/
 
 
 \
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 ITS MEMORIES AND ITS MESSAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY STURGEON. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' STUDIES OF CONTEMPORARY POETS ' ETC. 
 
 WITH AD<^ ETCHED FT^O^ISPIECE 
 ^3<J) FIFTEEO^ D\^WIHGS Bl 
 
 LOUIS WEIRTER R.B.A. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 by Tumbull (^ Spears, Edinburgh
 
 PREFACE 
 
 i^' s- <s S 
 
 THE Abbey is the spiritual home of the English- 
 speaking peoples ; and this book is an attempt 
 thus to see some of its outlines. But by the 
 word ' spiritual ' is not only meant ' religious ' ; the word 
 ' home ' does not imply simply the fabric of the church ; 
 and the word ' people ' means something more than the 
 kings and other great ones with whom the Abbey is usually 
 associated. 
 
 That the actual building may be called the home of the 
 English Church (and in the Church's most significant attitude 
 of relation to the State) is too obvious to need restating. 
 Many books have been written about the Abbey in this its 
 theological and dynastic aspect ; and they usually stress either 
 history or architecture according to the bent of each individual 
 writer. The reader will naturally turn to those books for a 
 detailed historical or architectural account : this one does not 
 claim to be such a history of its subject. 
 
 But what springs to the mind more and more clearly 
 as one thinks about the Abbey and perceives its significance 
 is the amazing way it has come to represent the spirit of 
 our race in all its various activity. So that in addition to 
 Religion — that is to say, Christianity in its characteristic 
 English development — we find living here our patriotism and 
 our poetry, our statecraft and our science, our philosophy and 
 our art, our courage, adventure, and romance. . . . The list 
 is indeed too long to recount, beginning with the devotion 
 of those English workmen who built the church, and ending 
 
 V
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 with the genius of the last great Englishman who was laid 
 to rest within it. 
 
 Very varied are these spiritual qualities which have come 
 to be focused in the Abbey, and which are, in sum, the Spirit 
 of our Race. To recall them and the Great Dead in whom 
 they originated is a stimulus and an inspiration. But other 
 interest gathers about them as we watch the familiar native 
 touch upon them all, and observe that they are English not 
 only in their merits but in their defects ; and that a history 
 of our civilization, in its weakness as well as its strength, 
 might be read from these manifestations of the Spirit of a 
 Nation in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Our physical history, with its origin in the union of 
 many races, is implicit in the beginnings of Westminster. It 
 is symbolized in the very fabric itself, where all sorts of 
 foreign elements have been assimilated, and where the 
 minds and hands of several nations have co-operated in 
 labour. 
 
 In the foundations of our civil life many stones were laid 
 by the monks of this ' Monastery in the West " ; and thus 
 there enters into the national spirit a vital element drawn from 
 the Benedictine Rule. 
 
 In dynastic history the close association of the Crown 
 with the Church at Westminster is seen to take its rise in 
 two specifically English things in the royal Founders — the 
 warm affection which existed between the Confessor and his 
 people, and the deep piety of Henry III. 
 
 Our political life was almost in a literal sense cradled 
 vi
 
 PREFACE 
 
 in the Abbey ; for it was here in the Chapter House that 
 the nation first became articulate through its House of 
 Commons. 
 
 Of our artistic life as it appears in the Abbey one hardly 
 dares to speak, so unworthily have later ages dealt with their 
 inheritance. Yet though the record of that stands only too 
 plain to read as a radical national defect, in it stands also the 
 evidence that we once were an art-loving nation. Old sculpture, 
 painting, and metal-work prove it, apart from the fabric itself. 
 Happy for us that our poetic genius dwells there too, with 
 drama and music, to give assurance that some grace of art 
 still lives in this English spirit. 
 
 But there, more characteristically, is our statesmanship 
 with its aims of freedom and justice, our imperialism with 
 its ideal of equality, our science with its persistent application 
 to practical service, and our chivalry, in crusades both old 
 and new. It is not necessary to assert that these ideals were 
 ever fully realized in order to admic their grandeur; and one 
 need not be ashamed to claim, as constant elements of this 
 English spirit, certain humbler qualities. For from first to 
 last among the people who count in this spiritual history — 
 whether in the workers who piled the stones of the church, 
 or in the kingly founders ; whether in a great genius like 
 Newton, a great sailor like Blake, or a great saint like 
 Livingstone — an examination of the facts shows that integrity 
 lay at the root of character, and that industry was the constant 
 tool of greatness. 
 
 It is a subject which ought to be dealt with worthily ; and 
 
 vii
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 some day, perhaps, it may be. In the meantime, these are a 
 few imperfect sketches for the larger picture. 
 
 The materials for this book have been drawn from various 
 
 sources, many of which (apart from old chroniclers such as 
 
 Gaimar, Matthew Paris, Robert of Gloucester, Holinshed, 
 
 Fabyan, and others) are named in the Bibliography. But 
 
 I wish to acknowledge especially my debt to Professor 
 
 Lethaby for his book ; and to tender warm thanks to the 
 
 Rev. H. F. Westlake for the help generally which he has 
 
 kindly given. 
 
 MARY STURGEON 
 
 Oxford, January 1921 
 
 Vlll
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. LIGHT IN THE MIST i 
 
 II. ART IS LONG i6 
 
 III. LONG LIVE THE KING! 32 
 
 IV. A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 50 
 V. THE HOLY PLACE 69 
 
 VL "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 89 
 
 VII. THE HOME OF FREEDOM 107 
 
 VIIL THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII— I 123 
 
 IX. THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII— II 142 
 
 X. LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 160 
 
 XL THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 180 
 
 Xn. THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 204 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 221 
 
 IX
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 i'At;K 
 
 THE SOUTH AMBULATORY Frontispiece 
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 8 
 
 THE UNDERCROFT i8 
 
 "VI VAT REX!" 40 
 
 MEDITATION 52 
 
 SOLITUDE 56 
 
 THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER 64 
 
 THE HOLY PLACE ^2 
 
 "TE DEUM LAUDAMUS!" 96 
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM , 112 
 
 THE CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 126 
 
 THE TOMB OF HENRY VII 152 
 
 THE VIGIL 168 
 
 "MORS lANUA VIT^" 176 
 
 THE CHOIR SCREEN 184 
 
 POETS' CORNER 208 
 
 V 
 
 XI
 
 CHAPTER I : Light in the Mist 
 
 THROUGH the enchantment of a London night the 
 Abbey gleams like a lantern. Its great mass rises 
 darkly beyond the symphony of blue and silver which 
 fills the streets below it. Shadowy but majestic, mysterious 
 yet immensely convincing, it looms over the surprising loveli- 
 ness of the scene as Eternity above the little clamour of Time. 
 The misty, atmospheric blues of nocturnal London halo the 
 lamps and fill the intervening spaces with ethereal colour 
 and deepen overhead to indigo. The wet paving of path and 
 road, gleaming like faery gold, reflects the quick lights of 
 passing carriages in shining procession. All down there 
 is bright, moving, changeful ; and behind the Abbey rears its 
 silent and, but for the lighted window, almost unseen form, 
 quietly opposing a sense of infinity to the transience flowing 
 round its feet. 
 
 The light of its window is not so clear as the lights in the 
 street. It does not penetrate so far, nor shine so steadily on 
 daunting corners, nor search so inquisitively the faces of the 
 passers-by. It is an older light than they, and of a different 
 order from their cold, rational, inquiring rays. Filtered through 
 colour soft and warm, it is like the glow of a home fire waiting 
 there at the end of the road to welcome the children back from 
 their journeying. 
 
 The traveller may go far away, in distance or in thought. 
 He may roam the world of seas and continents or adventure a 
 more difficult universe of ideas. He may find brighter lights 
 to illumine eye and mind ; and he may think that he has done 
 
 A I
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 for ever with the misty region to which the Abbey and all it 
 means belong — symbolized by that foggy island and the spot on 
 Thames-bank which is its heart. But he will come back, if not 
 in his very body to the Abbey walls, yet in his soul, winging 
 to the home-light of that window and the Beauty which is 
 Truth. 
 
 The Abbey was born in light. Absolutely the first human 
 name that is associated with it, eighteen hundred years ago, is 
 Lucius. Put back into its original Celtic, Lucius is Lleuer Mawr ; 
 and translated thence into modern English, it means Great Light. 
 So that, peering back through the mist of centuries, one sees 
 the Abbey from the beginning as light in a dark place. Four 
 hundred years later the sign appears again, when St Peter 
 descended one wild night to consecrate the church he loved, and 
 filled it with a radiance that shone along the river and dazzled 
 the eyes of the solitary fisherman watching from the shore. 
 And so on from century to century, passing from the fitful 
 gleams of legend to the full glory of the age when Religion 
 was Art and when men builded for love of God and of Beauty, 
 with infinite patient labour, the lovely fabric as it stands. Always 
 a light in a dark place ; and never brighter than when, fostering 
 the new knowledge which was coming like another dawn, it 
 sheltered Caxton and his printing press within its precincts, was 
 mutilated and purged of errors by a harsh King, and welcoming 
 poets and philosophers and men of science, it drew into itself 
 the light which was to threaten its older truth. 
 
 One sees how and why the idea of light should have come 
 to be associated with the Abbey and have grown into its very 
 
 2
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 history. Poor benighted creatures that we islanders are, from 
 the very physiography of our land light is what we crave for 
 most and rejoice in most when it rarely and fitfully comes. 
 True, those distant ancestors did not know our last horror of 
 black London fog, penalty of our sin of coal-burning. But the 
 sun must have been always a perfunctory and feeble visitor to 
 these lands ; and at Westminster especially, the fenlands of 
 those early times must often have been dark with mist and 
 dreary with rain. 
 
 The site of the Abbey was a rough, wild place. They call 
 it ' Thorny Island ' in the old records ; and the words have the 
 refreshing aptitude of so many ancient place-names. For with 
 the river on the east, streams flowing round the south and west, 
 and a marshy creek where is now the lake in St James's Park, 
 the place was virtually an island. It was, too, overgrown with 
 thickets of thorn and bramble ; and these were infested, if we 
 may judge by the bones of beasts which have been dug up at 
 several points in Westminster, by the wild ox, the elk, and the 
 red deer. There seems no doubt that the locality richly deserved 
 the description given of it in King Offa's charter of a.d. 785 
 of "the terrible place." 
 
 But Thorny Island, despite its terror, had other significance 
 and importance in that England of the Roman occupation. 
 The little town of Londinium lay a couple of miles to the north- 
 east. But London Bridge was not yet ; and there was a ford 
 across the river at this point. Thus the island was linked up 
 with the world and the great civilizing power of it by the 
 route which led through Kent to the sea and eventually to 
 
 3
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Rome. Travellers along the Roman road halted here ; and it 
 is easy to credit the tradition that there had been erected at 
 or near the present position of the Abbey a Roman temple of 
 Apollo. 
 
 From some of the stories it appears that the temple was in 
 existence before a.d. 154. Others indicate that it was built 
 much later. But whatever its date, one wants to believe that it 
 did exist. It fits so beautifully, this thought of the Sun-god in 
 Thorny Island, with our vision of light in the mist. Perhaps 
 it fits too well. Yet, groping in the remote past, even legend 
 and tradition are illuminating ; and for the beginnings of West- 
 minster they are all we have. 
 
 When, in the early days of the nineteenth century, the 
 first full history of the Abbey was compiled, the author sternly 
 rejected the legendary material. That is just what he would 
 do, of course, belonging as he did to that rational eighteenth 
 century. Besides, he was a hundred years nearer than we 
 are to those old rogues the monks who, it is said, either 
 invented the stories out of hand or miraculously made them 
 grow from a seedling — hint of a word here and a word there. 
 Sir Christopher Wren too, who was architect to the Abbey in 
 his day (and who was nearer still to the monks), scouted the 
 idea of a Roman temple here. But distance lends enchantment 
 to things other and more abstract than Nature ; and our remote- 
 ness in time gives a kindlier colour to our view of monkish fraud. 
 We do not want to spurn those old legends. With a less intimate 
 feeling on the question, one simply cannot evoke a proper rage 
 against the lively inventions by which the brothers of the West 
 4
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 Monastery tried to beat their competitors of the East Monastery 
 at St Paul's. We rejoice in them rather, secretly grateful to 
 the monks for what an austere historian calls the lies that 
 they inscribed in their parchment rolls. Lies, indeed I The 
 imaginative truth which enshrined Apollo, God of Light and 
 of Poetry, as the sovereign deity of the most sacred spot of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race was the inspiration of genius. 
 
 It is poetically right, too, that when the temple of Apollo 
 was destroyed by an earthquake in a.d. 154, it was Lucius of 
 the Great Light who built the first Christian church upon its 
 ruins. The whole legend of Lucius is fascinating. He is said 
 to have been the first Christian king in these islands ; and to 
 have built his little wooden church on the temple site about 
 A.D. 178. Other English churches claim him as their founder, 
 and it is a busy and a wealthy man he must have been if he 
 was concerned in them all. But his fame is not confined to 
 England ; for he put off his British crown in order to go as a 
 missionary, with his sister Emerita, to East Switzerland. In 
 the cathedral of Coire in the Grisons, where he was the first 
 bishop, there is preserved a shrine containing relics of Lucius 
 and Emerita, and his name lingers in the pass called after him 
 the Luciensteig. On the mountain-side above the town of 
 Coire there is still pointed out a rocky ledge from which he used 
 to preach, in a voice so clear that people could hear it twelve 
 miles away, on the pass that they afterward named after him. 
 He was martyred at the castle of Martiola in a.d. 201, and 
 though it is little we know in England of our Lucius, there is 
 a sixteenth-century fresco painting of him in a village of the 
 
 5
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Grisons, which has been reproduced by Mr Troutbeck in his 
 Founders of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Legend apart, it is impossible to say whether the church 
 of that period was built by Lucius. But a church certainly 
 existed close to the present site, for the builders of more recent 
 times have discovered portions of a Roman wall and of Roman 
 flooring underneath the nave. Roman bricks were built into 
 the walls of the Jerusalem Chamber by Abbot Litlington, and 
 the sarcophagus of Valerius Amandrinus was discovered in 1869 
 under the north green of the Abbey. This solid vestige of 
 the original Roman building may now be seen in the entrance 
 to the Chapter House. 
 
 But we are still in the region of mist ; and that first point 
 of light passed, there is not another gleam for more than four 
 centuries. Then we reach an historical name — Sebert ; and 
 a date — a.d. 616. 
 
 Near the high altar of the Abbey, in the south ambulatory 
 behind the sedilia {i.e. the seats of the clergy to the right of the 
 altar), that name and date will be found upon a tomb. They 
 represent the first record of any certainty that we possess 
 concerning the foundation of the Abbey ; and the tomb, though 
 it is not of course the original resting-place of Sebert and his 
 queen, and though its beauty is humble under its low arch, 
 ranks first among the proud tombs of kingly founders. 
 
 There is indeed one quiet story which claims for a 
 London citizen named Sebert the honour of having founded the 
 Benedictine Monastery here. It is attractive ; but the modest 
 voice is silenced by the clamorous tradition that that Sebert 
 6
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 and his wife who were buried near the altar of the church they 
 built were Sebert King of Essex and Ethelgoda his queen. 
 The Venerable Bede tells that Sebert was converted to 
 Christianity by St Augustine. Stow says, giving of course the 
 accepted story of his time : " This Monasterie was founded and 
 builded by Sebert King of the East Saxons upon the persuasion 
 of Ethelbert King of Kent." And this version would appear to 
 be confirmed by the fact that when in 1308 the tomb was 
 removed for the third and last time, the leaden coffins were 
 opened and "A part of Sebert's royal robes was found, and 
 his thumb ring, in which was set a ruby of great value." 
 The tomb was always regarded as the founder's, and was for 
 that reason carefully guarded at successive rebuildings. 
 
 It is in connexion with Sebert's church that we find the 
 legend of the consecration by St Peter himself which is 
 repeated so many times by the monkish historians. Sebert 
 had dedicated this his Monastery in the West to St Peter ; 
 and the rite of consecration was to be performed by Mellitus, 
 the Bishop of London. As the time for the ceremony drew 
 near, people gathered from afar to witness it ; and they pitched 
 their tents at a little distance from the Abbey, on the drier 
 ground beyond the marsh. 
 
 On the eve of the expected day — it was Sunday night and 
 dark weather — a fisherman named Edric was fixing his nets 
 by the shore of Thorny Island when he saw a bright light 
 appear on the other side of the river. He rowed toward the 
 light, and found awaiting him an old man of strange dress 
 and commanding aspect, who asked to be ferried to the opposite 
 
 7
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 shore. Edric took him into the boat, rowed him across, and 
 landed him. The mysterious stranger struck the ground where 
 he stood twice with his staff, and two springs of water gushed 
 out. Then, telling Edric to wait there for him, he walked 
 away into the darkness, going in the direction of the new 
 monastery. Immediately afterward an unearthly radiance 
 shone all round about, in which the astonished fisherman saw 
 the church stand out in clear bright light. Angels descended 
 from heaven upon it, carrying lighted candles ; and others 
 again, swinging censers that filled the air with sweet scent. 
 Edric watched, awestruck, while the whole intricate ceremony 
 of consecration was performed and the stranger returned to 
 him. Then, to a request for food, he confessed that he had 
 caught nothing : he had been too amazed and terrified. The 
 Apostle gently revealed himself: "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 consecrated my church of St Peter, Westminster, and 
 have anticipated the Bishop of London. For yourself, go out 
 into the river : you will catch a plentiful supply of fish, whereof 
 the greater 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 
 Westminster." Then the Apostle was withdrawn into heaven ; 
 and Edric, proceeding to his fishing, was rewarded with the 
 great promised draught. 
 
 The next day, when Mellitus was preparing the holy oil 
 for the consecration, Edric came to him carrying a present of 
 8
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 salmon, and related what he had seen. They entered the church 
 together, and Mellitus saw the indubitable marks of consecra- 
 tion — the symbolic letters upon the pavement, the walls 
 anointed, and the remains of the candles that the angels had 
 used. 
 
 A poet of the thirteenth century, writing the story of 
 Edward the Confessor for Alianore, riche Reine d'Engletere, 
 wove this incident into it. So, to the astonishment of Mellitus : 
 
 The church he sees sprinkled, 
 
 And marked with twelve crosses ; 
 
 Within, without, the walls moistened. 
 
 Sprinkled with holy water, 
 
 And the alphabet on the pavement, 
 
 Written distinctly twice, 
 
 And the marks of the oil, 
 
 And chief of the miracles, 
 
 The remains of the candles. 
 
 Convinced and rejoicing, the Bishop called in the waiting 
 people and celebrated the Mass. From this time forth the 
 place was called, not Thorny Island, but the West Monastery ; 
 and until the end of the fourteenth century the Thames fisher- 
 men paid a tithe of the fish they caught to the Abbey. And 
 the Abbot defended his right at law. 
 
 Matthew Arnold, in his elegy for Dean Stanley, made a 
 beautiful rendering of this the central legend of the Abbey : 
 
 Rough was the winter eve ; 
 
 Their craft the fishers leave, 
 And down over the Thames the darkness drew. 
 
 One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the Pile 
 
 Huge in the gloom, across in Thorny Isle, 
 King Scbert's work, the wondrous Minster new.
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 'Tis Lambeth now, where then 
 They moored their boats among the bulrush stems ; 
 
 And that new Minster in the matted fen 
 The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames. 
 
 His mates are gone, and he 
 
 For mist can scarcely see 
 A strange wayfarer coming to his side ; 
 
 Who bade him loose his boat and fix his oar, 
 
 And row him straightway to the further shore. 
 And wait while he did there a space abide. 
 
 The fisher awed obeys, 
 That voice had note so clear of sweet command ; 
 
 Through pouring tide he pulls and drizzling haze, 
 And sets his freight ashore on Thorny strand. 
 
 The Minster's outlined mass 
 
 Rose dim from the morass. 
 And thitherward the stranger took his way. 
 
 Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright. 
 
 Nave, choir and transept glorified with light. 
 While tongues of fire on coign and carving play ! 
 
 And heavenly odours fair 
 Come streaming with the floods of glory in. 
 
 And carols float along the happy air 
 As if the reign of joy did now begin. 
 
 Then all again is dark ; 
 
 And by the fisher's bark 
 The unknown passenger returning stands. 
 
 O Saxon fisher I Thou hast had with thee 
 
 The fisher from the Lake of Galilee. 
 So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands ; 
 
 Then fades, but speaks the while : 
 At dawn thou to King Sebert shall relate 
 
 How his St Peter's church in Thorny Isle 
 Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate. 
 
 lO
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 A tapestry picture of Sebert hangs above his tomb, over 
 the four panels of the sedilia where he was originally painted 
 in company with his patron saint Peter, Edward the Confessor, 
 and St John. It docs not claim to be a portrait, of course, 
 since the original, whose vanishing outlines were last seen in 
 the eighteenth century, could not itself have been painted 
 earlier than the thirteenth. But the artist of that time, who 
 probably belonged to the school of painters which Henry III 
 had gathered at Westminster, was no doubt familiaf with the 
 traditional aspect of the first founder ; and it is with tradition 
 that we are still concerned : we are not even yet on the clear 
 ground of history. 
 
 A dark interval supervened after Sebert's death in 6i6, 
 when his three wild sons quarrelled with the Bishop of London 
 because he refused them the sacramental bread at the 
 communion service in St Paul's ; and finally departed from 
 Christianity. There was now no royal hand to protect the 
 little monastery from the pagan Saxons, and no one knows 
 certainly what happened to it in the three centuries which 
 followed. Save for the fragmentary evidence of two charters, 
 its authentic history is a blank : something worse than mist 
 had settled down upon it. 
 
 But the monkish historians of a later age were not to 
 be daunted by a mere fact like that ; and he of Westminster 
 named Sporley rose to the occasion with something more than 
 heroic stature. Widmore says that Sporley invented a complete 
 succession of persons who are said to have presided over the 
 monastery during this space ; and so as to do the thing really 
 
 n
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 well, he carefully distinguished " which of them were provosts 
 and priors and which abbots ; and farther to note the precise 
 time of each person's presiding here, as likewise in what year, 
 and even on what day of the month many of them died," That 
 was very thoughtful of Sporley, for by this means we come into 
 possession of picturesque incidents that we could not possibly 
 have invented for ourselves. There is, for example, the little 
 sketch of the Abbot Ordbright presenting to Offa, the powerful 
 King of Mercia, a fine gold bracelet. Astute old man, fore- 
 runner of all the courtier abbots and deans who since his time 
 have wooed their kingly masters ! He gained a friend for his 
 neglected and decayed monastery, as well as " ten ploughlands 
 at Aldenham in Hertfordshire." Offa is said to have restored 
 and enlarged the church, to have " collected a parcel of monks " 
 here; and even — too significant and prophetic act — to have 
 deposited in the Abbey out of reverence for St Peter the 
 coronation robes and regalia. 
 
 For the period of Offa, however, there is one bit of real 
 evidence — his charter of 785 — among the existing records at the 
 Abbey. This charter grants from himself the ten ploughlands 
 that we have already noted ; and confirms to the possession of 
 the Abbey certain other property at Staines, Teddington, and 
 elsewhere, together with " three hides and a half of land about 
 the monastery " which had been already given to it by Sebert. 
 
 The church must have suffered heavily from the incursions 
 of the Danes after Offa's death ; and especially when, in 852, a 
 great fleet of their vessels sailed up the Thames and laid waste 
 London. We are told that " the buildings were reduced to a 
 12
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 mean and low condition " ; and we can readily believe it. We 
 even suspect that they must have remained in that condition ; 
 but no, they revive miraculously with the advent of Alfred. 
 For our first sailor-king, after defeating the Danes in their 
 garrison at London, not only " honourably rebuilt the city and 
 made it habitable," but restored to the monks their chartered 
 lands, and even augmented them. 
 
 So these legendary fortunes of the Abbey recurrently rise 
 and fall, in automatic correspondence with the date of a famous 
 king and a subsequent relapse into obscurity. Thus after 
 Alfred the Abbey fell on evil days, to be again restored, this 
 time by Edgar. Here indeed is the second bit of historical fact 
 in the long interval, the Charter of Edgar dated 960, which 
 remains in the archives at Westminster. The monkish 
 historians took care to make the most of it. We hear much of 
 Edgar's munificence, prevailed on (it is a notable point) by his 
 great Archbishop Dunstan. We are told how he repaired the 
 buildings "and brought hither twelve monks of the Benedictine 
 Order " and gave to the foundation certain valuable estates, as 
 well as presents of gold. Dunstan, too, gave gifts of money 
 and land, and did himself, so one record asserts, preside over 
 the restored monastery. 
 
 But once more a destroying tide of Danes swept over the 
 church, when in the time of Ethelred the Unready we find that 
 it was "miserably havocked." Needless to say, however, it 
 found a friend again in the next great royal figure of our 
 history. Canute, last of the legendary benefactors in this 
 astonishingly perfect list, showed great favour to the monastery. 
 
 13
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 He made a friend of Wulnoth, its Abbot, whose name is care- 
 fully linked with Canute as Dunstan was with Edgar, and 
 Ordbright with Offa. (It might be necessary to prove to in- 
 different monarchs in future that the Monastery in the West 
 had always been the peculiar care of the Crown.) So, in the 
 case of Canute and Wulnoth, we are told that the King " came 
 frequently to visit him, and consulted him on all his affairs, 
 allowing him the utmost freedom and familiarity of speech, for 
 he was a man of singular sincerity." The compliment that the 
 anecdote intends for Wulnoth falls to the noble Dane, so we are 
 the more grateful for it. But when we are summing up our 
 thanks to Sporley for his Active history, let us not forget the 
 last and brightest gem. " On account of Wulnoth," he says, 
 " the King willingly gave many holy relics " ; and these 
 consisted of ait arm of St Ovias, some remains of St Edward 
 the King and martyr, a finger of St Alphege, and a finger and 
 some bones of St Gregory. Priceless collection ! 
 
 So we leave this misty region, shot as it is with brightly 
 coloured gleams, enjoying such astounding prosperity under 
 favour of Canute. It is a good name to end on ; and if, as is 
 quite possible, his famous rebuke to the courtiers was given 
 before the rising tide on Thorny strand, it was the augur of 
 another and a clearer light for the Minster in the West. 
 
 Maistre Geffrei Gaimar, in his Estorie des Engles, tells the 
 story thus : 
 
 The tide flowed near the church, 
 Which was called Westminster. 
 The King, on foot, stopped 
 On the bank, on the sand. 
 
 14
 
 LIGHT IN THE MIST 
 
 The tide rose quickly, 
 
 It approached fast, it came near the King. 
 
 Cnut in his hand held his staff. 
 
 He said to the tide, " Turn back, 
 
 Flee from before me, lest I strike thee." 
 
 The sea did not go back a step for him ; 
 
 And more and more the tide rose. 
 
 Hear what he said, his folk listening : 
 " Him Who makes the sea rise. 
 Men ought truly to believe and worship 
 He is a good King, I am a poor one. 
 I am a mortal man, but He is living ; 
 His command makes everything. 
 Him I pray to be my Guard." 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTER II : Art is Long 
 
 THERE is not visible in the Abbey a single fragment 
 of the Norman church built by Edward the Confessor. 
 It has vanished utterly. 
 Glancing casually at that fact, one may not be surprised at 
 it. In nine hundred years, we think, any building made with 
 hands might decay and disappear. So we accept unquestioningly 
 (we average English of the incurious and rather indolent type of 
 mind) the complete absence of Norman work within the Abbey. 
 When, however, we go and look at what remains of the old 
 monastic buildings of Edward's time : when we are told that 
 there are beneath the floor of the presbytery three bases of piers 
 which once supported the choir of the ancient church, we begin 
 to wonder. And in presence of the immense solidity and 
 strength of those remains, we break from astonishment to 
 question, and from question to wrath. "Why," we demand, 
 " if the whole church was built by Edward after the manner of 
 these fragments, strong enough to last till the day of doom, 
 why is there nothing remaining of it ? " And the answer, that 
 Henry III pulled it down in order to build a finer one in its 
 place, hardly subdues our anger until we hear that he did it 
 out of love and reverence for Edward. Then we smile at 
 incorrigible human nature, and our indignation vanishes. 
 
 We muse a little on the queer ways that humans have of 
 expressing their love ; and upon the influence that that particular 
 absurdity has had on the history of the Abbey. We remember 
 that to make room for the nave of Edward's building a good 
 Saxon church was pulled down — out of love for St Peter ; and 
 i6
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 that when Henry III had retaliated by demolishing practically 
 the whole of Edward's vast work (to the honour of Edward), 
 Henry VII in due time did away with the old Lady Chapel in 
 order to build (for the love of Henry VI) the chapel which is 
 called by his name. What Henry VIII destroyed (for the love 
 of truth) is only too well known and will not bear repeating ; 
 but what restoring deans and architects have shorn away, for 
 the love of God knows what, only they could tell. Yet kings, 
 architects, and deans were not the only culprits. Rich ignorance 
 and poor arrogance and blind ambition all played their part, 
 calling to their aid artists who were not known of Art. And in 
 the ruck of miscellaneous ugliness that we call the monuments 
 of our Abbey, there is probably not one which, defacing the 
 gracious original beauty, did not do so in the name of love. 
 
 The converse of that thought is of course the more familiar 
 aspect of the truth ; and save for the horror of the monuments, 
 it is arguable that each new step thus taken on the prostrate 
 body of a dead age was an advance toward perfection. Yet the 
 reflection is not altogether perverse, and we do feel a certain 
 regret as we stand before the imperishable fragments of Edward's 
 building, and recall other existing Norman churches in England, 
 of which it was the prototype, and which it might have out- 
 lasted. 
 
 The Norman remains are, indeed, more than fragments. 
 If we step out of the south aisle into the cloisters and go round 
 to the south-east corner and into the Dark Cloister, we find our- 
 selves under an arch and between massive walls of Norman 
 structure. They were probably built soon after Edward's church 
 
 B 17
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 was finished in 1066, and they belong to the substructure of his 
 monastery. The dormitory used by the monks, and now a part 
 of Westminster School, runs over it. 
 
 Or, just before passing into the Dark Cloister, if we turn 
 into a little door on the left, we shall find ourselves in the ancient 
 Abbey treasury, called the Chapel of the Pyx. This is the 
 earliest remaining bit of the Confessor's monastic buildings. 
 Here one may note the groined vaulting, the huge round pillars 
 with capitals of early Norman design and later Norman decora- 
 tion : the widely splayed windows revealing walls of immense 
 thickness ; and the ancient tiles which floor the chapel. We 
 observe also the columnar piscina of the thirteenth century ; and 
 the stone altar with a circular depression in the top where relics 
 were placed for safe-keeping, closed down by another stone 
 sunken into it. 
 
 Again returning to the Dark Cloister and entering another 
 door farther down on the left, we shall find ourselves in the 
 Norman Undercroft, now used as a museum of Abbey antiquities. 
 This is by far the most impressive bit of the ancient work, with 
 its great pillars, its vast round arches, and its thick walls — the 
 whole massive and unadorned save for rudimentary attempts at 
 carving on one or two pillars and the remains of early painting 
 on some of the arches. The total effect is one of grandeur 
 and dignity and indestructible strength. One has an almost 
 oppressive sense of permanence : it seems that this must endure, 
 unchanging, for ever. 
 
 Ars longa, indeed, save when man the iconoclast comes 
 along with his hammer. And to reconstruct in imagination the 
 18
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 Confessor's church we have now to go to another form of art, 
 literature : the form which, quietest and subtlest of them all, is 
 perhaps the most enduring. There is a fascinating poem of the 
 thirteenth century entitled La Estoire de Seint Aidward le Rei ; 
 and it is dedicated to Alianore, riche Reme dEngletere, i.e. 
 Eleanor of Provence, Queen of Henry III. From that poem 
 one gets a view not only of Edward's church, but of his life and 
 Court ; and of the halo of sanctity through which after ages 
 regarded him. 
 
 The poem is in old French, but a translation, and certain 
 data about it are published in the Rolls Series. Its date is 
 about 1245, and its author was probably an ecclesiastic of West- 
 minster. It is quite frankly a re-handling and translation of 
 older material written down in Latin ; but that material can only 
 be described as historical while remembering certain things, viz., 
 that it was first recorded by a poet, that that poet was a courtier, 
 that his successor of La Estoire was a monk, that this monk 
 was writing for a great queen, and that the subject on which he 
 was engaged was the life of the founder of his own monastery. 
 
 It is a concatenation which promises much — in generous 
 fancy and rich imagination and suave gloss ; but he who is so 
 misguided as to require fact of such a history must not look here. 
 For us, we will thank our stars that we have found a graceful 
 and lively poem ; and accepting joyfully its naive lying, we shall 
 yet believe that we can see in it some faint reflection, haloed and 
 magnified of course, of that Edward who was called Confessor 
 because he was "a martyr without blood-letting"; of him whom 
 we delight to call the last of our Saxon kings — though he was 
 
 19
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 half Norman by blood and wholly Norman in nurture and 
 sympathy. 
 
