, when he was told, 'by a ' person of quality,' to desist from what he was about, for that there ' was an alteration to be made.' Crull put up his papers, and pretended to leave. ' My Lord went out,' and Crull im- mediately returned, and was informed that these lines were to be erased, and that ' his Lordship ' (Bishop Sprat, then Dean) ' had forbidden the cutting of them.' Crull ' was the more ' eagerly resolved to finish the inscription,' 'as it was originally ' composed by the learned Dr. Srnalridge.' 2 The next day he found the two lines wholly obliterated. The objection was not, as might have been supposed, to their intrinsic absurdity, but because the Royalist Dean would not allow the name of the regicide Milton to be engraved on the walls of Westminster Abbey. 3 Another four years and the excommunication was removed. Atterbury whose love for Milton 4 was stronger even than his legitimist principles, and who, in his last fare- well 5 to the Westminster scholars, vented his grief in the pathetic lines which close the ' Paradise Lost ' was now Dean, and the obnoxious lines were admitted within the walls of the Miiton, Abbey. Another four years yet again, and the .buried m criticism in the ' Spectator ' had given expression to St. Giles's, , . . ... f ,- * j , cnppiegate. the irresistible feeling of admiration growing m every English heart. ' Such was the change of public opinion,' 6 said Dr. Gregory to Dr. Johnson, ' that I have seen erected in the Monument ' church a bust of that man whose name I once knew 1737. ' 'considered as a pollution of its walls.' It is indeed a triumph of the force of truth and genius, such as of itself hallows the place which has witnessed it. And if this late 1 Pope, viii. 188. 6 A curious instance of the change 2 Crull, pp. 343, 345. is given in the successive editions of ''Un nomm6 Miltonus, qui s'est Sheffield's Essay on Poetry. In the first ' rendu plus infame par ses dangereux edition the epic poet ecrits que les bourreaux et les assas- . Must above Mrtoll . 9 , ofty flight3 prevail , sins de leur roi. (t rench Ambassador 'Succeed where great Torquuto aua where in App. to Pepys's Correspondence, greater Spenser fail.' v - - In the last- See Atterbury s remarks on the translation nf ' PararHcp T net ' ' Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, oon \ Paradise .Lost. , Succeed where Spen3ei . ^a Milton fail .' (Letters, iv. 229.) 4 See Chapter VI. See also his let- (Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ii. ters to Pope. (Pope, viii. 233.) 155.) CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 263 testimony was rendered to Milton (as a like late acknowledg- samuei nient had a few years l before been rendered to Samuel dfcdTeso. Butler, the author of ' Hudibras ') not, as in the case cove e nt ia f Spenser, Cowley, and Dryden, by dukes and Churchyard; duchesses, but by an obscure citizen of London, 2 the erected^ 11 * ^ ac ^' so ^ ar ^ rom deserving the cynical remarks of 1732. Pope, only adds to the interest, by the proof afforded of the wide and (as it were) subterraneous diffusion of the fame of the once neglected poet, who, though ' fallen on evil days,' at last received his reward. Probably it was this stimulus of shak- which roused the public subscription for the statue of speare.mo. ghakspeare, which in 1740 was finally erected with the inscription from the ' Tempest,' which certainly well fits its application under the shadow of the 'cloudcapt towers, the ' gorgeous palaces, and the solemn temples ' of Westminster. It is curious to mark how immediately these new objects of interest draw to their neighbourhood the lesser satellites of Nicholas fame. Nicholas Eowe, poet-laureate and translator buS Dec. of Lucan, was buried here by Atterbury, from his 19,1718. f ee ii n g f or n i s \& schoolfellow. 3 His monument, which Pope had designed to act as a conductor to the tomb of Dryden, 4 by the time that it was erected claimed kindred with this mightier brother of the art Thy reliques, Eowe, to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakspeare 5 place thy honour'd dust. Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest, Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest ! Its conclusion had originally stood, before Buckingham had erected the tomb to Dryden One grateful woman to thy fame supplies What a whole thankless land to his denies. 1 William Longueville, of the Inner Shakspeare's monument, he suggested Temple, patron of Butler, who vainly 'Thus Britons love me, and preserve my fame, endeavoured to provide for his friend's Tree from a Barber's or a Benson's name.' interment in the Abbey, was him- self buried in the North Ambulatory, ' gjjf- ** v - 3522 - 1720 bee P- ^ y * 'Benson, the auditor, erected the * . The f was a propriety in this monument to Milton in 1737 ; Barber, allusion from Eowe s plays-especially the printer, and Lord Mayor of London, ff Shore, 'perhaps the best acting that to Butler in 1732. tragedy after Shakspeare's days.' Dean Milman told me that Mrs. Siddons On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ, used to gay th&t Qne lme ^ Jane g lwre is Pope's line in the ' Dunciad ; ' and was the most effective she ever uttered when asked for an inscription for ' Twas he 'twas Hastings.' 264 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. It now commemorates the grief of the poet's wife And blest that, timely from our scene remov'd, Thy soul enjoys the liberty it lov'd. To thee, so mourn'd in death, so lov'd in life, The childless parent and the widow'd wife With tears inscribes this monumental stone, That holds thine ashes and expects her own. 1 And this, in turn, was falsified by the remarriage of the widow (whose effigy surmounts the bust) to Colonel Deane. Three dubious names close this period. In Poets' Corner lies the old voluptuary patriarch of Charles II. 's wits, St. st. Evre- Evremond, Governor of Duck Island, who died beyond u?no3. ep the age of 90. Although a Frenchman and, nominally at least, a Eoman Catholic, he was buried amongst the English poets, and, in spite of his questionable writings, was com- Aphara memorated here, ' inter pr&stantiores csvi sni scriptores.' 2 20, 1689. Aphara Behn, 3 the notorious novelist, happily has not reached beyond the East Cloister. Her epitaph ran Here lies a proof that wit can never be Defence enough against mortality. Beside her lies her facetious friend, the scandalous satirist and Tom Brown, essa yist, Tom Brown, who had defiled and defied the 1704. Abbey during his whole literary life. The inscrip- tion prepared for him has by this juxtaposition a meaning which Dr. Drake, its author, never intended Inter concelebres requiescit. 4 Next came the age of the ' Tatler ' and ' Spectator.' Steele, editor of the first, is buried at his seat near Carmarthen, steeie, 1729. His second wife, ' his dearest Prue,' is laid amongst De"c'. so, ee ' the poets. 5 But the great funeral of this circle is 1 710 that of Addison. The last serene moments of his 1 Pope, iii. 365. ' Behn,' as in Pope's line' The stage * St. Evremond ' died renouncing the ' how loosel y does Astraea ^ ead ! ' ' Christian religion. Yet the Church * Crull > P- 346 ' Mr - Lod 8 e has SU 8- ' of Westminster thought fit to give & ested to me that his burial at West- ' his body room in the Abbey, and to minster is in some de g ree explained, ' allow him to be buried there gratis ' or at least illustrated, by the fact that The monument was erected by one he was chosen to write the inscription of the Prebendaries, Dr. Birch 'on on Bish P Fell ' s monument in Christ ' account of the old acquaintance be- Chu rch, Oxford (Brown's Works, iv. ' tween St. Evremond and his patron 255> 7th ed ')' wnicl1 was tne more ' Waller.' Such is the cynical account rem a rk a*>le as coming from the author of Atterbury. (Letters, iii. 117, 125.) of the famous epigram on Dr. Fell. 5 For their correspondence see In the Eegister she is called ' Astrea Thackeray's Humourists (pp. 137-46). CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 265 life were at Warwick House. ' See how a Christian can ' die.' His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne Joseph thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a died'jmieiz, funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of those Tories who JMuiTwf 11116 k a< ^ l ve d and honoured the most accomplished of the Whigs, His funeral. me t the corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, round the shrine of St. Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of Henry VII. 1 The spot selected was the vault in the north aisle of that Chapel, in the eastern recess 2 of which already lay the coffins of Monk and his wife, Montague Earl of Sandwich, and the two Halifaxes. Craggs was to follow within a year. Into that recess, doubtless in order to rest by the side of his patron, Montague Earl of Halifax, the coffin of Addison was lowered. At the head of the vault, Atterbury officiated as Dean, in his prelate's robes. Bound him stood the Westminster scholars, with their white tapers, dimly lighting up the fretted aisle. One 3 of them has left on record the deep impression left on them by the unusual energy and solemnity of Atterbury's sonorous voice. Close by was the faithful friend of the departed Tickell, who has described the scene in poetry yet more touching than Macaulay's prose : Can I forget the dismal night that gave My soul's best part for ever to the grave ? How silent did his old companions tread, By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead. Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings ! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire, The pealing organ and the pausing choir ; The duties by the lawn-rob'd prelate pay'd : And the last words that dust to dust convey'd ! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh, gone for ever ; take this long adieu ; And sleep in peace, next thy lov'd Montague. Ne'er to those chambers where the mighty rest Since their foundation came a nobler guest : 1 Macaulay's Essays (8vo, 1853), iii. division was at that time empty. 443. describe the locality as I myself saw it 2 The opening to the vault is im- at night when the vault was opened in mediately on entering the north aisle 1SG7. See Appendix. of the Chapel. Its nearer cr western 3 Autobiography of BisJwp Newton. 266 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey'd A fairer spirit or more welcome shade. ' It is strange tbat neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till three generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, appeared in Poets' Corner. 1 It represents him, as we can conceive him, clad ofAd"ison, in his dressing-gown, and freed from his wig, stepping from 808 ' his parlour at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club, or the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the next day's " Spectator," in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous sepa- ration, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.' 2 Ten years after followed a funeral of which the inward contrast in the rnidst of outward likeness to that of Addison is complete. As he, for the sake of his beloved patron, Montague, had been laid apart from the rest of the poetic tribe in the wuiiam Chapel of the Tudors, in the far east of the Church, died Jan.'i9, so Congreve was laid almost completely separated 26, 1728-9.' from them in the Nave, in the neighbourhood if not HIS funeral, in the vault of his patroness Henrietta Godolphin, the second Duchess of Marlborough. By that questionable alliance he, amongst the Westminster notables, the worst corrupter, as Addison the noblest purifier, of English literature, was honoured with a sumptuous funeral, also from the Jerusalem Chamber ; and with the same strange passion which caused the Duchess to have a statue of him in ivory, moving by clock- work, placed daily at her table, and a wax doll, whose feet were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors, as Con- greve's had been when he suffered from the gout, 3 she erected 1 The intention of placing the monu- the Kitcat collection, and in Queen's ment on the grave of Thomas of Wood- College, Oxford. stock, inside the Confessor's Chapel, - Macaulay's Essays (8vo, 1853), iii. was happily frustrated. (Gent. Mag., 443. To this must be added the recent 1808, p. 1088.) The face was copied inscription of Tickell's verses over his by Westmacott from the portraits in grave by Lord Ellesmere. 3 Macaulay's Essays, vi. 531. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 267 the monument to him at the west end of the church, com- memorating the ' happiness and honour which she had enjoyed ' in her intercourse.' ' Happiness, perhaps,' exclaimed her inexorable mother, the ancient Sarah ; ' she cannot say ' honour ! ' Yet, though private partiality may have fixed the spot, his burial in the Abbey was justified by the fame which attracted the visit of Voltaire to him, as to the chief representative of English literature ; l which won from Dryden the praise of being next to Shakspeare ; from Steel e the homage of ' Great Sir, great author,' whose ' awful name was known ' by barbarians ; and from Pope, the Dedication of the Iliad, and the title of Ultimas Romanorum. And there is a fitness in HIS monu- ^he pl ace f his monument, ' of the finest Egyptian ' marble,' by the door where many, who there enjoy their first view of the most venerable of English sanctuaries, may thankfully recall the impressive lines in which he, with a feeling beyond his age. first described the effect of a great cathedral on the awestruck beholder All is hush'd and still as death. Tis dreadful ! How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and ponderous roof, By its own weight made stedfast and immovable, Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight ; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a dullness to my trembling heart. He who reads these lines enjoys for a moment the powers of a poet ; be feels what he remembers to have felt before ; but he feels it with great increase of sensibility : he recognises a familiar image, but meets it again amplified and expanded, embellished with beauty, and enlarged with majesty. 2 We return to the South Transept. Matthew Prior claimed a place there, as well by his clever and agreeable verses, as by Matthew his diplomatic career and his connection with West- sept!'25? ned minster School. The monument, 'as a last piece of ' human vanity,' was provided by his son : the bust was a present from Louis XIV., whom he had known on his 1 Congreve himself judged more his monument. (See the whole story wisely. ' I wish to be visited on no discussed in Thackeray's Humourists, ' other footing than as a gentleman p. 78 ; see also pp. 61, 80.) ' who leads a life of plainness and '-' Johnson, ii. 197, 198. ' simplicity.' Such is his appearance on 268 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. embassy to Paris, and may serve to remind us of his rebuke to the Great Monarch when he replied at Versailles, ' I represent ' a king who not only fights battles, but wins them.' The in- scription was by Dr. Freind, Head Master of Westminster, ' in ' honour of one who had done so great honour to the school.' 1 I had not strength enough [writes Atterbury] to attend Mr. Prior to his grave, else I would have done it, to have shown his friends that I had forgot and forgiven what he wrote to me. He is buried, as he desired, at the feet of Spenser, and I will take care to make good in every respect what I said to him when living ; particularly as to the triplet he wrote for his own epitaph ; which, while we were in good terms, I promised him should never appear on his tomb while I was Dean of Westminster. 2 Ten years afterwards another blow fell on the literary circle. Gay's ' Fables,' written for the education of the Duke John Gay, of Cumberland, still attract English children to his died Dec. 4, . 1732. monument. But his playful, amiable character can only be appreciated by reading the letters of his contemporaries. 3 ' We have all had,' writes Dr. Arbuthnot, 4 ' another loss, of our ' worthy and dear friend Dr. Gay. It was some alleviation of ' my grief to see him so universally lamented by almost every- ' body, even by those who only knew him by reputation. He * was interred at Westminster Abbey, as if he had been a peer ' of the realm ; and the good Duke of Queensberry, who lamented ' him as a brother, will set up a handsome monument upon HIS funeral, ' him.' His body was brought by the Company of Upholders from the Duke of Queensberry's to Exeter Change, and thence to the Abbey, at eight o'clock in the winter evening. Lord Chesterfield and Pope were present amongst the mourners. 5 He had already, two months before his death, desired My dear Mr. Pope, whom I love as my own soul, if you survive me, as you certainly will, if a stone shall mark the place of my grave, see these words put upon it Life is a jest, and all things show it ; I thought it once, but now I know it, with what else you may think proper. 1 Biog. Brit. v. 3445. ' In every friend we lose a part of our- 2 Pope, x. 382. The triplet was : ' selves, and the best part. God keep To me 'tis given to die to you 'tis given ' those we have left : few are worth To live : a'.as ! one moment sets us even ' praying for, and one's self the least of Mark how impartial is the will of Heaven. * a ^_' (Pope, iii. 378.) 1 ' Good God ! how often we are to 4 Pope, ix. 208, 209. ' die before we go quite off this stage ! s Biog. Brit. iv. 2167, 2187. CHAP. iv. OF THE POETS. 269 His wish was complied with. 1 The conclusion specially points to his place of burial : These are thy honours ! not that here thy bust Is mix'd with heroes, nor with kings thy dust, But that the worthy and the good shall say, Striking their pensive bosoms ' Here lies Gay.' This last line, which was altered 2 at the suggestion of Swift, ' is so dark that few understand it, and so harsh when it is ' explained that still fewer approve it.' 3 With Gay is concluded, as far as the Abbey is concerned, the last of the brilliant circle of friends whose mutual corre- spondence and friendship give such an additional interest to pope, died their graves. One of these, however, we sorely miss. May so, < j j iave ^QQ^ told of one Pope,' says Goldsmith's Tu^ken* Chinese philosopher, as he wanders through Poets' imm. Corner murmuring at the obscure names of which he had never heard before : ' Is he there ? ' ' It is time enough,' replied his guide, ' these hundred years : he is not long dead : ' people have not done hating him yet.' It was not, however, the hate of his contemporaries that kept his bust out of the Abbey, 4 but his own deliberate wish to be interred, by the side 5 of his beloved mother, in the central aisle of the parish church of Twickenham : and his epitaph, composed by himself, is inscribed on a white marble tablet above the gallery His epitaph. For one that would not be buried in Westminster Abbey. Heroes and kings ! your distance keep, In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never flatter'd folks like you : Let Horace blush, and Virgil too. The ' Little Nightingale,' who withdrew from the boisterous company of London to those quiet shades, only to revisit them in his little chariot like ' Homer in a nutshell,' 6 naturally rests there at last. With Pope's secession the line of poets is broken for a time. 1 To make room for the monument, 3 Johnson, iii. 215. Butler's bust (by permission of Alder- 4 p p e jjj 332 man Barber) was removed to its pre- sent position. (Chapter Book, October His fihal P iet J excels 31 1733 ) Whatever genuine story tells.' 2 From ' striking their aching bo- (Swift.) ' soms.' (Biog. Brit. iv. 2187.) 8 Thackeray's Humourists, p. 207. 270 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. None whose claims rested on their poetic merits alone were, Thomson, a ^ er him, buried within the Abbey, till quite our own buried at days. Thomson, whose bust appears by the side of Richmond, r . . 1/84; hu Shakspeare's monument, was interred in the parish monument . in the church of his own favourite Eichmond Abbey, erected May 10 > 1762 - In yonder grave a Druid lies. 1 Gray could be buried nowhere but in that country church- yard of Stoke Pogis, which he has rendered immortal by his Gray, buried Elegy, and in which he anticipates his rest. His Pogis, i7n. monument, however, is placed by Milton's ; and, both by the art of the sculptor, and the verses inscribed upon it by his friend Mason, is made to point not unfitly to Milton, thus Mason, completing that cycle of growing honour which we Aton, in saw beginning with the tablet of Philips. 2 And next 1797. s ' to this cenotaph is also, in a natural sequence, that of Mason himself, with an inscription by his own friend Hurd. It may be well to take advantage of this pause in the succession to mark the memorials of other kinds of genius, HISTORICAL which have intermingled with the more strictly poetic AISLE. vein. Isaac Casaubon, 3 interesting not only for his df e S d j^y'i great learning, but as one of those Protestants of the leu. seventeenth century who, like Grotius and Grabe, looked with a kindly eye on the older Churches, had, on the death of his French patron Henri IV., received from James I. (although a layman) prebendal stalls at Canterbury, but ' lieth entombed,' says Fuller, ' in the south aisle 5 of West- ' minster Abbey ; ' who then adds, with an emphasis which marks this tomb as the first in a new and long succession, ' not ' in the east or poetical side thereof where Chaucer, Spenser, ' Dray ton are interred, but on the west or historical side of the ' aisle.' His monument was made by Stone for 60 at the cost of ' Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham, that great lover ' of learned men, dead or alive.' 6 Next to it, and carrying on 1 Collins's Ode. was laid the historian of the Scottish 2 See p. 261. gpottis- Church, Archbishop Spottis- 8 Spelt Causabon in the Register. woode, Nov. woode. He had intended to Mrs. Causabon was buried in the clois- 26,1639. ^e buried in Scotland, but ters, March 11, 1635-36. (Register.) the difficulty of removal from London 4 The Register says July 8. and the King's wish prevailed in favour 6 His grave, however, was ' at the of the Abbey. (Grub's Eccl. History of ' entrance of St. Benedict's Chapel.' Scotland, iii. 66.) (Register.) Near the same spot not 8 Walpole's Painters, 242. About long afterwards (November 29, 1639) the same time was buried in an un- CHAP. iv. OF THE SCHOLARS. 271 the same affinity, is the bust of William Camden, by his close connection with Westminster, as its one lay Head-master, and Camden, as the Prince of English antiquaries, well deserving buried Xov. . Jf ,,.,,. 1-1, 10, 1623. his place in this ' Broad Aisle, 1 in which he was laid with great pomp ; all the College of Heralds attending the funeral of their chief. Christopher Button preached ' a good ' modest sermon.' 2 ' Both of these plain tombs,' adds Fuller, marking their peculiar appearance at the time, ' made of white ' marble, show the simplicity of their intentions, the candid- ' ness of their natures, and perpetuity of their memories.' On casaubon's I saac Casaubon's tablet is left the trace of another monument. < candid and simple nature.' Izaak Walton, 3 who may in his youth have seen his venerable namesake, to whom indeed Casaubon perhaps gave his Christian name, who was a friend of his son Meric and of his patron Morton, and who loses no occasion of commending ' that man of rare learning and ' ingenuity ' forty years afterwards, wandering through the South Transept, scratched his well-known monogram Walton's on the marble, with the date 1658, earliest of those monogram, ' unhappy inscriptions of names of visitors, w r hich have since defaced so many a sacred space in the Abbey. O si sic omnia! We forgive the Greek soldiers who recorded their journey on the foot of the statue at Ipsambul ; the Platonist who has left his name in the tomb of Barneses at Thebes ; the Boman Emperor who has carved his attestation of Memnon's music on the colossal knees of Amenophis. Let us, in like manner, forgive the angler for this mark of himself in Poets' , , Corner. Camden's monument long ago bore traces Camden s monument. O f ano ther kind. The Cavaliers, or, as some said, the Independents, who broke into the Abbey at night, to deface the hearse of the Earl of Essex, 'used the like uncivil deport- ' ment towards the effigies of old learned Camden cut in ' pieces the book held in his hand, broke off his nose, and ' otherwise defaced his visiognomy.' 4 A base villain for certainly no person that had a right English soul could have done it not suffering his monument to stand without marked and unknown grave Richard Button, who was a Prebendary, was Hakluyt (Register), the buried (1629) in the same transept. Hakiuyt father of English geogra- Dart, ii. 66. . buried Nov. phers, who was educated at s Walton was born 1593, and died 26, 1616. Westminster,and in later life 1683. became a Prebendary. See Chapter VI. * Perfect Diurnal, November 23-30, i Register. 1646. Alluding to the book of ' Bri- - State Papers, Nov. 21, 1623. ' tannia ' on Camden's monument. 272 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. violation whose learned leaves have so preserved the antiquities of the nation. 1 It was restored by the University of Oxford, from which, in his earlier struggles, he had vainly sought a fellowship and Restored a degree one of the many instances of generous about 1780. repentance by which Oxford has repaid her short- comings to her eminent sons. ' Opposite his friend Camden's monument,' 2 though a little beyond the precincts of the transept, before the entrance of St. Nicholas's Chapel, is the grave of another antiquary, hardly less famous Sir Henry Spelman, buried in his eighty- first year, by order of Charles I., with much solemnity. 3 He had lived in intimacy with all the antiquarians of that antiquarian time, and the patronage which he received, both from Archbishop Abbott and Archbishop Laud, well agrees with the two-sided character of the old knight, at once so constitutional and so loyal. If ever any book was favourable to the claims of the High Church party, it was the ' History ' of Sacrilege ; ' but even Spelman was obliged to stop his 'Glossary' at the letter *L,' because there were three M's that scandalised the Archbishop ' Magna Charta,' ' Magnum ' Concilium Regis,' and ' M .' At the foot of Camden's monument the Parliamentary historian May had been buried. ' If he were a biassed and partial writer, he lieth near a good ' and true historian indeed I mean Dr. Camden.' 4 Twiss, July Under the Commonwealth this spot was consecrated stron^'jaiy *o the burial of theologians. 5 Twiss, the Calvinist Vicar of Newbury and Prolocutor of the Westminster 6 Assembly, Strong, 7 the famous Independent, and Marshall, 1 Winstanley's Worthies (1660). one of the most learned and moderate 2 Gibson's Life of Spelman. Redmayne ^ ^ e ear ^y Reformers, and * Register. 1551. ' a compiler of the first Re- 4 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 259. The Bi son, June formed Liturgy ; and Bil- expressive bust of Sir William Sander- 18> 1616- son, Bishop of Winchester, Sanderson, derson, the aged historian of buried in the South Ambulatory, June July 18, Mary Stuart, James I., and 18, 1616 remarkable for his defence 1676,aged91. Charles I., was originally of ' Episcopacy,' for his belief in the close to the spot where, with his wife, literal meaning of the ' Descent into ' mother of the maids of honour,' he ' Hell,' and for his noble statement of lies in the North Transept. Evelyn the true view of Christian Bedemp- (Memoirs, ii. 420) was present at his tion. funeral. It was removed to make way 6 See Chapter VI. Twiss was for Wager's monument, and now looks buried at the upper end of the poor out from beneath that of Admiral Folks' Table, near the entry.' (Regis- Watson, ter.) His funeral was attended by the * Two earlier Protestant divines had whole Assembly of Divines. (Neal's been already interred in the Abbey, Puritans, iii. 317.) Redmayne (1551), Master of Trinity, 7 For Strong's pastoral ministrations CHAP iv. OF THE DIVINES. 273 the famous Presbyterian preacher, were all laid here until their disinter ment in 1661. It became afterwards no less Marian, ^ ne centre of BoyaKst divines. In the place of 555- 23> May's 1 monument was raised the tablet of Dr. Trip- buried"' ^ e ^> an d * nen that f Outram, who wrote a once outrkm 70 ' celebrated book on Sacrifice, both Prebendaries of A^M Westminster. Beside them rests another far greater, also locally connected with Westminster Isaac burtedMa 4 ' Barrow. Doubtless had ' the best scholar in Eng- ' land ' (as Charles II. called him when he signed his patent for the Mastership of Trinity) died in his own great college, he would have been interred in the vestibule of Trinity chapel, which was to contain Newton's statue, as his portrait hangs by the side of that of Newton in Trinity hall. It was the singular connection of his office with Westminster School which caused his interment under the same roof which con- tains Newton's remains. He had come, as master after master, to the election of Westminster scholars, and was lodged in one of the canonical houses ' that had a little stair to it out of the ' Cloisters,' 2 which made him call it ' a man's nest.' 3 He was there struck with high fever, and died from the opium which, by a custom contracted when at Constantinople, he administered to himself. ' Had it not been too inconvenient to carry him to ' Cambridge, there wit and eloquence had paid their tribute ' for the honour he has done them. Now he is laid in West- ' minster Abbey, on the learned side of the South Transept.' 4 Barrow's ^is monument was erected by ' the gratitude of his monument. < friends, a contribution not usual in that age, and a ' respect peculiar to him among all the glories of that Church.' His epitaph was written by 'his dear friend Dr. Mapletoft.' ' His picture was never made from life, and the effigies on his ' tomb doth but little resemble him.' ' He was in person of the in the Abbey, see Chapter VI. His down in 1710 (11). (Chapter Book, funeral sermon was preached by February 22, 1710.) Obadiah Sedgewick, who says that he a Lives of Ouildford and North, iii. was ' so plain in heart, so deep in 318. Another version is that ' he died judgment, so painful in study, so ' in mean lodgings at a Sadler's near exact in preaching, and, in a word, ' Charing Cross, an old low-built so fit for all the parts of the minis- ' house, which he had used for several terial service, that I do not know his ' years.' (Dr. Pope's Life of Ward, equal.' 107.) He had a few days before put Dr. Pope ' into a rapture of joy ' by 1 Crull, App. xxiv. inviting him to the Lodge at Trinity. - It was, doubtless, the ' old pre- (Ibid. 167.) ' bendal house called the Tree,' pulled 4 Life of Dr. Barrow, p. xvii. 274 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ' lesser size, lean and of extraordinary strength, of a fair and ' calm complexion, a thin skin, very susceptible of the cold ; ' his eyes gray, clear, and somewhat shortsighted ; his hair of a ' light auburn, very fine and curling.' Above Casaubon and Barrow is the monument erected by Harley, Earl of Oxford, to the illustrious Prussian scholar, orabe died Grabe, 1 the editor of the Septuagint and of Irenaeus, bnried'ii 7 st' wno > like Casaubon, found in the Church of England Pancras. a h ome m0 re congenial than either Borne or Geneva could furnish. Looking down the Transept are three notable monuments, united chiefly by the bond of Westminster School, but also by Busby, that of learning and wit Busby, South, and Vincent. 5, u i695. Busby, the most celebrated of schoolmasters before our own time, was doubtless the genius of the place for all the fifty-eight years in which he reigned over the School. 2 To this, and not to the Abbey, belongs his history. But the recollection Hismonu- ^ n ^ s severity long invested his monument with a ment. peculiar awe. ' His pupils,' said the profane wit of the last century, ' when they come by, look as pale as his ' marble, in remembrance of his severe exactions.' 3 As Sir Eoger de Coverley stood before Busby's tomb, he exclaimed, ' Dr. Busby, a great man, whipped my grandfather a very ' great man ! I should have gone to him myself if I had not ' been a blockhead. A very great man ! ' 4 From this tomb, it is said, all 5 the likenesses of him have been taken, he having steadily refused, during his life, to sit for his portrait. He was buried, like a second Abbot Ware, under the black and white marble pavement which he placed along the steps and sides of the Sacrarium. Under those steps was laid South, who began his career at Westminster under Busby ; and then, after his many vicissi- south,died tudes of political tergiversation, polemical bitterness, buried July anc * witty preaching, was buried, as Prebendary and Archdeacon of Westminster, ' with much solemnity,' in his eighty-third year, by the side of his old master. 6 1 Secretan's Life of Nelson, p. 223. the same thought in Carmina Quadri- He was buried in the Chancel of St. gesimalia, first series, p. 66. Pancras Church, it was believed from 4 Spectator, No. 139. a secret sympathy with the Roman * One exception must be noticed Catholics, who were buried in the the portrait in the Headmaster's adjacent cemetery. house unlike all the others, and ap- - See Chapter VI. parently from life. * Tom Brown, iii. 228. Compare See Chapter VI, CHAP. iv. OF THE THEOLOGIANS. 275 Vincent followed the two others after a long interval. 1 His relations with Westminster were still closer than theirs Vincent, Scholar, Under-master, Headmaster, Prebendary and burldDec. 1 ' Dean in succession. Still his works on ancient com- 29, IBIS. m erce and navigation would almost have entitled him to a place amongst the scholars of the Abbey, apart from his official connection with it. Not far from those indigenous giants of Westminster is the monument of Antony Horneck, 2 who, though a German by Homeck, birth and education, was, with the liberality of those buried Feb. ' 4, 1696-7. times, recommended by Tillotson to Queen Mary for a stall in the Abbey. He was ' a most pathetic preacher, a ' person of saint-like life,' 3 the glory of the Savoy Chapel, where his enormous congregations caused it to be said that his parish reached from Whitechapel to Whitehall. He pre- sented the rare union of great pastoral experience, unflinching moral courage, and profound learning. The Hebrew epitaph bears witness to his proficiency in Biblical and Eabbinical literature. Another Prebendary of Westminster, Herbert Thorndyke, 4 lies in the East Cloister. He had the misfortune of equally Thorndyke, offending the Nonconformists at the Savoy Conference is, 1672. by his supposed tendencies to the Church of Rome, and the High Church party by his familiarity with the Mo- ravians. In his will he withheld his money from his relatives if they joined either the mass or the new licensed Conventicles. And on his grave he begged that these words might be inscribed : ' Hie jacet corpus Herberti Thorndyke, Preb. ' hujus ecclesice, qui vivus veram reformandce ecclesice rationem ac ' modum precibusque studiisque prosequebatur. Tu, lector, requiem ' ei et beatam in Christo resurrectionem precare.' 5 This wish was not fulfilled. His gravestone, which is near the eastern entrance to the Abbey, from the Cloister, never had any other inscrip- tion than his name, which has lately been renewed. Beneath another unmarked gravestone, in the North Cloister, lies Dr. 1 He is buried in St. Benedict's lies with him, died in 1668, on his re- Chapel. See Chapter VI. turn from New England, to - He is buried in the South Tran- a^ieeT" which he was one of the sept. See Chapter VI. Close beside first emigrants. John's son his monument is that of another Pre- Paul had already returned in 1663. bendary, Samuel Barton (died Sept. 1, See Chapter VI. 1715). 5 This inscription was adduced in 3 Evelyn, iii. 78. the famous Woolfrey case. 4 His brother, John Thorndyke, who T 2 276 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. William King, friend of Swift, and author of a long series of Dr. wiiHam humorous and serious writings, intertwined with the Decfar.'im. politics and literature of that time. He lies beside his master, Dr. Knipe. The burial of Atterbury, connected with almost every celebrated name in the Abbey during this period, and in the Atterbury, opinion of Lord Grenville the greatest master of English itariediuy' prose, must be reserved for another place. 1 But im- mediately above his grave hangs the monument of a buried 011 ' divine whose memory casts a melancholy interest over 1694^. ^ the small entrance by which Dean after Dean has de- scended into the Abbey : ' the favourite pupil of the great ' Newton ' ' the favourite chaplain of Sancroft, whose early ' death was deplored by all parties as an irreparable loss to ' letters ; ' 2 the youthful pride of Cambridge, as Atterbury was of Oxford ; perhaps, had he lived, as unscrupulous and as im- perious as Atterbury, but with an exactitude and versatility of learning which may keep his name fresh in the mind of students long after Atterbury's fame has been confined to the political history of his time. Henry Wharton, compiler of the ' Anglia ' Sacra,' died in his thirty-first year. His funeral was attended by Archbishop Tenison and Bishop Lloyd. Sprat, as Dean, read the service. The Westminster scholars (at that time ' an ' uncommon respect,' and ' the highest the Dean and Chapter ' can show on that occasion ') were caused to attend ; the usual fees were remitted ; and Purcell's Anthem was sung over his grave, 3 which was close to the spot where his tablet is seen. 4 Returning towards Poets' Corner, in the south aisle of 1 See Chapter VI. Cathedral of Cashel, which he built at * Macaulay, ii. 109. the foot of the Bock in the place of * Life of Wharton. the beautiful church which he left in 4 In the North Aisle and Transept ruins at the top of the hill. Bishop may here be noticed Warren, Bishop of Monk lies close by, author Warren, Bangor (1800), with the f^lgge" 1116 of the Li f e f B 179 - s Ibi( j iij 449 ' Life of Reynolds. The discus- sion of the proposed epitaphs between NiMumscnbendi genus quod iettgit Parr> Reyno i dS) and Lord stowell fills non ornavit. (Epitaph.) thirty pages in Dr Parr , g W orks, iv. s Boswell's Johnson, v. 351, 352. 680-713. For the appropriateness of 6 The proposal for its erection occurs the statue at St. Paul's, see Milman's in the private records of the Club, and Annals, 481. 280 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. Within a few feet of Johnson lies (by one of those striking coincidences in which the Abbey abounds) his deadly enemy, Macpherson, James Macpherson, the author or editor of ' Ossian.' buried 6 ' ' Though he died near Inverness, his body, according to i7%? his will, was carried from Scotland, and buried ' in the ' Abbey Church of Westminster, the city in which he had ' passed the greatest and best part of his life.' The last links in that group are the two dramatists, Richard Cumberland and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, both buried close cmnber'and, * Shakspcare's statue. At Cumberland's funeral a bJfriedMay f unera l oration was delivered perhaps the last of its kind by Dean Vincent, his former schoolfellow 1 at died July 7, Westminster. When Sheridan was dying, in the eX- buried July * 7 is, 1816. tremity of poverty, an article appeared from a generous enemy in the ' Morning Post,' saying that relief should be given before it was too late : ' Prefer ministering in the chamber of ' sickness ' to ministering at ' the splendid sorrows that adorn ' the hearse ' ' life and succour against Westminster Abbey and ' a funeral.' But it was too late ; and Westminster Abbey and the funeral, with all the pomp that rank could furnish, w r as the alternative. It was this which suggested the remark of a French journal : ' France is the place for a man of letters to live ' in, and England the place for him to die in.' 2 Two cenotaphs close the eighteenth century in Poets' Corner, under the tablet of St. Evremond. One is that of Christopher Christopher Anstey, the amiable author of the ' New budeTat ' Bath Guide ' probably the most popular satire of Bath, isos. f. na f. time, though now receding into the obscurity enveloping the Bath society which it describes. The other, remarkable by the contrast which it presents to the memorial of the worldly-minded wit of Charles II. 's age, is that of the Granviiie Christian chivalry and simplicity of Granville Sharp, Sharp, died ... ' ,11 f , 1 7- July i, isia, belonging more properly to the noble army of Aboli- Fuiham. tionists on the other side of the Abbey, but claiming its place among the men of letters by his extensive though eccentric learning. 3 The monument, with its kneeling negro, and its lion and lamb, was erected by the African Institution ; and the inscription commemorating the most scrupulously 1 Notes and Queries, second series, * Hoare's Life of Granville Sluirp, ii. 46. p. 472. For his character, see Stephen's 2 Moore's Life of Slieridan, ii. 461. Eccl. Biog. ii. 312-321. CHAP. iv. OF THE MEN OF LETTERS. 281 orthodox of men was, by a curious chance, the composition of the Unitarian, William Smith. The remaining glories of Poets' Corner 1 belong to our own time and to the future. It would seem as if, during the open- ing of this century, the place for once had lost its charm. Of campbeii, that galaxy of poets which ushered in this epoch, Boulogne, Campbell alone has achieved there both grave and buried juiy monument, on which is inscribed the lofty hope of rienry 'cary, immortality from his own ode on ' The Last Man.' 1844] ' Close beside him, and within a month, but beneath an unmarked gravestone, 2 was laid Cary, the graceful and accurate translator of Dante. Of those who took part in the vast re- vival of our periodical literature the only one who rests here is the founder of the 'Quarterly Review,' William Gifford. 3 Of wiiiiam the three greatest geniuses of that period, two (Burns 8, 182/V ' and Walter Scott) sleep at Dumfries and at Dryburgh, under their own native hills ; the third (Byron) lies at New- Byron, died stead. ' We cannot even now retrace the close of the lo^hT" ' brilliant and miserable career of the most celebrated buried 1 ^ ' Englishman of the nineteenth century, without feeling juT S 2i ad> ' something of what was felt by those who saw the 1824. ' < hearse with its long train of coaches 4 turn slowly ' northwards, leaving behind it that cemetery which had been ' consecrated by the dust of so many great poets, but of which ' the doors were closed against all that remained of Byron.' 5 Hard trial to the guardians of the Abbey at that juncture : let us not condemn either him or them too harshly, but rather ponder his own description of himself in the speech of 1 In the Cloisters is the tablet of the venerable Archdeacon) remembers how humourist, Bonnell Thornton, friend he sacrificed his breakfast by running Thornton ^ Warton, who wrote his into Great George Street to see the 1768. epitaph; and the grave and funeral pass. Chambers, monument of Ephraim 5 Macaulay's Essays, ii. 338. It buried May Chambers, the eccentric was understood that an unfavourable 21, 1740. sceptical philosopher, the answer would be given to any applica- Father of Cyclopaedias, who wrote his tion to inter Byron in the Abbey. own epitaph ' Multis pervulgatus, (Moore's Life, vi. 221.) He was buried ' paucis notus, qui vitam, inter lucem et in the village church at Hucknall, near ' umbram, nee eruditus nee idioticis Newstead. The question was revived ' literis deditus, transegitS on the suggestion that the statue of 2 An inscription was first added in Byron by Thorwaldsen should be ad- 1868. mitted. This also was refused, and the 3 In the same grave was afterwards refusal caused an angry altercation in buried his early school- the House of Lords between Lord Sept^'iws fellow. Dean Ireland (died Brougham and Bishop Blomfield. See Sept. 2, buried Sept. 8, 1842). Appendix to Lord Broughton's Travels 4 A lively Westminster boy (now a in Albania, vol. i. pp. 522-544. 282 THE MONUMENTS CHAP, iv' Manfred's Abbot. Coleridge, poet and philosopher, rests at Highgate ; and when Queen Emrna, from the Islands of the Pacific, asked in the Abbey for a memorial of the author of the southey, ' Ancient Mariner,' she asked in vain. Southey and Wordsworth have been more fortunate. Though they res ^ by the lakes they loved so well, Southey 's bust lks down upon us from over the shoulder of Shak- i85o U buried 8 P eare > an ^ Wordsworth, by the sentiment of a kins- atcrasmere. man> i s seated in the Baptistery not unsuited to the innocent presence of childhood at the sacred font not un- worthy to make that angle of the Nave the nucleus of a new Poets' Corner of future years. Beside him, by a like concord of ideas, has been erected by almost the sole munificence of a gene- Kebie,died rous admirer Edward Twisleton the bust of Keble, mouttT 16 " author of the ' Christian Year,' who himself wrote the i866 C buried reverential epitaph on "Wordsworth's monument at He?tert' ey ' Grasmere, and who, if by his prose he represents an atBemerton ecclesiastical party, by his poetry belongs to the ?8oo p bnried w ^l e f English Christendom. The stained glass atDereham. a i) OV e, given by a citizen of the United States, com- memorates two sacred poets, alike connected with Westminster in their early days, and representing in their gentle strains the two opposite sides of the English Church George Herbert and William Cowper. A poet of another kind, Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, whose indefatigable labours in the various branches of literature reached over a period of half a century, lies apart, 1873. ur ' in the Chapel of St. Edmund, amongst the ancient nobles, and by the side of a warrior whose fall on the field of Barnet he had celebrated in one of the best of his romances. We return to the western aisle of the South Transept. There lies the brilliant poet and historian who, perhaps of all who have trod the floor of the Abbey, or lie buried within its precincts, most deeply knew and felt its manifold interests, Macauiay, an ^ most unceasingly commemorated them. Lord iw9, 1 burfed' Macauiay rests at the foot of the statue of Addison, Jan. 9, iseo. W h se character and genius none had painted as he ; carrying with him to his grave the story of the reign of Queen Anne, which none but he could adequately tell. And. whilst, from one side of that statue, his bust looks towards the Royal Sepulchres, in the opposite niche is enshrined that of another no less profound admirer of the ' Spectator,' who had often CHAP. iv. OF THE ACTOES. 283 expressed his interest in the spot as he wandered through Thackeray, the Transept William Makepeace Thackeray. Close ises, buried under the bust of Thackeray lies Charles Dickens, not, at Kensal . J Green. it may be, his equal in humour, nut more than his equal in his hold on the popular mind, as \vas shown in the intense and general enthusiasm evinced over his grave. The funeral, according to Dickens's urgent and express desire in his will, was strictly private. It took place at an early hour in the summer morning, the grave having been dug in secret the night before, and the vast solitary space of the Abbey was oc- cupied only by the small band of the mourners and the Abbey Clergy, who, without any music except the occasional peal of the organ, read the funeral service. For days the spot was visited by thousands ; many were the flowers strewn upon it by unknown hands, many were the tears shed by the poorer visitors. He rests beside Sheridan, Garrick, and Henderson. In the same transept, close by the bust of Camden and Casau- bon, lie in the same grave Grote and Thirlwall, both scholars together at Charterhouse, both historians of Greece, the philo- sophic statesman and the judicial theologian. The dramatists, who complete the roll of the writers of the eighteenth century, throw us back on another succession of notables whose entrance into the Abbey is itself signifi- "" cant, from the contrast which it brings out between the French and the English Church in reference to the stage. In France ' the sacraments were denied to actors who refused to ' repudiate their profession, 1 and their burial was the burial ' of a dog. Among these was the beautiful and gifted Le ' Couvreur. She died without having abjured the profession ' she had adorned, and she was buried in a field for cattle ' on the banks of the Seine- . . . Moliere was the object of ' especial denunciation ; and when he died, it was with extreme ' difficulty that permission could be obtained to bury him in ' consecrated ground. The religious mind of Eacine recoiled ' before the censure. He ceased to write for the stage when ' in the zenith of his powers ; and an extraordinary epitaph, ' while recording his virtues, acknowledges that there was one ' stain upon his memory that he had been a dramatic poet.' The same view of the stage has also prevailed in the Calvinistic 1 A curious exception was made in favour of the singers at the opera, who, by an ingenious fiction, were considered part of the Royal Household of France. 284 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Churches. On the other hand, the Italian Church, with the Pope at its head, has always regarded the profession of actors as innocent, if not laudable ; and with this has, on the whole, agreed the practice of the Church of England. The reward of its forbearance has been that, ' if we except the short period of ' depravity which followed the Eestoration, the English theatre ' has been that in which the moralist can find least to condemn.' * Of this triumph of the stage of this proof of the toleration of the English Church towards it "Westminster Abbey is the crowning scene ; and probably through this alone has won a place in the French literature of the last century. 2 Not only has it included under its walls the memorials of the greatest of dramatists, and also those whose morality is the most obnoxious to complaint, but it has opened its doors to the whole race of illustrious actors and actresses. A protest indeed, as we have Anne oid- seen, was raised against the epitaph of Shadwell, and Oct. 27, 1730. also against the monument of Anne Oldfield: Some papers from the Honourable Brigadier Churchill, asking leave to put up in the Abbey a monument and an inscription to the memory of the late Mrs. Oldfield, being this day delivered in Chapter to the Lord Bishop of Eochester and Dean of the said Church, and tbe same being examined and read, his lordship the Dean was pleased to declare that he was so far from thinking tbe matter therein pro- posed proper to be granted, that he could neither consent to it himself, nor put any question to tbe Chapter concerning it. 3 But, even in this extreme case, the funeral had been permitted. Her extraordinary grace of manner drew a veil over her many failings : There was sucb a composure in her looks, and propriety in her 347 354 f Eationalism > H ' Ont part au temple consacre a la O' rivale d'Athenes ! 6 Londres, heu- Et L ^vreur a Londres aurait eu des reuse terre! tombeaux Ainsi que les tyrans vous avez su Parmi k beaux rft j roig t j Les prejuges honteux qui vous livraient Quiconque ' a des talens a Londres est m guerre. un grand homme. recorT ^ ' L'abondance et la libertS XT i ' e f' , . Ont. apres deux mille ans, chez vous Nul art n'est meprise, tout succes a sa ressuscite T , 1, . A T 11 ^ i i j i L'esprit de la Grece et de Eome. Le vamqueur de Tallard, le fils de la ,. . r , , victoire Voltaire s Ode on the Death, of Liecou- Le sublime Dryden et le sage Addison, vreur > voh x - 36 - (OphUs = Oldfield.) t la charmante Ophils et 1'immortel Newton Chapter Book, February 20, 1736. CHAP. iv. OF THE ACTORS. 285 dress, that you would think it impossible she could change the garb you one day saw her in for anything so becoming, till the next day you saw her in another. There was no mystery in this but that, however apparelled, herself was the same ; for there is an immediate relation between our thoughts and our gestures, that a woman must think well to look well. 1 She was brought in state to the Jerusalem Chamber, and buried, with the utmost pomp, at the west end of the Nave. Her grave is in a not unsuitable place, beneath the monu- ment of Congreve. Here she lies, ' buried ' (according to the testimony of her maid, Elizabeth Saunders) ' in a very fine ' Brussels lace head, a Holland shift, and double ruffles of the ' same lace, a pair of new kid gloves, and her body wrapped in ' a winding-sheet.' ' Odious ! in woollen ! 'twould a saint provoke,' Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke ; ' No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace ' Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face : ' One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead ' And Betty give this cheek a little red.' 2 Anne Bracegirdle earlier in her career, but, by the great age at which she died (in her eighty-sixth year), later in the Anne Abbey lies in the East Cloister. She was the most brii sept, popular actress of her time. 3 Mrs. Gibber lies in the BMUUM North Cloister. ' Gibber dead ! ' exclaimed Garrick, Gibber. 1766. ' then Tragedy expired with her.' 4 An inscription Pricharrt. by Whitehead, in Poets' Corner, records the better m8. at h qualities of ' Prichard, by nature for the stage de- ' signed.' 5 Of the race of male actors, first came Betterton, the Roscius of his age. After a long life, in which he had been familiar Betterton, with the leading wits of the reign of Charles II., he bnned May ^^ b ur i e d in the south end of the East Cloister ; and of no funeral of that time, except Addison's, is left a more touching account than that by his friend Sir Richard Steele : Having received notice that the famous actor Mr. Betterton was to be interred this evening in the Cloisters near Westminster Abbey, I was resolved to walk thither, and see the last office done to a man 1 Tatler i. 104 ; iv. 152. was put in the Roman Catholic chapel, 2 Pope v 279. ' ' P rav for t ^ ie sou ^ of Mrs. Anna Cibber.' s Macaulav, iv. 310. (AaM.Rtg.mi.) 4 Previous* to her funeral a notice 5 Churchill's Roscmd. 286 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. whom I had always very much admired, and from whose action I had received more strong impressions of what is great and noble in human nature, than from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the most charming poets I had ever read. . . . While I walked in the Cloisters, I thought of him with the same concern as if I waited for the remains of a person who had in real life done all that I had seen him represent. The gloom of the place, and faint lights before the ceremony appeared, contributed to the melancholy disposition I was in ; and I began to be extremely afflicted that Brutus and Cassius had any difference, that Hotspur's gallantry was so un- fortunate, and that the mirth and good humour of Falstaff could not exempt him from the grave. Nay, this occasion in me, who look upon the distinctions amongst men to be merely scenical, raised reflections upon the emptiness of all human perfection and greatness in general ; and I could not but regret that the sacred heads which lie buried in the neighbourhood of this little portion of earth in which my poor old friend is deposited, are returned to dust as well as he, and that there is no difference in the grave between the imaginary and the real monarch. 1 The memory of Betterton's acting was handed on by Barton Booth, celebrated as the chief performer of Addison's ' Cato.' Booth enters ; hark the universal peal ! But has he spoken ? Not a syllable ! It was said of him that as Eomeo, ' whilst Garrick seemed Booth, died to be drawn up to Juliet, he seemed to draw Juliet May 10, 1733. r buried at ' down to him.' His bust in Poets' Corner, erected by Cowley near /- T uxbridge. his second wife (Mrs. Laidlaw, an actress), in 177'2, is probably as much owing to his connection with Westminster as to his histrionic talent. He was educated at Westminster School under Busby, from which he escaped to Ireland to in- dulge his passion for the stage ; and he possessed property in Westminster, called Barton Street (from his own name) and Cowley Street (from his country residence). His surname has acquired a fatal celebrity from his descendant, Wilkes Booth, who followed in his ancestor's profession, and, by the knowledge so gained, assassinated President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre at Washington, on Good Friday, 1865. In the North Cloister is Spranger Barry and his wife, Anne Barry, Crawford. ' in person taller than the common size ' buried Jan. * 20, 1777. famous as ' Othello ' and ' Eomeo.' In this character he and his great rival, Garrick, played against each other so 1 Tatlcr, No. 167. CHAP. iv. OF THE ACTORS. 287 long as to give rise to the proverb, ' Eomeo again ! a plague on Foote, died ' ^oth y our houses ! ' And in the same year, in the buriedW. ^ est Cloister, was interred the comedian, Samuel Foote, ' who pleased Dr. Johnson against his will.' ' The dog ' was so very comical Sir, he was irresistible ! ' At last came the ' stroke of death, which eclipsed the gaiety ' of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless David pleasures.' From Adelphi Terrace, where Garrick Crurrick died Jan. 20, died, a long line of carriages reached to the Abbey. buried Feb. ml t 1,1779. The crowd was so dense that a military guard was needed to keep order. Covent Garden and Drury Lane were each represented by twelve players. The coffin was carried through the west door. Amongst the members of the Literary Club who attended in a body, were Eeynolds, Burke, Gibbon, and Johnson. ' I saw old Samuel Johnson, 1 says Cumberland, * standing at the foot of Shakspeare's monument, and bathed in ' tears.' At the foot of that statue ' he was laid, by the spot Gamete whither he was soon followed by his former preceptor. Monument, jjis monument was raised high aloft on the opposite wall with all the emblems of tragic art, and with an inscription by Pratt 2 which has provoked the only serious remonstrance against the introduction of these theatrical memorials, and that not from any austere fanatic, but from the gentlest and most genial of mortals : Taking a turn in the Abbey the other day [says Charles Lamb], I was struck with the affected attitude of a figure, which, on examination, proved to be a whole-length representation of the celebrated Mr. Garrick. Though I would not go so far, with some good Catholics abroad, as to shut players altogether out of consecrated ground, yet I own I was a little scandalised at the introduction of theatrical airs and gestures into a place set apart to remind us of the saddest realities. Going nearer, I found inscribed under this harlequin figure a farrago of false thoughts and nonsense. 3 The last actor buried in the Abbey was John Henderson, 1 Life of Reynolds, ii. 247; Fitz- 'Davy.' (Pen and Ink Sketches, 1864.) gerald's Garrick, ii. 445. Garrick's For her funeral, see Smith's Book for a widow is buried with him, Rainy Day, p. 226. Garrkk r ' a * n ner wedding sheets. She I An inscription had been prepared died Oct. 16, survived him forty-three by Burke, which was thought too long. 1822, agred years ' a little bowed-down (Windham's Diary, p. 361.) For Oc't b "5 ied ' ^ woman > wno went about Sheridan's Monody, see Fitzgerald's ' leaning on a gold-headed Garrick, ii. 445. ' cane, dressed in deep widow's mourn- 3 Charles Lamb's Prose Works, 25. ' ing, and always talking of her dear 288 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. whose chief parts were Shylock and Falstaff, and who first John Hen- played Macbeth in Scottish costume. He died sud- buriedDec. denlv in his prime, and was laid l beside Cumber- 5 1785 land and Sheridan. Two cenotaphs, now side by side, in St. Andrew's Chapel, commemorate the two most illustrious of the modern family of actors Sarah Siddons and her brother, * John Kemble. The statue of Mrs. Siddons, by Chan- otStUG Ol ^ don^'dieT" trey (suggested by Eeynolds's portrait of her as- the June 8, 1631. Tragic Muse) stands in colossal proportions, in a place selected, after much deliberation, by the sculptor and the three successive Deans of that time. The cost was defrayed by Mac- ready, and the name affixed after a long consultation with statue of Lord Lansdowne and Rogers. The statue of John Kembie. 1 Philip Kemble, by Hinchcliffe (after a design of Flax- diedFeb. * . ' J . 26,1823-, man)was in 1865 moved from an inappropriate site Lausanne, in the North Transept, with the concurrence of his niece, Fanny Kemble. He is represented as ' Cato.' Not altogether alien to the stage, but more congenial to the Church, is the series of eminent musicians, who in fact formed a connecting link between the two, which has since been almost severed. In a humorous letter, imagined to be written from one to the other in the nether world, of two of the most famous of these earlier leaders of the art, they are compared to Mahomet's coffin, equally attracted by the Theatre and Earth the Church and Heaven. 2 Henry Lawes lies, unnamed, in the Cloisters, probably from his place in the Chapel Eoyal under Charles I. and the Com- Lawe= died nionwealth, in which he composed the anthem for the burie^bct coronation of Charles II., the year before his death. 25, lees. B u t hi s chief fame arises from his connection with Milton. He composed the music of ' Comus,' and himself acted the part of the attendant spirit in its representation at Ludlow ; and his reward was the sonnet which rehearses his peculiar gift Harry, whose tuneful and well-measur'd lay First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent To after age thou shalt be writ the man That with smooth air could humour best our tongues. 1 His wife was interred on his coffin It is also one of the complaints in the in 1819. (See Neale, ii. 270.) London Spy (p. 187), against the z Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead quiremen of the Abbey, that they to the Living. (Blow and Purcell.) should ' sing at the playhouse.' CHAP. iv. OF THE MUSICIANS. 289 Christopher Gibbons (son of the more famous ! Orlando) also lies unmarked in the Cloisters first of the famous Christopher organists of the Abbey, and master of Blow. burfeTo'ct. But the first musician who was buried within the lurceiu'died Church the Chaucer, as it were, of the Musicians' SortodLkoY. Corner was Henry Purcell, 2 organist of the Abbey, who died nearly at the same early age which was fatal to Mozart, Schubert, 3 and Mendelssohn, and was buried in the north aisle of the Choir, close to the organ 4 which he had been the first to raise to celebrity, and with the Anthem which he had but a few months before composed for the funeral of Queen Mary. The tablet above was erected by his patroness, Lady Elizabeth Howard, the wife of Dryden, who is said to have Epitaph on composed the epitaph 5 'Here lies Henry Purcell, ' Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that blessed ' place where only his harmonies can be excelled.' As ' Tom ' Brown ' 6 and his boisterous companions passed this way, they overlooked all the other monuments, ' except that of Harry ' Purcell, the memory of whose harmony held ' even those coarse ' souls for a little.' 7 Opposite to Purcell is the grave and tablet of his master, also his successor in the Abbey John Blow. Challenged by Blow buried J ames H. to make an anthem as good as that of one Oct. 8, 1708. O f the King's Italian composers, Blow by the next Sunday produced, ' I beheld, and lo a great multitude ! ' The King sent the Jesuit, Father Petre, to acquaint him that he was well pleased with it : ' but,' added Petre, * I myself think ' it too long.' ' That,' replied Blow, ' is the opinion of but one ' fool, and I heed it not.' This quarrel was, happily, cut short 1 Orlando Gibbons is buried in Can- ' Musa profana suos, religiosa siios.' terbury Cathedral. s Neale, ii. 221. The same thought 2 He was born in a house, of which of the welcome of the heavenly choir some vestiges still remain, in Old Pye was expressed in Dryden's elegy upon Street, Westminster, and lived, as him organist, in a house on the site of that the y handed him along, now occupied by the Precentor, in And^l the way he taught, and all the way they Dean's Yard. Whilst sitting on the steps of that house he caught the cold Possibly suggested by a somewhat which ended fatally. similar line in Cowley's Monody on 3 Schubert died at 32, Mozart at 35, Crawshaw Purcell at 37, Mendelssohn at 38 Andthou , their charge, went singing afthe^ky. 4 The organ then stood close to Pur- cell's monument. ' Dum vicina organa e Vol. iii. p. 127. ' spirant,' are the words of the inscrip- ' ' Peter Abbot,' on the night of tion on his gravestone, lately restored, July 1, 1800, made a wager that he which also records his double fame would write his name on this rnonu- both in secular and sacred music rnent. See Chapter II. 290 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. tv. by the Revolution of 1688. Close beside Blow is his successor, croft, bnned William Croft. His tablet records his gentleness to his ITS/'. ' pupils for fifty years, and the fitness of his own Halle- lujah to the heavenly chorus, with the text, ' Awake up my * glory, awake lute and harp ; I myself will awake right early.' He will be longer remembered in the Abbey for the union of Arnold, died ^ s i^usic with Purcell's at its great funerals. Samuel b^rie 2 !'oct Arnold, the voluminous composer, lies next to Purcell ; and opposite his tablet is that of the historian of all ?8H ney>died those who lie around him Charles Burney, 1 and last has f llowed Sir William Sterndale Bennett. In the Sept. Be'nnett, south and west Cloisters are several musicians of lesser fame, among them Benjamin Cooke, with his ' canon ' engraved on his monument ; William Shield, the composer, at sweid, Feb. whose funeral, by the express command of George IV., 2 MUZK the choirs of the Chapels Royal and of St. Paul's 1832. attended ; and Muzio Clementi, whose grandchildren have recently rescued his grave from oblivion. One, the greatest of all, has found his resting place in a less appropriate, though still a congenial spot. Handel had lived Handei died ^ ^ e soc i e ty of poets. It was Arbuthnot, the friend turfed In ^ PP e > wno said, ' Conceive the highest you can of corner April ' ^ s abilities, and they are much beyond anything ' that you can conceive.' He who composed the ' Messiah,' and ' Israel in Egypt,' must have been a poet, no less than a musician, of no ordinary degree. 3 Therefore he was not unfitly buried in Poets' Corner, apart from his tuneful brethren. Not less than three thousand persons of all ranks attended the funeral. Above his grave, by his own provi- sion, Roubiliac erected his monument, with the inscription, ' I ' know that my Redeemer liveth.' There stands the unwieldy musician, with the ' enormous white wig, which had a certain ' nod or vibration when things went well at the oratorio.' 4 It was no doubt accidental that the figure faces eastward ; but it gave 1 The other historian of music 3 ' I would uncover my head and Hawkins, tne biographer of Johnson ' kneel at his tomb.' (Beethoven.) buried May Sir John Hawkins, lies in 4 Burney's Life of Handel, 36. 28, 1789. the North Cloister, with ' Nature required a great supply of only the letters J.H., by his own desire, ' sustenance to support so large a mass, on the gravestone. ' and he was rather epicurean in the 2 Sir George Smart told Mr. Lodge, ' choice of it.' (Ibid. p. 32.) His to whom I owe the fact, that the fune- ' hand was so fat that the knuckles ral was the finest service of the kind ' were like those of a child.' (Ibid. p. in his recollection. Shield left his 35.) For the curious care with which violoncello to the King, who accepted Boubiliac modelled the ear of Handel, the bequest, but caused the full value see Smith's Life of Nollekens, ii. 87. to be paid to his widow. CHAP. iv. OF THE ARTISTS. 291 an exquisite pleasure to the antiquary Carter, when (in contrast to the monument of Shakspeare), he saw ' the statue of ' this more than man turning his eyes to where the ' Eternal Father of Heaven is supposed to sit enthroned, King ' of kings, and Lord of lords.' 1 ' He had most seriously and ' devoutly wished, for some days before his death, that he ' might breathe his last on Good Friday, in hopes, he said, of ' meeting his good God, his sweet Lord and Saviour, on the ' day of His resurrection.' 2 And a belief to this effect prevailed amongst his friends. But in fact he died at 8 A.M. on Easter Eve. It was the circumstance of Handel's burial in the Abbey that led to the musical commemoration there on the centenary of his birth, which is recorded above his monument. 3 Music and poetry are the only arts which are adequately represented in the Abbey. Sir Godfrey Kneller is its only ARTISTS. painter, and even he is not buried within its walls, oct! S7,'i7za, ' Sir Godfrey sent to me,' says Pope, ' just before he KneTierHaii. * died. He began by telling me he was now convinced ' he could not live, and fell into a passion of tears. I said I ' hoped he might, but if not he knew that it was the will of God. ' He answered, " No, no; it is the Evil Spirit." The next word ' he said was this : " By God, I witt not be buried in West- '" minster!" I asked him why? He answered, "They do ' " bury fools there." Then he said to me, " My good friend, 4 " where will you be buried ? " I said, " Wherever I drop ' " very likely in Twickenham." He replied, " So will I." He pope's * proceeded to desire that I would write his epitaph, Sete. 011 ' which I promised him.' 4 He was buried in the garden of his manor at Whitton now Kneller Hall. He chose for his monument in the church at Twickenham a position already occupied (on the north-east wall of the church) by Pope's tablet to his father. An angry correspondence ensued after Kneller's death between his widow and Pope, and the monu- ment was ultimately placed in the Abbey. 5 The difficulty did 1 Gent. Mag. (1774), part ii. p. 670. agree in the date of Saturday, April 14. 2 Burney, p. 31, states that on the See Mr. Husk's Preface to the Book of monument the date of his death had Words of the Handel Festival. been inscribed as Saturday, April 14, 3 See Chapter VI. and that it was corrected to ' Good 4 Pope's Works, iii. 374. ' Friday,' April 13. This is a com- 5 At the west end of the Nave, plete mistake. His monument, his where Fox's monument now is. It was gravestone beneath it, the Burial Re- there so conspicuous and solitary as gister, and the account of an eyewit- to be made a landmark for the pro- ness in Mrs. Delaney's Memoirs, all cessions in the Nave. (See Precentor's u 2 292 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. not end even there. Pope fulfilled his promise at his friend's deathbed, but thought the epitaph ' the worst thing he ever ' wrote in his life,' and Dr. Johnson said of it : Of this epitaph the first couplet is good, the second not bad ; the third is deformed with a broken metaphor, the word crowned not being applicable to the honours or the lays ; and the fourth is not only bor- rowed from the epitaph on Eaphael, but of a very harsh construction. 1 After this unfortunate beginning, no painter has been, or probably ever will be, interred within the Abbey. The burial of Sir Joshua Keynolds in St. Paul's has carried with it the commemoration of all future artists in the crypt of that great cathedral. 2 Of architects and sculptors, Dickinson, the manager who worked under Wren, was buried in the chief site of his achieve- ments the restored or defaced North Porch, the graves of chambers, Chambers, Wyatt, and Adam, and the monument of ifareu is, Taylor, are in the South Transept, and the tablet of wyatt, sept. Banks in the North Aisle ; and in the Nave lie Sir 28 1813 Adam, 1792. Charles Barry, whose grave is adorned, in brass, by a Bank S r ,'i805.' memorial of his own vast work in the adjacent pile 2M860. * : of the New Palace of Westminster, and Sir Gilbert Scott, the leader of the Gothic revival. The West Cloister contains the monuments of the two vertue. use. engravers, Vertue who, as a Eoman Catholic, was 1785. e buried near an old monk, of his family, laid there just before the Dissolution 3 and Woollett, 4 ' Incisor Excellent- ' issimus.' It is a proof of the late, slow, and gradual growth of science in England, that it has not appropriated to itself any special MEN OP place in the Abbey, but has, almost before we are aware of it, penetrated promiscuously into every part, much ment m of nu ~ in the same way as it has imperceptibly influenced all pwrnUnd our social and literary relations elsewhere. Ekrustan- In the middle of the eighteenth century there i786,'m6- were two important places vacant in the Nave, on George each side of the entrance to the Choir. That on the ^onof James, south was occupied by the monument designed by hopefme. Kent to the memory of the first Earl Stanhope, and Book on Queen Caroline's funeral, * Malcolm's Londinium, p. 193 ; 1737.) It was moved by Dean Buck- Nichols's Boiuyer. land to the south aisle of the Choir. 1 Lives of the Poets, iii. 211. 4 He was buried in old St. Pancras * Milman's Annals of St.PauVs, 475. Churchyard. CHAP. iv. OF THE ARTISTS. 293 of his second son, and recording also the characters of the second and third Earls of the same proud name, to which has now been added the name of the fifth Earl, distinguished as the historian of the times in which his ancestors played so large a part. They are all buried at Chevening. Col- lectively, if not singly, they played a part sufficiently con- spicuous to account for, if not to justify, so honourable a place in the Abbey. 1 But at the same moment that the artist was designing this memorial of the high-spirited and high-born statesman, he was employed in erecting two other monuments in the Abbey, which outshine every other name, however illustrious by rank or heroic action. One was but a cenotaph, and has been already described the statue of Shakspeare in Poets' Corner. But the other was to celebrate the actual interment of the only dust of unquestionably world- wide fame that the floor of Westminster covers of one so far raised above all the political or literary magnates by whom he is surrounded, as to mark an era in the growth of the monu- mental history of the whole building. On March 28, 1727, the sir Isaac body of Sir Isaac Newton, after lying in state in the Mlrch n 2o ied Jerusalem Chamber, where it had been brought from Mochas hi g deathbed in Kensington, was attended by the leading members of the Eoyal Society, and buried at the public cost in the spot in front of the Choir, which, being HIS grave. ' one of the most conspicuous in the Abbey, had been ' previously refused to various noblemen, who had applied for ' it.' 2 Voltaire was present at the funeral. The selection of this spot for such a purpose marks the moment at which the more sacred recesses in the interior of the church were considered to be closed, or to have lost their special attractions, whilst the publicity of the wide and open spaces hitherto neglected gave them a new importance. On the gravestone 3 are written the words, which here acquire a significance of more than usual solemnity ' Hie depositum quod mortale fait Isaaci ' Newtoni.' 4 On the monument was intended to have been inscribed the double epitaph of Pope : 1 ' Stanhope's noble flame.' (Pope, 2 London Gazette, April 5, 1727. vi. 376.) The first Earl had a public 3 Restored to its place in 1866. funeral in the Abbey, after which he 4 Johnson had intended, ' Isaacus was privately interred at Chevening, ' Newtonius, legibus natures investigatis, where still hangs the banner used at ' hie quiescit.' Westminster. 294 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. ISAACUS NEWTONIUS, Quern Immortalem Testantur Tempus, Natura, Ccelum : Mortalem Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night : GOD said, Let Newton be ! and all was light. 1 The actual inscription agrees with the actual monument the one in words, the other in marble allegory, a description of Newton's discoveries, closing with the summary : Naturae, antiquitatis, Sanctse Scripturas sedulus, sagax, fidus inter- pres, Dei 0. M. majestatem philosophia asseruit ; Evangelii simplici- tatem moribus expressit. Tibi gratulenter mortales, tale tantumque exstitisse humani generis decus. 2 His grave, if not actually the centre of the heroes of science, yet attracted two at least of his friends towards the same spot. Ffoikes.died One was Martin Ffolkes, liis deputy at the Eoyal Society, at 54 Huiiig d . f which he ultimately became the President, though, from his Jacobite principles, he never was made a baronet. He is buried in his ancestral place at Hillington, in Norfolk ; but his genial character, 3 his general knowledge, and his antiquarian celebrity as a numismatist, naturally procured His monn- ^ or nmi a memorial in the North Aisle of the Abbey. Marehslf 6 ' 1 It was erected, long afterwards, by the sister-in-law of his daughter Lucretia. The other was his relative and successor in the Mint, John Conduitt, who was buried ' on conduitt, ' the right side of Sir Isaac Newton/ and whose monu- 29,1737. ment, at the extreme west end of the Nave, was raised (as its inscription states) exactly opposite to his. Incorporated into this., so as to connect the early prodigy of English Astro- nomy with the name of its maturest development, is the at pioie. memorial of Jeremiah Horrocks, erected two centuries after the day on which he first observed the Transit of Venus. Close upon these follows the band of eminent physicians uniting (as so many since) science 4 and scholarship with medical skill, and bound by ties, more or less near, to the pre- 1 Pope, iii. 378. tury.' His portrait, by Hogarth, is 2 See the criticism in the continuator the ' picture of open-hearted English of Stowe, p. 618. ' honesty and hospitality, but does not 3 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes ; ' indicate much intellect.' (H. Cole- Dibdin's Bibliomania. ' He had a ridge's Northern Worthies.) ' striking resemblance to Peireskius, 4 Dr. Willis, in whose house his < the ornament of the seventeenth cen- brother-in-law Fell read the Liturgy CHAP. iv. OF THE MEN OF SCIENCE. 295 siding genius of Westminster at that period. It is a very THE PHY- ' sickly time/ l writes the daughter of Atterbury to her 8ICIAXS. exiled father, in announcing the successive deaths of his beloved friends, Chamberlen, Arbuthnot, and Woodward. 2 Hugh Chamberlen was the last of the eminent race of ac- coucheurs who brought into the world the royal progeny of the Chamberlen, whole Stuart dynasty, from James I. to Anne. He died June . . ** visited Atterbury in the Tower, and Atterbury repaid his friendship by the pains bestowed on his elaborate epitaph which forms a topic of no less than seven letters in the Bishop's exile. 3 It is inscribed on the cenotaph erected to the physician by Atterbury's youthful admirer, the young Edward, Duke of Buckinghamshire. 4 John Woodward, who was buried in the Nave, at the head of Newton's gravestone, within two months after Newton's woodward, death, was, amidst all his eccentricities, philosophical 25? buried an ^ antiquarian, the founder of English Geology, and May 1,1728. o f that Cambridge chair which bears his name, and has received an European illustration from the genius of Adam Sedgwick ; and his death was received as a blow to science all over Europe 'the first man of his faculty,' 5 writes Atterbury from his French exile. Beneath the monument of Woodward in the North Aisle of the Nave lies Sir Charles Lyell, the most eminent geologist of our time. Beside the grave of Newton lies Sir John Herschel, whose name, combined with his father's, is the most illustrious of our modern astronomers. His rival, John Freind, interred at his own seat at Hitchin, Freind Hertfordshire, has a monument on the opposite side. i728 y ri 2 e 6 d His c l se connection with Westminster, through his at mtchin. b ro ther Robert, the Headmaster, 6 and through his education there, may have led to the monument ; but it has an under the Commonwealth, and who 4 By a Chapter Order of May 16, prescribed for Patrick during 1729 (afterwards rescinded), the Du- ? e r - 6 Wim? ' the Plague, was buried in the chess of Buckinghamshire is allowed Abbey in 1675. (Patrick's to take down the screen of the sacra- Works, ix. 443.) riuni to erect the monument. 1 Atterbury's Letters, iv. 127, 151, Atterbury's Letters, iv. 244. 159. He gave for a theme, on the day * Another friend of Atterbury, who after his brother > s imprisonment, died at this time, and who lies amongst < Crater ne desere fratim ' (Nichols's the many nobles in the Ormond vault, Anecdotes, v. 86, 102), and wrote the is Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, his epitaph for him> as for man otherg- pupil at Oxford, and author of the Hence Pope's lines- Dissertation on Phalaris, which led to the furious controversy with Bentley. rr jfri d ' lor J? ur e P ita Ph 1>m Sieved, . . , , , , 7- ,/ lov 1 JO Where still so much is said, s Atterbury s Letters, pp. 127, 149, One h *lf will never be believed, 185, 186, 198, 217, 258, 260. The other never read. 296 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. intrinsic interest from his one eminence as a physician and scholar, and the vicissitudes of his political life imprisoned in the Tower for his intimacy with Atterbury, released at the promise of Walpole, extorted by his friend Dr. Mead ; favourite of George II. and Queen Caroline an interest independent of any accidental connection with the place. Samuel Wesley's epitaph says of afflicted Physic on this event, ' She mourns with ' Eadcliffe, but she dies with Freind.' J Atterbury heard of his death hi France with much concern : ' He is lamented by men ' of all parties at home, and of all countries abroad ; for he was ' known everywhere, and confessed to be at the head of his ' faculty.' 2 Kichard Mead is buried in the Temple Church, but his bust also is in the Nave. 3 He was the first of that succession of cenotaphs eminent physicians who have been (from this example) ofMead,died . , ., , ,11 , ^ T * , Feb. 16,15/4; sent forth from the homes of Nonconformist ministers. His noble conduct, in refusing to prescribe for Sir E. Walpole till Freind was released from the Tower, and in repaying him all the fees of his patients ; his fiery encounter with their joint adversary, Woodward, in the courts of Gresham College ; his large and liberal patronage of arts and sciences, give a pecu- liar charm to the good physician who ' lived more in the broad * sunshine of life than almost any man.' 4 Wetenall and Pringle have tablets in the South, and Winteringham in the North Transept. But the main succes- weteLn, s i n f science is carried on in St. Andrew's Chapel, 5 Pringie, which contains busts of Matthew Baillie, the eminent physician, the brother of Joanna, the poetess ; of Sir Humphrey Davy, the genius of modern chemistry; Dr. Young, whose mathematical and hiero- discoveries have outshone his medical fame. 6 AUton ^ i 8 P r obably by an accidental coincidence only that &> U merSt, of ^ e same corner contains the monument of a benevo- lent lady, Sarah, Duchess of Somerset, daughter of Dr. Alston, President of the College of Physicians, who devoted 1 Nichols, v. 103. failure, hence the medallion is in pro- * Atterbury's Letters, ii. 320, 384. file. (Peacock's Life, p. 485.) The * The inscription was written by site was fixed at the particular request Dr. Ward. (Nichols, vi. 216.) of Chantrey, to which the Dean (Ire- 4 Boswell's Johnson, iv. 222. land) acceded, ' knowing from long * Dr. Buchan, author of ' Domestic ' experience how delicate and honour- ' Medicine,' is buried in the West ' able his judgment is in all matters Cloister (1805). ' relating to the Abbey.' (Chapter 6 Dr. Young's epitaph is by Hudson Book, July 23, 1834.) Gurney. The projected bust was a CHAP. iv. OF THE MEN OF SCIENCE. 297 almost the whole of her fortune to charitable bequests in Oxford, Cambridge, Westminster, and Wiltshire. John Hunter, ocTi6 r 'i d 79 e 3 d *^ e Bounder f modern surgery, had been buried in removed ' the vaults of St. Martm's-in-the-Fields Church. From here, March. , those vaults, just before they were finally closed, his remains were removed by the energy of Mr. Frank Buckland. 1 Animated by a chivalrous devotion to the memory of a great man, he spent sixteen dreary days in the catacombs of that church, which ended in his triumphant recovery of the relics, and his ' translation ' of them to the Nave of the Abbey. And now, the latest-born of time, comes the practical science of modern days. The earliest that the Abbey contains is Sir INVENTORS Robert Moray, first President of the Royal Society, TI F CAL^I- buried in the South Transept near Davenant, at the charge of Charles II., who through him had made all Kir Robert . , Moray, his scientific communications : ' the life and soul of buried July e, 1673. the Society ; ' Evelyn's ' dear and excellent friend, that ' good man and accomplished gentleman.' 2 The strange genius sir samnei of Sir Samuel Morland 3 perfidious secretary of Oliver died less. Cromwell, more creditably known as the first inventor of the speaking-trumpet, the fire-engine, the calculating machine, and, according to some, even of the steam-engine has left his mark in the South Aisle of the Nave, by the two singular His wives tablets to his first wife, Carola Harsnett, and his second octio i674 d w ife> An ne Fielding, whom he married, and buried in Feb ne 24 U i67ec. an ^ was the nrs ^ ^ ^ eT name interred in the Percy is, 1776. vault. She was conspicuous both for her extensive munificence, and for her patronage of literature, of which the ' Percy Eeliques ' are the living monument. By her own re- peated desire, the funeral was to be ' as private as her rank ' would admit.' The crowd collected was, however, so vast that the officiating clergy and choir could scarcely make their way from the west door to the chapel. Just as the procession had passed St. Edmund's Chapel, the whole of the screen, including the canopy of John of Eltham's tomb, 1 came down with a crash, which brought with it the men and boys who had clambered to the top of it to see the spectacle, and severely wounded many of those below. The uproar and confusion put a stop to the ceremony for two hours. The body was left in the ruined Chapel, and the Dean did not return till after midnight, when the funeral was completed, but still amidst ' cries of murder, ' raised by such of the sufferers as had not been removed.' 2 Another very different race is that of the Delavals. Of that ancient northern family, whose ancestor carried the standard Admiral at Hastings, two were remarkable for their own buriJdJan. distinctions Admiral Delaval 3 (companion of Sir S'lLDetar Cloudesley Shovel) and Edward Hussey Delaval, last LordD^ia- of the male line, who was the author of various philo- Sdy 8 Deia- sophical works, 4 and lies buried amongst the philoso- SJSyMez- phers in the Nave. But Lord and Lady Delaval, with W3i" gh> their daughter Lady Tyrconnell, and their nephew's wife Lady Mexborough, 5 are interred in or close to St. Paul's Chapel, 1 See Chapter III. p. 121. worthy of his ancestors. 2 Annual Register, xix. 197 ; Gent. 3 Charnock's Naval Biog. ii. 10. Mag. [1776], p. 576. This is the only 4 Gent. Mag. 1814, pt. ii. p. 293. private vault which still continues to 5 Another reason has been some- receive interments. Amongst those times assigned for the position of Lady of our own time (1864) may be especi- Mexborough's monument ; but this ally mentioned the rebuilder of Alnwick, family connection is, perhaps, sum- distinguished by a princely munificence cient. 302 THE MONUMENTS OF THE NOBILITY. CHAP. IT. \vhere the banners the last vestiges of a once general custom hang over their graves. 1 Their pranks at Seaton Delaval 2 belong to the history of Northumberland, and of the dissolute state of English society at the close of the last century ; and in the traditions of the North still survives the memory of the Lad TVT- P om P which, at every stage of the long journey from conneif.isoo. Northumberland to London, accompanied the remains of the wildest of the race Lady Tyrconnell. 3 Another trace of the strange romances of the North of England is the grave of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of MaryEiea- Strathmore, who, a few months before the funeral couuteL e of (just described) of her neighbour Lady Tyrconnell, 4 was died'A^riT' buried in the South Transept, in the last year of the Maylofwoo. past century, after adventures which ought to belong to the Middle Ages. It is touching to observe how many are commemorated from their extreme youth. Not only, as in the case of eminent persons like Purcell, or Francis Horner, or Charles Buller, MONUMENTS where the Abbey commemorates the promise of glories YOUNG. not yet fully developed but in the humbler classes of life, the sigh over the premature loss is petrified into stone, and affects the more deeply from the great events amidst which it jane Lister, is enshrined. ' Jane Lister, dear child, died October 7, less. c ' 1688.' 'Her brother Michael had already died in ' 1676, and been buried at Helen's Church, York.' 3 In that eventful year of the Revolution, when Church and State were reeling to their foundations, this ' dear child ' found her quiet Nicholas resting-place in the Eastern Cloister. In that same Ba Jtwo year, too, a few months before, another still more in- significant life Nicholas Bagnall, ' an infant of two ' months old, 6 by his nurse unfortunately overlaid '- has his own little urn amongst the Cecils and Percys in St Nicholas's Chapel. 7 1 Neale, ii. 181. 6 He was buried with an infant 2 Hewitt's Visits to Remarkable brother (September 5, 1684) in the Places (2nd series), pp. 354-374. grave which afterwards received his 3 Register, November 4, 1800. mother, Lady Anne Charlotte Bagnall, 4 Howitt, p. 198. daughter of the second Earl of Elgin 5 This seems to show that her father (March 13, 1712-13), wife of Nicholas must have been Dr. Lister, author of Bagnall, of Plas Newydd, in \Vales. a ' Journey to Paris,' and other works It would seem that the unhappy nurse on Natural History, who came from never forgot the misfortune, and in York to London in 1683. He is buried her will begged to be buried near the at Clapham, with his first wife, who is child. (Chester's Registers, 220.) there described as his ' dear wife.' Anna Sophia ' Close by is the urn of There is no Register in St. Helen's at Hariey,1695. the infant daughter of Har- York between 1649 and 1690. ley, French Ambassador to James II. THK NIGHTINGALE MONUMENT. 304 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. In the Little Cloisters is a tablet to ' Mr. Thomas Smith, of ' Elmly Lovet . . . who through the spotted veil of the small - Thomas ' P ox rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God, ex- 2 M b a ' r ^ ed ' pecting but not fearing death.' l Young Carteret, a carter^ 4 ' Westminster scholar, who died at the age of 19, and MMctJaii i s ^ ur i e( i in the North Aisle of the Choir, with the 1711 - chiefs of his house, is touchingly commemorated by the pretty Sapphic verses of Dr. Freind. 2 In the Nave several young midshipmen are commemorated. Amongst them is William Dalrymple, who at the age of 18 was killed in a desperate engagement off the coast of Virginia, ' leaving to his once happy parents 4 the endearing remembrance of his virtues.' Other tombs represent the intensity of the mourners' grief. In St. Andrew's Chapel, Lord Kerry's monument to his wife, MON-CMEXTS ' w ^ ^ a ^ rendered him for thirty-one years the L MOLBN ~ ' happiest of mankind,' retained at its north end, till Lad Ke a ^ ew mon ^ ns before his own interment in the same tomb, the cushion on which, year after year, he came Lord Kerry, * ** to kneel. 3 Opposite to it is the once admired 4 monu- ment raised by her son to commemorate the premature death of j^ Lady Elizabeth Shirley, 5 daughter of Washington, Htahttunia Earl Ferrers, wife of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale, 1731 - ' and sister of Lady Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, 6 foundress of the Calvinistic sect which bears her name. This spot (apart from her grave in the area beneath Queen Eleanor's tomb) was doubtless selected as affording better light and space ; 1 There was a like monument in the ' of Westminster Abbey. What heaps North Cloister to R. Booker, a West- ' of unmeaning stone and marble ! minster scholar, who died of small-pox ' But there was one tomb which showed in 1655. (Seymour's Stow, p. 582.) ' common sense : that beautiful figure 2 It was probably from a feeling of ' of Mr. Nightingale endeavouring to this kind that a splendid though pri- ' shield his lovely wife from Death, vate funeral was awarded in Poet's ' Here, indeed, the marble seems to Corner to Lieutenant Riddell, who in ' speak, and the statues appear only 1783 was killed in a duel. (Gent. ' not alive.' (Wesley's Journal, Feb. Mag. 1783, 362-443.) 16, 1764.) * Akermann, ii. 189. * It was really a monument to Mr. 4 ' Mrs. Nightingale's monument has Nightingale. (See Chapter Book, not been praised beyond its merit. February 13, 1758.) His wife was ' The attitude and expression of the aged 27, he 56. For a curious story ' husband in endeavouring to shield his connected with Lord Brougham's father 1 wife from the dart of Death is natural and the digging of her grave, see Lord ' and affecting. But I always thought Brougham's Memoirs, i. 205. But she ' that the image of Death would be died 11 years before his birth. ' much better represented with an ex- 6 Two of her sons are buried in the ' tinguished torch than with a dart.' North Transept, where a monument (Burke on his first visit to the Abbey : was to have been erected to them. Prior's Burke, 32.) ' I once more (Chapter Book, March 3, 1743-34.) ' took a serious walk through the tombs CHAP. IT. OF PRIVATE PERSONS. 305 and in order to accommodate the monument, the effigy of Lady Monument Catherine St. John was removed to the chapel of St. erected irss. Nicholas. The husband vainly trying to scare the spectre of Death from his wife is probably one of the most often remembered sights of the Abbey. It was when working at this elaborate structure that Eoubiliac made the exclamation (already quoted) on the figure in the neighbouring tomb of Sir Francis Vere. 1 It was also whilst engaged on the figure of Death, that he one day, at dinner, suddenly dropped his knife and fork on his plate, fell back in his chair, and then darted forwards, and threw his features into the strongest possible ex- pression of fear fixing his eyes so expressively on the country lad who waited, as to fill him with astonishment. A tradition of the Abbey records that a robber, coming into the church by moonlight, was so startled by the same figure as to have fled in dismay, and left his crowbar on the pavement. 2 Other monuments record the undying friendship, or family affection, which congregated round some loved object. Such MONUMENTS are Mary Kendall's tomb in St. Paul's Chapel, and the OFFIUKNDS. tombs of the Gethin, 3 Norton, and Freke families in KenLu, the South Aisle of the Choir. Such is the monument Grace ' which, in the East Cloister, records Pope's friendship with General Withers and Colonel Disney (commonly called Duke Disney), who resided together at Greenwich. Gay, in his poem on Pope's imaginary return from Greece, thus describes them : Now pass we Gravesend with a friendly wind, And Tilbury's white fort, and long Blackwall ; Greenwich, where dwells the friend of human kind More visited than either park or hall, Withers the good, and (with him ever joined) Facetious Disney, greet thee first of all. I see his chimney smoke, and hear him say, Duke ! that's the room for Pope, and that for Gay. 4 1 Or at the north-west corner of to be preached for her in the Abbey Lord Norris's monument. (Smith's every Ash-Wednesday. Her celebrity Life of Nollekens ii. 86.) See p. 191. arose, in part, from a book of extracts - The crowbar, which was found which were mistakenly supposed to be under the monument, is still preserved. original. She is buried at Holling- 3 For Grace Gethin see Ballard's bourne, near Maidstone, where her Illustrious Ladies, p. 263 ; and D'ls- epitaph records a vision shortly before raeli's Curiosities of Literature. She her death, left a bequest for an anniversary sermon 4 Pope's Works, iii. 375. 306 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. iv. Pope's epitaph carries on the same strain after Wither s's death : withers, Here, Withers, rest ! thou bravest, gentlest mind, died 1729. rj^y country's friend, but more of human kind. born to arms ! worth in youth approv'd ! soft humanity, in age belov'd ! For thee the hardy vet'ran drops a tear, And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere. Withers, adieu ! yet not with thee remove Thy martial spirit, or thy social love ! Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage, Still leave some ancient virtues to our age : Nor let us say (those English glories gone), The last true Briton lies beneath this stone ! 1 And ' Duke Disney ' closes the story in the touching record, D^ney died that ' Colonel Henry Disney, surviving his friend and ' companion, Lieutenant-General Withers, but two ' years and ten days, is at his desire buried in the same grave ' with him.' Others have gained entrance by their longevity. There are three whose lives embrace three whole epics of English MONTTMKNTS OF LOX- History. The epitaph of Anne Birkhead (now effaced) Anne in the Cloisters, seen by Camden when it was still a ^ino^* fresh wonder, recorded that she died on August 25, 1568, at the age of 102 An auncient age of many years Here lived, Anne, thou hast, Pale death hath fixed his fatal force Upon thy corpse at last. In the centre of the South Transept, amongst the poets, by a Thomas not unnatural affinity, was buried Thomas Parr, the issues!, patriarch of the seventeenth century, ' the old, old, ' very old man,' on whose gravestone it is recorded that he lived to the age of 152, through the ten reigns from Edward IV. to Charles I. He was brought up to Westminster, two months before his death, by the Earl of Arundel, ' a great ' lover of antiquities.' ' He was found on his death to be ' covered with hair.' Many were present at his burial, ' doing ' homage to this our aged Thomas de Temporibus.' 2 In the 1 Pope's Works, iii. 375. doubt as to his age, see Mr. Thorns on 2 Fuller's Worthies, p. 68. For the the Longevity of Man, pp. 85-94. CHAP. iv. OF FOREIGNERS. 307 "West Cloister lies Elizabeth Woodfall, daughter of the famous EMzabeth printer, who carried on the remembrance of Junius pea'^s 11 ' to our own time, when she died in Dean's Yard at the age of 93. Connected with these by a curious coincidence of long life MONL-MEN-TS are several illustrious foreigners. Casaubon, St. Evre- mond, Grabe, and the Duke of Montpensier, have been already mentioned. But in the Chapel of St. Paul, with his wife and daughter near him, lies Ezekiel Spanheim, a Genevese by birth, but spanheim, student at Leyden and professor at Heidelberg, who died in England, as Prussian minister, in his eighty- first year the Bunsen of his time, uniting German research into scholarship and theology with the labours of his diplomatic profession. Peter Courayer, the Blanco White of the eighteenth century endeared to the English Church, and estranged from the Courayer, Pioman Church, by his vindication, whilst yet at the 1T6<1 95 im. ' Sorbonne, of the validity of Anglican Orders had been already, before his escape from France, attached to the Precincts of Westminster by his friendship with the exiled Atterbury, 1 who had hanging in his room a portrait of Cou- rayer, which he bequeathed to the University of Oxford. He lived and died in Downing Street, in close intimacy with Dr. Bell, one of the Prebendaries, chaplain to the Princess Amelia. Dr. Bell afterwards published Courayer's ' Last Sentiments,' which were of the extremest latitude in theology ; and by him Courayer was, at his own request, buried, in his ninety-fifth year, in the Southern Cloister. His epitaph, by his Mend Kynaston, of Brasenose College, Oxford, was put up too hastily before the author's last revisal. 2 In the Chapel of St. Andrew, close to the Nightingale monu- ment, lies ' Theodore Phaliologus.' 3 There can be little doubt Theodore that he is the eldest of the five children of ' Theodore buriedMa 3 ' ' Paleologus, of Pesaro, in Italye, descended from the 3, 1644. t i m p er i a l lyne of the last Christian Emperors of ' Greece ; being the sonne of Camilio, the sonne of Prosper, the ' sonne of Theodore, the sonne of John, the sonne of Thomas, 1 See Atterbury's Letters, iv. 97, ' near the Lady St. John's tomb, 103, 133. ' May 3, 1644.' (Register.) For the A correct copy is given in Nichols's removal of Lady St. John's tomb, see Bowyer, p. 545. ' P- 305. 3 ' Theodore Phaliologus, buried x 2 308 THE MONUMENTS CHAP. IT. ' second brother of Constantine Paleologus, the eighth of that ' name, and last of that lyne that rayned in Constantinople ' until subdued by the Turks : who married with Mary, the ' daughter of William Balls, of Hadlye, in Souffolke, Gent., and ' had issue five children Theodora, John, Ferdinando, Maria, and Dorothy and departed this life at Clyfton, the 21st of ' January 1636.' l There is a letter from him at Plymouth in French, addressed to the Duke of Buckingham, on March 19, 1628-29, asking for employment and appealing to his noble birth. 2 He was lieutenant in Lord St. John's 3 regiment, and was probably on that account buried close to Lady St. John's tomb. In the South Aisle of the Nave is a tablet to Sir John Chardin, the famous explorer of Persia, who, though born in France, and writing in French, ultimately settled in England, and chaniin, ^g^ Q^ Chiswick. 4 It contams his name and a motto buried at cwswick, fo f or a rj great travellers, Nomen sibi fecit eundo. Pascal Paoii died Paoli, the champion of Corsican independence, died in buried lt 7 : hi s eighty-second year, under the protection of England, st. Pancras. jjj s bust, which looks from the Southern Aisle towards Poets' Corner, was erected not merely from the general esteem in which he was held, but from his close connection with the whole Johnsonian circle, of whom he was the favourite. ' General Paoli had the loftiest port of any man I have ever ' seen.' 5 He was buried in the old Roman Catholic cemetery at St. Pancras, from which, in 1867, his remains were removed to Corsica. 1 From a brass tablet, with the Im- Prerogative Court of Canterbury, March perial eagle at the top, in the parish 9, 1694. The only information which church of Landulph in Cornwall, the it gives respecting his family, is that he feet resting on the two gates of Rome left as his executrix his widow Martha. and Constantinople. (Gent. Mag. The conjecture in Archaologia (xviii. [1775], p. 80 ; 1793, p. 716 ; Arch, xviii. 93), that this sailor was the son of the 83 ; Some Notices of Landulph Church, Paleologus buried in Cornwall, is there- by the Rector, 1841, pp. 24-26.) fore unrounded. It is said that a mem- This curious pedigree was pointed her of the family is still living. For out to me by Mr. Edmund Ffoulkes. further particulars, see Notes and Ferdinando must be the emigrant to Queries, 3rd series, vii. pp. 403, 586 ; Barbadoes, of whom a very interesting xii. p. 30. account appears in Gent. Mag. 1843, 2 Calendars of State Papers, Domes- pt. ii. p. 28. The Greeks, in their tic Times, vol. xcvi. No. 47 (see Life of War of Independence, are said to have Constant ins Rhodocanakis, by Prince sent to enquire whether any of the Rhodocanakis, p. 38). family remained ; offering, if such were 3 Army List of Roundheads and the case, to equip a ship and proclaim Cavaliers. I owe this identification to him for their lawful sovereign. He Colonel Chester. had a son ' Theodorus ' who is pro- 4 His son and heir, Sir John Char- bably the same as Theodore Paleology, din, created a baronet, was buried near a mariner, whose will was signed his father's monument, 17-5". August 1, 1693, and proved in the 5 Boswell's Johnson, ii. 83. CHAP. IV. OF FOREIGNERS. 309 In the East Cloister is a tablet erected to a young Bernese noble of the name of Steigerr, the remembrance of whose pro- steifjerr, mising character still lingers in the Canton of Berne. 28, 1772. ' In the North Transept, under the monument of Holies, Duke of Newcastle, are interred three remarkable persons, transferred in 1739-40 from the French church in the Savoy- Louis Duras, Earl of Feversham, nephew of Turenne, ' who had learned from his uncle how to devastate, ' though not how to conquer ! ' 1 and Armand de Bourbon, with his sister Charlotte, who died at an advanced age, 2 having come to England before the Re- vocation of the Edict of Nantes, when he pleaded the cause of the Camisards to Queen Anne, and meditated an invasion of France, with the view of assisting the insurrection in the Cevennes. His brother Louis, Marquis de la Caye, was killed amongst the Huguenot regiments at the battle of the Boyne. 3 One other ' translation ' must be noticed. In the North Cloister lie the supposed remains of William Lyndwood, the celebrated Canonist and Bitualist Bishop of St. David's, which were found on January 16, 1852, in St. Stephen's Chapel, in the Palace of Westminster, where he was consecrated in 1442, ' in a roughly formed cavity, cut the foundation-wall of the north side of the Crypt, Duras, Earl of Feversham, died April 8, 1709. Armaud de Bourbon, died Feb. 12, 1732-3. Charlotte de Bourbon, died Oct. 15, 1732 ; removed to the Abbey, March 21, 1739-40. Lyndwood, died Oct. 21, 1446 ; removed March 6, 1852. ' into beneath the stone seat in the easternmost window.' 1 Macaulay, ii. 195. 2 La France Protestante, De Haag, ii. 478, which gives the age of Armand as 77 (and the date of his death February 25, 1732), and that of Char- lotte as 74. I owe this information to the kindness of M. Jules Bonnet. 3 NOTE FROM BCKIAL REGISTEK, 1739-40, now inscribed on the grave. ' Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham, ' etc., died April 8, 1709, in the sixty- ' ninth year of his age. ' Cy gist tres haut et tres puissant ' Seigneur, Mon seigneur Armand de ' Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont, etc., ' a qui Dieu a fait la grace de faire ' naitre en sa sainte Religion Reformee ' et d'y perseverer malgre les grandes ' promesses de Louis mesme dans ' sa plus tendre jeunesse ; ne dans le ' Chatteau de la Cate en Languedoe le ' 12 juillet 1656, deced6 en Angleterre ' le 12 fevr. 1732.' [He was buried in the French church of the Savoy, February 22, 1732-33.] ' Cy gist Charlotte de Bourbon, a qui Dieu a fait la grace de naitre, de vivre et de mourir dans sa sainte Re- ligion, la gloire en soit a jamais rendue a la ste. bnite et adorable Trinit, Pere, Fils et St. -Esprit. Amen, decedee en Angleterre le 14 octobre 1732, agee de 73 ans.' She was buried in the French church of the Savoy, October 21, 1732. ' And the bodies of the said Earl of Feversham, Monsieur Armand de Bourbon, and Charlotte de Bourbon, being deposited in a vault in the Chapel in the Savoy, were taken up and interred, on the 21st day of March, 1739, in one grave in the North Cross of the Abbey, even with the North Corner, and touching the plinth of the iron rails of the monument of the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle 3 ft. in. deep.' 310 THE MONUMENTS: CHAP. IT. Lastly, the Cloisters, 1 long after the Abbey had been closed against them, became the general receptacle of the humbler officers and retainers of the Court and of the Chapter. oFSKB I - B " v ' 1 ' 8 Contrasted with the reticence of modern times on VAX TO. faithful services, which live only in the grateful memory of those who profit by them, three records attract Ambrose special notice. One is of the blind scholar, Ambrose usher, 1617. fisher, who after having, first at Cambridge, and then at Westminster (where he lived in the house of Dr. Grant, one of the Prebendaries), ' freely, unrestrainedly, cheerfully im- ' parted his knowledge, whether in philosophy or divinity, to ' many young scholars,' was buried near the library. Nunc est positus mutam prope Bibliothecarn, Ipse loquens quoniam bibliotheca fuit. So wrote Ayton. Another poet and scholar of Westminster, entering into the general sentiment of the Cloisters, wrote Men, women, children, all that pass this way, Whether such as here walk, or talk, or play, Take notice of the holy ground y' are on, Lest you profane it with oblivion : Kemember with due sorrow that here lies The learned Fisher, he whose darkened eyes, Gave light which as the midday circulates To either sex, each age, and all estates. 2 Another is that of the servant of one of the Prebendaries, full of the quaint conceits of the seventeenth century : Lawrence, With diligence and trust most exemplary, 62 . u Did William Lawrence serve a Prebendary ; And for his paines now past, before not lost, Grain'd this remembrance at his master's cost. read these lines againe : you seldome find A servant faithful, and a master kind. Short-hand he wrote : his flowre in prime did fade, And hasty Death short-band of bim hath made. Well covth he numbers, and well mesur'd land ; Thus doth be now that ground whereon you stand, Wherein he lyes so geometricall : Art maketb some, but thus will nature all. 1 Sir R. Coxe, Taster to Elizabeth II., James II., and William III., in the Sir R. Coxe, an< ^ James I., has a tablet North Transept. 1623. ' in the South Transept - Grant's preface to Fisher's defence Saunders, (Stone was paid 30 for of the Liturgy : Epitaphs by Ayton and it. Walpole's Anecdotes); Harris. Clement Saunders, Carver to Charles CHAP. iv. THEIR GROWTH. 311 A. third is that of John Broughton, one of the Yeomen of the Guard. He was a man of gigantic strength, and in his youth Broughton, furnished the model of the arms of Rysbrack's ' Hercules.' He was the ' Prince of Prizefighters ' in his time, and after his name on the gravestone is a space, which was to have been filled up with the words ' Champion ' of England.' l The Dean objected, and the blank remains. It is natural to conclude this survey of the monu- mental structure of the Abbey with the reflections of the surrey. When I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey ; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and tbe condition of tbe people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thougbtfulness, that is not disagreeable. .... I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations ; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy ; and can therefore take a view of nature, in her deep and solemn scenes, with tbe same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of tbe great, every emotion of envy dies in me ; when I read tbe epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out ; when I meet with tbe grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion ; when I see tbe tomb of tbe parents themselves, I consider tbe vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow ; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or tbe holy men that divided tbe world with tbeir contests and disputes, I reflect witb sorrow and astonishment on tbe h'ttle competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read tbe several dates of tbe tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider tbat great day wbeii we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. 2 Our purpose has been somewhat different, though con- verging to the same end. We have seen how, by a gradual Gradual but certain instinct, the main groups have formed fhemonu- themselves round particular centres of death: how the Kings ranged themselves round the Confessor; how the Prince and Courtiers clung to the skirts of the Kings ; 1 These facts were communicated to the master-mason of the Abbey (Mr. Poole) by Broughton's son-in-law. * Spectator, No. 26. 312 THE MONUMENTS: CHAP. iv. how out of the graves of the Courtiers were developed the graves of the Heroes ; how Chatham became the centre of the Statesmen, Chaucer of the Poets, Purcell of the Musicians, Casaubon of the Scholars, Newton of the Men of Science : how, even in the exceptional details, natural affinities may be traced ; how Addison was buried apart from his brethren in letters, in the royal shades of Henry YII.'s Chapel, because he clung to the vault of his own loved Montague ; how Ussher lay beside his earliest instructor, Sir James Fullerton, and Garrick at the foot of Shakspeare, and Spelman opposite his revered Camden, and South close to his master Busby, and Stephenson to his fellow-craftsman Telford, and Grattan to his hero Fox, and Macaulay beneath the statue of his favourite Addison. These special attractions towards particular graves and monuments may interfere with the general uniformity of the Abbey, but they make us feel that it is not a mere dead museum, that its cold stones are warmed with the life-blood of human affections and personal partiality. It is said that the celebrated French sculptor of the monument of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg, after showing its superiority in detail to the famous equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, ended by the candid avowal, ' Et cependant cette mauvaise bete est vivante, et 1 la mienne est morte.' Perhaps we may be allowed to reverse the saying, and, when we contrast the irregularities of Westminster Abbey with the uniform congruity of Salisbury or the Valhalla, may reflect, * Cette belle bete est morte, mais la mienne est vivante.' We have seen, again, how extremely unequal and uncertain is the commemoration of our celebrated men. It is this which uncertain renders the interment or notice within our walls a distribution . _ i *, -,-,, of honours, dubious honour, and makes the Abbey, after all, but an imperfect and irregular monument of greatness. But it is this also which gives to it that perfectly natural character of which any artificial collection is entirely destitute. In the Valhalla of Bavaria, every niche is carefully portioned out : and if a single bust is wanting from the catalogue of German worthies, its absence becomes the subject of a literary contro- versy, and the vacant space is at last filled. Not so in the Abbey : there, as in English institutions generally, no fixed rule has been followed. Graves have been opened or closed, monu- ments erected or not erected, from the most various feelings of the time. It is the general wave only that has borne in the CHAP. IV. THEIR GROWTH. 313 chief celebrities. Viewed in this way, the absences of which we speak have a touching significance of their own. They are eloquent of the force of domestic and local affection over the desire for metropolitan or cosmopolitan distinction eloquent of the force of the political and ecclesiastical prejudice at the moment eloquent also of the strange caprices of the British public. 1 Why is it that of the three greatest names of English literature Shakspeare, Bacon, and Newton the last only is interred, and the second not even recorded, in the Abbey ? Because the growth of the sentiment which drew the dust of our illustrious men hitherward was in Elizabeth's time but just beginning. Why are men so famous as Burke and Peel amongst statesmen, as Pope and Gray, Wordsworth and Southey amongst poets, not in the Statesmen's or the Poets' Corner ? Because the patriarchal feeling in each of these men so different each from the other, yet alike in this drew them from the neighbour- hood of the great, with whom they consorted in the tumult of life, to the graves of father and mother, or beloved child, far away to the country churchyards where they severally repose in each, perhaps, not unmingled with the longing desire for a simple resting-place which is expressed in Pope's epitaph on himself at Twickenham, 2 and in Burke's 3 reflections during his first visit to the Abbey. Why is it that Montague Earl of Sandwich, Monk Duke of Albemarle, restorers of the monarchy, Archbishop Ussher, the glory of the Irish Church, Clarendon, the historian of the great Eebellion, rest here with no con- temporary monument three of them with none at all ? 4 That 1 Another disturbing force has in late years been found in the attraction of St. Paul's. The first public monu- ment erected there was that of How- ard. (See Milman's Annals, p. 480.) The first intimation of the new feel- ing is in Boswell's Johnson, ii. 226. (1773.) ' A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's church, as well as in Westminster Abbey, was mentioned ; and it was asked who should be honoured by having his monument first erected there. Some- body suggested Pope. JOHNSON : Why, sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholic, I would not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should have the precedence. I think more highly of him now than " I did at twenty. There is more " thinking in him and in Butler than " in any of our poets." ' 2 See p. 269. 3 ' I have not the least doubt that the finest poem in the English lan- guage, I mean Milton's " II Pen- " seroso," was composed in the long- resounding aisle of a mouldering cloister or ivy'd abbey. Yet, after all, do you know that I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets. I should like, how- ever, that my dust should mingle with kindred dust. The good old expres- sion, " family burying ground," has something pleasing in it, at least to me.' (Prior's Life of Burke, i. 39). 4 See pp. 210, 213. 314 THE MONUMENTS: CHAP. iv. blank void tells again in the bare stones the often repeated story of the ingratitude of Charles II. towards those to whom he owed so much and gave so little. Why is it that poets like Coleridge, Scott, and Burns, discoverers like Harvey and Bell, have no memorial ? Because, for the moment, the fashion of public interment had drifted away from the Abbey, or lost heed of departing greatness in other absorbing interests, or ceased to regard proportion in the distribution of sepulchral honours. It is well that this should be so. Westminster Abbey is, as Dr. Johnson well said, 1 the natural resting-place of those great men who have no bond elsewhere. Its metropolitan position has, in this respect, powerfully contributed to its fame. But even London is, or ought to be, insignificant compared with England ; even Westminster Abbey must at times yield to the more venerable, more enduring claims of home and of race. Those quiet graves far away are the Poets' Corners of a yet vaster temple ; or may we take it yet another way, and say that Stratford-on-Avon and Dryburgh, Stoke Pogis and Gras- mere, are chapels-of-ease united by invisible cloisters with Westminster Abbey itself? Again, observe how magnificently the strange conjunction of tombs in what has been truly called this Temple of Silence TheToiera- and Eeconciliation exemplifies the wide toleration of tionof the f- . Abbey. Death may we not add, the comprehensiveness of the true religion of the Church of England ? Not only does Elizabeth lie in the same vault with Mary her persecutor, and in the same chapel with Mary her victim ; not only does Pitt lie side by side with Fox, and Macpherson with Johnson, and Outram with Clyde; but those other deeper differences, which are often thought to part more widely asunder than any political or literary or military jealousy, have here sunk into abeyance. Goldsmith in his visit to the Abbey, puts into the mouth of his Chinese philosopher an exclamation of wonder that the guar- dianship of a national temple should be confided to ' a college ' of priests.' It is not necessary to claim for the Deans of West- minster any exemption from the ordinary infirmities of their profession ; but the variety of the monuments, in country and in creed, as well as in taste and in politics, is a proof that the successive chiefs who have held the keys of St. Peter's Abbey 1 See p. 279. Compare Beattie's lines 'Mid the deep dungeon of some Gothic dome Let vanity adorn the marble tomb Where night and desolati out by the next Abbot, Eichard de Ware, and with material results, which are visible to this day. On his second journey, in 1267, he brought back with him the mosaic Mosaic pavement such as he must have seen freshly laid down from g Rome i 11 tne Church of San Lorenzo to adorn the Choir of the Church, then just completed by the King. It remains in front of the Altar, with an inscription, in part still decipherable, recording the date of its arrival, the name of the workman who put it together (Oderic), the ' City ' from whence it came, and the name of himself the donor. He was buried underneath it, 3 on the north side. As in the history of England at large, the reign of Henry HI. was an epoch fruitful of change, so also was it in the internal regulations of the Abbey. To us the thirteenth century seems sufficiently remote. But, at the time, everything seemed ' of modern use,' so startling were 1 Matt. Paris, 706, 726. From a careful examination of the 1 Flete. On July 12, 1866, in bones, he appears to have been a per- making preparations for a new Reredos, sonage of tall stature, slightly halting the workmen came upon a marble coffin on one leg, with a strong projecting under the High Altar. Fragments of brow ; and the knotted protuberances a crozier in wood and ivory, and of a in the spine imply that he had suffered leaden paten and chalice, prove the much from chronic rheumatism. See a body to be that of an Abbot ; whilst complete account of the whole, by Mr. the absence of any record of an inter- Scharf , in the Proceedings of the Society ment on that spot, and the fact that of Antiquaries, 2nd series, vol. iii.. No. the coffin was without a lid, and that 5, pp. 354-357. the bones had been turned over, show 3 His stone coffin was seen there in that this was not the original grave. 1866. These indications point to Crokesley. CHAP. v. THE NORMAN ABBOTS. 333 the ' innovations ' begun by Abbot Berking, when compared with the ancient practices of the first Norman Abbots, ' Gislebert,' and his brethren ' of venerable memory.' ' To Abbot Ware, accordingly, was due the compilation of the new Code of the Monastery, known as his Consuetudines or ' Customs.' Opposite weniock, to Ware, on the south side, lies Abbot Wenlock, who 1281-1308. ji ve( j to gee the com pi e tion of the work of Henry III., and who shared in the disgrace (shortly to be told) of the robbery of the Royal Treasury. The profligate manners of the Kydyngton, reign of Edward II. were reflected in the scandalous cfurtiingtou, election of Kydyngton, 2 ultimately secured by the in- 1316-1334. fl uence O f pi ers Gaveston with the King. He was succeeded by Curtlington, who was a rare instance of the unanimous election of an Abbot by Pope, King, and Convent. His grave began the interments in the Chapel of the patron Heniev saint of their order St. Benedict. But his successor, 1334-44. Henley, lies under the lower pavement of the Sacra- riuin, opposite Kydyngton. Then occurs the one exception of a return to the Cloister. The Black Death fell heavily on Westminster. The jewels of the convent 3 had to be sold Byrcheston, apparently to defray the expenses. Abbot Byrcheston 1344-1349. r \ . , ., . ,. *T, The Black and twenty-six monks were its victims. He was ms. 11 buried in the Eastern Cloister, which he had built; and they probably 4 lie beneath the huge slab in the Southern Cloister, which has for many years borne the false name of ' Gervase,' or more popularly ' Long Meg.' If this be so, that vast stone is the footmark left in the Abbey by the greatest plague that ever visited Europe. Langham lies by the side of Curtlington. The only Langham, Abbot of Westminster who rose to the rank of Cardi- diedisre; ngj^ a nd to the See of Canterbury, and whose de- Ely, 1362- parture from each successive office (from Westminster bis'hop'of to Ely, and from Ely to Canterbury) was hailed with 1866-89; ' iov bv those whom he left, and with dread by those Cardinal, ,, ..,. , ji rj j. i 1368; whom he joined is also the first in whom, as far as Treasurer, we know, a strong local affection for Westminster Lord had an opportunity of showing itself. His stern Sen??"' and frugal administration in Westminster, if it pro- voked some enmity from the older monks, won for him the ! Ware, pp. 257, 258, 261, 264, 291, pavement where the Easter caudle 319, 344, 359, 495, 500. stood, with a figure in brass. (Flete.) : - He was buried before the altar, * Cartulary, 1349. under the southern part of the lower 4 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 114. _ 334: THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. honour of being a second founder of the monastery. To the Abbey, where he had been both Prior and Abbot, his heart always turned. The Nave, where his father was buried, had a special continua- hold upon him, and through his means it first advanced Nave" towards completion. 1 In the Chapel of St. Nicholas he was confirmed in the Archiepiscopal See ; and to the Chapel of St. Benedict, at the close of his many changes, he begged to be brought back from the distant Avignon, where he died, and was there laid under the first and grandest ecclesiastical tomb that the Abbey contains. Originally 2 a statue of Mary Magdalene guarded his feet. He had died on the eve of her feast. It was from the enormous bequest which he left, amounting in our reckoning to ^200,000, that his successor, T.LIT ^ Nicholas Littlington, rebuilt or built the Abbot's house Littlmfrton, No 6 v ; 29 ied (^ e present Deanery, where his head appears over the 1386. ' entrance), part of the Northern and the whole of the Southern and "Western Cloisters (where his initials are still 3 HIS build- visible), and many other parts of the conventual build- ings. i n g 8 4 since perished. In Littlington's mode of making his bargains 5 for these works he was somewhat unscrupulous. But he was long remembered by his bequests. In the Eefectory, to which he left silver vessels, a prayer for his soul was al- ways repeated immediately after grace. 6 Of his legacies to the Chapter Library, one magnificent remnant exists in the Littlington Missal, still preserved. He died on St. Andrew's 7 Eve, ' at dinner time,' at his manor of Neate, and was buried before the altar of St. Blaize's Chapel. We trace the history of the next Abbots in the Northern Colchester Chapels. In that of St. John the Baptist was laid the Haerdei 'grand conspirator,' 8 William of Colchester, who Kyrto*n' was sent by Henry IV., with sixty horsemen to the N^ich Council of Constance, 9 and died twenty years after 1466-69.' Shakspeare reports him to have been hanged for his treason ; Kyrton lies in the Chapel of St. Andrew, which he 1 Gleanings, 53. of the fall of Richard II. (French * Cartulary. Chronicle of EicJiard II. 139-224.) 3 Gleanings, 210. 9 Widmore, p. Ill ; Rymer, v. 95. 4 The stone came from the quarries William of Colchester succeeded for the of Reigate. (Archives.) time in establishing his precedence over 4 Cartulary. the Abbot of St. Albans : and it has been 6 Ibid. conjectured that this was the occasion 7 Esteney's Niger Quaternar.p. 86. of the portrait of Richard II. (Riley's 8 Widmore, p. 102 ; Shakspeare's Preface to Walsingham's Abbots of St. EicJiard II. Act v. sc. 6. The Prior of Albans, iii. p. Ixxv.) Westminster had already had a vision CHAP. v. THE PLANTAGENET ABBOTS. 335 adorned for himself, as his family had adorned the adjoining Thomas a ^ ar ^ St. Michael ; ! Milling raised by Edward 1469-74'; IV - to the See of Hereford, but returning to his old &tene 4 y 2 ' haunts to be buried 2 and Esteney, 3 the successive guardians of Elizabeth Woodville and her royal children, Utt-uoo. in the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist. During this time Flete, the Prior of the Monastery, wrote its meagre isiip, i5oo- history. 4 Fascet, the Abbot who saw the close of the 32 died May 12. fifteenth century, was interred in a solitary tomb in St. buildings. Paul's Chapel. 5 Finally Islip, who had witnessed the completion of the east end of the Abbey by the building of Henry VII. 's Chapel, himself built the Western Towers as high as the roof, filled the vacant niches outside with the statues of the Sovereigns, and erected the apartments and the gallery against the south side of the Abbey by which the Abbot could enter and overlook the Nave. The larger part of the Deanery buildings subsequent to Abbot Littlington seem in fact to have been erected in his time. He had intended to attempt a Belfry Tower over the central lantern. 6 In the elaborate re- presentation which has been preserved of his obsequies, 7 we seem to be following to their end the funeral of the Middle Ages. The isiip W G see hi m standing amidst the ' slips ' or branches of the bower of moral virtues, which, according to the fashion of the fifteenth century, indicate his name; with the words, significant of his character, 8 ' Seek peace and pursue it.' We see him, as he last appeared in state at the Coronation of Henry VIII., assisting Warham in the act, so fraught with consequences for all the future history of the English Church amidst the works of the Abbey, which he is carrying on with all the energy of his individual character and with the strange 1 Cartulary. See Appendix. 4 The graves of Hawerden and Nor- 2 Milling's coffin was moved from wich are not known. the centre of the Chapel to make room 5 So at least it would seem. The tomb for the Earl of Essex'sgrave (see Chapter was subsequently moved to make way IV.), to its present place on the top of for Sir J. Puckering's monument, and Fascet's tomb. In 1711 it was errone- placed in the entrance to St. John ously called Humphrey de Bohun's. Baptist's Chapel. (Crull, p. 148.) 6 Dart, ii. 34. 3 Esteney lay at the entrance of the ' See the Islip Eoll, in the Library Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, of the Society of Antiquaries ; in behind an elaborate screen. The body Vestusta Monumenta, vol. iv. 16-20 ; was twice displaced in 1706 (when it and Widmore, p. 206. The plate left was seen) and in 1778, when the tomb by him remained till 1540 (Inventory), was demolished for the erection of 8 ' A good old father.' Henry VIII. Wolfe's monument. (Neale, ii, 195.) (State Papers, vii. 30.) The fragments were reunited in 1866. 336 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. exorcisms of the age which was drawing to its close. We see him on his deathbed, in the old manor-house of Neate, sur- rounded by the priests and saints of the ancient Church ; the Virgin standing at his feet, and imploring her Son's assistance to John Islip ' Islip, Fill veniens, succurre Johanni ! ' the Abbot of Bury administering the last sacraments. We see his splendid ' hearse,' amidst a forest of candles, before the High Altar, with its screen, for the last time filled with images, and surmounted by the crucifix with its attendant saints. We see him, as his effigy lay under the tomb in the little chapel which he had built, 1 like a king, for himself, recumbent in solitary state the only Abbot who achieved that honour. The last efflorescence of monastic architecture coincided with its im- minent downfall ; and as we thus watch the funeral of Islip, we feel the same unconsciousness of the coming changes as breathes through so many words and deeds and constructions on the eve of the Eeformation. Such were the Abbots of Westminster. It seems ungrate- ful to observe, what is yet the fact, that in all their line there is not one who can aspire to higher historical honour than that of a munificent builder and able administrator : Gislebert alone left theological treatises famous in their day. And if from the Abbots we descend to the monks, their names are still more obscure. Here and there we catch a trace of their burials. Amundisham, in the fifteenth century, Thomas Brown, Humphrey Eoberts, 2 and John Selby 3 of North- umberland (known as a civilian), in the sixteenth century, are interred near St. Paul's Chapel; Vertue in the Western Cloister. 4 Five of them Sulcard, John of Reading, Flete the Prior, Richard of Cirencester, 5 and (on a somewhat larger scale) the so-called Matthew 6 of Westminster have slightly con- tributed to our historical knowledge of the times. Some of them were skilled as painters. 7 In Abbot Littlington's time, a giganiic brother, whose calves and thighs were the wonder of all England, of the name of John of Canterbury, emerges into view for a moment, having engaged to accompany the aged 1 This chapel, which consists of an nicle is made up of the chronicle of upper and lower story, was called the Matthew Paris (whence the name), of Jesus Chapel. St. Albans, and a continuation of it 2 Crull, p. 211. from 1265 to 1325, by John Severe, * Weever, p. 265. otherwise John of London, a monk of 4 See Chapter IV. Westminster. (Madden's Preface to 5 Seymour's Stow, ii. 607. Matthew Paris, vol. i. pp. xxv. xxvi.) 6 'Matthew of Westminster's' Chro- ' Cartulary. CHAP. v. THE MONASTIC LIFE. 337 Abbot to the sea-coast, to meet a threatened French invasion which never took place. They obtained the special permission of the Chapter to go and fight for their country. "When his armour was sold in London, ' no person could be found of a size * that it would fit, 1 of such a height and breadth was the said * John.' There are two, in whose case we catch a glimpse into the motives which brought them thither. Owen, third son of Owen Tudor, and uncle of Henry VII., escaped from the troubles of his family into monastic life, and lies in the South Transept in the Chapel of St. Blaize. 2 Another was Sir John Stanley, natural son of James Stanley, Bishop of Ely the unworthy stepson of Margaret of Richmond. A dispute with his Cheshire neighbours had brought him under Wolsey's anger ; he was imprisoned in the Fleet ; and after his release, ' upon ' displeasure taken in his heart, he made himself a monk in ' Wt stniinster, and there died.' 3 The deed still remains 4 in which, for this purpose, he solemnly affirmed his separation from his wife. The insignificance or the inactivity of this great community, without any supposition of enormous vices, explains the easy The fall of the monasteries when the hour of their disso- Ute. lution arrived. The garrulous reminiscences which the Sacristan in Scott's ' Monastery,' retains of the Abbot ' of ' venerable memory,' exactly reproduce the constant allusion in the thirteenth century which we find in the ' Customs of Abbot ' Ware.' The very designation used for them is the same ; their deeds moved in exactly the same homely sphere. The trivial matters which engross the attention of Abbot Ware or Prior Flete will recall, to any one who has ever visited the sacred peninsula of Mount Athos, the disputes concerning property and jurisdiction which occupy the whole thought of those ancient communities. The Benedictine Convent of Monte Cassino has been recently saved by the intervention of the public opinion of Europe, because it furnished a bright ex- ception to the general tenor of monastic life. Those who have witnessed the last days of Vallombrosa must confess with a sigh that, like the ancient Abbey of Westminster, its inmates had contributed nothing to the general intelligence of Christendom. 1 Cartulary, A.D. 1286. 4 The whole story, with the docu- 2 Sandford, p. 293. ments. is given in the Archaeological 3 Herbert's Henry VIII., p. 300. Journal, vol. xcvii. pp. 72-84. Z 338 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. It is to the buildings and institutions of the monastery that the interest of its mediaeval history attaches ; and these, there The fore, it must be our endeavour to recall from the dead esutls. 10 past. It would be wandering too far from the Abbey itself to give an account of the vast possessions scattered not only over the whole of the present city of Westminster, from the Thames to Kensington, or from Vauxhall Bridge to Temple Bar, but through 97 towns and villages, 17 hamlets, and 216 manors, 1 some.of which have still remained as the property of the Chapter. It is enough to recall the vast group of buildings which rose round the Abbey, as it stood isolated from the rest of the metropolis, like St. Germain des Pres at Paris, ' the ' Abbey of the Meadows,' in its almost rural repose. On this seclusion of the monastic precincts the mighty city had, even into the beginning of the sixteenth century, but very Possessions slightly encroached. Their southern boundary was wwtof l " the stream which ran down what is now College minster. Street, then ' the dead wall ' 2 of the gardens behind, and was crossed by a bridge, still existing, though deep beneath the present 3 pavement, at the east end of College Street. Close to it was the southern gateway into the monastery. The Abbots used to take boat on this stream to go to the Thames, 4 but the property and the grounds extended far beyond. The Abbot's Mill stood on the farther bank of the brook, called the Mill Ditch, as the bank itself was called MilUxtnk. In the adjacent fields were the Orchard, the Vine- The orchard, yard, and the Bowling Alley, which have left their BOWHI ' traces in OrcJuird Street, Vine Street, and Bowling Garden"" Street. 5 Farther still were the Abbot's Gardens and the Monastery Gardens, reaching down to the river, and known by the name of the Minster Gardens, which gradually faded away into the Monster Tea-gardens. 6 Two bridges marked the course of the Eye or Tyburn across the fields to the north-west. The Pass of One was the Eye Bridge, near the Eye Cross, in the Bridge!* ' ' island 7 or field or ' village of Eye ' (Ey-bury) ; another was a stone bridge, which was regarded as a military pass, 8 ' Westminster Improvements, 11. 5 Gleanings, p. 239. See Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 297-307. Ibid. p. 229. 2 Gleanings, p. 229 ; see Gent. May. ' All these names are collected in 1836. The wall was pulled down in the ' Cartulary.' 1776. 8 Hence ' Knightsbridge,' either from * Westminster Improvements, p. 8. Sir H. Knyvet, Knight, who there 4 Archives ; Parcel 31, Item 16. valiantly defended himself, there being There was a large pond close by, assaulted, ' and slew the master-thief CHAP. v. POSSESSIONS OF THE MONASTERY. 339 against the robbers who infested the deep morass and which is Tothin now Belgravia. Further south was the desolate heath of Tothill Fields. The name is derived from a high hill, 1 probably, as the word implies, a beacon, which was levelled in the seventeenth century. At its foot was Bulinga Fen the ' Smithfield ' of Western London which witnessed the burnings of witches, tournaments, judicial combats, fairs, bear-gardens, and the interment of those who had been stricken by the plague. 2 In one of its streams the ducks disported themselves, which gave their name to Duck Lane, 3 now swept away by Victoria Street. Another formed the boundary between the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John. 4 A shaggy pool deep enough to drown a horse has gradually dwindled away into a small puddle and a vast sewer, now called the King's Scholars'' Pond and the King's Scholars' Pond Sewer. Water was conveyed to the Convent in leaden pipes, used until 1861, from a spring, 5 in the Convent's manor of Hyde (now Hyde HY^ Manor. Park). The manor of Neate, 6 by the river-side in Jeate . * Manor. Chelsea, was a favourite country-seat of the Abbots. 7 There Littlington and Islip died. On the north-east, separated from the Abbey by the long reach of meadows, in which stood the country village of ru ions Charing, was another enclosure, known by the name of on tnG north-past, the Convent Garden or rather, in Norman-French, the Convent Garden, whence the present form, Covent Garden covent W ^h its grove of Elms and pastures of Long Acre, and of the Seven Acres* For the convenience of the conventual officers going from Westminster to this garden, a 'with his own hands.' (Walcott, p. ways. An old stone house over the spring 300.) Or, as Dean Milman reports bore the arms of Westminster till 1868, the tradition, from the knights who when it was supplanted by a lesser there met the Abbot returning from his structure with a short inscription, progresses with heavy money bags, and 6 Cunningham's London. (The Neate escorted him through the dangerous Houses.) John of Gaunt borrowed jungle ; or ' King abridge, 1 which, after it from the Abbot for his residence all, appears to be the earlier name (see during Parliament (see Archceological Dare's Memorials of Knightsbridge, p. Journal, No. 114, p. 144). 4), from Edward the Confessor. " Hyde and Neate were exchanged 1 See the petition of the inhabitants with Henry VIII. for Hurley. (Dug- of Westminster in 1698, in the City dale, i. 282.) But the springs in Archives, given, with notes, by Mr. 'Crossley's field 'were specially reserved Burtt in the Archceological Journal, for the Abbey by the Charter of No. 114, p. 141. Elizabeth in 1560, and a conduit-house 2 Walcott, p. 325. built over them, which remained till 3 ArchcEological Journal, p. 284. 1868. The water was supposed to be 4 Westminster Improvements, 18. a special preservative against the Plague. 5 The water supply continued till (State Papers, May 22, 1631.) 1861, when it was cut off by the rail- " Brayiey's Londiniana, iv. 207. z 2 340 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. solitary oratory or chapel was erected on the adjacent fields, dedicated to St. Martin. 1 This was ' St. Martin-in-the Fields.' The Abbot had a special garden on the banks of the river, just where the precincts of the city of Westminster succeeded to those of London, opposite to the town residences of the bishops of Carlisle and Durham, near the church of St. Clement Danes, called the ' Frere Pye Garden.' 2 Beyond this, again, was the dependency (granted by Henry VII.) of the collegiate church of st. Martinv St. Martm's-le-Grand. The Abbot of Westminster ic-Grand. b ecame the Dean of St. Martin' s-le-Grand, and, in consequence of this connection, its inhabitants continued to vote in the Westminster elections till the Eeform Act of 1832, 3 and the High Steward of Westminster still retains the title of High Steward of St. Martin's-le-Grand. From this side the Monastery itself was, like the great temples of Thebes, approached by a continual succession of gateways; probably, also, by a considerable ascent 4 of rising ground. Along the narrow avenue of the Royal Wav ' King Street. , -L. , , the King s Street underneath two stately arches, the precincts of the Palace of Westminster were entered. Close within them was the clock tower, containing the bell, which, under the name of Great Tom of Westminster, sounded through- out the metropolis from the west, as now from its new position in the east. 6 The Palace itself we leave to the more general historians of Westminster. Then followed the humbler gateway which opened into the courtyard of the Palace, and farther west, at what is now the entrance of Tothill Street, the Gatehouse or Prison 7 of the Monastery. 8 The Gatehouse consisted of two chambers over two arches, y built in the time of Edward III., by Walter de Warfield, the cellarer or butler of the Abbey. 10 Its history, though belonging to the period after the Reformation, must be antici- pated here. It was then that whilst one of the chambers became the Bishop of London's prison for convicted 1 Gent. Mag. [1826], part i. p. 30. provements,19.) See Gent. Mag. 18G6, 2 See Archives : Parcel 31, Item 5. pt. i. pp. 777, 778. 3 Kempe's History of St. Martin's- See Chapter VI. le-Grand, and see Chapter VI. " Cartulary. 4 The present ground is nine feet 8 There is a drawing of it in the above the original surface of the island. Library of the Society of Antiquaries. (Westminster Improvements, 13.) (See also Walcott, p. 273.) 5 When the King went to Parlia- 9 Cooper's Plans, 1808. (Soc. Ant. ment, faggots -were thrown into the Lond.) cart ruts of King Street to enable the 10 Stow, p. 176. state coach to pass. (Westminster Im- OLD GATEHOUSE OF THE PRECINCTS, WESTMINSTER. PULLED DOWX IS 1776. 342 THE ABBEY BEFOKE THE KEFORMATIOX. CHAP. v. clergy, and for Eoman Catholic recusants, 1 the other acquired a fatal celebrity as the public prison of "Westminster. Here Ralegh was confined on the night before his execution. > After the sentence pronounced upon him in the King's 1618 - Bench he was ' putt into a very uneasy 2 and uncon- ' venient lodging in the Gatehouse.' He was conveyed thither from Westminster Hall by the Sheriff of Middlesex. The carriage which conveyed him wound its way slowly through the crowds that thronged St. Margaret's Churchyard to see him pass : amongst them he noticed his old friend Sir Hugh Burton, and invited him to come to Palace Yard on the morrow to see him die. Weekes, the Governor of the Gatehouse, received him kindly. Tounson, the Dean of Westminster, came and prayed with him a while. 3 The Dean was somewhat startled at Ealegh's high spririts, and almost tried to persuade him out of them. But Ealegh persevered, and answered that he was 4 persuaded that no man that knew God and feared Him could ' die with cheerfulness and courage, except he was assured of ' the love and favour of God towards him ; that other men ' might make show, but they felt no joy within.' Later in the evening his wife came to him, and it was then that, on hear- ing how she was to take charge of his body, he replied, ' It * is well, Bess, that thou shouldest have the disposal of the * dead, which thou hadst not always the disposing of, living.' Shortly after midnight he parted from her, and then, as is thought, wrote on the blank leaf in his Bible his farewell of life- Ev'n such is Time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with age and dust ; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wander'd all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days. But from this earth, this grave, this dust, The Lord shall raise me up, I trust. 4 1 The Spanish Ambassador Gondo- 4 ' Verses said to have been found mar had it cleared of these by order of ' in his Bible in the Gatehouse at James I. One of them was afterwards ' Westminster ' ' given to one of his * canonised. (Edwards's Life of Ralegh, ' friends the night before his suffer- i- 693 -) . ' ing.' (Ralegh's Poems, p. 729.) An- 2 Public Becord Office, State Papers other short poem is also said to be ' the (Domestic), James I., vol. ciii. Xo. 74. ' night before he died : ' St. John's Life of Ealegh, ii. 343-369. Cowards fear to die ; but courage stont, 3 Tounson's letter in Edwards's Life Rather than live in suuff, will be put out. of Ralegh, ii. 489. The well-known poem, called his CHAP. v. THE GATEHOUSE. 343 After a short sleep, about four in the morning, ' a cousin of ' his, Mr. Charles Thynne, coming to see him, Sir Walter, ' finding him sad, began to be very pleasant with him ; where- * upon Mr. Thynne counselled him : Sir, take heed you goe ' not too muche upon the brave hande ; for your enemies ' will take exceptions at that. Good Charles (quoth he) * give me leave to be mery, for this is the last merriment ' that ever I shall have in this world e : but when I eome to ' the last parte, thou shalte see I will looke on it like a man \ ' and so he was as good as his worde.' At five Dean Tounson returned, and again prayed with him. After he had received the Communion he ' was very cheerful and merry, ate his ' breakfast heartily,' ' and took a last whiff of his beloved ' tobacco, and made no more of his death than if he had been * to take a journey.' 1 Just before he left the Gatehouse a cup of sack was given him. ' Is it to your liking ? ' 'I will answer ' you/ he said, ' as did the fellow who drank of St. Giles' bowl 4 as he went to Tyburn, "It is good drink if a man might ' " but tarry by it." ' 2 The Dean accompanied him to the scaffold. The remaining scenes belong to Old Palace Yard, and to St. Margaret's Church, where he lies buried. Sir John Elliot, who certainly, and Hampden probably, had Hampden m boyhood witnessed Ealegh's execution, with deep and EiHot. emotion, were themselves his successors in the Gate- LoTeiace. house, for the cause of constitutional freedom. 3 To it, from the other side, came the royalist Lovelace, and there wrote his lines Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage. If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soar above, Enjoy such liberty. In it, Lilly, the astrologer, found himself imprisoned imme- diately after the Eestoration, ' upstairs where there Lilly. ' . , . j 1 was on one side a company of rude swearing persons, ' Farewell,' also ascribed to this night, sacrament with Master Dean, and had already appeared in 1596. (Ibid. have forgiven both Stukeley and the 727-729.) Frenchman.' (Ibid. i. 701.) J Edwards's Ralegh, ii. 489. He 2 Edwards's Ralegh, i. 698. said on the scaffold ' I have taken the 3 Forster's Statesmen, i. 18, 53. 344 THE ABBEY BEFOEE THE EEFOEMATICX. CHAP. T. ' on the other side many Quakers, who lovingly entertained * him.' * In it Sir Geoffrey Hudson, the dwarf, died, at the age Hudson. of sixty-three, under suspicion of complicity in the Pepys. Popish Plot. 2 In it the indefatigable Pepys, 3 Collier, the nonjuring divine, and Savage the poet, made their experience coiner f prison life. 4 In it, according to his own story, savage. Captain Bell was incarcerated, and translated ' Luther's capt. Ben. < Table Talk,' having ' many times begun to translate the ' same, but always was hindered through being called upon * about other businesses. Thus,' he writes, ' about six weeks after I ' had received the same book, it fell .out that one night, between ' twelve and one of the clock .... ihere appeared unto me ' an ancient man, standing at my bedside, arrayed .all in white, * having a long and broad white beard hanging down to his ' girdle, who, taking me by -my right ear, spoke these words ' following to me : Sirrah, will you not take time to translate ' that book which is sent you out of Germany ? I will ' shortly provide for you both place and time to do it. And ' then he vanished away out of my sight. .... Then, about a ' fortnight after I had seen that vision, I went to Whitehall to ' hear the sermon, after which ended, I returned to my lodging, ' which was then in King Street, Westminster ; and sitting ' down to dinner with my wife, two messengers were sent from ' the Privy Council Board, with a warrant to carry me to the ' Keeper of the Gatehouse, Westminster, there to be safely ' kept until further order from the hands of the Council which ' was done, without showing me any cause at all wherefore I ' was committed. -Upon which said warrant I was kept there ' ten whole years close prisoner; where I spent five years thereof ' in translating the said book, insomuch that I found the words ' very true which the old man in the foresaid vision did say ' unto me, " I will shortly provide for you both place and time ' " to translate it." ' 5 The Gatehouse remained standing down to the middle of the last century. The neighbourhood was familiar with the cries of the keeper to the publican opposite, ' Jackass, Jackass,' for gin for the prisoners. It was pulled down in 1777, a victim to the indignation of Dr. Johnson. One of its arches, however, was still continued in a house which was 1 Life of Zalty, p. 91. Edwards's 8 Evelyn, iii. 297. Ralegh, i. 699-,715. 4 Johnson's Poets, iii. 309. 