 So we glance at the poem ; and the first thing we find is a 
 delicious bit of flattery. Remember again that our poet is 
 writing for a Queen, for her who was wife to that King who 
 lavished on the Abbey the vast sums that he had wrung out of 
 his people, in a manner that we shall see hereafter. Then mark 
 the opening lines to the glory of the kings of England : 
 
 In the world there is not, 
 
 (Well I dare say it to you), 
 
 Country, realm, or empire. 
 
 Where have been so many kings good 
 
 And holy, as in the island of England, 
 
 Who after their earthly reign 
 
 Now reign kings in heaven, 
 
 Saints, martyrs, and confessors, 
 
 Of whom many for God died. 
 
 Perhaps we had not realized how many holy monarchs we 
 had been blessed with in these islands ; or perhaps (I do but 
 whisper it) the poet might not have put the case to us quite in 
 that form. But well might he put it so to Alianore, riche 
 Reine of Henry III ; and to her also it would be comfortable to 
 know that her husband's ancestor Edward was anointed King 
 by no less a person than St Peter himself. From that, too, 
 naturally follows Edward's vow ; and his vow, made while he 
 was an exiled youth in Normandy, was the seed from which his 
 Abbey sprang. 
 
 Sire St Peter . . . 
 
 To thy service I entirely give myself up. 
 
 And well I vow to you and promise you, 
 
 20
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 When I shall be of strength and age, 
 To Rome I will make my pilgrimage. 
 
 Immediately upon the making of this vow, a messenger 
 conveniently arrives from England to announce that Edward 
 has been elected King ; and soon after there follow descriptions 
 of him at his Court in London. We know that he was of very 
 singular appearance, with his albino fairness, light eyes, red 
 cheeks, flowing hair and beard, almost white ; and his long, 
 delicate hands. He must have impressed very strongly the 
 imagination of his time, for there are numerous picturesque 
 stories about him, up and down the old records. And while 
 they are, for the most part, of the ' George Washington ' type, 
 stressing his undoubted piety of nature, there are one or two 
 which are refreshingly of another kind. That one, for example, 
 which tells how he cursed the peasant who one day spoiled his 
 hunting — " By God and His Mother, I will pay you out for this ! " 
 — may very well stand beside the other in which, seeing an 
 ugly little demon sitting upon the sacks of tax-money, Edward 
 promptly took it for a sign, and abolished the Danegelt. And 
 the one in which the fierce Godwin falls dead at the banquet ; 
 and the King, suddenly betrayed by his long-suppressed hatred 
 of that murderous earl, cries : " Remove me this foul dog ! " 
 might rank with another about a thief. One feels that story, 
 indeed, to be full of character ; and it is convincingly circum- 
 stantial. One day when the King was supposed to be sleeping, 
 a servant entered and helped himself to cash from the treasury 
 box. He was of the lowlier sort, and very poor : so the 
 King made no movement, but quietly watched while the man 
 
 21
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 filled his pockets, went away, and returned for more. At his 
 third entry, however, even Edward's complaisance reached a 
 limit. " Be off with you ! " he cried ; " and think yourself lucky 
 the chamberlain did not catch you, for he wouldn't have left you 
 a sou." No sooner had the man decamped than the chamberlain 
 returned and discovered the theft. He was of course in a great 
 rage and could hardly hide his very unflattering opinion of the 
 King's behaviour. Why had he not caught the man ? Why 
 did he not make him give up the money ? But Edward would 
 only answer : 
 
 Hugelin, no, 
 It was a poor needy one, 
 He has more want of it than we ; 
 Enough treasure has King Edward. 
 
 There is much testimony to that particular aspect of the 
 Confessor's character ; and one thinks that it cannot all have 
 been invented, even by courtiers anxious to flatter, or monks 
 delighted with what the chroniclers call the King's chastity. 
 His manners, too, softened by his upbringing among a more 
 civilized race, charmed every one : 
 
 Each one who sees King Edward 
 Is more courteous when he leaves him ; 
 Each one receives there, each one learns 
 Moderation, sense, and good manners. 
 
 His Court was of courtesy 
 The school and of accomplishments ; 
 Nor was there since the time of Arthur 
 A king who had such honour : 
 
 Who clothed the naked poor, 
 
 Who but Edward the holy, the gentle ? 
 
 22
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 Who fed the hungry 
 
 But Edward the glorious ? 
 
 Nor ought I pass over nor to be silent 
 How gentle and debonair he was ; 
 By a history I will prove it, 
 Which prevents one from forgetting. 
 
 The temptation to repeat those histories, " which prevent 
 one from forgetting," is almost too great. They are truly un- 
 forgettable, though whether they are * histories ' may be judged 
 by their bare enumeration. There is Michael the Irish cripple, 
 horribly twisted and contorted, whom the King carries on his 
 back into the Abbey, and who is immediately made whole : 
 
 And that people may have remembrance of it, 
 He hangs up there on the wall his stool. 
 
 There is the scrofulous woman who, though she is young 
 and beautiful, is foul and rotting with disease. Yet she is cured 
 at the touch of Edward's long fingers. And there are no less 
 than seven blind men who receive their sight from the water in 
 which the King had washed those miraculous hands. 
 
 Again there is the legend of St John, in the guise of a 
 beggar, receiving as alms from the Confessor a much-prized ring ; 
 and sending it back to him years after, by two English pilgrims 
 lost in the Holy Land. And there are the King's visions, some- 
 times when he was surrounded by his Court, sometimes at the 
 Mass, sometimes at table ; when he would fall into a trance and 
 laugh strangely, and waken to prophesy. Of these the most 
 portentous was the Vision of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, 
 whom Edward saw turn over in their sleep, and knew it for an 
 
 23
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 evil augury to England. But the most touching and syn:ibolic 
 is that in which Christ appeared to him in the Mass as a 
 beautiful child. One likes to think of the child-like Edward 
 seeing a vision of his Master as a little child ; and that, too, 
 when Godiva, of heroic and lovely memory, was worshipping 
 beside him. It is one of those stories which, whether fact 
 or not, is ideally and perfectly right; and when the absurd 
 old historian follows fussily to give us proofs of it, not even 
 our shout of laughter at his comical box which sprang open 
 one day of its own accord can spoil the beauty of the symbol. 
 
 But we must return to Edward's vow, because on that rests 
 our Abbey. How was he, the devout son of Holy Church, to 
 get over the difficulty that now presented itself to him ? For 
 his people, in due assembly met together, refused to allow him 
 to risk the dangers of a journey to Rome. However, if one 
 is a king, one may hope for a way out, even from a difficulty 
 with Holy Church : though to be sure it will cost a good deal. 
 And the price in this case was to be the rebuilding of the 
 Monastery in the West. 
 
 Certain bishops had been sent to Rome with a letter from 
 Edward to Pope Leo IX, to beg for release from his vow ; 
 and the Pope gave dispensation on condition 
 
 That an Abbey which is destroyed 
 He restore, or build one entirely, 
 To the praise and glory of God, 
 And to the memory of St Peter. 
 
 So far so good ; but the answer did not specify which Abbey 
 must be restored. Here was another difficulty ; yet even a 
 24
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 question like that is not insoluble, if one is well provided 
 with hermits and others whose business it is to see convenient 
 visions. And the eleventh century did not lack for those helpful 
 functionaries. So at the critical moment one of them had a 
 visit from St Peter, who gave him these most explicit directions, 
 which he in turn conveyed to the King : 
 
 At London is the spot marked out, 
 Two leagues from the city, 
 Thorny, where is a church 
 Ancient and situated low. 
 
 Here at last we return to the little ruined Abbey which we 
 have lost sight of since we saw it flourishing so bravely (by favour 
 of Sporley) under Canute. That a monastic house of some kind 
 still remained here seems certain, and the existence of the Saxon 
 church on the spot can indeed be traced back to at least 
 A.D. 750. But whether it was so prosperous in the comparatively 
 recent time of Canute is very doubtful. Stow has a charming 
 passage describing it that he quotes from a certain T. Clifford ; 
 but it appears to be a translation of some lines on page 23 
 of the Harleian MS. Life of Edward : 
 
 Without the walles of London uppon the River of Thames, there was 
 in times passed a little Monasterie, builded to the honor of God, and 
 St Peter, with a few Benedict Monkes in it, under an Abbotte servinsf 
 Christ : very poore they were, and little was given them for their reliefe, 
 here the King intended (for that it was neere to the famous citie of 
 London and the River of Thames, that brought in all kind of Marchan- 
 dizes from all partes of the worlde) to make his Sepulcher, he commanded 
 therefore that of the tenthes of all his rentes, the worke should be begunne 
 in such sort as should become the Prince of the Apostles. 
 
 25
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 That Edward certainly made a worthy offering to his patron 
 saint is evident from the massive remains of it, mentioned above, 
 that may still be seen. But there is other testimony to it. 
 A representation of the church was worked into the Bayeux 
 tapestry ; and a contemporary account of it, written earlier than 
 1074, describes the building as the writer saw it. In addition to 
 which there is the poetical description of it by the author 
 of La Estoire de Seint Aidward which we shall presently 
 see. 
 
 The church was begun in 1055 ; and its design is ascribed 
 to various models — to Saint-Martin at Tours, to Jumieges, and 
 to Saint-Trinitd, Caen. There was nothing like it before in this 
 country ; and whatever its model, it is clear that it was built 
 in that Romanesque style which, in its English adaptation, 
 we call Norman. Yet, even as it was so important an event 
 in English architecture, so it was a great advance upon the 
 churches in Normandy which must have given Edward its 
 general design. 
 
 We have seen that Edward appropriated one-tenth of his 
 revenues to the reconstruction of the Abbey ; and as one comes 
 to realize the plan of his work, its vast extent, massive con- 
 struction, and comprehensive character, one does not wonder 
 at its great cost. The account of it in La Estoire gives the 
 clearest idea of the complete work, as it was seen by the 
 writer of the poem about 1 245 : 
 
 Now he laid the foundations of the church 
 With large square blocks of grey stone ; 
 Its foundations are deep, 
 The front towards the east he makes round, 
 
 26
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 The stones are ver)' strong and hard, 
 
 In the centre rises a tower, 
 
 And two at the western front, 
 
 And fine and large bells he hangs there, 
 
 The pillars and entablature 
 
 And rich without and within, 
 
 At the bases and capitals, 
 
 The work rises grand and royal, 
 
 Sculptured are the stones 
 
 And storied the windows. 
 
 All are made witli the skill 
 
 Of a good and loyal workmanship ; 
 
 And when he finished the work, 
 
 With lead the church completely he covers, 
 
 He makes there a cloister, a chapter-house in front, 
 
 Towards the east, vaulted and round. 
 
 Where his ordained ministers 
 
 May hold their secret chapter ; 
 
 Refectory and dormitory. 
 
 And the ofl'ices in the tower. 
 
 All that vast work, however, was not finished during 
 Edward's lifetime. It is a description of the whole monastic 
 pile as it still stood two centuries later, before Henry III began 
 to pull it down. It was, however, completed to Edward's scale 
 and from his plan ; and the part which he accomplished was no 
 mean life-work. For the description of that we have the con- 
 temporary account, which must have been written before 1074, 
 because it was addressed to Queen Edith, and in that year she 
 died. From this statement, and from measurements given by 
 the three bases of Norman piers remaining under the floor of 
 the presbytery, together with other fragments of sound evidence, 
 architects of the Abbey have been able to reconstruct the original 
 plan. They find that it was a large cross church, running east 
 
 27
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 and west, with a rounded apse to the east, north and south 
 transepts, and a central tower rising over the middle of the 
 choir. The crossing and apse were where they stand now ; and 
 the transepts were only a very little shorter : in fact, the centre 
 line of Edward's church was the same as the present one. He 
 began his building to the east of the earlier Saxon church, which 
 probably continued in use by the monks until the new one was 
 ready. It was then connected with the new church, and may 
 have served as its nave for some years, until it was pulled down 
 and a Norman nave built to correspond with the choir. 
 
 Ten years after Edward began his Abbey the work was 
 sufficiently advanced for consecration. The wonderful new 
 cross church, that is to say, the choir, transepts, and central 
 tower, were finished. The King's supreme object was accom- 
 plished, so far as might be in one man's life ; and now he was 
 anxious only to live long enough for the dedication ceremony. 
 He knew that he must soon die, for had it not been revealed to 
 him by those two palmers from the Holy Land? They had 
 been charged by St John, sending the ring as a token, to warn 
 him of his approaching end : 
 
 And let King Edward know well, 
 
 To me he shall come before six months (are over), 
 
 And since he resembles me, 
 
 In Paradise shall we be together. 
 
 The six months were drawing out, Christmastide was near, 
 and the new church was all but ready. 
 
 Then he bids all his people 
 
 In common throughout the kingdom, 
 
 28
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 That at Christmas they come to Westminster, 
 And there with him keep the feast. 
 
 But, alas ! on Christmas Day in the evening he fell sick ; 
 and though he made a great effort to fulfil his duties as host at 
 the festivities of the succeeding two days, he grew so much 
 worse that, in hope to outwit Fate, the date for the consecration 
 was put forward to Childermas Day, the 28th of December, 
 1065. The alteration was in vain, however. The King had 
 made all the arrangements, had prepared rich gifts and gathered 
 many holy relics with which to endow his church. That day 
 when he should preside at its dedication was to be the crown 
 of a career by no means unworthy of such a consummation. 
 Yet he did not preside, and was not even present at the 
 ceremony : 
 
 On the fourth day, which was that of the Innocents, 
 
 The prelates come, the chiefs come. 
 
 To furnish whatever appertains 
 
 To so great a dedication. 
 
 The King forces himself to come there, 
 
 Since for it he had a great longing ; 
 
 But so weak and ill is he, 
 
 So much doubt has his head and feebleness has his heart, 
 
 He cannot be, according to his wish. 
 
 Present, which much afflicts him. 
 
 All that he could do, with difficulty, was to sign the Charter of 
 the Foundation. It was Edith the Queen who presided at the 
 dedication of the church ; and not many days afterward she 
 buried there the man who had built it. For Edward died on 
 the 4th or 5th of January, and in dying laid a charge on those 
 about him : 
 
 29
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 In the church of Saint Peter, to whom 
 Of old I made my vow, let me be buried. 
 
 And Saint Peter, his dear friend, 
 Opens the gate of Paradise, 
 And Saint John, his own dear one, 
 Conducts him before the Majesty, 
 And God gives him his kingdom, 
 Who puts the crown on his head. 
 
 So Edward the good King, who, according to another early 
 historian, made such laws as England never yet had known, was 
 buried before the altar of his church. His bones became its 
 central relic, as they remain its most precious possession. After 
 several translations they came to rest at last in the Shrine of 
 St Edward behind the high altar, which is the Holy of Holies 
 of our present Abbey. In 1163 Edward was canonized by Pope 
 Alexander H; and at that date his body, seen twice in the 
 intervening time, was again found to be in perfect preservation. 
 Miracles were performed at his tomb ; and it became, as indeed 
 it is to this day, a place of pilgrimage. 
 
 At the little town of Islip, in Oxfordshire, where Edward 
 was born, nothing remains of him. A destroying Fate has been 
 busy with his home, no less than with his Abbey. His palace 
 has vanished : not a stone of it is left. The chapel, which 
 lingered in a degraded condition until the eighteenth century, 
 was then swept blindly away ; and the very font in which he 
 is doubtfully said to have been christened has found its way 
 by a devious route into a distant parish. 
 
 Nothing tangible remains of Edward there ; and yet the 
 30
 
 ART IS LONG 
 
 sweet English landscape is eloquent of him. Its gentleness, 
 its peace, the frank smiling sky, the green spaces, the softly 
 sloping meadows, the grace of the curving river, the cry of the 
 wildfowl, and the free rush of the wind through the willows — 
 all these things sing of his spirit. And if his body rests at 
 Westminster it is certain that his shade goes happily hunting 
 over Oxfordshire fields. 
 
 31
 
 CHAPTER III : Long Live the King! 
 
 THE Abbey that we know to-day is substantially the 
 achievement of Henry HI and his workmen. We 
 shall salute the workmen presently ; but for the 
 moment the fact to consider is that the whole of this vast 
 edifice (except the Lady Chapel of Henry VH, the western end, 
 and one or two minor features) came into being at the 
 command of this artist-king, who apparently was no campaigner, 
 who enraged the Court by his favour to foreigners and the 
 hard-working citizens of London by his extravagance, who by 
 most accounts was weak, fickle, and choleric ; yet who at least 
 did know how to worship God and Beauty. 
 
 The Norman Abbey had grown out of Edward and his 
 age, fruit of the union of French ideas and English vigour. 
 It was a thing new and wonderful to English eyes ; and even 
 to the more critical and accustomed French eye it proudly 
 showed how the island builders could adapt and advance upon 
 their models. 
 
 In like manner the present Abbey grew out of Henry III 
 and his age. It reflects in a hundred ways his character. The 
 best that was in him is there, from his profoundly religious 
 temper and his hero-worship of Edward, right through the 
 gamut of artistic sensibility, trained judgment, and fastidious 
 taste. And just because the Abbey does so faithfully embody 
 and perpetuate Henry, it is, so to speak, the spirit of that age 
 made visible to us at this day. For Henry might fairly stand 
 as a symbol of English medieval life when it reached, as it did 
 in his reign, its fullest and most characteristic development. 
 32
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 He stands for that life both in its strength and weakness. In 
 politics, in statesmanship, in arms, the time was poor, and 
 Henry reflected the poverty of it : indeed, he was largely its 
 cause. But in the things of the spirit — religion, art, ideas, 
 learning, manners — it was an age of full and joyous life, 
 with Henry well ahead of it, leading in a real and royal 
 sense. 
 
 It will be remembered that Henry III came to the throne 
 as a child of nine in the year 1216. Through the treachery of 
 his infamous father John, London was at that date in the 
 hands of the French, so the small boy was perforce crowned 
 at Gloucester ; but he was afterward crowned for a second 
 time in the Abbey, in 1220. Now the day before that second 
 coronation, that is to say, at a time when he was still a child, 
 he had laid the first stone of a new Lady Chapel planned to 
 the east of the Confessor's church ; and it would be romantic 
 and poetical to think of the boy-king consciously dedicating 
 himself thus early to his great work of rebuilding the Abbey. 
 That would be pure imagination, however, for the truth seems 
 to be that the growing cult of the Virgin about this time 
 made a new chapel necessary, and the presiding Abbot of the 
 time had decided to build it. Perhaps it was required as a 
 repository for those amazing relics of the Virgin, solicitously 
 provided by Edward among a small cemetery of the bones of 
 minor saints : 
 
 Many pieces of the vestments of the Virgin Mary ; of the linen 
 which she wore ; of the window in which the angel stood when he 
 saluted her ; of her milk ; of her hair ; of her shoes and of her bed ; 
 
 c 33
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 also of the girdle which she worked with her own hands, always wore, 
 and dropped to St Thomas the Apostle at her Assumption. 
 
 Yet the bent of Henry's mind did in fact reveal itself at 
 his coronation, for it was then that he put the question to 
 Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, as to what was the special 
 grace that a king received in the unction — a question that others 
 besides the famous scholar and theologian have found it difficult 
 to answer. But it was not until twenty years afterward that 
 he began to think constructively about the Abbey. He had 
 always been powerfully attracted by the memory of Edward 
 the Confessor, and had placed himself, after the custom of the 
 time, under the special protection of that saint. In 1241 he 
 conceived the idea of honouring his patron by making a 
 magnificent shrine to contain his tomb. This he designed 
 to stand east of the high altar, raised so high and made so 
 splendid that every worshipper looking toward the Holy Place 
 should be exalted by the glory of it. 
 
 It happened that in that very year St Louis of France 
 began to build his exquisite Sainte-Chapelle ; but whether his 
 example fired Henry or Henry's fired him, or whether the 
 idea originated independently in the mind of each (as it very 
 well might do, seeing the spiritual kinship between the two 
 men), matters hardly at all. The truth remains that the intense 
 religious feeling of the age craved to express itself in art, that 
 everywhere a joyful perception of Beauty was stirring, and a 
 desire to render it into rich colour, fine texture, precious 
 substance, and great shapely architectural form. Such ideas 
 were in the air of Europe, and flourished in the free intercourse 
 34
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 between France and England. They were focused in the 
 minds of the two Kings, and were by them directed and made 
 articulate. 
 
 At first Henry's purpose seems to have been simply the 
 building of the golden shrine ; but his ardour and ambition 
 rapidly grew. Architecture was his chief delight ; and not 
 content with large works at the royal palaces, he soon determined 
 upon a project to demolish the Confessor's Abbey and build 
 another in its place. In 1243 he began the preparatory work, 
 necessarily great for so vast an undertaking; and in 1245 the 
 old chronicler Matthew Paris has this entry : 
 
 In the same year the King, inspired by the devotion which he felt 
 toward St Edward, ordered the church of St Peter, at Westminster, to be 
 enlarged. He therefore caused the old walls, with the tower on the 
 eastern side, to be pulled down and new and handsome ones to be erected 
 by clever architects at his own expense, and the remainder of the building 
 on the western side to be altered to suit the other. 
 
 Passing over the quaintness of an inspiration which 
 demanded the destruction of the noble old building, glance for a 
 moment at the other point of interest in the record, viz., that 
 the new church was to be erected at the King's expense. Its 
 undesigned ironic humour is delicious. For a king who was as 
 careless of the value of money as a babe, and who lived literally 
 in poverty because he could not keep a penny in his treasury for 
 a single day : who lavished his possessions (not to speak of 
 things that he did not possess) on every individual who caught 
 his exuberant fancy : who had immense undertakings already 
 that he could not pay for, and was well on the road to exhausting 
 
 35
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 his people's patience at his impudent exactions — the project to 
 build yet another great fabric "at his own expense" was some- 
 thing of an adventure. It may savour of romance to the 
 romantic ; but to the comic eye it has the look of a jest. 
 Matthew Paris himself, innocent and all but impartial, is witness 
 to the King's prodigality as he is to his measureless charity. 
 Over and over again we are told of demands on the nobles for 
 great part of " all their moveable property," which they would 
 concede only after a struggle, and " on terms," Henry humbly 
 promising that it should not happen any more. Over and over 
 again we hear of extortion from the citizens of London (in their 
 case, of course, with no terms demanded or given) ; of the 
 appropriation of talliage due to the Pope, and of the seizure of 
 Jewish property ; and all this interspersed with bitter plaints 
 by the King of England of his poverty, and icy comments of 
 the historian upon the diminution of the royal state. 
 
 It has very much the air of comedy, especially when the 
 King, fertile in ruse and subtlety, is further inspired to shut up 
 all the fairs in England and all the shops in London, and compel 
 the citizens to make a great fair outside the Abbey walls for the 
 benefit of that building fund which he was to provide "at his 
 own expense." This he ordered to be held at Tut-hill (now 
 Tothill Fields), for fifteen days at St Edward's Tide in 1248. 
 So the fair began toward the end of September, and continued 
 over the Feast of the Translation of St Edward. Reading 
 contemporary accounts of it with a modern eye, one sees it 
 as a great thirteenth-century church bazaar, ominous fore- 
 runner of a myriad others of like origin and import — except 
 36
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 that, in addition to resentful and unhappy buyers, this first 
 of its kind had exasperated sellers too, and all alike made 
 miserable by the cold storms of an inclement Michaelmas. 
 Says Matthew Paris : 
 
 But all the merchants . . . were exposed to great inconveniences. . . . 
 They were cold and wet and also suffered from hunger and thirst ; their 
 feet were soiled by the mud and their goods rotted by the showers of 
 rain ; and when they sat down to take meals there, those who were 
 accustomed to take meals in the midst of their family by the fireside 
 knew not how to endure this state of want and discomfort. 
 
 Yet the Fair must have been a success from Henry's point 
 of view, for when in 1252 he was again in desperate straits for 
 money, we find that he ordered St Edward's Fair to be held 
 once more. 
 
 Which thing (by reason of the foule weather chauncing at that time) 
 was verie grieuous vnto them, albeit there was such repayre of people 
 thither, that London had not bene fuller to the iudgment of olde auncient 
 men neuer at any tyme in theyr dayes to theyr remembraunce. 
 
 — Thus Holinshed. 
 
 A business man, this artist-Henry : he knew very well 
 how to make the people flock to his fair and provide money for 
 his church. By hook or by crook, by fair means and foul 
 (though mostly foul, it would appear), he succeeded in raising a 
 total sum equivalent to ;^75o,ooo of our money for the building 
 of the Abbey. Endless were his difficulties, but his ingenuity 
 was endless too. Now we find him cajoling Abbot Crokesley 
 (a man he detested) to sign a bond with the conventual seal for 
 2500 marks ; and at another time he is pawning to the hated 
 
 37
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 London merchants "the shrines of saints and other jewels and 
 relics of the Church of Westminster." 
 
 The satiric mind will see much to smile over in these 
 old records, especially remembering those very loyal modern 
 historians of the Abbey who insist on its having been a gift 
 from the King to the nation. It is all very well to laugh, how- 
 ever, from this safe distance ; just as we could, from another 
 point of view, regard with astonished admiration the King's 
 tireless determined effort to gain his end, and the way in which 
 the agility of his mind matched and supplemented the concen- 
 tration of his will. But the exasperated London merchants, the 
 nobles, the wronged Jews, and the irate Pope could not be 
 expected either to laugh or admire : the thing was neither 
 comical nor heroic to them ; but simply an abominable tyranny. 
 
 Nevertheless, all praise and thanks to Henry III for the 
 eye which could see Beauty, for the mind which could conceive 
 a great design, and for the passionate determination which 
 could carry it through. Praise also for the honour that he 
 paid to letters, for his love and care for all the arts, for his 
 fostering of genius, and last, not least, his friendly appreciation 
 and encouragement of his workmen. 
 
 There is not space to begin to tell all the stories about 
 Henry ; but there is one which it is necessary to give, if there 
 is to be any balance in our picture of his character. It is 
 deeply significant, and at the same time of first interest in 
 the history of the Abbey. It is that act of the Carrying of the 
 Relic which, however much a satiric imp may poke a gibing 
 finger and cry ' theatrical,' remains profoundly symbolic. 
 38
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 Henry's religious feeling was intense and sincere. It is 
 illustrated in a dozen ways — his boundless charity, the devotion 
 that led him to the Mass as much as four or five times a day, 
 the penitence and humiliation that would follow upon a fault, 
 and the personal sacrifice that he undoubtedly made to provide 
 rich gifts for his church. Toward the year 1247 he had 
 succeeded in procuring for the new Abbey a supremely sacred 
 relic, some drops of the Holy Blood, which were said to have 
 trickled from the side of the Saviour at His crucifixion. The 
 relic had been sent to Henry, very elaborately vouched for, by 
 the Master of the Templars and Hospitallers. Enclosed in a 
 handsome crystalline vessel, the King carried it in his own 
 hands from St Paul's to the Abbey, and there deposited it, on 
 the Feast of St Edward in 1247. 
 
 On the eve of St Edward's Feast Henry always kept vigil 
 in devout prayer, fasting on bread and water and clothed in a 
 rough woollen garment. On this occasion he prepared himself 
 with especial solemnity ; and on the following morning he bade 
 all the priests to assemble at St Paul's, dressed in holiday attire. 
 Hear Matthew Paris : 
 
 Thither the King also went, and receiving the vessel containing the 
 aforesaid treasures vi^ith the greatest honour, reverence and awe, he 
 carried it above his head publicly going on foot and wearing an humble 
 dress, consisting of a poor cloak without a hood, and preceded by the 
 priests clad as aforesaid, proceeded without stopping to the church at 
 Westminster, which is about a mile distant from St Paul's Church. Nor 
 should it be omitted to be mentioned, that he carried it with both hands 
 when he came to any rugged or uneven part of the road, but always kept 
 his eyes fixed on heaven or on the vessel itself. The pall was borne on 
 
 39
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 four spears ; and two assistants supported the King's arms lest his 
 strength should fail in such a great effort. . . . Unweariedly carrying 
 the vessel, he made the circuit of the church, the palace, and his 
 own chambers. Finally he presented and made an offer of it as 
 a priceless gift and one which had made England illustrious, to 
 God, the Church of St Peter at Westminster, to his beloved Edward, 
 and the holy brethren who at that place minister to God and His 
 saints. 
 
 So Henry obtained for his church a precious relic, as St 
 Louis had procured for his Sainte-Chapelle the Crown of 
 Thorns. Louis's chapel, begun in 1241, was now well 
 advanced ; and whether or not Henry's originating idea of the 
 Abbey was derived from Louis, it is evident that there is an 
 architectural relation between the two churches. French 
 influence is indeed so strong at Westminster that we must 
 conclude either that a French architect was responsible for the 
 design, or that an English architect was sent to France to 
 study the great models on the spot. The latter theory was 
 accepted until quite recently, and a supposed visit of this 
 Englishman to Rheims was held to account for the particularly 
 strong resemblance of the Abbey to that cathedral. 
 
 The era was, as we know, one of very great development 
 in French Gothic architecture, whereas our own Gothic art of 
 that period had been checked in its growth by the Barons' 
 Wars. To mention only the most famous cathedrals, the 
 choir of Rheims had been commenced in 121 1; Amiens nave 
 was begun in 1220 ; and Cologne (which is French Gothic too, 
 and, as some think, its apogee) in 1248. We know, too, that 
 Henry was in close touch with France and knew it well. He 
 40
 
 wm^ 
 
 2^-"^::^
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 must have been familiar with those noble examples of earlier 
 French Gothic at Paris, the choir of Saint-Denis, finished in 
 1 144, and Notre-Dame, which had been consecrated in 1182. 
 
 Henry's accessibility to ideas and ready perception of 
 excellence make it extremely likely that he decided deliberately 
 to copy the style of the new French work ; and his habit of 
 'taking his own wherever he found it,' would in all probability 
 lead him to invite a successful French artist to come to London 
 for the purpose of planning his own projected building. That 
 this is what in fact did happen seems to have been proved 
 by the Rev. H. F. Westlake, the Custodian of the Abbey. 
 For Mr Westlake has found in ttie Great Chartulary of the 
 Abbey, commonly called Domesday, an entry which speaks of 
 Master Henry the Mason as Henry de Reyns, the latter being 
 the common contemporary spelling of Rheims. 
 
 This Master Henry, whose place of origin was hitherto 
 unknown, was always supposed to have been an Englishman 
 by Abbey historians prior to Mr Westlake ; and this not merely 
 from motives of patriotism, but because the acknowledged 
 French design had somehow acquired a definitely English 
 character. It seems quite obvious at this time of day that that 
 Englishing, the native distinction imposed on the foreign idea, 
 must have been wrought by Henry's workmen, who were no 
 mean artists themselves, but able coadjutors of the French 
 master. And the fact that the first architect was always called 
 simply Master Henry, and was for many centuries supposed 
 to be English, suggests that he too became largely subdued 
 to his environment. So that the combination occurs again 
 
 41
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 as it occurred in the Confessor's building, of French design 
 modified and invigorated by the Enghsh executant. Almost 
 identical causes were at work — a pious, receptive, art-loving 
 monarch in free intercourse with Continental ideas ; and thus 
 it is possible for the expert to declare, as Mr Francis Bond 
 does, that the Confessor's church was "the first landmark 
 of Anglo-Norman architecture " ; and of Henry's church : 
 "In Westminster are blended all that is best in French and 
 all that is best in English Gothic." So happy the issue, 
 apparently, when nations are thus members one of another. 
 
 The discovery that Master Henry was of Rheims squares 
 with the observed resemblances between that cathedral and 
 Westminster. Although there are features of the Abbey which 
 are reminiscent of the Sainte-Chapelle and of Amiens, it is so 
 much more like Rheims (or as the cathedral was before its evil 
 fate in the late War) that there can be no doubt of a close 
 relationship between the two. The fact will always now be of 
 mournful interest, even if the French succeed in their gallant 
 attempt to reconstruct Rheims, which they say it is possible to 
 do in accurate inch by inch, so detailed are the plans of the 
 cathedral which the authorities possess. But before Master 
 Henry's identity was discovered, the Abbey surveyor, Professor 
 Lethaby, had judged that Rheims was the specific type followed 
 at Westminster ; and the fact that it also was a coronation 
 church no doubt influenced Henry III in his selection of its 
 architect. 
 
 The most important similarity of plan is in the position of 
 the crossing. It will be remembered that at Westminster the 
 42
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 choir extends to the west of the crossing and includes a part 
 of the nave. The same feature occurs at Rheims, with the 
 further curious fact that it is singular in that respect among 
 the Gothic churches of France, as Westminster is singular in 
 English thirteenth-century architecture. From this follows the 
 further characteristic of the shortness of the eastern end of the 
 Abbey, leaving out of consideration for the moment, of course, 
 the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, which is of later date. Great 
 contemporary English churches like Canterbury, Lincoln, and 
 others extended much farther to the east. 
 
 There is an exact resemblance in the type of window used 
 throughout Rheims and Westminster. To the modern eye 
 the Abbey may seem dim ; but that is rather a consequence 
 from its accessories than of its lighting system, for it will 
 be observed that the windows are of great width, occupying 
 practically all the wall space ; and that in the clerestories they 
 rise very high into the roof. This bold transforming of wall 
 into window is definitely French, as was the development of 
 traceried windows. Typical English lighting of that period 
 was by means of the lancet window, separate or in groups, and 
 the traceried window, that is, two or more lights combined into 
 one window by means of an arch, was not much used here before 
 Henry III built his church. The particular pattern that he 
 adopted, in aisle, clerestory, and chapel, is a copy of that at 
 Rheims — two great lights surmounted by a cinquefoil rose, 
 the whole bound together by tracery within a lofty pointed 
 arch. The smaller windows of the triforium, which are not 
 visible from the interior of the church, are of three quatrefoil 
 
 43
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 roses bound into a triangle ; and are of a design used both 
 in the Sainte-Chapelle and at Amiens. 
 