2 In Peveril of the Peak, the Gate- * Southey's Doctor, viL 35.4-356. house is confounded -with Newgate. CHAP. v. THE GATEHOUSE. 345 as late as 1839 celebrated as having been the abode of Edmund Burke. 1 The office of Keeper of the Gatehouse was in the gift of the Dean and Chapter. Perhaps the most remarkable ' Keeper ' Keeper of was Maurice Pickering, who, in a paper addressed to the Gate- ' ' r r the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, m 1580, says : ' My ' predecessor and my wief and I have kept this offis of the Gate- ' house this XXIII. yeres and upwards.' He was considered a great man in Westminster, and in official documents he Maurice was styled ' Maurice Pickering, gentleman.' At one I'k-kering, J V. j j- 1580. time he and his wife are mentioned as dining at a marriage-feast at ' His Grace the Lord Bishop of Rochester's, ' in Westminster Close,' and at another as supping with Sir George Peckham, Justice of the Peace. On another occasion, when supping with Sir George he foolishly let out some of the secrets of his office in chatting with Lady Peckham (the Gate- house at that time was full of needy prisoners for religion's sake, whose poverty had become notorious). 'He told her ' Ladyship, in answer to a question she asked him, Yea, I ' have many poor people for that cause (meaning religion), ' and for restrainte (poverty) of their friends I fear they will ' starve, as I have no allowance for them. For this Master ' Pickering was summoned before the Lord Chancellor, examined ' by the Judges, and severely reprimanded ; ' upon which he sent a most humble and sorrowful petition to Lord Burleigh, ' praying the comfort of his good Lord's mercy ' in the matter, and protesting that he had ever prayed for ' the prosperous ' reign of the Queene, who hath defended us from the tearinge ' of the Devill, the Poope, and all his ravening wollves.' The Privy Council appears to have taken no further notice of the matter, except to require an occasional return of the prisoners in the Gatehouse to the Justices of the Peace assembled at Quarter Sessions. 2 In the year of the Armada, Pickering presented to the Burgesses of Westminster a fine silver-gilt ' standing-cup,' which is still used at their feasts, the cover (the gift of his wife) being held over the heads of those who drink. It has the quaint inscription The Giver to his Brother wisheth peace, With Peace he wisheth Brother's love on earth, 1 Westminster Improvements, 55. 2 I owe this information to the The order for its removal is in the kindness of Mr. Trollope, Town-Clerk Chapter-Book, July 10, 1776. of Westminster. 346 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Which Love to seal, I as a pledge am given, A standing Bowie to be used in inirthe. The gift of Maurice Pickering and Joan his wife, 1588. Passing the Gatehouse and returning from this anticipation of distant times, we approach the Sanctuary. The right of The sane- ' Sanctuary ' was shared by the Abbey with at least tuary. thirty other great English monasteries ; l but probably in none did the building occupy so prominent a position, and in none did it play so important a part. The grim old Norman fortress, 2 which was still standing in the seventeenth century, is itself a proof that the right reached back, if not to the time of the Confessor, at least to the period when additional sanctity was imparted to the whole Abbey by his canonisation in 1198. The right professed to be founded on charters of King Lucius, 3 and continued, it was believed, till the time of ' the ungodly ' King Yortigern.' It was then, as was alleged, revived by Sebert, and sanctioned by the special consecration by St. Peter, whose cope was exhibited as the very one which he had left behind him on the night of his interview with Edric, and as a pledge (like St. Martin's cope in Tours) of the inviolable sanctity of his monastery. 4 Again, it was supposed to have been dissolved ' by the cursed Danes,' and revived ' by the holy ' king St. Edward,' who had 'procured the Pope to call a ' synod for the establishing thereof, wherein the breakers there- ' of are doomed to perpetual fire with the betrayer Judas.' Close by was a Belfry Tower, 5 built by Edward III., in which hung the Abbey Bells, which remained there till Wren had completed the Western Towers, and which rang for coronations and tolled for royal funerals. ' Their ringings, men said, ' soured all the drink in the town.' The building, properly so called, included two churches, an upper and a lower, which the inmates were expected as a 6 kind of penance, to frequent. But the right of asylum rendered the whole precinct a vast ' cave of Adullam ' for all the distressed and discontented of the metropolis who desired, according to the phrase of the time, 1 Arch. viii. 41. 5 Where now stands the Guildhall, - Described in Archceolog. i. 35 ; built 1805. (Widniore, p. 11 ; Glean- Maitland's Lond. (Entinck), ii. 134 ; ings, p. 228 ; Walcott, p. 82.) Gleanings, p. 228 ; Walcott, p. 81. 6 It is also said that one object of 3 Eulog. iii. 346 ; Move's Life of St. Margaret's Church was to relieve Richard III., p. 40 ; Kennet, i. 491. ' the south aisle of the Abbey from this * Neale, i. 55 ; Dart (App.), p. 17. dangerous addition to the worshippers. See Chapter I. (Westminster Improvements, 10.) CHAP. v. THE SANCTUARY. 347 ' to take Westminster.' Sometimes, if they were of higher rank, they established their quarters in the great Northern Porch of the Abbey, with tents pitched, and guards watching round, for days and nights together. 1 Sometimes they darted away from their captors, to secure the momentary protection of the consecrated ground. ' Thieving ' or ' Thieven ' 2 Lane was the name long attached to the winding 3 street at the back of the Sanctuary, along which ' thieves ' were conducted to the prison in the Gatehouse, to avoid these untoward emancipations if they were taken straight across the actual precincts. 4 One such attempt is recorded a short time be- fore the Dissolution. In 1512, a sturdy butcher of the name of Briggs, in trying to rescue Eobert Kene ' while being con- ' veyed to the Gatehoust,' was killed by Maurice Davy the constable. 5 Sometimes they occupied St. Martin's-le-Grand (which, after the time of Henry VII., was, by a legal fiction, reckoned part of the Abbey 6 ), thus making those main refuges ' one at the elbow of the city, the other in the very bowels.' ' I dare well avow it, weigh the good that they do with the ' hurt that cometh of them, and ye shall find it much better to ' lack both than have both. And this I say, although they ' were not abused as they now be, and so long have been, that ' I fear me ever they will be, while men be afraid to set their ' hands to the amendment ; as though God and St. Peter were ' the patrons of ungracious living. Now unthrifts riot and ' run in debt upon the boldness of these places ; yea, and rich * men run thither with poor men's goods. There they build, * there they spend and bid their creditors go whistle for ' them. Men's wives run thither with their husbands' plate, * and say they dare not abide with their husbands for beating. ' Thieves bring thither their stolen goods, and there live there- ' on. There devise they new robberies : nightly they steal ' out, they rob and reave, and kill, and come in again as ' though those places gave them not only a safeguard for the ' harm they have done, but a licence also to do more. Howbeit ' much of this mischief, if wise men would set their hands to ' it, might be amended, with great thank of God, and no breach ' of the privilege.' 7 . 1 Capgrave's Chron., p. 298 ; Wai- cott, p. 70.) singham, ii. 285. 4 Smith, p. 27. - The ancient plural of ' Thieves.' s State Papers, H. VIII. 3509. See Westminster Improvements, 25. 6 Stow, p. 615. 3 Hence called Bow Street. (Wai- " Speech of the Duke of Buckingham, 348 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Such was the darker side of the institution. It had, doubtless, a better nucleus round which these turbulent elements gathered. If often the resort of vice, it was some- times the refuge of innocence, and its inviolable character provokd an invidious contrast with the terrible outrage which had rendered Canterbury Cathedral the scene of the greatest historical murder of our annals. In fact, the jealous sensitive- ness of the Chapter of Canterbury had given currency to a pre- diction that the blood of Beeket would never be avenged till a similar sacrilege defiled the walls of Westminster. 1 At last it came, doubtless in a very inferior form, but creating a powerful sensation at the time, and leaving permanent traces behind. During the campaign of the Black Prince in the North of Spain, two of his knights, Shackle and Hawle, had taken prisoner a Spanish Count. He returned home for his ransom, leaving his son in his place. The ransom never came, and the young Count continued in captivity. He had, however, a powerful friend at Court John of Gaunt, who, in right of his wife, claimed the crown of Castille, and in virtue of this Spanish royalty demanded the liberty of the young Spaniard. The two English captors refused to part with so valuable a prize. John of Gaunt, with a high hand, imprisoned them in the Tower, whence they escaped and took sanctuary at West- minster. They were pursued by Alan Bloxhall, Constable of Murder of the 2 Tower, and Sir Ralph Ferrers, with fifty armed n. 1378 " men. 3 It was a day long remembered in the Abbey the llth of August, the festival of St. Taurinus. The two knights, probably for greater security, had fled not merely into the Abbey, but into the Choir itself. It was the moment of the celebration of High Mass. The Deacon had just reached the words of the Gospel of the day, ' If the goodman of the house ' had known what time the thief would appear,' 4 when the clash of arms was heard, and the pursuers, regardless of time or place, burst in upon the service. Shackle escaped, but Hawle was intercepted. Twice he fled round the Choir, his enemies hacking at him as he ran, and at length, pierced with twelve wounds, 5 sank dead in front of the Prior's Stall, that is, at in Sir T. More's Life of Richard III. vol. ii. p. 80. It is probably a drama- tic speech put into the mouth of a hostile witness ; but it serves to show what were regarded as notorious facts in More's time. Walsingham, ii. 378. Ibid. Widmore, p. 104. Eulog. Hist. iii. 342, 343. Widmore, p. 104. CHAP. v. THE SANCTUARY. 349 the north side of the entrance of the Choir. 1 His servant and one of the monks fell with him. 2 He was regarded as a martyr to the injured rights of the Abbey, and obtained the honour (at that time unusual) of burial within its walls the first who was laid, so far as we know, in the South Transept, to be followed a few years later by Chaucer, who was interred at his feet. A brass effigy and a long epitaph marked, till within the last century, the stone where he lay, 3 and another inscription was engraved on the stone where he fell, and on which his effigy The Abbey may still be traced. The Abbey was shut up for four De^ s, 1398. months, 4 and Parliament was suspended, lest its assembly should be polluted by sitting within the desecrated precincts, and from the alleged danger of London. 5 The whole case w T as heard before the King. The Abbot, William of Col- chester, who speaks of ' the horrible crime ' 6 as an act which every one would recognise under that name, recited the whole story of St. Peter's midnight visit to the fisherman, 7 as the authentic ground of the right of sanctuary; and carried his point so far as to procure from the Archbishops and Bishops an excommunication of the two chief assailants which was repeated every Wednesday and Friday by the Bishop of London at St. Paul's and the payment of 200 from them (equal to at least 2,000) to the Abbey by way of penance. On the other hand, Shackle 8 gave up his Spanish prisoner, who had waited upon him as his valet, but not without the remuneration of 500 marks in hand and 100 for life ; 9 and the extravagant claims of the Abbot led (as often happens in like cases) to a judicial sifting of the right of sanctuary, which from that time forward was refused in the case of debtors. 10 This tremendous uproar took place in the early years of Eichard II., and perhaps was not without its effect in fixing his attention on the Abbey, to which he afterwards showed so much devotion. 11 Another sacrilege of the like kind took place 1 Brayley, p. 258. lo Walsingham, i. 378. 2 Weever, p. 261. " See Chapter III. In addition to 3 Neale, ii. 269. t ne proofs of Kichard II.'s interest in 4 Widmore, p. 106. Cartulary. the Abbey there mentioned, may be 5 Brayley, p. 259. given the following curious incidents. 6 'Illudia'ctumhorribile.' (Archives, The anniversary of his coronation was Parcel 41.) celebrated at the altar of St. John as 7 Eulog. iii. 346. See Chapter I. long as he lived, 1395. He sent a 8 He himself seems to have been portion of the cloth of gold, with 50 buried in the Abbey, 1396. (Stow, p. points of gold, in which the Confessor gl4 \ was wrapt, to his uncle the Duke of Widmore, p. 106. Berry, 1397. His flight and deposi- 350 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. nearly at the same time, but seems to have been merged in the general horror of the events of which it formed a part. At the outrage of time of the rebellion of Wat Tyler, John Mangett, i38i. * Marshal of the Marshalsea, had clung for safety to one of the slender marble pillars round the Confessor's Shrine, and was torn away by Wat Tyler's orders. 1 The King, with his peculiar feeling for the Abbey, immediately sent to inquire into the act. Within the precincts, close adjoining to St. Margaret's Church, was a tenement known by the name of the * Anchorite's House.' 2 Here, as often in the neighbourhood of great conventual buildings, dwelt, apparently from generation to generation, a hermit, who acted as a kind of oracle to the neighbourhood. To him, as afterwards Henry V., so now Richard II. resorted, and encouraged by his counsels, went out on his gallant adventure to Smithfield, where his presence sup- pressed the rebellion. 3 A more august company took refuge here in the next cen- tury. Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV., twice made the Sanctuary her home. The first time was iust Iirst visit i a of Elizabeth before the birth of her eldest son. On this occasion Woodvil e, Oct. i, 1470. s ] aej w ith her three daughters and Lady Scrope, took up their abode as 'sanctuary women,' apparently within the Sanctuary itself. The Abbot (Milling) sent them provisions Birth of ' half a loaf and two muttons 'daily. The nurse in NoT.i4.i4TO. the Sanctuary assisted at the birth, and in these straits Edward V. first saw the light ; and was baptized by the Sub-prior, with the Abbot as his godfather, and the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Scrope as his godmothers. 4 The Queen re- mained there till her husband's triumphant entry into London. second vt^t '^^ e secon( ^ occasion was yet more tragical. When wo E odv a in'e tl1 Richard III.'s conspiracy against his nephews tran- Aprii, USB. spired, the Queen again flew to her well-known refuge with her five daughters, and, this time, not with her eldest son (who was already in the Tower), but with her second son, tion are carefully recorded in 1399. this very one, was buried in his own (Cartulary.) The name of the maker chapel. (Cartulary, see p. 431.) There of the mould of the statues of himself was a hermit of the same kind in the and his queen William Wodestreet precincts at Norwich. They were also in 1394, is preserved. (Ib.) common in Ireland. The remains of 1 Brayley, p. 266. such a hermitage exist close to the * Chapter Book, May 10, 1604. It Cathedral of Kilkenny. See- Graves's occurs in other entries as the Anchor's Kilkenny, p. 7 ; Arch. Journal, xi. House. Its last appearance is in the 194-200 ; Kingsley's Hermits. Chapter Book, June 3, 1778. One of 3 Howe's Chronicle, p. 284. the hermits who lived here perhaps 4 Strickland, iii. 328. CHAP. v. THE SANCTUARY. 35 1 Richard Duke of York. She crossed from the Palace at mid- night, probably through the postern-gate,, into the 'Abbot's ' Place.' It was in one of the great chambers of the house, probably the Dining-hall (now the College Hall), that she was received by Abbot Esteney. 1 There the Queen ' sate alone on ' the rushes, all desolate and dismayed,' and all ' about her ' much heaviness, rumble, haste, and business ; carriage and ' conveyance of her stuff into Sanctuary ; chests, coffers, packers, 4 fardels, trussed all on men's backs; no man unoccupied ' some lading, some going, some discharging, some coming for ' more, some breaking down the walls to bring in the next way.' In this scene of confusion appeared Rotheram, Archbishop of York, who deposited with her the Great Seal, ' and departed ' hence again, yet in the dawning of the day. By which time ' he might, in his chamber window ' [from his palace on the site of the present Whitehall] ' see all the Thames full of boats ' of the Duke of Gloucester's servants, watching that no man ' should pass to the Sanctuary.' The Queen, it would seem, had meantime withdrawn into the fortress of the Sanctuary itself, where, as she said, ' her other son, now King, was born ' and kept in his cradle ; ' and there she received the southern Primate, Cardinal Bourchier. It is instructive to observe how powerful the terrors of the Sanctuary were in the eyes both of besiegers and besieged. The King would have taken his nephew by force from the Sanctuary, but was met by the two Arch- bishops with the never-failing argument of St. Peter's visit to the fisherman, ' in proof whereof they have yet in the Abbey ' St. Peter's cope to show.' 2 At last, however, even this was believed to have been turned by some ingenious casuist, who argued that, as the child was incapable of such crimes as needed sanctuary, so he was incapable of receiving sanctuary. The Queen resisted with all the force of a woman's art and a mother's love. ' In what place could I reckon him secure if he ' be not secure in this Sanctuary, whereof was there never yet ' tyrant so devilish that durst presume to break ? . . . . But, * you say, my son can deserve no sanctuary, and therefore he ' cannot have it. Forsooth he hath found a goodly gloss, by ' which that place that may defend a thief may not save an ' innocent I can no more, but whosoever he be that ' breaketh this holy sanctuary, I pray God shortly send him need 1 His effigy, copied from his tomb, 2 More's Life of Edward F., p. 40. now hangs in the Hall. 352 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. ' of sanctuary, when he may not come to it ! For taken out of ' sanctuary I would not my mortal enemy were.' The argument of the ecclesiastic, however, at last pre- vailed. * And therewithal she said to the child, " Farewell, * " mine own sweet son ; God send you good keeping ! Let me ' " kiss you once, ere you go ; for God knoweth when we shall * " kiss one another again." And therewith she kissed him * and blessed him, turned her back, and went her way, leaving ' the child weeping as fast. ' 1 She never saw her sons again. She was still in the Sanctuary when she received the news of their death, and ten months elapsed before she and the Princesses left it. The whole precinct was strictly guarded by Richard ; so that ' the solemn Church of Westminster and all ' the adjacent region was changed after the form of a camp or ' fortress.' At the same moment, another child of a princely house was in the monastery, also hiding from the terror of the ' Boar.' owen Owen Tudor, the uncle of Henry VII., had himself Tudor. been sheltered in the Sanctuary in the earlier days of the York dynasty, was now there as a monk, and was buried at last in St. Blaise's Chapel. The last eminent person who received the shelter of the Sanc- tuary fled thither from the violence, not of Princes, but of Eccle- siastics. Skelton, the earliest known Poet Laureate, from under the wing of Abbot Islip, poured forth against Cardinal Wolsey those furious invectives, which must have doomed him to destruction but for the Sanctuary, im- pregnable even by all the power of the Cardinal at the height of his grandeur. No stronger proof can be found of the sacredness of the spot, or of the independence of the institution. He remained here till his death, 2 and, like Le Sueur in the Chartreuse at Paris, rewarded his protectors by writing the doggerel epitaphs which were hung over the royal tombs, and which are preserved in most of the older antiquarian works on the Abbey. The rights of the Sanctuary were dissolved with the dis- solution of the Abbey. Abbot Feckenham, as we shall see, End of the made a vigorous speech in behalf of the retention of Sanctuary, ., . . . 1566. its privileges ; and under his auspices three fugitives were there, of very unequal rank, ' for murder ; ' a young Lord 1 Strickland's Queens, iii. 331, 34.8, 2 He was buried in St. Margaret's 355, 377 ; Green's Princesses, iii. 413. Churchyard, 1529. CHAP. v. THE SANCTUARY. 353 Dacre, for killing ' Squire West ; ' a thief, for killing a tailor in Long Acre ; and a Westminster scholar, for ' killing a big boy ' that sold papers and printed books in Westminster Hall.' l These probably were 2 its last homicides. After the accession of Elizabeth its inmates were restricted chiefly to debtors, under the vigilant supervision of the Dean and the Archdeacon. But at last even this privilege was attacked. On that occasion, Dean Goodman pleaded the claims of the Sanctuary before the House of Commons, and, abandoning the legend of St. Peter, rested them on the less monastic but not less apocryphal charters of King Lucius. 3 Whatever there might be in other arguments, there was ' one strong especial reason ' for its continuance here. This privilege had caused the ' houses within the district to let well.' 4 For a time the Dean's arguments, fortified by those of two learned civilians, prevailed. But Elizabeth added sterner and sterner restrictions, and James I. at last suppressed it with all other Sanctuaries. 5 Unfortunately, the iniquity and vice which gathered round the neighbourhood of the Abbey, and which has only in our own time been cleared away, was the not unnatural result of this ' City of Refuge,' a striking instance of the evils which, sooner or later, are produced by any attempt to exalt local or ecclesiastical sanctity above the claims of law, and justice, and morality. The ' Sanctuaries ' of mediaeval Christendom may have been necessary remedies for a barbarous state of society ; but when the barbarism of which they formed a part disappeared, they became almost unmixed evils ; and the National Schools and the Westminster Hospital, which have succeeded to the site of the Westminster Sanctuary, may not unfairly be regarded as humble indications of the dawn of a better age. Not far from the Sanctuary was the Almonry, or * Ambrey.' It was coeval with the Abbey, but was endowed afresh by The Henry VII. with a pension for thirteen poor men, 6 and Almonry. w ^ n another for women, by his mother, Margaret of Richmond. In connection with it were two Chapels, that of St. 1 Machyn's Diary, Dec. 6, 1556. 3 Strype's Annah, i. 528. See Chapter VI. 4 Widmore, p. 141 : Walcott, p. 80. 2 There seems to have been much s Widmore, ibid. ; 1 Jas. I. c. 25, discussion as to a case in which the 34 ; 21 Jas. I. c. 28. Abbot, somewhat contrary to his own Stow, p. 644. Twelve of the alms- principles, had delivered up a robber men still continue, bearing the badge of the name of Vaughan. (Excerpta of Henry VII. 's Portcullis. Histories, 312.) A A 354 THE AEBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Dunstan, 1 the scene of a Convocation in the reign of Henry st Anne-s "VHI., 2 and that of St. Anne, which gave its name to ^ ae - St. Anne's Lane, 3 for ever famous through Sir Eoger de Coverley's youthful adventure there : This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane, upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him ' a young Popish cur,' and asked him who had made Anne a saint? The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which . was the way to Anne's Lane ; but was called a ' prick-eared cur ' for his pains, and, instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. ' Upon this,' says Sir Eoger, ' I did not think fit to repeat the former 4 question, but going into every lane in the neighbourhood, asked what 1 they called the name of that lane.' By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after, without giving offence to any party. 4 The inner arch of the Gatehouse led into an irregular square, which was the chief court of the monastery, correspond- ing to what is at Canterbury called the ' Green Court,' and which at Westminster, in like manner (from the large trees 'The Kims- Panted round it), was known as 'The Elms.' 5 Yard^The Amongst them grew a huge oak, which was Mown Granary. down in 1791. Across this court ran the long building of the Granary. It was of two storeys, and was surmounted by a large central tower. Near it was the Oxstall, or stable for the cattle, and the Barn adjoining the mill-dam. 6 Its traces were still visible in the broken ground at the beginning of this century. At right angles to it were the Bakehouse and Brewhouse. The Abbot's Place (or Palace), built by Littlington with a slight addition by Islip, like the Abbot's house at St. Albans, The occupied the south-western side of the Abbey, and stood round an irregular quadrangle, into which, for Gate n :uLor. the most part (as in all houses of that age), its windows CTHF DBAHBKY^ looked. Only from the Grand Dining-HaU and its Han. m parlour there were windows into the open space before 1 Ware. (Gleanings, p. 229.) Professor Willis 2 Wilkins, Cone. iii. 749. See Chap- (Arch. Cantiana,, vii. 97) conjectures ter VI. that the word ' Homers,' applied to 3 In this lane was Purcell's house. part of the Canterbury Precincts, is a (Novello's Life of Purcell, p. x.) corruption of ' Ormeaux ' (' Elms '). 4 Spectator, No. 125. The lane is 8 See the document quoted in Glean- now destroyed. ings, p. 224 ; and Gent. Mag. [1815] , 5 Malcolm, p. 256. The green of part i. p. 201. See Chapter VI. Dean's Yard was first made in 1753. CHAP. Y. THE ABBOT'S HOUSE. 355 the Sanctuary. It was commonly called ' Cheyney Gate ' Manor,' from the conspicuous chain ' which was drawn across the approach from the Sanctuary. It had a Chapel in Islip's time, perhaps built or arranged by him, ' My Lord's new ' Chapel,' hung with ' tapestry of the planets,' and white cur- tains ' full of red heads,' probably that at the south-west end of the Nave in connection with the newly built ' Jericho ' Parlour ' and with the wooden gallery which overlooks it, and which was hung in green and red silk, and having ' a little table ' of Queen Joan's arms.' 2 This house the present Deanery was the scene, already in the Middle Ages, of many striking events. The reception of Elizabeth Woodville in its Hall has been already told. In the Hall, before that time, was concerted the conspiracy 3 of Abbot Colchester, which Shak- speare has incorporated into the last scenes of the play of < Richard II.' Aumerle. You holy clergymen, is there no plot To rid the realm of this pernicious blot ? Abbot of Westminster. Before I freely speak my mind herein, You shall not only take the sacrament To bury mine intents, but to effect Whatever I shall happen to devise. Come borne with me to supper ; I will lay A plot, shall show us all a merry day. The Abbot had been entrusted with the charge of the three Dukes and two Earls who were suspected by Henry IV. ' You conspiracy ' shall be entertained honourably,' he said, ' for King of colche ' Richard's sake ; ' and he took the opportunity of their 1399. ' presence in his house to concert the plot with Walden the deposed Primate, Merks ' the good Bishop of Carlisle ' (who had formerly been a monk at Westminster), Maudlin the priest (whose likeness to Piichard was so remarkable), and two others 1 Gleanings, p. 222. So the ap- the two prelates were sent to the proach to the Deanery of St. Paul's is Tower, but afterwards released. Ac- called ' St. Paul's Chain.' cording to Hall, when the conspiracy - Inventory. was discovered, ' the Abbot, going be- 3 The authorities for this story are ' tween his monastery and mansion for Holinshed and Hall, but in much ' thought [i.e. for anxiety], fell into a more minute detail the French Chro- ' sudden palsy, and shortly after, with- nicle (published by the English His- ' out speech, ended his life.' This is torical Society) on the Betrayal of fabulous, as Colchester long outlived Richard II., pp. 228, 229, 258, 260. the conspiracy. (See Widmore, p. According to this, the Abbot and 110; Arcluzologia, x. 217.) A A 2 356 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. attached to Richard's Court. They dined together, evidently in the Abbot's Hall, and then withdrew into what is called, in one version ' a secret chamber,' ] in another ' a side council- ' chamber,' where six deeds were prepared by a secretary, to which six of the number affixed their seals, and swore to be faithful to the death of King Richard. 2 The ' secret chamber ' may have been that which exists behind the wall of the present Library of the Deanery, and which was opened, after an interval of many years, in 1864. 3 The Long Chamber, out of which it is approached, must have been the chief private apartment of the Abbot, and was lighted by six windows looking out on the quadrangle. But the ' side council-chamber ' rather indicates the first of the long line of associations which attach to a spot immediately adjoining the Hall. ' There is an old, low, shabby wall, which runs off from the ' south side of the great west doorway into Westminster Abbey. ' This wall is only broken by one wired window, and the whole ' appearance of the wall and window is such, that many strangers ' and inhabitants have wondered why they were allowed to en- THE JEHU- ' cumber and deform this magnificent front. But that CHAMBEB. ' wall is the JERUSALEM CHAMBER, and that guarded 1 window is its principal light.' So a venerable church-reformer 4 of our own day describes the external appearance of the Chamber which has witnessed so many schemes of ecclesiastical polity- some dark and narrow, some full of noble aspirations in the later days of our Church, but which even in the Middle Ages had become historical. In the time of Henry IV. it was still but a private apartment the withdrawing- room of the Abbot, opening on one hand into his refectory, on the other into his yard or garden 5 just rebuilt by Nicholas Littlington, and deriving the name of Jerusalem, probably, from tapestries 6 or pictures of the history of Jerusalem, as the Antioch Chamber 7 in the Palace of Westminster was so called from pictures of the history of Antioch. 8 The small 1 Holinshed. (Walcott's Inventory, p. 47.) The 2 See Widmore, p. 110 ; and Archceo- tapestries in the IGth century repre- logia, xx. 217. 3 See Chapter VI. sented the history of the planets. The 4 W. W. Hull's Church Inquiry, curtains were of ' pale thread full of 1827, p. 244. See Chapter VI. ' red roses.' (Inventory.) 4 It is this court probably which is ~ Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, mentioned in the accounts of Abbot Islip i. 20. Brayley, 59. ' Galilee ' was the as ' the Jerusalem Garden in Cheney- name for the chamber between the ' gate.' (Archives, May 5, 1494.) Great and Little Hall in the Palace of G 'Two good peeces of counterfait Westminster. (Vet. Mon. iv. 2.) ' arras, of the seege of Jerusalem,' The first mention of the Chamber 358 THE ABBEY BEFOEE THE EEPOEMATION. CHAP. v. ante-chamber which connects it with the rest of the abbatial buildings was of later date, probably under Abbot Islip ; but it derived its name doubtless from its proximity to its greater and more famous neighbour. As the older and larger was called the ' Jerusalem parlour,' so this was called the ' Jericho ' parlour.' ' If the Jerusalem Chamber was perhaps the scene of the conspiracy against the first Lancastrian king, it certainly was Death of the scene f hi 8 death. Henry IV., as his son after - March so""" ^ m > ^^ ^ eeu filled with the thought of expiating his lil3 - usurpation by a crusade. His illness, meanwhile, had grown upon him during the last years of his life, so as to render him a burden to himself and to those around him. He was covered with a hideous leprosy, and was almost bent double with pain and weakness. In this state he had come up to London for his last Parliament. The galleys were ready for the voyage to the East. ' All haste and possible speed was ' made.' It was apparently not long after Christmas that the King was making his prayers at St. Edward's Shrine, ' to take * there his leave, and so to speed him on his journey,' when he became so sick, that such as were about him feared His illness. ' that he would have died right there ; wherefore they ' for his comfort bore him into the Abbot's Place, and lodged ' him in a Chamber, and there upon a pallet laid him before ' the fire, where he lay in great agony a certain time.' He must have been brought through the Cloisters, the present ready access from the Nave not being then in existence. 3 ' The ' fire ' was doubtless where it now is, for which the Chamber then, as afterwards in the seventeenth century, was remarkable amongst the parlours of London, and which, as afterwards, 4 so now, was the immediate though homely occasion of the his- torical interest of the Chamber. It was the early spring, when the Abbey was filled with its old deadly chill, and the friendly warmth naturally brought the King and his attendants to this spot. ' At length when he w ? as come to himself, not knowing in Henry IV.'s time, implies that there ' Inventory. On one of the windows had been an earlier one, ' a certain is scratched the date 1512. ' chamber called of old time Jerusalem.' * See Chapter III. (Rer. Angl. Script. Vet. i. 499.) To this, 3 This was probably added in Islip's perhaps, belonged the fragments of time, with the passage communicating painted glass, of the time of Henry directly into the Abbot's House. III., chiefly subjects from the New * See Chapter VI. It had ' a fire- Testament, but not specially learing on ' fork ' of iron and two ' andirons.' (in- Jerusalem, in the northern window. ventory.) CHAP. v. THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER 359 ' where he was, he freined (asked) of such as were about him, ' what place that was. The which showed to him that it ' belonged to the Abbot of Westminster ; and, for he felt him- ' self so sick, he commanded to ask if that Chamber had any * special name. Whereto it was answered that it was named 1 Hierusalem. Then said the King, Laud be to the Father of * Heaven ! for now I know that I shall die in this Chamber, ' according to the prophecy made of me beforesaid, that I should ' die in Hierusalem.' ! All through his reign his mind had been filled with predictions of this sort. One especially had run through Wales, describing that the son of the eagle ' should ' conquer Jerusalem.' 2 The prophecy was of the same kind as that which misled Cambyses at Ecbatana, on Mount Carmel, when he had expected to die at Ecbatana, in Media ; and (ac- cording to the legend) Pope Sylvester II., at ' Santa Croce in ' Gerusalemme,' when he had expected to avoid the Devil by not going to the Syrian Jerusalem ; and Eobert Guiscard, when he found himself unexpectedly in a convent called Jerusalem in Cephalonia. 3 With this predetermination to die, the King lingered on Bear me to that Chamber : there I'll lie In that Jerusalem shall Harry die ; 4 and it was then and there that occurred the scene of his son's conversion removal of the Crown, which Shakspeare has immor- of Henry v. talised, 5 and which, though first mentioned by Mon- strelet, is rendered probable by the frequent discussions which had been raised in Henry's last years as to the necessity of his resigning the crown : 6 Ceux qui de luy avoient la garde un certain iour, voyans que de son corps, n'issoit plus d'alaine, cuidans pour vray qu'il fut transis, luy avoient couvert le visage. Or est ainsi que comme il est accoutume de faire en pays, on avoit mis sa couronne Eoyal sur une couch assez 1 Fabyan, pp. 388, 389. the actual localities, as he evidently re- 2 Arch. xx. 257. presents the whole affair as taking place 3 Palgrave's Normandy, iv. 479. in the Palace. But it is curious that, A convent bearing the name of ' Jeru- if the King be supposed to remain in ' salern ' exists on Mount Parnassus, the Jerusalem Chamber, the Lords may and another near Moscow. have been ' in the other room 'the 4 For many years (see Chapter III.) Dining Hall, where the music would the portrait of his rival, Eichard II., play. Prince Henry might thus pass was hung in this Chamber. It has not ' through the chamber where they .now returned to its original place in ' stayed,' but through the 'open door' the Abbey. of the Chamber itself into the adjacent 5 It is perhaps too much to suppose court. that Shakspeare paid any attention to 6 Pauli, v. 72. 360 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFOIttlATIOX. CHAP. v. pres de luy, laquelle devoit prendre presenternent apres son trepas son dessusdit premier fils et successeur, lequel fut de ce faire assez prest : et print la dicte courrone, & emporta sur la donner a entendre des dictes gardes. Or advint qu'assez tost apres le Eoy ieeta un soupir si fut descouvert, & retourna en assez bonne memoire ; & tant qu'il re- garda ou auoit este sa couronne raise : & quand il ne la veit demanda ou elle estoit, & ses gardes luy respondirent, Sire, monseigneur le Prince vostre fils 1'a emporte : & il dit qu'on le feit venir devers luy & il y vint. Et adonc le Roy lui demanda pourquoi il avoit emporte sa couronne, & le Prince dit : Monseigneur, voicy en presence ceux qui' m'avoient donne a entendre & afferme, qu'estiez trespasse, et pour ce que suis vostre fils aisne, et qu'a moy appartiendra vostre couronne & Royaume apres que serez alle de vie a trepas, 1'avoye prise. Et adonc le Roy en soupirant luy dit : Beau fils comment y auriez vous droit car ie n'en y euz oncques point, & se S9aiiez vous bien. Monseigneur, respondit le Prince, ainsi qui vous 1'avez tenu et garde a 1'espee, c'est mon intention de la garder & deffendre toute ma vie ; & adonc dit le Roy, or en faictes comme bon vous semblera : ie m'en rapporte a Dieu du surplus, auquel ie prie qu'il ait mercy de moy. Et bref apres sans autre chose dire, alia de vie & trepas. 1 The English chroniclers speak only of the Prince's faithful attendance on his father's sick-bed ; and when, as the end drew near, the King's failing sight 2 prevented him from observing what the ministering priest was doing, his son replied, with the devotedness characteristic of the Lancastrian House, ' My ' Lord, he has just consecrated the body of our Lord. I en- * treat you to worship Him, by whom kings reign and princes * rule.' The King feebly raised himself up, and stretched out his hands ; and, before the elevation of the cup, called the Prince to kiss him, and then pronounced upon him a blessing, 3 variously given, but in each version containing an allusion to the blessing of Isaac on Jacob it may be from the recollection of the comparison of himself to Jacob on his first accession, 4 or from the likeness of the relations of himself and his son to the two Jewish Patriarchs. ' These were the last words of the vic- ' torious Henry.' 5 The Prince, in an agon} 7 of grief, retired to an oratory, as it would seem, within the monastery ; and there, on his bare knees, and with floods of tears, passed the whole of that dreary day, till nightfall, in remorse for his past sins. At 1 Monstrelet, p. 163. He speaks of 2 Elmham, c. vii. the King's being buried ' a 1'Eglise de s Ibid. Capgrave's De Henricis, p. ' Vaste moustier aupres ses predeces- 110. ' seurs.' The burial (see Chapter III.) 4 See Chapter II. was really at Canterbury. s Elmham, c. vii. CHAP. v. THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER. 361 night he secretly went to a holy hermit in the Precincts (the successor, probably, of the one whom Richard II. had consulted), and from him, after a full confession, received absolution. Such was the tradition of what, in modern days, would be called the ' conversion of Henry V.' The last historical purpose to which the Abbot's House was turned before the Dissolution was the four days' confinement of sir Thomas Sir Thomas More, under charge of the last Abbot, who 14-17,1534. strongly urged his acknowledgment of the King's Supremacy. From its walls he probably wrote his Appeal to a General Council, 1 and he was taken thence by the river to the Tower. On leaving the Abbot's House, we find ourselves in the midst of the ordinary monastic life. It is now that we come The upon the indications of the unusual grandeur of the subpriors. establishment. The Abbot's House was, as we have seen, a little palace. The rest was in proportion. In most monasteries there was but one Prior (who filled the office of Deputy to the Abbot), and one Subprior. Here, close adjoining to the Abbot's House, was a long line of buildings, now forming the eastern side of Dean's Yard, which were occupied by the Prior, the Subprior, the Prior of the Cloister, and the two inferior Subpriors, and their Chaplain. 2 The South Cloister near the Prior's Chamber was painted with .a fresco of the Nativity. 3 The number of the inferior officers was doubled in like manner, raising the whole number to fifty or sixty. The ordinary members of the monastic community were, at least in the thirteenth century, not admitted without considerable scrutiny as to their character and motives. Their number seems to have amounted to about eighty. The whole suite was called ' the Long House,' or the ' Calbege,' or the ' House with ' the Tub in it ' from the large keel or cooling tub used in the vaulted cellarage. It terminated at the ' Blackstole Tower ' still remaining at the entrance of ' Little Dean's Gate.' The Abbot's House opened by a large archway, still visible, into the West Cloister. The Cloisters had been begun by the THE Confessor, and were finished shortly after the Conquest. CLOISTERS. p ar O f fa e eas t e rn side was rebuilt by Henry III., and part of the northern by Edward I. The eastern was finished by Abbot Byrcheston in 1345, and the southern and 1 More's Works, 282 ; Doyne Bell's - Ware, p. 275. Tower CMpel, p. 77. 3 Cartulary. 362 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. western, with the remaining part of the northern, by the Abbots Langham and Littlington from 1350 to 1366. l In this quad- rangle was, doubtless, the focus of the monastic life, the place of recreation and gossip, of intercourse and business, and of final rest. In the central plot of grass were buried the humbler brethren ; in the South and East Cloisters, as we have seen, the earlier Abbots. The behaviour of the monks in this public place was under the supervision of the two lesser Subpriors, who bore the somewhat unpleasant name of ' Spies of the ' Cloister.' In the North Cloister, close by the entrance of the Church, where the monks usually walked, sate the Prior. In The school the Western the one still the most familiar to West- in the West . ,, ii-r < i -T j i cloister. minster scholars sate the Master of the Novices, with his disciples. This was the first beginning of Westminster School. Traces of it have been found in the literary chal- lenges of the London schoolboys, described by Fitzstephen, 2 in the reign of Henry II., and in the legendary traditions of Ingulph's schooldays, in the time of the Confessor and Queen Edith :- Frequently have I seen her when, in my boyhood, I used to visit my father, who was employed about the Court ; and often when I met her, as I was coming from school, did she question me about my studies and my verses, and most readily passing from the solidity of grammar to the brighter studies of logic, in which she was particularly skilful, she would catch me with the subtle threads of her arguments. She would always present me with three or four pieces of money, which were counted out to me by her handmaiden, and then send me to the royal larder to refresh myself. 3 Near the seat of the monks was a carved crucifix. 4 These novices or disciples at their lessons were planted, except for one hour in the day, each behind the other. 5 No signals or jokes were allowed amongst them. 6 No language but French was allowed in their communications with each other. English and 1 Gleanings, 37, 52, 53. A frag- ' sibus inter se conrixantur.' (Descript. ment, bearing the names of William Lond.) Hufus and Abbot Gislebert, is said to 3 Ingulph's Chronicle (A.D. 1043- have been found in 1831. (Gent. Mag. 1051). The Chronicle really dates [183r, part ii. p. 545.) A capital, from the beginning of the fourteenth with their joint heads, was found in century. (Quart liev. xxxiv. 296.) the remains of the walls of the West- 4 Cartulary, minster Palace. (Vet. Man. vol v. s Ware, p. 268. plate xcvii. p. 4.) Ibid. p. 277. * ' Pueri diversarum scholarum ver- THE CLOISTERS, "WITH ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 364 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Latin were expressly prohibited. 1 The utmost care was to be taken with their writings and illuminations. 2 Besides these occupations, many others less civilised were carried on in the same place. Under the Abbots ' of venerable ' memory ' before Henry III.'s changes, the Cloister was the scene of the important act of shaving, an art respect- ing which the most minute directions are given. Afterwards the younger monks alone underwent the operation thus publicly. Soap and hot water were to be always at hand ; and if any of the monks were unable to perform their duty in this respect, they were admonished ' to revolve in their minds that ' saying of the Philosopher, " For learning what is needful no ' " age seems to me too late.'' ' 3 In the stern old days, before the time of Abbot Berking ' of happy memory,' these Claustral shavings took place once a fortnight in summer, and once in three weeks in winter, 4 and also on Saturdays the heads and feet of the brethren were duly washed. An arcade in the South Cloister is conjectured to have been the Lavatory. Baths might be had for health, though not for pleasure. The arrange- ments for the cleanliness of the inmates form, in fact, there, as elsewhere in English monasteries, a curious contrast with the consecration of filth and discomfort in other parts of mediaeval life both sacred and secular. It is difficult to imagine how these various occupations were carried on in the Cloisters. The upper tracery of the bays appears to have 5 been glazed ; but the lower part was open, then as now ; and the wind, rain, and snow must have swept pitilessly alike over the brethren in the hands of the monastic barber, and the novices turning over their books or spelling out their manuscripts. The rough carpet of hay and straw in summer, and of rushes in winter, and the mats laid along the stone benches, must have given to the Cloisters a habitable aspect, unlike their present appearance, but could have been but a very inadequate protection against the incle- mency of an English frost or storm. If during any part of this conventual stir the Abbot appeared, every one rose and bowed, and kept silence till he had gone by. 6 1 Ware, pp. 280, 375, 388, 404, 422, 3 Ibid. pp. 291, 292, 293-296. 423. The form of admission is given 4 Ibid. p. 290. in Latin, French, and English, ib. p. 5 Remains of the iron fittings are 407. still visible. - Ibid. pp. 275, 281. Ware, pp. 278, 282. CHAP. v. THE REFECTORY. 365 He passed on, and took his place in solitary grandeur in the Eastern Cloister. Along the whole length of the Southern Cloister extended the Refectory of the Convent, as distinguished from that of the THK REFEC- Abbot's Hall in his own ' palace.' There were, here, as TOBY. j n th e O ther greater monasteries, 1 guest chambers. The rules for the admission of guests show how numerous they were. They were always to be hospitably received, mostly with a double portion of what the inmates had, and were to be shown over the monastery as soon as they arrived. All Benedictines had an absolute claim on their brother Benedictines ; and it was a serious complaint that on one occasion a crowd of dis- orderly Cistercian guests led to the improper exclusion of the Abbots of Boxley and Bayham, and the Precentor of Canter- bury. The Refectory was a magnificent chamber, of which the lower arcades were of the time of the Confessor, or of the first Norman Kings ; the upper story, which contained the Hall itself, of the time of Edward III. It was approached by two doors, which still remain in the Cloister. The towels for wiping their hands hung over the Lavatory outside, between the doors, or at the table or window of the Kitchen, 2 which, with the usual Buttery in front (still in part remaining), was at the west end of the Refectory. The regulations for the behaviour of the monks at dinner are very precise. No monk was to speak at all, no guest above a whisper. Laymen of low rank were not to dine in the Refectory, except on the great exceptional occasion when, as we have seen, the fisherman the successor of Edric came with his offering of the salmon to St. Peter. 3 The Prior sate at the high table, with a small hand-bell (Skylla) beside him, and near him sate the greater guests. No one but Abbots or Priors of the Benedictine order might take his place, especially no Abbot of the rival Cister- cians, and no Bishop. Guests were in the habit of purchasing annuities of provisions, not only for themselves, but for their descendants. No one was to sit with his hand on his chin, or his hand over his head, as if in pain, or to lean on his elbows, or to stare, or to crack nuts with his teeth. 4 The arrangements of the pots of beer were gratefully traced to Abbot Crokesley, ' of blessed memory.' 5 The usual reading of Scripture took 1 Remains exist of a chamber par- s See Chapter I. p. 18. allel to the Refectory, which probably 4 Ware, pp. 206, 207. served this purpose. 5 Ibid. p. 303. 2 Ware, p. 263. 366 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP v. place, closed by the usual formulary, Tu autem, Domine, miserere nobis. 1 The candles were to be carefully lit at dusk. Two scandals connected with this practice were preserved in the recollections of the monastery one of a wicked cook, who had concealed a woman in the candle-cupboard ; another of ' an irrational and impetuous sacrist,' who had carried off the candles from the Great Refectory to the Lesser Dining- hall or ' Misericord.' 2 To what secular uses the Refectory was turned will appear as we proceed. The provisions were to be of the best kind, and were under the charge of the Cellarer. The wheat was brought up from the Thames to the Granary, which stood in the open space now called Dean's Yard, and the keeper of which was held to be 'the Cellarer's right hand.' 3 Over the East Cloister, approached by a stair which still in part remains, was the Dormitory. 4 In the staircase window THE DOR- leading up to it was a crucifix. The floor was covered MITORY OP ... ... -n i i i -, -, . THE MOXKS. with matting. Each monk had his own chest of clothes, and the like, carefully limited, as in a school or ship- cabin. 5 They were liable to be waked up by the sounding of the gong or bell, or horn, or knocking of a board, at an alarm of fire, or of a sudden inundation of the Thames. 6 A gallery still remains opening on the South Transept, by which they descended into the Church for their night services. They were permitted to have fur caps, made of the skins of wild cats or foxes. 7 At right angles to the Dormitory, extending from the Cloister to the College garden, was the building known in monasteries as ' the lesser dormitory.' 8 We pass abruptly from this private and tranquil life of the monks in their Dormitory to three buildings which stand in close connection with it, and which, by the inextricable union of the Abbey with the Crown and State of England, bring us into direct contact with the outer world the Treasury, the 'Ware, p. 218. Two particles of this The stairs from the Cloisters were re- Benedictine service are still preserved stored by Sir Gilbert Scott. (See Glean- in the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford, ings.) Another small stair, descending on days when the Dean and Chapter at the southern end, was discovered in dine. A single verse is recited, in 1869. Greek, from the first chapter of St. * Ware, pp. 48, 49, 253, 255, 257. John's Gospel, which is cut short by 6 Such a flood took place in 1274. the Dean saying ' Tu autem.' (Matt. West.) 2 Ware, pp. 233, 235. : Ware, pp. 25, 241. * Ibid. p. 171. * The long subterranean drain, which 4 The dormitory still exists, divided indicates the course of the building, between the Chapter Library and the was found in 1868. See Arcluzologia Great School. (See Chapter VI.) Cantlana, vii. 82. CHAP. v. THE TREASURY. 367 Chapter House, and the Jewel House or Parliament Office. In Tl(K the Eastern Cloister is an ancient double door, which CRY< can l never be opened, except by the officers of the Government or their representatives (now the Lords Commis- sioners of the Treasury, till recently, with the Comptroller of the Exchequer), bearing seven keys, some of them of huge dimensions, that alone could admit to the chamber within. That chamber, which belongs to the Norman 2 substructions underneath the Dormitory, is no less than the Treasury of England 3 a grand word, which, whilst it conveys us back to the most primitive times, is yet big with the destinies of the present and the future ; that sacred building, in which were hoarded the treasures of the nation, in the days when the public robbers were literally thieves or highwaymen ; that institution, which is now the keystone of the Commonwealth, of which the Prime Minister is the ' First Lord,' the Chancellor of the Exchequer the administrator, and which represents the wealth of the wealthiest nation in the world. Here it was that, probably almost immediately after the Conquest, the Kings determined to lodge their treasure, under the guardian- ship of the inviolable Sanctuary which St. Peter had consecra- ted, and the bones of the Confessor had sanctified. So, in the cave hewn out of the rocky side of the Hill of Mycenae, is still to be seen, in the same vault, at once the Tomb and the Treasury of the House of Atreus. So, underneath the cliff of the Capitoline Hill, the Treasury of the Roman Commonwealth was the shrine of the most venerable of the Italian gods the Temple of Saturn. So, in this ' Chapel of the Pyx,' as it is now called, the remains of an altar seem 4 to indicate its original sanctity ; if it be not, as tradition loved to point out, the Tomb of tomb of one who may well be called the genius of the Hugoiin. place, the first predecessor of our careful Chancellors of the Exchequer, Hugoiin, the chamberlain of the Confessor, 1 The ' Standard ' Act of 1866 Palace of Westminster ; the third, in vested the sole custody in the Trea- ' the late dissolved Abbey of West- sury. The transfer of the keys of the ' minster, in the old Chapter-house ; ' Exchequer took place on May 31, 1866. the fourth was ' in the Cloister of the I owe the exact statement of the facts ' said Abbey, locked with five locks relating to the Treasury to Sir Charles ' and keys, being within two strong Trevelyan and Mr. Chisholm. ' double doors.' (Repertorie of Records, 7 Gleanings, pp. 9, 10. printed 1631, pp. 15-92.) But the s In the seventeenth century there three first are, in order of time, later were, properly speaking, four Trea- than the fourth. suries the first, in the Court of 4 The piscina shows it to have been Receipt ; the second, in the New an altar. 368 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. whose strict guardianship of the royal treasure kept even his master in awe. 1 Even if not there, he lies hard by, as we shall presently see. Hither were brought the most cherished posses- sions of the State. The Eegalia of the Saxon monarchy; the Black Rood of St. Margaret (' the Holy Cross of Holyrood ') from Scotland ; the ' Crosis Gneyth ' (or Cross of St. Neot) from Wales, deposited here by Edward I.; 2 the Sceptre or Rod of Moses ; the Ampulla of Henry IV. ; the sword with which King Athelstane cut through the rock at Dunbar ; 3 the sword of Wayland Smith, 4 by which Henry II. was knighted ; the sword of Tristan, presented to John by the Emperor ; 5 the dagger which wounded Edward I. at Acre ; the iron gauntlet worn by John of France when taken prisoner at Poitiers. 6 In that close interpenetration of Church and State, of Palace and Abbey, of which we have before spoken, if at times the Clergy have suffered from the undue intrusion of the Crown, the Crown has also suffered from the undue intrusion of the Clergy. The summer of 1303 witnessed an event which probably affected the fortunes of the Treasury ever afterwards. The Rob- The King was on his Scottish wars, and had reached bery, 1303. LinHthgow, when he heard the news that the immense hoard, on which he depended for his supplies, had been carried off. The chronicler of Westminster records, as matters of equal importance, that in that year ' Pope Boniface YIII. was ' stripped of all his goods, and a most audacious robber by hirn- ' self secretly entered the Treasury of the King of England.' 7 The chronicler vehemently repudiates the ' wicked suspicion ' that any of the monks of Westminster were concerned in the transaction. But the facts are too stubborn. The chief robber, doubtless, was one Richard de Podlicote, who had already climbed by a ladder near the Palace Gate through a window of the Chapter House, and broken open the door of the Refectory, whence he carried off a considerable amount of silver plate. The more audacious attempt on the Treasury, whose position he had then ascertained, he concerted with friends partly 1 See Chapter I. p. 13. and secular treasures together, that at 2 Palgrave's Calendars, i. p. cxvi. the Coronations the Lord Treasurer, 3 Malmesbury, p. 149. with the Lord Chancellor, carried the 4 Hist. Gaufridi Duels, p. 520. sacred vessels of the altar. (Taylor's * Rymer, i. 99 ; iii. 174. Regality, p. 172.) 6 Ibid. i. 197. It may be as a 7 Matthew of Westminster, A.D. memorial of this accumulation of sacred 1303. CHAP. v. THE TKEASURY. 369 within, partly without the Precincts. 1 Any one who had passed through the Cloisters in the early spring of that year must have been struck by the unusual appearance of a crop of hemp springing up over the grassy graves, and the gardener who came to mow the grass and carry off the herbage was constantly refused admittance. In that tangled hemp, sown and grown, it was believed, for this special purpose, was concealed the treasure after it was taken out. In two large black panniers it was conveyed away> across the river, to the ' King's Bridge,' or pier, where now is Westminster Bridge, by the monk Alexander of Pershore, and others, who returned in a boat to the Abbot's Mill, on the Mill Bank. The broken boxes, the jewels scattered on the floor, the ring with which Henry III. was consecrated, the privy seal of the King himself, revealed the deed to the astonished eyes of the royal officers when they came to investigate the rumour. The Abbot and forty-eight monks were taken to the Tower, and a long trial took place. 2 The Abbot and the rest of the fraternity were released, but the charge was brought home to the Subprior and the Sacrist. The architecture still bears its protest against the treason and the boldness of the robbers. The approach from the northern side was walled off, and the Treasury thus reduced by one-third. 3 Inside and outside of the door by which this passage is entered may be felt under the iron cramps fragments of what modern science has declared to be the skin of a human being. The same terrible lining was also affixed to the three doors of the Eevestry 4 in the adjoining compartment of the Abbey. These savage trophies are generally said to belong to the Danes ; and, in fact, there is no period to which they can be so naturally referred as to this. They are, doubtless, * the marks of the ' nails, and the hole in the side of the wall,' to which the West- minster chronicler somewhat irreverently appeals, to persuade ' the doubter ' not to be faithless, but ' believing in the innocence ' of the monks.' 5 Rather they conveyed the same reminder to the clergy who paced the Cloisters or mounted to the Dormitory door, as the seat on which the Persian judges sate, formed out of the skin of their unjust predecessor, with the inscription, ' Remember whereon thou sittest.' Relics of a barbarous pas-t, the} 7 contain a striking instance of terrific precautions against 1 Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 1303. s Gleanings, pp. 50-52. - Gleanings, pp. 282 288. The 4 Dart, i. 64 ; Akerman, ii. 26 ; names of the monks are given in Dug- Gleanings, pp. 48, 50. dale, i. 312 ; Rymer, ii. 938. s Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 1303. B B 370 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. THAP. v. extinct evils. The perils vanish the precautions remain. From that time, however, the charm of the Eoyal Treasury was broken, and its more valuable contents were removed elsewhere, although it was still under the protection of the Monastery. 1 Thenceforth the Westminster Treasury was employed only for guarding the Eegalia, the Eelics, the Eecords of Treaties, 2 and the box or Pyx containing the Standard Trial Pieces of gold and silver, used for determining the justness of the gold and silver coins of the realm issued from the Eoyal Mint. One by one these glories have passed from it. The Eelics doubtless disappeared at the Eeformation ; the Treaties, as we shall presently see. Except on the eve of the Coronations when they are deposited in the Dean's custody either in the Jerusalem Chamber, or in one of the private closets in his Library the Eegalia have, since the Eestoration, been transferred to the Tower. 3 The Trial Pieces alone remain, to be visited once every five years by the officers before mentioned, for the ' Trial of the ' Pyx.' 4 But it continues, like the enchanted cave of Toledo or Covadonga, the original hiding-place of England's gold, an undoubted relic of the Confessor's architecture, a solid fragment of the older fabric of the monarchy overshadowed, but not absorbed, by the ecclesiastical influences around it, a testimony at once to the sacredness of the Abbey and to the independence of the Crown. The Chapter House has a more complex history than the 1 The Exchequer paid ten shillings further order of the House ; and even in 1519 to Mr. Fulwood, one of the this was carried only by 42 against 41. monks, for mending the hinges, and (Cobbett's Parliamentary History, iii. supplying a key of the Treasury door. 118. See Chapter VI.) (State Papers, 1519.) 4 The Pyx, which sometimes gives 8 Palgrave, i. p. Ixxvi. its name to this chapel, is the box kept 8 Down to the time of the Common- at the Mint, in which specimens of the wealth, the Treasury, as containing the coinage are deposited. The word Regalia, had been in the custody of the ' Pyx ' (originally the Latin for ' box,' Chapter, as before of the Convent. On and derived from the pyxis or box- January 23, 1643, a motion was made tree) is now limited to this depository in the Commons that the Dean, Sub- of coins in the English Mint, and to dean, and Prebendaries should be re- the receptacle of the Host in Roman quired to deliver up the keys ; and the Catholic Churches. The Trial is the question put whether, upon the refusal examination of the coins contained in of the keys, the door of that place the Pyx by assay and comparison with should be broken open. So strong was the Trial Plates or pieces. See an the deference to the ancient rights of account of it in Brayley's Londiniana, the Chapter that, even in that excited iv. 145-147 ; and in the ' Report to time, the question was lost by 58 against 37 ; and when the doors were finally forced open, it was only on the express understanding that an inven- tory be taken, new locks put on the doors, and nothing removed till upon the Controller-General of the Ex- chequer upon the Trial of the Pyx, etc., dated February 10, 1866 ; by Mr. H. W. Chisholm, Chief Clerk of the Exchequer.' CHAP. v. THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 371 Treasury, and in some respects it epitomises the vicissitudes of the THE CHAP- Abbey itself. Its earliest period, doubtless, goes back to TER HOUSE, the Confessor. Of this no vestiges remain, unless in the thickness of the walls in the Crypt beneath. 1 But even from Tombs in this early time it became the first nucleus of thp the Chapter . , f ,-, i , -n- House. burials ot the Abbey. Here, at least during the re- building of the Church by Henry III., if not before, on the south side of the entrance, were laid Edwin, first Abbot and friend of the Confessor, in a marble tomb ; 2 and close beside and with him, moved thither from the Cloister, Sebert, the sup- posed founder of Westminster, St. Paul's, and Cambridge ; 3 Ethelgoda, his wife, and Eicula, his sister ; Hugolin, the chamberlain of the Confessor ; and Sulcard, the first historian of the Monastery. At a later period it contained two children of Edward III., who were subsequently removed to the Chapel of St. Edmund. 4 Eound its eastern and northern walls are still found stone coffins, 5 which show it to have been the centre of a consecrated cemetery. We have already seen the determination of Henry III. that the Abbey Church should be of superlative beauty. In like manner the Chapter House was to be, as Matthew Henry III., _. , . , . .. 1250. Paris expressively says meaning, no doubt, that the word should be strictly taken ' incomparable.' 6 John of St. Orner was ordered to make a lectern for it, which was to be, if possible, more beautiful than that at St. Albans. 7 Its structure implies the extraordinary care and thought bestowed upon it. 8 It was still 9 regarded as unfinished at the close of the fifteenth 1 See Mr. Scott's Essay on the Chap- to the Abbey itself see Chapter I. ter House in Old "London, pp. 146, 156. p. 9. 2 The tomb was still visible in the 4 It has been sometimes said that time of Flete, from whose manuscript Eleanor, the youngest daughter of account this is taken. He also gives Edward I., by his second wife Mar- the epitaph and verses, written on a garet, but called after his lamented tablet above the tomb of Edwin : Eleanor, was buried in the Chapter House (1311). But she appears Iste locellus habet bina cadavera claustro ; //2~,/,,> rxw-v, /,<.<>/,<. ,;; RA\ t. TJxor Seberti, prima tamen minima ; (Green S Princesses, 111. 64) to have Defracta capitis testa, clarus Hugolinus been taken to Beauheu. A claustro noviter hie translatns erat ; a Two such were found in 1867. Abbas Edvinus et Sulcardus ccenobita ; 6 r}i anrl ^ ny on Sulcardus major est.-Deus assit eis. , Cleanings, p. dj. 7 Vet. Man. vi. 4, 2o. From these lines it may be inferred 8 The mathematical proportions are that Ethelgoda's was less than Hu- strictly observed. The tiles on the golin's and Edwin's than Sulcard's, floor are of the most elaborate pat- and that Hugolin's had had its head terns ; one is a miniature of the broken. original rose window of the South 3 For the removal of Sebert 's sup- Transept. (G. G. Scott.) posed remains from the Chapter House 9 Cartulary. B B 2 372 THE ABBEY BEFOEE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. century. It has three peculiarities, each shared by only one its pecu- other building of the kind in England. It is, except iiarities. Lincoln, the largest Chapter House in the kingdom. It is, except Wells, the only one which has the advantage of a spacious Crypt underneath, to keep it dry and warm. It is, except Worcester, the only instance of a round or octagonal Chapter House, in the place of the rectangular or longitudinal buildings usually attached to Benedictine monasteries. 1 The approach to it was unlike that of any other. The Abbey Church itself was made to disgorge, as it were, one-third of its Southern Transept to form the Eastern Cloister, by which it is reached from the Chancel. Over its entrance, from a mass of sculpture, gilding, and painting, the Virgin Mother looked down, both within and without ; 2 and there was also, significant of the purposes of the edifice, 3 a picture of the Last Judgment. The vast windows, doubtless, were filled with stained-glass. 4 Its walls were painted in the reign of Edward IV. by a conventual artist, Brother John of Northampton, with a series of rude frescoes from the Apocalypse, commencing with four scenes from the legendary life of St. John, 5 and ending with a large group of figures, of which it is difficult to decipher the design. At the eastern end were five stalls, occupied by the Abbot, the three Priors, and the Subprior, more richly decorated, and of an earlier date. The original purposes of the Chapter House were quaintly defined by Abbot Ware immediately after its erection. ' It its monastic ' * s ^ ne Little House, in which the Convent meets to purposes. < consult for its welfare. It is well called the Capitu- ' lum (Chapter House), because it is the caput litium (the head ' of strifes), for there strifes are ended. It is the workshop of ' the Holy Spirit, in which the sons of God are gathered ' together. It is the house of confession, the house of obe- ' dience, mercy, and forgiveness, the house of unity, peace, and ' tranquillity, where the brethren make satisfaction for their ' faults.' 6 These uses seem to be indicated in the scrolls on the Angels' wings above the Abbot's stall, on which are written 1 All the other octagonal Chapter for the canvas to fill up the empty Houses are attached to cathedrals. windows (1253). (Gent. Mag. 1866, pt. i. p. 4.) s Cartulary. This date . confirms * Ware, pp. 283, 419. the previous conjecture of Sir Charles s See Cartulary. Eastlake (History of Oil Painting, 4 The exact date of the progress of p. 180). the building is given hy the accounts * Ware, p. 311. CHAP. v. THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 373 confessio, satisfactio, munditia carnis, puritas mentis, and the other virtues arranged beneath. To this, at least once a week, the whole Convent came in procession. They marched in double file through the vestibule, capitu'ar ^ which the floor still bears traces of their feet. They meetings, bowed, on their entrance, to the Great Crucifix, which rose, probably, immediately before them over the stalls at the east end, where the Abbot and his four chief officers were en- throned. When they were all seated on the stone seats round, perfect freedom of speech was allowed. Now was the opportunity for making any complaints, and for confessing faults. A story was long remembered of the mistake made by a foolish Prior in Abbot Papillon's time, who confessed out of his proper turn. 1 The warning of the great Benedictine oracle, Anselm, against the slightest violation of rules, was emphatically repeated. 2 No signals were to be made across the building. 3 The guilty parties were to acknowledge their faults at the step before the Abbot's Stall. Here, too, was the scene of judgment and punish- ment. The details are such as recall a rough school rather than a grave ecclesiastical community. The younger monks were flogged elsewhere. 4 But the others, stripped 5 wholly or from the waist upwards, or in their shirts girt close round them, were scourged in public here, with rods of single or double thick- ness, by the ' mature brothers,' who formed the Council of the Abbot (but always excluding the accuser from the office), the criminal himself sitting on a three-legged bench probably before the central pillar, which was used as a judgment-seat or whipping-post. 6 If flogging was deemed insufficient, the only further punishment was expulsion. The terrors of immurement or torture seem unknown. In this stately building the chief ceremonials of the Abbey were arranged, as they are now in the Jerusalem Chamber. Here were fixed the preliminary services of the anniversaries of Henry VII. ; and the Chantry monks, and the scholars to be sent at his cost to the universities, were appointed. 7 It has been well observed, 8 that the Chapter House is an 1 Ware, p. 316. Matt. Paris, p. 848 ; Piers Plowman, - Ibid. pp. 318, 331. 2819 ; Ware. 3 Ibid. p. 321. 7 Malcolm, p. 222. 4 Ibid. pp. 348, 366, 383. 8 Fergusson's Handbook of Archi- 5 Ibid. p. 380. lecture, ii. 53. 6 Fosbroke's Monacliism, p. 222; 374 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. edifice and an institution almost exclusively English. In the original Basilica the Apse \vas the assembly-place, where the Bishop sate in the centre of his clergy, and regulated ecclesi- cnamberof astical affairs. Such an arrangement was well suited commons, for the delivery of a pastoral address, and for the rule of a despotic hierarchy, as in the churches of the Continent ; but it was not in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon idea of a deliberative assembly, which should discuss every question as a necessary preliminary to its being promulgated as a law. It was therefore by a natural sequence of thought that the Council Chamber of the Abbey of Westminster became the Parliament House of the English nation, the cradle of representative and constitutional government, of Parliament, Legislative Chambers, and Congress, throughout the world. At the very time when Henry III. was building the Abbey nay, in part as the direct consequence of the means which he took to build it a new institution was called into existence, which first was harboured within the adjoining Palace, and then rapidly became too large for the Palace to contain. As the building of the new St. Peter's at Rome, by the indulgences Rise of the issued to provide for its erection, produced the Re- commons, formation, so the building of this new St. Peter's at Westminster, by the enormous sums which the King exacted from his subjects, to gratify his artistic or his devotional sentiment, produced the House of Commons. And the House of Commons found its first independent home in the ' incom- ' parable ' Chapter House of Westminster. Whatever may be the value of Wren's statement, that ' the Abbot lent it to the ' King for the use of the Commons, on condition that the Crown ' should repair it,' l there can be no question that, from the time separate of the separation of the Commons from the Lords, the House of it became their habitual meeting-place. 2 The exact Commons, 1282. moment of the separation cannot perhaps be ascer- tained. In the first instance, the two Houses met in West- minster Hall. But they parted as early as the eleventh year of Edward I. 3 From that time the Lords met in the Painted Chamber in the Palace ; the Commons, whenever they sate in 1 Elmes's Life of Wren, Appendix, made over by the Crown in exchange P- 110- for the Chapter House. But there 2 It is conjectured by Carter (Ancient is no sufficient ground for this supposi- Sculptures, p. 75) that the Jerusalem tion. Chamber of the Abbot was the Antioch 3 Hallam's Middle Ayes, iii. 54. Chamber of Henry III. (p. 417), and CHAP. v. THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 375 London, within the precincts of the Abbey. Such secular as- semblies had already assembled under its shadow, though not commons of ve t within the Chapter House. We find the Commons JhSstew, <> f London in the Cloister churchyard in 1263. 1 The vast oblong of the Eefectory naturally lent itself to large gatherings of this kind. There, in a chamber only inferior councils of i n beauty and size to Westminster Hall, Henry III. Story! 16 held a 8 reat Council of State in 1244. 