 Another similarity to Rheims is in the construction and 
 lighting of the chapels of the apse ; and both churches have 
 a small oblong chapel on the north and south sides of the 
 ambulatory, at the springing of the apse. There are many 
 interesting resemblances of detail ; but it is hardly necessary 
 to enumerate them in order to establish the connexion with 
 Rheims. On the question of French influence generally, how- 
 ever, much more might be said, almost enough, in fact, to 
 make a crude claim for Westminster as a French church. 
 
 We have seen by the record of Matthew Paris that 
 Henry III pulled down the Confessor's church to make space for 
 his own ; and the new church was raised on parallel foundations. 
 Its main lines were therefore given ; but its height was greatly 
 increased, to accord with the prevailing fashion in France. 
 Westminster, with rather over a hundred feet to the apex of the 
 vault, is the loftiest church in England ; and its proportions, 
 with a height of thrice the span of the nave, are typically 
 French. 
 
 Again, the absence of a central tower is governed by the 
 French design. One remembers how that tower figured in the 
 account of the Norman church by the old poet ; but having 
 been demolished, it was not replaced because the slender piers of 
 the new style were not strong enough to support it. Again, the 
 original rose windows of the north and south transepts, set, as 
 the south rose still is, in a square, were probably the only 
 examples of their kind in England, although the model was used 
 44
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 at Rouen, Rheims, and Tours. And the four-light windows of 
 the Chapter House resemble those of the Sainte-Chapelle. 
 
 The abutment of the exterior is entirely French, with its 
 pillars weighted by turrets, and its elaborate system of flying 
 buttresses, enormously developed on the south side, where they 
 rise in three tiers and attain immense breadth in passing over 
 the cloister to support the clerestory. The plan of the north 
 porch seems to have been based on that of the front of Amiens, 
 where there also is a diaper decoration (the word diaper is from 
 the n2iVCi& d Ypres) which reappears in the square diapering of 
 the spandrils of the Abbey arcades. 
 
 Yet, although one might continue in this strain to deduce 
 the fact that the Abbey is a French church, we should not arrive 
 thus at the whole truth about its architecture, the truth being, 
 as often, very much different from the facts. We should have to 
 consider many other things, as, for instance, the cause, manner, 
 and effect of that Englishing of which we have already spoken ; 
 of just how it came about that such a foreign erection took on a 
 native character. It is well for us that on this aspect of the 
 subject we are concerned only with the original builders ; for 
 there would be many harsh things to say about the later English 
 hands that defaced by hideous monuments the pure lines of the 
 fabric, in a way which, were it ever conceivable in France, would 
 not be tolerated there for an instant. Fortunately we have to 
 do with a healthier mental state than that feverish mania for 
 notoriety ; and with a simpler, nobler set of people. Out of 
 the integrity of Henry's workmen emanated something eternal, 
 which remains in the Abbey as their indestructible legacy. It 
 
 45
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 is an influence to be felt, rather than a tangible thing to be 
 seen, though certain evidence of it is visible to the trained eye, 
 and is susceptible of interpretation. But chiefly it is a sense of 
 rightness, harmony, and joy that one has within the Abbey, and 
 that seems to come from the spirit of those long-dead men who 
 laboured together in hearty good-will because they loved their 
 work. 
 
 There are, however, certain definite characteristics which 
 they imparted, the most important of which seems to have been 
 the construction of what one may call a second storey all round 
 the church. In the apse this results in a second set of chapels 
 repeated above, at the triforium level. Another singular feature, 
 and one which makes an irregularity that is certainly English, 
 is that the south transept is narrower than the north, at least on 
 the ground floor. That is because the cloister runs outside its 
 west wall ; but above the cloister, that is to say, at the second- 
 storey level of the church, the transept is open, and corre- 
 sponds in width to that on the north side. Apart from this 
 irregularity, the transepts themselves are wider than in French 
 churches, because aisles were needed ; and the vault construction 
 was modified by the workmen according to their better English 
 method. The use of Purbeck marble, turned on the lathes of 
 Purbeck masons, determined not only the finer appearance, but 
 the shape of shaft and abacus ; and English masonry is evident 
 in every detail. Lastly, the magnificent Chapter House is in 
 the English polygonal style. 
 
 Henry the Third's church took about twenty-five years to 
 erect ; and the work was practically continuous all that time. 
 46
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 His structure comprises the apse, with its ambulatory and 
 chapels, its presbytery, and the shrine of Edward the Confessor ; 
 the crossing and lantern ; the north and south transepts with 
 their aisles and chapels and the great north portal ; and the 
 nave down to the end of the fifth bay. 
 
 It was a work of great architectural magnitude ; but the 
 King was not concerned with the fabric only, for he took an un- . 
 failing delight in decoration and enrichment of every kind. The 
 golden shrine, whose unparalleled glory was to be the King's 
 especial care, was even longer in completing than the church, 
 for it was begun first in 1241 ; and until the last year of 
 Henry's life, 1272, he was busy adding to its treasures. 
 
 We have seen that the preparatory work of demolishing the 
 Norman Abbey was begun in 1243. It was not until 1245, 
 however, that actual rebuilding commenced, and in the follow- 
 ing year Henry ordained that he should be buried beside the 
 Confessor. In 1247 the relic of the Holy Blood was offered at 
 the altar; and in that year and the year following the King 
 instituted the Fair at Westminster, ' in aid of the Reconstruction 
 Fund,' as church-improvers of these days would say. Thereafter 
 the work proceeded steadily, though at some damage to the 
 King's popularity, and Westminster became an art centre, with 
 schools of painting and masonry, sculpture, and metal-work. 
 Construction began at the extreme east, and proceeded first by 
 way of the northern bays of the apse, and then by its southern 
 side, to the south transept, the nave and the north portal, 
 finishing at last in the year 1269. 
 
 On the 13th of October, 1269, came the great day of Henry's 
 
 47
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 life, a day comparable only with that of the consecration of the 
 Norman church, and awaited doubtless with the same eager 
 anticipation with which the Confessor had longed to live to 
 dedicate his church. Then for the first time was divine service 
 celebrated in the Abbey as we know it ; and on that day, the 
 anniversary of the Confessor's first translation, he was removed 
 to his ultimate resting-place in the magnificent shrine which 
 had been built to receive him. 
 
 This is how the old chronicler Fabyan records the event : 
 
 In the ende of this yere, . . . the Kynge lette translate with great 
 solempnytie, the holy body of seynt Edwarde Kynge and Confessour, 
 that before laye in the syde of the quere, where the monkes now synge, 
 into ye chapell at the backe of the hyghe aulter of Westmester Abbey, 
 and there layde it in a ryche shryne. 
 
 Henry III had better fortune than his predecessor, for he 
 was not only present at the solemn ceremony, but did with his 
 own hands convey the holy dust of his patron saint to the 
 splendid tomb that he had made. He had called together a 
 great assemblage of nobility, magistrates, and burgesses, " and 
 the chest having been taken out of the old shrine, the King, 
 with his brother the King of the Romans, carried it upon their 
 shoulders in view of the whole church, and his sons, Edward 
 (afterward King), and Edmund, the Earl of Lancaster, the Earl 
 of Warren, and the Lord Philip Basset, with as many other 
 nobles as could come near to touch it, supported it with their 
 hands to the new shrine, which was of gold, adorned with 
 precious stones, and eminently placed in the church." 
 
 Three years afterward Henry III died, and was buried 
 48
 
 LONG LIVE THE KING! 
 
 before the high altar of the Abbey which he had erected with 
 such toilful and troubled joy. His last public act was profoundly 
 characteristic. Some vandals had fired a church at Norwich, 
 and Henry, shocked at the sacrilege and enraged at the 
 destruction of the lovely building, took a journey there to in- 
 vestigate the matter. " By the affection which is due to our 
 Lord I will go and see into this deed of wickedness," he cried 
 on hearing the news ; and when he stood at last on the scene, 
 " and saw that the church was entirely destroyed by fire, he could 
 scarcely refrain from shedding tears." True lover of God and 
 Beauty as Henry was, the blow was too cruel ; and it is no 
 wonder that on the journey back he was taken with a mortal 
 sickness, and died at Bury St Edmunds. This was he who, 
 rallied on going to the Mass instead of hearing sermons, 
 replied : " I had rather receive a friend than hear him talked 
 about"; and it was Henry, too, who planted pear-trees "in the 
 herbary between the King's chamber and the church," so that 
 he might see his Abbey walls, themselves with the grace of 
 springing flowers, rising out of a sea of snowy pear-blossom. 
 In that Paradise which he has surely attained by this time, he 
 will hardly have found a lovelier sight. And there, in reward 
 for abbey-building — Long live the King I 
 
 49
 
 CHAPTER IV : A Benedictine Monastery 
 
 ENGLISH people everywhere speak familiarly of West- 
 minster Abbey as 'the Abbey,' but that of course is 
 not its name. Its proper style and title is ' The 
 Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster ' ; and it 
 was so established by Queen Elizabeth in the year 1560. Its 
 right to be called 'Abbey' had in fact lapsed twenty years 
 before that date, when Henry VIII dissolved the monastery; 
 yet the old name lingers, vital and persistent, and no one ever 
 speaks of the church by any other. 
 
 The use of the word ' Abbey ' in this sense is in effect 
 universal. So that one may find it, not merely among those 
 big British families up and down the world known as colonies, 
 but among people who are not British at all, and who do not 
 speak the English tongue. The writer has seen the words 
 ' notre Abbaye' evoke an instant gleam of comprehension in the 
 eyes of a native Corsican living at the wild heart of his country, 
 in a mountain village some three thousand five hundred feet up. 
 And when, suspecting him of politeness, an explanation was 
 begun of the special significance of our word 'Abbey,' it was 
 waved aside half impatiently: ''Mais, je la connais bien, voire 
 AbbayeT One would not have been so surprised at the remark 
 from the friendly old curd, living in his sure and certain hope 
 that England will yet return to the Roman fold. But this was 
 a layman and (which somehow seems more wonderful still) a 
 jurist : an amateur in oils and an ardent angler ; and he had 
 never been in England. But, the unintelligent moment over, 
 one remembered how many in England, whether lawyers or 
 
 50
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 county cricketers, lettered or unlettered, travelled or stay-at- 
 home, know perfectly the purport of the word ' Rheims." There 
 are some words so steeped in history, so coloured with magnifi- 
 cent associations, so resonant of the music of humanity that one 
 has only to utter them, and the ear of the listener is flooded with 
 the sound. So it is with our word ' Abbey ' ; and therein are 
 those early monks avenged — or, as their gentler shades would 
 prefer to put it, therein are they rewarded. 
 
 There is indeed a poetic justice in the survival of the 
 title, a vindication of those first regulars of St Benedict 
 who settled on Thorny Island. They found the region, as 
 we know, a "terrible place," thickset with thorn and infested 
 with wild beasts. They made it — very largely it was they who 
 made it — what we know, the starting-point and ultimately the 
 centre of British civilization. 
 
 The Benedictine Rule, with its emphasis on the communal 
 as against the eremitical life, its exaltation of the idea of peace 
 and its insistence upon industry, must have been in its first 
 beginnings on this island a powerful civilizing influence. And 
 what it had originated it carried steadily on for centuries before 
 decay overtook it, caring for education, fostering the arts and 
 the more humane letters, and tirelessly persisting in con- 
 structive labour. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the monks of the first founda- 
 tion on Thorny Island (whether that was co-eval with Sebert 
 or did not appear until somewhat later), were chiefly the means 
 of rendering it habitable. They exterminated the fierce beasts, 
 sunk wells, cleared, drained, and tilled the land, made roads, 
 
 51
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 planted gardens, erected farm buildings to store grain and house 
 cattle, and developed all the industries needful to the life of the 
 community. They were the first engineers, architects, and 
 farmers ; and though the site thus toilfully subdued to human 
 existence was ravaged by Dane and Saxon again and again, after 
 every fresh devastation the monks raised their convent out of 
 the ruins and recommenced their task of laying the foundations 
 of civilization. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that whatever one's attitude toward 
 monasticism, and whether or not one grants its large spiritual 
 claims, there can be no question of the material benefits conferred 
 by the Benedictine Rule at Westminster, as at so many other 
 places. And inasmuch as there can be no beginning of spiritual 
 growth until a sufficient material basis has been laid, therein at 
 least is profound gratitude due. Newman, that Cardinal of the 
 white soul and the golden tongue, has distinguished the Bene- 
 dictines from the other great monastic orders as the ' poetical ' : 
 and this not only because they aspired to the things that poets 
 are supposed to desire, viz., the beauty of nature, solitude, and 
 meditation, but because they cultivated what is supposed to be 
 the poetical mind, repressing the inquisitive intellect and giving 
 the emotions play in worship and in good works. One does 
 not challenge such a gracious teacher. One only takes a glance 
 at the figures which represent the vast number of Benedic- 
 tine houses throughout Europe (there were over a thousand 
 of them so early as the year 1005), and observes that, compared 
 with their wide range in time and space, they produced 
 remarkably little poetry, little intellectual eminence, and save 
 52
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 Boniface and Augustine, Dunstan and Bede, few great men. 
 Which fact, however, need not necessarily invalidate their 
 distinction as poetical — though in a different sense from that 
 intended by Cardinal Newman. For looking at that larger 
 view of the poetic genius which sees it as a shaping and 
 creative power, eminently practical because it is always 
 striving to bring order out of chaos, in that sense the 
 Benedictines of Westminster were indeed poets. And they 
 must have been much too busily occupied with their hewing 
 and building, sowing and reaping and milling, pruning, 
 draining and irrigating, baking, making and mending, to be 
 poets in any other sense. 
 
 There is only one pre-eminent name in the roll of the Abbots 
 of Westminster, during the thousand years or so that it covers. 
 Is that surprising ? It would seem so at first glance ; and yet 
 what is likely to happen in a community which narrows deliber- 
 ately the scope of thought, and would contain the intellect in the 
 little boundary of primary needs ? The result will be likely to 
 be very similar to that at Westminster, a respectable level of 
 virtue and practical ability, with now and then a greater figure 
 who, responding to environment, develops along the lines of 
 courtier and statesman ; but no great poet, artist, or scholar. 
 
 The eminent name is Simon Langham, generous man, 
 devoted ecclesiastic, and disinterested statesman. He was 
 created Abbot in 1349, and held his convent very dear through 
 all his amazing prosperity, rapidly rising as he did to be 
 Lord Treasurer of England, Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of 
 Canterbury ; and finally to be created Cardinal by the Pope in 
 
 53
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 1368. He bequeathed much money to his monastery, and gave 
 it in all ;^io,8oo. He was buried in the Abbey; and, as was 
 fitting for so great a son of his Order, in the Chapel of St 
 Benedict. 
 
 It was the fortune of the Abbey, good or bad, to become 
 associated very closely with the Crown and Court at an early 
 stage in its career. We are not sure that it was quite so soon 
 as the pleasant inventions of the monk Sporley would lead us 
 to suppose ; for if so, it was Offa the fierce King of Mercia who 
 first deposited here the coronation robes and regalia. But one 
 remembers the nearness of the royal palace, and the fact that in 
 this church English kings were crow^ned and buried. The 
 consequences flowing from that state of affairs would tend to 
 enhance prestige as against spiritual values ; and the Abbey 
 speedily became a rich and famous foundation, with an Abbot 
 who kept the state of a prince, lived in a palace, and disputed 
 authority with bishops and archbishops. 
 
 While professedly remaining humble and holy, the fraternity 
 grew more and more splendid and proud, even though, thanks 
 to Richard HI, they acquired as a relic the very skull of their 
 pious founder. One would have thought that a sufficient talis- 
 man ; but no ! Theoretically the monks were occupied with their 
 devotions and their labour. Services began with Matins at 2 
 a.m., followed by Lauds. Prime was at 5 a.m., Tierce at 9, Sext 
 at II, Nones at 2 p.m., and Vespers at 6. There was a daily 
 gathering in the Chapter House, whence the community was 
 administered ; and they were supposed to be in bed by 8 p.m. 
 
 It was a full day, and yet they somehow found time for 
 54
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 quarrels with the Londoners, and even hand-to-hand fights with 
 them. They were commanded by the Rule to silence, and to a 
 happy ignorance of the affairs of the world outside. Yet news 
 crept in through chink and cranny ; and the monks devised a 
 way of chanting it to each other in the singing of the litanies and 
 psalms. They were exhorted to humility, and supposed them- 
 selves very humble indeed ; and yet could conceive the Ruler of 
 the Universe ceasing deliberately from His very onerous duties, 
 to crush to death a man in the Abbey crowd, because, forsooth 
 the unfortunate had given their convent some offence. 
 
 We hear of a quite tremendous battle, outcome of a certain 
 wrestling match between the city and the Abbey. A steward of 
 the Abbot was defeated by the Londoners ; but apparently the 
 word 'sporting' had not yet been invented, or was not, at any 
 rate, current among the monks. For, in arranging a return 
 match, the steward collected to play on his side all the best pro- 
 fessional wrestlers he could find. Even so, however, the plaguy 
 Londoners seem to have been getting the better of it, for our 
 Benedictine friend treacherously fell upon them with an armed 
 party, beat and wounded them, and put them to flight. A very 
 great row ensued, for the populace, this time incited beyond 
 control, rushed in a riotous crowd to the Abbey, burnt down the 
 steward's house and afterward, very imprudently, assaulted the 
 Abbot himself. They returned to the city in huge delight at 
 having triumphed for once over the arrogant Abbey. But the 
 victory was as short as the vengeance was sweet ; for the 
 Abbot appealed to the King, and the citizens' leaders were 
 arrested, and hanged a few days after. 
 
 55
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 The question of precedence between St Paul's and the 
 Abbey was a constant cause of rivalry and bitterness, enlivened 
 by a sort of competition between the chroniclers of the two 
 places, in which he of St Paul's claimed the origin of his 
 church in a Roman temple to Diana ; and he of Westminster, 
 not to be outdone by a mere city cathedral, countered by 
 producing a temple of Apollo as the original of the Abbey. 
 
 The grants made by Henry III favouring the convent 
 over the city provoked the citizens to fury. On one occasion 
 they carried their complaints to the Earls of Cornwall and 
 Leicester, who " cursed and abused the Abbot in such a 
 manner as was a shame to his dignity and a scandal to 
 report." And the high-handed exclusiveness of the Abbot 
 brought against the monastery in 1262 an action at law by the 
 City of London, in which the City of London was successful. 
 
 But we have not yet glanced down that list of the names 
 of Abbots. A very early claim for Benedictines at Westminster 
 is that St Augustine, who was trained in the Rule, introduced 
 it into this country when he converted Kent in 597. That 
 would have been less than fifty years after the death of St 
 Benedict, and it is, of course, just possible. Then we hear of 
 Orthbright, appointed Abbot by King Sebert in 604. But 
 coming to authentic history, Dunstan is known to have brought 
 twelve monks to Westminster after persuading King Edgar to 
 restore the monastery in 960. Dunstan is even said to have 
 presided over the monastery for a time, but that is doubtful ; 
 and the first certain name of an Abbot is Wulfsige, who 
 was appointed by Dunstan and who died in 1004. 
 56
 
 
 'j"«-
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 Thenceforward, the five hundred years' history of the Abbots 
 of Westminster is in great measure the history of England, 
 from Wulnoth, friend and adviser of Canute, to Boston, last 
 Abbot at that judgment day of the Dissolution in 1539. Between 
 those two there were Edwyn, the Confessor's Abbot, and Gilbert 
 Crispin, the Norman scholar introduced by the Conqueror, 
 Berkynge, favourite of Henry III, Langham the Peacemaker, 
 and that Litlington who added much to the Abbey structure 
 (with Langham's money) and claimed the credit for himself- 
 There was, too, Islip, penultimate name on the long list, who 
 appears to have been something of a statesman, besides Abbot, 
 Commissioner of Sewers, and builder (in the chapel which is 
 called after him) of the only bit of Perpendicular English 
 Gothic that the Abbey possesses. 
 
 But with these good men there were alternated others of 
 a very different kind. There was Gervaise, the natural son of 
 King Stephen, "an insolent, arbitrary man" of whom it is 
 recorded (so surprising and various are the occasions of human 
 vanity) that he presumed too much on his birth ! There was 
 Papylion too, studious and a good preacher, but alas, he also too 
 human, and accused of " dilapidations and incontinency." And 
 now it would surely seem that this Benedictine Order, so healthy 
 and fruitful at first, is degenerating fast. For we find the 
 immoral Sudbury procuring his appointment by a gift to 
 the Pope of 8000 florins — and leaving the payment of it 
 to his successors ; and a despotic Crokesley, who quarrelled 
 so much with his convent that it became a " scandal and a 
 disgrace." 
 
 57
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 It would appear to be time to close the list ; and even allow- 
 ing for all sorts of mixed motives in Henry VIII, one begins to 
 understand why he found it desirable, in Stock Exchange jargon, 
 to 'wind up' the monasteries. For helpful as their coffers may 
 have been to the King, it is clear that their moral force was 
 all but bankrupt ; and Henry possessed a very full measure of 
 theoretical morality. 
 
 So the Abbacy was dissolved in 1539; and Abbot Boston 
 (Benson) was appointed the first Dean. There was a re- 
 vival for a short time by Mary, in a period of inevitable 
 reaction ; but to read in these days about the solemn historical 
 scene on November 30, 1554, when England was reconciled 
 with the Church of Rome, has only an ironical interest. A 
 thing which comes much closer to our hearts, and lifts this little 
 epoch of the restoration for a moment out of the darkness, is 
 that in 1557 they reinstated the Confessors Shrine, which in 
 Henry's time had been foully used. But two years afterward 
 the final dissolution took effect under Elizabeth; and in 1560, 
 as we have seen, the great Queen re-established the founda- 
 tion as the College or Collegiate Church of St Peter at 
 Westminster. 
 
 Yet the influence of the monastic origin of the church 
 remains of vast interest. Consider its bearing on the actual 
 architecture of the place. The shaping power of conventual 
 needs is as evocative, and much more obvious, than in such 
 intangible things as history and civilization. By it were deter- 
 mined the very form and character of the whole pile. The 
 reason why Westminster Abbey is not simply a church, but a 
 58
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 great mass of buildings of very various design and purpose, is 
 that there was a community of monks living here. In early 
 times the fraternity was so small a party as twelve— the twelve 
 monks brought from Glastonbury by Dunstan. But the 
 number rose in the two succeeding centuries, and attained an 
 average of about fifty. The highest number which it seems to 
 have reached is fifty-eight ; and at the Dissolution it had 
 fallen to thirty. 
 
 Now the Rule required that the convent should be enclosed 
 and self-supporting. Apart, therefore, from the farm and all 
 the buildings that it implies, there was of course the need for 
 housing the community. Hence we find, clustered round the 
 church, such domestic buildings as the refectory, the dormitory, 
 the Abbot's hall, the infirmary, cloisters, kitchens, and crypt. 
 Hence, too, the treasury of the convent, called the Chapel of 
 the Pyx. There the regalia was kept, and the standard 
 weights and measures. The King's Treasury was under the 
 Chapter House, whence, in 1303, Edward I was robbed of a 
 vast sum that he had hoarded to pay for his Scottish wars. 
 
 That burglary of the King's Treasury was a lamentable 
 defection of our poetical Benedictines — for there can be no doubt 
 that the monks connived at it. Forty-eight of them were 
 arrested and tried at the Tower ; and the Sub-prior and Sacrist 
 were eventually convicted. They had planned the whole thing 
 very cleverly, in concert with a certain Richard de Podlicote; 
 and they had even sown, a month or two before, plentiful 
 healthy hemp-seed in the cloister-garth. When this was a tall 
 and flourishing crop, they carefully hid in it, little by little, the 
 
 59
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 treasure that had been abstracted secretly from the King's 
 Treasury ; and finally they carried it off by night in a boat 
 across the river. 
 
 From the constitution of the community, too, and the fact 
 that it was governed through the deliberation of all the monks 
 met together in daily assembly, rose the Chapter House, one of 
 the loveliest features of the Abbey architecture. 
 
 Thus one passes, reviewing this monastic influence on 
 actual design, to the church itself. One wonders sometimes 
 why the choir of Westminster should occupy a large part of the 
 nave. And then one remembers the reason. These five bays 
 of the nave, fitted with an organ and effectively screened from 
 the rest of the church, constituted the monks' chapel ; and 
 where seats are now, were their stalls. Because this church 
 was to be a place suited for the worship of God by monks, its 
 nucleus is the high altar and the choir ; and all other con- 
 struction is subordinated to that. 
 
 But the monks had other devotional needs beside this 
 central heart of their worship. Although Benedictines were, 
 in the early days of the Rule, mostly laymen, it became very 
 general for them to take orders ; and every priest was required 
 to say Mass once a day. When it is remembered how large a 
 foundation Westminster was at the time that Henry HI built, 
 it will be seen that this cause determined the erection of 
 numerous altars, each, of course, with its chapel. Thus there 
 were to be found, grouped about the nucleus of high altar and 
 choir, as many as twenty separate chapels ; with the result that 
 the Abbey was not one church, but many — a central church of 
 60
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 St Peter, surrounded by others dedicated to saints whom the 
 faith of the time desired as intercessors. 
 
 Again, an important part of monkish ritual was the 
 procession, and this determined several architectural features of 
 the Abbey ; as, for example, the ambulatory, or passage round 
 the apse for the monks to traverse the back of the high altar : 
 the doorways out of the south aisle (that at the east end for 
 the procession to pass out, and that at the west for it to return), 
 and the doorway in the choir-screen through which the monks 
 passed back into their stalls. 
 
 The great procession on Sunday morning before High 
 Mass was a long and elaborate affair. It visited and aspersed 
 every altar in the church and precincts. First it went to the 
 high altar, and' all the altars set about that sacred spot. Thence 
 it passed into the north transept, and eastward round the 
 ambulatory to the lady chapel and its aisles, aspersing each altar 
 in its transit. Thence to the south transept, the chapel of St 
 Faith, the south aisle of the nave, and out into the eastern 
 cloister. All round the eastern, southern, and western walks it 
 would go, visiting the Chapter House, dormitory, infirmary, 
 etc., and enter the church again by the west cloister door. Then 
 all the altars in the nave would be aspersed, and a stand would 
 be made, in double file, before the rood screen, which in those 
 days stood at the western end of the nave. After certain prayers 
 had been said, the monks would pass through the two doors 
 of the rood screen, form into single file, and enter their stalls 
 by way of the door in the centre of the choir screen. Then 
 High Mass would begin. 
 
 6i
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 But we have not yet acknowledged our debt to the Abbots 
 of the monastery for the construction of the nave and the 
 western end. 
 
 Henry III built the church proper, that is to say, the 
 nucleus of which we have spoken as the heart of the monks' 
 worship. This central church of St Peter, consisting of apse, 
 crossing, and choir, Henry practically completed. We re- 
 member, however, that the King only destroyed of the 
 Confessor's building so much as he determined to rebuild. 
 Hence he left the old Norman nave standing ; and Professor 
 Lethaby, the surveyor of the fabric, has made a charming word- 
 picture of the whole Abbey as it then appeared : 
 
 The great bulk of the eastern work rose high above the nave and 
 Lady Chapel ; the stone work was fair and sharp ; the lead roof shone like 
 silver ; the window-glass gleamed against the light like nets of sea-water 
 or as if mixed of fire and sky ; the royal doors, with their noble statues 
 of the Apostles, were daintily illuminated in colour and gold. The 
 greater part of the cloister was of sturdy Norman work, wood-roofed. 
 The dormitory over its cellars and the refectory were long ranges of 
 early Norman building, while the infirmary, which backed close upon 
 some of the palace buildings, was of elegant transitional Norman. To 
 complete the picture, we are to think of our Abbey as set about with its 
 farm-buildings, granaries and mills, and its orchards and fields. 
 
 So Henry left the fabric, complete and lovely, but in two 
 totally contrasted styles. Probably he supposed that his royal 
 successors would proceed to replace the Norman nave by one 
 which should correspond to his own structure. But the King 
 who immediately followed him was keener in battle than in art. 
 To him it was so much more important to subdue Scotland than 
 62
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 to build churches ; and besides, was there not the royal palace 
 to claim the attention of a virile and victorious monarch ? 
 
 For more than a century no royal hand was outstretched to 
 the Abbey. Then, in 1388, Richard II was smitten with a sense 
 of responsibility. He undertook to assist the rebuilding of the 
 nave ; and he left by his will certain jewels to help pay the cost 
 of it. Henry V, too, immediately upon his accession, appointed 
 a commission of two persons to take charge of this work ; and 
 let the reader note well who those two persons were. For they 
 were no other than the Prior of the Abbey, and— Sir Richard 
 Whittington, Lord Mayor of London ! One likes to think of 
 those colleagues : of the Abbey and the city, after centuries of 
 zestful wrangling, at last meeting on polite terms : of the proud 
 Prior and the famous Dick co-operating : of the lion and the 
 lamb, or at least the cat, lying down together. 
 
 Yet these two Kings and one or two others who, though 
 more feebly, helped to sustain building operations, were not of 
 great importance in the history of the nave. Of the Henry VII 
 Chapel we do not now speak, of course, since it is a separate 
 single achievement, and must be considered by itself. But that 
 apart, the completion of the Abbey as we know it was the work 
 of certain able and devoted Abbots who succeeded each other 
 from the time when Henry III died until the nave was finished 
 in 1517. 
 
 You may think that two hundred and fifty years is a long 
 time to take in building a nave. Well, so it is, even with a full 
 realization of what such an undertaking entails — in planning, 
 preparing, quarrying, hewing, transporting, shaping, erecting 
 
 63
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 and adorning these immense walls, triforia, clerestories, and 
 vaults — under medieval conditions. But in the first place 
 the convent was not now assured of limitless supplies of money, 
 wrung from the pockets of infuriated burgesses. The Edwards 
 were wise in their generation, and did not harass for that par- 
 ticular cause their subjects. And in the second place, the monks 
 had vastly more than the nave to construct during that period. 
 
 A grave misfortune had befallen the Abbey in 1298. A 
 fire in Westminster Palace spread to the convent and consumed 
 the refectory, the Abbot's hall, the dormitory, the cloisters, and 
 other important parts of the monastic buildings. To recon- 
 struct such a vast range was a task demanding huge sums of 
 money and a long period of time. It would absorb completely 
 the revenues of the foundation, and as we know, there was 
 now no royal fund available. The calamity prevented any 
 possibility of commencing the nave for many years. Temporary 
 wooden buildings were put up, to be replaced in stone as time 
 and funds allowed ; and the earliest portion of this new work 
 (a very interesting bit at the southern end of the east cloister) 
 was done by Byrcheston, who succeeded to the Abbacy in 
 
 1344- 
 
 The great Langham followed, projecting and commencing 
 
 immense works which Litlington, who succeeded him, completed 
 
 and took the credit for. These comprised the rebuilding of 
 
 the infirmary, the dormitory (now a part of Westminster 
 
 School), together with the cellarer's offices and guest house, 
 
 the water-mill and its dam, the Abbot's hall (now the deanery), 
 
 including the Jerusalem Chamber, where Henry IV died ; as 
 
 64
 
 ^«.^'
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 well as the southern walk of the cloister and the greater part 
 of the western walk. In the bosses of some of the vaults here 
 will be found the initials ' N. L.' by which the hardy Litlington 
 signed the work as his. 
 
 Langham had a strong desire to commence the new nave ; 
 and one may well imagine that this large scheme of domestic 
 construction which he had imposed upon himself irked him 
 not a little. He pushed it forward for twelve years ; but it 
 was still unfinished when he was made Cardinal and went 
 away to France. He did not forget his convent, however ; 
 and from Avignon he sent a generous promise to pay an annual 
 sum so long as he lived toward the project that he held so dear. 
 In 1376, therefore, by grace of Langham's munificence, 
 the nave was begun ; and the first stone of it was laid by 
 Litlington. There is a letter of this year from Litlington to 
 the Cardinal, in which he says, in tones which are the echo of 
 his character: " I myself laid the first stone on the ist Monday 
 in Lent." 
 
 But there is not a great deal to show in the nave for what 
 Litlington achieved, with all his resources. There was of 
 course a great deal of preparatory work to do — more of that 
 zealous demolition which always preceded the constructive 
 efforts of the faithful. It is more than likely, too, that 
 Litlington had a dravverful of unpaid bills for those other 
 works, to which he appropriated, with a private sigh of relief, 
 part of Langham's grant for the nave. From whatever cause, 
 however, it is clear that he accomplished only three bays of the 
 wall of the south aisle, from the point at which Henry's work 
 
 E , 65
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 stopped ; with the three bays of the cloister which abut on that 
 part of the wall. For Langham's supreme generosity and 
 devotion, therefore, nothing is to be seen in the church itself, 
 save those three bays of the south wall. To see that bit of wall, 
 you must traverse the south aisle and count from the east, 
 beginning with the first great pier at the crossing, until you 
 reach the sixth, seventh, and eighth bays. And then, having 
 located the spot, you will find that it is all but hidden under a 
 layer of memorial tablets. 
 