2 There, in an assembly, partly of laity, partly of clergy, 3 Edward I. 1294 : insisted on a subsidy of a half of their possessions. The consternation had been so great, that the Dean of St. Paul's had, in his endeavour to remonstrate, dropped down dead at King Edward's feet. But ' the King passed over this event ' with indifferent eyes,' and persisted the more vehemently in his demands. ' The consequence was that, . . . after eating * sour grapes, at last, when they were assembled in the Eefec- ' tory of the monks of Westminster, a knight, John Havering ' by name, rose up and said, " My venerable men, this is the ' " demand of the King the annual half of the revenues of ' " your chamber. And if any one objects to this, let him rise ' " up in the middle of this assembly, that his person may ' " be recognised and taken note of, as he is guilty of treason '"against the King's peace." 1 There was silence at once. 'When they heard this, all the prelates were dispirited, and ' immediately agreed to the King's demands.' 4 In the Eefec- tory, accordingly, the Commons were convened, under Edward II., when they impeached Piers Gaveston ; and also on several occasions during the reigns of Eichard II., Henry IV., and Henry V. 5 But their usual resort was ' in their ancient place usua'iy in ' the House of the Chapter in the Great Cloister of the Hou^ apter ' Abbey of Westminster.' 6 On one occasion a Parlia- ment was summoned there, in 1256, even before the birth of March 26, the House of Commons, to grant a subsidy for Sicily. 7 It is from the reign of Edward III., however, that these meetings of the Commons were fixed within its walls. 1 Liber de Antiq. Legibus, p. 19. ibid. iv. 34 ; 3 Henry V. ibid. 70. - Matt. Paris, 639. ' 6 25 Edward III. Parl. Rolls, ii. 3 Chiefly the Clergy, and, therefore, 237 ; 50 Edward III. ibid. 322, 327 ; perhaps the Convocations, September 51 Edward III. ibid. 363 ; 1 Eichard II. 21, 1294. (Parry's Parliaments, p. 56.) ibid. iii. 5 ; 2 Richard II. ibid. 33 ; 4 Matthew of Westminster, 1294. 8 Richard II. ibid. 185. Coke's In- 5 18 Richard II. Parliament Bolls, stitutes, iv. 1. ii. 329 ; 20 Richard II. ibid. iii. 338 ; 7 Ann. Burt. 386 ; Hody, 346. 5 Henry IV. ibid. 523 ; 2 Henry V. (Parry, 37.) 376 THE ABBEY BEFOKE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. With this coincides the date of those curious decorations which in that age seemed specially appropriate. ' Piers Plowman's ' * vision of a Chapter House was as of a great church, carven and covered, and quaintly entailed, with seemly ceilings set aloft, as a Parliament House painted about. The Seraphs that adorn the chief stalls, the long series of Apocalyptic pictures which were added to the lesser stalls, were evidently thought the fitting accompaniments of the great Council Chamber. The Speaker, 2 no doubt, took his place in the Abbot's Stall facing the entrance. The burgesses and knights who came up reluc- tantly from the country, to the unwelcome charge of their public business, must have sate round the building those who had the best seats, in the eighty stalls of the monks, the others arranged as best they could. To the central pillar were attached placards, libellous or otherwise, to attract the attention of the members. 3 The Acts of Parliament which the Chapter House witnessed derive a double significance from the locality. A doubtful tradition 4 records that the monks of Westminster com- plained of the disturbance of their devotions by the noise and tumult of the adjoining Parliament. Unquestionably there is a strange irony, if indeed it be not rather a profounder wisdom, in the thought that within this consecrated precinct were passed those memorable statutes which restrained the power of that very body under whose shelter they Statute Cir- r * cumspecte were discussed. Here the Commons must have as- Agatis, 1285. statute of sented to the dry humour of the statute Circumspecte Provisions, 1350. Agatis, which, whilst it appears to grant the lesser prsemunire, privileges of the clergy, virtually withholds the larger. 5 Here also were enacted the Statutes of Provisions and of Praemunire, 6 which, as Fuller says, first ' pared the Pope's ' nails to the quick, and then cut off his fingers.' These ancient walls heard ' the Commons aforesaid say the things so at- ' tempted be clearly against the King's crown and regality, used ' and approved of the time of all his progenitors, and declare that 1 Piers Plowman's Creed, 1. 396, &c. have never been able to verify it. - The first authentic Speaker, Peter 5 ' Acknowledged as a statute, though de la Mare, was elected in 1377. ' not drawn in the form of one.' Hal- 3 See the libel, of which two copies lam's Middle Ages, ii. 317 ; Fuller's were so affixed, against Alexander Church History, A.D. 1285. Nevile, Archbishop of York in the 6 Hallam's Middle Ages, ii. 339, time of Richard II. (Arch. xvi. 80.) 356 ; Fuller's Church History, A.U. 4 It is mentioned in Montalembert's 1350; Statutes, 25 Edward III. c. 6, Moines de V Occident, iv. 432 ; but I 16 Richard II. c. 5. CHAP. v. THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 377 ' they and all the liege Commons of the same realm will stand ' with our Lord the King and his said crown and his regality ' in the cases aforesaid, and in all other cases attempted ' against him, his crown, and his regality, in all points to live and convention ' to die.' Here also was convened the Assembly, half of Henry V., * U2i. '' secular and half ecclesiastical, when Henry V. sum- moned the chief Benedictine ecclesiastics to consider the abuses of their order, consequent on the number of young Abbots who had lately succeeded, after an unusual mortality amongst their elders. The King himself was present, with his four councillors. He entered humbly enough (satis humiliter), and with a low bow to the assembly sate down, doubtless in the Abbot's Chair, and heard a discourse on the subject by Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter. Sixty Abbots and Priors were there, seated, we may suppose, in the stalls, and more than 300 monks in the body of the house. The King then recommended the needful reforms, and assured them of his protection. 1 Here, in order to woisey's be out of the reach of the jurisdiction of his brother court, 1527. Primate, Wolsey, as Cardinal Legate, held his Lega- tine Court, and with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prelates sate in judgment on Thomas Bilney and Dr. Barnes, both of them afterwards 2 burnt for their Protestant opinions. Tonstal, Bishop of London, sate as his commissary, and received there a humble recantation by a London priest, of the heretical The Acts of practices 'of Martin Luther and his sect.' 3 Here, at'ion. 6 ' finally, were enacted the scenes in which, during the first epoch of the Reformation, the House of Commons took so prominent a part by pressing forward those Church of England statutes which laid the ' foundations of the new State,' which ' found England in dependency upon a foreign power, and ' left it a free nation ; ' which gave the voice of the nation for the first time its free expression in the councils of the Church. 4 "Within the Chapter House must thus have been passed the first Clergy Discipline Act, the first Clergy Residence Act, and The Act of chief f a ll> the Act of Supremacy and the Act of submission. Submission. Here, to acquiesce in that Act, as we shall see, met the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. 5 1 Walsingham, p. 337; Tyler, ii. 3 Strype's Ecc. Mem. i. 109. See 67 ; Harleian MS., No. 6064. (Mai- Chapter VI. colm's Londinium, p. 230.) 4 Froude, ii. 455, 456. 2 Foxe's Acts and Monuments, iv. * Wake's State of the Church, App. p. 622. pp. 219, 220. See Chapter VI. 378 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Beneath that vaulted roof and before that central pillar must The Act of nave been placed the famous Black Book, which sealed suppression, ^he fate of all the monasteries of England, including the Abbey of Westminster close by, and which struck such a thrill of horror through the House of Commons when they heard its contents. 1 The last time that the Commons sate in the building was on the last day of the life of Henry VIII. The last Act passed was the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk ; and they must have been sitting here when the news reached them that the King had died that morning, and while those preparations for the coronation of Prince Edward whom King Henry had designed should be crowned before his own death, in order to secure his succession were going on in the Abbey, which were summarily broken off when the news came that the King himself was dead. 2 In the year 1540, when the Abbey was dissolved, the Chapter House became, what it has ever since continued to Transfer be, absolutely public and national property. It is capitular uncertain where the Dean and Chapter, who then succeeded, held their first meetings. But they never could have entered the Ancient Chapter House by House of 6 right in the performance of any portion of their Stephen's duties ; and the Jerusalem Chamber, for all practical purposes, soon became ' our Chapter House.' 3 In 1547, in the first year of Edward VI., the Commons moved to the Chapel of St. Stephen, 4 in the Palace of Westminster. This 1 Froude, iv. 520. ' tomed place.' The clause in all leases, 2 See Chapter II. p. 67. as far back as can be traced, and to the * The date of the earliest Chapter present day, is, ' Given in the Chapter Order Book is 1642. The Chapters ' House of the Dean and Chapter at are there said to be held, and the Deans ' Westminster.' to be installed, 'in the Chapter House,' 4 The Chapel of St. Stephen was as Cox was in 1549. It was in 1555 founded by King Stephen. It was that the Jerusalem Chamber was first rebuilt by Edward III., as a thank- used as a Chapter House. In the inter- offering after his victories, on a yet val between 1540 and 1555 it was more splendid scale than St. George's treated as a separate habitation, 'the at Windsor. Its Canons gave their ' house in the which Mother Jone name to Canon Row, sometimes also ' doth dwell.' (Walcott's Inventory, called St. Stephen's Alley. Between p. 47.) There is no express indication this collegiate body and that of the of any change till 1637, when it is said, Abbey long disputes of jurisdiction a ' Chapter was holden, in the usual raged, till they were finally settled ' place of meeting, for the Collegiate in Abbot Esteney's time, as recorded ' Church of St. Peter in Westminster ; ' with much curious detail in his Niger on December 13, 1638, ' a Chapter is Quartenar. p. 118. After the Dissolu- ' holden in Hierusalem Chamber ; ' in tion it became the property of the February 16, 1638-39, ' at the accus- Crown (by 2 Edward VI. c. 14), and was CHAP. v. THE CHAPTER HOUSE. 379 splendid edifice had become vacant in consequence of the suppression of the collegiate Chapter of St. Stephen, which occu- pied the same position in regard to Westminster that the Chapel of St. George occupied to Windsor. From this period we enter on the third stage of the history of the Chapter House, 1 when the Government appropriated it to the preservation of the Public Eecords. These records were afterwards still further augmented at the close of the seventeenth century. Down to The chapter that time many of the documents were kept in the asa Record Pyx Chapel ; but ' about the year 1697 one of the i863. e> ' Prebendaries of Westminster having built a copper ' for boiling, just under one of the windows of the Treasury, ' such a dampness was thereby occasioned as very much injured ' the Eecords, which occasioned the removal of them into the ' Chapter House.' 2 And again, an alarming fire, which in 1731 broke out in the Cloisters, occasioned the removal of whatever documents had been left in the Chapel of the Pyx, for safety, into the Chapter House ; 3 and in order to fit the building for this purpose an upper storey was proposed. Sir Christopher Wren had in 1705 protested and ' absolutely refused to build ' any gallery for such use ; ' but now it was carried out, for in 1740 the groined roof was taken down as ruinous. 4 There was a constant and ineffectual complaint maintained by the House of Commons against the ' eternal brewhouse and the eternal ' washhouse ' of the Chapter, as endangering the safety of the records. It began in 1732, and lasted till 1832, and was the subject of a comical speech by Charles Buller. But even this period is not without interest in itself, and invests the Chapter House with another series of delightful historical associations. The unsightly galleries, which long obstructed it, once contained the Domesday Book and other like treasures of English History. Here was nourished the glory of three names for ever dear to English archaeology- Arthur Agarde, Thomas Eymer, and Francis Palgrave. 5 granted for other purposes, probably Treasury). This lease expired on from the ruin into which Westminster Michaelmas Day 1840. Since that Palace had then recently fallen from time the Office of Works has paid a rent re . of 10 : 1 : 4 to the Dean and Chapter. 1 The only connection of the Chapter - Extract from note in pocketbook with the Chapter House was retained of Dr. G. Harbin, librarian at Longleat, in two adjoining offices. These were 1710. erected by the Government on ground 3 Palgrave's Calendars, vol. i. pp. belonging to the Dean and Chapter, cxxv.-cxxix. See Chapter VI. who granted a lease for forty years, 4 Felix Summerly 's Handbook of from Michaelmas 1800, to W. Chinnery, Westminster Abbey, 43. Esq. (as nominee on behalf of the * Blog. Brit. i. 66, 347 ; xiv. 164. 3SO THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION, 'CUAP. v. Arthur Agarde was ' a man known to Selden to be most ' painful, industrious, and sufficient in things of this nature,' and to Camden as ' antiquarius insignia' He was one of the Arthur original members of the Society of Antiquaries, and burie'iAu there laboured in company with Archbishop Parker, 24, i6i5. gj r Robert Cotton (who became his intimate friend), two whom he must often have met in the Cloisters, Lancelot Andrewes as Dean, and Camden as Headmaster of Westminster School. Here he toiled over the Domesday Book and the Antiquities of the Parliament which had assembled in the scene of his labours. Here he composed the ' Compendium ' of the Eecords hi the adjacent Treasury, where some of the chests still remain inscribed as he left them ; and here, in the Cloisters, by the door of the Chapter House, he caused the monument to himself and his wife to be erected before his death, in 1615, in his seventy-fifth year ' Eecordorum Eegi- ' orum hie prope depositorum diligens scrutator.' Thomas Eymer, the historiographer of King William III., was a constant pilgrim to the Chapter House for the compilation Thomas of his valuable work on the Treaties of England. So Rhymer, di( a care u jjy c i ose( j ^ as the Eecord Office itself, that he had to sit outside in the vestibule ; and there, day after day, out of the papers and parchments that were doled out to him, formed the solid folios of ' Eymer' s Fcedera.' l Sir Francis Palgrave who can forget the delight of ex- ploring under his guidance the treasures of which he was the Francis honoured guardian ? So dearly did he value the con- die'f i86i'. nection which, through the Keepership of the Eecords, he had established with this venerable edifice, that, lest he should seem to have severed the last link, he insisted, even after the removal of the Eecords, on the replacement of the direction outside the door, which there remained long after his death ' All letters and parcels addressed to Sir F. Palgrave are to be ' sent to Eolls Court, Chancery Lane.' On the night of the fire which consumed the Houses of Parliament in 1834, - when thousands were gathered below, watching the progress of the flames, when the waning affection for our ancient national monuments seemed to be revived in that crisis of their fate, when, as the conflagration was driven by the wind towards Westminster Hall, the innumerable faces 1 Mr. Burtt, in the Gentleman' 1 s Hatherley, who witnessed it from be- Magazine, October 1859, pp. 336-343. low ; and partly to Sir Francis Palgrave * I owe this story partly to Lord himself. THE CHAPTER HOUSE AS RESTORED BY SIR GILBERT SCOTT. 382 THE ABBEY BEFOEE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. of that vast multitude, lighted up in the broad glare with more than the light of day, were visibly swayed by the agitation of the devouring breeze, and one voice, one prayer seemed to go up from every upturned countenance, ' save the Hall ! ' on that night two small figures might have been seen standing on the roof of the Chapter House overlooking the terrific blaze, parted from them only by the narrow space of Old Palace Yard. One was the Keeper of the Eecords, the other was Dean Ireland. They had climbed up through the hole in the roof to witness the awful scene. Suddenly a gust of wind swept the flames in that direction. Palgrave, with all the enthusiasm of the antiquarian and of his own eager temperament, turned to the Dean, and suggested that they should descend into the Chapter House and carry off its most valued treasures into the Abbey for safety. Dean Ireland, with the caution belonging at once to his office and his character, answered that he could not think of doing so without applying to Lord Melbourne, the First Lord of the Treasury. It was a true, though grotesque, expression of the actual facts of the case. The Government were the masters of the Chapter The Resto House. On them thus devolved the duty of its preser- c*iater f the va tio n > when, after its various vicissitudes, it once House, 1865. m ore became vacant by the removal of the Eecords to the Eolls House. Then, in 1865, in the eight hundredth anni- versary of its own foundation, in the six hundredth anniversary of the House of Commons, which it had so long sheltered, a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries was held within its dis- figured and deserted walls, to urge the duty of restoring it to its pristine beauty. Under the auspices of Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Cowper, First Commis- sioner of Works, the adequate sum was granted by Parliament, and the venerable building has become one of the most splendid trophies of the archaeological and architectural triumphs of the Nineteenth Century. Its stained windows will represent the scenes which have interwoven English history with the Abbey. Its tables contain the various local illustrations of Westminster. Not far from the Chapter House and Treasury, and curiously following their fortunes, is an ancient square ' Tower,' which The jewel mav once nave served the purpose of a monastic House. prison, but which was sold to the Crown in the last year of Edward III. 1 It bears in its architecture the marks of ' Widmore, 174, 231. CHAP. v. THE PARLIAMENT OFFICE. 383 the great builder of that time Abbot Littlington. 1 For many The Pariia- y ears ^ was the King's Jewel House. It then became ment office. < the Parliament office,' that is, the depository of the Acts of Parliament, which had been passed either in the adja- cent Chapter House or in the Chapel of St. Stephen. In 1864 2 they were transferred to the far grander Tower, bearing the name of Queen Victoria, and exhibiting the same enlarged proportions to the humble Tower of the Plantagenets, that the Empire of our gracious Sovereign bears to their diminutive kingdom. But the gray fortress still remains, and with the Treasury and the Chapter House forms the triple link of the English State and Church with the venerable past. Comparing the concentration of English historical edifices at Westminster with those at Rome under the Capitol, as the Temple of Saturn finds its likeness in the Treasury, and the Temple of Concord (where the Senate assembled) in the Chapter House and Eefectory, so the massive walls of the Tabularium, where the decrees of the Senate were carefully guarded, correspond to the Square Tower of the Parliament office, overlooking the garden of the Precincts from which it has long been parted. From the Jewel House, across the end of the Garden, was a pathway to the stream which flowed into the Thames used chiefly for processions on Rogation days and other like holidays over a piece of ground which belonged to the Prior, but which was left as a kind of waste plot, from its exposure to the floods both of stream and river. This corner of the Precincts was the scene of a curious story, which was, no doubt, often The An- tolc ^ m tne Cloister and Eefectory. Not far from the chorite. Jewel House was the cell of the hermit who 3 formed an adjunct of the monastic community and was, in succes- sive generations, consulted by Henry III., Richard II., and Henry V. Its occupant, at the close of the fourteenth century, was buried in a leaden coffin, in a small adjacent chapel. A ushbome certain William Ushborne, keeper of the adjacent fishpond. Palace, suborned a plumber of the convent to dig up the sacred bones, which he tossed into the well in the centre 1 For the architectural description Uniformity, and had lain hid in some of it, see Gleanings, p. 226. It is now obscure corner of the Parliament used as the depository of the standards Office. It was in 1864 deposited in the of weights and measures, in connection Chief Clerk's Office in the House of with the Trial of the Pyx. Lords, where it was found in 1867. 2 By this removal was recovered the 3 Lestrange, in Norfolk Archceo- long-lost Prayer-book of 1662, which logical Journal. had been detached from the Act of 384 THE ABBEY BEFOKE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. of the cloister-cemetery, and had the leaden coffin conveyed by its iron clasps to his office. The sacrilege was first visited on the poor plumber, who was seized with a sudden faintness and died in Ushborne's house. This, however, was but the begin- ning of Ushborne's crimes. He afterwards contrived to appro- priate the waste marsh just described, which he turned into a garden, with a pond to preserve his own fresh fish. On a certain fast day, the Vigil of St. Peter ad Vincula, the day before the great conventual feast on the fat bucks of Windsor he invited his Westminster neighbours to a supper. Out of the pond he had fished a large pike. He himself began upon it, and after two or three mouthfuls he screamed out, ' Look 1 look here is come a fellow who is going to choke me ; ' and thus caught, ' without the viaticum,' by the very fish which had been the cause of his sacrilege, he died on the spot and was buried in the Choir of St. Margaret's. It was a matter of unfeigned satisfaction that his successor, though bearing the same ill-omened name of William, was a highly respectable man, ' good and simple,' who made many benefactions to the Abbey, and was buried just within the Church, by the basin for holy water at the Cloister door. 1 There was also a succession of female anchorites (' my Lady Anchoress '), who were the laun- dresses of the sacred vestments. Leaving these haunted spots, we return to the Garden, which had been thus invaded and avenged. The prior's portion of it was remarkable as having been planted with damson The Garden trees. 2 But the larger part of it, now the College infirmary. Garden, was the pleasure-ground of the Infirmary, corresponding to what at Canterbury is now called ' The Oaks,' The in- i n wn i cn the sick monks took exercise. The Infir- nrmary. mary itself, which has almost totally disappeared, was almost a second monastery. The fragments of its Xorman arches show that it belonged to the original establishment of the Confessor. Hither came the processions of the Convent to see the sick brethren ; 3 and were greeted by a blazing fire in the Hall, and long rows of candles in the Chapel. 4 Here, although not only here, were conducted the constant bleedings of the monks. 5 Here, in the Chapel, the young monks wriv privately whipped. Here the invalids were soothed by music. 6 1 Cartulary. < Ibid. pp. 264, 265. 2 Ibid. * Ibid. pp. 425, 438, 440, 444. 1 Ware, pp. 479, 483. Ibid. p. 475. THE INFIRMARY. 385 Here also lived the seven ' play-fellows ' l (sympectce), the name given to the elder monks, who, after they had passed fifty years in the monastic profession, were exempted from all the ordi- nary regulations, were never told anything unpleasant, and themselves took the liberty of examining and censuring every- thing. 2 A few arcades and pillars mark the position of the ancient Hall and Chapel of the Infirmary, which here, as elsewhere, has been absorbed into the modern capitular buildings. The Chapel, of which the proportions can be imagined from the vast remains of the corresponding edifice at Canterbury, was dedicated to St. Catherine. This, rather than the Abbey Church itself, was used for such general ecclesiastical solem- nities as took place in the Precincts. Of the thirty- eight 3 episcopal consecrations described before the Keformation as performed in ' Westminster,' where any special locality is desig- nated, we usually find the Chapel of St. Catherine. Fifteen 4 certainly, probably more, were there consecrated. One, William de Blois, was consecrated to Lincoln, before the High Altar, in 1203. Abbot Milling was consecrated to Hereford in the 1 Ware, p. 343. 2 The Chronicle so called of Ingulph, A.D. 974 ; Ducange (voce Sempecta) ; Fosbroke's Monachism, 265. 3 For the accurate statement of these consecrations I am indebted to Profes- sor Stubbs. Those which are recorded as taking place in ' Westminster,' but without the specification of particular localities, are of Bernard, Bishop of St. David's, in 1115 ; David of Bangor in 1120, Robert Chichester of Exeter in 1138, Eoger of Pontevyne in 1154, Adam of St. Asaph in 1175, Henslow, William de Blois of Worcester in 1218, John Fountain of Ely in 1220, Geoffrey de Burgh of Ely in 1225, Albert of Ar- magh in 1248, Louis de Beaumont of Durham in 1318, Alexander Neville of York in 1374, Walter Skirlow of Lichfield in 1386, Alexander Bache of St. Asaph in 1390. It is natural to suppose that these were consecrated within the precincts of the Abbey, and, if so, probably in St. Catherine's Chapel. But the specification of the Palaces of the Bishops of Carlisle, Durham, and York, and of the Chapel of St. Stephen for the remaining eleven, between 1327 and 1535, makes it doubtful whether some of the earlier ones may not also have taken place in private chapels. Becket's election to the pri- macy, 1162, was recited and confirmed by Henry de Blois in the Refectory. (Diceto, 533.) Baldwin (1184) was elected by the royal party against the Canterbury monks, in a tumultuous, meeting in the Chapter House of Westminster. In order to forestall their adversaries, they rushed at once with a Te Deum to the Abbey, kissed Baldwin before the altar, and returned him to the king as elected. (Benedict, 415.) 4 These were Hugh of Lincoln, afterwards canonised, and William of Worcester, in 1186 ; Hubert Fitzwalter and Herbert le Po:r of Salisbury, and Godfrey of Winchester, in 1189 and 1194 ; Robert of Bangor in 1197, Eustace of Ely in 1198, William of London in 1199, Geoffrey Hennelaw of St. David's in 1203, John Gray of Norwich, and Giles Braose of Here- ford in 1200, Eustace of London in 1221, William Brewer of Exeter and Ralph Neville of Chichester in 1224, Thomas Bluneville of Norwich in 1226. The use of this Chapel is illustrated by the fact that the only consecration that took place at Read- ing (of Le Poer to Chichester, June 25, 1215) was in like manner in the Infir- mary Chapel of the Abbey of Reading. C C 386 THE AEBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Lady Chapel in 1474, a few years before its destruction by Henry VII. Besides these more individual solemnities, St. Catherine's Chapel witnessed the larger part of the provincial Councils councils of Westminster. 1 More than twenty such were held of West- minster. at various times. The most remarkable were as fol- lows : In 1076 was the assembly for the deposition of Wolf- underLan- stan, already described. In 1102 Anselm held the mixed council of lords spiritual and temporal, to issue 1102.' canons against simony, against marriage of the clergy, against the long Saxon hair of laymen, against untrained clergy, against archdeacons who were not deacons, as well as other graver offences. Here these same denunciations were con- 1124. tinned in three councils held at Westminster shortly lisa. after, under Cardinal John of Crema, Williams Arch- 1127. bishop of Canterbury, and Albric of Ostia, all legates. 2 Here, four years after the murder of Becket, in the presence straggle f Walter Humez, for the first time wearing the full primttes, insignia of mitred Abbot, took place the celebrated contest between Eichard Archbishop of Canterbury and Roger Archbishop of York, in the struggle for precedence, which on the occasion of the coronation of Henry IV.'s son had just led to that catastrophe. ' The Pope's Legate was present, * on whose right hand sate Eichard of Canterbury, as in his * proper place ; when in springs Eoger of York, and, finding ' Canterbury 3 so seated, fairly sits him down on Canterbury's ' lap a baby too big to be danced thereon ; yea, Canterbury's ' servants dandled this large child with a witness, who plucked ' him from thence, and buffeted him to purpose.' 4 Eichard claimed the right side as belonging to his see Eoger as be- longing to his prior consecration. In the scuffle, the northern primate was seized, as he alleged, by the Bishop of Ely, thrown on his face, trampled down, beat with fists and sticks, and severely bruised. He rose, with his cope torn, 5 and rushed 1 The twenty -four Councils of West- - For the strange stories of John of minster are given in Moroni's Dizio- Crema, see Fuller's Church History, nario delta Erudizione (' Westminster ') A.D. 1102 ; Eadmer, iii. 67 ; Florence from 1066 to 1413. Professor Stubbs of Worcester. See the authorities in has called my attention to the opinion Robertson's History of the Church, iii. of Mr. Kemble, that Cloveshoe, the 234. scene of the Saxon Council in 747, was Gervase, 1433. ' at Westminster.' But he has shown 4 Fuller's Church History, A.D. 1176. that the inference is mistaken, and * Brompton, 1109. The decrees of that the ' Westminster ' in question was the council are given in Benedict, i. probably Westbury in Worcestershire. 97-107. CHAP. v. COUNCILS OF WESTMINSTER. 387 into the Abbey, where he found the King and denounced to him the two prelates of Canterbury and Ely. At last the feud was reconciled, on the Bishop of Ely's positive denial of the outrage, and the two Primates were bound by the King to keep the peace for five years. It led to the final settlement of the question, as it has remained ever since, by a Papal edict, giving to one the title of the Primate of All England, to the other of the Primate of England. 1 At another council, held apparently in the Precincts, the less important prece- dence between the bishops of London and Winchester was settled, London taking the right, and Winchester the left of the legate. 2 Here, in the presence of Archbishop (after- wards Saint) Edmund, Henry III., with the Gospel in one hand and a lighted taper in the other, swore to observe the Excommuni- Magna Charta. The Archbishop and Prelates, and transgressors the King himself, dashed their candles on the ground, Charta, ws. whilst each dignitary closed his nostrils and his eyes against the smoke and smell, with the words, ' So go out, ' with smoke and stench, the accursed souls of those who ' bieak or pervert the Charter.' To which all replied, 'Amen ' and Amen ; but none more frequently or loudly than the ' King.' 3 Yet ' he took not away the High Places,' exclaims the honest chronicler, ' and again and again he collected and ' spent his money, till, oh shame ! his folly by constant repeti- ' tion came to be taken as a matter of course.' Per- 1290 haps of all the councils which the Precincts witnessed (the exact spot is not mentioned) the most important was that which sanctioned the expulsion of the Jew ? s from England. 4 We have now traversed the monastic Precincts. We would fain have traced in them, as in the Abbey itself, the course of English history. But it has not been possible. Isolated incidents of general interest are interwoven with the growth Growth of f *^ e Convent, but nothing more, unless it be the English. gradual rise of the English character and language. It was at first strictly a Norman institution. As a general rule, 1 So in France the Archbishop of in the Roman Catholic Church even Lyons was styled by the Pope ' Pri- the See of Rome has not ventured to ' mate of Gaul,' and the Archbishop of decide between the two rivals. (Fitz- Vienne ' Primate of Primates.' A like patrick's Doyle, ii. 76.) rivalry existed in the Irish Church, 2 Diceto, 656. Another was held in between the Archbishop of Armagh 1200. (Ibid. 707.) and the Archbishop of Dublin. In 3 Matt. Paris, p. 742. Grossetete, the Protestant Church the question Letters, 72, p. 236, ed. Luard. has long been determined in favour of 4 Hardouin's Concilia, A.D. 1290. ' the Lord Primate of Armagh.' But Pauli, iv. 53. c c 2 388 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. English was never to be spoken in common conversation nor even Latin nothing but French. And the double defeat of the Saxons, first from the Danes at Assenden, and then from the Normans at Hastings, was carefully commemorated. But still the tradition of the English Saxon home of St. Edward lingered. It is expressly noted that the ancient Saxon prac- tice of raising the cup from the table with both hands, which had prevailed before the Norman Conquest, still continued at the monastic suppers. One of the earliest specimens of the English language is the form of vow, which is permitted to those who cannot speak French, ' Hie frere N. hys hole sted- ' fastness and chaste lyf, at fore God and alle hys halewen, ' and pat hie sallen bonsum l liven withouten properte all my * lyf tyme.' Neither can we arrive at any certain knowledge of their obedience or disobedience to the rules of their order. Only now and then, through edicts of kings 2 and abbots, we discern the difficulty of restraining the monks from galloping over the country away from conventual restraint, or, hi the popular legends, engaged in brawls with a traditionary giantess and virago of the place in Henry VIII. 's reign Long Meg of Westminster. 3 "We ask in vain for the peculiarities of the several Chapels which sprang up round the Shrine, or for the general appear- speciai ance f ^e worsn ip- The faint allusions in Abbot devotions. Ware's rules reveal here and there the gleam of a lamp burning at this or that altar, or at the tomb of Henry III., and of the two Saxon Queens, or in the four corners of the Cloisters or in the Chapter House. We see at certain times the choir hung with ivy, rushes, and mint. We detect at night the watchers, with lights by their sides, sleeping in the Church. 4 A lofty Crucifix met the eyes of those who entered through the North Transept ; another rose above the High Altar ; 5 another, deeply venerated, in the Chapel of St. Paul. We catch indications of altars of St. Thomas of Canterbury, of St. Helena, of the Holy Trinity, and of the Holy Cross, of 1 This is a translation of the French As long as a crane, a ki je serai obedient.' Ware, c. 26. And feet like a flame >' e / c :. . 7fl . * Archives. (v111 ' m > 3 Tract on Long Meg of Westminster, She is introduced as a character on the in Miscellanea, Antiqua Anglicana. stage in that masque with Skelton. See Ben Jonson's Fortunate Isles : 4 Ware. Or Westminster Meg, * Chapter IV. and Islip Roll. With her long leg, CHAP. v. ITS SPECIAL DEVOTIONS. 389 which the very memory has perished. The altar of St. Faith l stood in the Eevestry ; the chapel and altar of St. Blaize in the South Transept. The relics 2 given by Henry III. and Edward I. have been already mentioned ; the Phial of the Sacred Blood, the Girdle of the Virgin, the tooth of St. Athanasius, the head of St. Benedict. And we have seen their removal 3 from place to place, as the royal tombs encroached upon them ; how they occupied first the place of honour eastward of the Confessor's shrine ; then, in order to make way for Henry V.'s chantry, were transported to the space between the shrine and the tomb of Henry III., whence they were again dislodged, or threatened to be dislodged, by the intended tomb of Henry VI. A spot of peculiar sanctity existed from the times of the first Norman kings, which per- haps can still be identified on the south-eastern side of the Grave of Abbey. Egelric, Bishop of Durham in the time of the E^Giric ion ' Confessor, was a characteristic victim of the vicissi- tudes of that troubled period. Elevated from the monastery of Peterborough, in 1041, to the see of York, he was driven from his newly-acquired dignity, by the ' almost natural ' jealousy of the seculars, and degraded in 1042, if such an expression may be used, to the hardly less important see of Durham. From Durham he was expelled by the same influence in 1045, and again restored by the influence of Siward of Northumberland. 4 In 1056 he resigned his see and retired to his old haunts at Peterborough. There, either from suspicion of malversation of the revenues of Durham, or of treasonable excommunica- tions at Peterborough, he was, in 1069, arrested by order of the Conqueror, and imprisoned at Westminster. He lived there for two years, during which, 'by fasting and tears, he so ' attenuated and purged away his former crimes as to acquire ' a reputation for sanctity,' and, on his death in 1072, was buried in the porch of the Chapel of St. Nicholas, 5 ordering his fetters to be buried with him, to increase his chance of a martyr's glory. This is the earliest mention of that Chapel. 1 This had already been conjectured * Occasionally they \vere lent out by by Sir Gilbert Scott from the fresco of the monks. See Appendix. a female saint with the emblems of St. 4 Simeon of Durham ; (Hist. Eccl. Faith, a book and an iron rod; and the Dur. iii. 6;) Worcester Chron. A.D. statement in Ware that the Altar of St. 1073 ; Peterborough Chron., A.D. 1072; Faith was under the charge of the Ann. Wav., A.D. 1072 ; Flor. Wig., A.D. Eevestiarius, puts it beyond doubt. 1072 ; Hugo Candidus, p. 45. (See Old London, p. 146 ; Gleanings, 5 Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont. Angl. p. 47.) iii. 2 For the whole list see Flete, c. xiv. 390 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. The grave which, seventy years after, ' was honoured by the ' vows and prayers of pilgrims,' is therefore probably under the southern wall of the Abbey; and it is an interesting thought that in the stone coffin recently found near that spot we may perhaps have seen the skeleton of the sancti- fied prisoner Egelric. The Confessor's shrine was, however, of course the chief object. But no Chaucer has told us of the pilgrimages to it, whether few or many : no record reveals to us the sentiments which animated the inmates of the Convent, or the congrega- tions who worshipped within its walls, towards the splendid edifice of which it was the centre. The Bohemian travellers in the fifteenth century record the admiration inspired by the golden sepulchre of ' St. Keuhard,' or ' St. Edward,' ' the ceiling ' more delicate and elegant than they had seen elsewhere ; ' ' the musical service lovely to hear ; ' and, above all, the unparalleled number of relics, ' so numerous that two scribes ' writing for two weeks could hardly make a catalogue of ' them.' In the close of the fifteenth century we can see the conven- tual artists 1 hard at work in beautifying the various Chapels. Their ceilings, their images, were all newly painted. An alabaster image of the Virgin was placed in the Chapel of St. Paul, and a picture of the Dedication of the Abbey. Over the tomb of Sebert were placed pictures, pro- bably those which still exist. Then was added the Apocalyptic series round the walls of the Chapter House. Then we read of a splendid new Service Book, highly decorated and illumi- nated, and presented, by subscriptions from the Abbot and eight monks. As the end draws near, there is no slackening of artistic zeal. As we have seen, no Abbot was more devoted to the work of decoration and repair than Islip, and of all the grand ceremonials of the Middle Ages in the Abbey, there is none of which we have a fuller description than that one which contains within itself all the preludes of the end. For it was when Islip was Abbot that there arrived for Wolsey the Cardinal's red hat from Eome. He ' thought it for Reception * his honour meet ' 2 that so high a iewel should not be of Wolsey's J Hat, 1515. conveyed by so simple a messenger as popular rumour had imagined, and accordingly ' caused him to be stayed by the ' way, and newly furnished in all manner of apparel, with all 1 Cartulary. Cavendish's Wolsey, 29, 30. CHAP. v. PROCESSION OF WOLSEY'S HAT. 391 ' kinds of costly silks which seemed decent for such high ambas- ' saclor.' That done, he was met at Blackheath, and escorted in pomp to London. ' There was great and speedy provision ' and preparation made in Westminster Abbey for the confir- ' mation of his high dignity . . . which was done,' says his biographer, ' in so solemn a wise as I have not seen the like ' unless it had been at the coronation of a mighty prince or ' king.' We can hardly doubt that he chose the Abbey now, as, on a subsequent occasion, for the convocation of York, in order to be in a place beyond the jurisdiction of the rival primate. What follows shows how completely he succeeded in 1515 establishing his new precedence over the older dignity, sov. is. Q n Thursday, Nov. 15, the prothonotary entered London with the Hat in his hand, attended by a splendid escort of prelates and nobles, the Bishop of Lincoln riding on his right, and the Earl of Essex on his left, ' having with them ' six horses or above, and they all well becoming, and keeping ' a good order in their proceeding.' ' The Mayor of London ' and the Aldermen on horseback in Cheapside, and the craft ' stood in the street, after their custom.' It was an arrival such as we have seen but once in our day, of a beautiful Princess coming from a foreign land to be received as a daughter of England. At the head of this procession the Hat moved on, and ' when the said Hatt was come to the Abbey of ' Westminster,' at the great north entrance, it was welcomed by the Abbot Islip, and beside him, the Abbots of St. Albans, Bury, Glastonbury, Reading, Gloucester, Winchester, Tewkes- bury, and the Prior of Coventry, 'all in pontificalibus.' By them the Hat was honourably received, and ' conveyed to the ' High Altar, where it was sett.' ' On Sunday the 18th the Cardinal, with a splendid retinue on horseback, ' knights, barons, bishops, earls, dukes, and archbishops,' came between eight and nine from his palace by Charing Cross. They dismounted at the north door, and went to the High ' Altar, where, on the south side, was ordained a goodly traverse ' for my Lord Cardinal, and when his Grace was come into it,' then, as if after waiting for a personage more than royal, ' immediately began the mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the ' Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham). The Bishop of Roehes- ' ter (Fisher) acted as crosier to my Lord of Canterbury.' The 1 ' After its long and fatiguing ous narrative in Hook's Archbislwps of journey from Italy.' See the humor- Canterbury, v. 250. 892 THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. v. Bishop of Lincoln read the Gospel, the Bishop of Exeter the Epistle. Besides the eight "Abbots were present the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, and the Bishops of Winchester, Durham, Norwich, Ely, and Llandaff. Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, ' made ' a brief collation or proposition,' explaining the causes of ' his ' high and joyous promotion,' the dignities of a prince and bishop, and also ' the high and great power of a Cardinal ; ' and * how he betokeneth the free beams of wisdom and charity which ' the apostles received from the Holy Ghost on Whit Sunday ; ' and how a Cardinal representeth the order of Seraphim, which ' continually increaseth in the love of the glorious Trinity, and ' for this consideration a Cardinal is Duly apparelled with red, ' which colour only betokeneth nobleness.' His short discourse closed with an exhortation to my Lord Cardinal in this wise : ' My Lord Cardinal, be glad and enforce yourself always to do ' and execute righteously to rich and poor, and mercy with ' truth.' Then, after the reading of the Bull, ' at Agnus Dei, * came forth of his traverse my Lord Cardinal, and kneeled ' before the middle of the High Altar, where for a certain time he ' lay grovelling, his hood over his head during benediction and ' prayers concerning the high creation of a Cardinal,' said over him by Archbishop Warham, ' which also sett the Hatt upon * his head.' Then Te Deum was sung. ' All services and cere- ' monies finished, my Lord came to the door before named, led ' by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, where his Grace with ' all the noblemen ascended upon their horses, and in good ' order proceeded to his place by Charing Cross, preceding it ' the mace, such as belongeth to a Cardinal to have ; and my ' Lord of Canterbury ' (the latest historian l of the Primates with true English pride adds, ' one almost revolts from writing ' the fact '), ' having no cross before him.' 2 We need not follow them to the splendid banquet. It is enough for the Abbey to have been selected as the scene of the Cardinal's triumphant day, to have thus seen the full magnificence at once of the Papal hierarchy and of the Revival of Letters, and to have heard in the still small accents of Colet the whisper of the coming storm, and have welcomed in the Cardinal Legate the first great dissolver of monasteries. 3 But the precincts of Westminster had already sheltered the 1 Hook, v. 253. s Wolsey visited the Abbey as Legate 2 Cavendish's Wolsey, ii. 301. MS. in 1518 and 1525. ' Ex improvise, from the Heralds' Office. ' severe, intemperauter, omnia agit ; CHAP. v. CAXTON'S FEINTING PRESS. 393 power which was to outshine the hats of cardinals and the crosiers of prelates, and to bring out into a new light all Caxton's that was worthy of preservation in the Abbey itself. press, 14/7. ' William Caxton, who first introduced into Great ' Britain the art of printing, exercised that art A.D. 1477, or ' earlier, in the Abbey of Westminster.' l So speaks the epitaph, designed originally for the walls of the Abbey, now erected by the Koxburghe Club near the grave in St. Margaret's Church, which received his remains in 1491. His press was near the house which he occupied in the Almonry, by the Chapel of St, Anne. 2 This ecclesiastical origin of the first English Printing-press is perpetuated in the name of 'the * Chapel,' given by printers to a congress or meeting of their body; perhaps also by the use of the terms 'justification,' ' monldng ' and ' friaring,' as applied to operations of printing. Victor Hugo, in a famous passage of his ' Notre Dame de Paris,' describes how ' the Book killed the Church.' The connection of Caxton with the Abbey gives to this thought another and a kindlier turn ' The Church (or the Chapel) has given life to ' the Book.' In this sense, if in no other, Westminster Abbey has been the source of enlightenment to England, beyond any other spot in the Empire ; and the growth of this new world within its walls opens the way to the next stage in its history. ' miscet, turbat, ut ten-eat casteros, ut history in the Abbey, connected with ' imperium ostendat, ut se terribilem Colony of Caxton's press, are the ' preheat ; ' Polydore Vergil. (Dugdale, rats. corpses of a colony of rats i. 278.) found in a hole in the Triforium. They 1 The words ' in the Abbey of West- had in successive generations carried ' minster ' are taken from the title- off fragments of paper, beginning with pages of Caxton's books in 1480, 1481, mediasval copy-books, then of Caxton's and 1484. The special locality, at the first printed works, ranging down to the Bed Pale near St. Anne's Chapel in the time of Queen Anne. Then, probably Almonry, is given in Stow, p. 476 ; during the repairs of Wren, the hole Walcott, p. 279. The only Abbot was closed, and the depredations ceased, with whom he had any relations was and the skeletons alone remained. Esteney. (Life of Caxton, i. 62-66.) These, with other like curiosities, are - Amongst the curiosities of natural now in the Chapter House. CHAPTEE VI. THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. Something ere the end, Some work of noble note may yet be done ; "Tis not too late to seek a newer world Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. TENNYSON'S Ulysses. SPECIAL AUTHOBITIES. The special authorities for this period are : I. The Chapter Books, from 1542 to the present time. II. Hacket's Life of ArchbisJwp Williams. III. Heylin's Life of Laud. IV. Bernard's Life of Heylin. V. Atterbury's Life and Letters. VI. Life of Bislwp Newton, by himself. VII. Lives of South, Thomas, and Vincent, prefixed to their Works. VIII. Carter's Articles in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1799-1800. IX. Census Alumnorum Westmonasteriensium. X. Lusus Alteri Westmonasterienses, 1st and 2nd series. XI. Autobiography of William Taswell, in the Camden Society, vol. ii. 1852. 395 CHAPTER VI. THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. THE Dissolution of the Abbey l and Monastery of St. Peter, like all the acts of the first stage of the Reformation, was effected The Dissoiu- with a silence only explicable by the long expectation tion of the . . . J f Monastery, with which their approach was prepared. The first 1539-40. book, containing the orders of the new Dean and Chapter, which begins in 1542, quietly opens with the record of leases and meetings for business. The services of the Roman Church continued unchanged through the remaining years of Henry VIII. Three masses a day were said in St. John's Chapel, the Lady Chapel, and at the High Altar. The dirge still sounded, and the waxlights still burned, on Henry VII.'s anniversaries. Under Edward VI. the change is indicated by an order to sell the brass lecterns, and copper-gilt candlesticks, and angels, ' as monuments of idolatry,' with an injunction, which one is glad to read, that the proceeds are to be devoted ' to the Library and buying of books.' 2 In like manner, ' Communion ' is silently substituted for ' mass,' and ' surplices ' and hoods ' for the ancient vestments. The institution passed into its new stage at once, and its progress is chiefly marked by the dismemberment and recon- struction of the mighty skeleton, 3 which was to be slowly reani- mated with a new life. Here, as at Canterbury and elsewhere, in the newly-constructed Chapters, a School was founded, of which the scholarships were, in the first instance, given away by ballot of the Dean and Prebendaries. 4 Twenty Oxford an d 1 The value of the property accord- and ' the Long House,' adjoining to ing to Speed was 3,977, according to the Cloisters. This last was probably Dugdale 3,471. the line of buildings on the east side of * Chapter Book, 1547-1549. Dean's Yard. (Chapter Book, 1542- 3 Amongst the buildings thus men- 1552.) The tapestries and furniture of tioned are ' the old Dovehouse,' ' the the Jerusalem Chamber were bought at ' Hall wherein the tomb is,' ' Patch's low prices by the Bishop and Dean. ' House ' (qu. for Wolsey's Fool), (Inventory.) ' Eow's House,' ' Canterbury,' ' door * Chapter Book, 1547-1549. ' from the Plumbery into the Abbey,' 396 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. Cambridge scholars, and the payment of the Eoyal Professor- ships, were charged on the Chapter. The Abbot was converted into a Dean. The Monks were succeeded by twelve Prebendaries, each to be present daily in the Choir, and to preach once a quarter. 1 Every Saturday in the year there was to be a meeting in the Chapter House. 2 The cathe- But now > ^ or * ne ^ rs ^ ^ me smce the Abbey had estab- th^RJshop n ' sne d its original independence, the head of the Chap- minlter" ^ er was subjected to a bishop, who resided in the Dec. is, 1540. ancient Abbot's House, the Dean living amongst the ruins of the old Misericorde. 3 This prelate was entitled * the Bishop of Westminster,' and his diocese included the whole of Middlesex, except Fulham ; so that he was, in fact, Thiriby, the chief prelate of the metropolis. 4 The consecration 1540-50. O f Thiriby to this newly-created see may be taken as the starting-point of the new series of episcopal consecrations in the Abbey. Cranmer had indeed been dedicated to his consecrated omce close by, in the Eoyal Chapel of St. Stephen 5 Dec. 19,1540. characteristically within the immediate residence of the Eeforming Sovereign. But, from that time till recent days, all such consecrations as took place in Westminster were in the Chapel of Henry VII. That gorgeous building, just clear from the hands of the workmen, ' St. Saviour's 6 Chapel,' as it was called, to avoid the now questionable name of ' the ' Lady Chapel,' was henceforth destined to play the same part which St. Catherine's Chapel had played hitherto, as a sacred edifice belonging to the Abbey and yet not identical with it, used not for its general worship, but for all special consecration solemnities. Here Thiriby was consecrated in what Mays?/^'- now became his own cathedral to the see of West- Nov G 22 dwin> m inster, and the time-serving Kitchin and his suc- cessor Godwin to the see of Llandaff. But the one solitary episcopate of Westminster is not of good omen for its revival. Thiriby was a man of amiable but feeble character, 1 Chapter Book, 1547. are not ' metropolitan,' but ' metropo- 2 Ib. 1549. See Chapter V. ' litical,' as being the seats of the two 3 Ashburnham House was called of Metropolitans. old time, doubtless from this occupa- 5 Courtenay was consecrated there tion, ' the Dean's House.' to Exeter, Nov. 8, 1476 ; Oliver King to 4 From this temporary see arose Exeter, Feb. 3, 1493 ; and Shaxton to the title of ' the city ' of Westminster. Salisbury, April 11, 1535. (Dugdale, i. 321, 322.) The Abbey of 6 ' In St. Saviour's Chapel, near the Westminster and Cathedral of St. ' sepulchre of Henry VII.' Strype, Paul are ' metropolitan,' as being the Cranmer, c. 23. So St. Mary's, in chief churches of the metropolis. The Southwark, became St. Saviour's. Cathedrals of Canterbury and York mderth CHAP. vi. THE CATHEDRAL UNDER EDWARD VI. 397 and the diocese, after ten years, was merged in the See of London. 1 Thirlby was translated, first to Norwich 2 in 1550 and then to Ely in 1554 ; and after the accession of Elizabeth lived partly as guest, partly as prisoner, at Lambeth, where he lies buried in the chancel of the parish church 3 with his cross in his hand, and his hat under his arm. 4 It was on this occasion that, out of the appropriation of the estates 5 of Westminster to fill up the needs of London one of the the proverb arose of ' robbbing Peter to pav Paul ' 6 a two metro- . , . . . , n . , r J proverb which, indeed, then carried with it the fullest significance that the words can bear. The old, origi- nal, venerable Apostle of the first ages had lost his Bobbing hold, and the new independent Apostle of the comino- Peter to pay . , . , . . . .. _, Paul. ages was riding on the whirlwind. The idea of a Church where the Catholic Peter and the Eeforming Paul could both be honoured, had not yet entered into the mind of man. Let us hope that the coexistence of St. Peter's Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral, each now so distinct not only in origin but in outward aspect, is a pledge that the dream has been in part realised. It was by a hard struggle in those tempestuous times that the Abbey was saved. Its dependency of the Priory of St. The dangers Martin's-le-Grand 7 was torn to pieces, and let out to oftheAbbey. individuals. 8 Its outlying domains to the east of Westminster, it is said, were sacrificed to the Protector Somerset, to induce him to forbear from pulling down the Abbey itself. 9 The Chapter Book of these years is filled with grants and entreaties to the Protector himself, to his wife, to his brother, and to his servant. Twenty tons of Caen stone, 1 He was with Bonner, on the me- Lord Chatham in St. Paul's, which, lancholy commission for the degrada- as a person said to me, would literally tion of Cranmer, and did his utmost to be " robbing Peter to pay Paul." I moderate his colleague's violence. wish it could be so, that there 2 When Bishop of Norwich he had might be some decoration of that the house in the Westminster Precincts, nudity.' (Walpole, vii. 69. See Chap- which the Dean had occupied, and ter IV.) Canon Robertson points out to which was afterwards occupied by Sir me that a similar, though not exactly R. Cotton. (Chapter Book, 1552.) the same expression is found generally 3 Neale, ii. 105, 107. applied, as far back as the twelfth cen- 4 So he was found in 1783 on making tury, ' tanquam si quis crucifigeret Archbishop Cornwallis's grave. (Sir ' Paulum ut redimeret Petrum.' (Her- H. M. Nichols's Privy Purse Expenses, bert of Bosham, 287.) Compare also a H. viii. p. 357.) letter of Alexander III. to Henry II. s Westbourne and Paddington were (Letters of Becket, Giles, iv. 116.) then transferred from the see of West- 7 See Chapter V. p. 340. minster to London. * Chapter Book, 1549. 6 Collier, ii. 324 ; Widmore, p. 133. 9 Fourteen manors are said to have So afterwards, ' the City wants to bury been given to him. Dart, i. 66. 898 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. YI. evidently from the dilapidated monastery, were made over to him, ' if there could be so much spared,' ' in the hope that he ' would be good and gracious.' l According to one version, the inhabitants of Westminster rose in a body, and prevented the demolition of their beloved church. 2 According to another, and perhaps more authentic 3 tradition, the Protector's designs had not reached further than the destruction of St. Margaret's Church, and portioning out the nave of the Abbey for the ejected congregation. 'But no sooner had the workmen ' advanced their scaffolds, when the parishioners gathered ' together in great multitudes, with bows and arrows, staves ' and clubs . . . which so terrified the workmen that they ran ' away in great amazement, and never could be brought again upon that employment.' On the extinction of the Bishopric, the Abbot's House was sold to Lord "Wentworth, the Lord Chamberlain. He lived in Lord went- it only for a year, and was buried in the Chapel of St. ftmerai, Blaize or the Islip Chapel, 4 with much heraldic pomp, 155CML 7 ' the children, priests, and clerks attending in surplices. Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible, preached his Arrange- funeral sermon. The Dean had occupied the buildings uudfngs. e where the Misericorde or Smaller Refectory had stood, adjoining the garden. 5 The Great Refectory was pulled down * by his servant Guy Gaskell,' 6 and the vacant ground granted to one of the Prebendaries (Carleton, also Dean of Peterborough), who was allowed to take the lead from St. Catherine's Chapel. A Library was set up in the North Cloister. The ' Smaller ' Dormitory ' 7 was cleared away, to open a freer passage to the Dean's House by the Dark Entry. The conventual Granary was portioned out for the corn of the Dean and Prebendaries. 8 The Plumbery and Waxchandlery were transferred to its vaults. The ' Anchorite's House ' 9 was leased to a bellringer appointed by the little Princess Elizabeth. BPnsson In the midst of these changes Dean Benson, 10 once Abbot Boston, died, it is said, of vexation over the 1 Chapter Book, 1546, 1547. called the ' Dean's House.' 2 Gent. Mag. 1799, vol. Ixix. pt. i. 6 Chapter Book, Nov. 5, 1544. p. 447. ' A name of which the peculiar 8 Heylin's-Hwtf. Ref. 72 ; Hayward's meaning is well known to antiquaries. Life of Edward VL, 205. * Chapter Book, 1546. " 4 Machyn's Diary, March 7, 1550-1. 9 See Chapter V. p. 350. ' In the same chapel that the old abbot 10 His surname as Abbot had been, ' (query Islip or Benson) was buried.' from his birthplace, Boston. 4 Chapter Book, 1545. It was long CHAP. vi. THE CONVENT UNDER QUEEN MARY. 399 financial difficulties of his house, 1 and was buried at the entrance of St. Blaize's Chapel. His successor, Eichard Cox, cox. 1549- wno was duly installed in the Chapter House,' had been one of the three tutors 2 of Edward VI., and was accordingly transferred from a canonry at Windsor to the Deanery of Westminster. Whilst there he attended the Pro- tector Somerset on the scaffold. After four years he was compelled to fly, from his complicity in the attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Almost immediately on his return from Germany, on the accession of Elizabeth, he was appointed to succeed Thirlby at Ely in 1559, 3 where he died in extreme old age in 1581. His venerable white beard renders him conspicuous among the portraits of the Bishops of Ely, in the Library of Trinity Hall at Cambridge. Hugh Weston (a man, it is said, of very questionable charac- ter) succeeded, but was removed, after three years, to Windsor, weton, * ma ke way for the change which Mary had so much at heart. It was gradually effected. The Preben- of h the evival Caries, one by one, conformed to her faith. Philip's Abbacy. father-confessor was lodged in the Precincts. But the College dinners became somewhat disorderly. ' Forks ' and ' knives ' are tossed freely to and fro, and ' Hugh Price breaks ' John Wood's head with a pot.' 4 The Chapter Book here abruptly closes, and a few blank leaves alone indicate the period of the transition. In that interval the Abbey bore its part in scenes which at the time must have seemed to be fraught with incalculable con- is54 NOV sequences for England and for Europe. On the 12th of November was celebrated the mass of the Holy Ghost at the altar of Westminster Abbey, in the presence of King Philip and Queen Mary, to inaugurate the Parliament which met to repeal the attainder of Cardinal Pope, and welcome him on his mission of reuniting the Church of England to the 1 The loss from the fall of money Froude's Hist. vol. xi. pp. 5, 6, 7. To made it necessary to sell plate and the period of his exile belongs the stuff. (Chapter Book, 1552.) An in- remarkable poem ascribed to him, on ventory of the Abbot's plate is in the ' Say well and do well,' published in Record Office. (Land Revenue Ac- vol. xiii. of the Percy Society. He was counts, No. 1114.) the ' proud Prelate ' whom Elizabeth * This seems to have been a frequent threatened to ' unfrock.' function of the Deans of Westminster. 4 Chapter Book, 1554. Against the See Doyne Bell's Tower Cliapcl, pp. 152, names of Hugh Griffiths and T. Rey- 172. nolds is written, in a later hand, 3 For Cox's conduct, see Aikin's ' turncoats ; ' and against six others, Elizabeth, i. 154; and Strype's Annals, ' new Prebendaries of tlie Romish per- il, pt. ii. p. 267 ; iii. pt. i. p. 37 ; also ' suasion.' 400 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. Church of Rome. The Cardinal arrived, and now the great day itself was come on which the reconciliation was to be accom- plished. The Feast of St. Andrew was chosen, 1 as being the festival t of Philip's highest order the Golden Fleece. From the Holbein gate of Whitehall Palace issued the Spanish King, escorted by six hundred Spanish courtiers, dressed in their court costumes of white velvet, 2 striped with red, which they had not worn since their first entrance into England; and which were now reassumed to mark the auspicious event. The Knights of the Garter joined the procession with their badges and collars. In the presence of this gorgeous assembly the High Mass of the Order of the Golden Fleece was sung in the Abbey. The service lasted till two in the afternoon. The Queen and the Cardinal were absent, she reserving herself, in expectation of the anticipated heir to her throne, from any unnecessary fatigue : the Cardinal also, perhaps, from his weak health, or to give greater effect to his appearance for the final and yet grander ceremony in West- minster Hall. Thither he was brought from Lambeth in state by the Earl of Arundel and six other knights of the Garter, whom the King despatched for him as soon as they left the Abbey. There, ' in the fast waning light of that November ' evening,' took place the solemn reconciliation of the English Church and nation with the see of Eome so enthusiastically received at the time, so totally reversed within the next few years, so vainly re- attempted since. W T e leave to the general historian the description of this scene and of its consequences, and return to the Abbey and its officers. The last appearance of Weston as Dean of Westminster was at the head of one of the numerous processions which marched through the streets of London to hasten the fulfilment of the eager wishes of the childless Queen. In the place of the Chapter, almost alone of the monastic bodies, the convent of Westminster was restored. Abbot John Howman, 3 of the Forest of Feckenham in Wor- 1555-60. ' cestershire, the last mitred Abbot of England, ' a short ' man, of a round visage, fresh colour, affable, and pleasant,' 4 is one of the few characters of that age who, without any power- 1 Descriptio Reductionis Anglice in birthplace. (Fuller's Worthies.) the Appendix to Pole's Letters ; Froude, 4 Harpsfield. (Seymour's Stow, ii. vi. 283. 611.) He was to be re-elected every * Machyn's Diary, Nov. 12, 30, 1554. three years, without a conge d'elire. 3 He is the last instance of a (Widmore, 136.) Hook's Life of Pole, Englishman taking his name from his 403. CHAP. TI. THE CONVENT UNDEE QUEEN MAKY. 401 ful abilities, commands a general respect from his singular moderation and forbearance. Some hasty words against Eidley, and a quarrel with a young man at the Bishop of Winchester's table about fasting, 1 are the only indications that his life fur- nishes of the harsh temper of those times. His early years had been spent in Evesham Abbey, and then, after disputes with Cranmer and Hooper which lodged him in the Tower, he was raised by Mary first to the Deanery of St. Paul's, and then to the restored Abbacy of Westminster. 1555. We can best imagine the scene when the new Abbot, with his thirteen monks (four from Glastonbury), reoccupied the deserted buildings, by reading the description of the like event 2 in the ruins of Melrose, depicted by the wonderful genius which was able at once to recall the past, and to hold the balance between the conflicting parties of that time. It was in November, on St. Clement's eve, that ' the ' Lord Abbot with the convent, thirteen monks " shorn in," ' went in procession after the old fashion in their monks' * weeds, in cowls of black serge, with two vergers carrying two ' silver rods in their hands, and at evening time the vergers went ' through the cloisters to the Abbot, and so went into the ' church afore the altar, and then my Lord kneeled down, and ' his convent, and, after his prayer made> was brought into the ' quire with the vergers, and so into his place.' In the follow- ing week ' my Lord Abbot was consecrated in the Abbey, and ' there was great company, and he was made abbot, and did ' wear a mitre, and my Lord Cardinal (Pole) was there, and ' many Bishops, and my Lord Chancellor (Gardiner) did sing * mass, and the Abbot made the sermon, and my Lord Treasurer ' was there.' A few days afterwards, on December 6 (the Feast of St. Nicholas 3 ), the Abbot marched in procession ' with his convent. Before him went all the monas- ' tery men with cross keys upon their garments, and after went ' three homicides,' as if ostentatiously paraded for the sake of showing that the rights of sanctuary were in full force. 4 The young nobleman, Lord Dacre, walked with a sheet about him, and was whipped as he went. With him was the lowborn murderer of the tailor in Long Acre, and the small Westmin- ster scholar, who had slain a ' big boy ' that sold papers and 1 Strype's Annals, i. Ill ; ii. 179. 3 Machyn's Diary, Nov. 22, 29; Dec. * The scene of the election of the 6,1555. last mitred Abbot of Scotland, in Scott's 4 See Chapter V. p. 352. Abbot, ch. xiii., xiv., xv. D D 402 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. TI. printed books in Westminster Hall, by hurling a stone which hit him under the ear earliest hero of the long-sustained con- flicts between the Westminster scholars and the ' skys ' of London, as the outside world was called. The ruins of the Confessor's Shrine were repaired, so far as the taste of the age 1556-r. would allow. On the 5th of January, 1557, the anni- jan.5. versary of the Confessor's death, 'the Shrine was * again set up, and the Altar with divers jewels that the Queen ' sent hither.' ' The body of the most holy King Edward, ' though the heretics had power on that wherein the body was ' enclosed, yet on that sacred body had they no power,' he found and restored to its ' ancient sepulture.' * On the 20th of March, with a hundred lights, King Edward the Confessor ' was reverently carried from the place that he ' was taken up where he was laid when the Abbey was spoiled ' and robbed, and so he was carried, and goodly singing and ' censing as has been seen, and mass sung.' 2 By the 21st of April the Shrine was ' set up ' and was visited * after dinner ' by the Duke of Muscovy, 3 who went up to see it and saw the place through. The marks of this hasty re- storation are still visible in the displaced fragments, and plaster mosaic, and novel cornice. 4 A wooden canopy was placed over it, perhaps intended as a temporary structure, to supply the place of its splendid tabernacle, but which has remained unaltered and unfinished to this day a memorial the more interesting from the transient state of the Church which it represents. Above, and instead of the old in- scription, was written a new one round the Shrine, and like inscriptions were added to each of the Eoyal Tombs. 5 The ancient Charters were, it was believed, preserved as if by a miracle, being found, by a servant of Cardinal Pole, in the hands of a child playing in the streets. And by appealing to these, as well as to Lucius's foundation and St. Peter's visit, 1 I owe the sight of this speech original cornice was found in 1868 built of Feckenham to the kindness of Mr. into the wall of the School, and has Froude. been restored to its place. 2 Chronicle of Grey Friars, 94 ; s See Chapter III. It may be Machyn's Diary, March 21, 1557. observed that the inscription on Edward 3 Machyn's Diary, April 21, 1557. III.'s tomb ' Tertius Edvardus, fama Malcolm, p. 237. ' super asthera notus, Pugna pro Pat- 4 The lower part of the shrine, in- ' rid' is the same as that written, eluding the arches, seems to have been probably at the same date, under the left undisturbed. All the upper part statue of Edward III. on the inner was broken, probably for the removal gateway of Trinity College, Cambridge. of the coffin. A fragment of the sHRIJTE OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. D D 2 404 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. the relics of the saints, the graves of kings, and ' the commodity ' of our ancestors,' the Abbot pleaded earnestly before the House of Commons for the Westminster right of sanctuary. 1 For the whole of that year the enthusiasm continued. ' On ' Passion Sunday my Lord Abbot did preach as goodly a sermon ' as has been heard in our time.' ' On Ascension Day the King ' and Queen went in procession about the Cloister, and heard Noy 30 ' mass.' On St. Andrew's Day, the anniversary of the less. ' Reconciliation, a procession went about the Abbey. Philip, Mary, and Cardinal Pole were all present, and the Abbot ' sang the mass.' On the next Easter Eve the ' Paschal ' candle was installed upon the High Altar with a great enter- ' tainment of the master and wardens of the wax-chandlers.' One curious incident reveals the deeply-seated infirmity of monastic and collegiate establishments even in the 1 1SS glow of a religious revival. It was in the August of that year that the funeral of Anne of Cleves took place. The next day was the requiem. Bonner sang mass in his mitre, and Feckenham preached, and both in their mitres incensed the corpse, and afterwards she was carried to her tomb, ' where she lies with a hearse cloth of gold. But ' within three weeks the monks had by night spoiled ' the hearse of all its velvet cloth and trappings, the which was ' never 2 seen afore or so done.' It was a brief respite. Feckenham had hardly been estab- lished in the Abbot's House for more than a year, when the death of Mary dispersed the hopes of the Eoman Church in England. It depended on the will of the sovereign of the time, and with her fall it fell. Feckenham 3 had preached as Dean of St. Paul's at Paul's Cross before her coronation, and now at her death he delivered two sermons, which were remarkable for their moderation, on the text, ' I praised the dead more than March si, ' the living ' (Eccl. iv. 2). 4 It was in the closing period The Vest- of his rule in Westminster that the Abbey witnessed conference, the first of those theological conflicts which have since so often resounded in its precincts. Then took place the 1 Speech from the Rolls' House. to the communion table, where it has 2 Machyn's Diary, Aug. 2, 3, 21, since remained. 1557. See Chapter III. The tomb was 3 Ibid. Sept. 21, 1552. not finished till the time of James I., 4 Fuller's Church History, JL'.T>. 1558. and has suffered since from successive The sermon at her funeral had been changes. Even as late as 1820 it lost preached by Bishop White. (Machyn, its marble covering, which was removed Dec. 13, 1558.) CHAP. vi. THE CHAPTER UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. 405 pitched battle between the divines of the old religion and of the new. 1 On the 31st of March, 1559, there was held in Westminster Abbey a theological tournament. Eight champions on either side were chosen for the engagement. Sir Nicholas Bacon and the Archbishop of York kept the lists : the Lords and Commons were the audience for whose better instruction the combat was to be conducted in English. This was the last fight face to face between the Church of Eome and the Church of England. It was the direct prepara- tion for the Liturgy as it now stands, as enjoined in Elizabeth's first Act of Uniformity. Against that Liturgy and against the Royal Supremacy the chief protest was uttered by Feckenham from his place in the House of Lords on ' the lowest place on ' the Bishops' form ' where he sate as the only Abbot. 2 The battle was however lost, and it only remains, as far as West- minster is concerned, to tell, in Fuller's words, the closing scene of the good Abbot's sojourn in our precincts : ' Queen Eliza- coming to the Crown, sent for Abbot Fecken- ^ come to her, whom the messenger found Garden. < setting of elms in the orchard [the College Garden] ' of Westminster Abbey. But he would not follow the messenger ' till first he had finished his plantation, which his friends im- ' pute to his being employed in mystical meditations that as ' the trees he then set should spring and sprout many years after ' his death, so his new plantation of Benedictine monks in ' Westminster should take root and flourish, in defiance of all ' opposition. . . . Sure I am those monks long since are ex- ' tirpated, but how his trees thrive at this day is to me un- ' known. Coming afterwards to the Queen, what discourse ' passed between them they themselves know alone. Some ' have confidently guessed she proffered him the Archbishopric ' of Canterbury on condition he would conform to her laws, ' which he utterly refused.' 