 However, it was a beginning, and vastly interesting on 
 that account, little of it as can be seen. There is another point 
 of the later work in the nave which intrigues the mind. It is the 
 junction with Henry the Third's structure at the triforium level ; 
 and it is positively eloquent. The diapering of the spandrils, 
 done so joyously by Henry's workmen, ceases here ; and the 
 plain wall, which was not made until much later, succeeds. 
 But the string-courses do not precisely join. Somebody must 
 have miscalculated in the new work. Probably a draughtsman 
 lost his job over the mistake, and the chief mason had a tre- 
 mendous wigging ; and the architect felt the error as a blot 
 on his career ; and yet it is a delight. For had the wall been 
 joined with perfect accuracy one would never have recognized 
 the spot, looking up ; never have thought on the long gap 
 of time, perhaps two hundred years, that separates those 
 short inches ; and never have gauged the fidelity of those 
 old abbots, architects, and workmen who, following Henry's 
 dea, erred only so minutely in fulfilling his design. 
 
 The construction progressed very slowly after Litlington's 
 66
 
 A BENEDICTINE MONASTERY 
 
 death. It proceeded, bay by bay, of the ground story first ; 
 after which the triforia were finished over the aisles before 
 the clerestories were begun. Lastly, the vaulting and glazing- 
 were done, and the paving of the nave completed in the 
 year 1517. 
 
 The primary architectural fact about all this work is its 
 perfect harmony, not only with itself, but with the style of 
 Henry's church. Dates are useful in this connexion. About 
 a hundred years had elapsed between the completion of Henry's 
 building in 1272 and the laying of the first stone of the 
 nave ; and it was a period of activity and growth in Ciothic 
 architecture. Yet in planning the new structure, no thought 
 was admitted but the continuation of the French style of 
 Henry's church. Again, the nave grew so slowly that there 
 was time in the long intervals for a complete new develop- 
 ment in English Gothic : yet the original style was persisted 
 in with but slight modifications. When one remembers how 
 keen the medieval builders were, how they adored their art 
 and loved to improve it, and how rapidly they progressed 
 from point to point toward a style of great magnificence, one 
 salutes the rightness of judgment and restraint which created 
 the unity of Westminster, making it sing together in all its 
 parts one song of delicate grace and stateliness. 
 
 One neeci not specify perhaps, in this tribute to monastic 
 energy, the exact contribution of succeeding abbots to the 
 rearing of the nave. Colchester, with Henry V supporting 
 him, vigorously pushed on the work, and wisely reintroduced 
 the use of Purbeck marble for the pillars, as Henry III had 
 
 67
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 done. He died in 1420; and the work was practically at a 
 standstill until Millyng, without any royal aid, built a bay 
 and began to roof the clerestory. Esteney succeeded to the 
 Abbacy in 1474. Suspected by Henry VH of Yorkist 
 leanings, he was obliged to dispense with the royal favour. 
 He managed very well without it, however, for his record of 
 achievement is high. He continued the vaulting and glazing 
 of the clerestory, carried up the west end of the church, 
 reared buttresses and battlements, and finished the great west 
 window. Little wonder that he left a deficit of about ;^6ooo ; 
 and gave his successor the honour of paying it for him. It 
 was all that successor had time to do. Lastly Islip, Abbot 
 from 1500 to 1532, rounded off and completed all this work; 
 and built the Jericho Parlour and lovely Perpendicular chapel 
 which bears his name and in which he is buried. But though 
 one speaks of the church as finished about the year 151 7, it 
 was not in fact quite complete. The upper parts of the two 
 western towers were added in 1740. 
 
 68
 
 CHAPTER V : The Holy Tlace 
 
 LET US put our shoes from off our feet, and stand for 
 a few minutes in the Holy of Holies of the English 
 Race. 
 
 We are within the railing before the high altar, on the 
 spot where the supreme rite of our religion has been observed 
 for a thousand years. Here, we are taught to believe, is the 
 perpetual presence of God ; and here certainly is manifested 
 the glory of the Spirit of Man, subduing the material world 
 to his vision of truth and loveliness. 
 
 Here our kings are crowned, their lives symbolically 
 offered up at the altar, in remote continuation of a rite older 
 than history, wherein the King was in actual fact sacrificed 
 for his people. 
 
 Our race began here, drawing into union at this place 
 the contributory elements of Norman, Saxon, and Dane. Its 
 history lives in the stones and vibrates in the air and circles 
 about us in link upon positive link, forged from those fused 
 elements, until the generations lie round us like a golden 
 chain. 
 
 To our right lies Sebert, early Saxon founder. Canute 
 must have stood on this spot when first he learned to add 
 mercy to pagan nobleness. In front of us, just beyond the 
 reredos, and high up in his shrine, are the bones of the 
 Confessor. At this coronation place of English kings, and 
 first of them to be crowned here, stood William the Norman. 
 On our left lie Aveline and Edmund Crouchback, all Aveline s 
 youth and beauty and great estate brought low to found the 
 
 69
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 House of Lancaster. Between them is Aymer de Valence, 
 much-loved Poitevin kinsman of Henry HI ; and opposite 
 lies Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VHI. 
 
 Thus lies the hallowing chain, linking many centuries and 
 many races. But the place is holy, too, from its loveliness. 
 Artists came from other countries to decorate and embellish 
 the stately fabric that English workmen had made ; and English 
 artists, too, played their important part. They taught the 
 foreigner and they learned from him, in community of ideas. 
 They emulated and collaborated. They joined with strenuous 
 and jolly comradeship in their stupendous task of evoking 
 beauty from crude matter. Thus, members one of another 
 they exalted that deep principle of all religion, with no word, 
 polemical or pedagogic, said about it. They proved by their 
 co-operation, tacitly and implicitly as Art always can, the life- 
 giving force of that principle. And here on this spot made 
 sacred by Religion and History and manifold human associa- 
 tions, their living works testify to the power of the Spirit of 
 Man (which is the Spirit of God) when it is working in 
 fellowship. 
 
 Beneath our humble feet is a mosaic pavement made by 
 an Italian artist with material brought from Rome in 1267. 
 Above the tomb of Anne of Cleves is a painting of Richard II, 
 said to be the finest portrait of its period, which was probably 
 painted by a Flemish artist. Behind the portrait is a rich 
 hanging of old English needlework, and next to that are the 
 sedilia, or ancient seats of the clergy, carved and painted by 
 English hands, about the year 1300. The three exquisite tombs 
 70
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 on the left, of about the same date, are probably English too, 
 but English as all the work at Westminster is, stimulated 
 and enlivened by free intercourse with other races. And the 
 reredos, with its complicated history and origin, not only closes 
 the circle with a work in some parts modern, but unites once 
 more in an echo of the centuries the voices of Italian and 
 English Art. 
 
 We must look more closely at these works of man by 
 which the Holy Place is sanctified ; and we will try to see 
 them as they were in their original freshness. Very lovely 
 they still remain, and nothing could quench the life of beauty 
 in them save absolute destruction. But the centuries have 
 robbed them of something ; and though we may yet see the 
 indestructible spirit of the work, some part of the joyous mood 
 in which it clothed itself at first has vanished from our sight. 
 
 Think of this sanctuary (or, not to confuse it with the 
 sanctuary proper of the monastery, we will call it the presby- 
 tery) as it originally blazed with gold, sparkled with jewels, 
 and shone with colour. It is possible to evoke a mental 
 picture of it from the evidence of material which still exists. 
 Hanging in the ambulatory may be seen a painted and gilded 
 panel which stood at the back of the early altar. There seems 
 no doubt that it was the original retable, actually in place 
 in the year 1269, when the church was consecrated. It is 
 dim and worn now ; and to the casual eye it has lost its 
 splendour. But to the eye of 'him who knows' — such, for 
 instance, as that of Viollet-le-Duc, famous French architect of 
 the nineteenth century — it is " an object perhaps unique in 
 
 71
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Europe," the only surviving example of that particular form of 
 art. Professor Lethaby, too, whose judgments one confides in 
 because they are so quietly stated and so strongly fortified 
 by reasons, says that this retable is " the most beautiful 
 thirteenth-century painting in England." 
 
 One borrows, therefore, the eye which sees because it 
 brings with it the power to see, to help our uninformed 
 imagination. The panel measures lo feet by 3, and is in five 
 compartments. Three of the compartments, those of the centre 
 and two ends, were filled with painted figures, each set in its 
 columned and gabled niche. The two intermediate ones had 
 each a group of four small scenes from Scriptural history, set 
 medallion fashion. In the middle stood Christ in majesty, 
 holding the universe in His hand ; and on His either side were 
 the Virgin and St John, each bearing a palm-branch. In the 
 end panel on the left is still visible the figure of St Peter ; 
 and the corresponding space at the opposite end was probably 
 occupied by St Paul. 
 
 One thinks of this work, even thus baldly described, and 
 one perceives that in its nobility of design, glowing colour, 
 and vigorous drawing it must have been fully worthy of its 
 high place of honour. But there was more beside. All the 
 background and the framework were gaily decorated. Rich 
 gilding filled the ground behind the pictures, and that again 
 was delicately patterned over the whole of its surface. The 
 spaces between the panels were covered with brightly coloured 
 mosaic composed of pieces of glass, sometimes blue and some- 
 times red and green, which were superposed on gold or on 
 
 72
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 scarlet, and in their turn, were wrought upon with raised 
 designs in gold, now of a flowing vine, now of the lion of 
 England, and now of the fleur-de-lys. In the framework, 
 with its reticulated gilding, and over the trefoiled arches in 
 which the figures stood, were set cameos and jewels and 
 enamels ; and if a modern realist declares that these shining 
 fragments were imitations, it is worth remarking that the 
 same dissecting hand and eye discovered what infinite pains 
 were taken in the fabrication of them, and how very fine were 
 the materials used. And, in any case, the effect was one of 
 great magnificence. 
 
 This, then, was the altar-piece ; and the gleam and sparkle 
 of it were repeated from every object that stood about the Holy 
 Place. Viollet-le-Duc conjectured naively that it must have 
 been a French composition ; and there is said to be gold- 
 smithing work that resembles it at Evreux and Rouen. But 
 successive Abbey architects, zealous for the honour of native 
 craftsmen, have challenged his assumption. They would, 
 of course. Professor Lethaby, reviewing all the evidence, 
 plumps finally for a certain Master Walter of Durham, King's 
 painter to Henry HI, who was also responsible for the famous 
 Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace. And that is not 
 aji unnatural decision, powerful champion as Professor Lethaby 
 is of those old Abbey artists. But may it not be possible 
 that both theories are right, and that here is another happy 
 union of English and foreign elements ? Perhaps some French 
 hand wove the gay mosaic about and about the sweet serious- 
 ness of the English painting, making the finished work into 
 
 73
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 " a beautiful and perfect whole." If so, it was not in honour 
 of kings only that they wrought into the shining pattern the 
 lion and the fleur-de-lys. 
 
 Space will not admit a reconstruction in detail of the 
 other works that stood in the presbytery, and indeed it is 
 unnecessary, for most of them remain upon the spot. Yet in 
 looking at what they are to-day, one must remember to 
 re-clothe them in their gold and colour and intricate decorative 
 patterning. 
 
 There was an embroidery frontal to the altar, worked 
 elaborately in gold, which would have cost in modern money 
 about five thousand pounds. The sedilia, erected probably 
 in 1308, have four panels below their carved gables, and each 
 panel was painted with the figure of a saint or a king, both on 
 the inside and outside, making eight in all. Some of the 
 figures may still be seen. Placed so near the altar, it was 
 fitting that the paintings should be those of the founders of 
 the church ; and standing as they do above Sebert's tomb, 
 he would inevitably find a place there. Hence in the panels 
 of the outside, that is to say, those which look down into the 
 ambulatory, were Sebert and St Peter, Edward the Confessor 
 and St John. And of course the Confessor was depicted in 
 that familiar gesture of giving his ring to the Apostle in the 
 guise of a beggar. Of the four figures in the inside panels, 
 two were of kings, probably Henry and his immediate 
 successor Edward I ; and these paintings remain clear. They 
 are attributed to Master Thomas, son of Walter of Durham ; 
 but may even have been by Master Walter himself 
 74
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 The beauty of the sedilia now resides mainly in their 
 grace and proportion, with the vigorous detail of three small 
 carved heads placed at the springing of the gables. But when 
 they were young in Abbey time the gables themselves were 
 filled with a mosaic of red glass over gold, and the spandrils 
 were plated with blue glass over silver. The mouldings 
 were gilded and the hollows between them were stained in 
 scarlet. 
 
 The tombs on the left-hand side of the presbytery are of 
 the same architectural character as the sedilia, and of about the 
 same period, that is, the first decade of the fourteenth century. 
 Though Aveline died many years earlier than her husband 
 Edmund Crouchback, and Aymer de Valence did not die 
 until 1326, all the three monuments have many resemblances. 
 They have, too, much the air of one composition, which they 
 well may have been ; and of all the lovely Gothic work that 
 the Abbey contains, they are the loveliest. 
 
 The smallest of the three, and farthest from the altar, 
 is that of Aveline. In its sweet grace and simplicity it is 
 perhaps the most charming ; and those qualities might pos- 
 tulate an earlier date for it. But we reflect in time that a 
 mere woman, even though she was a great beauty and a great 
 heiress, could not hope to lie so close to the altar, nor in so 
 magnificent a tomb, as men and warriors. Besides, the differ- 
 ence is not so much of style as of smaller size ; and one cannot 
 therefore argue from it to a different period or authorship. 
 
 The general design of the tombs is, indeed, similar, with 
 pointed canopies in stone supported by columns and buttresses, 
 
 75
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 a carved effigy lying below, and along the basement of each 
 tomb a row of niches occupied by little figures. These are 
 studies of the relatives or mourners, called technically ' weepers,' 
 and they have a delightful grace and vivacity. Each tomb has 
 a trefoil in the gable of the canopy and richly carved foliation 
 in the arches ; and the niches below each effigy are of the same 
 trefoiled character, six of them for Aveline, eight for Aymer de 
 Valence, and ten for the great Richard Crouchback. 
 
 All the three tombs are so harmonious, so graceful, and 
 so finely executed that they are a perpetual joy. In their 
 total effect, as a unity, they possess the intense revealing 
 power that great art always has, and so exalt the spirit. But 
 when we approach a little nearer and examine the details, 
 delight is added to exaltation. Professor Lethaby says, of 
 the mourners on the middle tomb, that of Aymer de Valence : 
 " The weepers are the most exquisite small sculptures in 
 England. They are of the gayest type, and show close 
 observation of character and gesture, of the fashionable fall 
 of mantles, and the proper way to hold gloves, and are as 
 vividly studied as Tanagra figurines, and should be of much 
 more concern to us." And the reason why we ought to be 
 so much more interested in them is that they were carved by 
 an English artist, representative of a flourishing native school 
 of sculpture, namely. Master Richard of Reading. 
 
 The tomb of Edmund Crouchback is the most mag- 
 nificent of the three, with its triple canopy, its elaborately 
 foliated arches, and its eight tall pinnacles. His effigy, which 
 is in better preservation than that of Aveline, his young wife, 
 76
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 is that of "the perfect knight." He is clad in chain armour, 
 and his hands are folded in prayer. There is a splendid lion 
 - at his feet, emblem of royalty no doubt, but symbolizing also 
 that the spirit has now put off its animal origin. At his 
 head, as at the head of Aymer de Valence, kneel two angels 
 to receive and bear away the escaping soul ; but on the tomb 
 of Aveline the angels support her head ; and there are no 
 beasts at her feet. In the trefoil of Edmund's canopy, as in 
 that of Aymer, there is carved in high relief, and with 
 splendid energy, a knight in full armour on a prancing war- 
 horse, the very picture he used in one of his seals. 
 
 Yet here again, as with the sedilia and the ancient 
 retable, we have to imagine the most brilliant decoration 
 covering the whole work. Effigy and basement, gable, but- 
 tress and pinnacle, trefoil and spandril, niche and little carved 
 weeper — all were wrought upon with gesso work and gilding, 
 inlays of bright glass and vivid colouring. With these in- 
 comparable tombs, the golden altar frontal and the glittering 
 retable and sedilia, the Holy Place must have been glorious 
 indeed. To the reverence which the spot itself inspired was 
 added the exaltation that perfect art kindles like a flame ; 
 but lest these should be too lofty and austere for mere human 
 creatures, they were played upon with the dancing gaiety of 
 mood which gleams from colour and gold. 
 
 There was, too, another lodestone for the eye of the 
 worshipping beholder, more magnificent still, perhaps, and 
 certainly more powerfully attractive to the medieval heart 
 and mind. It was, of course, the Shrine of Edward the 
 
 77
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Confessor. Nowadays the shrine is hidden by the tall 
 screen behind the altar, itself a curiously interesting feature, 
 of literally half ancient and half modern structure, with the 
 old carving visible on its inner side. No one looking from 
 the choir would suspect the existence of the shrine at this 
 spot, so completely shut off is it. But when Henry built the 
 church, his devotion to the beloved St Edward demanded 
 that his shrine should be the supreme object in it. We know 
 as a fact that the whole idea of building the great fabric 
 germinated from the idea of the shrine ; and we remember 
 the old historian's description of it, as a candle lifted up on 
 high, to draw all eyes to it. 
 
 The shrine was placed by Henry HI on the site where 
 it still stands, in the centre of the St Edward Chapel, 
 immediately behind the high altar. Therefore, as the old 
 reredos was lower than the existing one, the shrine was 
 perfectly visible from the church below. To see it now, one 
 must go round to the back of the ambulatory and ascend 
 by a flight of steps into the St Edward Chapel. This means 
 of approach makes it a little hard to realize at first that the 
 chapel is an extension of the presbytery itself, and separated 
 from it only by the reredos. Yet an effort should be made 
 to grasp the fact ; and it will be rewarded not only by the 
 sense that one is recapturing the idea of the designer, but by 
 a perception of the unity of the Holy Place. 
 
 The whole of this eastern limb of the church is thus 
 seen as one place, not only in the planning of the architect 
 and in hallowing associations, but in its design as a relic 
 
 78
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 chapel and burial-place of kings, and very largely in its 
 scheme of decoration. It is sometimes called the Chapel of 
 the Kings, because so many royal persons lie here, not kings 
 alone, but queens and princes too ; and the ancient Corona- 
 tion Stone is kept here. 
 
 The Coronation Chair stands, as one feels that it should, 
 quite near the shrine. It faces the St Edward altar at the 
 west end of the shrine and is placed against the back of the 
 reredos : it is therefore immediately behind the high altar. 
 The old sculpture which forms the back of the reredos is that 
 ancient part of it of which we have already spoken, its outer 
 side that looks into the presbytery having been made anew 
 with modern sculpture and mosaic. But on this side the 
 original work remains. It was erected about 1400; and the 
 frieze is carved in a series of scenes from the Confessor's life 
 — his birth and coronation, the remitting of the Danegelt, the 
 forgiveness of the thief, his miracles and visions and holy 
 acts. 
 
 But the carving is of course decayed and mutilated, and 
 like the historic Chair which rests against it, its former glory 
 is departed. The Coronation Chair, indeed, is very dim and 
 grey, and would appear to be merely a commonplace old wooden 
 arm-chair if it were not for something curious in the construc- 
 tion of the seat. One's eye is caught by that ; and there, in a 
 sort of box with an open front, is that travelled and historical 
 and tragic thing, the Coronation Stone of the Scottish kings. 
 Edward I seized it — he too betrayed into an act of vandalism 
 by a chance to satisfy acquisitiveness or vanity. Astonishingly 
 
 79
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 varied is the list of the victims of this lure ! Kings, bishops, 
 abbots, choristers, schoolboys : in Abbey history each has 
 fallen in turn to this popular vice ; and is it not written that 
 Pepys once kissed the poor corpse of a queen, here in this 
 very church calamitously exposed ? 
 
 Edward I, then, seized the Stone of Scone, from Scone 
 Abbey in 1296, and got himself crowned King of Scotland on 
 it. Some time afterward, Bruce begged for its return. The 
 Stone was infinitely precious to the Scots, not only because 
 all their kings had been crowned upon it, but from its sacred 
 origin and its remote antiquity. They loved it for the sake of 
 their country and their kings, and they held it in profound 
 veneration for its prodigious destiny. They called it the Stone 
 of Fate. It had been their Coronation Chair for generations 
 of successive kings, but that was the least part of its sanctity. 
 For it was the stone on which the patriarch Jacob had laid his 
 head when he saw the vision of angels at Beth-el. Moses 
 had blessed it, in Egypt, with promise of victory. Brought out 
 of Egypt by Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, it had travelled 
 into Galicia, and then to Spain. From Spain to Ireland it 
 went, carried about as sacred relics were carried by the devout 
 in those days ; and from Ireland it was a comparatively short 
 step into Scotland, first to Argyllshire and thence to the Abbey 
 of Scone. 
 
 No wonder that Bruce appealed for its return ; and less 
 wonder if the English, with a tardy gleam of grace, did once 
 contemplate rendering it back. There is extant a letter of 
 Edward III in 1328 ordering the Abbot to return the Stone, 
 80
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 according to a decree of Parliament. Nevertheless the Stone 
 stayed at Westminster : all succeeding kings were crowned 
 on it (queens, of course, had a humbler crowning-seat), and 
 it has never left the Abbey since it was brought there — 
 save on the occasion when Oliver Cromwell was installed 
 Lord Protector of England upon it, in Westminster Hall. 
 There is a little legend of ironic import, out of which the 
 Scots seem to have drawn some comfort. It was to the 
 effect that their King Kenneth had caused to be engraved 
 on the Stone a couplet which ran that wherever the Stone 
 should reside Scottish kings should rule. And the prophecy 
 was held to be fulfilled when James I came to the throne of 
 England. Well, human nature is capable of extracting solace 
 from strange sources, and it may be that the Scots can 
 detect something satisfactory in the Stuart rule. Or did the 
 triumph lie perchance in the chastisement which that rule 
 brought to the English spoilers ? 
 
 The Coronation Chair, as we saw, is of wood, though 
 Edward first intended to make it in bronze. All the surface 
 of the wood was originally decorated. It was covered first 
 with a layer of gesso, then gilded all over, and burnished ; 
 and finally a pattern was pricked on the gold surface. The 
 panels of the exterior were filled with a design of foliage — of 
 thorn, ivy, and vine : the inside of one arm had a pattern of 
 diaper, and of the other arm, birds among oak-leaves. The 
 gable and spandrils were decorated with sprays painted on 
 gold or silver trefoil, and covered with glass. On the inside 
 panel of the back was the picture of a king, probably of Edward 
 F 8i
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 the Confessor, with his feet resting upon a lion. At each side 
 of the Chair was a pinnacle surmounted by a leopard ; but the 
 lions now at the base of the Chair were not a part of the 
 original work. 
 
 But all that beauty has faded now ; and one turns from 
 the Chair to the shrine itself, to find that it too has lost its 
 former glory. One supposes that it was not ever of such 
 consummate loveliness of form as the tombs of the presbytery ; 
 and for that reason ravage and spoliation have left it, not tragic 
 as ruined beauty might have. been, but only pathetic. So they 
 have laid upon it a reverent pall, to cover some of its scars. 
 
 The monument was originally in three tiers, consisting of 
 first, a marble and mosaic basement. This was substantially 
 as we see it now, with its three trefoiled niches on the north 
 and south sides flanked by twisted columns, a writhing pillar 
 at each corner (one is now missing), and the whole, pillars, 
 niches, and frieze, elaborately patterned in a beautiful glass 
 mosaic. Above the basement was the feretory, or shrine proper, 
 in which the Confessor was actually laid. This was of gold, 
 and in niches along its longer sides stood golden statues of 
 kings, set with jewels. The topmost tier was a cornice of 
 rich tabernacle work ; and to complete the shrine an altar 
 was placed at its western end, guarded by two tall pillars. 
 
 Only the basement still exists of the original monument ; 
 for the present superstructure is a wooden erection of Queen 
 Mary's time, to replace the feretory which had been destroyed 
 at the Dissolution. The three deep recesses on the north and 
 south sides were constructed to receive the sick who came 
 82
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 for healing at the tomb. Placed within one of those niches, 
 the unfortunate would be as close as it was possible to get 
 to the holy body of the saint which, as they knew, had 
 miraculous virtue. The glass mosaic covering the whole 
 surface was inlaid in Purbeck marble ; and an inscription 
 which ran round the upper edge attributed this work to Peter, 
 citizen of Rome. Peter was fellow artist with that Odericus 
 (also of Rome) who laid the stone mosaic of the presbytery. 
 Probably it was he, too, who wrought the lovely mosaic on 
 the tomb of Henry III, which stands on the north side of 
 the shrine. One has but to glance at that tomb to get an 
 idea of the early appearance of the basement of the shrine, 
 and to realize the important part that Italian mosaic art 
 played in the decoration of this, the innermost sanctuary, of 
 our Abbey. Workmen and materials, we are told, were 
 brought to England from Rome about the year 1267, by 
 Abbot Ware. Odericus, an artist in the stone mosaic known 
 as 'opus Alexandrinum,' finished the pavement of the presby- 
 tery in the year 1268. The fragments of porphyry, serpentine, 
 and palombino which he used, weaving with them an enduring 
 pattern in the groundwork of our own Purbeck, were spoil 
 from the buildings of ancient Rome. Peter, his comrade, 
 worked in the Cosmati branch of the art — glass mosaic : he 
 completed the basement of the shrine in 1269. 
 
 The shrine as finished to Henry's design must have 
 been of unimaginable splendour. A constant stream of 
 pilgrims flocked to it, and travellers from other countries wrote 
 in terms of awe at its magnificence. One recalls Henry's 
 
 83
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 frenzied efforts to get money for his church ; and then one 
 finds an inventory, drawn up when the prodigal King was 
 compelled on one occasion to pawn the treasures of the Abbey, 
 which helps us to a dim idea of the immense riches of the 
 place. Here is a part of the list, consisting of images from 
 St Edward's Shrine ; and it will be remembered in reading 
 that each was in gold, and that money then was of many 
 times the value that it is to-day: 
 
 St Edmund, King. Crown set with two large sapphires, a ruby, 
 
 and other precious stones, worth ^86. 
 A king, with a ruby on his breast, and other stones, ^48. 
 A king, holding in his right hand a flower, with sapphires and 
 
 emeralds in the middle of the crown, and a great garnet on the 
 
 breast, ^56 4s. 4d. 
 A king, with a garnet in his breast, and other stones, ^52. 
 A king, with sapphires in his breast, etc., ^59 6s. 8d. 
 Five golden angels, ^30. 
 Blessed Virgin and Child, set with rubies, emeralds, and garnets, 
 
 ;^200. 
 A king, holding the shrine, with precious stones, ;^I03. 
 A king, holding in one hand a cameo, and in the other a sceptre set 
 
 with rubies, prasinis, and pearls, ^100. 
 St Peter, holding in one hand a church, in the other the keys, 
 
 trampling upon Nero, with a large sapphire in his breast, ^100. 
 A Majesty with an emerald in the breast, ;^200. 
 
 Doubtless these were the statues set about the golden 
 feretory in which the Confessor's body lay. The Majesty, 
 and the Virgin with Child, would be placed at either end : 
 St Peter trampling upon Nero was, of course, the patron 
 saint of the Abbey ; and the king holding a model of the 
 84
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 shrine could be no other than the author of it, Henry IH, 
 The other statues would be, fittingly, of sainted English kings, 
 one of whom, St Edmund, is precisely named. 
 
 One begins to have an idea of the manner in which the 
 vast sums accumulated by Henry were spent ; and finally one 
 accepts the modern computation that the shrine must have 
 cost not less than ;^8o,ooo. All these riches, however, were 
 plundered at the time of the Dissolution : not, it is asserted, 
 under Cromwell, who did the Abbey no harm. 
 
 We remember that the body of the Confessor was trans- 
 lated into this shrine on October i8th, 1269, on the day when 
 the Mass was first celebrated by the monks in the new church. 
 But twice before that date the body had been disturbed. In 
 iioi, when Gilbert Crispin, Abbot, wished to determine some 
 theological point concerning chastity and corruption, he ordered 
 the tomb to be opened. And lo ! great triumph for the 
 sacrilegious polemical Abbot, for the chaste King was found 
 to be incorrupt. The fact was sufficiently impressive, one 
 would think ; but it did not deter Bishop Gandulph from 
 trying to tear out a hair of Edward's long yellow beard. 
 One rejoices to learn that he did not succeed. 
 
 Again, in 1163, at the date of Edward's canonization, 
 when the body was transferred to another tomb, it was found 
 untouched by decay. On this occasion it was the Abbot who, 
 despoiling the poor body, drew from the finger that renowned 
 ring which was sent back to Edward from Paradise by his 
 beloved St John. Finally came the uplifting into the mag- 
 nificent new shrine made by Henry HI ; and thenceforward 
 
 85
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 for nearly three hundred years the harassed bones had rest. 
 But in 1539, at Henry VIII's Dissolution, the feretory was 
 destroyed, the basement pulled down, and all the treasure 
 carried oft". It is not clear where the Confessor's body was 
 then laid : but some say it was placed below the ground where 
 the shrine stood. In 1555 the shrine was reconstructed by 
 Queen Mary, and the body of the saint once more laid within 
 it. It lies there still. 
 
 When James II was crowned, and the usual forest of 
 destructive scaffolding was erected, a part of it broke a hole in 
 the Confessor's wooden coffin. The head of the King was once 
 more seen, " firm and whole " ; whereupon the vandal of that 
 particular epoch inserted his hand among the bones and drew 
 out the King's crucifix and chain. They were both of pure gold, 
 and the crucifix was richly adorned. So they were presented 
 to the King — but where they are now, no soul knows, for 
 James II lost them in a hurried flight from England in 1683. 
 
 Here, then, in a shrine which has been shorn and maimed, 
 lie the rifled bones of Edward, king and saint. They were the 
 supreme relic of this relic chapel, the seed from which the 
 church itself sprang, the lodestar of countless pilgrimages, the 
 object of infinite devotion, the confident hope of the sick, the 
 inspiration of the warrior, the adoration of the devout. The 
 shrine in which they lay was like a jewel in an exquisite 
 setting : one of the world's marvels, lauded with a kind of 
 awe by travelled persons who could compare it with famous 
 masterworks. The spot on which it stands is the holiest 
 in the Abbey, the starting-point of the English race and the 
 86
 
 THE HOLY PLACE 
 
 heart of their religion. It came in time to be encircled by 
 the tombs of monarchs, whose prime aspiration was to lie in 
 death near the great Confessor. It gathered to itself things 
 infinitely precious — the Coronation Stone, torn from a proud 
 and warlike nation ; and relics brought reverently and with 
 immense difficulty from distant lands. Fragments of ancient 
 Rome are embedded in its pavement ; the hands and the 
 brains of many skilled craftsmen and artists of divers nations 
 have given of their best to beautify it ; and kings have brought 
 incalculable treasure to it. And always, from the day of that 
 first translation of the saint, a stream of prayer has ascended 
 near this spot, binding it, if so we can believe, "with gold 
 chains about the feet of God." 
 
 Surely, therefore, the shrine must be the most living thing 
 within the Abbey ? Surely it is the dearest and most sacred ? 
 So one challenges oneself, surprised to find that it is not so. 
 Standing before it, one marvels at the fact that the shrine 
 brings no such tide of exaltation into the mind as flows from 
 the tombs beside the high altar. It is dead by comparison. 
 By an effort one can grasp something of the profound sig- 
 nificance of it ; one grows sensible of its impressiveness : one 
 realizes that it has dignity and must once have had grandeur 
 and magnificence. Yet one is still left cold. It would appear 
 that there is no life here, to kindle life in us. 
 
 One speculates a little on the reason for this experience. 
 Is it that we are more closely akin to the native Gothic art? 
 Is it the ravage that the monument has suffered ? Is it the 
 specific basilica design, which in its severe lines appeals to 
 
 87
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 an intellectual rather than an aesthetic appreciation ? Or is 
 it that this very form is one which, subconsciously perhaps, 
 reminds us of a dead empire, a dead civilization, a dead world ? 
 Probably for none of those reasons, though one remembers at 
 Rome itself that oppressive sense of Death. More likely, it 
 may be, the reason simply is that the creator of the shrine 
 did not achieve a consummate work. Whether it was some 
 vice of alloy in Peter, citizen of Rome, marring the single 
 desire for beauty ; or whether it was some vice of motive in 
 Henry the King, zealous for mere magnificence — something 
 there was which quenched at the source the creative joy 
 which, once wrought into perfect shape, endures so long as 
 any fragment remains of the shape itself. 
 
 88
 
 CHAPTER VI : " We Traise Thee, 
 Lord " 
 
 WE said, when we were trying to pay the small tribute 
 of comprehension to Henry the Third's purpose and 
 achievement, that we should presently salute his 
 workmen. We shall do that now, honoured in the opportunity 
 of calling for a moment out of the crowded dark the names of 
 some English craftsmen. For by these men Henry's design 
 was accomplished : they gave to his idea an enduring body . 
 and the fabric of the Abbey, intensely alive as it is with the 
 most precious because most vital things, grew out of their 
 lives, stone by lovely stone springing responsive to rectitude 
 and loyalty. Because these men loved their job well enough 
 to put their soul into it (which implies, of course, more than one 
 can stop to say of humane conditions of labour, and social 
 amenity) the form of the Abbey is made from the happy souls 
 of men ; and that is why it is such a joyous place that you 
 always want to sing as you walk round it. Diapered wall and 
 airily springing arch, slender shaft and mighty pier and windows 
 like a benediction, fragile remnant of sculpture and vanishing 
 outline of old painting — they are all singing together a song of 
 delight in their own existence, that Te Deum which one would 
 suppose must be the most acceptable praise to the Author of 
 existence. 
 
 There is a book which deals at length with this subject of 
 Abbey craftsmen ; and in a handsome and generous spirit. 
 Perhaps it is even a little too generous in its ascriptions to 
 native authorship; but no one is likely to quarrel with it on 
 
 89
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 that account, seeing that never before has the English work 
 in the Abbey received its meed of recognition. The book 
 represents almost the first attempt to search for, identify, and 
 give credit to native artists and craftsmen ; and it is full of 
 interesting fact and quaint detail which illuminate that 
 medieval world. So that we get from it not only an occasional 
 ray thrown on the social scene, as, for example, when Henry 
 takes wine with his Mason, and, finding it good, arranges an 
 exchange with him of several barrels, but an exact presentment 
 of the economics of Abbey construction. To that book, then, 
 with thanks to the author. Professor Lethaby, we go for our 
 information about the old workmen. 
 
 The material is much too copious to attempt even the 
 outline of a complete survey. Neither could one attain the 
 precision of fact, nor the completeness of reference, which are 
 possible in a book devoted entirely to the subject. Still less 
 is it possible to reproduce the cumulative effect on the mind 
 of these masses of detail — not arid and wearisome as statistics 
 easily can be, but stimulating the imagination to a vision of 
 cheery and hearty busyness right through the social scale, with 
 everybody doing his bit of work, from the King, eager, in- 
 formed, purposeful, fertile in resource, accessible and friendly, 
 to the clerk and the master of the works, the master mason, 
 the master carpenter, the painters and sculptors, the goldsmiths 
 and metal-workers, the stone-layers and plumbers and task- 
 workers — all intent, whether consciously or subconsciously, 
 on their great constructive effort. 
 
 We shall gather, however, some interesting fragments 
 90
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 from these data : taking, that is to say, facts about men whose 
 work not only remains and is susceptible of identification, 
 but which has a special appeal to us, whether from its charm 
 or its associations. 
 
 But, at the outset, there is one step to be taken away from 
 this authority, and it is that which concerns the name of 
 supreme interest — the first architect of the Abbey. Now there 
 is a certain 'Master Henry' mentioned in the early records: 
 he appears as the Master Mason, and receives his robe of office, 
 in 1243. Professor Lethaby, for cogent reasons, expressly 
 designates him " Master Henry of Westminster',' thus claiming 
 him as an Englishman. But the "of Westminster" is an 
 addition of his own, frankly deduced from the fact that the 
 first architect was not described in the records hitherto known, 
 as belonging to any special place such as, for example, Robert 
 of Beverley. He was simply and always ' Master Henry.' 
 Inasmuch, therefore, as craftsmen from other places were 
 always distinguished by the name of their town, it was inferred 
 that Henry was a Londoner ; and more closely, since ability 
 of every kind gravitated toward the King, that he was of 
 Westminster. It is a deduction which, one would think, 
 might be safely drawn from the available data. Unhappily, 
 however, it falls to the ground at the approach of newly 
 emerged facts. For, as we saw in another chapter, the Rev. 
 H. F. Westlake, the Custodian of the Abbey, has unearthed 
 an old entry dated 1255 which proves to the satisfaction of 
 archaeologists that this first King's Mason was a French- 
 man, Henry of Rheims. Yet, after all, why use the word 
 
 91
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 'unhappily'? It is quite inapt. And to begin a survey of 
 English craftsmen with a French name is not so anomalous 
 as it might appear to be. For not only did Henry's French 
 ideas create a building which, thanks to the native workmen, 
 is a compound of the best of both nations ; but Henry himself 
 seems to have become anglicized to the extent of settling and 
 leaving heirs in this country. 
 
 Henry of Rheims, then, first architect of the Abbey, is 
 heard of in an official capacity in 1244, when " Master Henry 
 the Mason " was sent to York to advise about the fortification 
 of the castle there. Matthew of Paris says that work on the 
 Abbey was begun in 1245; and in 1246 our architect acquired 
 two messuages at Westminster, the deed for which is still in 
 existence at the Record Office. This fact suggests that the 
 rule for the master mason to be a householder was already in 
 force : a person entrusted with so important and lengthy an 
 operation must needs be established and responsible — there 
 might be no flitting away with the job only half done, and 
 commitments everywhere for material and labour. In 1248 
 the official Roll of Accounts mentions Magister Henricus, 
 Cementarius ; and in the following year Master Henry received 
 to pay for task-work (which is piece-work) ^t.^ 13s. 4d. The 
 wages of skilled workmen at this period were is. lod. per week : 
 of other workmen and clerks gd. per week. In 1251 the ardent 
 King became impatient with the progress of building, and 
 ordered his chief architect to hurry up the marble work : also 
 he considered that the number of men employed upon the 
 church should be increased to six or eight hundred. 
 92
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 It is evident that Master Henry's office was no light one, 
 and he seems to have filled it for nearly ten years, till the end 
 of 1253. One can hardly grasp the magnitude of his task; 
 but the Abbey itself proclaims it. What can be said about 
 this giant who, in addition to the artist's vision and the 
 scientist's patient planning of the great edifice, actually directed 
 the building of a very great part of it ? Nothing adequate 
 can be said ; but his work lives after him, and he in it. 
 
 John of Gloucester followed, described as "king of 
 masonry in these realms " because of his important work at 
 Gloucester, Woodstock, and Westminster. He reigned until his 
 death in 1261 ; and received, as did all the ' Master ' craftsmen, 
 furred robes of office twice a year. John is the hero of the 
 King's wine-drinking episode, already mentioned ; and of 
 another. For on a certain occasion he seems to have bought 
 wine from the royal cellars, and to have forgotten to pay for it. 
 Whereupon the Sheriff of Gloucester, official and meticulous, 
 prepared to seize John's property in forfeit ; but was checked in 
 time by a command from the King " not to distrain John le 
 Macun." He seems, indeed, to have been a prime favourite 
 of Henry the Third, which is creditable no less to him than 
 to the King ; and implies a great deal regarding John's 
 artistic capability. He possessed already house property in 
 Westminster: yet in 1258 we find the King presenting him 
 with certain other houses, in recognition of his services. He 
 carried forward the work begun by Henry of Rheims in the 
 Abbey, pressing it with the utmost speed, as the King desired ; 
 but he did not live to see its completion. During his time 
 
 93
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 the wages paid to ordinary workmen averaged 2s. 2d. per 
 week. 
 
 He was succeeded in 1 262 by Robert of Beverley, by whom 
 the fabric was finished. The last account of payments for labour 
 on Henry's church was vouched for by Robert in the year 1272, 
 when the King died. It was for such finishing work as paint- 
 ing, glazing, etc. The King did not leave his Mason without 
 resources after his task was over ; but provided a certain daily 
 sum to be paid to him for a year ; and after Henry's death, 
 Edward I made his father's Mason a present of wine, and 
 engaged him on other royal works. 
 
 These, then, were the three architects (King's Masons) 
 responsible for the actual building of the Abbey. There were 
 many others engaged later ; but it is not possible here to name 
 more than two or three of them. There was Richard Crundale, 
 who came from a village in Kent and became citizen of London 
 and King's Mason about the year 1281. He it is to whom 
 we owe the beautiful tomb of Oueen Eleanor in King- Edward's 
 Chapel. He is said to have designed the Eleanor Crosses 
 (they were sculptured by another hand) and to have super- 
 intended the erection of the most important one, at Charing. 
 
 Michael of Canterbury came next, in 1292 ; and his name 
 is written in the Abbey in most lovely characters — if, as it 
 is believed, he built the exquisite tombs of Edmund Crouchback 
 and his wife Aveline, and probably that of Aymer de Valence. 
 For certain work which he did at St Stephen's Chapel he seems 
 to have been paid 3s. 6d. a week. 
 
 There ensues a pause in Abbey-building of nearly a 
 94
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 hundred years ; and the next King's Mason to appear is Henry 
 Yevele, in 1388. This is he who built the nave of the church ; 
 and who, great architect and modest man, continued loyally 
 the style of the first designer when he planned his own work, 
 thus making of Westminster a rare example of harmony. He 
 had a long and busy career, serving the Crown as Master 
 Mason in three reigns. There is an entry of 100 shillings 
 per annum paid to Master Yevele ; plus, for his dress and 
 furs, 15s. 
 
 It would take too long to recount all the fruitful activity 
 of Yevele, and how he prospered and lived to an honoured 
 age. And if the planning of the nave seems too big and 
 abstract a thing for an incorrigible love of the concrete to 
 cling to, it is always possible to go and look at the tomb 
 of the famous Langham, and murmuring there the name of 
 Master Henry Yevele, pay thus our tribute to two great men. 
 
 We must pass over for the moment Robert Vertue, the 
 supposed architect of the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, to 
 speak of him in a proper place. And the only other im- 
 portant King's Mason who then remains to be mentioned is 
 Thomas Mapilton, who came to Westminster from Durham 
 about the year 14 16. 
 
 On Mapilton we must pause a moment, because he was the 
 author of the romantic Chantry Chapel of Henry V, which suits 
 so well with the career and character of that romantic King. 
 We have not glanced at this work yet because, although it 
 stands in St Edward's Chapel, and belongs in intention to the 
 circle of tombs which surround the shrine, in reality it is a 
 
 95
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 thing apart; and this not in position merely. Its date is 1422, 
 and it is therefore about a century and a half later than the 
 shrine. That naturally implies a vast difference in the spirit 
 and style of the work ; but the contrast between it and the 
 chief masterpieces of the St Edward Chapel is something more 
 than a change of fashion. There is between them the radical 
 unlikeness that goes down to their origin in different races. 
 It is summed up in the very names of the respective authors. 
 The classical lines of the shrine and its brilliant geometrical 
 mosaic of the Cosmati School are all implicit in the signature 
 which the artist put round the edge : " Peter Citizen of Rome." 
 And the springing fretted turrets of the Chantry, its many 
 sculptured figures, and even its stout iron grille (though that 
 was by another hand) are all crowded into the words "Thomas 
 Mapilton, King's Mason at Westminster." 
 
 But Henry V's Chantry is literally a thing apart from the 
 shrine — a fact which has some poignance when we know how 
 earnestly Henry desired that his tomb should be a part of the 
 Confessor's monument. Glance for a moment at the illus- 
 tration facing page 8. It will be seen that the choir, as it 
 comes in procession out of the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, is 
 passing under a bridge that spans the back of the ambulatory. 
 That bridge supports the Chantry of Henry V, which is there- 
 fore not on a level with the shrine at all, but raised one storey 
 above it. A further point should be observed before leaving 
 the illustration. At the foot of the steps down which the 
 singing boys are walking is perhaps the most interesting spot, 
 archaeological ly, in the whole Abbey. For it is the junction of 
 96
 
 ':i^"*5''^;!il^
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 three great works, those of Henry III, 1269; of Henry V, 
 1422; and of Henry VII, 1512. Thus one of those boys 
 might put out a hand and touch, in passing, three ages of our 
 history, three important epochs of Abbey construction and 
 Gothic art — besides the many generations of the workmen's 
 toil. And nowhere in the Abbey is that song of praise we 
 spoke about more joyful than it is here. 
 
 When Henry V was about to start upon the doubtful 
 adventure of Agincourt, he made his will and left directions 
 for his entombment. And though that great adventure ended 
 happily, the directions were followed out not many years after, 
 when in 1422 the King died at Vincennes. He had aspired to 
 burial in St Edward's Chapel, and as near the shrine as 
 possible. But the spaces were already filled : the royal circle 
 round Edward's bones was complete. Nevertheless, a King 
 who was not to be daunted in winning from the land of his foes 
 their most beautiful princess, had no intention of being baffled 
 in the matter of a tomb. So he left directions for a chantry to 
 be built, and bequeathed enough money for the endowment of 
 three monks to say masses daily for his soul. Master Thomas 
 Mapilton, then established for several years at Westminster, set 
 about the execution of the royal will. He could not have been 
 responsible for the carved work which is so plentiful about the 
 chantry : for the sculptors of the time did that ; but the very 
 ingenious contriving of the whole chapel, the combined lightness 
 and strength of the building, and its effect of romantic grace 
 and mystery, are his achievement. 
 
 The reliquary which formerly stood at the eastern end of 
 G 97
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 St Edward's Chapel was removed, with its altar, to the space 
 between the shrine and the tomb of Henry III. Two turrets 
 were put up, on the north and south sides of the space so left ; 
 a bridge was thrown across them, carried over the ambulatory 
 by two arches, and the Chantry Chapel was erected upon it. 
 Whatever one may think about the chantry in detail — that it is 
 perhaps a little too florid, and that its sculpture is not the 
 noblest in the Abbey — there can be no doubt that its design and 
 construction are a triumph : and the position is superb. When 
 by a favour one is allowed to climb the dangerously worn steps 
 of the north turret into the chapel, one gets an unimpeded view 
 of the whole length of the church, over the shrine and the high 
 altar and the choir screen, right down to the western windows, 
 with triforium and clerestory soaring above. The view is 
 probably unequalled, and it gives, as no other aspect of the 
 interior does, a sense of its noble proportion and harmony. 
 
 In the chapel under the altar lies Katherine, the French 
 princess whom Henry won for his queen. She did not always 
 rest in this her own place, but lay first in the old Lady Chapel. 
 When Henry VII pulled down the Lady Chapel to build his 
 new one, Katherine's coffin was perforce removed ; and it 
 would seem to have been broken in the process. For we hear 
 of it, placed beside the tomb of her husband below the 
 chantry, with the upper part of the Queen's body visible. 
 Thus it remained for about 270 years ; and it must have been 
 on this spot that Pepys succumbed to vanity and greed of 
 sensation. In 1669 he has an entry that he saw " the body 
 of Queene Katherine of Valois, and I had the upper part of 
 98
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 her body in my hands and I did kiss her mouth, reflecting 
 upon it that I did kiss a Queene, and that this was my birth- 
 day 36 years old that I did kiss a Queene." In 1776 Katherine 
 was buried in the Chapel of St Nicholas ; but it was not 
 until the nineteenth century that she was removed to this 
 her rightful place. Dean Stanley placed her tomb here 
 in 1878. 
 
 The tomb of Henry V himself lies below his chantry, in 
 that small enclosed space between the turrets which was 
 formerly the site of the reliquary. The tomb is guarded by 
 a strong grille of fine smith's work, made by Roger Johnson 
 of London. But stout as it is, it did not prevent the ravagers. 
 For on the Purbeck marble basement lies now a mere 
 wooden block, which once was — "a royal image, like himself, 
 of silver and gilt, which was made at the cost of Queen 
 Katherine." The head has completely vanished. On a bar 
 above the tomb hang certain accoutrements, very doubtfully 
 said to have been worn by the warrior-king at Agincourt — 
 his shield, a tilting-helmet, and a saddle. 
 
 The stonework of the chantry is richly sculptured over 
 its whole surface. Above the altar are seven canopied niches, 
 each filled (except the central one) with its carved figure of 
 a king or a saint. The turrets are fretted and niched with 
 ogee canopies for little carved figures, many of which are gone. 
 Above each turret door is a large figure, representing the 
 Confessor and St John ; and the arches which span the 
 ambulatory are topped by an elaborate carved frieze which 
 has a gay processional effect. The whole work has the 
 
 99
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 peculiar charm of its period, representing the luxuriant fancy 
 of the age just as it does the romantic character of the 
 King. 
 
 But to return to our craftsmen. We find that there were 
 at W^estminster during Henry Ill's time flourishing 'schools' 
 in various arts and crafts. It was, in fact, a culture centre, 
 radiating outward from the King (who was, so to speak, 
 a collector of artists) far beyond the limits of Westminster 
 itself. Thus there was a School of Sculpture centred at the 
 Abbey which must have trained and given occupation to a 
 great many workmen, for it supplied not only the carved work 
 required in the Abbey itself, but images for other churches 
 which the busy King happened to be building or rebuilding 
 at that time. Not that Westminster was the only school of 
 the kind : there were others, at Gloucester, at Nottingham, 
 at Corfe. But the impulse came from the centre. 
 
 We have already spoken of masons. But indeed most 
 of them were sculptors too, for the arts were not depart- 
 mentalized in medieval times. The mason could carve, and 
 the sculptor could plan and construct a building. Hence names 
 in our first list may be found in the second, and frequently 
 the mason and the sculptor worked together upon the 
 same task. 
 
 John of St Albans was King's Sculptor in the year 
 1257-8, when Henry Ill's great work was being completed. 
 He is described as " Sculptor of the King's Images," and it 
 is recorded that he duly received his robe of office. While 
 it is difficult to point to any complete work in the Abbey 
 100
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 and say that it was done by John, all the remains of earliest 
 carving may be associated with him. Mutilated and mouldered 
 though they are, the work still has great beauty, and its interest 
 is intense. There is not much of it ; but if we go into 
 St Faith's Chapel and look up at the corbel-heads we shall 
 see some vigorous work which probably came from the hand 
 of this old carver. There are, on the north side, a lady's 
 head, the head of a negro, and two grotesques ; and three other 
 heads on the opposite side in the recess. Unfortunately, most 
 of the work attributable to John of St Albans is so high up as 
 to be almost out of range. It had at any rate to be out of 
 reach, or it would not have escaped the destroying hand of the 
 monument-maker. But if one cranes one's neck sufficiently it 
 is possible to see, high in the transepts, the figures of censing 
 angels swinging thuribles ; and to see them is worth a great 
 deal of discomfort. There are a few small fragments which 
 can be more easily studied ; and they will be found some in 
 the eastern aisle of the north transept, and some on its western 
 wall, in the spandrils of the wall arcade. There may be seen 
 St Michael and the Dragon, a censing angel, a thorn-bush, 
 and other naturalistic subjects. Modern memorial slabs have 
 been interpolated between them, and they are crumbling fast. 
 But, decaying as they are, their lines still keep a power to 
 move us : they possess still the vigour of the life and the grace 
 of the love that carved them ; and here one may quite con- 
 fidently stop a moment to bless the memory of John of 
 St Albans. 
 
 One is tempted to linger over sculptors, but it will not 
 
 lOI
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 do. We must be content to name further only Alexander of 
 Abingdon and William the Irishman. These two carved the 
 statues for certain of the Eleanor Crosses, which were finished 
 in 1295. Alexander did those for the Waltham Cross, and for 
 the chief one at Charing. William the Irishman carved those 
 for Northampton ; and for these, described as the crown of 
 English Gothic sculpture, he received in payment the sum of 
 £2) 6s. 8d. apiece. Alexander was probably the chief master 
 sculptor of his period, and he was a citizen of London. One 
 thing that shines in his memory is that he probably wrought 
 the lovely figure of Aveline which lies on her tomb in the 
 presbytery. 
 
 Old Abbey painters are no less interesting than the 
 sculptors and masons. One of the earliest actual records of 
 painting for the church is a commission by Henry III to John 
 of St Omer in 1249; and about that time there were, besides 
 English artists engaged by the King, a certain Peter of Spain 
 and a William of Florence. It will be seen therefore that 
 the school of painting at Westminster was of considerable 
 importance, and international in character. 
 
 The most attractive name in this earliest group is that of 
 " Master William, a monk of Westminster," who is also called, 
 in the royal documents, " Our beloved Painter." What a 
 capacity for loving Henry III had ! Painters, masons, carvers — 
 all his workers he seems to have loved with a certain friendli- 
 ness ; but especially those who possessed in greater degree the 
 magical gift of making beauty. And he "took his own 
 wherever he found it," whether in France, Spain, Italy, or at 
 102
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 home in England. It is even on record that he honoured men 
 of letters, making a scribe come nearer to the throne on some 
 great occasion, so that he might better observe the scene. But 
 that was a different feeling, and rather a colder one ; the his- 
 torian was a person to be reckoned with, one who reasoned 
 and recorded. Whereas the painter and the sculptor were 
 fascinating human creatures who made lovely things with their 
 hands. 
 
 Master William, therefore, had especial power to win 
 Henry ; and it happens by great good fortune that one of his 
 works remains in reasonable preservation. It is the altar-piece 
 of St Faith's Chapel, painted about the year 1260. Professor 
 Lethaby declares that it is " the most remarkable early Gothic 
 wall painting left to us," and describes it thus: "Within a 
 painted niche stands a female figure in a swaying attitude, 
 gracefully draped, and more than tall. The colour, when it 
 can occasionally be seen on a summer afternoon, is beautiful ; 
 her mantle of rose-purple is lined with miniver ; the face is 
 quiet but full of passion, and the hands are well drawn. She 
 holds a book and a gridiron, and wears a crown, emblems of the 
 rule, trials and reward of faith. . . . The painting, which is 
 done in swift, sweeping touches, is in true tempera, and it has 
 never received the attention it deserves." 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that this painting in St Faith's 
 Chapel is a thing very lovely in itself, and to be seen for its 
 own sake. But when to that is added the charm of its position 
 here in a quiet unspoilt corner of the early architecture ; and to 
 that again the reflection that it is from the hands of the King's 
 
 103
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 " beloved Painter," the altar-piece becomes rich indeed. And 
 for a final claim — the little figure of a Benedictine monk who 
 is kneeling at the lower left-hand side is probably no other than 
 Master William himself, since in that position on medieval 
 pictures the artist or the donor was usually represented. Master 
 William, being a monk of Westminster, would be the donor of 
 the picture to his house, just as Fra Angelico adorned the cells 
 of his monastery of St Mark at Florence. But sooty London 
 has not been as kind to the English artist as the clean air of the 
 Florentine hills has been to the Italian ; and the truth must be 
 told that by the light of an ordinaiy London day it is little 
 indeed that can be seen of Master William's painting. 
 
 Master Walter of Durham is also a name to conjure with. 
 He succeeded Master William, and from the year 1262 seems 
 to have accomplished, with the tremendous industry of those 
 times, prodigies of work. He was the artist of the famous 
 Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace ; and within the 
 Abbey he and his school were responsible for much of that 
 rich decoration of which we saw examples on the sedilia and 
 the presbytery tombs. The painting of that wonderful old 
 retable was his also : that on the tomb of Queen Eleanor and 
 the tester which used to hang over it ; and the Coronation Chair. 
 
 Master Thomas, who was the son of Walter and worked 
 with his father at the Abbey, probably painted the figures of 
 kings and saints in the panels of the sedilia, of which two still 
 remain. His wages, while working as assistant to his father, 
 were 6d. a day ; and his father received is. a day. 
 
 Of other painters who worked in the Abbey or in the 
 104
 
 "WE PRAISE THEE, O LORD" 
 
 Chapter House, there is no space to write ; but we must glance 
 at two or three names down the list of metal-workers. We 
 know that the goldsmith's art was much practised in the 
 Middle Ages, and even later; and the extent to which it was 
 developed at Westminster may be judged by recalling the 
 magnificence of St Edward's Shrine. We remember that not 
 only was the feretory covered with wrought gold, but that it 
 was literally surrounded by golden images set with precious 
 stones. If we turn back again to that ancient inventory already 
 quoted, we see that fourteen or fifteen golden figures stood 
 about the feretory itself, all richly adorned and jewelled. 
 Further, we read that in 1244 the Queen gave an image of the 
 Virgin ; that in 1251 a cameo was carved for the shrine, and in 
 1260 precious stones were bought and set in it. Apparently 
 workers in metal flourished exceedingly in that flowering time 
 of the Arts ; and the wages of a master smith of the period were 
 3s. a week. 
 
 The great English name of this time is Master William 
 Torel, goldsmith of London, who somewhere about the year 
 1 29 1 made the magnificent bronze effigies of Henry III and 
 Queen Eleanor. These are among the supreme works in the 
 Abbey, and we shall return to them in a later chapter. For the 
 statue of Eleanor, with two smaller ones at the tombs also 
 raised to her at Blackfriars and Lincoln, Torel received 
 ;^ii3 6s.8d. 
 
 John Orchard probably wrought the bronze portrait effigy 
 of Edward III about 1377 ; and those of Richard II and Anne 
 were by Nicholas Broker and Godfry Prest, about 1395. 
 
 105
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Of Torregiano, the exuberant Florentine, friend of 
 Benvenuto Cellini and fellow-student of Michelangelo, we 
 shall tell when we consider the glories of Henry VII's Chapel. 
 But of work which, though quieter, is yet of very high merit, 
 plentiful English names survive. For Eleanor's tomb, that 
 subject so fit for the artist in every sphere to lavish his 
 skill upon, a smith named Thomas de Leighton wrought the 
 curved iron grille. Even looking up at it from the ambulatory, 
 whence it can be seen, one recognizes it for masterly workman- 
 ship. And the handsome iron gates of Henry V's tomb, 
 as we have already noted, were by Roger Johnson, smith of 
 London, who made them about the year 1431. 
 
 These are a few of the men who wrought their lives into 
 the church at Westminster, raising thus their joyful, undying 
 Te Deum. We are accustomed to think of the Abbey as 
 sacred to royal persons. Well, so it is ; but not all of them 
 wore crowns. One or two of them wore mitres, and one a 
 cardinal's hat : one at least carried a palette under his monkish 
 habit, and one, a certain Chaucer, Clerk of the Palace Works in 
 1389, went softly about the cloisters with the poet's musing, 
 downward glance. Another, brave Richard Whittington, 
 brought the counsels of an honourable merchant to the 
 succour of its affairs. Royal persons, all of them ; but not a 
 few wore the furred robes of the master craftsman, and many, 
 very many, wore leather aprons and went coifed, and carried 
 the tools of the waller, the carpenter, the plumber, and the 
 stone-layer. 
 
 106
 
 CHAPTER VII: The Home of Freedom 
 
 THE title of this chapter is only mine by adoption. I 
 found it one day when sauntering in the east cloister : 
 and having sheltered it since, offer it now as a phrase 
 not inapt to describe the Chapter House of the Abbey. The 
 finding was on this wise. Stopping to look for perhaps the 
 tenth time at the ruinous lovely entrance to the vestibule of the 
 Chapter House, there stood the policeman who guards the 
 spot. He is of course always on duty there on the days when 
 this part of the Abbey is open, representing in his person the 
 State which owns and controls it. Therefore one had seen him 
 often before. But it had been sight without perception ; and on 
 this occasion the bulky figure suddenly grew, so to speak, 
 illumined. It revealed itself as a potent symbol. Prosaic 
 enough as a foil to the grace of the thirteenth-century arch 
 above it, one yet saw the figure, with its solidity of body 
 matched by a certain weight of mind, with an air of endurance 
 and a glance alert and defensive, lit by a ray of the ancient 
 spirit of England. And then the rightness of its setting in 
 this spot jumped to the mind. There he was, servant of that 
 Civil Power which had birth here nearly seven hundred years 
 ago, which first met in this building and which, representing the 
 Commonalty of England, defended through the centuries those 
 ideals of freedom and a democratic rule which are supposed to 
 be peculiarly English. 
 
 He was, however, no mere carved image of a symbol, this 
 stout limb of the law. He was conscious of all he signified ; and 
 he had a sense of humour. For as we entered the Chapter 
 
 107
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 House together, I said : " I sometimes think that this place is 
 the most wonderful bit of the Abbey." And he replied : "You're 
 right; it is indeed: 'tis the home of freedom." Then after a 
 moment, and with a twinkle in his eye : " But the people who 
 come here don't see that ; I suppose it's a bit too thin for 
 them. They just poke their noses inside the door, and away 
 they go : ' Nothing to see here', they say." And the laugh that 
 followed was rich with the joke that in a place so crowded there 
 is nothing to be seen. 
 
 Well, there is, of course, a great deal to see in the Chapter 
 House, apart from those thin wraiths which the low visibility of 
 London, both mental and physical, almost hides. There is the 
 incomparable building itself (the epithet is of Matthew Paris, in 
 1250), with its carving and frescos and tiles, its single central 
 pillar and curious roof, and its lovely windows. Objects of 
 interest abound, here and in the adjacent Chapel of the Pyx — 
 concrete things which can be seen and touched. (At least, if 
 you show sufficient interest, the policeman will allow you to 
 touch them — and give you, too, their authentic history.) Yet, 
 with so much of the tangible, it is the ghosts themselves which 
 are the most real things. And the curious point is, that the 
 older, more remote and more attenuated they are, the more 
 intensely alive they seem. So that, in passing backward through 
 the thronging shapes of record officials, reformers and great 
 ecclesiastics. Parliament-men and kings, abbots, priors and 
 monks, one reaches ultimately that earliest and clearest vision 
 of a Benedictine House in Thorny Island as a foundation 
 stone of our civilization. There it is, vivid as only visions can 
 108
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 be — a little convent in a wild spot as the direct forerunner of 
 the House of Commons : a " small parcel of monks " making the 
 way plain in " a terrible place" for the English Constitution ; a 
 community meeting in regular assembly within a space that it 
 had toilfully cleared, and deliberating in those very seats which 
 were afterward used by the popular national assembly. 
 
 The visionary gleam is no will-o'-the-wisp, either ; for the 
 facts are clear as day. You may step back on them, walking on 
 solid dates most of the way, till you stand on the bed-rock of 
 historical truth in the matter, in a.d. 1265. In that year Parlia- 
 ment came to life as a representative national institution, sum- 
 moned by the powerful voice of Simon de Montfort, when he 
 called the people to join counsel with the Barons. But two 
 years before that, the Commoners of London had met to confer 
 in the Cloisters of the Abbey; and in 1275 the national Parlia- 
 ment, first called by the patriot Earl Simon, was established by 
 another, convened this time by the King, in which knights, 
 burgesses, and citizens were required to attend " for themselves 
 and for the community." 
 
 On that our present Constitution rests ; and if no apology 
 is made for repeating something so elementary, it is because of 
 a related fact whose significance is not so commonly realized. 
 For this assembly of 1275 was summoned to meet at West- 
 minster, and thenceforward Parliament continued to meet there : 
 which is to say, our Thorny Island had now become the centre 
 of the national life. And although the united assembly of 
 Lords and Commoners met for some time under the royal eye 
 in the Painted Chamber of Westminster Palace, it was not 
 
 109
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 long before the Commoners broke away to a separate existence, 
 and assembled in a separate place. From that time, about 
 the year 1282, the Abbey became the home of the House of 
 Commons, or, according to our helmeted authority, the Home 
 of Freedom. 
 
 Probably the Commons did not meet regularly in the Abbey 
 at first ; and their assemblies were not at any rate always in 
 the same part of the precincts. There are records of Councils 
 of State held in the refectory : once when Edward I made such 
 exorbitant demands that the Dean of St Paul's (poor valiant 
 protestant !) fell dead at the King's feet : once when Piers 
 Gaveston was impeached, and at other times. But from about 
 the year 1300 the House of Commons met in the Chapter 
 House ; and on the day when these men who made the laws 
 first adopted the assembly place of those old men of religion, 
 the wheel had come full circle, and the new age had arrived. 
 
 The monks had made a clearing in the wilderness, had 
 tamed Nature to their service, had planned and wrought for 
 the good of the community ; and they had thereby made the 
 later civilization possible. We think vaguely of them as 
 meditative, passive, even idle ; but they were in fact vigorously 
 constructive. They made things — churches, houses, farms, 
 wells, gardens, clothing; and were immensely active, practical, 
 and industrious. The one weakness of their Rule was that 
 it was too practical and too exhausting. There was no leisure 
 for mental growth. They assembled in their Chapter House, 
 as some say, to deliberate ; and probably they did discuss to 
 some extent the affairs of their House. But there could not 
 
 IIO
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 have been any great intellectual activity, for the plain reason 
 that their bodies were too tired. They were too much occupied 
 with action to have time for much reflection. One therefore 
 sees them withdrawing to the Chapter House rather as a refuge 
 from labour, thankful to find a little peace there ; and to 
 unite in a spiritual exercise which would be quite impossible 
 amongst their crowded daily duties. Their own Abbot Ware 
 defined thus the purposes of the Chapter House : " It is the 
 house of confession, the house of obedience, mercy and for- 
 giveness, the house of unity, peace and tranquillity, where the 
 brethren make satisfaction for their faults." 
 
 The new order appropriated the Chapter House to very 
 different uses from those, uses which seem at first sight 
 contradictory, conflicting and actually subversive of the Order 
 it replaced. On a longer view, however, one sees that the new 
 was really the fruit of the old, out of whose roots it sprang. 
 In the subsequent history of the House of Commons in the 
 Chapter House, and especially in the Reformation Acts passed 
 within these walls, there is indeed a curious spectacle. And 
 it will take on either a comic or a tragic aspect, depending on 
 the eye that one brings to it. There may be a sharp gleam 
 of irony in the vision of Parliament-men passing their Acts 
 of Submission, Supremacy, and Suppression, while sheltering 
 under the very roof of the Order that they were busily suppress- 
 ing. Or, on the other hand, the thing may look tragically 
 like a sort of parricide, the young offspring rising in wrath 
 to strike down a venerable progenitor. And one sees how 
 these two opposing views might clash (the humour of cold 
 
 III
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 thought and the heat of sheer emotion), even to the making 
 of feuds which, though dwindling in these days, show an 
 expiring flicker now and then — in the haughty stare of a verger 
 at that interloping policeman who guards so jealously the 
 Chapter House ; or in the derisive jingling of the police- 
 man's keys. 
 