3 He was treated with more or less indulgence, according to the temper of the times sometimes a prisoner in the Tower ; 4 1 Strype's Annals, i. 116, 128, 196 ; remain. There was till 1779 a row of ii. 465 (No. 15) ; Fuller's Church trees in the middle of the garden, which History, ii. 447 ; Worthies, ii. 357. was then cut down. (Chapter Book, * Strype's Annals, ii. 438, app. ix. ; March 17, 1779.) Cardwell's Conference., p. 98. 4 He was deprived Jan. 4, 1559-60, 3 Fuller's Church Hist. ix. 6, 8, 38. and sent to the Tower May 22, 1560. The elms, or their successors, still (Machyn's Diary.) 406 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. sometimes a guest in the custody of Home, Bishop of Win- chester ; afterwards in the same capacity in the palace of Coxe, his former predecessor at Westminster, and now the old Bishop His death, of Ely; and finally in the castle of Wisbeach. 1 There 1585; buried ~ . , , . ,, . , . he left a memorial ot himselt m a stone cross, and in the more enduring form of good deeds amongst the poor. His last expressions breathe the same spirit of moderation which had marked his life, 2 and, contrasted with the violence of most of his co-religionists at that time, remind us of the forbearance and good sense of Ken amongst the Nonjurors. The change in Westminster Abbey was now complete. A Protestant sermon was preached to a ' great audience.' 3 The The change stone altars were everywhere destroyed. 4 The massy Euzabeth? en oaken table which now stands in the Confessor's Chapel was substituted, probably at that time, for the High Altar, 5 and was placed, as it would seem, at the foot of the steps. 6 St. Catherine's Chapel was finally demolished, and its materials used for the new buildings. 7 The interest of Queen Elizabeth in the institution never flagged. Even from her childhood she had taken part in its affairs. A certain John Pennicott had been appointed to the place of bellringer at the request of the ' Lady Elizabeth, ' daughter of our Sovereign Lord the King,' 8 when she was only thirteen. Almost always before the opening of Parliament she came to the Abbey on horseback, the rest of her train on foot. She entered at the Northern door, and through the west end of the Choir, receiving the sceptre from the Dean, which she returned to him as she went out by the Southern Transept. Carpets and cushions were placed for her by the Altar. 9 The day of her accession (November 17), and of her coronation (January 15), were long observed as anniversaries in the Abbey. On the first of these days the bells are still rung, and, till within the last few years, a dinner of persons connected with Westminster School took place in the College Hall. 10 Under 'Seymour's Stow, p. 611. -The s Ibid. November 5, 1544. monks had annuities granted them. 9 Ibid., 1562, 1571, 1572, 1584, and (Chapter Book, 1569.) 1597 ; Malcolm, p. 261 ; Strype's An- 2 Strype's Annals, ii. 528, No. xxxi. ; nals, i. 438 ; State Papers, 1588. Her pt. ii. pp. 177, 381, 678. father had come in like manner in 3 Machyn, November 1561. 1534. 4 Strype's Annals, i. 401. See 10 See Monk's Bentley. p. 535. The Chapter III. two last centenaries of the foun- 5 Malcolm, p. 87. dation were celebrated with much 6 Wiffin's House of Russell, ii. 514. pomp in 1760, and again in 18(JO. 1 Chapter Book, 1571. Chapter Book, June 3, 1700. On this CHAP. vi. THE CHAPTER UNDEK QUEEN ELIZABETH. 407 her auspices the restored Abbey and the new Cathedral l both vanished away. One of the first acts of her reign 2 was to erect a new institution in place of her father's cathedral and her sister's convent. ' By the inspiration of the Divine clemency ' [so she describes her motive and her object], 'on considering and revolving in our mind ' from what various dangers of our life and many kinds of death with ' which we have been on every side encompassed, the great and good ' God with His powerful arm hath delivered us His handmaid, destitute ' of all human assistance, and protected under the shadow of His wings, ' Lath at length advanced us to the height of our royal majesty, and by ' His sole goodness placed us in the throne of this our kingdom, we 'think it our duty in the first place .... to the intent that true ' religion and the true worship of Him, without which we are either ' like to brutes in cruelty or to beasts in folly, may in the aforesaid ' monastery, where for many years since they had been banished, be 'restored and reformed, and brought back to the primitive form of ' genuine and brotherly sincerity ; correcting, and as much as we can, ' entirely forgetting, the enormities in which the life and profession of ' the monks had for a long time in a deplorable manner erred. And ' therefore we have used our endeavours, as far as human infirmity can ' foresee, that hereafter the documents of the sacred oracles out of which ' as out of the clearest fountains the purest waters of Divine truth may ' and ought to be drawn, and the pure sacraments of our salutary ' redemption be there administered, that the youth, who in the stock ' of our republic, like certain tender twigs, daily increase, may be ' liberally trained up in useful letters, to the greater ornament of the ' same republic, that the aged destitute of strength, those especially ' who shall have well and gravely served about our person, or otherwise ' about the public business of our kingdom, may be suitably nourished ' in things necessary for sustenance ; lastly, that offices of charity to ' the poor of Christ,' and general works of public utility, be continued. She then specially names the monumental character of the The church, and especially the tomb of her grandfather, church ' the most powerful and prudent of the kings of the st. Peter. < age,' as furnishing a fit site, and proceeds to establish occasion the wax effigy of Elizabeth, excluded ' from the Cathedral Church.' now amongst the waxworks of the (State Papers, 1562 ; see ibid. 1689.) Abbey, was made by the ' gentlemen of It appears as late as in the dedication of ' the Choir.' (Chapter Book, June 3, South's Sermon to Dolben ; and even 1760.) on Lord Mansfield's monument. 1 The name ' cathedral ' lingered in 2 Her portrait in the Deanery, the Abbey for some time. It is called traditionally said to have been given by so at Elizabeth's coronation and her to Dean Goodman, was really (as funeral, and by Shakspeare (see appears from an inscription at the Chapter II.) An injunction of Eliza- back) given to the Deanery by Dean beth orders women and children to be Wilcocks. 408 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. the Dean and twelve Prebendaries, under the name of the College, or Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster. Henceforth the institution became, strictly speaking, a great academical as well as an ecclesiastical body. The old Dormi- tory of the monks had already been divided into two compart- ments. These two compartments were now to be repaired and furnished for collegiate purposes, ' upon contribution of such ' godly- disposed persons as have and will contribute thereunto.' The chapter The smaller or northern portion was devoted to the ' Library.' The Dean, Goodman, soon began to form a Library, and had given towards it a ' Cornplutensian Bible,' and a 'Hebrew Vocabulary.' 1 This Library was apparently intended to have been in some other part of the conventual 1517 buildings, and it is .not till some years later that it was ordered to be transferred to ' the great room * before the old Dorter.' 2 Its present aspect is described in a well-known passage of Washington Irving : I found myself in a lofty antique ball, tbe roof supported by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon tbe roofs of the Cloisters. An ancient picture, of some reverend dignitary of the Church in his robes, 3 hung over the fireplace. Around tbe hall and in a small gallery were tbe books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the Library was a solitary table, with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the Abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only bear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the Cloisters, and tbe sound of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed soberly along the roofs of the Abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away. The bell .ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. 4 It was, however, long before this chamber was fully appro- 1587. priated to its present purpose. The century had well nigh run out its sands, and Elizabeth's reign was all but 1 Chapter Book, 1571. 4 Irving's Sketch Book, i. 227-229- 2 The successive stages of the for- See Botfield's Catliedral Libraries of ination of the Library appear in the England (pp. 430-464), which gives a Chapter Book, Dec. 2. 1574, May 26, general account of the contents of 1587, Dec. 3, 1591. the Westminster Library. 3 Dean Williams. (See p. 417.) CHAP. vi. THE CHAPTER UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. 409 closed, when the order, issued in the year before the Armada, was carried out, and then only as regards the southern and larger part of the original Dormitory, which had been devoted TUG school- ^0 the Schoolroom. 1 Down to that time the School- room, like the Library, had been in some other chamber of the monastery. But this chamber, wherever it was, became more evidently unfit for its purpose ' too low 1599. ' and too little for receiving the number of scholars.' 2 Accordingly, whilst the Library was left to wait, the School- room was pressed forward with ' all convenient speed.' New ' charitable contributions ' were ' gathered ; ' and probably by the beginning of the seventeenth century it was prepared for the uses to which it has ever since been destined. Although in great part rebuilt in this century, it still occupies the same space. Its walls are covered with famous names, which in long hereditary descent rival, probably, any place of education in England. Its roof is of the thirteenth century, one of its win- dows of the eleventh. From its conchlike 3 termination has sprung in several of the public schools the name of ' shell,' for the special class that occupies the analogous position. The monastic Granary, which under Dean Benson had still been retained for the corn of the Chapter, now became, and The old continued to be for nearly two hundred years, the Dormitory. Scholars' Dormitory. The Abbot's Eefectory became Han. ' the Hall of the whole establishment. 4 The Dean and Prebendaries continued to dine there, at least on certain days, till the middle of the seventeenth century ; 5 and then, as they gradually withdrew from it to their own houses, it was left to the Scholars. Once a year the ancient custom is revived, when on Rogation Monday the Dean and Chapter receive in the Hall the former Westminster Scholars, and hear the recitation of the Epigrams, which have contributed for so many years their 1 I have forborne here, as else- September 1866, and since republished where, to go at length into the history with other essays under the name of of the School. It opens a new field, The Public ScJiools of England. which one not bred at Westminster has - Chapter Book, May 7, 1599. This hardly any right to enter, and which and the previous order are given at has been elaborately illustrated by length in Lvsus Wcstmonast. ii. 3.52. Westminster scholars themselves in the 3 This arose from the accidental re- Ccnsus Alumnomm Wcstmonastcricn- pair of the building after a fire. The siitm, and Lsws Alteri Wcstmonast- apse was removed in 1868, but the cricnses. Fora brief and lively account trace of it still remains on the floor, of its main features I may refer to two 4 See Chapter IV. articles on 'Westminster School' (by 5 Strype's Annals, vol. L part ii. an old schoolfellow of my own), in (No. 10). Blackivood' s Magazine for July and 410 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. lively comments on the events of each passing generation. 1 The great tables, once believed to be of chestnut-wood, but now known to be elm, were, according to a doubtful tradition, pre- sented by Elizabeth from the wrecks of the Spanish Armada. The round holes in their solid planks are ascribed to the cannon-balls of the English ships. They may, however, be the traces of a less illustrious warfare. Till the time of Dean Buckland, who substituted a modern stove, the Hall was warmed by a huge brazier, of which the smoke escaped through the open roof. The surface of the tables is unquestionably indented with the burning coals thence tossed to and fro by the scholars ; and the hands of the late venerable Primate (Arch- bishop Longley) bore to the end of his life the scorching traces of the bars on which he fell as a boy in leaping over the blazing fire. The collegiate character of the institution was still further kept up, by the close connection which Elizabeth fostered its connec- between the College of Westminster and the two great curist ith collegiate houses of Christ Church and Trinity, founded orfo'rctand or 1'efoundcd by her father, at Oxford and Cambridge, college', Together they formed 'the three Royal Colleges,' as Cambridge, jf ^ o jj ee p a jj ve L orc [ Burleigh's scheme of making Westminster ' the third University of England.' The heads of the three were together to preside over the examinations of the School. The oath of the members of the Chapter of Westmin- ster was almost identical with that of the Masters and Fellows of Trinity 2 and Queen's Colleges, Cambridge ; couched in the magnificent phraseology of that first age of the Reformation, that they ' would always prefer truth to custom, the Bible to ' tradition ' (' vera consuetis, scripta non scriptis, semper ante- 1 habiturum ') ' that they would embrace with then* whole soul ' the true religion of Christ.' The constitution of the body was that not so much of a Cathedral as of a College. The Dean was in the position of ' the Head ; ' the Masters in the position its coiiegiate ^ * ne College Tutors or Lecturers. In the College constitution. ^^ fa e j) ean ^ the p re b e ndaries dined, as the Master and Fellows, or as the Dean and Chapter at Christ 1 The present custom in its present of Graduates in Divinity and Masters form dates from 1857. See Lusus of Arts. From the oath in the Eliza- West. ii. 262. beth Statutes of St. John's, in other - It is also found in King Edward's respects identical, this clause is curious- statutes for the University of Cam- ly omitted, bridge, as part of the oath to be required CHAP. vi. THE CHAPTEE UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. 411 Church, at the High Table; and below sate all the other members of the body. If the Prebendaries were absent, then, and seemingly not otherwise, it was the duty of the Head- master to be present. 1 The Garden of the Infirmary, which henceforth became ' the College Garden,' was, like the spots so called at Oxford and Cambridge, the exclusive possession of the Chapter, as there of the Heads and Fellows of the Colleges. 2 So largely was the ecclesiastical element blended with the scholastic, that the Dean, from time to time, seemed almost to supersede the functions of the Headmaster. In the time of Queen Elizabeth he even took boarders into his house. In the time of James I., as we shall see, he became the instructor of the boys. ' I have placed Lord Barry,' says Cecil, ' at the Dean's ' at Westminster. I have provided bedding and all of my own, ' with some other things, meaning that for his diet and resi- ' dence it shall cost him nothing.' As years have rolled on, the union, once so close, between the different parts of the Collegiate body, has gradually been disentangled ; and at times the interests of the School may have been overshadowed by those of the Chapter. Yet it may be truly said that the impulse of that first impact has never entirely ceased. The Headmasters of Westminster have again and again been potentates of the first magnitude in the colle- giate circle. They were appointed 3 to preach sermons for the Prebendaries. They not seldom were Prebendaries themselves. The names of Camden and of Busby were, till our own times, the chief glories of the great profession they adorned ; and of all the Schools which the Princes of the Eeformation planted in the heart of the Cathedrals of England, Westminster is the only one which adequately rose to the expectation of the Eoyal Founders. As in the Monastery, so in the Collegiate Church, the for- tunes of the institution must be traced through the history, partly of its chiefs, partly of its buildings. William THE DEANS. ^.^ the firgt Elizabethan Dean, lived only long enough i! 12111 ' to complete the Collegiate Statutes, which, however, 2 n in d the ly were never confirmed by the Sovereign. He was Chapei of st. buried, 4 among his predecessors the Abbots, in the Chapel of St. Benedict. There also, after forty years, was laid his successor, Gabriel Goodman, 5 the Welshman, of 1 Chapter Book, 1563. 4 Machyn's Diary, July 22, 1561. - Ibid. 1564 and 1606. 3 See Memoirs of Dean Goodman s Ibid. Kov. 14, 1564. by Archdeacon Mewcome (liuthin, 181(5). 412 THE ABBEY SIXCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. whom Fuller says, ' Goodman was his name, and goodness was Gabriel ' ^is nature.' He was the real founder of the present i establishment the ' Edwin ' of a second Conquest. *fst hapel Under him took place the allocation of the monastic Benedict, buildings before described. Under him was rehabili- tated the Protestant worship, after the interregnum of Queen Mary's Benedictines. The old copes were used up for canopies. The hangings were given to the college. 1 A waste place found at the w r est end of the Abbey was to be turned into a garden. 2 A keeper was appointed for the monuments. 3 The order of the Services was, with some slight variations, the same that it has been ever since. The early prayers were at 6 A.M. in Henry VII.'s Chapel, with a lecture on Wednesdays and Frida} T s. The musical service was, on week days, at 9 A.M. to 11 A.M. and at 4 P.M., and on Sundays at 8 A.M. to 11 A.M. and from 4 P.M. to 5 P.M. The Communion was administered on the Festivals, and on the first Sunday in the month. To the sermons to be preached by the Dean at Christmas, Easter, and All Saints, were added Whitsunday and the Purification. The Preben- daries at this time were very irregular in their attendance some absent altogether ' some disaffected 4 and would not ' come to church.' When they did come, they occupied a pew called the ' Knight's Pew.' Goodman's occupation of the Deanery was, long after his death, remembered by an apartment known by the name of ' Dean Goodman's Chamber.' 5 He addressed the House of Commons in person to preserve the privileges of sanctuary to his Church, and succeeded for a time in averting the change. He was the virtual founder of the Corporation of Westminster, of which the shadow still remains in the twelve Burgesses, the High Steward, and the High Bailiff of Westminster --the last relic of the ' temporal power ' of the ancient Abbots. His High Steward was no less a person than Lord Burleigh. 6 To the School he secured ' the Pest House ' or ' Sanatorium ' The Pest on the river-side at Chiswick, 7 and planted with his ciuswick. own hands a row of elms, some of which are still standing in the adjacent field. It is on record that Busby 1 Chapter Book, 15GG and 1470. ' Gabriel Goodman Decantis, 1598.' Ibid. 1593. 6 Strype's Mem. of Parker. See 3 Ibid. 1607. Chapter IV. 1 State Papers, 1635-36. ' There had before been a house for 5 Archives. He gave two of the the ' children ' [at Wheethampsted and bells, which still bear the inscription, at Putney. (Chapter Book, 1513, 1561.) ' Patrcin laudate sonantibus cultum. CHAP. TI. THE CHAPTER UNDEE JAMES I. 413 resided there, with some of his scholars, in the year 1657. When in our own time, this house was in the tenure of Mr. Berry and his two celehrated daughters, the names of Montague Earl of Halifax, John Dryden, and other pupils of Busby, were to be seen on its walls. Dr. Nicolls was the last Master who fre- quented it. Till quite recently a piece of ground was reserved for the games of the Scholars. Of late years its use has been superseded by the erection of a Sanatorium in the College Garden. Goodman might already well be proud of the School, which had for its rulers Alexander Nowell and William Camden. Noweii, Nowell, whose life belongs to St. Paul's, of which he Headmaster, . , , . , -,-. 1453. afterwards became the Dean, was remarkable at W T est- minster as the founder of the Terence Plays. 1 The illustrious Camden, after having been Second Master, 2 was then, though camden, a layman, by the Queen's request, appointed Head- Headmaster, ,. , ., ,' .1,1 1593-99. master, and in order that ' he might be near to her ' call and commandment, and eased of the charge of living,' was to have his ' food and diet ' in the College Hall. 3 ' I know ' not,' he proudly writes, ' who may say I was ambitious, who ' contented myself in Westminster School when I writ my ' " Britannia." ' 4 Lancelot Andrewes, the most devout and, at the same time, the most honest 5 of the nascent High Church party of that Lancelot period, lamented alike by Clarendon and by Milton, 1601-5? es was Dean for five years. Under his care, probably in the Deanery, met the Westminster Committee of the Author- ised Version of James I., to which was confided the translation of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Kings, and of the Epistles in the New. In him the close connection of the Abbey with the School reached its climax. ' The Monastery of ' the West ' (TO E7rt&(f>vpiov) was faithfully remembered in his well-known ' Prayers.' Dean Williams, in the next generation, ' had heard much what pains Dr. Andrewes did take both day ' and night to train up the youth bred in the Public School, ' chiefly the alumni of the College so called ; ' and in answer to his questions, Hacket, who had been one of these scholars, 1 Alumni Westmonast. p. 2. misfortunes, and his rebuke to Neale. 2 Chapter Book, 1587. Andrewes was appointed Bishop of 3 State Papers, 1594. Chichester 1605, translated to Ely 4 Alumni Westmonast. p. 13. (For 1609, and to Winchester 1619; died Camden's tomb see Chapter IV. p. 271.) September 25, 1626 ; buried in St. 5 SCP his conduct to Abbot in his Saviour's, Southwark. 414 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. told him how strict that excellent man was to charge our masters that they should give us lessons out of none but the most classical authors ; that he did often supply the place both of the head-schoolmaster and usher for the space of an whole week together, and gave us not an hour of loitering-time from morning to night : how he caused our exercises in prose and verse to be brought to him, to examine our style and proficiency; that he never walked to Chiswick for his re- creation without a brace of this young fry ; and in that wayfaring leisure had a singular dexterity to fill those narrow vessels with a funnel. And, which was the greatest burden of his toil, sometimes thrice in a week, sometimes oftener, he sent for the uppermost scholars to his lodgings at night, and kept them with him from eight to eleven, unfolding to them the best rudiments of the Greek tongue and the elements of the Hebrew Grammar ; and all this he did to boys without any compulsion of correction nay, I never heard him utter so much as a word of austerity among us. 1 In these long rambles to Chiswick he in fact indulged 2 his favourite passion from his youth upwards of walking either by himself or with some chosen companions, with whom he might confer and argue and recount their studies : and he would often profess, that to observe the grass, herbs, corn, trees, cattle, earth, water, heavens, any of the creatures, and to contemplate their natures, orders, qualities, virtues, uses, was ever to him the greatest mirth, content, and recreation that could be : and this he held to his dying day. He was succeeded by Neale, who thence ascended the longest ladder of ecclesiastical preferments recorded in our annals. 3 Eichard Years afterwards they met, on the well-known occa- 1 605^io. sion when Waller the poet heard the witty rebuke which Andrewes gave to Neale as they stood behind the chair of James I. Neale was educated at Westminster, and pushed forward into life by Dean Goodman and the Cecils. He was installed as Dean on the memorable 5th of November, 1605 ; and after his elevation to the See of Lichfield and Coventry, he was deputed by James I. to conduct to the Abbey the remains of Mary Stuart from Peterborough. 4 It was in his London 1 Hacket's Life of Williams; Rus- translated to Lichfield and Coventry sell's Life of Andrewes, pp. 90, 91. 1(510, to Lincoln 1614, to Durham 1617, Brian Duppa, who succeeded Andrewes to Winchester 1627, and to York 1631. in the See of Winchester, learned He was buried in All Saints' Chapel, Hebrew from him at this time. in York Minster, 1640. (Duppa's Epitaph in the Abbey.) 4 Le Neve's Lives ii. 143. See - Fuller's Abel Bcdivivus. Chapter III. A statement of the 3 Neale was appointed to the See of Abbey revenues in his time is in the Rochester in 1608, and was thence State Papers, vol. Iviii. No. 42. CHAP. vi. DEAN WILLIAMS. 415 residence, as Bishop of Durham, that he laid the foundation of the fortunes of his friend Laud. To him, as Dean, and Ireland, 1 as Master, was commended young George Herbert for West- minster School, where ' the beauties of his pretty behaviour ' and wit shined and became so eminent and lovely in this his 4 innocent age, that he seemed marked out for piety and to ' have the care of heaven, and of a particular good angel to ' guard and guide him.' 2 The two Deans who succeeded, Monteigne 3 (or Montain) and Tounson, 4 leave but slight materials. It would seem that a Geor ge suspicion of Monteigne's ceremonial practices was the Monteigne, rg ^. beginning of the transfer of the worship of the TovmTol House of Commons from the Abbey to St. Margaret's. It is recorded that they declined to receive the Com- munion at Westminster Abbey, ' for fear of copes and wafer ' cakes.' 5 The Dean and Canons strongly resented this, but gave way on the question of the bread. Tounson, as we have seen, was with Ealegh in the neighbouring Gatehouse twice on the night before his execution, and on the scaffold remained with him to the last, and asked him in what faith he died. 6 On his appointment to the See of Salisbury he was succeeded by the man who has left more traces of himself in the office than any of his predecessors, and than most of his successors. The last churchman who held the Great Seal the last who occupied at once an Archbishopric and a Deanery one of the few eminent Welshmen who have figured in history, John John WILLIAMS carried all his energy into the precincts i62o-5a s> of Westminster. He might have been head -of the Deanery of Westminster from his earliest years; for he was educated at 7 Euthin, the school founded by his predecessor and countryman Dean Goodman. His own interest in the Abbey was intense. 8 Abbot Islip and Bishop Andrewes were his two 1 Ireland went abroad in 1610, and buried at Cawood, 1628. nominally for ill health, really under 4 Tounson was appointed Bishop of suspicion of Popery. (Chapter Book, Salisbury 1620. Buried at the entrance 1010.) of St. Edmund's Chapel, 1621. He 2 Walton's Life, ii. 24. Amongst was uncle 1 3 Fuller. the Prebendaries at this time were 5 State Papers, 1614, 1621. Eichard Hakluyt, the geographer, and 6 See Chapter V. Adrian Saravia, the friend of Hooker. 7 See Notices of Archbishop Wil- It has been sometimes said that Casau- liams by B. H. Beedham, p. 8. bon held a stall at Westminster, but of 8 He had the usual troubles of im- this there is no evidence. perious rulers. Ladies with yellow 3 Monteigne was appointed Bishop ruffs he forbade to be admitted into his of Lincoln 1617, translated to London church. (State Papers, vol. cxiii. No. 1621, Durham 1627, York 1628. Died 18, March 11, 1620-21.) He also 416 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. models amongst his predecessors the one from his benefac- tions to the Abbey, the other from his services to the School : The piety and liberality of Abbot Islip to tbis domo came into Dr. Williams by transmigration ; who, in bis entrance into tbat place, found the Church in such decay, that all tbat passed by, and loved the hon- our of God's house, shook their heads at the stones that dropped down from the pinnacles. Therefore, that the ruins of it might be no more a reproach, tbis godly Jehoiada took care for the Temple of the Lord, to repair it, ' set it in its state, and to strengthen it.' He tionstothe began at the south-east part, which looked the more de- formed with decay, because it was coupled with a later building, the Chapel of King Henry VII., which was tight and fresh. The north-west part also, which looks to the Great Sanctuary, was far gone in dilapidations : the great buttresses, which were almost crumbled to dust with the injuries of the weather, he re-edified with durable materials, and beautified with elegant statues (among whom Abbot Islip had a place), so that 4500 were expended in a trice upon the workmanship. All tbis was his cost : neither would be impatroiiise bis name to the credit of that work which should be raised up by other men's collatitious liberality. 1 For their further satisfaction, who will judge of good works by visions and not by dreams, I will cast up, in a true audit, other deeds of no small reckoning, conducing greatly to the welfare of that college, church, and liberty, wherein piety and totjje benficence were relucent in despite of jealousies. First, that choir, G O( J might be praised with a cheerful noise in His sanctuary, be procured the sweetest music, both for the organ and for the voices of all parts, that ever was heard in an English choir. In those days tbat Abbey, and Jerusalem Chamber, where he gave entertainment to his friends, were the volaries of the choicest singers that the land bad bred. The greatest masters of that delightful faculty frequented him above all others, and were never nice to serve him; and some of the most famous yet living will confess he was never nice to re- ward them : a lover could not court his mistress with more prodigal effusion of gifts. With the same generosity and strong propensiou of tothe mind to enlarge the boundaries of learning, be converted Library, a was te room, situate in the east side of the Cloisters, into Plato's Portico, into a goodly Library: 2 modelled it into decent shape, carried on the war with the House of the Temple, by the King's order at last Commons which his predecessors had returned to St. Margaret's. (State begun. They claimed to appoint their Papers, Feb. 22, 1821-22). own precentor at St. Margaret's, ' Dr. ' A Chapter account, signed by the ' Usher, an Irishman,' doubtless the Dean and eight of the Canons, re- futnre Primate. Williams claimed the pudiates the calumny that the Dean right of nomination on the ground that had made the repairs ' out of the diet St. Margaret's was under his cure. ' and bellies of the Prebendaries.' The Commons, after threatening migra- (Chapter Book, December 8, 1628.) tion to St. Paul's, Christ Church, and 2 For the first formation of this CHAP. vi. DEAN "WILLIAMS. 417 furnished it with desks and chairs, accoutred it with all utensils, and stored it with a vast number of learned volumes ; for which use he lighted most fortunately upon the study of that learned gentleman, Mr. Baker, of Highgate, who, in a long and industrious life, had col- lected into his own possession the best authors of ah 1 sciences, in their best editions, which, being bought at 500 (a cheap pennyworth for such precious ware), were removed into this storehouse. When he received thanks from all the professors of learning in and about London, far beyond his expectations, because they had free admittance to suck honey from the flowers of such a garden as they wanted before, it compelled him to unlock his cabinet of jewels, and bring forth his choicest manuscripts. A right noble gift in all the books he gave to this Serapeum, but especially the parchments. Some good authors were conferred by other benefactors, but the richest fruit was shaken from the boughs of this one tree, which will keep green in an unfading memory in despite of the tempest of iniquity. I cannot end with the erection of this Library : for this Dean gratified the College with many other benefits. When he came to look into the state of the house, he found it in a debt of 300 by the hospitality of the table. It had then a brotherhood of most worthy Prebendaries Mountford, Sutton, Laud, Cassar, Eobinson, Darell, Fox, King, Newell, and the rest ; but ancient frugal diet was laid aside in all places, and the prices of provisions in less than fifteen years were doubled in all markets, by which enhance- ment the debt was contracted, and by him discharged. Not long after, to the to the number of the forty scholars he added four more, dis- schooi, tinguished from the rest in their habit of violet -coloured gowns, for whose maintenance he purchased lands. 1 These were adopted children ; and in this diverse from the natural children, that the place to which they are removed, when they deserve it by their learning, is St. John's College, in Cambridge ; and in those days, when good turns were received with the right hand, it was esteemed among to the the praises of a stout and vigilant Dean, that whereas a Burgesses. g rea t limb of the liberties of the city (of Westminster) was threatened to be cut off by the encroachments of the higher power of the Lord Stewart of the King's household, and the Knight- Marshal with his tipstaves, he stood up against them with a wise and confident spirit, and would take no composition to let them share in those privileges, which by right they never had; but preserved Library, see p. 408. The order for its ' so in the well ordering of the books,' repair and furniture, May 16, 1587, was made Librarian, ' with a place and seems to have been imperfectly carried ' diet at the Dean and Prebendaries' out ; and, accordingly, when Williams ' table in the College Hall.' (Chapter 1 re-edified it,' it required a new order Book, January 22, 1625-26.) to arrange it properly. Williams re- ' Both here and at St. John's, the plenished it with books to the value of funds which he left for these purposes 2000, and Richard Goulard, 'for his were wholly inadequate to maintain ' very great and assiduous pains for the them. ' last two years past, as in the choice EE 418 THE ABBEY SINCE THE EEFORMATION. CHAP. vi. the charter of his place in its entire jurisdiction and laudable im- munities. 1 In 1621 Williams succeeded Bacon as Lord Keeper. It is in this capacity that he is known to us in his portraits, 2 with LordKeeper, m 's official hat on his head, and the Great Seal by his 1621 - 1 re- side. The astonishment produced by this unwonted HiS 16 1 " elevation his own incredible labours to meet the seni, ucu, ou, exigencies of the office must be left to his biographer. For its connection with Westminster, it is enough to record that on the day when he took his place in Court, ' he set out ' early in the morning with the company of the Judges and ' some few more, and passing through the Cloisters, he carried ' them with him into the Chapel of Henry VII., where he ' prayed on his knees (silently, but very devoutly, as might ' be seen by his gesture) almost a quarter of an hour ; then ' rising up very cheerfully, he was conducted with no other train ' to a mighty confluence that expected him in Westminster ' Hall, whom, from the Bench of the Court of Chancery [then ' at the upper end of the Hall], he greeted ' with his opening speech. 3 In that same Chapel, following the precedents of the Refor- mation, he had, a short time before, been consecrated Bishop Bishop of n t ( as usual) at Lambeth, 4 because of the scruple NoTi",' which he professed to entertain at 'receiving that ' solemnity ' from the hands of Archbishop Abbot, who had just shot the gamekeeper at Bramshill. It was the See of Lincoln which was bestowed on him ' the largest diocese in ' the land, because this new elect had the largest wisdom to ' superintend so great a circuit. Yet, inasmuch as the revenue ' of it was not great, it was well pieced out with a grant 5 to ' hold the Deanery of Westminster, into which he shut himself ' fast, with as strong bars and bolts as the law could make.' In answer to the obvious objections that were made to this accumulation of dignities, the locality of Westminster plays a considerable part : The port of the Lord Keeper's place must be maintained in some convenient manner. Here he was handsomely housed, which, if he quitted, he must trust to the King to provide one for him. . . . Here 1 Hacket, pp. 45, 46. 3 Hacket, p. 71. 2 There are two portraits of him in 4 So Laud (Nov. 18, 1621) was con- the Deanery, one in the Chapter secrated in the Chapel of London House. Library, which was repainted 1823. 5 As long as he held the Great Seal. (Chapter Book, June 23, 1823.) (State Papers, 1621.) CHAP. vi. DEAN WILLIAMS. 419 he had some supplies to his housekeeping from the College in bread and beer, corn and fuel. ... In that College he needed to entertain no under-servants or petty officers, who were already provided to his hand. . . . And it was but a step from thence to Westminster Hall, where his business lay ; and it was a lodging which afforded him mar- vellous quietness, to turn over his papers and to serve the King. He might have added (for it was in the bottom of his breast) he was loth to stir from that seat where he had the command of such exquisite music. 1 These arguments were more satisfactory to himself than to his enemies, in whose eyes he was a kind of ecclesiastical monster, and who ironically describe him as having thus be- come ' a perfect diocese in himself ' 2 Bishop, Dean, Prebend, Residentiary, and Parson. 3 The scene which follows introduces us to a new phase in the history of the Jerusalem Chamber its convivial aspect, which, from time to time, it has always retained since : When the conferences about the marriage of Prince Charles with Henrietta Maria were gone so far, and seemed, as it were, to be over _, . . . the last fire, and fit for prelection, his Majesty would have Entertain- . . merits in the the Lord Keeper taken into the Cabinet; and, to make chamber. him known by a mark of some good address to the French Dec. is, 1624. U p 0n the return of the Ambassadors to London, he sent a message to him to signify that it was his pleasure that his Lordship should give an entertainment to the Ambassadors and their train on Wednesday following it being Christmas day with them, according to the Gregorian prse-occupation of ten days before our account. The King's will signified, the invitement at a supper was given and taken ; which was provided in the College of West- minster, in the room named Hierusalem Chamber ; 4 but for that night it might have been called Lucullus his Apollo. But the ante-past 1 Hacket, p. 62. He also kept the from all residence for a year. (Chapter Rectory of Walgrave, which he justi- Book, January 27, 1625.) fied to Hacket by the examples of 3 Heylin's Cyprianus, p. 86. _ There ' Elijah's commons in the obscure vil- was a strong belief that during the ' lage of Zarepheth, 5 Anselm's Cell at Spanish journey he had made interest ' Bee, Gardiner's Mastership of Trinity with Buckingham to add to his honour ' Hall, Plautus's fable of the Mouse yet another dignity that of Cardinal. ' with many Holes.' ' Walgrave,' he (See Sydney Papers, Note A.) said, ' is but a aiousehole ; and yet it 4 The first distinct notice of the ' will be a pretty fortification to enter- Jerusalem Chamber being used for the ' tain me if I have no other home to Chapter is in Williams's time. (Chap- ' resort to.' For a description of ter Book, December 13, 1638.) It was Walgrave, see Beedham's Notices of probably in commemoration of this Archbishop Williams, p. 23. His next French entertainment that Williams neighbour (at Wold) was his immediate put up in the Chamber the chimney- predecessor, Dean Tounson. piece of cedar-wood which has his arms * He was dispensed by the Chapter and the heads of King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria. K 2 420 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. was kept in the Abbey; as it went before the feast, so it was beyond it, being purely an episcopal collation. The Ambassadors, with the nobles and gentlemen in their company, were brought in at the north gate of the Abbey, which was stuck with flambeaux every- where both within and without the Quire, that strangers might cast their eyes upon the stateliness of the church. At the door of the Quire the Lord Keeper besought their Lordships to go in and to take their seats there for a while, promising, on the word of a bishop, that nothing of ill relish should be offered before them, which they accepted ; The first an d a ^ their entrance the organ 1 was touched by the best Musical finger of that age Mr. Orlando Gibbons. While a verse Festival in * the Abbey, wa s played, the Lord Keeper presented the Ambassadors, and the rest of the noblest quality of their nation, with our Liturgy, as it spake to them in their own language ; and in the delivery of it used these few words, but pithy : ' that their Lordships at leisure ' might read in that book in what form of holiness our Prince wor- ' shipped God, wherein he durst say nothing savoured of any corrup- ' tion of doctrine, much less of heresy, which he hoped would be so ' reported to the Lady Princess Henrietta.' The Lords Ambassadors and their great train took up all the stalls, where they continued about half an hour ; while the quiremen, vested in their rich copes, 2 with their choristers, sang three several anthems with most exquisite voices before them. The most honourable and the meanest persons of the French all that time uncovered with great reverence, except that Secretary Villoclare alone kept on his hat. And when all others carried away the Books of Common Prayer commended to them, he only left his in the stall of the Quire, where he had sate, which was not brought after him (Ne Margarita, etc.) as if he had forgot it. 3 Another scene, which brings before us Christmas Day as then kept in the Abbey and in the College Hall, belongs to this time. Amongst the guests was a French Abbot, ' but a ' gentleman that held his abbacy in a lay capacity.' He ex- pressed a desire to be present upon our Christmas Day in the morning : The Abbot kept his hour to come to church upon that Day with High Feast ; and a place was well fancied aloft, with a Abbot! D Dec. lattice and curtains to conceal him. Mr. William Boswell, 25,1624. nk e pi^ip ri^g w ith the treasurer of Queen Candace in the same chariot, sat with him, directing him in the process of 1 For Williams's delight in music at is worth noting, as showing in what Buckdon, see Cade's Sermon on Con- sense these vestments were then applied science (quoted in Notices, p. 31). in the Abbey. 2 The mention of the rich copes of 3 Bernard's Heylin, pp. 162, 194. the ' quiremen ' (i.e. of the lay vicars) CHAP. vi. DEAN WILLIAMS. 421 all the sacred offices performed, and made clear explanation to all his scruples. 1 The church-work of that ever-blessed day fell to the Lord Keeper to perform it, but in the place of the Dean of that Collegiate Church. He sung the service, preached the sermon, conse- crated the Lord's Table, and (being assisted with some of the Pre- bendaries) distributed the elements of the Holy Communion to a great multitude meekly kneeling upon their knees. Four hours and better were spent that morning before the congregation was dismissed with the episcopal blessing. The Abbot was entreated to be a guest at the dinner provided in the College Hall, where all the members of that incorporation feasted together, even to the Eleemosynaries, called the Beadsmen of the Foundation ;. no distinction being made, but high and low eating their meat with gladness together upon the occasion of our Saviour's nativity, and it might not be forgotten that the poor shepherds were admitted to worship the Babe in the Manger as well as the potentates of the East, who brought rich presents to offer up at the shrine of His cradle. All having had their comfort both in spiritual and bodily repast, the Master of the Feast and the Abbct, with some few beside, retired into a gallery. 2 In this gallery whether that above the Hall, or the corridor or possibly the long chamber in the Deanery, we must conceive the conversation, as carried on between the Lord Keeper and ' his brother Abbot,' on the comparison, suggested by what the Frenchman had seen, between the Church of England and the Continental Churches, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Let them part with the concluding remark of the Lord Keeper : ' I used to say it often, that there ought to ' be no secret antipathies in Divinity or in churches for which ' no reason can be given. But let every house sweep the dust ' from their own door. We have done our endeavour, God be ' praised, in England to model a Churchway which is not afraid ' to be searched into by the sharpest critics for purity and ' antiquity. But, as Pacatus said in his panegyric in another ' case, Pantm est quando cceperit termimtm non habebit. Yet I ' am confident it began when Christ taught upon earth, and I ' hope it shall last till He comes again.' ' I will put my attes- ' tation thus far to your confidence ' (said the Abbot), ' that I ' think you are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.' So, with mutual smiles and embraces, they parted. This was the last year of Williams's power and favour at 1 Probably in the organ-loft. Bos- in some respects similar was given to well was Williains's secretary. the Greek Archbishop of Syra in the - Hacket, pp. 211, 212. A reception Jerusalem Chamber in 1870. 422 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. Court. Within three months from this entertainment King runerai of James died. The Dean was present during his last James I. . . 1-11 111 1625. hours, and at his funeral in the Abbey preached the famous sermon, on the text (2 Chron. ix. 31), ' Solomon slept * with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David his * father ; ' and (as his biographer adds) ' no farther ' (i.e. with a studious omission of ' Rehoboam his son '). ' He never studied ' anything with more care, taking for his pattern Fisher's ser- * mon at the funeral of Henry VII., and Cardinal Peron's sermon * for Henry IV. of France.' l Then the power of Williams in Westminster suddenly waned. His rival Laud, 2 who was his bitter antagonist amongst the Quarrels Prebendaries of Westminster, was now in the ascen- I'rebe'uda- dant. The slight put upon him at the Coronation of Charles I. has been already mentioned, and hence- forth he resided chiefly at his palace near Lincoln, only coming up to Westminster at the times absolutely required by the Statutes of the Abbey. Two scenes in the Abbey belong to this period. The first is in the early morning of Trinity Sunday, 1626, in Henry VII. 's Chapel. It was the ordination of the saintly lay- man Nicholas Ferrar to his perpetual Diaconate by Laud as Bishop of St. David's, to whom he was brought by his tutor, Laud's friend, Dean Linsell. Apparently they three alone were present. Laud had been prepared by Linsell ' to receive * him there with very particular esteem, and with a great deal * of joy, that he was able to lay hands on so extraordinary a * person. So he was ordained deacon and no more, for he ' protested he durst not advance one step higher.' . . . . * The * news of his taking orders quickly spread all over the city and * the court.' 3 Some blamed him, but others, with Sir Edwin Sandys, approved. Another less edifying incident takes us to the Cloisters at night. 4 It is Lilly the astrologer who speaks, in the year 1637 : Davy Kamsey, Iris Majesty's clock-maker, had been informed that 1 Two other sermons were preached Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century, by him in the Abbey before the House p. 226.) The same incident is told in of Lords ; one on Ash Wednesday, Feb. the life by his brother. (Ibid. p. 24.) 18, 1628, the other on April 6, 1628 ' They two went to Westminster Chapel, (on Gal. vi. 14). ' his tutor having spoken to Bishop 2 For the attention which Laud de- ' Laud ... to persuade him to be voted to the School, see the interesting ' there, and to lay his hands upon him regulations of its hours and studies ' to make him Deacon.' preserved in his handwriting. (Lusus * This doubtless suggested a well- West., ii. 330.) known passage in the Antiquary. * Jebb's Life of Ferrar. (Mayor's CHAP. vi. DEAN WILLIAMS. 423 there was a great quantity of treasure buried in the Cloyster of West- minster Abbey ; he acquaints Dean Williams therewith, who was also then Bishop of Lincoln ; the Dean gave him liberty to search after it, with this proviso, that if any was discovered, his church should have a share of it. Davy Eamsey finds out one John Scott, who lived in Pudding Lane, and had sometime been a page (or such like) to the Lord Norris, and who pretended the use of the Mosaical Rods, to assist him herein ; I was desired to join with him, unto which I consented. One winter's night Davy Eamsey with several gentlemen, myself, and Scott, entered the Cloysters ; Davy Eamsey brought an half-quartern sack to put the treasure in ; we played the hazel-rod round about the Cloyster ; upon the west side of the Cloysters the rods turned one over another, an argument that the treasure was there. The labourers digged at least six foot deep, and then we met with a coffin ; but in regard it was not heavy, we did not open, which we afterwards much repented. From the Cloysters we went into the Abbey- Church, where, upon a sudden (there being no wind when we began), so fierce, so high, so blustering and loud a wind did rise, that we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us ; our rods would not move at all ; the candles and torches, all but one, were extinguished, or burned very dimly. John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do, until I gave directions and command to dismiss the daemons ; which when done, all was quiet again, and each man re- turned unto his lodging late, about 12 a clock at night ; I could never since be induced to joyn with any in such like actions. The true mis- carriage of the business was by reason of so many people being present at the operation, for there was above thirty, some laughing, others deriding us ; so that if we had not dismissed the daemons, I believe most part of the Abbey- Church had been blown down ; secrecy and intelligent operators, with a strong confidence and knowledge of what they are doing, are best for this work. 1 Amongst the thirty-six articles of complaint raised against Williams by his enemies in the Chapter, many had direct refer- ence to his Westminster life such as, ' that he came too late ' for service,' ' came without his habit on,' etc. The ' articles,' says Hacket (speaking almost as if he had seen their passage over the venerable pinnacles), ' flew away over the Abbey, like a ' flock of wild geese, if you cast but one stone amongst them.' 2 Williams was also expressly told that ' the lustre in which he ' lived at Westminster gave offence to the King, and that it ' would give more content if he would part with his Deanery, ' his Majesty not approving of his being so near a neighbour 1 Lilly's History of his Life and Times, 1602-1681, pp. 32, 33. London, 1715. " Hacket, pp. 91, 92. 424 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. * to Whitehall.' One great prelate (evidently Laud) plainly said, in the presence of the King ' that the Bishop of Lincoln lived ' in as much pomp as any Cardinal in Kome, for diet, music, ' and attendance.' l But, in spite of his love for music and the occasional splendour of the services, it would seem that the peculiar innovations of the Laudian school never permanently prevailed in the Abbey. At the time when other churches were blazing with hundreds of wax tapers on Candlemas Day, it was observed that in the Abbey there were none even in the evening. 2 His enemies at last succeeded in procuring his fall His first im- and imprisonment, and a Commission still remains on 1637-40. ' the Chapter Books, authorising the Chapter to carry on the business in his absence. Peter Heylin, Laud's chaplain, was now supreme as treasurer and subdean. 3 A petition from him to the King describes the difficulty which he experienced in keeping up the ancient custom of closing the gates at 10 P.M. 4 ussher at ^^ e Deanery was made over to Ussher. A letter 5 to the Deanery. jjj m f rom L aU cl curiously connects the past history of Westminster with the well-known localities of the present day : As I was coming from the Star-Chamber this day se'nnight at night, there came to me a gentlemanlike man, who, it seems, some way belongs to your Grace. He came to inform me that he had re- ceived some denial of the keys of the Dean of Westminster's lodgings. I told him that I bad moved bis Majesty that you migbt bave the use of tbese lodgings tbis winter-time, and that bis Majesty was graciously pleased that you should have them ; and tbat I bad acquainted Dr. Newell, the Subdean of the College, with so much, and did not find him otherwise tban willing thereunto. But, my Lord, if I mistake not, the error is in tbis : tbe gentleman, or somebody else to your use, de- manded the keys of your lodging, if I misunderstood bim not. Now tbe keys cannot 6 be delivered, for the King's scholars must come hither daily to dinner and supper in tbe Hall, and tbe butlers and otber officers must come in to attend them. And to tbis end tbere is a porter, by office and oatb, tbat keeps tbe keys. Besides, tbe Prebends must come into tbeir Chapter House, and, as I tbink, during tbe Chapter-time bave tbeir diet in tbe Hall. But tbere is room plentiful 1 Fuller's Church History. ' the roof thereof to be raised to the 2 Catalogue of superstitious obser- ' same height as the rest of the Church.' vances, printed for Hinscott, 1642, p. (Bernard's Heylin, p. 173.) 27- State Papers, vol. 1837. 3 He repaired the West and South 5 Ussher's Works, xvi. 536, 537. Aisle ; and ' new vaulted the curious 6 This implies a gate between the ' arch over the preaching place, which Cloister and the Deanery. ' looketh now most magnificently, and CHAP. vi. DEAN WILLIAMS. 425 enough for your Grace besides this. I advised this gentleman to speak again with the Subdean, according to this direction, and more I could not possibly do. And by that time these letters come to you, I presume the Subdean will be in town again. And if he be, I will speak with him, and do all that lies in me to accommodate your Grace. Since this, some of the Bishop of Lincoln's friends whisper privately that he hopes to be in Parliament, and, if he be, he must use his own house. And whether the Subdean have heard anything of this or no, I cannot tell. Neither do I myself know any certainty, but yet did not think it fit to conceal anything that I hear in this from you. On the meeting of the Long Parliament Williams was released, and ' conducted into the Abbey Church, when he wiiiiams-s ' officiated, it being a day of humiliation, as Dean of return. < Westminster, more honoured at the first by Lords ' and Commons than any other of his order.' The service at which he attended was, however, disturbed by the revival of an old feud between himself and his Preben- daries. Each had long laid claim to what was called ' the ' great pew ' on the north side of the Choir, near the pulpit, and immediately under the portrait of Richard II. 1 Williams insisted, by a tradition reaching back to Dean Goodman, that this pew was his own by right, and by him granted to noblemen and ' great ladies,' whilst the Prebendaries were to sit in their own stalls, or with the Scholars. Here he sate on the occasion of his triumphant return. It so chanced that his old enemy Peter Heyiin P eter Heylin, in the newly adorned pulpit, was in the puipit. < preaching his course,' and when, at a certain point, the Royalist Prebendary launched out into his usual invectives against the Puritans, the Dean, ' sitting in the great pew,' and inspired, as it were, by that old battlefield of contention, knocked aloud with his staff on the adjacent pulpit, saying, ' No more of that point no more of that point, Peter.' ' To ' which the Doctor readily answered, without hesitation, or ' without the least sign of being dashed out of countenance, ' I have a little more to say, my Lord, and then I have done.' 2 He then continued in the same strain, and the Dean afterwards sent for the sermon. The tide of events which flowed through Westminster Hall 1 State Papers, 1635. See Chapter " Bernard's Heylin, 193. The pulpit III. p. 124. It seems to have been used was moved to the north side, as now, as the seat of the Lord Keepers and in the last century. (Chapter Book, Chancellors on occasion of their coming June 27, 1779.) to service in the Abbey. 426 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. in the next year constantly discharged itself into the Abbey. The Subcommittee, composed partly of Episcopalians, partly of Presbyterians, to report on the ecclesiastical questions of conferences the day, sate under Williams' s presidency in his Jerusalem beloved Jerusalem Chamber, now for the first time 1640? e passing into its third phase, that of the scene of ecclesiastical disputations. There they ' had solemn debates six ' several days,' ' always entertained at his table with such ' bountiful cheer as well became a Bishop. But this we beheld ' as the last course l of all public episcopal treatments.' Some have thought the mutual conferences of such men as Sanderson and Calamy, Prideaux and Marshall, 'might have produced ' much good,' in spite of the forebodings of the Court Prelates. But what the issue of this conference would have been 1641. is ' only known to Him who knew what the men of ' Keilah would do.' ' The weaving of their consultations ' continued till the middle of May, and was fairly on the loom ' when the bringing in of the bill against Deans and Chapters ' cut off all the threads, putting such a distance between the ' aforesaid divines, that never their judgments and scarce their ' persons met after together.' Meantime the fury of the London populace rose to such a pitch, that Williams who meantime had just received from the King the prize so long wmiams's coveted, but now too late for enjoyment, of the See of York, Dec. 4. York was as much in danger from the Parliamen- tarian mob as he had been a year before from Laud and Strafford. Eyewitnesses have thus informed me of the manner thereof. Of those apprentices who coming up to the Parliament cried, ' No bishops ! Attack on ' ^ ki sn P s ! ' some, rudely rushing into the Abbey church, the Abbey, were reproved by a verger for their irreverent behaviour therein. Afterwards quitting the church, the doors there- of, by command from the Dean, were shut up, to secure the organs and monuments therein against the return of the apprentices. For though others could not foretell the intentions of such a tumult, who could not certainly tell their own, yet the suspicion was probable, by what was uttered amongst them. The multitude presently assault the church (under pretence that some of their party were detained therein), and force a panel out of the north door, but are beaten back by the officers and scholars of the College. Here an unhappy tile was cast by an unknown hand, from the leads or battlements of the church, 1 Fuller's Church History, 1640. CHAP. vi. DEAX WILLIAMS. 427 which so bruised Sir Richard Wiseman, conductor of the apprentices, that he died thereof, and so ended that day's distemper. 1 All the Welsh blood in Williams's veins was roused, and, as afterwards he both defended and attacked Con way Castle, so now he maintained the Abbey in his own person, ' fearing lest ' they should seize upon the Regalia, which were in that place ' under his custody.' 2 The violence of the mob continued to rage so fiercely, that the passage from the House of Lords to the Abbey became a matter of danger. Williams was with difficulty protected home by some of the lay lords, as he returned by torch-light. 3 He was accompanied by Bishop Hall, who lodged in Dean's Yard. In a state of fury at these insults, he once more had recourse to the Jerusalem Chamber. Twelve Meeting of ^ *^ e Bishops, with "Williams at their head, met there to protest against their violent exclusion from chT^be? 1 the House of Lords, and were in consequence com- mitted to the Tower. Williams was released after the abolition of the temporal jurisdiction of the clergy. The Chapter Book contains only two signatures of Williams as \viiiiams-3 Ai'chbishop of York one immediately before his prisonment, second imprisonment, December 21, 1641 ; one im- i64i; ana mediately after his release, May 18, 1642. This must release, May . , ' , . - , , . is, 1642. have been his last appearance, in the scene of so many interests and so many conflicts, in Westminster. He left the capital to follow the King to York, and never returned. 4 The volume in which these signatures are recorded bears witness to the disorder of the times. A few hurried entries on torn leaves are all that mark those eventful years, followed by a series of blank pages, which represent the interregnum of the Commonwealth. During this interregnum the Abbey itself, as we have seen, not only retained still its honour, as the burial- place of the great, 5 but received an additional impulse in that direction, which since that period it has never lost. Many a Royalist, perhaps, felt at the time what Waller expressed after- wards When others feU, this, standing, did presage The Crown should triumph over popular rage ; Hard by that ' House ' where all our ills were shap'd, The auspicious Temple stood, and yet escap'd. 6 1 Fuller's Church History, 1641. * Buried at Llandegay Church, 1650. 2 Racket, p. 176. * See Chapter IV. 3 Hall's Hard Measure. (Words- ' Weller on St. James's Park, worth's Eccl. Biog. pp. 318, 324.) 428 THE ABBEY SINCE THE KEFORMATION. CHAP. vi. But the religious services were entirely changed, and whilst the monuments and the fabrics received but little injury, the Puritan furniture and ornaments of the Church suffered Arlrff't materially. A Committee was appointed, of which icjs. gi r Robert Harley w r as the head, for the purpose of demolishing ' monuments of superstition and idolatry,' in the Abbey Church of Westminster, and in the windows thereof. The Altar, which, in the earlier part of Williarns's rule, had, contrary to the general practice since the Eeformation, been placed at the east end of the Choir, 1 was brought into the cen- tre of the Church, for the Communion of the House of Com- mons. 2 The copes, which had been worn at the Coronations by the Dean and Prebendaries, and probably, on special occa- sions, by all the members of the Choir, were sold by order of Parliament, and the produce given to the poor of Ireland. The tapestries representing the history of Edward the Confessor were transferred to the Houses of Parliament. The plate belonging to the College was melted down, to pay for the servants and workmen, or to buy horses. 3 The brass and iron in Henry VII.'s Chapel was ordered to be sold, and the proceeds thereof to be employed according to the directions of the House of Commons. But this apparently was not carried out ; as the brass still remains, and the iron gratings were only removed within this century. In July 1643 took place the only actual desecration to which the Abbey was exposed. It was believed in Royalist circles Desecration that soldiers 4 were quartered in the Abbey, who burnt juiy 1643. ' the altar-rails, sate on benches round the Communion Table, eating, drinking, smoking, and singing destroyed the organ, and pawned the pipes for ale in the alehouses played at hare and hounds in the Church, the hares being the soldiers dressed up in the surplices of the Choir and turned the Chapels and High Altar to the commonest and basest uses. 5 It is a more certain fact that Sir Robert Harley, who under his commission from the Parliament took down the crosses at Charing and Cheapside, destroyed the only monument in the Abbey which totally perished in those troubles the highly - 1 Bernard's Heylin, p. 171. 4 ' Some soldiers of Washborne and 2 Nalson, i. 563. (Robertson on ' Cawood's companies, perhaps because The Liturgy, p. 160.) ' there were no houses in Westminster.' 3 Widmore, p. 156. Commons' Jour- 5 Crull, vol. ii. app. ii. p. 14 ; nals, April 24, 28, 1643; April 24, Mercitrius Rusticus. February 1643, May 8, 1644. p. 153. CHAP. YI. UNDER THE COMMONWEALTH. 429 decorated altar which served as the memorial of Edward VI.' ' Destruction ail( ^ which doubtless attracted attention from Torre- vi E . YI. UNDER JAMES II. 451 Amidst the troubles of 1687 he lost a little girl, Penelope, ' of very great beauty very lovely,' he adds, ' in our eyes, and ' grew every day more delightful.' On the 20th of September at 3 A.M. she died, and was buried the same day by the monument of Dean Goodman. ' It was no small difficulty to keep my wife ' from being overcome with grief. But I upheld and comforted * her, as she did me, as well as we were able. And the Psalms * for the day suited us admirably, the first being very mournful, ' and the next exceeding joyful, teaching us to say, " Bless ' " the Lord, my soul," and " Forget not all his benefits." ' In the troubled days of 1688 the Little Cloisters witnessed more than one interesting interview. On the 7th of August, Dr. Tenison (writes Patrick) ' came to my house at Westmin- ' ster, where he communicated an important secret to me, that ' the Prince of Orange intended to come over with an army, ' and therefore desired me to carry all my money and what I ' had valuable out of London.' ! On the close of the day (December 17) on which the Prince of Orange arrived at St. James's, ' it was a very rainy night, when, Dr. Tenison and I ' being together, and discoursing in my parlour in the Little ' Cloisters, one knocked hard at the door. It being opened, in ' came the Bishop of St. Asaph, to whom I said, " What makes ' " your lordship come abroad in such weather, when the rain 2 ' " pours down as if heaven and earth would come together ? " ' To which he answered, " He had been at Lambeth, and was * " sent by the Bishops to wait upon the Prince and know when ' " they might all come and pay their duty to him." ' Well may that stormy night have dwelt in Patrick's memory. Immediately afterwards followed his preparation of the Comprehension Bill, his introduction to the Prince, and his elevation to the see of Chichester. 3 Amongst the Prebendaries of this period we have already Thomdyke, noticed Horneck, Thorndyke, Triplett, and Outram. Horneck, Another is Bichard Lucas, who felt in his blind- TriS, ness that he was not truly released from his duty oiuram, to that body of which he was still a member, but, as iffii'in*. < it were " fighting on his stumps," continued to study ' and to write.' But the most conspicuous is Kobert South. to attend at the three festivals. (Chap- weather. ' Would have me kill my- ter Book, 1686.) se l f Do TOU not see what a cold I 1 Patrick's Works, ix. 513. have ? (and indeed he had a sore one).' 2 The Archbishop, who had con- Patrick, ix. 515. sented to go, put his refusal on the 3 Patrick, ix. 514-518. G G 2 452 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. We last saw him as a sturdy Eoyalist boy in the School. Robert In 1663, by the influence of Lord Clarendon, he received i663-iVi6. a stall at Westminster, and in 1670 another at Christ Church. He was presented in 1677 with the living of Islip, the Confessor's birthplace, one of the choicest pieces of Westminster preferment, where, in honour of the Founder, he rebuilt both chancel and rectory. But we here are concerned south's with him only in connection with Westminster. Of the Abbey, his famous sermons, some of the most remarkable were heard in the Abbey, and of these two or three have a special local interest. 1 One was that discourse, marvellous for its pugnacious personalities, on ' All Contingencies under ' Divine Providence,' which contained the allusions to the sudden rise of Agathocles ' handling the clay and making ' pots under his father ; ' ' Masaniello, a poor fisherman, with ' his red cap and angle ; ' and ' such a bankrupt, beggarly ' fellow as Cromwell, entering the Parliament House with a ' threadbare torn cloak and a greasy hat, and perhaps neither ' of them paid for.' 2 At hearing which the King fell into a violent fit of laughter, and turning to the Lord Rochester, said, 4 Ods fish, Lory, your chaplain must be a bishop, therefore ' put me in mind of him at the next death.' But the King himself died first, and his death prevented the delivery of the only one of South's sermons which had express reference to the institution with which he was so closely connected. ' It was 4 planned and proposed to have been preached at Westminster ' Abbey at a solemn meeting of such as had been bred at West- * minster School. But the death of King Charles II. happening ' in the meantime, the design of this solemnity fell to the ground 4 with him.' 3 It was, however, published at the command of ' a 4 very great person (Lord Jeffries), whose word then was law ns 4 well as his profession,' in the hope that hereafter ' possibly some * other may condescend to preach it.' It is this discourse which 1 A11 Contingencies under Divine as preached at 'Westminster Abbey, Providence, Feb. 22, 1684-85 ; Wisdom ' on Feb. 22, 1684-85.' This date is of this World, April 30, 1676 ; Sacra- three wseks after Charles's death, and mental Preparation, April 18, 1688 ; the story, as above given, is told by Doctrine of Merit, Dec. 5, 1697 : The Curll (Life of South, p. Ixxiii.) as Restoration, May 29, 1670; Christian having taken place apparently in the Mysteries, April 29, 1674; Christian Chapel Royal in 1681. Either this is Pentecost, 1692 ; Gunpowder Plot, a mistake, or the sermon was preached Nov. 5, 1663 (at this Evelyn was pre- twice. sent Memoirs, ii. 213), 1675, 1688 ; With the usual deference to royal Virtuous Education of Youth, 1685, etiquette which has always marked the all preached ' at Westminster Abbey.' solemnities of the Royal School. This sermon is in its title denoted CHAP. vi. UNDER QUEEN ANNE. 453 abounds in those striking reminiscences of his early school days already quoted. Had he preached it, he would have had ample revenge on his severe old preceptor Busby, who would doubtless have been sitting under him, when he launched out against ' those ' pedagogical Jehus, those furious school- drivers, those plagosi 1 Orbilii, those executioners rather than instructors or masters, ' persons fitter to lay about them in a coach or cart, or to dis- ' cipline boys before a Spartan altar, or rather upon it, than ' to have anything to do in a school.' The sermon would have impressed his hearers with the seeming unconsciousness of coming events with which, on the very eve of James II.'s acces- sion, he ridiculed the ' old stale movements of Popery's being ' any day ready, to return and break in upon us.' And, in fact, on the very next occasion on which he is recorded to have preached in the Abbey, on November 5, 1688, we are startled as we look at the date, and think of the feelings which must have been agitating the whole congrega- tion, to find not the faintest allusion to the Kevolution which that very day was accomplishing itself in William's landing at Torbay. He had not, however, been insensible to the changes meditated by James ; and one story connected with his stall at Westminster exhibits his impatience of the King's favour to Dissenters. ' Mr. Lob, a Dissenting preacher, being much at ' favour at Court, and being to preach one day, while the ' Doctor was obliged to be resident at Westminster, ... he ' disguised himself and took a seat in Mr. Lob's conventicle, ' when the preacher being mounted up in the pulpit, and ' naming his text, made nothing of splitting it up into twenty- ' six divisions, upon which, separately, he very gravely under- ' took to expatiate in their order ; thereupon the Doctor rose ' up, and jogging a friend who bore him company, said, " Let ' " us go home and fetch our gowns and slippers, for I find this ' " man will make night work of it." ' He was offered the Deanery of Westminster on the death of Sprat, but replied, ' that such a chair would be too uneasy Refusal of ' for an old infirm man to sit in, and he held himself theDeauery, , ^^ ^^ gatisfied ^jfa ^fog upon the eaV6S- ' dropping of the Church than to fare sumptuously by being ' placed at the pinnacle of it ' (alluding to the situation of his house under the Abbey). He was now, as he expressed it, ' within an inch of the grave, since he had lived to see a ' gentleman who was born in the very year in which he was 454 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. ' made one of the Prebendaries of this Church appointed to be ' the Dean of it.' This feeling was increased on the death of Queen Anne, ' since all that was good and gracious, and the ' very breath of his nostrils, had made its departure to the * regions of bliss and immortality, 1 In 1715 he dedi- cated his sixth volume of Sermons to Bromley, Secretary of State, as ' the last and ibest testimony he can ' render ... to that excellent person.' One of his last public appearances was at the election in the -Chapter to the office of High Steward, the candidates being the Duke of Newcastle Peb 92 anc ^ * ne Earl of Arran, the Duke of Ormond's brother, ins-is. < W jj bad ] os ^ hi s election had not Dr. South, who ' was in a manner bedridden, made the voices of the Prebend- 1 aries equal, when he was asked who he would vote for, Heart ' and soul for my Lord of Arran.' l He still, as ' for fifty years,' was ' marked for his attention ' to the service in the Abbey ; ' but was at last ' by old age ' reduced to the infirmity of sleeping at it.' It was in this state that he roused himself to fire off a piece of his ancient wit against a stentorian preacher at St. Paul's : ' the innocence of ' his life giving him a cheerfulness of spirit to rally his own ' weakness. Brother Stentor, said he, for the repose of the ' Church hearken to Bickerstaff ' [the Tatler], ' and consider ' that while you are so devout at St. Paul's, we cannot sleep ' for you at St. Peter's.' 2 He died on July 8, 1716. Four days after his decease the corpse was laid in the Jerusalem Chamber, and thence brought into the College Hall, where a Latin oration was made over it by John Barber, Captain of the School. Thence it was conveyed into the Abbey, attended by the whole Collegiate body, with many of his friends from Oxford ; and the first part of the service immediately preceded, the second succeeded, the evening prayers, with the same anthem of Croft that had been sung at the funeral of Queen Anne. 3 He was then laid at the side of Busb}-, by the Dean, at his 1 Chapter Book, Feb. 22, 1715. 2 Tatler, No. 61. ' Ordered that a Patent of the High 3 A ludicrous incident connects this ' Stewardship of Westminster and St. grave ceremony with the lighter tradi- ' Martin le Grand be now handed to the tions of the School. Barber's oration ' Earl of Arran.' Amongst the other was pirated and published by Curll, names, in a very decrepit hand, is who in revenge was entrapped by the Robert South, Senr. Freeh, and Arch- boys into Dean's Yard, whipped, tossed deacon. He was present at one more in a blanket, and forced on his knees to Chapter, but this is his last signature. apologise. (Alumni West. 268.) CHAP. vi. UNDEK QEEEN ANNE. 455 special request, 'reading the burial office with such affection ' and devotion as showed his concern ' for the departed. 1 The Dean who thus committed South to his grave was Atterbury, the name which in that office, next after Williams, Francis occupies the largest space in connection with the iii S ho P U of' Abbey. We have already, in the account of the Monu- izTs-fs. 61 ' ments of this period, observed the constant intervention of Atterbury's influence. 2 We must here touch on his closer associations with the Abbey through the Deanery. He was a Westminster scholar, and Westminster student at Christ Church, so that he was no stranger to the place to which, in later life, he was so deeply attached. There was something august and awful in the Westminster elec- tions, to see three such great men presiding Bishop Atterbury as Dean of Westminster, Bishop Smalridge as Dean of Christ Church, and Dr. Bentley as Master of Trinity ; and ' as iron sharpeneth iron,' so these three, by their wit, learning, and liberal conversation, whetted and sharpened one another. 3 He plunged, with all his ardour, into the antiquarian questions which his office required. ' Notwithstanding that His re ' wnen ^ G & rs ^ was obliged to search into the West- searches. < minster Archives, such employment was very dry and ' irksome to him, he at last took an inordinate pleasure in it, ' and preferred it even to Virgil and Cicero.' 4 He superintended with eagerness the improvements of the Abbey, as they were then thought, which were in progress. His re airs ^^ e g rea ^ North Porch received his peculiar care. oftheAbbey. 'j[' ne g re at rose window in it, curiously combining faint imitations of mediaeval figures with the Protestant Bible in the centre, was his latest interest. There is a charming tradition that he stood by, complacently watching the work- men as they hewed smooth the fine old sculptures over Solomon's Porch, which the nineteenth century vainly seeks to recall to their vacant places. Hig His sermons in Westminster were long remem- . bered : _ The Dean we heard the other day together is an orator. He has so much regard to his congregation, that he commits to his memory what he is to say to them ; and has so soft and graceful a behaviour, ' Life, p. 6. a Life of Bislwp Newton. - Chapter IV. pp. 225, 231, 260, 262, 4 Spectator, No. 447 ; Letters,ii. 157. 263. 456 THE ABBEY SINCE THE EEFOEMATION. CHAP. vi. that it must attract your attention. His person, it is to be confessed, is no small recommendation ; but he is to be highly commended for not losing that advantage, and adding to the propriety of speech (which might pass the criticism of Longinus) an action which would have been approved by Demosthenes. He has a peculiar force in his way, and has many of his audience who could not be intelligent hearers of his discourse, were there not explanation as well as grace in his action. This art of his is used with the most exact and honest skill ; he never attempts your passions, until he has convinced your reason. All the objections which he can form are laid open and dispersed, before he uses the least vehemence in his sermon ; but when he thinks he has your head, he very soon wins your heart ; and never pretends to show the beauty of holiness, until he hath convinced you of the truth of it. 1 In the School he at once became interested through his connection with the Headmaster. ' I envy Dr. Freind,' writes Dean Swift to his brother Dean, ' that he has you for his in- * spector, and I envy you for having such a person in your ' district and whom you love so well. Shall not I have the ' liberty to be sometimes a third among you, though I am but ' an Irish Dean ? ' 2 This concern in the School has been commemorated in a memorial familiar to every Westminster scholar. Down to his His interest time the Dormitory of the School had been, as we school. have seen, in the old Granary of the Convent, on the west side of Dean's Yard. The wear-and-tear of four centuries, The New which included the rough usage of many generations Dormitory. O f schoolboys, had rendered this venerable building quite unfit for its purposes. The gaping roof and broken windows, which freely admitted rain and snow, wind and sun ; the beams, cracked and hung with cobwebs ; the cavernous walls, with many a gash inflicted by youthful Dukes and Earls in their boyish days ; the chairs, scorched by many a fire, and engraven deep with many a famous name 3 provoked alter- nately the affection and the derision of Westminster students. 1713 At last the day of its doom arrived. Again and again the vigorous Dean raised the question of its rebuild- ing in the College Garden. He and his friends in the Chapter urged its ' ruinous condition,' its ' liability to mob ; ' the temp- 1 Taller, vol. ii. (No. 66). p. 116. (Sermons, ii. 265 ; iii. 3-221.) The sermons on Matt. vi. 34, Acts xxvi. 2 Swift's Works, xvi. 55. 26, 1 Pet. ii. 21, Acts i. 3, Mark xvi. 20, 3 Lusus Alteri West. i. pp. 45, 280, were preached ' at Westminster Abbey.' 281, 282. CHAP. vi. UNDEK QUEEN ANNE. 4.57 tations to which, from its situation, the scholars were every day exposed ; the ' great noise and hurry,' and the ' access of ' disorderly and tumultuous persons.' * The plan was constantly frustrated by the natural reluctance of those Prebendaries whose houses abutted on the garden, and who feared that their privacy would be invaded. The question was tried in Chancery, and carried on appeal to the House of Lords. There, partly no doubt by Atterbury's influence, an order was procured that ' every member of the Chapter, absent or present, should give ' their opinion, either viva voce or in writing, which * place they think the most proper to build a new ' Dormitory in, either the common garden, or where the old ' Dormitory stands.' 2 After a debate, which has left the traces of its fierceness in the strongly-expressed opinions of both parties, each doubtless coloured by the local feelings of the combatants, it was carried, by the vote of the Dean, in favour of rebuilding it in the garden. The original plan had been to erect it on the eastern side ; 3 but it was ultimately placed where it now stands, on the west. Wren designed a 1/22. plan for it, 4 which was in great part borrowed by Lord Burlington, who, as architect, laid the first stone in the very next year ; and it proceeded slowly, till in 1730 it was for the first time occupied. The generation of boys to which Welbore Ellis, Lord Mendip, belonged, slept in both Dormitories. 5 The old building remained till 1758. 6 The new one became the scene of all the curious customs and legends of the College from that day to this, and, in each successive winter, of the ' Westminster Play ' of Terence or Plautus. 7 But, long before the completion of the work Atterbury had been separated from his beloved haunts. In that separation Westminster bore a large part. A remarkable prelude Eall< to it has been well described by an eyewitness, 8 a printer concerned in the issue of a book by a clergyman re- flecting on the character of some nobleman : 1 Chapter Book, Jan. 3, 1713; Dec. 5 Alumni West. pp. 277, 300 ; Lustis 18 and Dec. 29, 1718 ; April 4, 1721 ; West. i. p. 57. and March 2, 1718 (19). 6 See a picture of it of that date, - Ibid. April 4, 1721. prefixed to Alumni Westmonasterienses ; 3 Ibid. March 3, 1718 (19). The also in Gent. Mag. [Sept. 1815], p. 201. undermaster's house was to have been ' See the description of the Theatre at the south end. When this plan was of earlier days in Lusus West. ii. 29. changed, the space was left waste till 8 Life of Mr. Tlwmas Gent, p. 88. ccupied by the present sanatorium. A slightly different version is given in 4 This remains in All Souls' Library. Davies's Memoir of the York Press, 149. 4,58 THE ABBEY SINCE THE [REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. The same night, my master hiring a coach, we were driven to Westminster, where we entered into a large sort of monastic building, scene in the Soon were we ushered into a spacious hall, where we sate college Haii. near a } ar g e table, covered with an ancient carpet of curious work, and whereon was soon laid a . bottle of wine for our enter- tainment. In a little time we were visited by a grave gentleman in a black lay habit, who entertained us with one pleasant discourse or other. He bid us be secret ; ' for,' said he, ' the imprisoned divine 4 does not know who is his defender ; if he did, I know his temper ; 4 in a sort of transport he would reveal it, and so I should be blamed 4 for my good office ; and, whether his intention was designed to show 4 his gratitude, yet, if a man is hurt by a friend, the damage is the 4 same as if done by an enemy ; to prevent which is the reason I ' desire this concealment.' ' You need not fear me, sir,' said my ' master ; ' and I, good sir,' added I, ' you may be less afraid of ; 4 for I protest I do not know where I am, much less your person ; 4 nor heard where I should be driven, or if I shall not be drove 4 to Jerusalem before I get home again ; nay, I shall forget I ever 4 did the job by to-morrow, and, consequently, shall never answer 4 any questions about it, if demanded. Yet, sir, I shall secretly re- ' member your generosity, and drink to your health with this brimful 4 glass.' Thereupon, this set them both a-laughing ; and truly I was got merrily tipsy, so merry that I hardly knew how I was driven homewards. For my part, I was ever inclined to secresy and fidelity ; and, therefore, I was nowise inquisitive concerning our hospitable entertainer ; yet I thought the imprisoned clergyman was happy, though he knew it not, in having so illustrious a friend, who privately strove for his releasemeiit. But, happening afterwards to behold a state-prisoner in a coach, guarded from Westminster to the Tower, God bless me, thought I, it was no less than the Bishop of Eochester, Dr. Atterbury, by whom my master and I had been treated ! Then came to my mind his every feature, but then altered through in- disposition, and grief for being under royal displeasure. Though I never approved the least thing whereby a man might be attainted, yet I generally had compassion for the unfortunate. I was more confirmed it was he, because I heard some people say at that visit that we were got into Dean's Yard ; and, consequently, it was his house, though I then did not know it ; but afterwards learned that the Bishop of Eochester was always Dean of Westminster. I thanked God from my heart that we had done nothing of offence, at that time, on any political account a thing that produces such direful consequences. It was from the Deanery that Atterbury prepared to go in lawn-sleeves, on Queen Anne's death, and proclaim James III. CHAP. vi. UNDER THE HANOVERIAN DYNASTY. 459 at Charing Cross. 1 ' Never,' he exclaimed, ' was a better cause ' lost for want of spirit.' On the staircase of the Deanery his son- jacobite in-law Morrice met Walpole leaving the house. 2 Atter- DeanerV! 116 bury received him with the tidings that the Minister had May 1722. j us i ma de, and that he had just refused, the tempting offer of the particular object of his ambition, 3 the See of Win- chester (with 5,000 a year till it became vacant), and the lucrative office of a Tellership in the Exchequer for his son-in- law. Another visitor came with more success. The Westmin- ster scholars, as they played and walked in Dean's Yard, had watched the long and frequent calls of the Earl of Sunderland. 4 In the Deanery, in spite of his protestations, we must believe his conspiracy to have been carried on. ' Is it possible,' he asked, in his defence before the House of Lords, ' that when I ' was carrying on public buildings of various kinds at Westmin- ' ster and Bromley, when I was consulting all the books of the * church of Westminster from the foundation that I should ' at the very time be directing and carrying on a conspiracy ? Is ' it possible that I should hold meetings and consultations to ' form and foment this conspiracy, and yet nobody living knows ' when, where, and with whom they were held? that I, who always ' lived at home, and never (when in the Deanery) stirred out of ' one room, where I received all comers promiscuously, and ' denied not myself to any, should have opportunities of ' enacting such matters ? ' 5 In answer to these questions, a vague tradition murmured that behind the wall of that ' one ' room,' doubtless the Library, there was a secret chamber, in which these consultations might have been held. In 1864, on the removal of a slight partition, there was found a long empty Atterburys closet, behind the fireplace, reached by a rude ladder, hidiug-piace. perfectly dark, and capable of holding eight or ten persons, but which, as far back as the memory of the inmates of the Deanery extended, had never been explored. 6 It had probably been built for this purpose in earlier times, against the outer wall (which still remains intact) of the antechamber 1 Coxe's Walpole, i. 167. 4 Bishop Newton's Life, ii. 20. 2 Atterbury Papers ; His Memoir, 5 Letters, ii. 158. by the Eev. E. Morrice, pp. 11, 12. 6 The venerable Bishop Short (of 3 It was suspected that he looked St. Asaph), who knew the house well higher still. ' He had a view of Lam- in the time of his uncle, Dean Ireland, ' beth from Westminster.' That was a assured me that there was at that time great temptation (Calamy's Life, ii. 270). no suspicion of its existence. 460 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. TI. to the old Refectory. In this chamber, which may have harboured the conspiracy of Abbot Colchester against Henry IV., it is probable that Atterbury was concealed in plotting against George I. 1 It was in one of the long days of August, when he had somewhat reluctantly come to London for the funeral of the Duke of Marlborough, that he was sitting in the Deanery in his nightgown, at the hour of ' two in the afternoon ' a very unusual hour, one must suppose, for such a dress Arrest of when the Government officers came to arrest him ; Au^st U 22,' ' an d though they behaved with some respect to him, * they suffered the messengers to treat him in a very ' rough manner threatening him, if he did not make haste to ' dress himself, that they would carry him away undrest as he * was.' 2 Atterbury's defence and trial belong to the history of England. We here follow his fall only by its traces in West- minster. The Chapter, deprived of their head, had to arrange their affairs without him. The Subdean and Chapter Clerk were, by an order from the Secretary of State, ad- mitted at the close of the year to an interview with him in the Tower, in the presence of the Lieutenant of the Tower. 3 Early in the following year he, by a special act, ' divers good ' causes and considerations him thereto moving,' appointed the Subdean to transact business in Chapter, ' in as full and ample * a manner as he himself could do or perform if present in ' Chapter.' 4 During the time of his imprisonment, he was still remembered in his old haunts (whether in the Abbey or not, is doubtful), being prayed for under pretence of being afflicted with the gout, in most churches in London and Westminster. 5 After his trial, his last wish, which was denied to him, was to walk from the House of Lords through the Abbey and see the great rose-window which Dickinson the surveyor had put up, in the beginning of the previous year, under his direction, in the North Transept. 6 The Westminster election was going on at the time, and the Westminster scholars came afterwards, as 1 Here also Dr. Fiddes may have Life of Erasmus : Fiddes's Answer to been ' entertained ' with materials, Britannicus, 1728.) matter, and method for his ' Life of - Biog Brit. i. 272. See Chapter IV. ' Wolsey,' as their enemies suggested, 3 Warrant from the Records of the thus ' laying a whole plan for forming Tower, Dec. 22, 1722. Communicated ' such a life as might blacken the Re- by the kindness of Lord De Ros. formation, cast lighter colours upon 4 Chapter Book, April 17, 1723. 'Popery, and even make way for a s Coxe's Walpole, i.170. Popish pretender.' (Dr. Knight's 6 Akerman, ii. 3. CHAP. vi. UNDER THE HANOVEKIAN DYNASTY. 461 usual, to see ' the Dean ' in the Tower. It was then that he quoted to them the last two lines of his favourite ' Paradise 1 Lost ' The world is all before me, where to choose My place of rest and Providence my guide. 1 He embarked immediately after from the Tower in a ' navy ' barge.' Two footmen in purple liveries walked behind. He himself was in a lay habit of gray cloth. The river was crowded with boats and barges. The Duke of Grafton pre- sented him with a rich sword, with the inscription, ' Draw me ' not without reason. Put me not up without honour.' 2 The Chapter meantime were sitting in the Jerusalem Chamber, still fighting for the payments of moneys, disputed by their late imperious master, even at these last moments of departure. 3 They afterwards gained a poor revenge by reclaiming all the perquisites of George I.'s coronation and of Marlborough's funeral, which he, tenacious of power to the end, had carried off. 4 ' The Aldborough man of war, which lay in Long Eeach, * took the Bishop. Another vessel carried his books and ' baggage.' 5 His ' goods ' were sold at the Deanery, and ' came to an extraordinary good market, some things selling ' for three or four times the value a great many of his ' Lordship's friends being desirous to have something in re- ' membrance of him.' His interest, however, in the Abbey and School never flagged. He still retained in exile a lively recollection of his His exile, enemies in the Chapter. He was much concerned at im! ' the death of his old but ungrateful friend, the Chapter Clerk. 6 The controversy as to the jurisdiction of the West- minster Burgesses pursued him to Montpellier. 7 The plans of Death of his the Dormitory ' haunted his mind still, and made an N^ajmt; ' impression upon him.' 8 The verses of the West- 2T, r i73o Feb ' minster scholars on the accession of George II. were sent out to him. 9 His son-in-law, Dr. Morrice, long kept the office of High Bailiff. 10 He busied himself, as of old, in the Westminster epitaphs. 11 When at last he died at Paris, 12 ' See Chapter IV. ' ^id. iv. 214, 221. * Hearne's BeUqmee, 498. Ibid. iv. 219. 3 Chapter Book, June 18, 1723. ' Ibid iv 270 296. 4 Ibid Jan. 28, 1723-24. " I Q the Mural Book . copied from 5 Weekly Journal, March 15, 1723. the plate, it is Feb. 22. Letters, iv. 135, 136. " See Chapter IV. 7 Ibid. iv. 202, 211. 462 THE ABBEY SINCE THE KEFORMATION. CHAP. vi. his body was brought, 'on board the ship Moore,' from His death Dieppe, to be interred in the Abbey. The coffin fzsVana was searched at the custom-house, nominally for M^vTz' l ace rea Hy f r treasonable papers. The funeral took 1732 - ' place at night, in the most private manner. He had long before caused a vault to be made, as he expressed it, ' for ' me and mine,' ' not in the Abbey, because of my dislike to the ' place; but at the west door of it, as far from Kings and ' Caesars ' (at the eastern extremity) ' as the space will admit ' of.' l In this vault had already been interred his youngest daughter Elizabeth, and his wife, before his exile, and his best beloved daughter Mary, who died in his arms at Toulouse, and whose remains, in spite of the long and difficult journey, were conveyed hither. By her side his own coffin was laid, with the simple inscription of his name and title, and the dates of his birth and death, and on the urn containing his heart : ' In ' hac urna depositi sunt cineres Francisci Atterbury, Episcopi ' Boffensis.' A monument was talked of, but never erected. 2 He had himself added a political invective, which was not permitted to be inscribed. 3 The influences which Atterbury had fostered long lingered in the Precincts. The house of the Undermaster is inscribed with the name of Walter Titley, who was preceptor to Atter- bury's son in the Deanery at the time of the Bishop's arrest, and who, after many years spent in the diplomatic service in Copenhagen, left 1,000 to the School, with which the Chapter restored this house. Samuel Wesley, elder brother of John and Charles, who inherited his mother's strong Jacobite tendencies, was attracted to a mastership at Westminster by his friendship for Atterbury ; and in his house was nurtured his brother Charles, ' the sweet Psalmist ' of the 1 Atterbury Papers, April 6, 1772. XATUS MARTII vi. MDCLXII. fWilliarrm's Attfrburv i 373 ^ IN CARCEREM COXJECTUS AUG. xxiv. MDCCXXII. (\\ima.ms,sAtterOiiry, 1.613.) xoxo POST MEXSE ix JUDICIUM ADDI-, n , J-ietters, i. 485. Ine vault was XOVOQUE CRIMIXUM ET TESTIUM GENERE seen in 1877. The coffins of the IMPETITUS. Bishop and Mrs. Morrice rested on the ACTA DEIN 1>EB SEP injM CAUSA i mi *3 j_i E VERSI8 two earlier ones. Ihey were evidently TTIM VHTSXTIUM TUM MORTUORUM TESTI- of foreign make, the interval between MOXIIS, the lead and the wood was in that of XE DEESSET LEX > QUA PLECTI POSSET, , . j , , , a j .,, LATA EST TAXDEM MAII XXVII. MDCCXXIII. his daughter stuffed with straw, evi- CAVETE POSTERI ! dently for the long journey ; in his own, HOC FACINORIS the straw was gone, probably thrown EPI ^OPORUM' PR^ RRSSUS EST ' PERPETRAVIT ' away when the coffin was searched at 3EU ROB P E^rs P KTE S ^iLPo G LE S A the Custom House. QUEM XUT.LA XESCIET POSTEP.ITAS. 8 Letters i. 362 : Epitaphs on Atterbury were composed CHAP. vi. ATTERBUEY. 463 Church of those days who went from thence as a Westminster student to Christ Church. 1 The name of Atterbury makes it necessary to pause at this point, to sum up the local reminiscences of the ecclesiastical assemblies of the English Church, of which Westminster has The convo- keen * De scene - ^ e nave already traced the con- catuus at n ection of St. Catherine's Chapel with ' The Councils minster. < o f Westminster ' of the Abbey itself with the great Elizabethan Conference, and of the Jerusalem Chamber with the meeting of the Presbyterian divines under the Common- wealth. It remains for us to point out the growth of the local association which has been gradually formed with the more regular body, known as the Convocation of the Province of ' Canterbury.' The convenience, no doubt, of proximity to the Palace of Westminster, the seat of Parliament, of which the Convoca- tions of Canterbury and York were the supplement, wou ld naturally have pointed to the Abbey. But the st. Pani's. Primate doubtless preferred to avoid the question of the exempt jurisdiction of Westminster, and the clergy did not care to be drawn thither either by the Archbishop or the King. 2 Accordingly, whilst the Convocation of York has always been assembled in the Chapter House of York Minster, the proper seat of the Convocation of Canterbury is the Chapter House of the Cathedral of St. Paul's. There the Bishops assembled in the raised chamber, and the inferior clergy in the crypt beneath. From this local arrangement have been derived the present names of ' the Upper ' and ' Lower House.' There they met throughout the Middle Ages. There the Prolocutor is still elected, and thence the apparitor comes who waits upon them elsewhere. The change at last arose out of the great feud between the southern and northern Primacies, which had cost Becket his Transference life, and which had caused so many heartburnings at dS. the Coronations, and such violent contentions in St. Catherine's Chapel. 3 The transfer of the Convocation from St. by Samuel Wesley and Crull. (See * Wake's .State of tfo Church, p 42. Williams's Atterbury, ii. 468, 469.) ' See Chapters II. and V. The 1 Southey's Life of Wesley, i. 19. rivalry between the Sees of St. Andrews A special boarding-house for the recep- and Glasgow, in like manner, prevented turn of the sons of Nonjuring parents for many years the convocation of any was kept at that time by a clergyman Scottish Councils, of the name of Bus sell. 464 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. *i. Paul's to Westminster is the memorial of the one moment of VuAei English History when, in the pre-eminent grandeur woisey.1523. O f "Wolsey, the See of York triumphed over the See of Canterbury. Wolsey, as Legate, convened his own Convocation of York to London ; 1 and in order to vindicate their rights from any jurisdiction of the Southern Primate, and also that he might have them nearer to him at his palace of Whitehall, 2 they met, with the Canterbury Convocation, under his Legatine authority, in the neutral and independent ground of the Abbey of Westminster. It was in allusion to this transference, by the intervention of the great Cardinal, that Skelton sang : Gentle Paul, lay down thy sword, For Peter of Westminster hath shaved thy beard. 3 A strong protest was made against the irregularity of the removal : but the convenience being once felt, and the charm once broken, the practice was continued after Wolsey's fall. Convocation, till the dissolution of the monastery, met at Westminster, usually in the ancient Chapter House, where the Abbot, on bended knees, protested (as the Deans in a less reverent posture since) against the intrusion. It was Act of sub- * na ^ vei T submission to Wolsey's alleged illegal au- thority as Legate which laid the clergy open to the P ena lties of Praemunire ; and thus, by a singular House. chance, in the same Chapter House where they had placed themselves within this danger, they escaped from it by acknowledging the Royal Supremacy. 4 On the occasion of the appointment of the thirty-two 5 Commissioners to revise the jui 7-10 Canon Law, it assembled first in St. Catherine's and 154 - then St. Dunstan's Chapel. 6 When both Convoca- tions 7 were called to sanction the dissolution of Henry's marriage with Anne of Cleves, they met in the Chapter House. Both Primates were present. Gardiner expounded the case, and the next day they ' publicly and unanimously, not one dis- ' agreeing,' declared it null. From that time onwards, the adjournment from St. Paul's to the Precincts of Westminster has gradually become fixed, but always on the understanding that ' the Convocation is obliged to the Dean and Chapter of 1 Wake, p. 392, App. p. 317 ; Joyce's in the Chapter House and recanted. English Synods, p. 297. (Ibid. 247.) 2 Strype's E. M. i. 74-76. 5 Ibid. 749. 3 Skelton's Poems. See Chapter V. See Chapter V. 4 Wilkins, iii. 724, 746, 762. On 7 Wilkins,749. that occasion Latimer ' kneeled down ' CHAP. vi. THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY. 465 ' Westminster, and not to the Archbishop, for their convenient ' accommodation in that church.' l The history of the Convo- cations under the reigns of Edward and Mary is too slight to give us any certain clue to the place of their assembling. But under after the accession of Elizabeth, we find that (in 1563) flnf^Aprii the Bishops met, 2 in the Chapel of Henry VII., some- in Henry times ' secretly,' Dean Goodman making the usual chapei. protest. 3 The Lower House were placed either in a chaneis of chapel on the south side of the Abbey, apparently the It! Andrew! ' Consistory Court,' 4 or in the Chapel of St. John and consistory St. Andrew on the north, 5 which came to be called The r Thirty- ' the Convocation House;' 6 'sitting amongst the jSfsJwK?* ' tombs,' as on one occasion Fuller describes them, as under James ' once one of their Prolocutors said of them, viva ' cadavera inter mortuos, as having no motion or ' activity allowed them.' 7 Of these meetings little beyond mere formal records are preserved. In them, however, were signed the Thirty-nine Articles. 8 The Convocation under James I. met partly at St. Paul's, and partly at Westminster. It would seem that its most im- under portant act the assent to the Canons of 1603 was April i7-' at St. Paul's. 9 The first Convocation of whose pro- 1840." ' ceedings we have any detailed account is the unhappy assembly under Charles I., which, by its hasty and extravagant career, precipitated the fall both of King and Clergy, and pro- voked the fury of the populace against the Abbey itself. Both Houses met in Henry VII. 's Chapel on the first day of their assembling, and there heard a Latin speech from Laud of three- quarters of an hour, gravely uttered, ' his eyes ofttimes being ' but one remove from weeping.' 10 Then followed the question- able continuance of the Convocation after the close of the Parliament ; the short-lived Canons of 1640 ; the oath, ' which ' had its bowels puffed up with a windy et cetera ; ' the vain attempt, in these ' troublesome times,' on the part of a worthy Welshman to effect a new edition of the Welsh Bible; and 1 Narrative of Proceedings [1700, Burial Register, Nov. 24, 1671. 1701] , p. 41. 7 Fuller's Church History, A.D. 2 Gibson, pp. 150-167. 1621. The erection of the scaffolding 3 Ibid. p. 150. He had already on these occasions is described in made a protest at St. Paul's. (Ibid. Keepe, p. 180. p. 147.) 8 Strype's Parker, i. 242, 243. 4 ' A vestry.' (Expedient, p. 11.) 9 Wiikins, iv. 552-554. s Gibson, pp. 264, 265. ' A little 10 Fuller's Church History, iii. 409. ' chapel below stairs.' (Expedient, p. 11.) H H 466 THE ABBEY SINCE THE EEFORMATION. CHAP. TI. finally the conflict between Laud and Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester. Alone of all the dissentients he had the courage openly to refuse to sign the Canons. ' Whereupon the ' Archbishop being present with us in Henry VII. 's Chapel, * was highly offended at him. " My Lord of Gloucester," said ' he, " I admonish you to subscribe ; " and presently after, " My ' " Lord of Gloucester, I admonish you the second time to sub- ' " scribe ; " and immediately after, " I admonish you the third ' " time to subscribe." To all which the Bishop pleaded * conscience, and returned a denial.' In spite of the re- monstrance of Davenant, Bishop of Salisbury, he was com- mitted to the Gatehouse, and for the first time became popular. 1 In the Abbey, after the Restoration, the Convocation met again, with the usual protest from Dean Earles. 2 Their first tinder occupation was the preparation of the Office for the mi, May IB. Baptism of Adults, and the Form of Thanksgiving for the 29th of May. On November 21 they reassembled, and Revision of entered on the grave task assigned to them by the Bo e ok ra xov ^ m of Devising the Prayer Book. In fact, it had 21, i66i. already been accomplished by a committee of Bishops and others in the Great Hall of the Savoy Hospital, and there- fore within a week the revision was in their hands, and within a month the whole was finished. A few days after the completion of the larger part, the Lower House was joined by the unusual accession of five deputies from the Northern Province, by whose vote, under the stringent obliga- tion of forfeiting all their goods and chattels, the Lower House of the Convocation of York bound it- self to abide. 3 The Calendar, the Prayers to be used at Sea, the Burial Service, and the Commination rapidly followed. Xo record remains of their deliberations. On December 20 were affixed the signatures of the four Houses, as they now appear in the Manuscript Prayer Book. This no doubt was in Henry VIL's Chapel. But as the Bishops, by meeting there, in the had led the way thither for the Assembly of Divines, dumber? so the Assembly of Divines, by meeting in the Jerusa- lem Chamber, led the way thither for the Bishops. In that old monastic parlour the Upper House met, for the first 1 Fuller's Church History. On ' opened.' But it was too late. (Hey- Nov. 4 of the same year there was ' an lin's Laud, p. 460.) endeavour, according to the Levitical '- Wilkins, iv. 564, 565. ' laws, to cover the pit which they had s Ibid. 568, 569. CHAP. vi. THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY. 467 time, on February 22, 1662, and there received the final altera- tions made by Parliament in the Prayer Book. The attraction to the Chamber was still, as in the time of Henry IV., the greater comfort * (pro meliori usu) and the blazing fire. From 1665 to 1689 formal prorogations were made in Henry YII.'s Chapel, and Convocation did not again assemble till ' William and n - //-> 1-1 ' * AI T XOT. 1689. Even if the precedent of the important Con- iic89. ' vocation of 1661 had not sufficed for the transfer from St. Paul's to Westminster, the great calamity which had in the interval befallen the ancient place of meeting would have pre- vented their recurrence to it. 2 St Paul's Cathedral was but slowly rising from the ruins of the Fire, and accordingly, after the appointment of Compton by the Chapter of Canterbury to fill the place of President, vacant by Sandcroft's 3 suspension, the opening of Convocation took place at Westminster. A table was placed in the Chapel of Henry VII. Compton was in the Chair. On his right and left sate, in their scarlet robes, those Bishops who had taken the oaths to William and Mary. Below the table were assembled the Clergy of the Lower House. Beveridge preached a Latin sermon, in which he warmly eulogised the existing system, and yet declared himself in favour of a moderate reform. The Lower House then pro- ceeded to elect a Prolocutor, and, in the place of the temperate and consistent Tillotson, chose the fanatical and vacillating Jane. On his presentation to the President, he made his famous speech against all change, concluding with the well-known words taken from the colours of Compton's regiment of horse Nolumus leges Anglice mutari. It was on this occasion that the change of place for the Upper House, which had been only temporary in 1662, became permanent. * It being in the midst of winter, and the Bishops being very ' few,' 4 they accepted of the kindness of the Bishop of Piochester (Dean Sprat) in accommodating them with a good * room in his house, called the Jerusalem Chamber; and left ' the lower clergy to sit in Henry VII.'s Chapel, and saved ' the trouble and charge of erecting seats where they used to * meet. 1 5 This change was probably further induced by the experience that some of the Bishops had already had of the Jerusalem 1 Gibson, p. 225. 4 Gibson, p. 225. - Macaulay, iii. 488. s Expedient proposed by a Country * Wilkins, Cone. iv. 618. Divine (1702), p. 11. Wilkins, iv. 620. H H 2 468 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vt. Chamber, where they had sat in the Commission for revising commission the Liturgy for eighteen sessions and six weeks, ot the l beginning on October 3, and ending on November 18. The Commission consisted of ten prelates, six deans, and six professors. Amongst them were the distinguished names of Tillotson, Tenison, Burnet, Beveridge, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Fowler, Scott, and Aldrich. Larnplugh, Archbishop of York, presided, in the absence of Bancroft. Sprat, as host, received them ; but after the first meeting withdrew, from scruples as to its legality. Their dis- cussions are recorded by Dr. Williams, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, who took notes ' every night after he went home.' The imperfect acoustics of the Chamber were felt even in that small assembly ; ' being at some distance at first, he heard not ' the Bishops so well.' Their work, after lying in the Lambeth Library for two centuries, was printed in 1854 by order of the House of Commons. It was the last attempt to improve the Liturgy and reconcile Nonconformists to the National Church. But from it directly sprang the revised Prayer Book of the Pro- testant Episcopal Church of America, and the remembrance of it will doubtless influence any changes that may be in store for the English Liturgy itself. ' In this Jerusalem Chamber,' writes one whose spirit was always fired by the thought of this lost opportunity, ' any ' new Commissioners might sit and acknowledge the genius ' of the place ' ' kindly spirits, whose endeavours to amend ' our Liturgy might also bring back to the fold such wanderers ' as may yet have the inclination to join our Establishment.' 1 That wish has not yet been fulfilled. 2 The Convocation, which in Disputes * ne wul ^ er f titm^ vear succeeded to the place of the between the Commissioners. 3 was far otherwise employed in the LWO X1OUS63 * *' "f^* j c grave disputes between the Upper and Lower House, meeting. rphe few Bishops who met in the Jerusalem Chamber were unable to cope with the determined resistance of the 1 Hull's Church Inquiry, p. 241 that venerable friend of Arnold for the (1827). happy result of their labours be ful- " Thus far I had written before July filled. (1867.) It has been frustrated 17, 1867, when another Royal Com- by obstacles similar to those raised in mission, the first that has been ap- 1689. pointed for the Revision of the Prayer * See Narrative of Proceedings Book since the days of Tillotson, as- of Lower House of Convocation, by sembled in the Jerusalem Chamber to Hooper (1701, 1702) ; An Expedient, examine the Ritual and Rubric of the by Binckes (1701;; Tfie Pretended Church of England. May the pious Expedient, by Sherlock (1702). aspiration breathed forty years ago by CHAP. vi. THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY. 469 Jacobite majority of the Lower House. The change of place, ' though merely accidental, made very great alterations in the ' mode of proceeding in Convocation,' chiefly turning on the complications which ensued on adjournments being read, as from the Upper House, in Henry VII.'s Chapel, which had now by use become the place of the Lower House. There they refused even to consider the proposals of the Bishops, and were accordingly prorogued till 1700. By that time they were able again to open their meeting in the restored St. Paul's. But their discussions took place, as before, in the Chamber and the Chapel at Westminster. There the Lower House, by continuing their assemblies in the Chapel of Henry VII., as independent of the prorogation of the Bishops, ' inflicted ' say the injured r prelates ' the greatest blow to this Church * that hath been given to it since the Presbyterian Assembly * that sate in Westminster in the late times of confusion.' A paper, containing a passage defamatory of the Bishops, was by their orders fixed, with a kind of challenge, ' over ' several doors in Westminster Abbey.' l The anteroom 2 to Dispute in the Jerusalem Chamber became the scene of angry Room. chafings on the part of the Lower House, which had been made to wait there according to one version a few minutes, according to another two hours? whilst the Upper House was discussing their petition; by the insolence of the Upper House according to one version, by the mistake of the door-keeper according to another. In this small antechamber it was that the Prolocutor met the Bishop of Bangor June 6, 1702. , . , , . , , , j i i * - r (Evans), ' putting on his habit, and said to mm, ' My ' Lord of Bangor, did you say in the Upper House that I lied ? ' 4 To which the Bishop replied in some disorder ' I did not say ' you lied ; but I said, or might have said, that you told me a ' very great untruth.' 5 In the Chamber itself,, the Prolocutor encountered a still more formidable antagonist in Bishop Burnet, fresh from reading the condemnation of his work by the Lower House. ' This is fine indeed ; this is according to ' your usual insolence.' ' Insolence, my Lord ! ' said the Pro- locutor ; ' do you give me that word ? ' 'Yes, insolence ! ' 1 History of Convocation in 1700, after first assembling in the Consistory p. 75. Court. (Atterbury, ir. 342, 381.) 2 It -was then as now called 'the Or- * History of Convocation in 1700, ' gan Chamber.' (Ibid. p. 169.) On one p. 110. occasion, March 7, 1702, the Lower Ibid. p. 166. House met there (Cardwell, p. xxxiii.), s Ibid. p. 204- ; Narrative, pp. 67-69. 470 THE ABBEY SINCE THE EEFOKMATION. CHAP. vt. replied the Bishop ; ' you deserve that word, and worse. Think ' what you will of yourself ; I know what you are.' l Here Feb 12 ' My Lord's grace of Canterbury ' interfered. On another occasion, after the prorogation had been read and signed in the Upper House, as the clergy were departing out of the Jerusalem Chamber, Dr. Atterbury, towards the door, was pushing on some members, and saying, ' Away to ' the Lower House ! away to the Lower House ! ' The Chan- cellor of London, turning back to him, asked ' if he was not ' ashamed to be always promoting contention and division ; ' and they continued their altercation in still stronger language. 2 It is not necessary here to follow up those altercations which turned the Chapel of Henry VII. and the Jerusalem Chamber into two hostile camps, with the Organ-room for an intermediate arena the discussion of Dodwell's work on Bap- tism, and of Brett's work on Sacrifice ; the condemnation of Bishop Burnet's 'Exposition of the Articles,' and of Bishop Hoadley's 'Sermon on the Kingdom of Christ;' of "Winston's work on the * Apostolical Constitutions ; ' of Clarke's work on the ' Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity.' We can imagine the fierce eloquence of Atterbury as Prolocutor of the Lower House in Henry VII. 's Chapel ; and in the Jerusalem Chamber the impetuous vehemence of Burnet ; the stubborn silence of the ' old rock,' Tenison ; the conciliatory mildness of Wake. We can see how, when Archbishop Tenison suddenly produced in the Chamber the letter from Queen Anne, reprimanding the Lower House, and enjoining the Archbishop to prorogue them, * they ran away indecently towards the door, and were with ' some difficulty kept in the room till the prorogation was ' intimated to them.' 3 But hardly any permanent fruits remain ; 4 and, except in the allusions of innumerable pamphlets, hardly any record of the disputes, which were for the most part bitter Prorogued personal recriminations. They were finally prorogued in 1717, and did not meet again for business till our own time. 5 Formal citations, however, seem to have brought them together from time to time in the Abbey; and on one occasion, in 1742, an attempt was made, by Archdeacon 1 History of Convocation in 1700, p. ' and Churchyards,' sanctioned by the Convocation of 1711, in consequence 2 Biog. Brit. i. 269. of the building of fifty new churches 3 Burnet's Own Time, ii. 413. in London and Westminster. (Bur- 4 The only permanent result was net's Own Time, ii. 603.) ' the Office for Consecrating Churches 5 Wilkins, iv. 670-676. CHAP. vi. THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBUKY. 471 Reynolds, to read a paper on Ecclesiastical Courts. But, being of a latitudinarian tendency, it was not acceptable to the House, and it was stopped by the Prolocutor, who 'spoke ' much of Praeniunire, and that word was echoed and re- ' verberated from one side of good King Henry's Chapel to the ' other.' ' The time has not yet come when we can safely enter even on the local associations of the proceedings of the Convocation of Canterbury, when its discussions were renewed under the administration of Lord Derby. Its formal openings took place, as before and since, in the precincts of St. Paul's. Its Revived first meeting for business was on the 12th of November, 1852, 2 accompanying the Parliament assembled for the Duke of Wellington's funeral. Sixteen Bishops were present. The proceedings began, as has been the case ever since, in the Jerusalem Chamber, which was given up to the Lower House, after their names had been called over in the Abbey; the Upper House retiring to the Library of the Deanery, the ' one ' room ' inhabited by Atterbury, and at this time vacant by the illness of Dean Buckland. In this room the Prelates virtually determined the framework of the future proceedings of the body in an animated discussion which lasted three days. At the next meeting the Bishops occupied the Jerusalem Chamber, the Lower House assembling in such scanty numbers as to be accommodated in the Organ-room. Subsequently the Bishops, after a formal opening in the Jerusalem Chamber, adjourned to the office of Queen Anne's Bounty in Dean's Yard leaving the Lower House in the Jerusalem Chamber, as on a former occasion they had left it in Henry VII. 's Chapel. In that historic Chamber it has sat without interruption, but without any permanent fruits. The only exception to its occupation of the Chamber has been when, to accommodate a larger at- tendance (with the sanction, in later days, of the Governors of Westminster School), the College Hall has been granted for that purpose by the Dean. A work of more enduring interest than any decrees of Convocation has been connected with the Precincts of West- minster. When the royal commission was issued by James I. 1 Letter to Dr. Lisle, p. 11 ; Bey- all its details, is well described in the nolds's Historical Essays, p. 207 ; com- Christian Remembrancer, vol. xxv. 163- municated by Dr. Fraser. 187. The scene of this opening, with 472 THE ABBEY SINCE THE KEFOKMATION. CHAP. vi. for the revision of the precious translations of the Bible, Translation which issued in the Authorised Version of 1611, the Engifsh translators were divided into three companies. Of the Bible, leu. Oxford and Cambridge companies we need not here speak. But we cannot doubt that the ' Westminster Company,' of which the chief was Dean Andrewes, met under his auspices, probably in the Jerusalem Chamber, and it is certain that the Welsh translation, which immediately preceded this, 1 was carried on in the Deanery. The Dean at that time (Andrewes' predecessor) was the Welshman Gabriel Goodman. For a whole year his countryman Bishop Morgan, the chief translator, was lodged at the Deanery (in preference to an invitation which he had received from the Primate), on the ground that at Lambeth the Thames would have inconveniently divided him from the printing-press. This early connection of the translation of the Bible with Westminster was revived when in our own time, on the motion of Convocation, and ultimately under the control of the Uni- versity Presses, a new revision was undertaken. The companies of translators, drawn from both Universities, and from all sections of ecclesiastical life in England, met for this work, always at Westminster, usually in the Jerusalem Chamber ; sometimes in the Chapter Library, occasionally in the Deanery. Its first beginning was inaugurated by a scene which, though it afterwards gave rise to some acrimonious discussion, at the time impressed all those who witnessed it, and most of those who heard it, with a sense of solemn and edifying pathos. The west- ' Preparatory to their entrance on their important communion. ' work, a notice had been issued to each of the * revisers, to the effect that the Sacrament would be administered ' in Henry VII.'s Chapel, on the day of their first meeting, to ' such of the body as should feel disposed to attend. The Dean ' read the service from the Communion Table at the head of ' Henry VII.'s tomb. It so happened that this Table thus ' received its first use. It had within a few days past, as the * inscription round it records, been erected in the place of the ' ancient altar which once indicated the spot where Edward VI. ' was buried. On the marble slab which covers its top was ' placed the recovered fragment of the beautifully carved frieze ' of the lost altar, together with other fragments of ruined 1 Preface to Morgan's Translation of the Bible. CHAP. vr. THE CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY. 473 ' altars which happened to be at hand for a like purpose. 1 In ' front of this table, thus itself a monument of the extinct ' strifes of former days, and round the grave of the youthful ' Protestant King, in whose reign the English Bible first ' received its acknowledged place in the Coronation of the ' Sovereign, as well as its free and general circulation through- ' out the people, knelt together the band of scholars and divines, ' consisting of representatives of almost every form of Christian ' belief in England. There were Bishops of the Established ' Church, two of them by their venerable years connected with ' the past generation ; there were delegates from our historic ' Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches, our Universities, our ' parishes, and of our chief ecclesiastical assembly; and with ' these, intermingled without distinction, were ministers of the ' Established and of the Free Church of Scotland, and of almost ' every Nonconformist Church in England Independent, ' Baptist, Wesley an, Unitarian. It is not to be supposed that ' each one of those present entered with equal agreement into * every part of the service ; but it is not without a hopeful sig- ' nificance that, at the time, such various representatives of ' British Christendom partook, without difficulty, on such an ' occasion in the sacred ordinance of the Christian religion.' It was called by a devout theologian, since departed, ' a true ' Elevation of the Host.' We return to the general history of the Abbey. The School during this period had reached its highest pitch of fame. Knipe, who had been second Master under Busby, Knipe Head- an d succeeded him as Headmaster, after fifty years' JSSJSru. labour in the School, was buried in the North Cloister, He^dmWer anc ^ commemorated by a monument in the South Aisle buriedU ' f the Choir. Freind is especially connected with the wituey. Abbey by his numerous inscriptions, 2 by his steadfast friendship with Atterbury, and by his establishment of the Westminster dinners on the anniversary of the accession of the Foundress. It was at this time that an alarming fire took place in the Fire in the Precincts. On the site of the Old Kefectory was a mif*"' stately house built by Inigo Jones, 3 and illustrated by Sir J. Soane. A beautiful staircase of this period still 1 From the High Altar at Canter- sinian altar at Magdala, brought home bury, burnt in 1174 : from the altar in 1866. of the Greek Church at Damascus, ~ See Chapter IV. destroyed in 1860 ; and from an Abys- 3 Gleanings, 228. 474 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFOKMATIOX. CHAP. vi. remains. It has gone through various changes. In 1708, it was occupied by Lord Ashburnham, and from him took the name of Ashburnham House. In 1739, it reverted to the Chapter, and was divided into two prebendal houses, of which the larger was in later years connected with the literature of England, when occupied first as a tenant by Fynes Clinton, the laborious author of the ' Fasti Hellenici,' l and then by Henry Milman, poet, historian, and divine, as Canon of Westminster. In the intervening period it 1 QQ^_I 849 had become the property of the Crown, and in 1712 received what was called the King's Library, and in 1730 the Library of Sir Eobert Cotton. Dr. Bentley happened to be in town at the moment when the house took fire. Dr. Freind, the Headmaster, who came to the rescue, has recorded how he saw a figure issuing from the burning house, into Little Dean's Yard, in his dressing-gown, with a flowing wig on his head, and a huge volume under his arm. It was the great scholar carrying off the Alexandrian MS. of the New Testament. The books were first placed in the Little Cloisters, in the Chamber of the Captain, and in the boarding-house in Little Oct. s, i73i. Dean's Yard, and then on the following Monday Bradford, removed to the Old Dormitory, just vacated, till, in 1757, they reached their present abode in the British Museum. 2 Bradford, who had already been prebendary of of wlstoin- Westminster for nearly twenty years, took Atterbury's sfshop'of place in the Chapter, whilst Atterbury was still in the juuafms. Tower. His conciliatory character recommended him wficock as a n ^ person to end the feuds which, in Atterbury's De 3 ano 6 f time, had raged between the Dean and Canons, and Md S Bw"op er did, in fact, tend to assuage the strife between West- of Rochester. mms t e r and Bentley. 3 He was the first Dean of the Order of the Bath. 4 He lies near his monument in the North Transept. Wilcocks, who had been elected Fellow of Magdalen Col- lege, in the ' golden election,' with Addison and Boulter, dis- tinguished himself by his courageous devotion to the sick whilst chaplain at Lisbon, and afterwards as preceptor to the Princesses of the Eoyal Family. It was in this period that 1 Clinton's Literary Remains, 262- Nichols's Anecdotes, ix. 592. 295. s Monk's Life of Bentley, p. 535. - Walcott's Westminster, p. 90 ; 4 See Chapter II. p. 84. Monk's Life of Bentley, p. 577 ; CHAP. vi. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 475 the neighbourhood of the Abbey, as the eighteenth century advanced, began to be gradually cleared of the incumbrances which closed it in. Then was commenced the most important change in the architectural and topographical history of West- minster since the building of the Abbey and Palace. Amidst, much opposition the attempts which had been fruitlessly made in the several reigns of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Charles II., and George I., to secure another bridge over the Thames besides that of London, at last succeeded. All the arts that old monopoly and prejudice could bring to bear were used, but in vain, and Westminster Bridge, after a brief but fierce Buiuuns? of discussion whether it should start from the Horseferry Bridge, i73s. Pier or the ancient pier by New Palace Yard, was at last fixed where it now stands, and the first stone was laid in 1738 by the Earl of Pembroke. This great approach at once prepared the way for further changes. The ancient Woolstaple, or Pollen stock, of Edgar's charter was swept away to make room for the western abutment of the bridge in 1741. On the site of the small courts and alleys l which surrounded the Abbey, rose Bridge Street and Great George Street. By the side of the narrow avenue of King Street was opened, as if for the growth of the rising power whose name it bore, the broad way of Parliament Street. St. Margaret's Lane, between the Church and Palace, was widened having been before so constructed as to require high pales to protect the foot passengers from the mud splashed on all sides by the horses. With thoses changes the administration of the Abbey by Wilcocks, in great measure, coincided. During the twenty-five years in which he presided over it, the heavy repairs, which had been in progress almost since the Eestoration, were completed. 2 He, ' being a gentle- ' man of taste and judgment, swept away ' 3 two prebendal houses in the Cloisters, and two others 'between 4 the north ' door and west end ' of the Nave, as well as two others on the side of Henry VII. 's Chapel. 5 The present enclosure of Dean's Yard was now formed partly from the materials of the 1 Westminster Improvements, 20-22. 5 This was at the suggestion of Par- - He restored, as is described in his liament. (Chapter Book, March 11, epitaph, the monthly residence of the 1731 ; March 23, 1735 ; February 17, Prebendaries. 1738.) Out of the money granted by 3 Gwyn's London and Westminster, Parliament for this purpose was bought p. 90. Ashburnham House, which was divided 4 It appears from the Chapter Order, into two prebendal houses, to compen- December 2, 1741, that there were two sate for the loss of the others. (Ibid, gates opening from one of these houses Oct. 29, 1739 ; June 14, 1740.) See into the churchyard. P- 474. 476 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION CHAP. vi. old Dormitory and Brewhouse. 1 Six new elms were planted. For the first time there appears a scruple against putting up a monument in Henry YII.'s Chapel, ' as it ' will necessarily hide or deface some of the curious workman- The western ' ship thereof.' 2 Above all, whilst the projected Spire 1738-9?' was finally abandoned, the Western Towers of Sir Christopher Wren were finished. 3 It is interesting to mark the extreme pride which the aged Dean took in commemo- rating, as a glory of his office, that which the fastidious taste of our time so largely condemns. On his monument in the Abbey, in his portrait in the Deanery, in the picture of the Abbey 4 by Canaletti which he caused to be painted evidently for their sake the Towers of Wren constantly appear. He was buried under the southern of the two, in a vault made for himself and his family, as recorded in an inscription still remaining ; and his tablet was erected near his grave, by his son Joseph, called by Pope Clement XIII., who knew him well during his residence at Eorne, ' the blessed heretic.' 5 Both father and son were admirable men. Over the Dean's bier, in the College Hall, was pronounced the eulogium, 'Longum esset persequi ' sanctissimi senis jucunditatem.' Each took for his motto, in a slightly different form, the expression, ' Let me do all the good ' I can.' The son, whenever he came to London, ' always went ' to the Abbey for his first and last visit ; 6 in particular that part ' of it where his father's monument stands, and near which the ' Bishop, with his mother and sister and himself, rests in peace.' Zachary Pearce was one of the numerous fruits of Queen Caroline's anxiety to promote learning. From the Deanery of zachary Winchester and the See of Bangor, he was advanced, iTseMis. by his friend Lord Bath, to the Deanery of West- minster and the See of Rochester, although with great reluc- tance on his part, which ultimately issued, after vain attempts 1 Chapter Order, May 28, 1756. towers and made a design for the whole. The materials were given to Dr. Mark- But after his death in 1723, the upper man (then Headmaster), and Mr. Salter part was completed by Hawksmore, one of the Prebendaries alone pro- and after his death in 1736 probably testing, Dr. Wilson, son of the good by James. (See Longman's St. Paul's, Bishop of Man. His solitary ' I dis- p. 86.) ' sent ' appears in the Chapter Book, 4 It was his son who left to the and he published a pamphlet against Deanery the bust and the picture of it, with the motto from Micah ii. 2 the Abbey. (Chapter Book, June 27, (1757). 1793, March 3, 1795.) " Chapter Order, May 1, 1740. Preface to Wilcocks's Roman (Monk's monument.) Conversations, p. xli. 3 Chapter Book, Feb. 17, 1738-39. Ibid. p. xxxiv. Wren restored the lower part of the CHAP. vi. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 477 to resign the Bishopric, in his retirement from the Deanery, in his seventy- fourth year. This is the sole instance of such an abdication. 'His exultation at the accomplishment of his ' long disappointed wish, the Bishop expressed ' in a soliloquy entitled ' The Wish, 1768, when I resigned the Deanery of ' Westminster,' which begins, ' From all Decanal cares at last ' set free.' l In 1774, in his eighty-fourth year, he died at Bromley, where he is buried with an inscription dictated by himself, which, after recording his various preferments, con- cludes by saying, ' He resigned the Deanery of Westminster, ' and died in the comfortable hope of (what had been his chief ' object in life) being promoted to a happier sphere hereafter.' It agrees with the gentle self-complacency of a remark, in answer to an inquiry how he could live on so scanty a diet ' I live upon the recollection of an innocent and well-spent ' life, which is my only sustenance.' His disastrous proposals for the Monuments in the Abbey have been already noticed. 2 He is commemorated there by a cenotaph in the Nave, of which the inscription was composed by his successor, and ascribes 3 ' the uncommon resolution ' of his resignation, to his desire to finish his commentary on the Gospels and Acts. In his time was celebrated the Bicentenary of the Foundation, by a sermon from the Dean in the Choir on Prov. xxxi. 31, and by English verses and an English oration from the Scholars in the Gallery of the College Hall. 4 John Thomas was the third of these octogenarian Deans. He was promoted to the Deanery through the interest of his joim predecessor Zachary Pearce, and held it for six years n68 m B S ishop a l ne 5 then, on Pearce's death, he received also the iradfed er> See of Rochester. He was buried in his parish, ^ u B i ley> Bletchingley, but has a monument in the South Aisle 1793. ' O f ^ e Nave, next to his patron Pearce, and copied by Bacon from a protrait by Reynolds. The King was overheard to say on his appointment, ' I am glad to prefer Dr. Thomas, ' who has so much merit. We shall now be sure of a good * sermon on Good Friday.' 5 This alludes to the long- Scrmons on ^ . l Good Friday, established custom, by which the Dean of West- minster (probably from the convenience of his being in town at that season) preaches always in the Chapel Royal on that 1 Life of Dean Thomas, p. Ixxxiii. 4 Chapter Book, June 3, 1705. 2 See Chapter IV. Gent. Mag. xxx. 297. 3 Life of Dean Thomas, p. Ixxxv. * Life of Dean Thomas, p. Ixxxi. 478 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. day. 1 Nine of these are published. He was remarkable for per- forming his part at the Installations of the Bath ' with peculiar ' address and adroitness.' 2 ' Which Dr. Thomas do you mean ? ' asked some one shortly before his promotion, in allusion to two of that name. ' Dr. John Thomas.' ' They are both named ' John.' ' Dr. Thomas who has a living in the city.' ' They ' have both livings in the city.' ' Dr. Thomas who is chaplain ' to the King.' ' They are both chaplains to the King.' ' Dr. * Thomas who is a very good preacher.' ' They are both very * good preachers.' ' Dr. Thomas who squints.' ' They both ' squint.' They were both afterwards Bishops. 3 A remarkable scene is related in connection with his office, by one who was at the time a Westminster scholar. He was, Tumnitin i 11 the days of its highest unpopularity, an advocate the cloisters. or fa e removal of the disabilities of Roman Catholics. Accordingly, when returning from the Abbey he was met in the cloisters ' by a band of tumultuous and misguided enthusiasts, ' who seized him by his robes, and demanded " how he meant ' " to vote in the House of Lords ? " To which with great ' presence and firmness the Bishop replied, " For your interests ' " and my own." "What then? you don't mean to vote for 1 " Popery?" "No," said he, "thank God, that is no part of ' " our interests in this Protestant country." Upon hearing ' which one of the party clapped his Lordship on the back, and ' cleared the passage for him, calling out, " Make way for the ' " Protestant Bishop." ' 4 To his turn for music the Abbey doubtless owed the refitting of the Choir in his time, and also Handei the Festival on the centenary of Handel's birth. 5 It 1784. was suggested by Lord Fitzwilliam, Sir Wat-kin Williams Wynne, and Joah Bates. The Nave was arranged by James W T yatt. The orchestra was at the west end. Burney remarks on the fitness with which, in the Hallelujah Chorus, the orchestra seemed 6 ' to unite with the saints and martyrs * represented on the stained glass in the west window, which ' had ah 1 the appearance of a continuation of it.' The King and Royal family, and the chief personages, sate at the east end. The School were in the Choir behind. The organ, just 1 The custom appears in Evelyn's replace the fund left by Titley. Memoirs, iii. 79, 158. So the three 3 Life of Bishop Newton. Good Friday sermons of Andrewes 4 Life of Dean Thomas, p. Ixxxvi. when Dean of Westminster. (Life of * Xeale, i. 211. Andrewes, 97.) 6 Barney's Account of the Handel 2 Life of Dean Thomas, p. Ixxxix. Commemoration, part vi. p. 84. He made a bequest to the school to CHAP. vi. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 479 built by Green of Islington for Canterbury, was put up in the Abbey, ' before its departure for the place of its destination.' l All the music was selected from Handel's own compositions, and it is said that at the Hallelujah Chorus George III. rose, affected to tears, and the whole assembly stood up at the same moment. Hence the custom, now universal, of standing at the Hallelujah Chorus. It was originally intended to have been on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd of April, so as to coincide with the day of Handel's funeral in the Abbey, but was postponed till the 26th, 27th, and 29th of May, to which the 3rd and 5th of June were afterwards added. The success of this experiment, before an audience of 10,480 persons, encouraged the per- formance of similar meetings on a larger scale, under the title of ' Great Musical Festivals,' in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1791, when the performers are said to have amounted, though not on any one occasion, to 1,068 persons. They were discontinued during the war, and not revived till 1834, when a similar festival took place, which, though occurring at the exact interval of half a century from the first commemoration of Handel, did not bear that name, and included the works of nine other composers besides those of the great musician. It was suggested by Sir George Smart, and adopted, somewhat against the wishes of the Dean and Chapter, at the request or command of William IV., who wished to imitate his father's example. Its effect, however, was considerable, and it may be regarded as the parent of the concerts of the Sacred Harmonic Society in London. 2 Sir Joshua Eeynolds has immortalised for us the features of the venerable Headmaster, Dr. Nicoll, who occupies the , last half of the century. It was under him that p< icon. Head- " i733- C 88 Warren Hastings and Elijah Impey were admitted 3 in the same year, unconscious of the strange destiny i747. in which was afterwards to bring them together in India. They, with twenty-one other Westminster Scholars, in that distant land (in which so many of this famous School have made their fame or found their grave), commemorated their recollection of their boyish days in Dean's Yard and on the Thames by determining to present to the Scholars' Table a silver cup, 4 which, inscribed with their names, and ornamented , p. 8. 3 1747 : see Alumni Wcstmonast. 2 Handel Festival of 1859, at the pp. 342, 345. Crystal Palace, p. v. 4 For the cup see Alumni West. 480 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vr. by handles in the form of elephants, is still used on the solemn festive occasions of the collegiate body. Contemporary with Hastings was another boy, of a gentler nature, on whom also, cowper i n s pite of himself, Westminster left a deep impression. 1745-49, ( Thai I may do justice,' says the poet Cowper, ' to ' the place of my education, I must relate one mark of religious ' discipline which was observed at Westminster : I mean the * pains which Dr. Nicoll took to prepare us for Confirmation. ' The old man acquitted himself of this duty like one who had ' a deep sense of its importance ; and I believe most of us were ' struck by his manner and affected by his exhortations. Then, ' for the first time, I attempted to pray in secret.' Another serious impression is still more closely connected with the locality. * Crossing St. Margaret's Churchyard late one ' evening, a glimmering light in the midst of it excited his ' curiosity, and, instead of quickening his speed, he, whistling * to keep up his courage the while, went to see whence it pro- ' ceeded. A gravedigger was at work there by lantern-light, ' and, just as Cowper came to the spot, he threw up a skull, ' which struck him on the leg. This gave an alarm to his con- ' science, and he reckoned the incident as among the best ' religious documents which he received at Westminster.' l Amongst his other schoolfellows were Churchill, Lloyd, Cole- man, and Cumberland (who was in the same house with him), and Lord Dartmouth (who sate side by side with him in the sixth form), and the five Bagots, ' very amiable and valuable ' Loys they were.' 2 Doubtless much of the severe indignation expressed in the ' Tirocinium ' was suggested by his recollection of those days ; but when he wished for comfort in looking backward, 'he sent his imagination upon a trip thirty years ' behind him. She was very obedient and very swift of foot ; ' and at last sat him down in the sixth form at Westminster ' ' receiving a silver groat for his exercise, and acquiring fame Markham, ' at cricket and football.' 3 Nicoll was succeeded by 1753, buried' Markham, also known to us through Eeynolds's ISO/. ' portrait, friend of Hastings 4 and of Mansfield. He became tutor to George IV., and rose to the see of York. He was buried in his old haunts in the North Cloister, where a monument is erected to him by his grandchildren. Of the 346 ; Lusus Westm. i. 326 ; ii. pp. vii. - Ibid. v. 114. viii. s Ibid. i. 15, 17-20. 1 Southey's Cowper, i. 13, 14. 4 Alumni West. 318. CHAP. vi. IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 481 Prebendaries of this period some notice may be given. In the eyiin. South Transept lies John Heylin, the mystic friend of Butler and preacher of the sermon (on 2 Tim. ii. 15, 16) at nis consecration. 1 Another was Thomas Wilson, son of the good Bishop, whose strenuous and solitary opposition to the formation of Dean's Yard has been already Kennicott. noticed. 2 A stall at Westminster was the first reward i77o. ' of Dr. Kennicott for his lectures on the Old Testament, so fiercely attacked, and afterwards so highly valued. The eighteenth century closes with Horsley. He won, it is said, his preferment to the Deanery and the See of Eochester kj a sermon which, as Bishop of St. David's, he preached in the Abbey on January 30, 1793, before the House of Lords, on the anniversary of the execution of Charles I., and a few days after the execution of Louis XVI. It was customary, on these and on like occasions, for the House of Lords to attend Divine Service in the Abbey, and for the House of Commons in St. Margaret's Church. The Temporal Peers sate on the south side, with the Lord Chancellor at their head originally in the pew under Eichard II.'s picture, in later times near the Dean's or in the Subdean's stall. The Bishops were on the north side. The solemn occasion, no doubt, of Horsley's sermon added to the grandeur of those sonorous utterances. ' I perfectly recollect,' says an eye-witness, * his * impressive manner, and can fancy that the sound still vibrates ' in my ears.' 3 Wlien he burst into the peroration connecting together the French and English regicides ' my -country ! ' read the horror of thy own deed in this recent heightened imi- ' tat ion, and lament and weep that this black French treason ' should have found its example in that crime of thy unnatural ' sons ! ' the whole of the august assembly rose, and remained standing till the conclusion of the sermon. The Deanery of Westminster fell vacant in that same year, and it was given to Horsley, who held it, with the See of Eochester, till his trans- lation to St. Asaph, in 1802. ' He wore the red ribbon of the ' Bath in every time and place, like Louis XIV., who went to ' bed in his wig.' 4 His despotic utterances remain in the tones 1 His Theological Lectures to the under the Act which was recently re- King's Scholars have been published. vived against the Dean and Chapter of 2 He wrote a preface to a pamphlet Exeter for the removal of images from defending the east window in St. Mar- Exeter Cathedral. garet's from a process instituted against * Nichols, iv. 685. the churchwardens of the parish by 4 Lambetkiana, iii. 203. The por- the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, trait of him at the Deanery without I I 482 THE ABBEY SINCE THE EEFOKMATION. CHAP. vi. of his Chapter Orders 'We, the Dean, do peremptorily com- ' mand and enjoin,' etc. He marked his brief stay in office by special consideration of the interests of the Precentor, Minor Canons, and Lay Clerks of Westminster. When, four years afterwards, he died at Brighton, and was buried at St. Mary's Newington, which he held with the See of St. Asaph, ' the Choir ' of Westminster Abbey attended his funeral, to testify their 1 gratitude.' l Horsley was succeeded by Vincent, who had profited by his superior's classical criticisms whilst Horsley 2 was Dean, and wiiiiam he Headmaster. His long connection with the Abbev, Vincent 1802-15.' and his tomb in the South Transept, have been al- ready noticed. 3 Of his own good qualities, both as a teacher and scholar, ' the sepulchral stone ' (as the inscription written by himself records) ' is silent.' His appointment was marked by a change in the office, which restored the Deanery of West- minster to its independent position. The See of Eochester, for almost the first time for 140 years, was parted from it. It is said that, shortly after his nomination, he met George III. on the terrace of Windsor Castle. The King expressed his regret at the separation of the two offices. The Dean replied that he "was perfectly content. ' If you are satisfied,' said the King, ' I ' am not. They ought not to have been separated they ought ' not to have been separated.' However, they were, happily, never reunited, and Vincent continued his Westminster career in the Deanery till his death. ' If he had had the choice of all ' the preferments in his Majesty's gift, there is none,' he said, ' that he should rather have had than the Deanery of West- ' minster.' His name is perpetuated in Westminster by the conversion into Vincent Square of that part of Tothill Fields which had been appropriated to the playground of the School. 4 From his exertions was obtained the Parliamentary grant for the reparation of the exterior of Henry VII. 's Chapel. His scholars long remembered his swinging pace, his sonorous quotations, and the loud Latin call of Eloquere, puer, eloquere, with which he ordered the boys to speak out. They testified that at his lectures preparatory to the Holy Communion there was never known an instance of any boy treating the disquis i- the badge of the Order was evidently 2 Pref. to Vincent's Sermons, p. taken after his translation to St. xxxiv. Asaph. 3 Chapter IV. 1 Nichols, iv. 681. Gent. Mag. * See Litsus Westmonast. i. p. 296. Ixxii. 586. For his death, see ibid. p. 239. CHAP. vi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 483 tion with levity, or not showing an eagerness to be present at, or inhL, to profit by ' the lesson - 1 To Vincent succeeded Ireland, 1815-42. whose benefactions at Oxford will long preserve his name in the recollection of grateful scholars. He is the last Dean buried in the Abbey. He lies in the South Transept, with his schoolfellow Gifford, translator of Juvenal, and first editor of the ' Quarterly.' ' With what feelings,' says that faithful friend, ' do I trace the ' words " the Dean of Westminster." Five-and-forty springs have ' now passed over my head since I first found Dr. Ireland, some years ' my junior, in our little school, at his spelling-book. During this ' long period, our friendship has been without a cloud ; my delight in ' youth, my pride and consolation in age. I have followed with an ' interest that few can feel, and none can know, the progress of my ' friend from the humble state of a curate to the elevated situation ' which he lias now reached, and in every successive change have seen, ' with inexpressible delight, bis reputation and the wishes of the ' public precede bis advancement. His piety, his learning, his con- ' scientious discharge of bis sacred duties, his unwearied zeal to pro- ' mote the interests of all around him, will be the theme of other 1 times and other pens ; it is sufficient for my happiness to have wit- ' nessed at the close of a career, prolonged by Infinite Goodness far ' beyond my expectations, tbe friend and companion of my heart in ' that dignified place, which, while it renders his talents and bis ' virtues more conspicuous, derives every advantage from their wider ' influence and exertion.' 2 The remaining years of this century are too recent for detailed remarks. The names of Carey, Page, Goodenough, Williamson, and Liddell will still be remembered, apart from the other spheres in which they each shone, in their benefac- tions or improvements of Westminster School even of the Thomas Westminster play. To Ireland succeeded Turton, for 1842^5'; a brief stay, before his removal to the See of Ely. slmue 8 ! 64 ' Then came one whose government of Westminster, wuberforce, Chough overclouded at its close, has left deep traces Sfa^d, on the place. If the memory of the eagles, serpents, Sfrd and monkeys, which crowded the Deanery in Dean SluchT Buckland's geological reign, awake a grotesque remi- niscence, his active concern in the welfare of the School, his keen interest in the tombs we must add, the very stones and soil of the Abbey, have been rarely equalled amongst 1 Gent. Mag. ~s.lv. 633. 