 Yes, without venturing too bold an assertion, one may 
 perhaps say that feuds are dying out. A happy issue, no 
 doubt ; and yet, how much more exciting it would be to take 
 one extreme or the other ! It is so much jollier either to have 
 a good laugh at a thing or to get in a great rage about it — 
 rather than walk delicately down some narrow middle path, 
 balancing oneself precariously between fun and fury. It would, 
 for example, be quite amusing to reflect that it was Henry III 
 who created alike the incomparable Chapter House and the 
 House of Commons which met in it. That is to say, his 
 tireless zeal in finding money to erect his Abbey was, in 
 another aspect, a pestilential tyranny which pulled down the 
 royal power and set up the power of the people ; and that 
 Simon de Montfort, at the very moment when he called the 
 first national assembly of 1265, had our prodigal church- 
 builder safely under lock and key in the Tower of London. 
 Or, at the other extreme, one might reflect on the ruined 
 abbeys up and down the land, and, walking in our own Abbey, 
 stand before the ravaged shrine and fulminate against those 
 authors of the Dissolution who, meeting in this lovely building, 
 had yet no sense of the sacredness of Beauty. 
 
 But neither course is open at this time of day ; for some- 
 112
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 thing constrains the modern weakling along that middle path. 
 From it one gets a view of the historical prospect which is 
 provocative neither of laughter nor tears, but is a steady succes- 
 sion and fulfilment. Thus the one order grows naturally out 
 of the other, helped by occasional catastrophe, in Nature's 
 way ; but the two are seen to be mutually dependent, with 
 profound gratitude due to the old monks and immense 
 admiration to the Parliament-men, and honours about equally 
 divided. To the monks the debt stands of foundation-laying ; 
 of establishing, with their single tool of Religion, a material 
 basis for civilization : the creation, so to speak, of the body of 
 the State. To the Parliament-men belonged the task of advanc- 
 ing from that material basis : of building upon it the house 
 of the Constitution which is not made with hands : of 
 kindling a conscious mind within the nation's body : of the 
 perception of ideals ; and of a long, stern fight for freedom. 
 
 The fight, then, or the bitterer part of it, was fought in 
 the Chapter House. We need not follow its course, but may 
 simply name, as significant of the desperate earnestness of the 
 whole business, the first authentic Speaker of the House of 
 Commons. This was Peter de la Mare ; and he took up the 
 cause of reform with so much zeal that he got himself thrown 
 into prison in 1376, where he was kept for two years. This is 
 the epoch of the Peasants' Revolt, of John Ball and the " Rhymes 
 for the Times " : 
 
 Now reigncth pride in price, 
 And covetise is counted wise, 
 And lechery withouten shame 
 And gluttony withouten blame. 
 
 H 113
 
 And again 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Jack Miller asketh help to turn his mill aright. 
 
 He hath grounden small, small : 
 
 The King's Son of Heaven he shall pay for all. 
 
 Thenceforward, for nearly two hundred years (re-forming 
 years in the literal as well as the special sense of the word) this 
 building was the home of the Commoners of England ; and the 
 birth-place of many famous statutes. But in 1547 Edward VI 
 granted for their use the Chapel of St Stephen's in the 
 Palace of Westminster ; and they removed there. One might 
 suppose that at this juncture the Chapter House would revert 
 to its original purpose, and become the assembly-place of the 
 newly constituted Dean and Chapter, But by this time it was 
 a treasured State possession : the House of Commons would 
 hardly relinquish something so dear as the scene of its 
 turbulent youth ; so it was continued in use as a record office. 
 Its beauty was hidden away under shelves, galleries, and files 
 of documents ; its windows were walled up, and portentous 
 things were stored there. Among them were two volumes 
 of the original Dome's Day Book, the great Pipe Roll of the 
 4th of King John, and the earliest Parliament Rolls, that is 
 to say, those of the fateful years from the i8th to the 21st of 
 Edward I. It guarded also certain royal wills, of which one 
 at least — that of Henry VII — we shall find of some interest. 
 And it was said to preserve a parchment, small but weighted 
 with doom, the original Homage by Malcolm King of Scotland 
 to Edward the Confessor. 
 
 Disguised thus as a kind of safe-deposit, no one suspected 
 114
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 until comparatively recent times how noble a structure is the 
 Chapter House. Then, about the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, the Abbey architect of that day rediscovered it. It 
 was a gallant adventure. He squeezed behind galleries and 
 wooden frames, mounted on piles of dusty old papers, peered 
 with a lantern into dark corners, and doubtless spoiled his 
 temper and his clothes in a dogged effort to see round, under, 
 or over that maddening screen of boards which hid so much. 
 And all the time he was making his patient notes and sketches. 
 The result was a careful and complete description of some- 
 thing so lovely that the Parliament of that day, counselled by 
 Gladstone, its Chancellor of the Exchequer, granted sufficient 
 money to restore it. 
 
 At last, therefore, the horrid truth is out. The present 
 building is a restoration of 1865. Yet, granting fully that 
 that is a depressing fact, one need not be too much cast down 
 by it, for a great deal of the original beauty still remains. 
 There is, first and foremost, the fine shape and proportion of 
 the building. It is erected over a very substantial crypt of 
 Norman work; and was finished, as to structure, in 1253. It 
 is complete in itself, and separate from the Abbey. The 
 designer, therefore, had a free hand : he could plan for unity, 
 proportion, and grace ; and he could light his building effectively. 
 It is octagonal in shape, with an extremely fine window filling 
 each wall. The size and structure of the windows are worth 
 observing, and their effect is very noble. They are four-light 
 windows, each divided into two pairs of lights, which have their 
 separate traceried arch pierced above by a four-foil rose. The 
 
 "5
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 two pairs of lights are then combined into one vast containing 
 arch, it pierced in turn by a great six-foil rose above. 
 
 The remarkable roof, shaped like an inverted pyramid, 
 does not belong to the first design ; but the multiple pillar 
 which rises in the centre as its single support is original. It 
 is 35 feet high, and of Purbeck marble throughout. It is 
 composed of a central pillar, round which cluster eight slender 
 shafts, the whole bound together by three moulded bands. 
 The marble capital is richly carved ; and indeed there is much 
 of the early carving surviving in the Chapter House. Over 
 the inside of the door, to right and left, are two original figures 
 of the Virgin and the angel Gabriel which are considered to be 
 unsurpassed in their vigour and truth of execution ; and round 
 the curve of the arch of the door is a lovely design of climbing 
 foliage twining about finely carved little figures. 
 
 The walls are arcaded all round the building for the stalls 
 where the monks used to sit. The arcades are trefoiled, and 
 their columns and capitals are of marble. At the eastern side 
 there remain some original sculptured capitals, the marble 
 carved in very high relief. The spandrils over the arches have 
 a similar square diapering to that in the earlier part of the 
 church itself, which was of course being built concurrently 
 with the Chapter House. But in one of the spandrils at the 
 east end, where the decoration would be richer because the 
 Abbot had his seat there, is an exquisite trellis of roses. 
 
 The Chapter House was adorned with colour and gold 
 as gaily as the presbytery and the shrine. A series of paintings 
 filled the backs of the stalls. Those at the eastern side 
 ii6
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 represented Christ and the host of Heaven, and are work of 
 the fourteenth century. Those on the left of the door were 
 done late in the fifteenth century by John of Northampton ; and 
 are a series of scenes from the Apocalypse. Parts of these 
 paintings may still be seen. The diapering was in gold upon 
 a vermilion ground : the mouldings were in vermilion : the 
 capitals and abaci in gilt. 
 
 The tiled floor, however, is the most remarkable work 
 remaining from those old times. It was finished in the year 
 1258; but having been covered for the greater part of its long 
 existence, it is still almost intact. It is composed of incised 
 tiles of various design, including subjects which are intensely 
 interesting because of their reference to the time in which they 
 were laid down. There are, for example, figures of Henry III, 
 Eleanor of Provence, his Queen, and one of the Abbots of the 
 period, Crokesley. There are the leopards (not lions) of 
 England, the salmon of Westminster (that given by the 
 fisherman to the Bishop in proof that St Peter had actually 
 consecrated the church in person) ; and the favourite episode 
 from the Confessor's life, in which he gives his ring to the 
 beggar disguised as St John. Others represent hunting scenes, 
 and others again, in a set of four, give the exact design of the 
 great rose of the south transept, which was probably at that 
 moment being constructed. Professor Lethaby, who has 
 studied the tiles minutely and made drawings of them, declares 
 that they are equal to the Chertsey series and were probably 
 designed by the same artist ; and that this floor " is the finest 
 of its kind existing." 
 
 117
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 If, therefore, one gives but a little time and patience to the 
 Chapter House, including its dramatic low vestibule, it is found 
 to be of absorbing interest, and still worthy of Matthew Paris's 
 epithet ' incomparable.' But there is yet a further aspect from 
 which it may be viewed. Look at it in contrast to the sanctuary 
 — that other ancient institution of the Abbey — and it will be 
 seen still more clearly in its symbolic character of the new age 
 developing from the old. Or rather, from this standpoint, it is 
 like order emerging from chaos, or day breaking after a very 
 foul night. 
 
 There never was any building which was separately used 
 as a sanctuary, though an ancient tower which was really the 
 belfry has been so described. It was situated at the north- 
 western end of the Abbey precincts, contained the great bells 
 which Henry III presented to his church, and was of very 
 massive construction. Indeed, its fortress-like strength may 
 have given rise to the legend that fugitives were at one time 
 sheltered there. 
 
 Right of sanctuary probably began with the canonization of 
 the Confessor, though there are of course plentiful legends which 
 connect it with Lucius, Sebert, and even St Peter himself— who 
 luckily dropped his cope on that night when he consecrated the 
 Abbey, and thus left a very useful bit of evidence for the 
 support of future claims. And down to the sixteenth century 
 the Abbots actually cited the cope as proof at law, and as a 
 reason for retaining the privilege. 
 
 The right was not confined to any one spot, inside 
 the church or out, but extended to the whole Abbey and its 
 ii8
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 precincts. Hence houses which the monastery built within the 
 close were under its shelter — and became very good letting in 
 consequence. Broad Sanctuary and Little Sanctuary are 
 examples ; and thus the old Almonry, in which Caxton 
 established his press about 1471, was also "in Sanctuary," 
 
 Now there must have been, of course, in the long and 
 tumultuous history of sanctuary at Westminster, many genuine 
 claims upon it. One likes to think of the poet Skelton 
 sheltered here by that good churchman, statesman, and Com- 
 missioner of Sewers, Abbot Islip. And Elizabeth Woodville, 
 poor terrified Queen of Edward IV, who more pitifully in need 
 of succour than she and her young children, hunted by the 
 murderous Richard ? One can read the whole story of her 
 sojourns here, and their tragic outcome, in More ; but to read 
 it is to execrate the memory of certain base statesmen and 
 ecclesiastics. The principal facts are well known. In 1470, 
 the Civil Wars raging and Edward IV having fled, the Queen 
 took refuge in sanctuary. Shortly afterward her son, he who 
 became at the death of his father the uncrowned Edward V, 
 was born there — probably in the Abbot's quarters. 
 
 In greate penurie, forsaken of all hir friends, she was delivered of a 
 faire son, called Edward, which was with small pompe like a poore man's 
 child christened, the godfathers being the Abbat and the Prior of West- 
 minster, and the godmother the ladie Scroope.^ 
 
 Thirteen years afterward, when Edward IV died, the 
 Queen again fled to sanctuary, taking this time her daughters 
 and the young Duke of York. Prince Edward, who had been 
 
 1 Sir Thomas More, Holinshed. 
 
 "9
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 born in sanctuary, was already in Richard's hands ; but it was 
 deemed necessary to secure his younger brother also. Richard 
 was capable of forcing his way into the Abbey and seizing the 
 child ; but from this he was dissuaded by the two Archbishops. 
 They had a more excellent way of attaining his ends. He must 
 on no account violate that ancient privilege sanctified by the 
 cope : let him leave the matter in their hands : the child should 
 be surrendered. So he of Canterbury, Cardinal Bourchier, 
 came to the weeping Queen, and reasoned with her. Could she 
 not see that it would be for the good of her child to give him 
 up ? One sees the flash of scorn through her tears as she 
 answers : " Hath the Protector his uncle such a love for 
 him ? . . ." The Primate is compelled to try another argument, 
 a casuistry this time, importing that the boy, who has done no 
 evil, cannot therefore receive a protection which is intended 
 only for malefactors. The mother is at last overborne : 
 
 I can no more, but whosoever he be that breaketh this holie 
 sanctuarie, I praie God shortlie send him need of sanctuarie, when he 
 maie not come to it. For taken out of sanctuarie would I not my 
 mortal] enimie were.^ 
 
 Perhaps there is nothing in literature more poignant than 
 Elizabeth's last words, as she gives up the child : 
 
 " Fare well mine owne sweete sonne, God send you good keeping; 
 let me kisse you yet once yer you go, for God knoweth when we shall 
 kisse togither againe." And therewith she kissed him and blessed him : 
 turned hir backe and wept and went her waie, leaving the child weeping 
 as fast.^ 
 
 ••■ Sir Thomas More, Holinshed. ^ Ibid. 
 
 I20
 
 THE HOME OF FREEDOM 
 
 But there is no space even to name the long list of genuine 
 fugitives at Westminster: nor to relate how sanctuary was 
 twice violated, once by a murder in the choir, for which the 
 Abbey was closed for four months. During that time, of 
 course, our commoners could not meet in their Chapter House ; 
 and Parliament was suspended. It was not, however, the 
 succour of genuine claimants which brought disrepute on 
 sanctuary and eventually caused its abolition. 
 
 It does not require a great effort of imagination to perceive 
 how easily the idea and conditions of sanctuary would be 
 subject to abuse. The mere physical extent of the privilege, 
 which was, as we have seen, over the whole precincts, was fatal 
 to it. For undesirable characters of all kinds flocked to the 
 Abbey close and took lodgings there, in order to be safe from 
 the proper consequences of their misdeeds. Every available 
 inch was filled with persons who, though sometimes honest 
 rogues, and sometimes mere debtors, were more often than 
 not deliberate criminals practising their pet vices under the 
 protection of sanctuary. A very early historian of the Abbey 
 says: "Such places were become a refuge to bad men and 
 so an encouragement to bad practices." Yet so strong was 
 tradition, and so powerful the plea of privilege, that the Abbey 
 successfully defended its right even against Parliament itself, 
 on several occasions. So, though it was modified in 1566 
 (to exclude murderers), right of sanctuary lingered, and was 
 legally tenable, until the time of James I. Therefore it existed 
 as an institution for some years after the House of Commons 
 had removed from the Chapter House to St Stephen's. 
 
 121
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 One pauses for a moment there, struck again by the 
 relation between these two old Abbey institutions, their similar 
 origin, and their immensely different ends. The right of 
 sanctuary, in its religious significance, might be held to syni- 
 bolize the spiritual genius, as distinguished from the great 
 physical achievement, of the old order. The cult of mercy, a 
 pure impulse of religion toward forgiveness and magnanimity, 
 was the gentle secret of its strength, as it surely remains the 
 source of all power worth having. One does not suggest 
 for a moment that (as a pure impulse) it has ever been or ever 
 can be replaced by something better. But the impulse was 
 unreasoned ; and it did not remain pure. Therefore it could 
 not arrive at the fundamental justice which is the root of mercy 
 itself; and it tended inevitably to become corrupted. Hence 
 that Law which the Chapter House symbolizes, a sterner thing 
 but a more vital because a more rational, sprang like a phoenix 
 out of the ruins of the old cult. It grew, after a time, too big 
 for the Chapter House to contain it ; and if one looks for it 
 to endure, that is surely because, so long as it remains based on 
 justice, it is effectively a more merciful dispensation than the 
 old chaos which it replaced. 
 
 122
 
 CHAPTER VIII: The Lady Chapel of 
 
 Henry VII 
 
 I 
 
 THE part of the Abbey which we call the Henry VH 
 Chapel, that is to say, its extreme eastern end, should 
 be called rightly the Lady Chapel of Henry VH. I 
 think there is a significance in the exact title which is lacking 
 from the popular one ; and the little difference yet means so 
 much that it is worth while to establish its claim. One 
 turns therefore to Holinshed to note this entry, under the 
 year 1502 : 
 
 In this eighteenth yeare, the twentie fourth dale of Januarie, a 
 quarter of an houre afore three of the clocke at after noone of the same 
 daie, the first stone of our ladie chapell within the monasterie of 
 Westminster was laid, by the hands of John Islip abbat of the same 
 monasterie. 
 
 The chapel was therefore commonly known as ' our ladie 
 chapell ' when the Holinshed Chronicles were written in the 
 sixteenth century. We know, too, that on the site where it 
 stands there existed not only the White Rose Tavern, a small 
 chapel of St Erasmus, and a "tenement in a garden" which 
 had been leased to Chaucer, but the old Lady Chapel whose 
 first stone Henry HI had laid while a mere boy. And the 
 sole reason for demolishing all these buildings was to make 
 possible a Lady Chapel of much greater size and splendour. 
 
 There is, further, the testimony of Henry VH's will, that 
 precious old document that is worth a dozen histories in the 
 way it breathes the life of the time in which it was written, and 
 
 123
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 the spirit of the man who wrote it. In an invocation to his 
 Saviour, Henry declares that the chapel is to be dedicated to 
 
 oure lady Saincte Mary, in whom after Thee, in this mortall lif hath 
 evrbeen my moost singulier trust and confidence. . . . Whereof swettest 
 lady of m'cy, veray moder and virgin, Welle of pitie and surest refuge of 
 al nedefull, moost humbly, moost entierly, and moost hertely I beseche 
 thee. 
 
 At the east end, in the place of highest honour beside our 
 Lord, stands a sculptured image of the Virgin which even the 
 upheaval of the Dissolution did not shake from its niche ; and 
 the high altar of the chapel, before which Henry VII is buried, 
 was called " Our Lady Aultre." 
 
 Is the title established ? I think it is ; and of course it 
 had only lapsed because of the desperate fear of Mariolatry 
 which seems to us now to have been such a frenzied thing. 
 Recovered from that fever at this time of day, one can look 
 at the truth with saner eyes and get glimpses of something 
 more meaningful and gracious. It is indeed, this chapel and 
 its dedication, so full of meaning as almost to baffle expression. 
 For here is a building which is described by one sober historian 
 as "the miracle of the world"; and by another as "a prodigy 
 of art "; by a great poet as " the most romantic work of the 
 Middle Ages "; and by a competent architect, critically weigh- 
 ing pros and cons, as a work of " extraordinary merit." Histori- 
 cally, it is the culmination of an epoch ; the moment when the 
 medieval order was on the crest of the wave, just before it 
 toppled and fell. .'Esthetically, the chapel is the apogee of a 
 long tradition in architecture, attaining to a magnificence which 
 124
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 may even displease by its prodigality. Spiritually, it is the 
 last great gesture of the old religion ; and politically it 
 represents the beginning of that new dynasty which was itself 
 to strike a death-blow at the ancient faith. Henry VII, first 
 Tudor king, conceived this miracle of loveliness as an act of 
 adoration to that old faith. The tenour of his will leaves no 
 reasonable doubt of that : his ardour and sincerity are un- 
 mistakable. But, as one passes onward to his son, it is seen 
 that in the course of one lifetime the wave-crest has plunged 
 down headlong; for Henry VIII, second Tudor king, and 
 Defender of the Faith, arms himself indignantly to destroy 
 that which his father had so ardently worshipped. 
 
 All these things, with their measureless implications, are 
 comprised in the words ' Lady Chapel.' The cult of the 
 Virgin Mother was the centre of medieval life and the source 
 of its inspiration : the origin of all that was sweet and gracious 
 in it. If it was at the same time the ultimate cause of its 
 weakness and downfall, as some aver, that is only to say 
 that every lovely thing that grows bears within it the seeds 
 of its decay. We are not concerned with that aspect of the 
 matter here. For us it is enough to see that the art in- 
 spired and fostered by the old religion made its last great 
 utterance to us English in the fabric of this chapel. And 
 in like manner, its spirit may be said to have reached supreme 
 expression in the wise and tender soul of the Lady Margaret 
 who lies within these walls. 
 
 For this is a Lady Chapel in still another sense. It is 
 the resting-place of great and noble women. Here will be 
 
 125
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 found, far beyond them all, Margaret Beaufort : she who 
 transmitted to Tudor monarchs whatever of greatness they 
 possessed. Here is Elizabeth, inheriting Margaret's strength 
 but not her sweetness. Here is the tragic Mary Queen of 
 Scots ; and the gentle Elizabeth of York, content to take an 
 unwilling mate, if so she might unite their warring houses 
 and give her country peace. And here is Margaret 
 Lennox, mother of that young Darnley who was Mary's 
 murdered husband. Thus the building is quite literally sacred 
 to women ; and its two aisles are named respectively (from 
 the two greatest personages who are entombed there) the 
 Margaret and Elizabeth Chapels. 
 
 One may call the fact of this cluster of tombs in the 
 Lady Chapel fortuitous ; and perhaps it did just happen so. 
 But Margaret and Elizabeth were no mere accidents. They 
 were (each in her own day) master-spirits of the time and 
 vividly self-conscious. Considering all that they were and 
 signified, and the chasm that yawns between them, the thought 
 that they both lie in this Lady Chapel is one to ponder over. 
 It has its irony too, if one keeps one's glance fixed for a 
 moment on Elizabeth. But irony will not live in the thought 
 of Margaret Beaufort : it melts in her clear nobleness. And 
 looking steadily at her, one sees more and more completely 
 how she stands for a symbol of all that was finest in the old 
 world that passed away with her. The age and the religion 
 which fostered a spirit like hers, and built this chapel, has 
 something — a very great something — to be said for it. 
 
 But now to look at the chapel. We have seen that it 
 126
 
 i L
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 was begun in the year 1502, when the first stone was laid 
 by Abbot Islip, acting for Henry VII. But the King had had 
 the project in mind for some years before that date. It arose 
 out of his desire to do honour to the memory of the last 
 Lancastrian king, Henry VI, who appears to have been 
 worshipped popularly as a saint. Henry VII did, in fact, 
 begin the long and costly business of getting Henry VI 
 canonized ; but he never completed it. For, after receiving 
 permission from the Pope to remove the body from Windsor, 
 and defending against competitors the claim of Westminster 
 as the proper place to build the chapel in which it was to 
 lie ; after planning that new chapel with the express purpose 
 " right shortely to translate into the same, the bodie and 
 reliques of our Uncle of blessed memorie King Henry VI " — 
 the whole project as it concerned that " Uncle of blessed 
 memorie" was for a sufficient reason dropped. Not only was 
 Henry VI never canonized, but the body was left at Windsor, 
 where it still is. 
 
 The sufficient reason was the death of Henry VII, which 
 found the negotiations with Rome incomplete in one particular. 
 That was the payment of the vast amount of money required 
 to purchase the canonization. One sees the pious Henry VII — 
 pious but evidently not good at paying — hesitating long over 
 the staggering demands of Rome. Other difficulties he faced 
 and overcame ; but this tiresome payment irked him to think 
 about. So he put it out of mind — and probably even forgot 
 it (as one does the things one dislikes doing) until it was 
 too late. 
 
 127
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Henry VII died in 1509, some years before his chapel was 
 completely finished. But it was sufficiently advanced (it was, 
 in fact, up as far as the vault) for the directions of his will to be 
 followed : 
 
 We wol . . . that ovvre bodie be buried within . . . the Chapell we 
 have begonne to buylde of newe in the honour of our blessed Lady. And 
 we wol that owre towmbe bee in the myddes of the same Chapell, before 
 the high Aultier. 
 
 He was buried there accordingly, and his Queen, Elizabeth 
 of York, who had predeceased him, was laid beside him. That 
 was in the month of May. Six weeks afterward, the Lady 
 Margaret, his mother, also died, in the midst of the junketings 
 for the coronation of Henry VIII. Her life had been given to 
 her son in absolute devotion. Her statecraft had planned for 
 him the succession to the crown : she was the real victor of 
 Bosworth Field. Her patriotism it was which pressed on 
 Henry the marriage with Elizabeth of York which he had so 
 little taste for; and her ability and wisdom, her infinite 
 tenderness and loyalty, were always at his service. Now 
 her task was done : Henry being dead, she had leave to 
 die too. 
 
 They erected her tomb in her son's Lady Chapel, in its 
 south aisle ; and the same artist who made Henry's tomb 
 wrought hers also. And somehow it has happened that of 
 these two peerless works (which if they did but stand in some 
 difficult country a thousand miles away, no self-respecting 
 English creature would rest until he had made a pilgrimage to 
 see them) the one which is a consummate masterpiece, and 
 128
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 in one opinion at least, the most exquisite thing in the Abbey, 
 is that of the Lady Margaret. 
 
 Putting the matter quite soberly, it would, I suppose, be 
 admitted that the tombs of Henry and Margaret are the central 
 interest of the Lady Chapel. For there is, first, the powerful 
 attraction of the thought, with regard to Henry, that here in 
 this very spot lies the founder of the chapel, the first king of 
 the Tudor dynasty ; and with regard to the Lady Margaret, that 
 here in this very spot lies the mother of the King, and of 
 the dynasty ; the bountiful, beloved, and humble lady who 
 encouraged learning, protected Caxton and employed Wynkyn 
 de Worde, performed endless devotions, drained fens, acted as 
 Justice of the Peace, gave measureless charity, and did bitter 
 penance for sins so small that only she could see them. But 
 apart from this historical interest, the monuments are of 
 immense importance aesthetically : and the story of their 
 making throws curious light into some corners of that old 
 world. 
 
 Approaching at once, then, the tomb of Henry VII, we are 
 immediately struck by two conflicting facts — first, that it is the 
 most prominent feature of the chapel ; and second, that we 
 cannot, in reality, see it at all. When we enter the Lady 
 Chapel, stand in its broad nave and bring our astonished eyes 
 down at last from the marvellous vault to the most conspicuous 
 object in the nave, what we see is apparently a chapel within 
 the chapel — a complete building in bronze, lofty and broad, with 
 no visible sign of the tomb itself. This building is, of course, 
 the screen or closure surrounding the monument ; and it is in 
 
 I 129
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 truth a chapel, designed expressly by Henry for priests to chant 
 daily masses " perpetually while the world shall endure." 
 
 This Chantry Chapel is described by Professor Lethaby as 
 " one of the most masterly pieces of metal casting in Europe " ; 
 but though it is in metal, it is designed as though its substance 
 were stone. It is a Gothic structure complete at every point, 
 with buttress and turret, pinnacle and canopied niche and 
 elaborately traceried window. Thus there is in this screen a 
 meeting of the ways in art : a choice of material and a touch of 
 fantasy in its treatment which are of the Renaissance ; and a 
 design which is entirely medieval. It is as though the two ages 
 met and saluted here, each honouring the other, before the older 
 order should pass. One step within the Chantry, and that 
 Gothic era has gone, leaving nothing more than a trace ; and 
 the Renaissance has come completely into its own with 
 Torregiano, the Italian artist. But the Chantry itself is, accord- 
 ing to instructed opinion, completely English work. Lawrence 
 Imber, ' karver,' is identified as the designer of the work, and 
 ' imagere ' of the figures of saints which once adorned it. There 
 were originally thirty-two of those images ; but only six have 
 outlasted the successive storms of destruction which have fallen 
 on the Abbey. They are extremely interesting little figures. 
 Their execution cannot compare in delicacy with the carving 
 on the tomb within : but in fact no comparison should be 
 attempted, for they are of a totally different order. Remember- 
 ing the different material in which they are expressed, and the 
 different method of execution (for these figures were cast in 
 bronze from wooden models) the wonder is that they have so 
 130
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VH 
 
 much character and grace. There are, as I said, six of them. 
 Three are on the south side — Edward the Confessor, St John, 
 and St Bartholomew carrying his skin. On the east side is a 
 figure of St James major : on the west is a vigorous St George 
 trampling on his dragon, and on the north a prophet. 
 
 But now to come at the tomb itself. The first thing to 
 say, however, is that, unhappily, one cannot come at it. The 
 gates of the Chantry are closed and locked, and the key is 
 
 securely kept in but that, I suppose, I must not divulge. 
 
 Therefore, with the elaborate tracery of the screen closing 
 it in all round, the monument is effectively concealed. It is 
 possible, of course, by standing on the steps of the Chantry 
 doors, to squint through the bars, first at one side, and then 
 at the other, of the tomb. But it is an oblique and tantalizing 
 view, and one does not recommend it, since the peep it gives is 
 only an exasperating hint of all that is concealed, and conduces 
 to nothing but profanity. Of course, by an act of grace one 
 can get inside ; but it seems a pity that a special act should be 
 necessary, for surely persons who are sufficiently interested to 
 wish to see the tomb, would for that reason be trustworthy 
 enough to admit within the closure. One realizes fully the 
 need to protect so precious a masterpiece, but it is no master- 
 piece except to the eyes that see it. And hidden as it is, it 
 might almost as well be a crude block of sandstone. 
 
 In the year 151 2 the Florentine artist Torregiano made 
 a contract with, Henry VIII to construct a tomb for Henry VII 
 at a cost of ;i^i500. He finished it about the year 1518. The 
 monument was agreed to be in marble, with effigies of the King 
 
 131
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 and Queen, and other figures, in copper-gilt ; and it was 
 stipulated that the work should be done "well, clenly, worke- 
 manly, curiously, and substancyally." You may think the 
 conditions ample, even to bind an artist belonging to the rather 
 madly rotating circle of Benvenuto Cellini ; but they were more 
 than fulfilled. Indeed, if one went about to search for and 
 write down all the words which describe how this work was 
 performed, it would take a very long time. Nobly, exquisitely, 
 richly, splendidly, delicately — these are but a few of them, and 
 do not exhaust their diversity. But lest one be accused of that 
 unpardonable sin enthusiasm, let us hasten to retreat behind 
 the judicial figure of Francis, Lord Verulam, and watch in 
 safety while he, riding Pegasus on the curb, sums up the case 
 for us. And what he says about it is that the tomb is " one 
 of the stateliest and daintiest monuments of Europe." He 
 continues further, speaking of Henry VII : " He dwelleth more 
 richly dead, in the monument of his tomb, than he did in 
 Richmond or any of his palaces." 
 
 Something is known about Torregiano, the maker of this 
 lovely tomb, and (let us not forget it) of the Lady Margaret's 
 too. One speculates a little about him. What manner of man 
 would he be, this worker of miracles by punctual contract : this 
 artist who could create a thing so splendid and yet so 
 marvellously delicate : this dual or multiple creature whose 
 mind could conceive and whose amazing fingers could fashion 
 such various beauty ? Not one man, but many, surely he must 
 have been ; and all of them great. Well, great he certainly 
 was, but not in any conventional or insular way. For first of 
 132
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 all, he was great in industry. Like all the famous artists of 
 this period, he seems to have been avid of work. These 
 monuments represent an enormous amount of sheer labour ; 
 and it is all done exquisitely. Infinite toil and patience have 
 gone to their making : so that it is impossible Torregiano 
 could have been a mere dilettante diner-out. One sees him, 
 too, as of fine physique, which of course he needs must be to 
 accomplish all that labour. But it is such a physique as is 
 typified in the Penseiir of Rodin, a vigorous harmony of 
 mind and body — of generous emotion, swift thought, and 
 strength at once powerful and dexterous. Benvenuto Cellini 
 has indicated this in a vivid word-picture contained in his 
 ' Life.' Into the ardent little world in which Cellini was 
 living there came about the year 1520 "a sculptor named 
 Piero Torrigiani, who arrived from England, where he had 
 resided many years. . . . This man had a splendid person and 
 a most arrogant spirit, with the air of a great soldier more 
 than of a sculptor, especially in regard to his vehement 
 gestures and his resonant voice, together with a habit he 
 had of knitting his brows enough to frighten any man of 
 courage." 
 
 Cellini does not seem to have known that Torregiano had 
 in truth been a soldier ; but, in any case, of course he would be 
 vehement. The monument of Henry VII was not got from 
 any feeble, passionless creature ; and if the creator of that 
 masterpiece had not a right to be arrogant, I wonder who has ? 
 While as to the horrible frown, one sees it rather as a bit of 
 stage ' property,' donned for the occasion of reciting to our 
 
 133
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 envious Cellini his "gallant feats among those beasts of 
 Englishmen." If all the truth must be told, however, it does 
 seem likely that Piero had a habit of letting himself go in the 
 Cellini circle, in his character of Odysseus returned. One is 
 not quite sure whether his epithet for the islanders is the 
 considered judgment of Torregiano in his workaday person, 
 or whether it is a picturesque word of Odysseus drawing the 
 long bow ; but in either case, among the islanders a giant was 
 a giant — though our Robert Vertue, reputed architect of the 
 Lady Chapel, was no pigmy. At home in Florence, however, 
 the giant was only ' one of us,' a mere Florentine craftsman ; 
 and his boasting seems to have pained Cellini, who, doing 
 pretty well in that line himself, probably regarded Torregiano 
 as an unfair competitor. He does not say quite that ; but 
 alleges for his obvious dislike a truly prodigious cause : 
 namely, that our Piero did, on a certain fateful day, strike 
 Michelangelo on the nose — and break it. 
 
 It is a lamentable thing to have to record of the spirit 
 which conceived the noble gravity of Henry's effigy, and the 
 delicate grace of the birds which adorn the marble border 
 below, but there it is. And somehow I do not think Cellini 
 invented it, although he was quite capable of doing so. The 
 story is supposed to be given in Torregiano's own words, in the 
 translation of J. A. Symonds, and it relates the event as happening 
 when he and Michelangelo were young fellow-students : 
 
 It was Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing there, and 
 one day among others, when he was annoying me, I got more angry than 
 usual, and clenching my fist, gave him such a blow on the nose, that I
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles ; and 
 this mark of mine he will carry to his grave. 
 
 Horrid spectacle I And sad downfall of our ideal monu- 
 ment-maker — a ruffian who goes about smashing noses — and 
 such noses ! Yet of course it is in character, and therefore 
 probably true. And if there is any touch of Cellini's fertile 
 imagination in the story, probably it is only in ascribing to 
 this event, and not to jealousy, his hatred of Torregiano : 
 
 These words begat in me such hatred of the man, since I was 
 always gazing at the masterpieces of the divine Michel-Agnolo, that 
 although I felt a wish to go with him to England, I now could never 
 bear the sight of him. 
 
 And the loss to the "beasts of Englishmen" was probably 
 greater than they would have supposed. 
 
 The directions in Henry's will are still the best general 
 description of his tomb. There was, in fact, an estimate 
 actually made during his lifetime, to plans prepared by 
 Paganino ; but apparently because those plans did not properly 
 conform to his father's wishes Henry VI H rejected them, 
 and gave the contract to Torregiano. The will, after defining 
 the position of the tomb, continues : 
 
 In which place we Wol, that for the said Sepulture of us and our 
 derest late wif the Ouene, whose soule God pardone, be made a Towmbe 
 of Stone called touche, sufficient in largieur for us booth ; And upon the 
 same, oon ymage of our figure, and an other of hers, either of them of 
 copure and gilte. . . . And in the borders of the same towmbe, bee made 
 a convenient scripture, conteigning the yeres of our reigne, and the daie 
 and yere of our decesse. And in the sides, and both ends of our said 
 
 135
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 towmbe, in the said touche under the said bordure, we Wol tabernacles 
 be graven, and the same be filled with Ymages, sp'cially of our said 
 avouries, of coper and gilte. 
 
 It will be seen therefore that the monument is in ' touch- 
 stone,' or black marble ; and that it is in two stages : a , 
 basement in which there are ' tabernacles ' containing figures 
 of the King's patron saints ; and an upper stage on which lie the 
 figures of the King and Queen, in bronze-gilt. Its shape is 
 that of a simple altar-tomb, and is a surprising English 
 characteristic in a Renaissance work. It was, however, 
 conditioned by the terms of Henry's will. He had in mind, 
 no doubt, the tombs that stand in the Confessor's Chapel ; and 
 probably he envisaged the tabernacles for his patron saints 
 or avouries (there were ten of them, and all were named) as 
 little Gothic niches like those containing the 'weepers' on 
 the Presbytery tombs. But our Italian Torregiano had other 
 ideas on the subject. He complied obediently with the altar- 
 tomb shape ; but there, or almost there, his stock of docility 
 gave out. And even in that particular, one sees his ingenuity 
 playing about the plain command like tongues of fire about 
 a rigid metal, until it flows to something nearer his conception 
 of what a great King's monument should be. The native 
 idea was as Henry expressed it, a tomb " sufficient in largieur" 
 for the recumbent effigies ; and Torregiano makes a show of 
 carrying this out. But in his head was burgeoning more 
 magnificence than this size allowed, so he contrived to make 
 it much bigger than was prescribed by English custom. 
 One notes that the two figures lie on a slab of marble and 
 136
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 that the slab is precisely measured to contain them and the 
 two lions that couch at their feet. But the slab rests upon 
 a concave moulding, or cavetto, whose lower edge projects far 
 beyond its upper surface ; and the cavetto in turn rests upon 
 another slab which surmounts the basement, and which is 
 still wider than the cavetto. Thus is contrived a tomb of 
 much greater dimensions than a simple altar-tomb, giving the 
 artist scope for a splendid scheme of enrichment. 
 
 The basement, as has been said, is in black marble ; 
 but the cavetto, which so gracefully bears up the effigies, is 
 a white marble arabesque very elaborately carved with a design 
 of foliage and the most enchanting birds. And the effect of 
 this rich white frieze, curving inward and upward between the 
 two black slabs, is striking and beautiful in the extreme. 
 At each corner of it, poised in a sitting posture on the black 
 ledge, is a plump and jolly Renaissance cherub (fully clothed) 
 which, unlike the Gothic tomb angels that they represent, are 
 by no means engaged in their proper task of watching the 
 King and Queen, to be ready to bear away the departing 
 souls. No, they sit with their backs to majesty ; and quite 
 unconscious of anything so solemn as death, hold up the 
 King's shield in a gesture full of life. 
 
 There were, as we have seen, ten patron saints named by 
 Henry to occupy the niches in his tomb. The figure of the 
 Virgin would also find a place there, as a matter of course ; and 
 it would be necessary to add another saint to make a round 
 dozen of images. But our artist did not in the least intend to 
 divide that noble surface into twelve narrow compartments, or 
 
 137
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 * tabernacles.' That would not accord with the breadth and 
 splendour which he designed. Therefore he did not cut away 
 the marble at all ; but divided it into compartments, and he 
 made as few of them as possible. There are only three 
 compartments on each long side ; and between them, and at 
 each end, are placed pilasters of gilded bronze ornamented by 
 a design of vases, with foliage, and Henry's badges of the 
 portcullis and the rose. Within each compartment the artist 
 then carved, in high relief in the marble itself, a great wreath of 
 fruit and flowers, superimposed upon laurel leaves; and within 
 each wreath again he placed a pair of finely modelled saints cast 
 in bronze. Thus he solved very charmingly the problem of 
 accommodating all the twelve figures, while getting the utmost 
 value out of the material itself, and adding to it the enrichment 
 of a great deal of delicate sculpture. 
 
 The space at the east end of the basement is filled by two 
 more jolly cherubim — naked, these — who hold up a crown above 
 the King's shield. They, also, are splendidly modelled, and are 
 in bronze-gilt. The corresponding space at the west end 
 contains work which authorities on the subject declare not to be 
 from Torregiano's hand at all, but English. The design is a 
 great rose — chief of Henry's many emblems because it signified 
 the union of York and Lancaster — supported between a grey- 
 hound and a dragon. Apparently when it came to modelling 
 beasts, or questions of heraldry, the native craftsman could do 
 better than the foreigner. Round the base of the tomb are 
 mouldings of white marble, and another carved band with an 
 arabesque design of foliage, with the rose reappearing at 
 138
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 intervals. The ' convenient scripture ' ordained by the King 
 runs round the ' bordure ' just below the effigies. 
 
 Of the effigies themselves, one can of course see very little, 
 Avhether by craning one's neck from the inside of the chantry, 
 or by climbing into a stall of a Knight of the Bath and trying 
 to look down upon them from outside. One has therefore to fill 
 out such glimpses by the study of drawings and photographs, 
 and by the descriptions of those who have had the good fortune 
 to compass a close and careful inspection. The little that one 
 can see, however, does warrant one in accepting, without too 
 great an act of faith, the enthusiastic praise that has been 
 bestowed on these images by persons ' who know.' According 
 to Mr Alfred Higgins, the recumbent statues and the four 
 angels at the corners of the tomb are "extraordinarily fine." 
 In the effigies 
 
 the style is particularly broad, and yet the personal character of both 
 King and Queen are powerfully indicated, not only in the faces, but in 
 the hands also, which are of an astonishing perfection of modelling. The 
 disposition of the robes is simple and not wanting in grandeur, and the 
 lions on which the King and Queen rest their feet are, in spirit, worthy 
 of the finest period of the sculptor's art. 
 
 And Professor Lethaby, speaking of this tomb, together with 
 that of the Lady Margaret, says : 
 
 The three portrait statues are truly magnificent works of art, both 
 in their design and modelling. Although so splendid, they are yet 
 simple, quiet and serious, and the faces and hands are entirely noble. . . . 
 These are altogether the greatest sculptures ever wrought in England." 
 
 So we are brought back at last to the tomb of Margaret 
 
 139
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Beaufort, the King's mother. But there is really very little 
 that can be added now except that, of the same general design 
 as the King's monument, it is yet of a simpler and a more 
 perfect grace. The effigy is certainly an even more consummate 
 work. I cannot remember anything in sculpture of such com- 
 plete loveliness. One asks oneself again and again the secret of 
 beauty which is as quiet and unselfconscious as work of the 
 great Greek age, and which yet has an added power of sweetness 
 and significance. Then, as one reads the tender austerity and 
 gentle strength which the sculptor has put into the lines of the 
 face, into the wimple about the head and the folds of the dress, 
 but above all into those exquisite wrinkled hands, one begins to 
 understand why the statue is so deeply satisfying. The great 
 artist and the great opportunity were happily met : Torregiano 
 had his chance — to make permanent a completely noble human 
 soul — and he seized it triumphantly. So here is the final 
 expression of a supreme thing ; and (it is worth remarking, 
 remembering the spot on which we stand) both the art and 
 the spirit which it sought to perpetuate were born of that 
 religion which built this chapel to "oure lady Saincte Mary, 
 vcray moder and virgin, Welle of pitie and surest refuge of al 
 nedefull." 
 
 There is a story (which Mr Higgins says is at least not 
 disproved) that Torregiano came by his end at the hands of the 
 Spanish Inquisition. Not that the Inquisition actually killed 
 him ; but he having, in a fit of his fierce temper, broken up a 
 Virgin and Child that he had made in terra-cotta, he was 
 thrown into prison. And there, in remorse, he starved himself 
 140
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 to death. The story may not be correct ; but it is true in the 
 sense of being characteristic, both of the man and of the age. 
 At any rate we may as well set it against this other tale — that 
 he agreed to make an altar for Henry's chapel, but having 
 received payment of a thousand pounds in advance, he ran 
 away to spend it on a holiday, leaving the work incomplete. 
 They brought him back, of course, and he finished the altar ; 
 but only fragments of it remain. They may be seen preserved 
 in the communion table which Dean Stanley erected on the 
 site of the old high altar of the Lady Chapel. 
 
 141
 
 CHAPTER IX : The Lady Chapel of 
 
 Henry VII 
 
 II 
 
 THE exterior of the Lady Chapel has been entirely 
 restored. The stone with which it had been origin- 
 ally built was brought from the Huddlestone 
 quarries in Yorkshire; and it stood for about three hundred 
 years ; but by the end of the eighteenth century it had 
 become very badly weathered. No stone has yet been dis- 
 covered which will withstand the acid bite of the London 
 air; and that the exterior of the Lady Chapel lasted so long 
 as it did, only serves to remind us that in those days 
 Londoners did not burn so much coal, and therefore did not 
 pour into their atmosphere the smoke that our multitudinous 
 chimneys are daily allowed to vomit into it, to the destruc- 
 tion of life and beauty. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century the condition of the 
 building gave cause for anxiety; and Parliament was asked 
 for money with which to repair it. A first grant was made 
 and the work was begun. The scheme adopted was that of 
 the advising architect of the day, Wyatt, who appears to 
 have been the greatest perpetrator of restorations of that 
 purblind restoring period. He was, however, in this case, 
 supported by a high-handed Dean ; for when Parliament, by 
 taking counsel with certain lovers of great art, would have 
 restrained Wyatt's iconoclasm, the Dean ordered the Abbey 
 mason to follow out the original plan. And the mason did 
 so, cutting away the entire outer surface of the building. 
 142
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 By no means all of it needed to be replaced. The chief 
 mason stated in evidence that a great deal of the work on the 
 north side was still fresh and good. But away it went, all 
 shorn off in conscientious pursuit of our little English ideal 
 of neatness and uniformity. With the result that the 
 whole of the surface visible to-day is new. It is, of course, 
 a very thoroughgoing and careful bit of work; but it is 
 copyist's work, and therefore lacks much of the interest and 
 beauty of the original. 
 
 Indeed one is lucky, thinking of the incident a little, if 
 one is let off with such a mild feeling as boredom. William 
 Morris could not escape so easily. When I quoted in the 
 previous chapter his dictum that the Lady Chapel was the 
 " most romantic work of the late Middle Ages," I did not 
 give the complete passage. Here it is : 
 
 Mr Wyatt managed to take all the romance out of the exterior 
 of this most romantic work of the late Middle Ages 
 
 — which, I think it will be agreed, presents the same fact with 
 a rather sad difference. 
 
 One notes with relief, however, that this lament does not 
 apply to the interior of the chapel ; and moreover, those of us 
 who are not so highly tuned, artistically, as William Morris 
 was (and not quite all of us are) can still extract interest of a 
 kind from the restored exterior. For there remain, when 
 everything is said about restoring criminals, the noble shape, 
 the fine proportion, and lovely lines : the audacious window- 
 scheme, as it were in a ripple of glass about the fabric ; and 
 
 143
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 the conscious leap of the flying buttresses, which might be the 
 very gesture by which this Tudor style declares its magnificence 
 and acknowledges our acclamation. 
 
 There are other things also which, mercifully, could not 
 be shorn away. Fourteen octagonal buttress-towers stand 
 about the chapel, six at either side and two at the east end, 
 from which the flying buttresses spring to support the vault 
 and roof. These towers rise tall and graceful, straight from 
 the ground to a considerable height above the parapet of the 
 aisles. Each terminates in an octagonal dome, richly finished 
 with cornice, crocket, and finial. 
 
 The windows are a source of unfailing wonder and delight. 
 Behind and between the buttress-towers rise, in three tiers, 
 the windows of the clerestory. They are lofty, elaborately 
 traceried, and so broad as to occupy all the wall-space of the 
 nave. Indeed, the whole skeleton of the Lady Chapel may 
 be said to be composed of window, supported by buttresses. 
 For all round the aisles and eastern end the walls are filled 
 with mullioned glass, slanted and bent with the utmost vivacity 
 into round. or pointed shapes. Fourteen tall windows run in 
 this fashion about the first stage of the Lady Chapel. In the 
 aisles they are embowed : and in the small eastern chapels 
 they are pointed outward at angles which suggest works of 
 the jewellers' art. The flying buttresses, too, have not only the 
 beauty of line and poise, but must needs be pierced by circles, 
 and the circles elaborately foiled ; while beasts from Henry 
 VII's quarterings, carved in high relief, creep down their steeply 
 slanting edges. 
 144
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 On the subject of ornament, however, we collide again 
 with that inflammatory restoring difficulty. It is asserted 
 that the detail which covers so profusely the surface of the 
 stone is an exact rendering of what it replaced. And while 
 admitting the truth that even if so, it is only " a copy of that 
 which cannot be copied," we more or less normal people need 
 not find our temperature rising to danger point on that account. 
 We shall keep cool enough to note that the decoration is generally 
 in keeping with the architectural exuberance of the building, 
 and in two ways especially does it stress the scheme of the 
 earlier work — by covering practically every inch of the stone 
 in such a way as to make it resemble an embroidered edifice ; 
 and by taking Henry's arms as the chief motif of the 
 adornment. 
 
 It is, in one sense at any rate, a fortunate circumstance 
 that Henry VII was something of an amateur of heraldry; for 
 otherwise the ornamentation of his Lady Chapel must have 
 been a monotonous and tiresome affair. But, luckily, he 
 collected arms with as much assiduity (though with not quite 
 the same passion) as Henry III collected artists. That earlier 
 Henry, however, acted from a bigger impulse and on a larger 
 scale : he was, indeed, a much more royal man. One sees 
 Henry VII gathering 'bagies' of York, Lancaster, and Tudor, 
 of France and the ancient kings of Britain, with the pl-ofound 
 anxiety of a bourgeois or a newly-rich who has just acquired a 
 title, and who spends laborious days at the College of Heralds 
 in the exhausting hunt for a pedigree. So that, added to the 
 roses of York and Lancaster, the King must have the further
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 support not only of the portcullis, altera securitas, as he called 
 it, but of the greyhound and the fetterlock from his Queen, 
 Elizabeth of York : the crown on the bush to commemorate 
 Bosworth Field : the fleur-de-lys of his "graunt dame of right 
 noble memorie," Katherine of Valois ; and the red Tudor 
 dragon to claim descent from that ancient Arthur. The result 
 is at any rate a happy diversity in the decoration of the Lady 
 Chapel, which Henry expressly willed should be, within and 
 without, adorned with his "armes, bagies, and cognoisaunts." 
 Hence, on the exterior, the lion, greyhound, and dragon recur 
 on battlement and flying buttress ; and hence, from the 
 mouldings just above the plinth right up to the parapet, the 
 repetition at every effective point of the rose, portcullis and 
 fleur-de-lys. 
 
 When we enter the Lady Chapel we find a constant use of 
 the same motif; but here it is a complementary enrichment and 
 part of the original design and handiwork. The almost over- 
 whelming sense of splendour that falls on us here is not due 
 so much to the scheme of decoration as to large architectural 
 features, chief of which is of course the amazing vault. I think 
 it is a good plan, in visiting the Lady Chapel, deliberately to 
 see it by itself, without reference to the rest of the Abbey. 
 What has been finely called the " solemn architectural pause " 
 at its entrance is significant of many things, not the least of 
 which is that the chapel is the work of a later date, of a newer 
 race of men and a fresh development in art, from the Abbey 
 itself. To pass immediately from the church to the chapel is 
 to react, perhaps violently, against something so different : 
 146
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 though here, of course, one is not referring to the whirligig 
 tour, personally conducted by a verger — all that is in effect 
 possible to long-suffering Britishers who wish to see the 
 most precious possession of their race, on every day of the 
 week except one. When the whole place is thus reduced to 
 a kaleidoscopic jumble, it cannot matter much whether one 
 rushes from the Abbey into the Lady Chapel or from the Lady 
 Chapel into the Abbey — or whether one does not go there 
 at all. But coming with some sense of what is due to this 
 ' miracle of the world,' and to one's own soul, and having 
 therefore tuned oneself to the noble simplicity of Henry Ill's 
 church, we may find the sudden vision of the Lady Chapel 
 too magnificent for our taste. For some people it will 
 always be, for that reason, the less satisfying. But if one 
 comes to it for itself, eliminating any comparative judgment, 
 one is at least free to perceive its peculiar and astonishing 
 merit. 
 
 Ascending the flight of steps which lead from the 
 ambulatory to the Lady Chapel, we stand within the porch. 
 There is something which always stops one irresistibly here. 
 Perhaps we feel obscurely the crowding associations of a spot 
 which is the meeting-place of so many centuries : for at the 
 foot of these steps is the junction of three eras of history, where 
 the work of Henry III and his men, and Henry V and his men, 
 joins hands with this latest and most splendid achievement of 
 English genius and workmanship. It may be that one does, 
 subconsciously, realize a little of all that this means. Or perhaps 
 it is the dramatic power of the porch which, like that of the 
 
 147
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 vestibule to the Chapter House, gathers closely about us, 
 focussing our attention and holding us for a moment in the 
 shadow of suspense, so that the magnificence of the chapel may- 
 break upon us like a revelation. 
 
 The porch is, indeed, a very carefully designed introduction 
 to the beauty beyond it, not only in this concentrating and 
 revealing power, but in its actual details. It has three arches, 
 one large and two small, corresponding to the three main 
 divisions of the chapel itself. The stone vault that roofs it, 
 and its walls, are similarly wrought in panelling over the whole 
 surface, and ornamented with Henry's badges ; and on the 
 summit of the small pillars at the entrance stand the King's 
 lion, dragon, and greyhound. 
 
 The bronze gates are a work to return upon, but one 
 hardly notices them at first, so surprisingly does the view of 
 the chapel fall upon us. It is in this first shock of feeling that 
 the peculiar character of the architecture manifests itself. For 
 what prevails at that moment is not a clear exaltation of spirit 
 such as is evoked by some austere consummate unity in art, 
 but an amazed and admiring wonder. We are smitten with 
 confusion : so many kinds of splendour claim attention ; and 
 such prodigal richness and variety press upon us. Dominating 
 all, of course, is the marvel of the vault ; but then there is the 
 hardly less wonderful lighting scheme, and the vast arch which, 
 rising from north and south and passing across the centre of the 
 building, clasps the whole, as it were, in powerful and lovely 
 arms, while all round the building crowd the beauties of 
 various sculpture, the carved wood of stalls, the carved stone 
 148
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 of panelling and tracery, and the carving of a multitude of old 
 statues in their niches. 
 
 The Lady Chapel is divided into nave, a north and a south 
 aisle, and five small eastern chapels. Observing its proportions, 
 a flaw is seen in the interior which is not visible from outside. 
 For the nave is extremely wide, and the aisles are too narrow to 
 give full effect to so ornate a style. Their great tombs, too, 
 overcrowd the aisles ; so that with their narrowness and their 
 congestion one cannot see half their beauty. That, however, 
 does not spoil their interest of association. The south aisle is 
 the resting-place of the Lady Margaret, and is named after her 
 the Margaret Chapel. In it also is the tomb of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, who was brought here from her burial-place in Peter- 
 borough Cathedral in the year 1612. James I, who raised this 
 lofty monument to his mother's memory, seems to have chosen 
 deliberately a site and a design to correspond with that of 
 Elizabeth's tomb in the north aisle, so that Mary might lie in as 
 great state as the Queen who beheaded her. In this south 
 aisle, too, lie Margaret Lennox and a host of minor Stuarts ; 
 but its chief aesthetic interest, apart of course from the 
 consummate tomb of Margaret Beaufort, is a medallion of Sir 
 Thomas Lovel which hangs close by, also the work of 
 Torregiano. And the lovely statue of Lady Walpole has a 
 grace that is charmingly matched in the epitaph by Horace 
 Walpole, her son. 
 
 The great feature of the north aisle is the tomb of Queen 
 Elizabeth, from which it is called after her the Elizabeth 
 Chapel. Her sister Queen Mary lies in the same vault ; and 
 
 149
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 over the two is written this inscription, innocent of irony '^as 
 the Leveller himself who brought the sisters here together: 
 
 Tenants alike of throne and grave, we sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, 
 He sleeping here in hope of the Resurrection. 
 
 Near the door of this chapel that is sacred to great and 
 spacious days lies Addison, urbane type of so different an age. 
 And echoing the eighteenth century even in his grave, he lies 
 humbly at the feet of his patron, Lord Halifax. 
 
 Though it is almost impossible to appreciate the architec- 
 tural features of the aisles on account of their narrowness, one 
 can at least realize the beauty of the windows. Each of the 
 four divisions of each aisle has its embowed window filled with 
 mullioned glass ; and each window is in four tiers. Lovely as 
 they are now, they must have been a fairy spectacle in their 
 original stained glass. Only a few fragments of the old glass 
 have survived, embedded, here and there a bit, in the clear glass 
 of the present windows. 
 
 At the east end of each aisle some fine old sculptured 
 figures still stand. They are larger than the statues in the nave, 
 and are considered to be of older and better work. They stand 
 proudly, each on a graceful pedestal within a canopied niche ; 
 and over their heads the King's beasts are carved. In the 
 north aisle are a vested priest, a crowned king who is probably 
 Henry VII (since the founder usually occupies an important 
 north position), and St Lawrence. In the south aisle, or 
 Margaret Chapel, the middle niche is empty ; but of the other 
 two figures one is, fittingly, St Margaret, and the other is St 
 150
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 Katharine. Below the niches runs a string-course of foliage 
 and a frieze of demi-angels, supporting between them the 
 rose, portcullis, and fleur-de-lys, all crowned. 
 
 The five small eastern chapels continue the rippling 
 window scheme of the aisles, which thus runs completely round 
 the first stage of the Lady Chapel. Here, however, they are 
 not embowed, as in the aisles, but are even more elaborate. 
 For they slant out at three different angles, the middle 
 projection forming a sharp point ; and each window is cut into 
 forty-eight separate divisions. 
 
 The side walls of these chapels, like the end walls of the 
 aisles, are occupied by a range of noble old statues. In the 
 easternmost chapel, on the north side, is a curious representa- 
 tion of St Nicholas, the children's saint. The saint is carved 
 as a bishop, vested for Mass and holding a crozier at his left 
 shoulder. In his left hand he carries a small round marketing 
 basket, in which sits a fat baby ; and his right hand is raised to 
 bless the infant. In this chapel, too, which by its position in 
 the extreme east is the most important in the building, is an 
 empty niche where is supposed to have been the statue of 
 Henry VI. The initials ' H. R.* between a rose and a 
 pomegranate appear at its base ; and it is known that here his 
 shrine was to have been placed, when he should have been 
 canonized. On the opposite wall are found, as one would 
 expect, images of the founder of the Abbey and of its patron 
 saint. Here are Edward the Confessor and St Peter, with 
 St Edmund King and Martyr to complete a symmetrical group 
 of three. 
 
 151
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 In the south-east chapel all the six original figures 
 remain, and four of them are sainted women — SS. Mary, 
 Martha, Dorothy, and Apollonia. One is reminded yet again 
 of the aisles dedicated to Margaret and Elizabeth, of the 
 company of holy women in the range of sculptures round the 
 nave, and of the double sense in which this is a Lady 
 Chapel. Perhaps it is for this reason that its character as 
 a Chapel of the Knights seems something of secondary 
 interest, despite the bravery of coloured banners. Indeed, 
 though Knights Commanders of the Bath were first created 
 by Richard II, the Order was not installed here until 1725. 
 In 181 2 there was a second installation, and the present 
 banners are those of the Knights of the fourth installation 
 in 1920. 
 
 It is in the nave, however, that the architecture of the 
 chapel may best be studied, for here are space and a flood of 
 light from the glorious clerestory windows. Recovered a little 
 from the first effect of confused surprise at its magnificence, 
 one sets oneself the task of trying to comprehend it. It is not 
 an easy thing to do, especially if the pendants hanging from 
 the roof tease the mind with a sense of redundance, or even 
 of insecurity. That feeling has to be suppressed, not only 
 because it is irritating, but because it is in fact ill-founded. 
 Mastering it, therefore, and following deliberately the lines 
 of the building, one sees first how nobly planned it is, and 
 then the bold new features which make it so wonderful an 
 invention. 
 
 Four great arches on each side divide the nave from the 
 152
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 aisles, and are repeated at the east end round the chapels of 
 the apse. But they do not spring, as we are accustomed that 
 arches should, from pillars : there are in fact no pillars in 
 the whole chapel, for the slender shafts which run up to the 
 springing of the tracery are not there for service, but to satisfy 
 the eye. Across the middle of the chapel, too, goes that 
 immense arch from north to south, it also apparently un- 
 supported ; and hanging above our heads is a forest of stone- 
 work (one would not like to speculate how many hundreds of 
 tons of it) depending in intricate fan tracery. But even as 
 we are asking why in the name of wonder the vast masses 
 of masonry do not come crashing about our heads, we 
 remember in time those flying buttresses, so elegantly poised 
 and so ornamental, but so very stout ; and the fourteen 
 buttress-towers that stand about the chapel, light and charming 
 in the illusion of their tall grace, but mightily weighted under 
 their octagonal domes. 
 
 It is not long, therefore, before that impeding unfamiliarity, 
 which is like a sort of aesthetic shyness, wears off; and one 
 begins to see that the old praisers of this building spoke with 
 a sense of the value of words when they called it a ' miracle ' 
 and a ' prodigy.' It is easy to understand, too, the force of 
 the fact that this chapel pleases so many and such diverse 
 people : that it is immensely popular with those who know 
 nothing about architecture, and at the same time profoundly 
 admired by those who know all there is to know about it. 
 Architects have no manner of doubt of its merits. Cottingham 
 in 1822, when the restoration of the exterior was finished, 
 
 153
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 said that it was " a perfect grammar of the architectural art." 
 Mr Francis Bond, in his much more recent book, declares : 
 " The vault is the most wonderful work of masonry ever put 
 together by the hand of man." Professor Lethaby says : " As 
 geometry and stone-cutting it is wonderful." And Neale and 
 Brayley, in the first full description of the chapel, speak of 
 "the utmost practical science," and "the daring hardihood 
 that could arrange and securely poise in air such ponderous 
 masses of stone, and counteract the power of gravity by 
 professional skill." 
 
 It is, of course, to architects that the reader must go for 
 an adequate explanation of this wonder ; but there are perhaps 
 two points which may be mentioned here. The first is a 
 technical hint (gathered from Mr Bond's book) which does help 
 toward an understanding of the construction of the vault, 
 and to dissipate that uneasy feeling that the great pendants, 
 resting apparently on air, must be insecure. Not that one 
 stands in terror, trembling lest they should fall. But there is 
 a subconscious feeling which, though not realized as a sense 
 of insecurity, does for many people hinder complete enjoy- 
 ment. In that fact there is no doubt the implication of a 
 fault of art in this tour de force. But the pendants are, of 
 course, attached with the utmost solidity to the arches that 
 cross the nave ; or, one ought rather to say, they grow out of 
 the arches themselves, of which they form an integral part. 
 They are, indeed, as much a part of the solid fabric of the 
 building as an arm is part of a body ; and like it, they could 
 not be removed without a surgical operation. The arches 
 154
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 cannot be seen : but imagine them, behind the lacework of 
 the tracery, crossing the nave from north to south. The 
 blocks of which they are constructed necessarily run horizon- 
 tally, in the same north and south direction. But on each 
 side of the nave, where our daring architect designed to place 
 his pendants, a thicker block was inserted in the arch, projecting 
 vertically down into the nave for about eight feet. At the 
 lower end of this block was a knob ; and resting on that, the 
 circles of the tracery began, small at first but growing larger, 
 as some living organism, in exact ratio to strength, until the 
 encircled tracery spread over the roof and met at the apex 
 the outer rim of the opposite series. Thus, though the web 
 of the vault has only a thickness of about three and a half 
 inches, and though it is described by those who have been up 
 to examine it as a veritable forest of stonework, yet it is of 
 complete rigidity and strength ; and nothing but an earth- 
 quake — or it may be a siege-gun — could move it. 
 
 The other point which may be made now is that of the 
 quite new departure that the vault is without ribs. One 
 remembers how in the Abbey itself the ribs cross the vaults 
 and make such a striking feature of their beauty. As Mr Bond 
 points out, for centuries the Gothic builders had packed more 
 and more ribs into the vault : yet here at one stroke they dis- 
 appear altogether. And it is such bold features in this new 
 Tudor development which warrant Mr Bond's statement that 
 the architecture of the Lady Chapel was far in advance of 
 anything of its time in England, France, Italy, or Spain. 
 Which reminds us, and one is glad to be reminded, that this 
 
 155
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 miracle of the builders' art is certainly the work of an English 
 architect, though exactly who he was is not so certain. 
 
 Of several possible names Robert Vertue is considered by 
 some to be the most likely. In 1509 he was acting as King's 
 Master Mason. In 1505 William Vertue, son or brother of 
 Robert, was employed in vaulting the choir of St George's Chapel 
 at Windsor, which has some resemblances to our Lady Chapel. 
 And Robert Vertue was also the designer of the King's palace 
 at Greenwich. That he was a great scientist his modern 
 compeers assert unanimously. That he was also a great artist 
 the least informed person inevitably feels in presence of this his 
 work at Westminster ; and all that the most informed can do is 
 to state reasons for that conviction. The average person will 
 surely in some measure share both reverence and comprehension; 
 but he will never, perhaps, quite recover from the embarrassment 
 of so much riches. There will for him always be some degree 
 of excess in the ornamentation of the Lady Chapel. 
 
 For the whole chapel is practically overlaid with sculpture. 
 Immediately above the arches there runs all round the build- 
 ing a frieze of demi-angels carved in full relief. Quaint figures 
 they are, with thick curly hair and wings, and some of them 
 covered with feathers. They support between each two the 
 rose, portcullis, and fleur-de-lys, crowned. Above the frieze, and 
 filling the whole space between it and the clerestory windows, 
 are elaborately canopied niches. They extend in a long range 
 round the building, except at the western end, and contain a 
 multitude of saints, martyrs, and confessors. The size of the 
 statues in this range is three feet and three inches, which is 
 156
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 rather smaller than the inner range of the aisles and chapels. 
 There is in all a total of about one hundred of these images of 
 the interior, large and small, most of them still in good con- 
 dition ; but the forty-eight which once stood on the outside, 
 round the domes of the buttress-towers, were all restored into 
 limbo. Not one remains. 
 