2 Preface to the Memoirs of Ben Jonson, by William Gifford, p. 72. I i 2 484 THE ABBEY SINCE THE KEFOKMATION. CHAP. vi. his predecessors. The two remaining Deans became Prelates, whose names belong to the history and to the literature of England. But their memory is too fresh to be touched. There are a few occasional solemnities to be noticed before we part from the general history. Baptisms and marriages have been comparatively rare. Marriages, which were occa- sionally celebrated in Henry VII. 's Chapel, were discontinued after the passing of Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1754, and were only revived within the last ten years. Confirmations have been confined to the celebration of that rite for the Westmin- ster School, by some Bishop connected with "Westminster, appointed for the purpose by the Dean. Ordinations have very rarely 1 taken place in the Abbey. Of episcopal consecrations the most notable instances have been mentioned as we have proceeded. After their sudden and striking accumulation at the Eestoration, they gradually died away. 2 It was reserved cen ^ m 'y to witness the reintroduction of the a more imposing form, not as before in the Bishops. Chapel of the Infirmary, or of Henry VII., but in the Choir of the Abbey itself. This change coincides with the ex- tension of the Colonial Episcopate 3 which marked the ad- ministration of Archbishop Howley, a movement which doubt- less contained from the beginning a germ of future mischief, 4 but which was projected with the best intentions, and often with the best results. The first of these, in 1842, included the Bishops of Barbadoes, Antigua, Guiana, Gibraltar, and Tas- mania. This was followed in 1847 by the consecration of three Australian Bishops, and the first Bishop of South Africa, Eobert Gray, Bishop of Capetown, and in 1850 by that of Francis Fulford, Bishop of Montreal, who both became sub- sequently known from the controversies, political and theological, in which they were involved. On Ascension Day, 1858, was consecrated George Lynch Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta. Years 1 Besides that of Ferrar by Laud, (Peploe), April 12, 1726, took place at there was one by the Bishop of Bangor Westminster, not in the Abbey, but in (Koberts), Sept. 4, 1660, in Henry the parish church of St. Margaret. VII.'s Chapel (Evelyn's Memoirs, ii. 3 Its main promoter, Ernest Haw- 153), and by Sprat in 1689 (Statutes of kins, for many years Secretary of the King's College, Cambridge, p. xxv.) Society for the Propagation of the 2 The only one in the last century Gospel, after finding a few years' was Bishop Dawes of Chester on respite from his labours in the Pre- February 8, 1708 ; and the discontinu- cincts of Westminster, now lies in the ance of the ceremony is rendered more East Cloister. significant from the fact, that the con- 4 See the last letter of Dr. Arnold, secration of another Bishop of Chester May 22, 1842; Life, p. 604. CHAP. vi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUHY. 485 afterwards, from the shores from which he never returned, he wrote with a touching fervour of the scenes he had known so well to the friend who had meanwhile become the head of ' that ' noblest and grandest of English Churches, the one to which ' in historical and religious interest even Canterbury must ' yield, the one in which,' he adds, ' I worshipped as a boy, in ' which I was confirmed, and in which I was consecrated to ' the great work of my life.' In 1859, the first Bishops of Columbia, Brisbane, and St. Helena, and, in 1863, two mission- ary Bishops of Central Africa and of the Orange Kiver Free State, were consecrated. It was not till 1859 that the practice of consecrating in the Abbey the Bishops of English sees was re- vived, in the case of Bangor. In 1864 and 1868 followed those of Ely and Hereford. The year 1869 began and ended with a remarkable consecration. On Feb. 24, a distinguished Canon and benefactor of Westminster (Dr. Wordsworth), attended by the two houses of Convocation then sitting, was consecrated to the See of Lincoln in the same Precincts where his illustrious predecessor, St. Hugh, had been raised to the same office. On Dec. 21, under protest from the same Prelate, and three others, was consecrated to the See of Exeter, the worthy suc- cessor of Arnold at Rugby (Dr. Temple), who, after an opposition similar to that which, no doubt, would have met his predecessor's elevation, entered on his Episcopal duties with a burst of popular enthusiasm such as has hardly fallen to the lot of any English Prelate since the Reformation. In the interval between those two (on Oct. 28),. Dr. Moberly was consecrated to the See of Salisbury. On St. Mark's Day (April 25), 1879, was consecrated to the See of Durham the scholar who has erected the modern Cambridge school of theology Joseph Lightfoot. No Bishop of Durham had been consecrated in the South since Ralph Flambard, in 1099, in St.. Paul's. We must cast a glance backwards over the history of the whole fabric during this period. The aversion from mediaeval Decline of architecture and tradition had indeed been allowed uste ffiva here, as elsewhere in Europe, its full scope. Not only in the monuments, as we have already seen, but in the general neglect of the beauty of the fabric, had this sentiment made itself manifest. The Westminster boys were allowed ' to skip ' from tomb to tomb in the Confessor's Chapel.' l On Sundays the town boys sate in the Sacrarium, doubtless net without 1 Malcolm, p. 167. 486 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. injury to the precious mosaic pavement. There was also ' playing at football, in some of the most curious parts of the ' Abbey, by the men appointed to show them.' 1 The scenery of the Westminster Play was kept in the Triforium of the North Transept. 2 There was a thoroughfare from Poets' Corner to the western door, and to the Cloisters. 3 The South Transept was a ' newswalk ' for the singing men 4 and their friends. The poor of St. Margaret's begged in the Abbey even during Prayers, 5 as they had, ever since the time of Elizabeth, had their food laid out in the South Transept during the sermon, till within the memory of man. 6 Before the Eestoration the right and emoluments of showing the tombs was conferred by patent for life on private individuals. After the Eestoration, this was made dependent on the pleasure of the Chapter. From 1697 down to 1822, the right was transferred to the Minor Canons and Lay Vicars, who thus eked out their in- sufficient incomes. The memory of old inhabitants of the Cloisters still retains the figure of an aged Minor Canon, who on Sundays preached two-thirds of the sermons in the course of the year, and on week-days sate by the tomb of the Princess Catharine, collecting from the visitors the fee of two shillings a head, with his tankards of ale beside him. 7 The income of the Minor Canons was further assisted by the candles which they carried off from the church services. The Waxworks formed a considerable part of the attraction. 8 The statues over Henry "STL's Chapel had been taken down, lest they should fall on Members of Parliament going to their duties. 9 Those which had stood on the north side were stowed away in the roof. 10 ' Nothing could be more stupid ' (so it was thought by the best judges), ' than laying statues on their ' backs ' nothing more barbarous and devoid of interest than the Confessor's Chapel. 11 Atterbury, as we have seen, regarded ' Gent. Mag. Ixxi. pt. ii. pp. 101, e Eye's England as seen by Fo- 623. reigners, p. 132. 2 Till April 27, 1829, when they ' For the fees see Chapter Book, Jan. caught fire. From this dates the in- 28 and May 6, 1779, May 29, 1823, stitution of the nightly watchmen. May 6, 1825, June 2, 1826; Gent. (Gent. Mag. pt. i. pp. 363, 460.) Mag. 1801, pt. i. p. 328 ; 1826, pt. i. 3 Malcolm, pp. 163, 167. The iron p. 343. gate which now stands by Andre's 8 See Note at end of Chapter IV. monument originally stood by that of 9 Akerman, ii. 6. Bell, and was opened after the service 10 Ibid. ii. 2. See Gent. Mag. Ixxiii. to allow the thoroughfare. pt. ii. p. 636 ; Neale, i. 214. 4 Dart, i. 41. ' See the continuator of Stow. 5 London Spy, p. 179. CHAP. vi. GENERAL SUMMARY. 487 with pleasure the debasement of the Northern Porch. The Wren family regarded the immense superiority of the Whitehall Banqueting House to Henry VII.'s Chapel as incontestable. 1 All manner of proposed changes were under discussion. One was to remove entirely the interesting Chapel of the Revestry, with the monuments of Argyll, Gay, and Prior. 2 Another was to fill up the intercolumniations in the Nave with statues. The two first were already occupied by Captain Montague and Captain Harvey. 3 The Chapter, in 1706, petitioned Queen Anne for the Altarpiece once in Whitehall Chapel, then at Hampton Court, which later on in the century was condemned as ' unpardonable, tasteless, and absurd ; ' and in erecting it, the workmen broke up a large portion of the ancient mosaic pavement, 4 and, but for the intervention of Harley, Earl of Oxford, would have destroyed the whole. It was then pro- posed to remove the screen of the Confessor's Chapel, and to carry back the Choir as far as Henry VII.'s Chapel, ' huddling ' up the royal monuments to the body of the Church or the ' Transepts.' 5 The venerable Sanctuary disappeared in 1750. The Gate- house, hardly less venerable, but regarded as ' that very dismal ' horrid gaol,' 6 fell in 1777, before the indignation of Dr. Johnson, ' against a building so offensive that it ought to be ' pulled clown, for it disgraces the present magnificence of the ' capital, and is a continual nuisance to neighbours and ' passengers.' 7 The Clock-tower of Westminster Palace was a heap of ruins. 8 In 1715 the Great Bell, which used to remind the Judges of Westminster of their duty, was purchased for St. Paul's Cathedral. On its way through Temple Bar, as if in indignation at being torn from its ancient home, 9 it rolled off the carriage, and received such injury as to require it to be recast. The inscription round its rim still records that it came from the ruins of Westminster. The mullions of the Cloisters would have perished but for the remonstrance of the inhabi- tants of the neighbourhood. 10 We have seen how narrowly the tomb of Aynier de Valence escaped at the erection of Wolfe's 1 Parentalia, p. 308. (1766), p. 90. Chapter Order, July 10, " Gent. Mag. 1772, xlii. 517. 1776. 3 Malcolm, p. 175. ' See Chapter Book, March 3, 1708. 4 Seymour's Stow, ii. 541 ; Wid- " See London Spy, p. 187. more, p. 165. ' Westminster Improvements, p. 15. 5 Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. ii. p. 115 ; See Chapter V. p. 346. "Walpole, vi. 223. 10 Six windows were already gone. Owyn'l London and Westminster (Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. i. p. 447.) 488 THE ABBEY SINCE THE [REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. monument, and how, at the funeral of the Duchess of North- umberland, the tomb of Philippa, Duchess of York, was removed to make way for the family vault of the Percys, and the screen of the Chapel of St. Edmund and the canopy of John of Eltham were totally destroyed. 1 Yet, amidst all this neglect and misuse, as we think it, a feeling for the Abbey more tender, probably, than had existed Gradual ^ ^ e ^ me ^ ^ s hig ne8 ^ splendour and wealth, had mIdiVa f i keen gradually springing up. From the close of the art sixteenth century we trace the stream of visitors, which has gone on flowing ever since. Already in the reign of Elizabeth and James I., distinguished foreigners were taken ' in gondolas to the beautiful and large Eoyal Church called ' Westminster,' and saw the Chapel ' built eighty ' years ago by King Henry VII.,' the Eoyal Tombs, the Coronation Stone, the Sword of Edward III., and ' the ' English ministers in white surplices such as the Papists wear,' singing alternately while the organ played. Camden's printed book on the Monuments was sold by the vergers. 2 Possibly (we can hardly say more), it was in Westminster 3 that the youthful Milton let his Due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high-embowed roof, With antick pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. It is certain that, in the beginning of the next century, the feeling had generally spread. The coarse ' London Spy,' when he was conveyed from the narrow passage which brought him in sight of ' that ancient and renowned structure of the Abbey ' to which he was an utter stranger, could not behold the out- side of the awful pile without reverence and amazement. ' The ' whole seemed to want nothing that could render it truly ' venerable.' After going to ' afternoon prayers ' in the Choir, 1 amongst many others, to pay with reverence that duty which ' becomes a Christian,' and having ' their souls elevated by the ' divine harmony of the music, far above the common pitch of ' their devotions,' they ' made an entrance into the east end of 1 Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. ii. p. 733. s The choice lies between Westmin- 2 Eye's England as seen by Fo- ster, Old St. Paul's, or King's College, reigners, pp. 9, 10, 132, 139. Cambridge. CHAP. vi. GENERAL SUMMARY. 489 ' the Abbey, which was locked, and payed a visit to the ' venerable shrines and sacred monuments of the dead nobility ; ' and then ' ascended some stone steps, which brought them to a ' Chapel, that looks so far exceeding human excellence, that a ' man would think it was knit together by the fingers of angels, 1 pursuant to the directions of Omnipotence.' ' The testimony of Addison, Steele, and Goldsmith need not be repeated. Lord Hervey was taken by a Bishop ' to Westminster Abbey to show ' a pair of old brass gates to Henry VII.'s Chapel,' on which he enlarged with such ' particular detail and encomium ' before George II. and Queen Caroline, that the intelligent Queen was ' extremely pleased and the King stopped the conversation ' short.' Burke ' visited the Abbey soon after his arrival in ' town,' and ' the moment he entered he felt a kind of awe ' pervade his mind, which he could not describe ; the very ' silence seemed sacred.' 2 Then arose the decisive verdict from an unexpected quarter. In Horace Walpole the despised mediaeval taste found its first powerful patron. Oh ! happy man that shows the tombs, said I, was a favourite quotation of the worldly courtier. 3 ' I love ' Westminster Abbey,' he writes, ' much more than levees and ' circles, and no treason, I hope am fond enough of kings as ' soon as they have a canopy of stone over them.' He was consulted by the successive Deans on the changes proposed in the Abbey. He prevented, as we have seen, the destruction of Valence's tomb, and ' suggested an octagon canopy of open ' arches, like Chichester Cross, to be elevated on a flight of ' steps with the Altar in the middle, and semicircular arcades ' to join the stalls, so that the Confessor's Chapel and tomb ' may be seen through in perspective.' 4 In the whole building he delighted to see the reproduction of an idea which seemed to have perished. ' In St. Peter's at Rome one is convinced ' that it was built by great princes. In Westminster Abbey 1 London Spy, p. 178. The original in Donne is this : 2 Prior's Life of Burke, i. 39. ' At Westminster,' 3 The line is from Pope's Imitation Sai ' es , mee * He every day from king to king can walk, King* only ', the way to it is King s Street. Of all our Harries, ail our Ed \vardswik; 4 Suggested to Dean Pearce (Wal- Aud get, bv sueakiug truth of monarch* dead, ro. What few cauot thl living-ease and bread.' pole's Letters, vi. 223), and to Dean Thomas (ibid. vii. 306.) 490 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. * one thinks not of the builder ; the religion of the place makes ' the first impression, and, though stripped of its shrines and ' altars, it is nearer converting one to Popery than all the ' regular pageantry of Eoman domes. One must have taste to ' be sensible of the beauties of Grecian architecture : one only ' wants passion to feel Gothic. Gothic churches infuse super- ' stition, Grecian temples admiration. The Papal See amassed ' its wealth by Gothic cathedrals, and displays it in Grecian * temples.' l In the last years of the eighteenth century, John Carter, the author of ' Ancient Sculptures and Paintings,' was the Old carter the Mortality of the past glories of Westminster. There antiquary. j s a mixture of pathos and humour in the alternate lamentations over the ' excrescences which disfigure and destroy ' the fair form of the structure,' and ' the heartfelt satisfaction ' with which he hangs over the remnants of antiquity still un- changed. He probably was the first to recognise the singular exemption of the Abbey from the discolouring whitewash which, from the close of the Middle Ages, swept over almost all the great buildings of Europe. 2 ' There is one religious ' structure in the kingdom that stands in its original finishing, ' exhibiting all those modest hues that the native appearance ' of the stone so pleasingly bestows. This structure is the ' 'Abbey Church of Westminster. . . . There I find my happi- ' ness the most complete. This Church has not been white- * washed.' 3 In his complaints against the monuments setting at nought the old idea ' that the statues of the deceased should ' front the east,' 4 and against the ' whimsical infatuation of ' their costumes ; 5 in his ideal of the architect who should ' watch with anxious care the state of the innumerable parts of ' the pile ; ' 6 in his protest against Queen Anne's altar-screen, ' as ill-calculated for its place as a mitre in the centre of a salt- ' cellar ; ' 7 in his enthusiastic visions of ' religious curiosities, 1 Walpole, i. 108. * The practice of whitewashing was, however, not peculiar to modern times or Protestant countries. Even the Norman nave of the Abbey was white- washed in the time of Edward III. (Gleanings, 53.) The pompous inscrip- tion over the door of Toledo Cathedral the Most Reverend Lord Don Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza, Cardinal of Spain, and all the Jews driven out from all the kingdoms of Castille, Arragon, and Sicily, this holy church was .... repaired and wlutewaslied by Francis Ferdinand of Cuencja, Archdeacon of Calatrava.' records that in the year after that in 3 Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. ii. p. 66. which ' Granada was taken with the 4 Ibid. pp. 669, 670. ' whole kingdom, by the King our 5 Ibid. p. 1016. ' Lord Don Ferdinand and Donna 6 Ibid. pt. ii. p. 735. ' Isabella in the Archiepiscopate of 7 Ibid. p. 736. CHAP. vr. GENERAL SUMMARY. 491 ' myriads of burning tapers, clouds of incense, gorgeous vest- ' ments, glittering insignia, Scriptural banners ' 'we see the first rise of that wave of antiquarian, aesthetic, architectural sentiment which has since overspread the whole of Christen- dom. Its gradual advance may be detected even in the dry records of the Chapter, 2 and has gone on, with increasing volume, to our own time. The Chapel of Henry VII., on the appeal of Dean Vincent, was repaired by Parliament. The houses on the north side of the Chapel were pulled down. 3 He too removed the huge naval monuments which obstructed the pillars of the Nave. 4 The North Transept, at the petition of the Speaker, was for a time used 5 for a service for the children of the school in Orchard Street. Free admission was given to the larger part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. 6 The Transepts were opened to the Choir under Dean Buckland. The Nave was used for special evening services under Dean Trench. The Reredos, of alabaster and mosaic, was raised under the care of the Subdean (Lord John Thynne), to whose watchful zeal for more than thirty years the Abbey was so greatly indebted. Future historians must describe the vicissi- tudes of taste, and the improvements of opportunities, which may mark the concluding years of the nineteenth century. Two general reflections may close this imperfect sketch of Westminster Abbey before and since the Reformation : I. It would. ill become those who have inherited the mag- nificent pile which has been entrusted to their care to under- value the grandeur of the age which could have produced an institution capable of such complex development, and a building of such matchless beauty. Here, as often, 'other men have ' laboured, and we have entered into their labours.' But- comparing the Abbots with the Deans and Headmasters of Westminster, the Monks with the Prebendaries, and with the Scholars of the College the benefits which have been con- 1 Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. ii. p. 861. tomb. (Gent. Mag. 1799, pt. i. p. 2 No monument was to be erected 880.) before submitting a draught of it io s Chapter Book, 1804. Conti's West- the Chapter. (Chapter Book, May 16,, minster, p. 268. 1729.) The erection of Monk's monu- 4 Vincent's Sermons, vol. i. Pref. p. ment was at first ' unanimously ' j)re- liii. vented, ' as hiding the curious work- 5 Dec. 28, 1812. ' manship of Henry VII.'s Chapel.' 6 Authorised guides were first ap- (Ibid. January 1, 1739.) No monu- pointed in 1826, and the nave and ment was henceforth to be attached to transepts opened, and the fees lowered any of the pillars. (Ibid. June 6, 1807.) in 1841, at the suggestion of Lord John The shield and saddle of Henry V. were Thynne. , restored to their place over the King's 492 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. ferred on the literature and the intelligence of England since compensa- ^ ne Reformation may fairly be weighed in the balance tion of gifts, against the architectural prodigies which adorned the ages before. Whilst the dignitaries of the ancient Abbey, as we have seen, hardly left any moral or intellectual mark on their age, there have been those in the catalogue of former Deans, Prebendaries, and Masters not to speak of innumer- able names among the scholars of Westminster who will probably never cease to awaken a recollection as long as the British commonwealth lasts. The English and Scottish Con- fessions of 1561 and 1643, the English Prayer Book of 1662, and the American Prayer Book of 1789 which derived their origin, in part at least, from our Precincts have, whatever be their defects, a more enduring and lively existence than any result of the mediaeval Councils of Westminster. And if these same Precincts have been disturbed by the personal contests of Williams and Atterbury, and by the unseemly contentions of Convocation, more than an equivalent is found in the violent scenes in St. Catherine's Chapel, the intrigues attendant on the election of the Abbots, and the deplorable scandals of the Sanctuary. Abbot Feckenham believed that, 1 ' so long as the ' fear and dread of the Christian name remained in England, ' the privilege of sanctuary in Westminster would remain un- ' disturbed.' We may much more confidently say, that ' as * long as the fear and dread of Christian justice and charity ' remain,' those unhappy privileges will never be restored, either here or anywhere else.' 2 These differences, it is true, belong to the general advance of knowledge and power which has pervaded the whole of England since the sixteenth century. But not the less are they witnesses to the value of the Refor- mation not the less a compensation for the inevitable loss of those marvellous gifts, which passed away from Europe, Catholic and Protestant alike, with the. close of the Middle Ages. What is yet in store for the Abbey none can say. Much, 1 See Appendix to Chapter VI. ment published in 1850, by Sir William 2 For the moral state of the district Page Wood (afterwards Lord Hather- surrounding the Abbey before and since ley), with a Preface on the Westminster the ^Reformation, a brief sketch has been Spiritual Aid Fund, which was then given by one whose lifelong residence, set on foot and. since kept up by the and persevering promotion of all good unwearied energy of Dr. Christopher works in the neighbourhood, well en- Wordsworth, then. Canon of Westruin- title htm to the name of ' the Lay ster, now Bishop of Lincoln. ' Bishop of Westminster.' See a state- CHAP. vi. CONCLUSION. 493 assuredly, remains to be done to place it on a level with the increasing demands of the human mind, with the changing wants of the English people, with the never-ending 'enlarge- ' ment of the Church,' for which every member of the Chapter is on his installation pledged to labour. 1 It is the natural centre of religious life and truth, if not to the whole metropolis, at least to the city of Westminster. It is the peculiar home of the entire Anglo-Saxon race, on the other side of the Atlantic no less than on this. It is endeared both to the conforming and to the nonconforming members of the National Church. It combines the full glories of Mediaeval and of Protestant England. It is of all our purely ecclesias- tical institutions the one which most easily lends itself to union and reconciliation, and is with most difficulty turned to party or polemical uses. By its history, its position, and its indepen- dence, it thus becomes in the highest and most comprehensive sense what it has been well called ' the Fortress of the ' Church of England,' 2 if only its garrison be worthy of it. "Whilst Westminster Abbey stands, the Church of England stands. So long as its stones are not sold to the first chance purchaser ; so long as it remains a sanctuary, not of any private sect, but of the English people ; so long as the great Council of the nation which assisted at its first dedication recognises its religious purpose so long the separation between the English State and the English Church will not have been accomplished. II. This leads us to remember that the one common element which binds together, ' by natural piety,' the past changes continuity an( * ^ e future prospects of the Abbey, has been the of worship, intention, carried on from its Founder to the present day, that it should be a place dedicated for ever to the worship of God. Whilst the interest in the other events and localities of the building has slackened with the course of time, the interest connected with its sacred services has found expression 1 ' That those things which he hath wise foreign King in speaking to a ' promised, and which his duty requires, modern Dean of Westminster. ' In 4 he may faithfully perform, to the ' vain has this splendid church been 1 praise and glory of the name of God, ' built and sculptured anew,' was the ' and the enlargement of His Church.' like saying, though in a somewhat differ- Prayer at the Installation of a Dean ent mood, of Henry III. to its conten- or a Canon. tious Abbot, ' if the living stones of its 2 ' Westminster Abbey is the fortress ' head and members are engaged in ' of the Church of England, and you ' unseemly strife.' (Matt. Paris, A.D. ' are its garrison,' was the saying of a 1250.) 494 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. vi. in all the varying forms of the successive vicissitudes which have passed over the religious mind of England. The history of the ' Altar ' l of Westminster Abbey is almost the history of the English Church. The Monuments and Chapels have remained comparatively unchanged except by the natural decay of time. The Holy Table and its accompaniments alone have kept pace with the requirements of each succeeding period. The aitw The simple feeling of the early Middle Ages was century,* represented in its original position, when it stood, as in most churches of that time, at the eastern extremity. In the changes of the thirteenth century, which so deeply 3th< affected the whole framework of Christian doctrine, the new veneration for the local saint and for the Virgin Mother, whilst it produced the Lady Chapel and the Confessor's Shrine, thrust forward the High Altar to its present place in front of St. Edward's Chapel. The foreign art of the period left its trace in the richly-painted frontal, 2 the only remnant of the gorgeous Mediaeval Altar. 3 When, in the fifteenth cen- tury, reflecting the increasing divisions and narrowing 5th> tendencies of Christendom, walls of partition sprang up everywhere across the Churches of the West, the Screen was erected which parted asunder the Altar from the whole of the Refer- eastern portion of the Abbey. At the Reformation mation, an( j during the Commonwealth, the wooden movable Table 4 which was brought down into the body of the Church, reproduced, though by a probably undesigned conformity, the of the Re- primitive custom both of East and West. Its return to its more easterly position marks the triumph of the Anne!* 11 Laudian usages under the Stuarts. Its adornment by the sculptures and marbles of Queen Anne follows the 1 The popular name of ' Altar ' is still more emphatically of human hearts nowhere applied to the Holy Table in and lives then there is a certain fitness the Liturgy or Articles. But it is used in this one application of the name of of the Table of Westminster Abbey in Altar. For here it signifies the place the Coronation Service issued by order and time in which are offered up the of the Privy Council at the beginning Sacrifice of the Prayers and thanks- of each reign. It is there preserved givings of the whole English nation, with other antique customs which have and the Sacrifice of the highest life in disappeared everywhere else. In no this church and realm, to the good of other place, and on no other occasion, man and the honour of God. could the word be applied so con- - The fate of the Altar and the sistently with the tenor of the Re- Table in Henry VII.'s Chapel has been formed Liturgy. If an Altar be a already described in p. 472. place of Sacrifice, and if (as is well a Gleanings, 105-111. known) the only Sacrifices acknow- 4 This Table is probably the one now ledged in the English Prayer Book are in the Confessor's Chapel, those of praise and thanksgiving, and CHAP. vi. CONCLUSION. 495 development of classical art in that our Augustan age. 1 The plaster restoration of the original Screen by Bernasconi, in 1824, indicates the first faint rise of the revival of Gothic art. At its elevation was present a young architect, 2 whose of the isth name h as since been identified with the full develop- ceutury. me nt of the like taste in our own time, and who in the design of the new Screen and new altar, erected in 1867, has united the ancient forms of the fifteenth century with the simpler and loftier faith of the nineteenth. And now the con- trast of its newness and youth with the venerable mouldering forms around it, is but the contrast of the perpetual growth of the soul of religion with the stationary or decaying memories of its external accompaniments. We sometimes think that it is the Transitory alone which changes, the Eternal which stands still. Rather the Transitory stands still, fades, and falls to pieces : the Eternal continues, by changing its form in accor- dance with the movement of advancing ages. The successive Pulpits of the Abbey, if not equally expres- sive of the changes which it has witnessed, carry on the sound The Pulpit of many voices, heard with delight and wonder in Abbots, their time. No vestige remains of the old mediaeval platform whence the Abbots urged the reluctant court of Henry of the Tudor III. to the Crusades. But we have still the fragile ?f 1 the es ' structure from which Cranmer must have preached at SmS the coronation and funeral of his royal godson ; 3 and the more 4 elaborate carving of that which resounded with the passionate appeals, at one time of Baxter, Howe, and Owen, at 1 This Altarpiece, once at Whitehall, larger niches with St. Peter and St. and then at Hampton Court, was then, Paul as the patron saints of the Church, through the influence of Lord Godol- and Moses and David as representing phin, given by Queen Anne to the the lawgivers and the poets; the Abbey, where it remained till the reign smaller niches with the four Prophets, of George IV. (See Xeale, ii. 38; supporting the four Evangelists. The Plate xlii.) The order for its removal mosaic of the Last Supper is by Salviati, appears in the Chapter Book, May 29, from a design of Messrs. Clayton and c March 23 1 Ti Bell. The cedar table was carved by 1823 ; j "JFJ" ~' | 1824. It was Farmer and BrindleVi ^ biblic /! then given by Dr. King, Bishop of subjects suggested by Archdeacon (since Eochester, who had been Prebendary of Bishop) Wordsworth. The black marble Westminster, to the parish church of slab (originally ordered March 23, 1824, Burnham, near Bridgewater, of which and apparently taken from the tomb he had been vicar, and in which it still of Anne of Cleves) is the only part of remains. * ne former structure remaining. The - This was Sir Gilbert Scott's earliest work was erected chiefly from the pay- recollection of Westminster Abbey. ments of the numerous visitors at the The frieze in the new Screen has been Great Exhibition of 1862. rilled bv Mr. Annstead with groups re- 3 Now in Henry VII.'s Chapel, presenting the Life of our Lord ; the 4 - Now in the Triforium. 496 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFORMATION. CHAP. n. other times of Heylin, Williams, South, and Barrow. That from which was poured forth the oratory of the Deans of the of the i8th eighteenth century, from Atterbury to Horsley, is now century, j n Trotterscliffe ' church, near Maidstone. The marble pulpit in the Nave, given in 1859 to commemorate the begin- of the isth ning of the Special Services, through which West- the^-a^e? minster led the way in re-animating the silent naves of so many of our Cathedrals, has thus been the chief vehicle of the varied teaching of those who have been well called ' the ' People's Preachers : ' ' Vox quidem dissona, sed una religio.' 2 It may be said that these sacred purposes are shared by the Abbey with the humblest church or chapel in the kingdom. But there is a peculiar charm added to the thought here, by the reflection that on it, as on a thin (at times almost invisible) thread, has hung every other interest which has accumulated around the building. Break that thread ; and the whole struc- ture becomes an unmeaning labyrinth. Extinguish that sacred fire ; and the arched vaults and soaring pillars would assume the sickly hue of a cold artificial Valhalla, and ' the rows of ' warriors and the walks of kings ' would be transformed into the conventional galleries of a lifeless museum. By the secret nurture of individual souls, which have found rest in its services 3 or meditated 4 in its silent nooks, or been inspired, whether in the thick of battle, or in the humblest 5 1 In its stead, in 1827, was erected ' He walked in, looked about him, and in the Choir another, which in 1851 was ' burst into tears.' (English Poets, ii. removed to Shoreham, to give place to p. 231.) the present. * See the touching story of the 2 St. Jerome, Opp. i. p. 82. famous Baptist Missionary Marshman, 3 ' I went,' wrote De Foe, on Sept. who began his career as a bookseller's 24, 1725, ' into the Abbey, and there shop-boy : I found the Royal tombs and the ' The labour of trudging through the Monuments of the Dead remaining ' streets, day by day, with a heavy parcel and increased ; but the gazers, the ' of books, became at length dishearten- readers of the epitaphs, and the ' ing ; and having been one day sent to country ladies to see the tombs were ' the Duke of Grafton with three folio strangely decreased in number. Nay, ' vols. of Clarendon's History, he began the appearance of the Choir was ' to give way to melancholy, and as lie diminished; for setting aside the 'passed Westminster Abbey laid down families of the clergy resident and a ' the load and sobbed at the thought very few more, the place was for- ' that there was no higher prospect before saken. " Well,'" said I, " then a man ' him in life than that of being a book- " may be devout with the less dis- ' seller's porter ; but looking up at the " turbance ; " so J went in, said my ' building, and recalling to mind the prayers, and then took a walk in the ' noble associations connected with it, he park.' (Works, iii. 427.) ' brushedaway his tears, replaced theload 4 So, amongst others, the poet- ' on his shoulders, and walked on with painter Blake. Sir Henry Taylor de- ^ alighfheart, determined tobide his time.' 1 scribes the first visit of Webster, the The story of Carey, Marshman, and American orator, to Westminster Abbey. Ward, by John Clark Marshman, p. 47. CHAP. vi. CONCLUSION. 497 walks of life, by the thought or the sight of its towers ; by the devotions of those who in former times, it may be in much ignorance, have had their faith kindled by dubious shrine or relic ; or, in after days, caught here the impassioned words of preachers of every school ; or have drunk in the strength of the successive forms of the English Liturgy: by these and such as these, one may almost say, through all the changes of language and government, this giant fabric has been sustained, when the leaders of the ecclesiastical or political world would have let it pass away. It was the hope of the Founder, and the belief of his age, that on St. Peter's Isle of Thorns was planted a ladder, on which angels might be seen ascending and descending from the courts of heaven. What is fantastically expressed in that fond dream has a solid foundation in the brief words in which the most majestic of English divines has described the nature of Christian worship. What,' he says, ' is the assembling of ' the Church to learn, but the receiving of angels descended ' from above what to pray, but the sending of angels upwards ? 1 His heavenly inspirations and our holy desires are so many ' angels of intercourse and commerce between God and us. As ' teaching bringeth us to know that God is our Supreme Truth, ' so prayer testifieth that we acknowledge Him our Sovereign ' Good.' ' Such a description of the purpose of the Abbey,, when un- derstood at once in its fulness and simplicity, is, we may humbly trust, not a mere illusion. Not surely in vain did the architects of successive generations raise this consecrated edifice in its vast and delicate proportions, more keenly appre- ciated in this our day than in any other since it first was built ; designed, if ever were any forms on earth, to lift the soul heavenward to things unseen. Not surely in vain has our English language grown to meet the highest ends of devotion with a force which the rude native dialect and barbaric Latin of the Confessor's age could never attain. Not surely for idle waste has a whole world of sacred music been created, which no ear of Norman or Plantagenet ever heard, nor skill of Saxon harper or Celtic minstrel ever achieved. Not surely for nothing has the knowledge of the will of God steadily increased, century by century, through the better understanding of the Bible, of history, and of nature. Not in vain, surely, 1 Hooker's Eccl. Pol. v. 23. E E 498 THE ABBEY SINCE THE REFOKMATION. CHAP. vi. has the heart of man kept its freshness whilst the world has been waxing old, and the most restless and inquiring intellects clung to the belief that ' the Everlasting arms are still beneath ' us,' and that ' prayer is the potent inner supplement of noble ' outward life.' Here, if anywhere, the Christian worship of England may labour to meet both the strength and the weak- ness of succeeding ages, to inspire new meaning into ancient forms, and embrace within itself each rising aspiration after all greatness, human and Divine. So considered, so used, the Abbey of Westminster may become more and more a witness to that one Sovereign Good, to that one Supreme Truth, a shadow of a great rock in a weary land, a haven of rest in this tumultuous world, a break- water for the waves upon waves of human hearts and souls which beat unceasingly around its island shores. APPENDIX. ACCOUNT OF THE SEARCH FOR THE GRAVE OF KING JAMES I. IT is obvious that the interest of a great national cemetery like West- minster Abbey depends, in great measure, on the knowledge of the exact spots where the illustrious dead repose. Strange to say, this was not so easy to ascertain as might have been expected, in some of the instances where certainty was most to be desired. Not only, as has been already noticed, has no monument, since the time of Queen The Royal Elizabeth, been raised over any regal grave, but the Royal The' vault of vaults were left without any name or mark to indicate their George ii. position. In two cases, however the Georgian vault in the centre of the Chapel, and that of Charles II. in the south aisle the complete and exact representation in printed works, and hi the Burial Registers, left no doubt ; and over these accordingly, hi 1866, for the first time, the names of the Royal personages were inscribed imme- diately above the -sites of their graves. It also happened that both of these vaults had been visited within the memory of man. Whilst the Georgian vault had been seen in 1837, when it was opened by Dean Milman, 1 for the removal of an infant child of the King of Hanover ; the vault of Charles II. was 1 See Chapter III. There is an was necessarily taken up, much of it interesting description of this vault in must have been broken and otherwise Knight's Windsor Guide (1825), pp. injured. (This has been found experi- 187, 188, as seen on the removal of mentally to be the unavoidable conse- Prince Alfred and Prince Octavius. quence of removing any of the pave- In connection with this vault it may ment.) ID order to utilise the parts be remarked that the central part of that were so injured, it would be neces- the marble floor is unlike the ends east sary to reduce the size of the broken and west. Perhaps the following con- lozenges, and thereby alter the design, jecture (furnished by Mr. Poole) may Therefore, the original uninjured explain this irregularity. Presuming lozenges were relaid at each end, and that in 1699, when, as recorded on the the broken ones reduced and relaid to pavement, it was arranged for Prebend- what was necessarily a different design, ary Killigrew, the whole of the area in the middle of the floor and above the was formed of the same large lozenges direct descent into the vault. The of black and white marble as are now at number of reduced lozenges nearly coin- the ends only, and that in 1737, when cides with the original number of large the large vault was formed by King lozenges displaced. George II. , and nearly all the marble 500 APPENDIX. accidentally disclosed in 1867, in the process of laying down the apparatus for warming the Chapel of Henry VII. In removing for this purpose the rubbish under the floor of the fourth or eastern bay of the south stalls a brick arch was found. The vault of From its position it was evident that it was the entrance to Charles n. a vau i^ m ade prior to the erection of the monument of Gene- ral Monk, as well as of the stalls of the eastern bays in 1725. A small portion of the brickwork was removed, so as to effect an entrance suffi- ciently large to crawl in a horizontal posture into the vault. There was an incline toward the south, ending on a flight of five steps terminating on the floor of the chamber. Underneath a barrel vault of stone, laid as close as possible, side by side, and filling the whole space of the lower chamber from east to west, were the coffins of Charles II., Mary II., William III., Prince George of Denmark, and Anne, 1 with the usual urns at the feet, exactly corresponding with 1 (1) COFFIN-PLATE OF KING CHARLES II. Depositum Augustissimi et Serenissimi Principis Carol! Secundi Anglise, Scotise, Franciae et Hibernias Regis, Fidei Defensoris, etc. Obiit sexto die Feb r anno D ni 1684, 2Etatis suae quinquagesimo quinto, Regnique sui tricesimo septimo. (2) COFFIN-PLATE OF QUEEN MARY II. Maria Regina Gulielmi III. M.B. F.H.R. F.D. Conjux et Regni Censors Obiit A. R. vi. Dec. xxvm. Mt. xxxn. On the urn : Depositum Reginae Mariae II. Uxoris Gulielmi III. (3) COFFIN -PLATE OF WILLIAM III. Gulielmus III. Dei Gra : M.B. F.H.R. F.D. Obiit A.R. xiv. A.D. MDCCI. Mar. vni. ^Et. LII. ineunte. THE EOYAL VAULTS. 501 the plan in Dart's ' Westminster Abbey.' The wooden cases were decayed, and the metal fittings to their tops, sides, and angles were mostly loose or fallen. The lead of some of the coffins, especially that of Charles II., was much corroded ; and in this case the plate had thus (4) COFFIN-PLATE OF PRINCE GEORGE OF DENMARK. Depositnm Illustrissimi et Celsissimi Principis Georgii, Danise et Norvegiae, necnon Gothorum et Vandalorum Principis Hereditarii Slesveci Holsatiae, Stor- rnarise Dithmarsiae et Cumbriae ducis, Oldenburgi Delmenhorsti et Candaliae Comitis : Ockinghamiae Baronis, Seren- issimi ac Potentissimi Christian!, ejus nominis Quinti, nuper Danise et Nor- vegia?, etc. Regis Fratris unici : ac Se- renissimae et Excellentissimae Principis Annie, Dei gratia Magnae Britanniae, OENEPAL rtONK't MONUMENT Franciae, et Hiberniae Reginae, Fidei Defensoris, etc. Mariti praecharissimi : omnium Reginas exercituum tarn mari quam terris Praefecti Supremi, Magnas Britanniaa et Hibernias, etc. Summi Admiralli, Regalis Castri Dubris Con- stabularii et Gubernatoris, ac Quinque Portuum Custodis, Regiae Majestati a sanctioribus consiliis, nobilissimique Ordinis Aureaa Periscelidis Equitis. Nati Hafniae, Daniae Metrop. II. Aprilia 1653, Denati Kensingtoniffi 28 Octo- bris 1708, aetatis suae 56. (5) COFFIN-PLATE OF QUEEN ANNE. Depositum Serenissimaa Potentissimae et Exeellentissimas Principis Annas Dei Gratia Magnae Britanniae Franciae et Hiberniaa Reginae Fidei Defensoris, etc. Nataa in Palatio Sti. Jacobi die Februarii 166|, denataa Kensingtoniae primo die August! 1714, aetatis suae quinqua- gesimo, regnique decinio tertio. 502 APPENDIX. fallen sideways into the interior of the coffin. The inscriptions were examined and found to agree almost exactly with those in the Burial books, and with those in Neale's ' Westminster Abbey.' The plates are of copper gilt, except that of Charles II., which was of solid silver. The ornamental metal fittings are expensively and tastefully wrought, especially those of Queen Mary. It is curious to observe the extreme simplicity of the inscriptions of William III. and his Queen in which, doubtless by the King's wish, the barest initials were deemed sufficient to indicate the grandest titles and also to contrast this with the elaborate details concerning the insignificant consort of Queen Anne. This accidental disclosure was the only opportunity which had been obtained of verifying the exact positions of any of the Royal graves ; and the process of placing inscriptions in the other parts of the Chapel was suspended, from the uncertainty which was en- countered at almost every turn. It was in the close of 1868, that Mr. Doyne C. Bell, of the Privy Purse Office, Buckingham Palace, who was engaged in an investigation of the Eoyal interments, called my attention to the singular discre- pancies of the narratives and documents relating to the grave of Perplexity James I. and his Queen. According .to Keepe, 1 writing in tue p ^ave g of 1681, only fifty-six years after the burial of James, they jam s i. were interred together ' in a vault on the north side of ' the tomb of King Henry VII.' Crull, 2 in 1722, repeats the same statement. Dart, in 1723, is more precise, but not consistent with himself. In one passage 3 he describes them as ' deposited in a vault ' at the east end of the north aisle ' (apparently beside the monuments of their two infant daughters) ; in another, 4 that they ' rest in a ' vault by the old Duke of Buckingham's [Sheffield's] tomb,' he writes ' 8 ft. 10 in. long, 4 ft. 1 in. wide, 3 feet high.' The urn of Anne of Denmark he describes as being in Monk's vault, and con- jectures that it was ' placed there when this vault was opened for ' the bones of Edward V. and his brother.' The Great Wardrobe Accounts speak generally of their interment in Henry VII.'s Chapel but with no specific information, except what is furnished by an account ' For labour and charges in opening the vault wherein His ' Majesty's body is laid, and for taking down and setting up again the ' next partition in the Choir, and divers great pews of wainscot and ' divers other seats.' These arrangements seemed to point to the north aisle, where the partitions might have been removed for the sake of introducing the coffins. The MSS. records at the Heralds' College, usually so precise, are entirely silent as to the spot of the King's interment, but state that the Queen was buried in ' a little ' chapel at the top of the stairs leading into King Henry VII.'s Chapel, 1 P. 103. 2 P. 113. I. p. 167. * II. p. 54. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 503 called ' ,' (and here the clerk, having carefully ruled two pencil lines in order to insert the correct description of the chapel, has left them blank). These accounts, though provokingly vague, all pointed to a vault common to the King and Queen, and on the north side of the Chapel, though diverging in their indications either of a vault at the entrance of the north aisle ; or at the east end of the same aisle ; or hi the chapel by the Sheffield monument. The only statement to the contrary was one brief line in the Abbey register, to the effect that King James I. was buried ' in King Henry VII.'s vault.' Even this was contradicted by an entry in 1718, apparently indicating the place of the coffin of Anne of Denmark as on the north side of the Chapel, in a vault of the same dimensions as those given in Dart. Therefore, when compared with the printed narratives, this meagre record was naturally thought to indicate nothing more than either Henry VII.'s Chapel generally, or else some spot at the north-east, adjoining the Tudor vault, where, accordingly, as the nearest approach to reconciling the conflicting statements, the names of James I. and his Queen had in 1866 been conjecturally placed. When, however, my attention was thus more closely called to the ambiguity of the several records, I determined to take the opportunity of resolving this doubt with several others, arising, as I have already indicated, from the absence of epitaphs or precise records. In the anticipation of some such neces- sity, and at the same time in accordance with the long-established usage of the Abbey, as well as from a sense of the sacredness of the responsibility devolving on the guardian of the Eoyal Tombs, I had three years before entered into communication with the then Secretary of State, and obtained from him a general approval of any investiga- tion which historical research might render desirable. I further re- ceived the sanction on this occasion of the Lord Chamberlain, and also of the First Commissioner of Public Works, as representing Her Majesty, in the charge of the Eoyal monuments. The excavations were made under the directions of Mr. Gilbert Scott, the architect, and Mr. Poole, the master mason of the Abbey, on the spots most likely to lead to a result. The first attempt was at the north-eastern angle of Henry VII.'s tomb, which, as already mentioned, had been selected as the most The Argyll probable site of the grave of James I. The marble pavement vault. wag iift e d up, and immediately disclosed a spacious vault, with four coffins. But they proved to be those of the great Duke of Argyll and his Duchess, side by side ; and resting on them, of their daughters, Caroline Campbell Countess of Dalkeith, and Mary Coke, widow of Viscount Coke, son of the Earl of Leicester. 1 1 These are the two daughters men- supposed to have been seen by Jeannie tioned in The Heart of Midlothian. Deans, when she said that a lady had Caroline was the one whom Mrs. Glass appeared of the name of Caroline. 504 APPENDIX. This discovery, whilst it was the first check to the hope of verifying the grave of James I., was not without its own importance, even irre- spectively of the interest attaching to the illustrious family whose remains were thus disclosed. The Burial Kegister described the Duke of Argyll as having been originally interred in the Ormond Vault, and afterwards removed to a vault of his own. This vault had hitherto been supposed to have been in the Sheffield Chapel close by. But it now appeared that when the Sheffield vault was filled and closed, and the steps leading to it had become useless, the Argyll vault was made in their place. 1 The search was now continued in the space between Henry VII. 's tomb and the Villiers Chapel ; but the ground was found to be Empty unoccupied and apparently undisturbed. Westward and southward, however, three vaults were discovered, two lying side by side opposite the eastern bay of the north aisle, and one having a descent of steps under the floor opposite the adjoining bay. The vaults were covered with brick arches, and the descent with Purbeck stone slabs. That nearest to the dais west of Henry VII. 's tomb, which it partly underlies, was found to contain one coffin of lead rudely shaped to the human form, and attached to it was the silver plate containing the name and title of Elizabeth Claypole, the favourite daughter of Oliver Cromwell. This exactly tallied with the Elizabeth description given in the Burial Book discovered by Dean Bradford in 1728. 2 The lead coffin is in good order, and the silver plate perfect. The letters in the inscription exactly resemble Mary was the lively little girl of twelve ' Rochester and Dean of Westminster.' years old, who taunted her father with The inscription is then given in English, the recollection of Sheriffmuir ; and and the following notice is added : who, at the extreme age of eighty-one, ' N.B. The said body lays at the end was the last of the family interred in ' of the step of the altar, on the north the vault in 1811. ' side, between the step and the stalls.' 1 It is curious that the coffin of the In accordance with this indication, Duke is placed on the northern, instead the name was inscribed on the stone of the southern, or dexter side ; perhaps in 1867. Since discovering this, by a from the fact that the Duchess was reference of Colonel Chester to Noble's interred before the removal of his Cromwell, i. 140 (3rd ed.), I found the coffin from the Ormond vault. The same inscription in Latin, with the walls are brick, and the covering stone additional fact that in 1725, during only a few inches below the surface. alterations previous to the first installa- The lead coffin of the first interment is tion of the Bath, the workmen dis- divested of its wooden case, that of the covered, forced off, and endeavoured to second partly so ; but the two upper conceal the plate. The clerk of the coffins with the velvet coverings are in works, Mr. Fidoe, took it from them good condition. and delivered it to the Dean [erroneously 2 In 1866, on first studying the called Dr. Pearce], who said he should Burial Books of the Abbey, I had been not take anything that had been de- startled to find, on a torn leaf, under posited with the illustrious dead, and the date of 1728, the following entry : ordered it to be replaced. The authority ' Taken off a silver plate to a lead was Noble's ' friend, Dr. Longmete, who ' coffin, and fixed on again by order ' had it from Mr. Fidoe himself.' ' of Dr. Samuel Bradford, Bishop of THE EOYAL VAULTS. 50-3 those on the plate torn from her father's coffin, and now in the posses- sion of Earl De Grey. 1 The vault 2 of Elizabeth Claypole was probably made expressly to receive her remains ; and it may be that, from its isolation, it escaped notice at the time of the general disinterment in 1661. But it is remarkable that the adjoining vaults were quite empty, and until now quite unknown. Probably they were made in the time of Dean Bradford, as indicated by the Eegister of 1728, perhaps for the Koyal Family ; but when, at the death of the Queen of George II. in 1787, the extensive Georgian vault was constructed, these, having become superfluous, may then have been forgotten. It was now determined to investigate the ground in the Sheffield Chapel, which hitherto had been supposed to contain the Argyll vault. vault of Although, as has been seen, the MS. records in Heralds' "imrk College distinctly state that Anne of Denmark was buried in a little Chapel at the top of the stairs leading into Henry VII. 's Chapel, there was a memorandum in the Abbey Burial Book, dated 1718, from which it might be inferred that the Queen was buried in the north-east corner of the Chapel. The pavement, which had evidently been disturbed more than once, was removed, and a slight quantity of loose earth being scraped away below the surface, at a few inches the stone-covering to a vault was found. A plain brick vault beneath was disclosed of dimensions precisely corresponding with the description given by Dart, as the vault of James I. and his consort. And alone, in the centre of the wide space, lay a long leaden coffin shaped to the form of the body, on which was a plate of brass, with 1 The actual inscription is as follows, and exactly agrees with the transcript in Noble, with the exception of equitis for equitvvi, which arose from a misunder- standing of the old characters : Depositum Illustrissimas Dominro D. Elizabeths nuper uxoris Honoratissimi Domini Johannis Claypoole, Magistri Equitum necnon Filias Secundse Serenissimi et Celsissimi Principis Oliveri, Dei Gratia Angliae, Scotiae, et Hibernias, &c. Protectoris. Obiit Apud /Edes Hamptoniensea Sexto die Augusti Anno ffitatis sure Vicesimo Octavo Annoque Domini 1658. - The wooden centering used in forming the last section of the vault had been left in it and had fallen down. 506 APPENDIX. an inscription l exactly coinciding with that in the Burial Book of 1718, 2 and giving at length the style and title of Anne of Denmark. The wooden case had wholly gone, and there were no remains of velvet cloth or nails. The vault appeared to have been carefully swept out, and all decayed materials removed, perhaps in 1718, when the inscription was copied into the Abbey Register, and the measurement of the vault taken, which Dart has recorded ; or even in 1811, when the adjoining Argyll vault was last opened, when the stone (a York- shire flag landing 3 ) which covered the head of the vault, may have been fixed ; and when some mortar, which did not look older than fifty years, may have fallen on the coffin-plate. The length of the leaden chest (6 feet 7 inches) was interesting, as fully corroborating the account of the Queen's remarkable stature. There was a small hole in the coffin, attributable to the bursting and corrosion of the lead, which appeared also to have collapsed over the face and body. The form of the knees was indicated. On examining the wall at the west end of this vault, it was evident that the brickwork had been broken down, and a hole had been made, as if there had been an endeavour to ascertain whether any other vault existed to the westward. The attempt seems to have been soon aban- doned, for the aperture was merely six or eight inches in depth. It had been filled in with loose earth. On turning out and examining this, two leg bones and a piece of a skull were found. It was thought, and is indeed possible, that these had been thrown there by accident, either when the Parliamentary 4 troops occupied the Chapel, or on either of the more recent occasions already noticed. But in the con- templation of this vault, evidently made for two persons, and in which, according to the concurrent testimony of all the printed accounts, the King himself was buried with the Queen, the question arose with ad- 1 Serenissima Begina Anna Jacobi, Magnse Britannise Franciae et Hiberniaa Kegis, Conjux, Frederici Secundi Regis Danise Norvigise Vandalorum et Gothorum, filia, Christian! IIII soror ac multorum Principum mater, hie deponitur. Obiit apud Hampton Court, anno Salutis MDCXvni, nn Nonas Martis, anno Nata XLIH Menses nn dies xviii. * It had probably been opened with s These Yorkshire stones have only a view of interring Lady Mansel, whose been in use during the present cen- burial (in the Ormond vault) immedi- tury. ately precedes the notice of the Queen's * Chapter III. and Chapter IV. coffin. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 507 ditional force what could have become of his remains ; and the thought occurred to more than one of the spectators, that when the Chapel was in the hands of the Parliamentary soldiers, some of those concerned may well have remembered the spot where the last sovereign had been buried with so much pomp, and may have rifled his coffin, leaving the bare vault and the few bones as the relics of the first Stuart King. With so strange and dark a conclusion as the only alternative, it was determined to push the inquiry in every locality which seemed to afford any likelihood of giving a more satisfactory solution. The first attempt was naturally in the neighbourhood of the Queen's grave. A wall was found immediately to the east, which, on being examined, opened into a vault containing several coffins. For a moment it was thought that the King, with possibly some other important personages, Sheffield was discovered. But it proved to be only the vault of the Sheffield monument. 1 The discovery was a surprise, because the Burial Eegister spoke of them as deposited in the Ormond vault. 2 The coffins were those of the first 3 Duke and Duchess of Buckingham- shire and three of their children, and also the second and last Duke, at ' whose death, lamented by 4 Atterbury and Pope, and yet more deeply ' by his fantastic mother, all the titles of his family became extinct,' the vault was walled up, although ' where the steps were there was room ' for eight more.' 5 This ' room ' was afterwards appropriated by the Argyll family, as before stated. Amongst the places of sepulture which it was thought possible that James I. might have selected for himself was the grave which with so much care he had selected for his mother, on the removal of her re- mains from Peterborough to Westminster ; and as there were also some contradictory statements respecting the interments in her vault, it was determined to make an entry by removing the stones on the south side of the southern aisle of the Chapel, among which one was marked WAY. This led to an ample flight of stone steps trending obliquely vault of under the Queen of Scots' tomb. Immediately at the foot Queen of of these ste P s appeared a large vault of brick 12^ ft. long, 7 Scots - ft. wide, and 6 ft. high. A startling, it may almost be said an awful, scene presented itself. A vast pile of leaden coffins rose from the floor ; some of full stature, the larger number varying in form from that of the full-grown child to the merest infant, confusedly heaped upon the others, whilst several urns of various shapes were tossed about in irregular positions throughout the vault. The detailed account of this famous sepulchre given by Crull and Dart at once facilitated the investigation of this chaos of royal 1 This vault (from the absence of an buried in the Ormond vault, and after- escape air-pipe through the covering) wards removed to this one. was the only one in which the atmo- s See Chapter IV. sphere was impure. 4 See Icid. 2 Perhaps the Duke was at first * Burial Register. 508 APPENDIX. mortality. This description, whilst needing correction in two or three points, was, on the whole, substantiated. The first distinct object that arrested the attention was a coffin in the north-west corner, roughly moulded according to the human form and face. It could not be doubted to be that of ' Henry Frederick Henry Prince of Wales. The lead of the head was shaped into rude Prmee of r Wales. features, the legs and arms indicated, even to the forms of the fingers and toes. On the breast was soldered a leaden case evi- dently containing the heart, and below were his initials, with the Prince of Wales's feathers, and the date of his death (1612). In spite of the grim 2 and deformed aspect, occasioned by the irregular collapsing of the lead, there was a life-like appearance which seemed like an en- deavour to recall the lamented heir of so much hope. Next, along the north wall, were two coffins, much compressed and distorted by the superincumbent weight of four or five lesser coffins heaped upon them. According to Crull's account, the upper one of these two was that of Mary Queen of Scots, the lower that of Arabella Arabella Stuart. But subsequent investigation led to the reversal of stuart. f-^is conclusion. No plate could be found on either. But the upper one was much broken, and the bones, especially the skull, turned on one side, were distinctly visible thus agreeing with Crull's account of the coffin of Arabella Stuart. The lower one was saturated with pitch, and was deeply compressed by the weight above, but the lead had not given way. It was of a more solid and stately character, and was shaped to meet the form of the body like another presently to Mary Queen be noticed, which would exactly agree with the age and rank of scots. ]\j ai .y Stuart. The difficulty of removing the whole weight of the chest would of itself have proved a bar to any closer examination. But, in fact, it was felt not to be needed for any purpose of historical verification, and the presence of the fatal coffin which had received the headless corpse at Fotheringay was sufficiently affecting, without en- deavouring to penetrate farther into its mournful contents. 3 It cannot be questioned that this, and this alone, must be the coffin of the Queen of Scots. Its position by the north wall ; close to Henry Prince of Wales, who must have been laid here a few months after her removal hither from Peterborough ; its peculiar form ; its suitableness in age and situation, were decisive as to the fact. On the top of this must have been laid Arabella Stuart in her frail and ill-constructed recep- tacle. And thus for many years, those three alone (with the exception of Henry of Charles I.'s two infant children 4 ) occupied the vault. Then oatiands. came the numerous funerals immediately after the Eesto- ration. Henry of Oatiands 5 lies underneath Henry Prince of Wales. 1 See Chapter III. p. 157. could not be identified. 2 A cast was taken and is preserved. s For Henry of Oatiands, Mary of 3 See Chapter III. p. 154. Orange, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and 4 See Chapter III. p. 158. These Prince Rupert, see Chapter III. p. 162-3. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 509 There is no plate, but the smaller size of the coffin, and its situation, coincide with the printed description. It may be conjectured that whilst Mary lies in her original position, Henry Prince of Wales must have lain in the centre of the vault by her side, and removed to his present position when the introduction of the two larger coffins now occupying the centre necessitated his removal farther north. Of these two larger coffins, the printed account identified the lower one as that Mary of of Mary Princess of Orange ; the plate affixed to the upper one proved it to contain Prince Eupert, whose exact place in the Chapel had been hitherto unknown. Next to them, against the south wall, were a'gain two large coffins, of which the lower one, in like manner by the printed account, was ascertained to be >de> that of Anne Hyde, James II. 's first wife, and that above was recognised by the plate, still affixed, to be that of Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia. 1 Her brother Henry in his last hours had of Bohemia. cr i e( j ou t ; Where is my dear sister ? ' and she had vainly endeavoured, disguised as a page, to force herself into his presence. Fifty eventful years passed away, and she was laid within a few feet of him in this their last home. Spread over the surface of these more solid structures lay the small coffins, often hardly more than cases, of the numerous progeny of that Thechi'dren unhappy family, doomed, as this gloomy chamber impressed of James n. on a }J wno gaw j^ w ft n a more than ordinary doom infant after infant fading away which might else have preserved the race first, the ten 2 children of James II., including one whose existence was unknown before ' James Darnley, natural son ' 3 and )f Anne. ^gjj e jg n ^ een children of Queen Anne ; of whom one alone required the receptacle of a full-grown child William Duke of Gloucester. His coffin lay on that of Elizabeth of Bohemia, and had to be raised in order to read the plate containing her name. Of these, most of the plates had been preserved, and (with the two exceptions of those of James Darnley 4 and of Prince 1 In Crull's account, Elizabeth of * Mr. Doyne Bell suggests to me that Bohemia is described as resting on this child was the son of Catherine Mary (or as he by a slip calls her Sedley, inasmuch as the same name of Elizabeth) of Orange. This, perhaps, Darnley was granted by letters patent was her original position, and she may of James II. to her daughter Catherine, have been subsequently placed upon afterwards Duchess of Buckingham- Anne Hyde's coffin, in order to make shire, after the date of the death of room for her son Rupert. James Darnley. 2 See Chapter III. p. 165. COFFIN-PLATE OF JAMES DARNLEY. James Darnley natural sonn to King James y" second. Departed this life the 22 of aprill 1685 Aged aBout eight Mounths. 510 APPENDIX. Rupert !) were all identical with those mentioned in Crull. The rest had either perished, or, as is not improbable, been detached by the workmen at the reopenings of the vault at each successive interment. It was impossible to view this wreck and ruin of the Stuart dynasty without a wish, if possible, to restore something like order and decency amongst the relics of so much departed greatness. The confusion, which, at first sight, gave the impression of wanton havoc and neglect, had been doubtless produced chiefly by the pressure of superincumbent weight, which could not have been anticipated by those who made the arrangement, when the remains of the younger generations were ac- cumulated beyond all expectation on the remains of their progenitors. In the absence of directions from any superior authority, a scruple was felt against any endeavour to remove these little waifs and strays of royalty from the solemn resting-place where they had been gathered round their famous and unfortunate ancestress. But as far as could be they were cleared from the larger coffins, and placed in the small open space at the foot of the steps. This vault opened on the west into a much narrower vault, under the monument 2 of Lady Margaret Lennox, through a wall of nearly 3 The Lennox ^ ee ^ m thickness by a hole which is made about 8 feet above yanlt ' the floor, and about 2 feet square. A pile of three or four of the small chests of James II. 's children obstructed the entrance, but within the vault there appeared to be three coffins one above the other. The two lower would doubtless be those of the Countess and her son Charles Earl of Lennox, the father of Arabella Stuart. The upper coffin w r asthat of Esme Stuart, Duke of Richmond, whose name, with the date 1624, 3 was just traceable on the decayed plate. On the south side of 1 PRINCE RUPERT'S INSCRIPTION. Depositum Illustr : Principle Ruperti, Comitis Palatini Rheni, Ducis Bavariae et Cumbrias, Comitis Holdernessiae, totius Anglise Vice-Admiralli, Regalis Castri Windesoriensis Constabularii et Gubernatoris, Nobilissimi Ordinis Periscelidis Equitis, Et Majestati Regiae a Sanetioribus Conciliis, Filii tertiogeniti Ser 1 Principis Frederici Regis Bohemiae, etc. Per Ser*" 1 Principiss : Elizabethan!, Filiam unicam Jacobi, Sororem Caroli Primi, et amitaru Caroli ejus nominis secundi, Magnae Britanniae, Franciae et Hiberniae Regum. Nati Pragae; Bohemiae Metrop. |l Decenibr. A MDCXIX". Denati Londini XXIX Novembr : MDCLXXXII". SU83 LXIII. 2 See Chapter III. p. 154. It may * He was the grandnephew of Lady be observed that the monument must Margaret Lennox, a second brother of have been erected upon the accession Ludovic, who lies in the Richmond of James to the English throne, as he Chapel, and whom he succeeded in his is called in the epitaph on the tomb title, in 1623-24. He died at Kirby, ' King James VI.' on February 14, in the following year THE ROYAL VAULTS. 511 this vault there was seen to have been an opening cut, and afterwards filled up with brickwork. This probably was the hole through which, before 1683, in Keepe's time, the skeleton and dry shrivelled skin of Charles Lennox, in his shaken and decayed coffin, was visible. It is remarkable that the position of the vault is not conformable with the tomb above, the head of the vault being askew two or three feet to the south. This is evidently done to effect a descent at the head, which could not otherwise have been made, because the found- ation of the detached pier at the west end of the chapel would have barred that entrance ; and no doubt if the pavement were opened beyond the inclined vault, the proper access would be dis- covered. Interesting as these two vaults were in themselves the search for King James I. was yet baffled. The statements of Dart and Crull still Em t pointed to his burial in the north aisle. The vault afterwards vaults. appropriated by General Monk 1 at the west entrance of that aisle had been already examined, without discovering any trace of royal personages. But it was suggested that there was every reason for ex- ploring the space at the east end of the aisle between the tombs of Queen Elizabeth and those of the King's own infant daughters. This space had accordingly been examined at the first commencement of the excavations, but proved to be quite vacant. There was not the slight- est appearance of vault or grave. The excavations, however, had almost laid bare the wall immediately at the eastern end of the monu- ment of Elizabeth, and through a small aperture a view was obtained into a low narrow vault immediately beneath her tomb. It was in- stantly evident that it enclosed two coffins, and two only, and it could not be doubted that these 2 contained Elizabeth and her sister Mary. The upper one, larger, and more distinctly shaped in the form of the body, like that of Mary Queen of Scots, rested on the other. There was no disorder or decay, except that the centering wood had fallen over the head of Elizabeth's coffin, and that the wood case had crumbled away at the sides, and had drawn away part Queen f of the decaying lid. No coffin-plate could be discovered, Elizabeth. but ortunate i y the dim light fell on a fragment of the lid slightly carved. This led to a further search, and the original inscrip- tion was discovered. There was the Tudor Badge, a full double rose, 3 deeply but simply incised in outline on the middle of the cover ; on (1624) from the spotted ague, and 327. Communicated by Mr. Doyne Bell, was 'honourably buried at Westmin- ^ See Appendix to Chapter IV. ster.' There were 1000 mourners at See Chapter III. p. loo. the funeral; the effigy was drawn by 'The prominence of this double rose six horses The pomp was equal to on the Queen's coftm is illustrated by that of the obsequies of Anne of Den- one of the Epitaphs given in Nichols's mark. ' The Lord Keeper ' (Williams) Progresses, p. 251 : preached the sermon. State Papers, ' Here in this earthen pit lie withered, Lorn., James I. vol. clxiii. pp. 320, 323, Which grew on high the vhite r ose and tte red.' 512 APPENDIX. each side the august initials E E ; and below, the memorable date 1603. The coffin-lid had been further decorated with narrow moulded panel- ling. The coffin-case was of inch elm; but the ornamental lid contain- ing the inscription and panelling was of fine oak, half an inch thick, laid on the inch elm cover. The whole was covered with red silk velvet, of which much remained attached to the wood, and it had covered not only the sides and ends, but also the ornamented oak cover, as though the bare wood had not been thought rich enough without the velvet. WOODEN CASE OF LEADEN COFFIX OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. The sight of this secluded and narrow tomb, thus compressing in the closest grasp the two Tudor sisters, ' partners of the same throne ' and grave, sleeping in the hope of resurrection ' the solemn majesty of the great Queen thus reposing, as can hardly be doubted by her own desire, on her sister's coffin was the more impressive from the con- trast of its quiet calm with the confused and multitudinous decay of the Stuart vault, and of the fulness of its tragic interest with the vacancy of the deserted spaces which had been hitherto explored in the other parts of the Chapel. The vault was immediately closed again. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 513 It was now evident that the printed accounts of James's interment were entirely at fault. The whole north side of the Chapel, where they with one accord represented him to have been buried, had been explored in vain, and it remained only to search the spots in the centre and south side which offered the chief probability of success. The first of these spots examined was the space between the spot known to have been occupied by the grave of King Edward VI. and that of George II. and his Queen. This, however, was unoccupied, and TOKEEGIANO'S ALTAR, FORMERLY AT THE HEAD OF HENKY VH.'S TOMB, UNDER WHICH EDWARD VI. WAS BUKIED. FROM AN ENGRAVING IN SAN'DFORD'S OENEAT.OGICAL HISTORY. besides was barely sufficient to form even a small vault. But its exploration led to the knowledge of the exact position of these two graves. 1 The next approach was made to the space under the dais, west of 1 In this and the previous operation under the marble floor were discovered two transverse tie-bars of iron bearing upon blocks of stone resting on the arch over George II. 's grave. From that at the head there was a vertical suspension-bar passing through the arch into the vault. Its purpose may perhaps have been to support a canopy or ceiling over the sarcophagus beneath. L L 514 APPENDIX. Henry's VII.'s monument, where Edward VI.'s grave had been already vault of in 1866 indicated 1 on the pavement. A shallow vault Edward vi. immediately appeared, containing one leaden coffin only, rent and deformed as well as wasted by long corrosion, and perhaps injured by having been examined before. The wooden case had been in part cleared away and the pavement had evidently been at MARBLK FRAGMENT OF TOREEGIANO 8 ALTAR. some previous time wholly or partially removed. Over the coffin were a series of Kentish rag-stones, which had been steps one or more shaped with octagon angle ends, and the fronts of them bordered with a smooth polished surface surrounding a frosted area of a light grey colour within the border. These were probably the original steps of the dais, and must have been placed in this position at the time when, in 1641, the Puritans destroyed the monumental altar under which Edward VI. was buried. This conclusion was greatly strengthened by the interesting discovery that the Torregiaiio's extreme piece of the covering at the foot was a frieze of white marble 3 feet 8 inches long, 7 inches high, and 6 inches thick elaborately carved along the front and each end, while the back CARVING OF TOUREGIANO'S ALTAR. was wrought to form the line of a segmental vaulted ceiling ; and the ends pierced to receive the points of columns. These features at once marked it as part of the marble frieze of Torregiano's work for this ' matchless altar,' as it was deemed at the time. The carving is of the best style of the early Renaissance period, and is unquestionably Italian work. It combines alternations of heraldic badges, the Tudor roses and 1 See Chapter III. p. 150. L L 2 516 APPENDIX. the lilies l of France, placed between scrollage of various flowers. It still retained two iron cramps, which were used to join a fracture oc- casioned by the defectiveness of the marble, and it also exhibited the remains of another iron cramp, which was used to connect the marble with the entire fabric. Deep stains of iron at the ends of the marble had been left by an overlying bar (probably a part of the ancient structure), which was placed on the carved 2 surface, seemingly to strengthen the broken parts. Underneath these fragments, lying across the lower part of the coffin, was discovered, curiously rolled up, but loose and unsoldered, the Discovery of leaden coffin-plate. It was so corroded that, until closely in- p^atr^lth spected in a full light, no letter or inscription was discernible, inscription. "With some difficulty, however, every letter of this interesting and hitherto unknown inscription was read. The letters, all capitals of equal size, one by one were deciphered, and gave to the world, for the first time, the epitaph on the youthful King, in some points unique amongst the funeral inscriptions of English sovereigns. 3 On the coffin of the first completely Protestant King, immediately following the Royal titles, was the full and unabated style conferred by the Eng- lish Reformation' On earth under Christ of the Church of England ' and Ireland Supreme Head.' 4 Such an inscription marks the moment when the words must have been inserted in that short interval of nine days, whilst the body still lay at Greenwich, and whilst Lady Jane Grey still upheld the hopes of the Protestant party. It proceeds to record, as with a deep pathetic earnestness, the time of his loss not merely the year, and month, and day but ' 8 o'clock, in the evening,' that memorable evening, of the sixth of July, when the cause of the Reformation seemed to flicker and die away with the life of the youth- ful Prince. 5 The discovery of this record of the Royal Supremacy probably 1 A poem of this date the early been perfectly flat, it was now rolled years of Henry VIII. was found be- up and forcibly contracted by the cor- tween the leaves of the account-book of rosion of the outer surface, which has the kitchener of the convent, turning expanded, while the inner surface, being chiefly on a comparison of the roses of much less corroded, has been contracted, England and lilies of France. and thereby the flat plate has assumed 2 When the vault was finally closed, the appearance of a disproportioned it was determined to remove and pro- cushion. perly relay the whole covering, by 4 On the coffin of his father at placing a corbel plate of three-inch Windsor no inscription exists. By Yorkshire stone on either side, the the time that his sisters mounted the middle ends of which were supported throne, the title was slightly altered, by laying the iron tie-bar before alluded s It may be noted here that when the to across the grave. By this means the stone covering was removed at the back effective opening of the width of the of the coffin, the skull of the King be- grave was reduced, and the short stones came visible. The cerecloth had fallen of the old covering obtained a good away, and showed that no hair was support at their ends. And thus the attached to the skull. Compare the ancient iron tie-bar of the monument account of his last illness in Froude, was finally utilised. vol. v. p. 512. ' Eruptions came out 3 Although the plate had originally ' over his skin, and his )utir fell off.' THE ROYAL VAULTS. 517 the most emphatic and solemn that exists would have been striking at any time. At the present moment, when the foundation of this great doctrine of the Reformed Churches is being sifted to its depths, it seemed to gather up in itself all the significance that could be given. It was a question whether this, with the accompanying relic of the marble frieze, should be returned to the dark vault whence they had thus unexpectedly emerged, or placed in some more accessible situation. It was determined that the frieze, as a work of art, which had only by accident been concealed from view, should be placed as nearly as pos- sible in its original position ; but that the inscription l should be re- stored to the royal coffin, on which it had been laid in that agony of English history, there to rest as in the most secure depository of so sacred a trust. The vault of King Edward VI. was too narrow ever to have ad- mitted of another coffin. It is only 7^ feet long, 2^ feet wide, and its floor but a few feet below the pavement. It is arched with two rings of half brick. Immediately on its north side the ground had never been disturbed ; and on the south side, although a brick vault was found, it was empty, and seems never to have been used. It was now suggested that, as Anne of Denmark was alone in the vault in the north apsidal compartment, or Sheffield Chapel, King James might have been placed in the southern or dexter compartment of the Montpensier Chapel ; and as the sunken and irregular state of the pavement there showed that it had been much disturbed, the ground was probed. There was no vault, but an earthen grave soon disclosed itself, in which, at about two feet below the surface, a leaden coffin was reached. The wooden lid was almost reduced to a mere unknown film ; and from the weight of the earth above, the leaden lid had given way all round the soldered edges of the coffin, and was lying close on the flattened skeleton within. At the foot, and nearer the surface, there was a large cylindrical urn, indicating that the body had been embalmed. The position of the urn, which was lying on its side, would lead to the suspicion that both it and the coffin 1 The inscription is copied word for ment above the King's grave as fol- word and line for line on the pave- lows : Edwardus Sextus Dei gratia Angliae Fran- cie et Hiberniffl Bex Fidei Defensor et in terra sub Christo Ecclesiae Anglican et Hibernicae Supremum Caput migravit ex hac vita sexto die Julii vesperi ad horam octavam anno domini MDLIII. et regni sui septimo aetatis sua decimo sexto. The plate itself has been hardened ing of corrosion, and will prevent any by the application of a solution of increase, shellac, which has fixed the loose coat- 518 APPENDIX. had been removed before, especially as the floor above was so irregular and ill formed. The skeleton which was thus discovered was that of a tall man, 6 feet high, the femoral bone being two 2 feet long, and the tibia lof in. The head was well formed but not large. The teeth were fresh and bright, and were those of a person under middle age. There was no hair visible. The larger ligatures of the body were still traceable. At the bottom of the coffin was a tray of wood about three inches deep, which, it was conjectured, may have been used to embalm the body. The sides of the wooden coffin were still in place ; here and there the silken covering adhering to the wood, and to the bones, as well as pieces of the metal side-plates, with two iron handles of the coffin, and several brass nails were found in the decaying wood. All such detached pieces were, after examination, placed in a deal box and replaced on the coffin. But the most minute search failed to discover any insignia in the dust ; and not only was there no plate discovered, but no indication of any such having been affixed. The leaden lid of the coffin was again placed over the skeleton ; the urn was restored to its former position ; and the earth carefully filled in. It was for a moment apprehended that in these remains the body of James I. might have been identified. But two circumstances were fatal to this supposition. First, the skeleton, as has been said, was that of a tall man ; whereas James was rather below than above the middle stature. Secondly, the Wardrobe Accounts of his funeral, above quoted, contain the expenses of opening a vault, whereas this Probabi kody was buried in a mere earthen grave. Another alter- oenerai native, which amounted very nearly to certainty, was the suggestion that these remains belonged to General Charles Worsley, the only remarkable man recorded to have been buried in the Chapel under the Protectorate who was not disinterred after the Kestoration. The appearance of the body agrees, on the whole, with the description and portrait of Worsley. He was in high favour with Cromwell, and was the officer to whom, when the mace of the House of Commons was taken away, ' that bauble ' was committed. He died at the early age of thirty -five, in St. James's Palace (where two of his children were buried in the Chapel Eoyal), on June 12, 1656. He was interred the day following in Westminster Abbey, in King Henry VII.'s Chapel, near to the grave of Sir William Constable, his interment taking place in the evening at nine o'clock, and being conducted with much pomp. Heath, in his ' Chronicle ' (p. 381), alluding to his early death, says, ' Worsley died ' before he could be good in his office, and was buried with the dirges of bell, ' book, and candle, and the peale of musquets p in no less a repository than Henry ' VII.'s Chapel, as became a Prince of the modern erection, and Oliver's great ' and rising favourite.' It has been recorded, that after the interment of General Worsley had taken place, Mr. Roger Kenyon, M.P. for Clitheroe, and Clerk of the Peace for the County, himself a zealous royalist, the brother-in-law of the deceased and one of THE .ROYAL VAULTS. 519 the mourners, returned secretly to the Abbey, and wrote upon the stone the words, WHERE NEVER WORSE LAY, which indignantly being reported to Cromwell, so offended him that he offered a reward for the discovery of the writer. 1 Amongst tlie heirlooms of the family at Platt, in Lancashire, is a portrait of this its most celebrated member. It represents a handsome man, with long flowing dark hair. This, in all probability, was the figure whose gaunt bones were thus laid bare in his almost royal grave, under the stones which had received the obnoxious inscription of his Eoyalist relative. The general appearance of the body, its ap- parent youth, and its comely stature, agree with the portrait. The loss of the hair might perhaps be explained, if we knew the nature of the illness which caused his death. The embalmment would agree with his high rank ; whilst the rapidity of the funeral, succeeding to his decease within a single day, would account for the interment of so distinguished a personage in an earthen grave. The probable date of the burial place as if two centuries old suits with the period of his death. It is a singular coincidence that the one member of Cromwell's court who still rests amongst the Kings is the one of whom an en- thusiastic and learned Nonconformist of our day has said, that ' no ' one appeared so fit as he to succeed to the Protectorate, and if the ' Commonwealth was to have been preserved, his life would have been ' prolonged for its preservation.' 2 With this interesting, though as far as the particular object of the search was concerned, futile attempt, which embraced also the adjacent area found to be entirely vacant between Henry VII. 's tomb and the Richmond Chapel, the examination ceased. Every conceivable space in the Chapel had now been explored, except the actual vault of Henry VII. himself. To this the Abbey Register had from the first pointed ; and it may seem strange that this hint had not been followed up before. But the apparent improbability of such a place for the interment of the first Stuart King ; the positive contradiction of the printed accounts of Keepe, Crull, and Dart ; the absence of any such indications in the Heralds' Office ; the interment of the Queen in the spot to which these authorities pointed thus, as it seemed, furnishing a guarantee for their correctness ; the aspect of the stones at the foot of the tomb of Henry VII. as if always un- broken ; the difficulty of supposing that an entrance could have been forced through the passage at its head, already occupied by the coffin of Edward VI. ; it may be added, the reluctance, except under the extremest necessity, of penetrating into the sacred resting-place of the august founder of the Chapel had precluded an attempt on this vault, until every other resource had been exhausted. That necessity 1 History of Birch Chapel, by the all that could be known of General Rev. J. Booker, pp. 48, 49; to whom Worsley. I have to express my obligations for * Dr. Halley's Nonconformity of his kindness in aiding me to ascertain Lancashire, vol. ii. p. 37. 520 APPENDIX. had now come ; and it was determined as a last resort to ascertain whether any entrance could be found. At the east end the previous examination of the Ormond vault had shown that no access could be obtained from below, and the undisturbed appearance of the stones at the foot of the tomb, as just observed, indicated the same from above. On the north and south the walls of the enclosure was found impene- trable. There remained, therefore, only the chance from the already encumbered approach on the west. In that narrow space, accordingly, the excavation was begun. On opening the marble pavement, the ground beneath was found very vault of loose, and pieces of brick amongst it. Soon under the step Henry vii. an( j enclosure, a corbel was discovered, immediately under the panelled curb, evidently to form an opening beneath ; and onward WEST END. HENRY VII.'S VAULT. to the east the earth was cleared, until the excavators reached a large stone, like a wall, surmounted and joined on the noiih side with smaller stones, and brickwork over all. This was evidently an entrance. The brickwork and the smaller stones on the top were gradually removed, and then the apex of the vertical end of a flat -pointed arch of firestone became exposed. It was at once evident that the vault ' of Edward VI. was only the continuation westward of the passage into the entrance of the Tudor vault, and that this entrance was now in 1 It may be observed that the regular approach to the vault, though after- wards disturbed by the grave of Edward VI., may have been intended to have given a more public and solemn access, especially at the time when the trans- lation of the body of Henry VI. was still meditated. See Chapter III. THE COFFINS OF JAMES I., ELIZABETH OF YORK, AND HENRY VII. AS SEEN ON THE OPENING OF THE VAULT IN 1869. FROM A DRAWING BY GEORGE SCHARF, ESQ. 522 APPENDIX. view. It was with a feeling of breathless anxiety amounting to solemn awe, which caused the humblest of the workmen employed to whisper with bated breath, as the small opening at the apex of the arch ad- mitted the first glimpse into the mysterious secret which had hitherto eluded this long research. Deep within the arched vault were dimly seen three coffins lying side by side two of them dark and gray with age, the third somewhat brighter and newer, and of these, on the introduction of a light into the aperture, the two older appeared to be leaden, one bearing an inscription, and the third, surrounded by a case of wood, bearing also an inscription plate. The mouth of the cavern was closed, as has been already intimated, by a huge stone, which, as in Jewish sepulchres, had been rolled against the entrance. Above this was a small mass of brickwork (which just filled a space of about twelve inches by nine inches, near the top of the arch). This was removed, and displayed an aperture (technically a ' man-hole ') which had been the means of egress for whoever having (as in patriarchal days) assisted in placing the large stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, and arranged all within, came out, and finally, at the last interment, closed up the small point of exit. PLAN OF VAULTS OF EDWARD VI. AND HEXBY VII. Through this aperture the vault was entered, and the detailed examination of the vault at once commenced. The third coffin lying , on the northern side was immediately found to be that of Discovery of King James I., as indicated beyond question in the long inscription engraved on a copper plate soldered to the lead coffin. 1 It was surrounded with the remains of a wooden case. This 1 If ever there had been a plate of gilt copper, with inscription, as given by Dart, vol. i. p. 167, it must have been taken away when the vault was closed in 1G25. The inscription on the coffin is as follows : Depositum Augustissimi Principis Jacobi Primi, Magnas Britannise, Franciae et Hibernise Eegis, qui natus apud Scotos xm. Cal. Jul. An Salutis MDLXII. piissime apud Anglos occubuit v. Cal. Ap. An a Christo nato MDCXXV. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 523 case bad been made out of two logs of sobd timber, which had been scooped out to receive the shape of the leaden coffin. The two other coffins were as indisputably those of Henry VII. and his Queen. The centre coffin doubtless was that of Elizabeth of York, although with no in- scription to mark it ; the larger one on the south or dexter side was (as might be expected) that of her royal husband Henry VII., and bore his name. These two coffins were bare lead, the wooden casing, even that underneath, being wholly removed. It became evident, on considering the narrowness of the entrance as well as that of the vault, that originally the first two coffins had occupied a position on either side of the central line, but when the vault was invaded to place the third coffin, the first two were stripped of their cases and coverings, the coffin of Henry VII. removed more to the south wall, and that of his Queen then superposed to give convenient entry to the enormous bulk of the third coffin. The Queen's was then replaced 011 the floor between them in the little space left. The leaden coffins of all three Sovereigns, which were all in good condition, were slightly shaped to the head and shoulders and straight downward. The Queen's was somewhat Coffin of Elizabeth of misshapen at the top, perhaps from having been more frequently removed. 1 It had on it the mark of the soldering of a Maltese Cross, but no other vestige remained. That of the King was indicated by a short inscription on a plate of lead soldered, about 24 inches long and 4 inches wide, with raised letters of the period upon it preceded by a broad capital H of the early type. The inscription was placed the lengthway of the coffin, and was read from west to east. 2 At the west end of the coffin-lid was painted a circular Maltese Cross, as though to precede the inscription. The pall of silk, marked by a white cross, which is recorded to have covered the length of Visit an. LVHI. men. rx. dies rm. Eegnavit apud f Scotos a. LVII. m. vn. dies xxix. X Anglos, an. xxii. d. in. Coffin of Henry VII. fiic cfr The inscription in Dart runs thus : Depositum Invictissimi Jacobi Primi, MagnaB Britanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniffi Regis, qui rerum apud Scotos annos 59, menses 3, dies 12, et apud Anglos annos 22 et dies 3, pacitice et feliciter potitus, tandem in Domino obdormivit 27 die Martii, anno a Christo nato, 1625, aet. vero sure GO. 1 It had been moved at least once from the side chapel to this vault (see Chapter III. p. 161) ; and probably again, as noticed above. * Hie est Henricus, Rex Angliae et Francae ac Dominus Hibernise, hujus nominis septimus, qui obiit xxi. die Aprilis, anno regni sui xxrm. et incar- nationis dominicae MVIX. 524 APPENDIX. Henry VII.'s coffin, must, with every other like object of value, have been stripped off and taken away when the vault was opened to admit the Stuart King. A certain John Ware, andone whose initials were E.G., must have been at least privy to this rifling and violence, for they have quaintly scratched their names, 1 with the date 1625 under each. These marks clearly show that here in 1625 King James was interred, and that he has remained unmoved ever since. It is remarkable that, although the bodies must have been embalmed, 110 urns were in the vault, although they are known to have been buried with due solemnity soon after death. Perhaps their place may have been in Monk's Vault, where Dart describes himself to have seen the urn of Anne of Denmark, and where on the last entrance in 1867 several ancient urns were discovered. The vault is partly under the floor of the west end of the enclosure of the tomb, and partly under the tomb itself ; so that the western end of the arch is nearly coincident with the inside of the Purbeck marble curb above, and the eastern end about 2| feet west of the eastern extremity of the tomb above. Thus the vault is not quite conformable with the tomb, but is so placed that the western face of it abuts against the thick bonding wall which crosses the chancel. 2 This want of conformity with the direction of the tomb doubtless arose from the circumstance that the vault was excavated before the tomb above was designed. The vault is beautifully formed of large blocks of firestone. It is 8 feet 10 inches long, 5 feet wide, and, from floor to apex, 4^ feet high. The arch is of a fine four-centred Tudor form ; and the floor, which is stone, is about 5^ feet below the floor of the tomb. The masonry is very neatly wrought and truly placed. The stone exhibited hardly the least sign of decay, and, from its absorptive and porous nature, there was no appearance of dew-drops on the ceiling. 3 To this cause may be attributed the high preservation of the lead of the coffins of these three sovereigns ; whereas the lead of Edward VI. 's coffin (which was under a marble ceiling always dropping water by conden- sation on its surface) had been fearfully contorted and almost riven asunder by perpetual corrosion. This was the more remarkable from 1 Another trace of the workmen, press) crumpled up in one of the octa- curiously significant as found in search- gonal piers at the angle of the tomb, ing for the grave of the Royal author almost out of reach, headed with two of the ' Counterblast against Tobacco,' rude woodcuts of S. Anne of Totten- was the fragment of a tobacco-pipe ham, and S. George, and underneath thrown out amongst the earth in effect- the emblems of the Passion, with an ing the entrance. The gravedigger indulgence from ' Pope Innocent to all may have felt that he could smoke in ' who devoutly say five paternosters peace, now that the great enemy of the ' and five aves in honour of the Five Indian weed was gone. ' Wounds,' and ending with an invoca- 1 In speaking of the workmanship of tion of S. George. Henry VII.'s tomb, it may be worth s Such drops are frequently found on recording that, in 1857, the Abbey brick arches, and always on the ceilings mason found a fragment of printed of vaults covered with compact stone paper (perhaps from Caxton's printing or marble. THE ROYAL VAULTS. 525 the extreme damp of the vault, as well as the atmosphere within, which struck a deadly chill when the vault was first opened : whereas on the same firestone in the cloisters the outer atmosphere when moist tells with such force that the floor beneath is quite spotted with particles of stone detached thereby from the groining above. 1 The final discovery of this place of interment curiously confirmed the accuracy of the Abbey Register, whose one brief notice was the sole written indication of the fact, in contradiction to all the printed accounts, and in the silence of all the official accounts. But its main interest arose from the insight which it gave into the deep historical instinct which prompted the founder of the Stuart Dynasty, Scotsman and almost foreigner as he was, to ingraft his family and fate on that of the ancient English stock through which he derived his title to the Crown. Apart from his immediate and glorious predecessor apart from his mother, then lying in her almost empty vault with his eldest son apart from his two beloved infant daughters apart from his Queen, who lies alone in her ample vault as if waiting for her husband to fill the vacant space the first Stuart King who united England and Scotland was laid in the venerable cavern, for such in effect it is, which contained the remains of the first Tudor King who, with his Queen, had united the two contending factions of English mediaeval history. 2 The very difficulty of forcing the entrance, the temporary displacement of Edward VI. and of Elizabeth of York, the sanctity of the spot, and the means taken almost as with religious vigilance to guard against further intrusion show the strength of the determination which carried the first King of Great Britain into the tomb of the last of the Mediaeval Kings, which laid the heir of the Celtic traditions of Scotland by the side of the heir of the Celtic traditions of Wales, the Solomon, as he deemed himself, of his own age, by the side of him whom a wiser than either had already called the Solomon of England. 3 It is 4 possible also that the obscurity which has hitherto rested on the 1 In removing the effigies of Henry York and Lancaster rest quietly under VII. and his Queen from the structure one roof. There does Queen Mary of their tomb for the purpose of clean- and her sister, Queen Elizabeth, lie ing. there were found in the hollow close together ; their ashes do not space beneath some gilt ornaments, part. In the story of Polynices and evidently belonging to the gilt crown Eteocles. two brothers, rivals for a which once encircled the head of the crown, we are told their smoke divided bronze effigy of the Queen, and also the into two pyramids as it ascended from name of an Italian workman, apparently one funeral pile; but here the dusts Fr. Ifedolo, which must have been do as kindly mingle, as all the old scratched on the wall at the time that piques and aversions are soundly Torregiano erected it. asleep with them. And so shall we - The following extract from Bishop be ere long most of us in a meaner Turner's sermon at the coronation of lodging, but all of us in the dust of James II., April 23, 1685, shows how death.' (P. 28.) long this sentiment of the union of the * Bacon's Henry VII., iii. 406. rival houses lasted : ' Think how much * For the funeral of Henry VII. see ' Royal dust and ashes is laid up in Chapter III. p. 145, and of James I. ' yonder Chapel. There the Houses of ibid. p. 158. 526 APPENDIX. place of James's interment may have been occasioned by the reluctance of the English sentiment to admit or proclaim the fact that the sacred resting-place of the Father of the Tudor race had been invaded by one who was still regarded as a stranger and an alien. 1 While the vault was yet open there happened to be a meeting of high dignitaries of Church and State, assembled on a Royal Commission in the Jerusalem Chamber, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It seemed but fitting that the first visitor to the tomb of the Eoyal Scot should have been a Primate from beyond the Tweed, and it was with a profound interest that the first Scotsman who had ever reached the highest office in the English Church bent over the grave of the first Scotsman who had mounted the throne of the English State. He was followed by the Earl of Stanhope (who, as President of the Society of Antiquaries, had expressed from the first lively interest in these excavations), the Earl of Carnarvon, and the Bishops of St. David's, Oxford, Gloucester, and Chester. The Canons in residence (Canons Jennings, Nepean, and Conway) were also present ; as was the Architect of the Abbey, Mr. G. Gilbert Scott, who minutely inspected the whole locality. 2 Such was the close of an inquiry which, after having disclosed so many curious secrets, ended in a result almost as interesting as that which attended the discovery of the vault of Charles I. at Windsor. It was, in fact, observed as a striking parallel, that over the graves of each of the first Stuart kings ' a similar mystery had hung ; and that each was at last found in the chosen resting-place of the first Tudor kings James I. with Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York ; Charles I. with Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour. The vault was closed, and at its entrance was placed a tablet inscribed, ' This vault was opened by the ' Dean, February 11, 1869.' NOTE. It appears from the Sacrist's accounts (under the head of Solutiones pro Serenissimas Dominse Margaretae Comitissaa de Eychmonte missis a Festo Paschae, anno Regni H. VII. xx.), that 1 Is. 8d. was paid in that year to Thomas Gardiner pro facturd tumbce Matris Domini Regis. This must have been in Margaret's lifetime. Mr. Doyne Bell has furnished me with the item for the payment of the inscription and cross on Henry VII. 's coffin : ' The Plomer's ' charge for crosse of lead and making of molds of scrypture about the cross, ' 6 13s. 4d.' (5) The appearance of bronze or ' cast brass ' of the effigies of Henry VII. and his Queen, as well as of the Duke of Buckingham, seems to have been visible in 1672 (Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 565). 1 Dean Williams only refers generally the historian ; Mr. Doyne Bell, of the to ' the sepulchre of the kings erected Privy Purse Office, Buckingham Palace ; ' by Henry VII., his great-grandfather, and Mr. Scharf, Keeper of the National ' just as this other Solomon was in the Portrait Gallery, who were present ' city of David his father.' (Serin, p. during a large part of the operations, 75.) See also Chapter IV. which extended, at intervals, over more 2 Throughout I derived considerable than three weeks. aid from the suggestions of Mr. Froude, INDEX. NOTE. Names of persons buried in the Abbey are in italics, as Anne of Den- mark ; those who are buried and have monuments are thus distinguished, as Addison ; those who have monuments and are not buried in the Abbey, thus -fAnstey, Christopher ; those who are in the Cloisters, thus *Agarde. ABB A BBACY, abolition of, 395, 396 ; re- XI vival of under Mary, 399; final abolition of, 406 Abbey, the, founded by Edward the Confessor on an ancient chapel of St. Peter, 14, 17 ; the building, 22, 23 ; first cruciform church in England, 22 ; the establishment, 23 ; the dedi- cation, 25 ; effects of the Confessor's character on the foundation of, 28 ; connection of with the Conquest, 29 ; with the English Constitution, 30 ; foundation of Lady Chapel, 106 ; rebuilt by Henry III., 105-109; continued by Henry I., 118 ; nave built by Henry V., 127 ; plan of, showing tombs as they appeared in 1509, 142 ; continued by Islip, 335 ; Henry VII.'s Chapel, 138-143 ; first musical festival in, 420 ; west towers built, 476 Abbot, Archbishop, 418 Abbots of Westminster, 329 ; under the Normans, 331 ; the Plantagenets, 333; the Tudors, 335 ; their burial-place, 331 ; Place or Palace of, 354 ; privi- leges of, 40 ; list of, 329-336 Abbott, Peter, his wager, 56 note, 289 note Actors, the, 283 ; attitude of the Church towards, 283 Adam, 292 Addison, funeral, 265, 266, 284 ; grave, 211, 219; monument, 266. See ' Spectator ' *Agarde, antiquarian, 380 Agincourt, Battle of, 127, 132, 179, 298 Albemarle (George Monk), Duke of, 210 Aldred, Archbishop, 21, 26, 38 Alexander III. of Scotland, 49, 115 ARG Alfonso, son of Edward I., 118 Almonry, the, 147, 353, 393 note ' Altar ' of the Abbey when and how so called, 494 ; its history, 494, 495 Amelia, daughter of George II., 169 Ampulla, the, 59 ' Anchorite's house,' 361, 383, 398 Andre, Major, 239 Andrew, St., plan of chapel of, 190 Andrewes, Dean and Bishop, 380 ; in- terest in the school, 413 Anne, Princess, daughter of Charles I., 158 Anne of BoJiemia, Queen of Richard II., 125 Anne Boleyn, coronation, 63 Anne of Cleves, 70, 151 ; tomb of, 151 note Anne of Denmark, 72, 157, 502 ; vault of, 505, 506 Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, 164, 509 Anne Mowbray of York, 136 Anne of Warwick, 136 Anne, Queen, coronation, 80; children, 166, 509; burial, 166; wax figure, 324, 500 Anne's, St., Chapel and Lane, 354 Anointing in coronation, 35 Anselm, Archbishop, 373, 386 ^Anstey, Christopher, 280 ' Antioch Chamber,' 357, 374 note Apollo, temple of, 8 Aquitaine, representatives of Dukes of, at coronation of George III., 88 Arabella Stuart, 157, 508 Archdeacon of Westminster, his privi- leges, 329 ; first, 331 Argyll and Greenwich, John Duke of, tomb of himself and family, 231, 504, 504 note 528 INDEX. ARN Arnold, Benedict, 239 note Arnold, Samuel, 290 Arnold, Thomas, quoted, 92 note Arthur, King, coronation of, 36 Arthur, Prince (son of Henry VII.), 147 Ashburnham House, 396 note, 474 Assembly of Divines, 431-436 Atterbury, Dean and Bishop ; appoint- ment to the Deanery, 455 ; love for Milton, 262 ; interest in the Abbey, 455 ; in the School, 456, 461 ; letter to Pope, 225, 229 ; interest in the epitaphs, 231, 260, 261, 262, 268; on Freind, 296 ; interest in burial of Addison, 263 ; of Marlborough, 225 ; of South, 455 ; plots, 459 ; exile and death, 461 ; buried, 276, 462 Augusta, mother of George III., 168 Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, 117 Aye or Eye Brook, 6, 338 Ayton, Sir Robert, 256 BACON, sculptor, 243 note Bagnall, Nicholas, 303 tBaillie, Dr. Matthew, 296 ^Baker, 236 \Balchen, 236 Bangor, Bishop of, 469 Banks, Thomas, 292 Baptisms, 484 Barking (or Berking), Abbott, 106 ; in- stigator of the Lady Chapel, 331, 364 ; 333 Barrow, Isaac, 272, 274, 448 *Barry, actor, 286 Barry, Sir Charles, 292 Bath, Knights of the, 58, 59; new arrangement of, 81-85 ; first Dean of, 474 ; Lord Dundonald's banner, 85, 320 Bath, Pulteney, Earl of, his funeral, 233 ' Battle of Ivry,' 195 note Baxter, Richard, 74 ; sermon of, 431 Bayeux tapestry, 29, 32, 37 note \Bayne, Captain, 238 Beattie, quoted, 314 note Beauclerk family, 192 \Beauclerk, Lord Aubrey, 236 Beaumont, 98, 253 Becket, Thomas, 44, 113, 348 *Behn, Apliara, 264 Belfry at Westminster, 346 Bell of Westminster, 340, 487 Bell, Andrew, 276 note Bell, Captain H., in the Gatehouse, 344 Benedict, St., 123 ; plan of chapel of, 202 Bennett, Sir William Sterndale, 290 Benson, last abbot and first dean, 398 Bentley, Dr., 474 BUC Berkeley, Sir William, 214 *Betterton, burial of, 284 Bible presented at coronations, 67, 75, 79 Bible, translation of the English, 472 Bill, Dean, 411 Bilson, Bishop, 272 note ^Bingfield, Colonel, 222 \Bingham, Sir R., 195 \Birkhead, Anne, 306 Bishop of London, 17, 42, 329 Bishop of Westminster, 67, 396 ' Black Death ' at Westminster, 333 Blagg, Thos., 213 note ^Blair, Captain, 238 Blaize, St., Chapel of, 334, 337, 399 Blake, Admiral, 207, 208 Blessed heretic, the, 476 Blomfield, Bishop, 92 note, 328 note *Blounl, G., 321 note Blow, Dr. John, 289 Bohun children, 123 Bond, Denis, 208, 430 Bonner, Bishop, sings Mass in the Ab- bey, 404 \Booth, Barton, the actor, 88, 285 Boscawen, Colonel, 208 note Boulter, Archbishop, 276 note, 474 Bourbon, Annand and Charlotte de, 309 Bourchier, Cardinal Archbishop, 351 Bourchier, Humphrey, 179 ' Bowling Alley ' and gardens, 338 * Bracegirdle, Mrs., 285 Bradford, Dean, first Dean of the Order of the Bath. 474, 504 note Bradsliatv, John, lives and dies at the Deanery, 209, 437; burial, 209 ; dis- interment,163 Bradshaw, Mrs., 209 Bray, Sir Reginald, 62, 144 Bridges, Winy f red, Marchioness of Win- chester, 185 Brigham, Nicholas, 251 Brithwold, Bishop, 15 Brocas, Sir Bernard, 179, 183 Bromley, Sir T)ws., 185 *Broughton, J., 311 Broughton, Sir E., 214 ^Brown, Tom, 264 ^Brunei, 299 Brydges, Frances, 191 *Buchan, Dr., 296 note Bucking)iam, Countess of, 199 BuckingJiam, G. Villiers, first Duke of, 200 ; death, 200 ; tomb, 200 ; monu- ment, 200 ; second Duke of, 201 Buckingham House, 228 Bucking}iamshire, Duchess of, 229 ; wax figure, 324 Biickinghamshire, Sheffield, Duke of, monument, 228 ; epitaph, 229 ; vault of, 507 ; second Duke of, death, 229 ; wax figure, 324 INDEX. 529 BUG ^Buckland, Dean, 483, 491 Buckland, Frank, quoted, 256 note, 297 fBuller, Charles, 249 Burgesses of Westminster, 417, 461 *Burgoyne, General, 239 Burke, 287 note ; visit to the Abbey, 173, 304 note, 313, 489 fBurlcigh, Lord, 187 Burleiyh, Mildred Cecil, Lady, and daughter Anne, Countess of Oxford, 187 Burnet, Bishop, 469 \Burney, Dr. Charles, 290 Burrough, Sir John, 194 note Busby, Dr., 274, 439, 442 ^Butler, Samuel, 263 \Buxton, Powell, 248 *Byrcheston, Abbot, 333 Byron, Lord, 281, 315 pADWALLADER, the last British \J King, 141 Cambridge, connection of Westminster School with Trinity College, 410 Camden, 271 ; Headmaster, 380, 413 ; outrage to his tomb, 206, 271 Campbell, Thomas, 281 Canning, Earl, 247 Canning, George, 247 Canon Bow, 5, 378 note Canterbury, Archbishop of, his rights, 41, 42, 68, 386 Canterbury Cathedral, 123, 127, 348 Carew, Lord, 179 Carey, Dr., Headmaster, 483 Carleton, Dudley, 195 Caroline, Queen (of George II.), 166 Caroline, Queen (of George IV.), 90, 91 Caroline, daughter of George II., 169 Carter, Colonel, 208 note Carter, the antiquary, 228, 233 note, 237 note, 374 note, 490 Carteret Family, 304 Gary, Henry, 281 Cary, Thomas, 204 Casaubon, Isaac, 270, 271, 315 Castlcreagh, Viscount, 246 ' Cathedral,' applied to Abbey, 54, 67, 396, 406, 407 Catherine, Princess, daughter of Henry III., 116 Catherine of Valois, Queen, 60, 128 ; her burial, 133 ; tomb of, 144 Catherine, St., chapel of, 30, 386 Caxton, 147, 251, 393, 524 note Cecil family, 187, 191 Celtic races, revival of, 141 \Chamberlen, Hugh, 295 *Chambers, Ephraim, 281 note, 315 Chambers, Sir W., 292 Champion at coronations, 58 COL Channel Row, 5 Chapel of St. Benedict, 201 Chapel of St. Edmund, 189 Chapel of St. John, St. Michael, and St. Andrew, 190 Chapel of St. John the Baptist, 188 Chapel of St. Nicholas, 188 Chapel of St. Paul, 189 Chapel of St. Faith, 389 Chapter House, 25 note, 149, 371-382 ; first scene of House of Commons, 374 ; Record Office, 379 ; restoration of, 371, 379 ^Chardin, 308 Cliarles, son of Charles I., 158 Charles Edward, Prince, at coronation of George III., 89 Charles I., coronation, 72 ; his intended tomb, 162 ; 197 note ; execution of, 440; 526 Charles II., coronation, 75-76 ; corona- tion in Scotland, 75 note ; burial, 163 ; wax figure, 323 ; vault of, 500, 501 Charles V., Emperor, requiem for him in the Abbey, 151 Chatham, Earl, 236, 397 note ; monu- ment, 243 ; wax figure, 324 ; second Earl, 243 note Chaucer, burial of and monument, 251 ; gravestone, 251 Cheyney Gate Manor, 355 Chiffinch, Tom, 216 Chiswick, house there belonging to Westminster School, 412, 446 Churchill, Admiral, 227 Cibber, Mrs., 285 Cinque Ports, privileges of, 47 Circumspecte Agatis, statute, 376 ' Citizen of the World,' Goldsmith's, quoted, 56, 185 note City of Westminster, 328, 418 Civil Wars, close of, 140 Claims of Windsor, Chertsey, and West- minster for the burial of Henry VI., 137 Clarendon, Earl, 213 Clavering, 24 note Claypole, Elizabeth, 159, 210 ; vault of, 504, 505 Cleveland, Duke of, 163 Clifford, Sir Thomas and Lady, 180 Cloisters, the, 321, 331, 361 Cloveshoe, 386 note Clyde, Lord, 240 ^Cobden, Richard, 249 Cock Inn, in Tothill Street, 16 note Colchester, Wm. of, Abbot, 334, 349 ; conspiracy of, 355 Coleridge, 282 College or Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, 16 ; establish- ment of, 408 M M 530 INDEX. COL College Hall, 351, 355, 409, 458 Collier, nonjuring divine, 344 Colonies of rats, 393 note Columba, Pillow of, 52 Commons, House of, its origin, 110, 374 ; first held in the Chapter House, 375, in Eefectory, 375, and then in St. Stephen's Chapel, 378 ; removal of worship of, to St. Margaret's Church, 415 Commonwealth, the, 159 ; disinterment of magnates of, 209 Communion Table in Westminster Abbey has the only authoritative claim to the name of ' Altar,' 494 note Compton, 467 Conduitt, John, 294 Confirmations, 484 Conqreve, William, 266 ; monument, 267, 315 Consecration of Bishops in the Middle Ages, 385 note ; after the Reforma- tion, 396 ; after the Restoration, 433- 435 ; in modern times, 484 Constable, Sir William, 207 Constance, Council of, 334 Convocation of Canterbury, 463-473 *Cooke, Dr. B., 290 \Coote, Sir Eyre, 236 Cornbury, Lord, 213 note fCornewall, Captain, 235 Coronation, its idea and character, 34- 36, 93 ; service, 93 Coronations, connection of, with the Abbey, 37 Coronations of early English kings, 34, 35 Coronation Oath, 35, 39, 45, 68, 73, 77 note, 78, 89, 93 Coronation privileges of Abbots and Deans of Westminster, 40 Coronation Stone, 49, 56; representa- tion of, 52 Cottington, Lord, 203 Cotton, Sir Robert, 380 \Cottrell, Clement, 215 Councils of Westminster, 30, 386 *Courayer, P., 307, 315 Courcy, Almeric de, 300 note Courtney, Ed., Bishop of Norwich, 179 Covent Garden, 339 Coventry, Earl of, 200 note Coverdale, Miles, 398 Cowley, Abraham, funeral, 257, 258 Cowper, 248, 480 Coxe, Dean and Bishop, 399, 406 Craggs, his grave, monument, and epi- taph, 219, 220 Cranmer, Archbishop, 65 ; address of at coronation of Edward VI., 68 f Creed, Major, 223, 239 note DOR Crewe, Jane, 233 note Cripple, legend of the, 20 Crispin, Abbot, 331 Croft, Dr., 290 CroJcesley, Abbot, 331, 332 note, 365 Cromwell, installation of, 75 ; death, 159; burial, 160, 440; disinterment, 161, 212 ; interest in the Abbey, 206, 207 Cromwell, Elizabeth, 159 Crucifix over High Altar, 336, 388 ; in North Transept, 178 note, 388 ; in Cloister, 363 Crull the Antiquary, 262 Cumberland, Henry Frederick, Duke of, 169 Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of, 168 Cumberland, Richard, 280 Curtlington, Abbot, 333 T\ALRYMPLE, Wm., 304 D Dante, Divina Commedia of, 116 Darnley, James, natural son of James II., 509 Daubeney, Sir Giles, 180 Davenant, Sir W., 257 ^Davy, Sir Humphry, 296 Dean of Westminster, his office, 40, 41, 395-397 Dean of the Order of the Bath, 83 Deans enumerated, 411-462, 472-483 Dean's Yard, 354, 438 note, 442, 458, 475 Deane, Colonel, 207 Deanery (see Abbot's Palace or Place), 354, 396, 398, 401, 411, 419 ; plan of, 435, 437, 438, 445, 458, 459, 476 f-De Burgh, John, 193 De Castro Novo, Sir Fulk, 177 Declaration of Indulgence, reading of, 447 ' Dei Gratia,' origin of, 35 Delaval, Admiral, 224 note, 301 Delaval, Lord, 301 ; Lady, 301 Denham, 258 Dickens, 283 Disbrowe, Jane, 159 Discipline of Monks, 388 Disinterment of the Magnates of the Commonwealth, 209 * Disney, Colonel (' Duke '), 306 Dissolution of the Monastery, 405 Dolben, Dean, 212, 446 ; Bishoprick of Rochester first united to Deanery, 446 ; Archbishop of York, 446 Domesday Book, 380 Doncaster, Charles, Earl of, 163 Dorislaus, Isaac, 206, 209 Dormitory of the Monks, 366 ; Old Dormitory of the School, 409 ; New Dormitory, 456 INDEX. 531 DRA Drayton, MicJiael, 254 Dryden, funeral, grave, and monument, 258-260, 315 Duck Lane, 339 'Dudley, BisJiop of Durham, 179 Dumouriez, author of the epitaph on the Duke of Montpensier, 170 Dundonald, Earl of, 85, 238, 320 Dunfermline Abbey and Palace, 21, 99, 102 note Dunstan, St., his charter, 329 ; chapel of, 353 c Duppa, Bishop, 214, 214 note, 414 note Duppa, Sir TJiomas, 214 note Duras, Louis, Earl of Feversham, 309 Durham, Bishop of, 485 Duroure, Scipio and ^Alexander, 234 note "FABLES, DEAN, 445 Ju Earls Palatine, 35 note Ebury, 7, 177, 338 Edgar, Foundation of, 110 Edith, Queen, 104, 363 Edmund Crouchback, 117 Edmund, St., Chapel of, 116 ; plan of, 189 Edmund, son of Henry VII., 146 Edric, the fisherman, legend of, 17 c Edward the Confessor: his appear- ance, 10, and characteristics, 11, 12, 25, 28 ; last of the Saxons, first of the Normans, 13 ; devotion to St. Peter, 15, 24, 27 ; veneration for St. John the Evangelist, 25, 27 ; journey to Borne to obtain confirmation of privileges, ordered by, 21 ; his vow, 14, 21 ; founder and builder of the Abbey, 17, 25 ; death and burial, 27 ; his shrine, built by Henry III., 110 ; despoiled by Henry VIII., 148 ; restored by Mary, 148 ; his body believed to have been last seen, 28 note translation by Henry II., 105 ; by Henry III., 113 ; veneration for his remains, 105 ; last notice of, 167 ; pilgrims to, 390 Edicard I., coronation, 49 ; burial and monument, 119 ; opening of tomb of, 120; 233 Edward II., coronation, 56 ; wasteful- ness of, 120 Edward III., election and coronation, 57 ; death, monument, and children, 122 Edward IV., coronation, 61 ; death, 136 ; his courtiers, 179 Edward V., 61 ; his birth, 350 ; burial, 136 Edward VI., coronation, 67 ; his funeral, 149; tomb of, 150; vault of, 514- FLE 517, 521 ; destruction of his monu- ment, 429 * Edwin, first Abbot, 23, 330, 371 note Egelric, BisJiop of Durham, 177, 389 c 'Eleanor of Castille, Queen, coronation, 49 ; death and tomb, 118 Elia, Lamb's, quoted, 240 Elizabeth of Bohemia, 163, 509 Elizabeth of York, Queen of Henry VII., 62 ; death of, 144 Elizabeth, Queen, coronation, 71 ; death, funeral, tomb, and inscription, 152, 153; her courtiers, 182-195, wax figure, 323; her interest in the Abbey, 406 ; vault of, 511 Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of Edward IV., takes refuge in the Sanctuary, 351 Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIL, 144 Elizabethan magnates, 182 Eliot, Lady Harriet, 243 note Elliot, Sir John, 343 ' Elms,' the, in Dean's Yard, 355 Eltham, John of, tomb, 121, 301 England, beginning of modern, 141 English, growth of, 387 Entertainments in the Jerusalem Chamber, 419 Erasmus, 147 Essex, Devereux, Earl of, 205, 210 ; his grave, 335 note Esteney, Abbot, 191, 318, 335, 351 Ethelgoda, 9, 102, 371 Evelyn, quoted, 444, 449 Evans, Bishop of Bangor, 469 Exeter, Elizabeth, Countess of, 191 Exeter, Thomas Cecil, Earl of, 191 Eye, manor and stream of, 6, 177, 339 *fAIRBORNE, Sir P., 215 Falcons in the Abbey, 437 note Falmouth, Lord, 214 Fanelli, sculptor, 203 note Fanes, the monument of, 195 Fascet, Abbot, 335 Feckenham ; inscription on tomb of Edward III., 123 note; last Abbot, 400, 404 F eilding family, 199 note Ferne, Bishop, 214 Ferrar, Nicholas, ordained by Laud, 422 Festival, first musical, 420 ; Handel, 478 ^Ffolkes, Martin, 294 Fiddes, Dr., 460 note Fire of Houses of Parliament, 381 Fire of London, 447 Fire in the Cloisters, 473 Fisher, Bishop, 145, 146, 422 "Ifleming, General, 234 M it 2 532 INDEX. FLE Fletcher, 252, 253 note Flete, Prior, 335 ^Follett, Sir W. W., 244 Fontevrault, 103, 115 *Foote, Samuel, 287 Ford, Abbot, 178 Foreigners, monuments of, 307 Fox, Charles James, 244 Frederick II., Emperor, 115 Frederick Prince of Wales, 168 fFreind, John, physician, 295 Freind, Dr. Robert, Headmaster, 261, 473 Freke family, 305 Friends, monuments of, 305 Froude, quoted, 63-65, 68, 69 Fulk de Castro Novo, 177 Fullerton, Sir James, 210 pALILEE, the, in Westminster Pal- U ace, 357 note Garden of Infirmary and College, 384, 405, 457 Garrick and his widow, 287 ; monu- ment, 287 Gatehouse, the, 342, 343, 345, 347 Gay, John, 268 ; his epitaph, 269, 306 Gent, his adventure in the College hall, 457 Geoffrey, Abbot, 331 George of Denmark, Prince, 166, 501 George William, Prince, son of George II., 165 note George I., coronation, 81 ; establish- ment of the Knights of the Bath, 81 ; death, 166 George II., coronation, 85 ; tomb, 167 ; funeral, 167 ; vault of, 499 George III., coronation, 86 ; buried at Windsor, 169 George IV., coronation, 89 *Gervase of Blois, 331 Gethin, Grace, 305 *Gibbons, Christopher, 289 Gibbons, Orlando, 420 Gi/ord, William, 281, 483 *Gislebert, Abbot, 331 Glanville, William, bequest of, 236 note Gloucester, Duke of (TJiomas of Wood- stock) and Duchess, 126 note, 266 note Gloucester, William, Duke of, 165 Glynne, anecdote of, when at West- minster School, 439 ; Mrs. Helen Glynne, 440 note * Godfrey, Sir Edmond Berry, 216 Godolphin, Sidney Earl, 221 Godwin. Bishop, consecrated, 396 Golden Fleece, High Mass of the Order of the, 400 ^Goldsmith, death, 277 ; his epitaph, 278 ; quotations from, 56, 301, 323 HEX Golofre, Sir John, 178 Goodenough, Dr., Headmaster, 483 Good Friday, sermons in the Chapel Eoyal, 477 Goodman, Gabriel, Dean, 187, 353, 408, 411, 412, 472 ^Grabe, 274 Graham, the watchmaker, 297 Granary, the, 354 Grattan, deathbed, 245, 246; grave, 246 Grave of an unknown person, 517 \Gray, 270 Grey, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, 181 Grossetete, Bishop, 48 Grote, 283 Guest, General, 234 fJAKLUYT, 271 note, 415 Hales, Stephen, 298 "Halifax, Charles Montague, Earl of, 219 "Halifax, George Montague, Earl of, 236 "Halifax, Saville, Marquis of, 219 Hamilton, Colonel, 214 Hampden, 343 Handel, 167, 290 ; his festival, 478 Hanover, House of, 166 \Hanway, Jonas, 248 \Harbord, Sir C., 215 Hardy, Sir Thomas and Lady, 235 Hargrave, General, 234 Harley, Anna Sophia, 302 note Harold Barefoot, 102 Harold, 27 ; his coronation, 37 Harpedon, Sir John, 179 Harrison, Admiral, 238 ^Harvey, Captain, 238 Haselrig, Thomas, 208 note ^Hastings, Warren, 248 ; cup presented by and others to Westminster School, 479 Hat, reception of Wolsey's, 390 Hatherley, Lord, 492 note "Hattons, the, 195 Havering atte Bower, 25 Hawerden, 334, 335 note *Hawkins, Ernest, 484 note *Hawkins, Sir John, 290 note Hawks in the Abbey, 437 Hawle, murder of, 348 Hay Hill, 6 note Henderson, John, 287 Henley, Abbot, 333 Henrietta Maria, her suite entertained, 419 Henry I., coronation, 42 Henry II., coronation, 44 ; burial at Fontevrault, 103 INDEX. 533 HEN Henry, Prince, son of Henry II., coro- nation, 44 ; burial, 103 Henry III., his two coronations, 47, 48; reign, 106; rebuilding of the Abbey, 107-112 ; his character, 107- 109 ; translates the body of the Con- fessor, 113; death of, 114 ; tomb, 114 ; burial of his heart at Fonte- vrault, 115 ; his children, 116 Henry IV., election and coronation, 59 ; death, 127, 358 Henry V., coronation, 60 ; ' Conver- sion,' 359 ; death and burial, 128 ; character, 128 ; tomb, 130 ; saddle, helmet, statue, 132 ; his courtiers, 179 ; convention of, 377 Henry VI., coronation, 61 ; choice of tomb, 135 ; death, 135 ; devotion to, 137 ; controversy as to burial, 137 ; chapel of, 138 ; 521 note Henry VII., coronation, 62 ; his devo- tion, 139 ; his death, 145 ; his burial, 145 ; his effigy, 145 ; his courtiers, 180 ; his chapel, 138-140, 396, 418, 475, 482 ; plan of chapel, 143 ; vault of, 522 ; account of vault, 520, 522, 523 Henry VIII., coronation, 63 ; his in- tended tomb, 148, 516 note Henry of Oatlands, Duke of Gloucester, son of Charles I., 162, 508 Henry, Frederick, Prince, son of James I., 157, 508 Henry, Philip, 441 Henry, Prince, son of Henry VIII., 148 Herbert, Abbot, 331 Herbert, George, 415 Herle, rector of Wimvick, 436 Herle, Margaret, 436 note Hermit of Worcester, legend of, 17 Hermits in Westminster, 123, 350, 361, 383 Herries, Colonel, 240 Ilcrschel, 295 Hertford, Frances Hoivard, Countess of, 182 Hervey, Lord, quoted, 85 Hervey, Lord, 196 Hetherington quoted, 436 Heylin, John, 481 Heylin, Peter, 424, 442 High Steward of Westminster, 187, 328, 454 Historical Aisle, 270 Holborn Hill, 4 ^Holland, Lord, 245 Holles, Frances, 193 note Holles, Sir G., 193 Holmes, 236 Holyrood Abbey and Palace, 21, 99 Hooker, on Christian worship, quoted, 497 JOH Horneck, Antony, 275 Horneck, Captain W., 235 ^Horner, Francis, 248 Horsley, Dean and Bishop, 481 House of Commons, rise of the, 374 Howard, Frances, Countess of Hert- ford, 182 Howe, Earl, 238 Howe, Viscount, 237 Hudson, Sir Geoffrey, 344 Hugh, St., of Lincoln, 385 note, 485 *Hugolin, 13, 20, 24 ; his tomb, 177, 367 *Humez, Abbot, 331, 386 Hunsdon, Lord, 186 Hunter, John, 256, 297 ^Hutt, Captain, 238 Hyde, Anne, Duchess of York, 164, 509 Hyde Manor, 339 TMPEY, Elijah, 479 Infirmary, the, 384, 385 Inglis, Sir B. H., quoted, 90 Ingulph, 363 Innocents' Day, 25, 61 Installation of the Kings, 50 Ireland, Dean, 281 note, 382, 483, 491 Ireton, 207 Island of Thorns, the, 5, 7 Islip, Abbot, 144, 191, 336, 352, 415 Islip, Oxfordshire, 21 JAMES I., coronation, 72 ; court of, 195 ; funeral, 158, 422 ; perplexity respecting grave of, and account of search for, 4'.i9-522; discovery of, 522 James II., coronation, 77; burial at Paris, 176 ; children of, 164, 509 Jane, 467 Jerusalem Chamber, 265, 293, 356, 358, 378, 419, 426, 432-468 ; plan of, 435 Jewel House, 367, 383 Jews, sufferings of the, 46 Joan, Queen, crowned, 60 John, King, coronation, 47 ; buried at Worcester, 103 John the Baptist, St., plan of chapel of, 188 John the Evangelist; St., beloved by Edward the Confessor, 25, 27 ; legend of his appearance, 25 ; plan of chapel of, 190 Johnson, Dr., his burial, 279 ; criticism on Craggs' epitaph, 221 ; proposes epitaph for Newton, 293 note ; writes Goldsmith's epitaph, 278 ; criticises Kneller's epitaph by Pope, 292 ; on Watts, 277 ; on the Gatehouse, 344 ; on the Abbey, 314 ; on Cowley's epi- taph by Dean Sprat, 257 534 INDEX. JOH Johnson, William, 257 c jonson, Ben, 254 ; his grave and in- scription, 255 Julius II., Pope, 138 , 282; quoted, 316; tablet of, 282 ^Kemble, John Philip, 288 \Kempenfelt, 238 Kendall, Mary, 305 Kennicott, Dr., 481 Kerry, Lord and Lady, 304 Killigrew, General, 222 King, Dr. Wm., 276 King's Bench, the, 51 King's Evil, 11, 112 Kings, plan showing position of tombs in chapel of the, 111 King's Scholars' Pond, 7, 339 King's Stone, the, 36 Kingston-on-Thames, 36 note King Street, 340, 475 Kitchin, Bishop, consecrated, 396 ^Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 291 Knightsbridge, 338 note *Knipe, Headmaster, 473 Knollys, Lady Catherine, 183, 193 Kydyngton, Abbot, 333 Kyrton, Abbot, 191, 334 T ADIES of the Tudor Court, 181 Jj Lady Chapel, the, 48, 106, 331, 385 Lamb, Charles, quoted, 240, 287 note Lanfranc, Archbishop, 41, 386 Langham, Abbot and Cardinal, etc., 127, 333, 362 Laud, Prebendary of Westminster, 40 note, 72, 73 ; friend of Dean Neale, 415 ; rival of Dean Williams, 422 ; 438 * Lawrence, Abbot, 331 Lavatory of monastery, 364 *Lawes, H., 288 ^Lawrence, General, 236 ^Lawrence, W., 310 Lecky's History of Eationalism, quoted, 284 Le Couvreur, Adrienne, 284 note fLe Neve, Captain, 214 Lennox, Charles, son of Duchess of Portsmouth, 197 Lennox, Henry Esme, Duke of, 154 note, 196, 510 Lennox, Margaret, 154, 510 Lennox vault, 510 Leofric, 20 Le Sueur, 203 note t Lewis, Sir G. C., 249 Lewisham, Abbot, 332 Leycester, Walter, 178 MAE Liber Regalis, 57 Library, formation of the, 395, 398, 408, 416 ; Cotton's, 474 Liddell, Dr., Headmaster, 483 Lightfoot, Joseph, Bishop of Durham, 485 Ligonier, Lord, 222 note Lilly, imprisoned in Gatehouse, 343 ; adventure of in Cloisters, 422 Lincoln, President, 286 Linlithgow, 25 note *Lister, Jane, 303 Littlington, Abbot, 57, 329, 334, 336, 354, 356, 362 Liturgy, revision of the, 467 Livingstone, 299 f Locke, Joseph, 299 London, Bishop of, 41, 329 London, physical features of, 3 Long Acre, 339 Long Meg of Westminster, 333, 388 Lord High Stewardship, 36 ; abolition of, 48 Louis, St., 108, 118 Louise, Queen of Louis XVIII., 171 note Lovelace, 343 Lucas, Kichard, 451 Lucius, Church of, 8 ; King, 353 Ludlow, 24 Luther's ' Table Talk,' 344 Lyell, Sir C., 295 Lyndwood, Bishop, 309 Lytton, Bulwer, 282 llfACAULAY, Lord, quoted, 76, 77, 79, 106, 164, 165, 195 note, 243, 244, 265, 266, 282 ; his grave, 282 ^Macaulay, Zacliary, 248 \Mackintosh, Sir James, 245 Macpherson, James, 280 Mackworth, Colonel, 207 Magna Charta, excommunication of transgressors of, 387 Magnates of the Commonwealth, 204 ^Malcolm, Sir John, 247 *Mandeville, Geoffrey and Adelaide, 177 f Manners, Lord Robert, 238 Mansfield, Lord, 243 Margaret, St. Chapel, or Church of, 23 ; painted window in, 147 ; 196, 342, 343, 393, 415, 432 Margaret of Anjou, coronation, 61 Margaret Lennox, Countess of Rich- mond, 154 Margaret of Richmond, 62, 63 ; her death, 146, 353 Margaret of York, 136 Markliam, Headmaster, afterwaids Archbishop of York, 480 INDEX. 535 MAR Marlborough, Duke of, at Monk's funeral, 211 ; death and funeral, 226 ; removal of to Blenheim, 226 Marlborough, Earl of, 214 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 80, 221, 225, 227, 229, 267 Marlborough, Henrietta, Duchess of, 221, 226 Marriages in the Abbey, 98, 484 Marshall, Stephen, 205, 208 note, 273, 430 Marten, Henry, 429 Martin, St., in-the-Fields, 340 Martin, St., Le Grand, 340, 347 Mary L, coronation, 69 ; attends Mass in the Abbey, 404 ; grave, 151 Mary II., coronation, 78 ; funeral, 165 ; wax figure, 324, 500 Mary Queen of Scots, her tomb, 154 ; miracles wrought by her bones, 155 ; removal of body of from Peterbo- rough, 507 ; vault of, 507, 508 Mary of Orange, 163, 509 Mary, daughter of James L, 156 Marylebone, 6 \Mason, Rev. J., 270 Matilda, Queen, coronation, 41 Matthew Paris, 113 Maude, Queen, coronation, 43 ; burial, 104 May, Thos., burial and disinterment, 208 note, 256 note, 273 c Mead, Richard, 296 Meldrum, Colonel, 204 note Mellitus, first Bishop of London, 17, 18 Mcndip, Lord, 276 note Men of letters, 277" Mcthuen, John, 249 note Metropolitan and Metropolitical, 396 note Mcxborough, Lady, 301 Michael, St., plan of chapel of, 190 "Middlesex, Earl of, 201 Middle Ages, close of, 140 Millbank, 338 Milling, Abbot, 335 Milrnan, Dean, 248 ^Milton, 262, 313 note, 488 ' Minster of the West,' 10 Miracles at Chapel of St. Peter, 20 ; at shrine of St. Edward, 105; at tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, 155 Monastery, the, 327; possessions of, 338 ; dissolution of, 395 Monk, Bishop J. H., 276 note c Monk, Bishop Nicholas, brother of General Monk, 213 Monk, Christopher, son of General Monk, 213 c Monk, George, burial, 211 ; effigy, 212 ; 323 ; his cap, 213 ; monument, 213 ; vault, 323, 502 OLD Monks, records of the, 336, 337 Monstrelet, quoted, 360 ^Montagu, Captain, 238 Montague. See Halifax Montandre, Marquis de, 170 Monteigne, Dean, 415 Montfort, Simon de, 115 Montpensier, Duke of, 170 Monuments, changes of taste with regard to style of, 316 Monuments, gradual growth of the, 311 Monuments of the young, 302 Moray, Sir Robert, 297 More, Sir Thomas, imprisoned in the Abbot's House, 361 Morland, Sir S., wives of, 297 Mosaic pavement, 332 Mountrath, Lord and Lady, 218 note Muskerry, Viscount, 214 Musicians, tombs of, 290, 291 \TAVE, 127; plan of, 222, 266, 292, ll 334, 335, 496 Neale, Dean, 414 ; succession of prefer- ment, 414 note Neate Manor, 339 i Nelson, his saying on the Abbey, 325 ; death of, 238 ; waxwork figure, 325 and note 'Neville, Dorothy, 191 Newcastle, John Hoiks, Duke of, 193, 218 'Newcastle, Margaret, Duchess of ', 217 ^Newcastle, W. Cavendish, Duke of, 216 Newton, John, on Sheffield's epitaph, 230 Newton, Sir Isaac, gravestone and monument, 293, 294 j Nicholas, St., plan of chapel of, 188 Nicoll, Headmaster, 479 Nightingale, Lady, 304, 317 note Noel, H., 195 note Nonconformists in the Abbey, 207, 315, 429-440, 494 Normanton, Lord, 276 note INorris family, 193, 194 North, John, Prebendary, 449 North Transept, plan of, 242 c Northumberland family, vault of, 301 , Northumberland, Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of, 301 I "Norton family, tomb of, 305 Norwich, Abbot, 335 Nowell, Headmaster, 413 ' OFFICE for Consecrating Churches \) and Churchyards,' 470 note Old Bourne, 4 Oldfield, Mrs., grave of, 284 ' Old Windsor,' 21 536 INDEX. ORC ' Orchard,' the, 338 Ordinations, 422, 484 Organ room, dispute in the, 469 Ormond, Duke and Duchess of, 212 Ormond vault, 212, 504 Osbaldiston, Headmaster and Preben- dary, 438 Ossory, Earl of, 212 "Outrain, Sir James, 240 Outram, Prebendary, 273, 449 Owen, John, Dean of Christchurch, 207, 440 Owen, Professor, 7 note 0wen, Sir Thomas, 186 Oxford, Anne Vere, Countess of, 187 Oxford, connection of Westminster School with Christchurch, 410 Serva,' inscription, 119 L Page, Dr., Headmaster, 483' Painted Chamber, 21 Paintings in the Chapter House, 372, 376 ; in the Abbey, 390 Palace Yard, 21 Paleologus, Theodore, his family, 307, and note Palgrave, Sir Francis, 380 Palmerston, Lord, 247 Pancake in Westminster School, 439 {Paoli, Pascal, 309, 315 Papillon, Abbot, 331 Parker, Archbishop, 380 Parliament Office, 383 Parr, Thomas, 306 Parry, Sir Thomas, 180 note Patrick, Symon, Prebendary, 449 Paul, St., plan of chapel of, 189 Paul's, St., Cathedral, 8, 242, 313 note, 325, 397 note, 463 fPearce, Zachary, Dean and Bishop, 233, 319, 476 Pecksall, Sir E., 183 fPeeZ, Sir B., 247 Pelham's secretary, 233 Pepys quoted, 75-77, 214 note, 443, 446 note ; imprisoned in the Gate- house, 344 ^Perceval, 245 Peter, St., 16-20; favourite saint of Edward the Confessor, 14, 25, 27, 123 ; ' robbing Peter to pay Paul,' 397 Peter's Eye or Island, 16 'Peter's keys and Paul's doctrine,' 61, 73 ' Peter the Roman citizen,' 109 Pew, the Lord Keeper's, 124 note, 425, 441 Philippa, Queen of Edward III., 57, 122 QUE f Philips, John, 261 Pickering, keeper of Gatehouse, 345 Piers Plowman's Vision, 376 Pigeons in the Abbey, 437 Pilgrim (John the Evangelist), legend of the, 24 Pilgrimages, 390 Pitt, William, burial of, 244 ; monu- ment, 245 Play, the Westminster, 413, 486 Plymouth, Earl of, 163 Poets' Corner, plan of, 250 Pole, Cardinal, attends Mass in the Abbey, 404 Pollock, Sir George, 240 Pope, his burial and tablet at Twicken- ham, 269 ; epitaph on himself at Twickenham, 269, on Kneller, with Johnson's criticism, 292, on Newton, 294, on Cragg, with Johnson's criticism, 220, on Eowe, 263, on General Withers, 306, on Dryden, 260 ; on Freind's epitaph, 295 note ; 225, 228, 244 note, 260. Epistles of, quoted, 268 note Pop1iam, 206 ; his monument, 209 Popish plot, 344 Portland, Duke of , 218 Postard, Abbot, 331 Prasmunire, statute of, 376 Prayer Book, revision of the, 466 Prebendaries of Westminster not in Anglican orders, 415 Presbyterian preachers, 429 Prichard, Hannah, 284 Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III., 171 Pringle, 296 Prior, Matthew, 267; epigram on Atterbury, 231 Prior's Life of Burke quoted, 173, 304 note, 313 note Priors and Subpriors, the, 361 Prison, the, 341 Private monuments, 300 Protectorate, the, 159 ' Provence ' roses (Provins), 117 Provisions, Statute of, 376 Puckering, Sir John, 185, 335 note Pulpits of the Abbey, 425, 495 Pulteney, Earl of Bath, 233 *Pulteney, Daniel, 233 note Purcell, H., 289, 290, 354 note Puritan changes in the Abbey, 428 Puy, Le, 19 Pym, burial of, 205 ; disinterment, 209 Pyx, chapel of the, 367, 379 Pyx, the, 383 note QUEENS-CONSORT, coronations of, 36 note INDEX. 537 RAF f ft APPLES, Sir Stamford, 247 Eaglan, Lord, 240 Ralegh, Sir Walter, 196, 342 Recumbent effigies, 316 Redmayne, Master of Trinity, 272 note Refectory, the, 365. 375 Reformation in the Abbey, 148; acts of, 377 Regalia, 39, 40, 371, 429 Reims, consecration of Abbey of St. Remy, 14 Relics at Westminster, 26, 104, 113, 123, 129, 135, 148, 371, 389 Eennell, the geographer, 299 Restoration, the, 162 Restoration, chiefs of the, 210 Revestry, 369, 389 Revision of the Authorised Version, 468 Revision of the Prayer Book, 466 Richard I., his two coronations, 45, 47 ; his heart at Rouen, 103 ; his body at Fontevrault, 103 Richard II., coronation, 57 ; portrait, 124 ; tomb, 125 ; his courtiers, 178 ; his devotion to the Abbey, 123, 350 Richard III., coronation, 61 RicJiard of Wendover, 178 Richardson, Sir Thomas, 204 c 'Richmond and Lennox, Lewis Stuart, Duke of, 196, 510 note Richmond, Charles Lennox, Duke of, natural son of Charles II., 163 note, 196 Richmond, Duchess of, died 1639, 197 ; wax figure, 324 Richmond, Esme Stuart, Duke of, 154 note, 510 Richmond, George, portrait of Richard II. restored by, 124 Ricula, sister of Sebert, 9, 371 Robbery of Treasury, 368 ' Robbing Peter to pay Paul,' 397 ^Roberts (Secretary of Pelham), 233 Robinson, Sir Thomas, 233, 233 note Robsart, Lewis, 179, 298 note Rochester, diocese of, united to Deanery of Westminster, 446; severed from, 482 Roman Catholics buried in the Abbey, 315 note Roubiliac, 192, 235, 291 note, 305 Rouen, 103 Rowe, John, 209, 430 note, 443 Eowe, Nicholas, 263 Royal exiles, 170 Royal supremacy, recorded on coffin- plate of Edward VI., 516 Runny-Mede, 21 note Rupert, Prince, 163, 509 Russell, Elizabeth, her christening, death, and monument, 184 SID 'Russell, Lord John, 184 'Ruthell, Bishop, 180 Rymer, Thomas, 380 ACRAMENT, legend of the, 20 O St. Albans, Duke of, natural son of Charles II., 163 note St. Evremond, 264, 315 St. John, Lady Catherine, 195 St. Saviour's Chapel, 396 St. Stephen's Chapel, 378 note, 396 Salisbury, Elizabeth Cecil, Countess of, 191 Salwey, Humphrey, 208 note Sanctuary of Westminster, 346-353, 492 Sander son, Sir W., 272 note Sandwich, Montagu, Earl of, 211 Santa Croce at Florence, 175 %Saumarez, 236 Savage, Richard, 344 Schomberg, Duke of, 218 School, Westminster, 32 ; rights of scholars, 41, 78 note, 91 note ; first beginnings, 362 ; founded by Henry VIII., 395 ; refounded by Elizabeth, 407-411 ; schoolroom, 409 ; benefac- tions to by Dean Williams, 417 ; in- terest of Laud in, 422 note ; under the Commonwealth, 437. See An- drewes, Atterbury Scone, Stone of, 49-56 Scot, Grace, 210 Scott, Sir Gilbert, 292 Scott, Sir Walter, 2, 46, 231 note, 245, 401, 503 note ' Screen ' of the Abbey, 494 Sebert, King, 16, 102 ; Church of, 9 ; grave of, 9, 102, 371 Sedgwick, Adam, 295 Selden, 431, 436 Servants, monuments of, 310 Services of the Abbey, 412, 493 Seven Acres, 339 Seven Sleepers, legend of the, 24 Seymour, Anne, Duchess of Somerset, 182 Seymour. Lady Jane, 183 Shackle, 348 IShadwell, 260 \Shakspeare, 55, 56 note, 66, 125, 128, 253, 254, 263, 288, 334, 355 ISharp, Granville, 248, 280, 316 Shaving the monks, 364 Slicffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, 227 ; grave and epitaph, 229 ; vault, 507 Sheridan, R. B., 280 * Shield, William, 290 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 223 ^Siddons, Mrs., 288 538 INDEX. SID Sidney, Frances, Countess of Sussex, 182 Skelton, poet, 352, 464 Smalridge, Dr., 262 Smiles, 299 * Smith, Thomas, 304 ' Solomon's Porch,' 124, 455 Somerset, Anne Seymour, Duchess of, 181 Somerset, Protector, 149, 397 Somerset,Sarah Alston, DucJiess of, 296 Sophia, daughter of James I., 156 South, Robert, 274, 440, 451 ^Southey, Robert, 282 Spanheim, 170, 307, 315 Speaker of House of Commons, the first, 376 note Spectator, quotations from, 55, 96, 123, 127 note, 179, 185, 187, 223, 224, 274, 297, 311, 354, 439, 455 Spelman, Sir Henry, 272 Spenser, Edmond, his grave and monument, 252 ; inscription, 253, 320 ' Spies of the Cloister,' 362 Spottiswoode, Archbishop, 74 note, 270 note Spragge, Sir E., 214 ISprat, Dean, 257,, 259, 262, 467 \Stanhope family, monuments of, 292 Stanley, Dean, 172 Stanley, Lady Augusta, 172 Stanley, Sir Humphrey, 180 Stapleton, Sir Robert, 257 Statutes, 376 c Staunton, Sir G., 247 Steele, 264 ; Mrs. Steele, 264 *Steigerr, of Berne, 309 Stephen, King, coronation, 43 ; buried at Faversham, 103 Stephenson, Robert, his grave and window, 299 Stepney, George, 261 Stewardship, Lord High, 36 ; abolished by Henry III., 48 Stewart, Richard, Dean, 437 Stigand, Archbishop, 26, 37, 38 Stone, Nicholas, sculptor, 197 Stonehenge, 36 Stones, sacred, 50, 51 Strathmore, Countess of, 302 Strathmore, Lady, 302 Strode, Sir W., 205 Strong, the Independent, 208 note, 272, 430 Stuart, Arabella, 157, 508 Stuart, Charles, 154 Submission, Act of, 377 Suffolk, Frances Grey, Duchess of, 181 Supremacy, Act of, 377 Sussex, Frances Sidney, Countess of, 182 Sword and Shield of State, 57, 123 TWY fALBOTS, the, 195 Tapestry of Jerusalem Chamber, 78 note, 395 note Taylor, Jeremy, quoted, 98 ^Taylor, Sir Robert, 292 Telford, 299 Temple Church, 113, 278, 416 note Temple, Sir William, and Family, 219 " Tenison, Archbishop, 470 Tennyson, quoted, 394 Terence plays at Westminster School, founder of, 413 ]Tliackeray, W. M., bust of, 283 Thames, the, 3 ' The King's Bench,' 50 Thieving Lane, 347 Thirlby, Bishop of Westminster, 67, 396 Thirlwall, BisJwp, 283 Thirty-nine Articles, 465 ^Thomas, Dean and Bishop, 477 * Thomas of Woodstock, 127 note, 266 note ^Thomson, James, 270 *Thorndyke, Herbert, 275 *Thorndyke, John, 275 note Thorn Ey, 7 Thorns, Isle of, 5, 7, 497 *Tlwrnton, Bonnell, 281 note Thynne, Lord John, 491 1hynne, Thomas, 216 Thynne, William, 195 Tickell, quoted, 173 ^Ticrney, 245 Tillotson, Archbishop, 275, 467 Toledo, inscription at, 490 note Tombs, Eoyal, in Westminster Abbey, peculiarities of, 97 Tombs, plan of, as they appeared in 1509, 142 Tompion, the watchmaker, 297 Torregiano, 146, 429, 513, 514 Tosti, 21 Tothill Fields, 339, 482 Tounson, Dean, 342, 343, 415 Townsend, 237 note Tower of London, 38 ; coronation pro- cessions from, 57 Transept, North, plan of, 242 Translation of the English Bible, 472 Treasury, Eoyal, 367 ; robbery of, 368 Trench, Dean, 491 Triplett, Dr., Prebendary, 273 Trussel, William, 178 ' Tu autem ' service, 366 Tudor, Owen, 141 note, 337, 352 Tumult in the Cloisters, 478 Turton, Dean, 483 Twiss, 208 note, 272, 431, 433 \Twysdcn, Lieut. Heneage, 223; John and Josiah, 223 INDEX. 539 TYB Tyburn, a strsam, 6, 338; the chief regicides buried at, 161 Tynchare, Philip, 173 Tyrconne.il, Lady, 302 ^Tyrrell, Admiral, 235, 317 note TTNCERTAIN distribution of honours, LJ 312 Ushborne and his fishpond, 383 UssJier, Archbishop, 209, 416 note, 424 VALENCE, Aymer de, 111, 121, 237 Valence, William de, 116 ' Vaste Moustier,' 360 note Vaughan, Professor, quoted, 43, 100 Vaughan, Thomas, 180 Vere, Anne, Countess of Oxford, 187 Vere, Sir Francis, 191 'fVernon, Admiral, 236 *Vertue, G., 292 Victoria, Queen, coronation of, 92 Villiers, Family, 196-201 Villiers, Sir G., 197 Vincent, Dean, 170 note, 238 note, 275 ; Bishoprick of Rochester separated from Deanery, 482 Vincent Square, 482 ' Vineyard,' the, 338 Virgin, girdle of the, 26 note, 106 note *Vitalis, Abbot, 331 Voltaire, 284 note, 293 J'f/'ADE, Marshal, monument of, 234 f Wager, 236 Wager, his character, 236 Wake, Colonel, anecdote of when at Westminster School, 439 Wake, Archbishop, 440 note, 470 Waldeby, Robert, 179 Waller, the poet, quoted, 98, 414 Walpole, Horace, quoted, 86-88, 94, 120, 167, 168, 397 note, 489 Walpole, Sir Robert, Earl of Orford, 232 1 Walpole, Lady, her statue, 232 Walter, Abbot, 331 Waltham, John of, 178 Waltham Abbey, 22 note Walton, Izaak, his monogram, 271 Ware, Abbot, 274, 326, 333 j Warren, Sir Peter, 236 Warren, Bisho2), and wife, 276 note Washington Irving, quoted, 326, 408 Watchmakers, graves of two, 297 Water supply, 339 ] Watson, Admiral, 236 WIT James, 278 ; inscription on monument, 299 note t Watts, Dr., 277, 315 Wat Tyler, 59 ; outrage of, 350 Waxwork effigies, note on, 321 Webster, 496 note Wenlock, Abbot, 333 Wentworth, Lord, funeral of, 398 Wesley, S., 462 Wesleys, the, 166, 277, 462 Wesley's Journal quoted, 304 note, 317 note Western Towers, 476 ^West, Temple, 236 Westminster, Bishop of, 67, 396 Westminster Bridge, 475 Westminster, City of, 396 note Westminster Communion, 472 Westminster Conference, temp. Mary 404 Westminster Confession, 431, 432 Westminster, or Westbury, in Worces- tershire, 386 note Westminster Palace, 20, 31, 102, 327 Weston, Dean, 399 fWetenall, 296 Wharton, Henry, 276, 315 ' Whigs' Corner,' the, 245 Whipping the monks, 373, 384 White Hart, badge of Richard II., 124 Whitewashing, the Abbey exempt from, 490 Whittington, architect of the nave, 127 Wilberforce, Dean, 328 note, 483 Wilberforce, W., 248, 316 Wikocks, Dean, 274 Wilcocks, Joseph, ' the blessed heretic,' 476 Wild, George, 210 William of Colchester, Abbot, 334, 349 ; his conspiracy, 355 William the Conqueror : coronation, 34, 37 ; buried at Caen, 102 William Rufus : coronation, 41 ; buried at Winchester, 102 William III. : coronation, 78 ; grave, 165 ; wax figure, 324 ; 500, 502 William IV., coronation, 91 Williams, Dean and Archbishop, 158, 386, 416-427, 510 note Williamson, Dr., Headmaster, 483 Williamson, Sir Joseph, 219 Willis, Dr., 294 note Wilson, Sir Robert, 240 Wine hester, Marchioness of, 185 Windsor, 14, 150 ; origin of Castle, 330 ; royal burials at, 100, 136, 137, 149 note, 149, 169 Windsor, Sir John, 179 Windsor, St. George's Chapel, 136 + Winteringham, 296 Wither, George, the poet 420 540 INDEX. WIT * Withers, General, 306 f Wolfe, General, monument of, 237, 318 Wolfstan, Bishop, 30; miracle of his crosier, 30, 42, 386 Wolsey, attacked by Skelton, 352; Legantine Court of, 377 ; reception of his Hat, 390, 392 note ; convenes the Convocation of York to London, 464 *Woodfall, Elizabeth, 307 Woodstock, Thomas of, 126 note, 266 note fWoodward, John, 295 \Woollett, William, 292 Wordsworth, Christopher, 485, 492 note, 495 note YOU t Wordsworth, William, 282 Worsley, General, 207 ; probable grave of, 518 Wragg, W., 239'nofe ' Wren, Sir Christopher, 476 ^Wyatt, James, 292 "V7EOMEN of the Guard, 62 J York Dynasty, withdrawal of burials of, to Windsor, 136 York, Edward, Duke of, 169 Yorlc, Philippa, Duchess of, 127 note York, Archbishop of, his rights, 41, 44, 351, 386 Young, Dr., 296 PRINTED BY 8POTTISWOODK AND CO., SEtt'-STREET SQUARE LOXDOX University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. 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