 The range of statues round the nave centres upon the 
 figure of Christ at the eastern end, with the Virgin on one 
 hand and the Angel of the Annunciation on the other. The 
 Apostles follow, to right and left : then come sainted women, 
 and then evangelists and doctors, after whom crowd a host 
 of saints, including all those who were most popular in the 
 England of that day. But when we have gazed with astonish- 
 ment at this great assembly of saints and angels, we have still 
 to observe the treatment of the walls. Speaking strictly, there 
 is little wall-space left by those vast windows and the sculp- 
 tured host of heaven. But every part of it that remains is 
 covered with a lovely design of panels and window-tracery. 
 Thus, on either side of the statues at the east end of each aisle, 
 the slip of space left over is carved to represent an elaborately 
 traceried two-light window in stone, rising in three tiers and 
 enclosed within a tall pointed arch. And thus, too, the whole 
 soffit of the vast arch which crosses the Lady Chapel from 
 north to south is richly wrought over ; while at every effective 
 point, whether of panelling or pedestal or canopy, whether 
 held up by angels, or filling spandrils, or crowning the 
 centres of those immense circles of embroidery in the 
 vault — or even rather arbitrarily stuck on at intervals in the 
 
 157
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 mouldings of the great piers — recur the ubiquitous emblems of 
 Henry VII. 
 
 It is perhaps only in returning to the gates of the chapel 
 that this motif becomes a cause of offence. One does not 
 realize fully until then how constantly reiterated are those 
 " armes, bagies, and cognoisaunts " ; but in that moment there 
 suddenly crystallizes into sharp outline a feeling that had been 
 in the mind before as something too vague for shape, dominated 
 and, so to speak, held in solution by the beauty and splendour 
 of the architecture as a whole. But here in the gates the decora- 
 tive motif itself is dominant ; and one instantly rejects it as a 
 thing altogether too small in spirit to make possible a great work 
 of art. And one does not wonder any longer that Torregiano 
 had no hand in carving the arms for the King's monument. 
 
 The gates of the chapel are in three pairs, and are wrought 
 in gilt-bronze over oak. They are hung under slightly pointed 
 stone arches, into which their own arches fit ; and they are 
 divided over their whole superficies into oblong compartments, 
 each containing one of Henry the Seventh's emblems. There- 
 fore about one hundred and twenty times are the King's badges 
 repeated in these gates, as their principal motif, to say nothing 
 of the all-but-countless times that the rose and the dragon recur 
 as heads to the very rivets of the framework. Satiety descends 
 on one. Useless to tell oneself that the proportions of the 
 gates are good, that the designing of the emblems is intricate 
 and beautiful, and that the execution is fine. The mind refuses 
 to respond. It can catch no spark of enthusiasm where there is 
 no fire of inspiration. 
 158
 
 THE LADY CHAPEL OF HENRY VII 
 
 Perhaps in one's inner consciousness there remains a 
 memory of certain other gates, also at the entrance of a sacred 
 building, the Ghiberti gates of the Baptistery at Florence. Not 
 that one would do the English artist the injustice to compare 
 his work with them, for the principal reason that they were not 
 commissioned by a king who rode a hobby-horse of heraldry. 
 But there stays the vision of them — things poetical, exquisite, 
 hallowed by the infinite patient love of the artist and the 
 infinite beauty of the sacred stories that he made to live again 
 in the stubborn metal — a high mark which the English artist 
 might well have come a little nearer to, had not his hands been 
 tied. The gates of Paradise, Michelangelo once called them ; 
 — but what are these ? What might they not have been, indeed, 
 as a worthy entrance to this Lady Chapel and a symbol of 
 all that it means, if the artist had been free — emulating the 
 audacity of the architect, stimulated by his high spirits, 
 rejoicing in his exuberance, matching his agility of mind and 
 hand ? But on him fell that command, paralysing his genius. 
 Is it fanciful to see, in the making of these gates, the first sign 
 in English art of an insidious English vice ? Perhaps ; and 
 yet it is very certain that the spirit which determined the 
 form of this work four hundred years ago is the same that 
 makes it possible for a wit to describe an English house as 
 "a place with a small gate marked 'Tradesmen's Entrance.'" 
 The gates of the Lady Chapel might almost be an exalted 
 ' tradesmen's entrance.' 
 
 159
 
 CHAPTER X: Life, and the Tombs 
 
 THE Abbey is a House of Death, and a Place of 
 Tombs. Kings built it for a mausoleum ; and their 
 bodies were crowded into it so long as six feet of 
 suitable space could anywhere be found to contain them. The 
 vaults are literally crammed with royal bones, and not royal 
 ones alone ; for outside that central circle grew another, of 
 courtiers, statesmen, and ecclesiastics : of poets, actors, and 
 scientists : of musicians, explorers, great nobles, crusaders, 
 and distinguished foreigners. 
 
 The circle widened, radiating from the midmost point 
 where stands the Shrine of the Confessor within his ring of 
 Plantagenets. Henry V contrived with difficulty, and through 
 the ingenuity and skill of Master Thomas Mapilton, King's 
 Mason, to make room for himself in that Holy Place ; and 
 Henry VH had then perforce to build another chapel. And 
 though his work was dedicated in very sincere piety to "our 
 Lady Saincte Mary," it too was but another mausoleum, larger, 
 richer, and more ornate than the Chapel of the Kings. Built 
 by the first Tudor monarch, and fitting monument to him and 
 his men who made it, the Lady Chapel gathered to itself with 
 the reaping years a strange mixed harvest of proud Tudor 
 and passionate Stuart and placid Hanoverian. But the circle 
 spread wider still, through the aisles of the Lady Chapel, 
 through the chapels of the apse, into the Abbey itself, until, 
 if the mind dwell on that aspect alone, the whole fabric seems 
 like nothing but a vast charnel house, piled high with the spoils 
 of death through many centuries. Did not Addison say, in 
 1 60
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 describing a visit to the Abbey : " Upon my going into the 
 church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave ; and 
 saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment 
 of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering 
 earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a 
 human body." And in the two centuries which have passed since 
 then, the silent unseen multitude has grown much larger still. 
 
 There are the facts, pretty exactly stated ; and measured 
 by them, that is the truth about the Abbey — a House of Death. 
 It is, indeed, so obvious and so generally accepted that one is 
 almost ashamed to repeat it. Historians have recorded it I 
 do not know how many times. Essayists have mused mourn- 
 fully over it. Poets have philosophized about it ; and countless 
 thousands of average English folk have followed this dis- 
 tinguished lead in accepting the old lie unchallenged. But 
 now it is time to fling down the glove, for a lie it is. The facts 
 are as false as only facts can be ; and the truth thus expressed 
 has the peculiar poison of all half-truth. 
 
 The Abbey is not a place of Death, but of abounding 
 Life: it is a centre and source of vitality. Rooted in a past 
 immensely far, its age is as young as the dawn, and it points 
 to a future incalculably remote. Established in the life of our 
 race, and built of the very substance of the nation's spirit, it 
 partakes therein of eternity. So that could we but shake off 
 the hypnotism of the historian, and rubbing the sleep from our 
 eyes, walk round the Abbey with awakened vision, we should 
 cry out, not in sadness at human fate, but in triumph of the 
 human spirit : There is no death ! 
 
 L i6i
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Now I know all the charges which can be levelled at that 
 statement, for they poke up their ugly heads whichever way 
 one looks. First : that it is but an assertion and not an 
 argument. Second : that it is too challenging and extreme. 
 Third : that no reasons are adduced. Fourth : that even if 
 proofs were forthcoming and were conclusive, they would still 
 only present one aspect of the truth ; and Fifth : that therefore, 
 etc., etc., etc. Certainly one ought to be chastened, if not 
 dismayed, by such a trenchant array; and perhaps it is a sign 
 of some ineradicable vice that one is neither chastened nor 
 dismayed, but laughs instead at all these solemn good people — 
 the pedant who cannot see the wood for the trees and therefore 
 has no notion that Spring is rioting up there in a flame of 
 green : the logician, so tightly wound in his shroud of logic 
 that he can no longer feci essential truth ; and the student of 
 history, bloodless from his diet of stone-cold fact, whom 
 no living impulse now can move. 
 
 Yet though one laughs a little, and would even be 
 prepared to face the last worst charge of having attempted to 
 refute one half-truth by another, that is because one sees this 
 reprehensible dogma as at the lowest the better of two 
 alternatives; and at the highest a thing of such vitality and 
 inspiration that it has within itself force enough to comprehend, 
 to subdue and finally to supersede its limp and lifeless partner. 
 But indeed the assertion that the Abbey is a place of Life is no 
 mere dogma : it can be proved. Even the delighted cry of 
 realization here, There is no death I is almost pedantically 
 accurate ; for the only death in the Abbey is of that which never 
 162
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 had life, that is to say, bad art, and the buried bodies of men 
 who had no souls, or none to speak of. But they, the soulless 
 men, are splendidly outnumbered : their poor dust is such a 
 small thing comparatively that it troubles us not at all. As to 
 the bad art, that is another and a graver matter ; but the point 
 for the moment is that neither ever possessed that life of the 
 spirit which makes of the Abbey such a triumphant and vital 
 thing ; and the fact that they are dead cannot therefore hurt that 
 spirit. 
 
 But what, then, is this life of the spirit that dwells in the 
 Abbey? Or if it is a thing too subtle to define, what at least 
 are its manifestations? Well, it is, in a broad and general 
 sense, by no means too subtle to define ; for it is simply, in one 
 word, the nation's soul. Now I am aware that plenty of people 
 have said that, or something like it, before. Nothing, I suppose, 
 is quite so trite, or so frequently reiterated about the Abbey, as 
 the fact that it is a 'national institution.' But there precisely, 
 in that colourless word ' institution,' lies a world of difference. 
 It is not, to begin with, in the same universe with the word 
 soul; and even if it were ever so vivid and potent, the 
 hackneyed wear and tear of it would long ago have reduced it to 
 a drab and threadbare rag. But, with its suggestion of some- 
 thing formal, rigid, and decrepit, the word is neither vivid nor 
 potent. It is cold and faint, a mere grey shadow that can 
 reflect no ray of the sun-clear truth that the Abbey is the 
 incarnate spirit of our race : that it is splendidly alive, 
 magnificent in spite of many defects, and, for all its eccen- 
 tricities, adorable. 
 
 163
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 The spirit of England is made visible here, having got 
 itself embodied in concrete form as souls must, persisting 
 marvellously through change as souls do, rooted in the past 
 and seed for the future, as souls are. I am not speaking now 
 of that specific sense in which the Abbey, through its religious 
 function, may be said to represent the spiritual life of England. 
 Those who are concerned to do so will no doubt take that for 
 granted. But the word ' spirit ' is surely a bigger thing, and 
 includes every noble activity of the human mind, with religion 
 as one of them. In that greater sense the Abbey is the nation 
 with a completeness which is, in sum, an inspiration ; but 
 which has admittedly certain aspects that are ironical, and even 
 humiliating. It reveals us so very startingly to ourselves. On 
 the subject of what I have called bad art, for instance : that is 
 to say, pseudo-art which never had the breath of life in it. I 
 wonder what other race would have ploughed into the lovely 
 wall-arcades made by the thirteenth-century men ? Or who, 
 having brought themselves to such an act, would have dared 
 to plaster (that is the right word) under the exquisite trefoils 
 memorials that are, at their least offensive, mere lumps of 
 ugliness ; and at their worst, vulgar and mendacious as well ? 
 Queer folk, hacking and hewing at a priceless treasure : blind 
 to beauty, yet so intent on improving the perfect I Are there 
 some who refuse to recognize in this aesthetic perversity a 
 genuine feature of national life? Then alas for them, that 
 they cannot laugh at themselves ; for the defect is characteristic 
 to the verge of comicality. And in the grand total of all that 
 the Abbey is and means the flaw is only too apt to take on an 
 164
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 attraction like the endearing fault of a friend. So that one 
 jeers at it, and rails at it, but loves it all the more. 
 
 Or, to take another feature of the Abbey in which the 
 national spirit lives with rather ironic vivacity — I mean the 
 ubiquitous presence of what may be called variously the 
 political, the practical, or the secular element at this the heart 
 of our religion. Almost omnipresent it is, from the statues 
 of the statesmen that guard the north transept, to the policeman 
 who jingles the keys of the Chapter House. Almost co-eval 
 it is, too, whether one thinks of it as summoned to existence 
 here by the resounding voice of Simon de Montfort calling 
 the first Parliament, or whether one remembers Hugolin, 
 Chamberlain and Treasurer to the Confessor, whose bones 
 rest, equally with those of the first great founder, within the 
 Abbey. St Edward in the shrine, and Hugolin lying in the 
 treasure-house — are they not, for English life and character, 
 the very complement of one another ? While Simon de 
 Montfort and Henry — is their struggle not a symbol of the 
 English political genius eternally at war with enthusiasm 
 and exuberance? Thus Henry HI, artist, ddvot, and builder 
 of churches, stands matched, or rather more than matched, by 
 the stern Earl Simon, because Simon represented in his person 
 that much more English thing than a love of Art, namely, a 
 passion for liberty. From which seed the Parliament of the 
 nation grew up in the Chapter House of the Abbey. 
 
 So that if there be, as one sees an occasional sign that 
 there still are, persons who resent the presence of this political 
 element as an intrusion into the region of religion, one can at 
 
 165
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 least understand their attitude. It would have been so much 
 more fitting, from the abstract and logical standpoint, that 
 the sacred purpose of the building should have been respected 
 absolutely; just as it would have been so much more 
 harmonious, from the aesthetic standpoint, that the perfect 
 medieval work should never have been defaced by modern 
 monstrosities. Logic and an aesthetic sense have ruled far 
 otherwise in, let us say, Notre-Dame de Paris, sending great 
 French laymen to lie in the Pantheon, and refusing to destroy 
 the lovely lines of the interior with a medley of alien forms. 
 Notre Dame, for that reason, is so much the more P'rench ; 
 but is not Westminster, for the contrary reason, so much the 
 more English? We are forced to recognize the inharmony 
 and incongruity that deface the Abbey as part of ourselves. 
 Sometimes they are ludicrous, and sometimes infuriating : but 
 whether they stir to laughter or wrath, the fact that we are 
 stirred is a sign of their force. They are of our life, radical 
 and one supposes inalterable. The nation's spirit lives in 
 them, warningly one may believe, but not less vitally than 
 in the nobler things for which the Abbey stands. 
 
 Of those nobler things, what can be said ? If one had a 
 golden pen and it was winged with fire, much might be said 
 of the thousand years or so of the life of our past that lives 
 within these walls ; and of those potential other thousands of 
 the future. But both past and future are contained within this 
 immediate now. All are gathered up into that spirit which 
 the Abbey breathes at this moment of the greatest things of 
 a great nation's life. Heroism and loyalty, romance and piety, 
 i66
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 proud freedom and patient industry and a steadfast indomitable 
 temper, these are by no means all the voices with which it 
 summons the listener to awake and enter into his heritage. 
 Most significant of the voices is one which has not their 
 clarion call, but which steals sweetly into the mind and remains 
 there when the others have died down. Quiet and clear, the 
 note of Reconciliation flows through the keener sounds as a 
 perpetual soft undertone, threading them all together and 
 giving them their value. And if one listens long enough, its 
 music will predominate. One will hear in it the reconciliation 
 of Church and State, of King and People, of Victor and 
 Vanquished : the reconciliation of many foreign strains in our 
 actual breed, of the art of many races in the structure of the 
 building, of diverse creeds, policies, and systems of thought, 
 in the men whose bones lie here. 
 
 Of the vivid national life for which the Abbey stands, 
 this Reconciling Spirit is its most native element, and will 
 probably be its most enduring force. "That ye might have 
 life, and have it more abundantly" — I seem to remember that 
 this was the purpose for which the Humble One, in whose 
 honour this church was ultimately built, agonized and died. 
 That, then, is the sacred original fire of the Abbey spirit. 
 But a nation has agonized on this spot for nearly a thousand 
 years — agonized in that older sense of noble and heroic 
 struggle. Can we not therefore hear its living voice, in this 
 place which the deaf and the blind call a place of death, it 
 also sweetly declaring the object of the long fight — that ye 
 might have life, and have it more abundantly '> Every stone 
 
 167
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 rings with it : every gracious line and even every comical bit of 
 ugliness sings of that English life thus vicariously bequeathed : 
 not an unblemished thing, and in certain aspects rather 
 ridiculous, but trying to aim straight at something which shall 
 approach to high courage and honesty, freedom and justice 
 and reconciling mercy. 
 
 Now many of the tombs, which should, according to the 
 historians, be the deadest of all dead things, have a special 
 power to convey this sense of life. The most beautiful are of 
 course the most vital ; but there are others which teem with 
 significance. It does not even require a visible monument, 
 sometimes, to come home to us with force, as for example 
 when we stand in the Chapel of St Benedict and reflect on him, 
 the founder of the Benedictine Order. There is no tomb for 
 him, of course, in our cold northern island ; yet but for him 
 the Abbey would not have existed, and the whole of Western 
 civilization would have been a different thing. Edward III in 
 1355 brought here from France the precious relic of the saint's 
 head ; and the Abbey long treasured it as one of its holiest 
 possessions. 
 
 Or turning to quite another mood of this protean life, one 
 can step into St Michael's Chapel, and, still without the aid of 
 any monument, realize that there was buried " Sir William 
 Trussel, Kt., Speaker to the House of Commons at the 
 deposing of King Edward II." ^ A sternly echoing voice, this, 
 declaring to a decadent King the people's will that he should 
 abdicate. A very English voice, too, as Edward II knew well, 
 
 ^ Stow. Ed. Strype. 
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 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 and which may still be recognized, since it is by no means 
 silenced yet. Thus, too, from the grave of Wilberforce and 
 the statue of Buxton in the north choir aisle, figures hardly 
 enhaloed yet in memory because they are not far enough away 
 in time ; and who dwell rather quaintly in the mind because 
 our funny old grandfathers used to tell of how they fought 
 the slave trade — from that spot rings the crusading spirit of 
 England that is older than the Crusades and young as this 
 morning. 
 
 So one might go on, almost indefinitely ; and indeed it is 
 a subject to return to. But since our theme is for the moment 
 tombs, it will be better to concentrate on a group of two or 
 three which pre-eminently embody the English spirit. One 
 casts about for a choice, therefore ; and the first thing to strike 
 us is how rich a field we have to select from. Also, how little, 
 on the whole, the tombs have suffered. People who know most 
 about the national burying-places of other races say that there 
 is none like Westminster for comprehensiveness and good 
 preservation. One's own smaller experience supports, so far 
 as it goes, that assertion. One tries to recall, at Paris, or 
 Potsdam, or Weimar : at Rome, or even at Florence, another 
 such assembly ; but one fails to remember anything comparable 
 to it. Its catholicity is a thing peculiar to England ; and the 
 relatively good condition of the tombs is, I like to think (and 
 this despite the enormities of Henry the Eighth's Dissolution), 
 of a piece with that 'English temper which is expressed in an 
 undying phrase of Sir Thomas Browne : " I should cut off my 
 arme, rather than violate a church window." 
 
 169
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 However, the choice is much less embarrassing if we 
 postulate beauty as well as interest and significance. Make 
 the demand on aesthetic grounds and the multitude dwindles 
 inevitably to a convenient number. Go a step farther, and 
 stipulate for a high perfection which shall include supreme 
 greatness in the subject and supreme beauty in the monument, 
 and the manageable number recedes almost to vanishing point. 
 By such an elimination, indeed, only one might remain, whose 
 greatness and beauty are matched by an equally exquisite tomb ; 
 and that is the Lady Margaret Beaufort. There are tombs 
 more magnificent than hers (as, for example, that of her son 
 Henry VH) which contain ashes so much less fine. And there 
 are meaner monuments that enclose remains equally illustrious. 
 But in her monument the artist wrought beauty to enshrine 
 beauty, and made a perfect work. 
 
 But we are, of course, making an almost impossible 
 demand ; and the fact that it happens to be fulfilled in the 
 Lady Margaret's tomb is of the nature of a miracle. Yet there 
 are other tombs of extraordinary beauty and interest. There 
 is, for example, a group of three in the Chapel of the Kings 
 which possesses intensely the vital attraction of which one is 
 thinking: I mean the tombs of Henry HI, Eleanor of Castile, 
 and Edward L These speak of vivid English life ; yet, 
 characteristically, two of the royal persons are not of English 
 birth. But consider the tombs. Two of them beautiful, and 
 one ugly, they do not therefore make a harmonious group 
 aesthetically ; so that they cannot be thought of as the other 
 incomparable three, the lovely Gothic tombs of Edmund 
 170
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 Crouchback, his wife Aveline, and Aymer de Valence, in the 
 presbytery. For that reason, the tendency always is to 
 eliminate the ugly tomb from this group and to think and 
 speak of only the beautiful two, Henry III and Eleanor, 
 as if they formed an isolated and unapproachable pair. Well, 
 so they do, from the point of view of art. Professor Lethaby 
 says, speaking of the bronze effigies of Henry and Eleanor, 
 that they are the most beautiful Gothic sculptures in England ; 
 and of that of Eleanor in particular, that it is probably 
 unmatched in Europe, from the threefold cause that its subject 
 is a beautiful queen, its date was the apogee of Gothic art, and 
 that it is wrought in the fine and practically imperishable 
 material of gilt bronze. As sheer beauty, these two tombs 
 sing together in happy unison, and cannot be linked with any 
 other without in some degree marring the clear harmony of 
 their song. But the Abbey's voice of life is not a simple 
 harmony. It is a deeper, richer, and more complex music ; and 
 listening to its fuller tones, the note of that other ugly tomb 
 strikes in, at first as a strange and almost conflicting theme, 
 but recurring, insistent, and finally dominating the whole. One 
 realizes then that it, and not they — with all it means of 
 adventurous courage, of dogged aim, of romantic religion and 
 devout love, of simplicity almost crude and modesty almost 
 absurd — it is the fundamental thing, the deep bass of that 
 music of the national spirit. 
 
 The tombs of Henry III and Eleanor, lovely as they are, 
 would not be there at all had it not been for the filial piety and 
 marital tenderness of Edward I. Edward honoured his father 
 
 171
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 with much money and care lavished on his monument. His 
 adoration of his wife found expression in infinite thought and 
 limitless expenditure on her many memorials. But he himself 
 lies in that mere stone chest, entirely unadorned. You may 
 blame the meanness of his tomb to the unworthiness of his son, 
 if so it please you : it is agreed at any rate that the son was 
 completely worthless. But kings, as well as bishops, have been 
 known to order their tombs before their death. One remembers 
 the concern of Henry V about the building of his chantry ; and 
 the still more explicit directions of Henry VH for his magni- 
 ficent monument, with financial provision made for it by the 
 parsimonious King. But the generous Edward, in dying, had 
 far other injunctions for his heir. There is native force and 
 simplicity in them, but there is nothing about tombs. There is 
 the soldier, the romantic, and the statesman in them, but 
 nothing of the egotist. Smitten with illness at Carlisle as he 
 was starting another expedition against the Scots, he sent for 
 his son and laid on him three commands. They are deeply 
 characteristic, and not of this King only, but of the spirit of our 
 race. " You shall carry my bones before you through Scotland 
 until you have subdued it ; you shall send my heart to the Holy 
 Land ; and you shall never recall Piers Gaveston." War, and 
 Religion, and the State : such great simplicities occupied his 
 last moments, as they had engaged all his manhood and his 
 royalty. Hence, this fighter for impossible causes — for the 
 tomb of Christ, and to conquer the unconquerable Scots : this 
 good statesman whose failing breath laid a political charge upon 
 his heir: this visionary sending his heart to rest where its 
 172
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 lodestar had been in life — he lies at Westminster between five 
 plain slabs of Purbeck marble. There is no effigy: and there 
 is no ornament of any kind. Only an inscription of doubtful 
 origin, but quoted by Sandford, and therefore existing when he 
 wrote in the middle of the seventeenth century : Edvvardus 
 
 PRIMUS SCOTORUM MALLEUS HIC EST I308 PACTUM SERVA. 
 
 " Hammer of the Scots " indeed ! It is clear that the great 
 King had no voice in that boast. It was probably invented 
 long after he was buried. But " Keep the Pact " comes nearer 
 both to him and to the deeper things of the nation's spirit for 
 which the Abbey stands. 
 
 To Edward, then, we owe the other two tombs ; and now 
 it is possible to look at them with a vision sharpened by the 
 thought of his devotion and generosity. Henry III died in 
 1272, while Edward the Prince of Wales was away in the Holy 
 Land. They buried him temporarily in the grave of Edward 
 the Confessor before the high altar, from which he had 
 translated the Confessor's remains into the new golden shrine. 
 There he lay for more than ten years. But in the meantime 
 Edward I had gathered in his wanderings material with which 
 to make a splendid tomb for his father. He brought them 
 back with him — porphyry, marble, and glass and gold tesserae. 
 He seems to have had in mind the rich mosaic basement of 
 the shrine which Henry III had built for the Confessor; and 
 to have determined that his father should have no less honour 
 than that. Hence the tomb of Henry III very much resembles 
 the Confessor's tomb, as well in its classical design as in the 
 nature of its decoration. 
 
 173
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Gough says, and that old antiquary ought to know, that 
 this tomb is the most magnificent and costly monument of its 
 century. It stands on the north side of the Chapel of the 
 Kings, in the place of honour to the right of the Confessor. 
 One side, therefore, fronts the shrine, and the other side looks 
 down into the ambulatory. It is a double tomb, raised on 
 three steps. Its lower stage, on the chapel side, contains three 
 recesses, the middle one shaped like a classical portal, with 
 pilasters and pediment. They were probably used for the safe 
 keeping of relics ; and they are lined with the same mosaic that 
 once covered the whole of this lower stage of the tomb. Much 
 of the mosaic is still left on the side of the tomb which fronts 
 the ambulatory where, secure from the touch of innumerable 
 pilgrims, it remains in good preservation. It may be easily 
 seen from the ambulatory, or by standing at the top of the steps 
 that lead up to that side of the chapel. It is still fresh and 
 gay enough to give an idea of the original brilliance of this 
 Cosmati work, with its bright colour and shining gold and 
 glass tesserse. One likes to think of this other Roman artist 
 working at Edward's bidding on Henry's tomb, as Peter of 
 Rome had wrought the basement of the Confessor's tomb at 
 Henry's bidding. The later artist could not have been, 
 presumably, one of the Cosmati themselves, for that name 
 would have left a record somewhere in the Abbey archives. 
 There is, however, an echo of the name of one of their school, 
 one Cavallini ; and it is just possible that the artist may have 
 been he ; but whoever he was, his work adds another note to the 
 Abbey's harmony, already enriched from many foreign sources. 
 
 174
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 The tomb proper rises in a second stage above the base. 
 Its sides and ends contain panels of highly polished porphyry — 
 that which Edward I brought back from his travels — framed in 
 mosaic. Two writhing pillars stand at each corner, repeating 
 the idea of the twisted pillars on the shrine ; and upon the 
 summit rests the table of copper-gilt on which the King's effigy 
 lies. Now the efifigy was for many years assumed to be also 
 of Italian workmanship. It was known that an artist named 
 Torel had been employed by Edward I to make the lovely 
 figures of his Queen for her three tombs. There is a record of 
 the exact amount that he received for the three — ;^ii3 6s. 8d., 
 the equivalent of about ;^i7oo in money values before the 
 Great War sent them still higher. And it was clear, apart from 
 the documents, which, however, are convincing, that the effigy 
 of Henry III was from the same hand. There are resem- 
 blances of manner and technique that are unmistakable. The 
 two figures are both idealized to some extent ; and the idealiza- 
 tion is in the same degree and in the same manner. The curve 
 of the flowing hair, the straight line of the lower eyelid, the 
 modelling of the mouth, all appear to follow a convention ; and 
 although that fact probably does not refute the belief that the 
 effigies were studied from their originals, it strongly suggests 
 that the author of the two works was the same person. That 
 person, as I have said, was until comparatively recent times 
 called an Italian. Perhaps it was a simple case of suggestion, 
 from the fact that the mosaics of Henry's tomb are unquestion- 
 able Italian work. Perhaps the look of the word Torel 
 disguised its English form of Turrell. But investigation has 
 
 175
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 yielded the truth of the matter, which W. Burges and others 
 declare to be that the artist indubitably was William Torel, 
 goldsmith and citizen of London. We learn that the name 
 "has nothing whatever to do with the Italian family of Torelli. 
 The name of Torel occurs in documents from the time of the 
 Confessor down to the said William." 
 
 The two effigies, which one ought to remember are 
 probably the first that were ever cast in this country, are of a 
 grave, noble, yet delicate beauty. One realizes as much as that 
 in the difficult and incomplete view one gets of them from the 
 chapel. Seen even so imperfectly, the profile lines are exquisite. 
 But to study them, as it is possible to do, from drawings and 
 engravings, is to acknowledge that none of the high praises that 
 have been lavished on them is exaggerated. I said it was 
 possible to study them in this way ; but it is far from an easy 
 thing to do for the majority of folk. In the great tomes of 
 Cough's Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain are certain 
 fine engravings of Westminster tombs which have an ex- 
 traordinary interest. They are signed Basire Del. et Sculp., 
 and one would suppose them therefore to have been drawn and 
 engraved by that Basire who was engraver, in the third quarter 
 of the eighteenth century, to the Society of Antiquaries. But 
 no, their origin is much more illustrious. You have to think of 
 a young man named William Blake, apprentice to this Basire, 
 and sent into the Abbey to draw tombs, partly to release him 
 from the wrangling of fellow-apprentices. Dreamer of dreams 
 and seer of visions, the artist-poet was to those young cubs 
 quite an alien ; but shut up in the Abbey, climbing up on to the 
 176
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 tombs the better to see them, and perceiving (he was the first to 
 do it) the lovely spirit of Gothic beauty, he was happily in his 
 own place. From Gilchrist's life of Blake we learn that he was 
 occupied by his master for several years, from 1773, in thus 
 drawing and helping to engrave the monuments of the Abbey. 
 Queen Philippa is identified as his work ; but there are others 
 which one judges to be from the same hand, and of those are 
 Henry III and Eleanor, both poetical in their majesty. The 
 original copper-plates thus engraved by Blake are in the 
 Bodleian Library, where they form a part of the collection 
 bequeathed by Richard Gough's will in 1799. As one turns 
 over the pages of Gough in the Bodleian or the British 
 Museum, one cannot help regretting that these lovely drawings 
 are not more accessible. With their value as art, the im- 
 portance of their subject, and the interest of their authorship, 
 they are entirely delightful. If they could be reproduced well 
 and sold cheaply, English folk might begin to understand 
 what a treasure-house their Abbey is. 
 
 The tomb of Eleanor is of a different kind of beauty from 
 that of Henry III; and its gracious Gothic we owe to Master 
 Richard Crundale, King's Mason. Its mouldings are delicate, 
 and the six trefoiled arches on the north side have their sharply 
 pointed pediments edged with foliage. Under the arches hang 
 three coats of arms, twice repeated. They are the arms of 
 England, Castile, and Leon, and are suspended from branches 
 of oak and vine. Below, on the basement of the tomb, are faint 
 remains of what must have been a lovely painting. Its subject 
 has been made out as a knight kneeling in prayer before the 
 
 M 177
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Virgin and Child ; and one cannot but believe that it was meant 
 to represent Edward praying for the soul of Eleanor. 
 
 The painting, however, has all but vanished ; but more 
 enduring, and certainly not less beautiful than any part of the 
 whole fine monument, is the iron grille, made by Thomas 
 Leighton, blacksmith of Leighton Buzzard. This work of 
 perfect art is, of course, a mere grating to keep out thieves. 
 Yet the medieval passion for beauty has bent and twisted 
 and welded and stamped the stubborn iron into all manner 
 of graceful shapes of curving stalks and leaves. 
 
 Gough describes the Eleanor effigy as "a delicate figure of 
 a beautiful lady." Stothard speaks of its regular features and 
 " an air of commanding beauty " ; and W. Burges, discussing 
 whether or not the figure was a portrait study, declares that 
 it is a "valuable example of the beau ideal of the thirteenth 
 century." Professor Lethaby, on the other hand, thinks that 
 it was certainly studied from the life ; and from other sources 
 one learns that the artists of the period used to take the 
 lovely Queen for their model of the Virgin. Making all 
 allowances for the Eleanor legend, and accepting the denial of 
 the story that she once saved Edward's life by sucking the 
 poison from his wound, there remains enough fact about her 
 to present a great woman, as well as a great and beautiful 
 Queen. She came from a proud race ; and a Princess of 
 Castile was no unworthy mate for a Prince of Wales. Yet 
 she seems to have had a sweet graciousness of disposition. 
 One is apt to read lightly the words that she accompanied her 
 husband to the Holy Land, and on his expeditions into 
 178
 
 LIFE, AND THE TOMBS 
 
 Scotland, in these days when a certain sort of people winter 
 in Palestine and shoot in the HighlsLuds, />our passer le temps. 
 But when journeys took years to accomplish and were 
 immensely perilous, they were great feats of courage and 
 endurance, even for a man. Only an equal devotion could 
 have made them possible to the lesser strength of a woman ; 
 and it is no wonder if a legend grew round the name of 
 Eleanor. An old historian says : " She was a woman of 
 great piety, moderation and tenderness, fond of the English, 
 and as it were the pillar of the realm." One begins to realize 
 why, when she was taken ill and died on one of those 
 expeditions, Edward's grief and his manner of expressing it 
 were things to astonish the world. At every place where 
 her body rested on its way to London, he caused to be erected 
 a memorial cross, with statues of the Queen that are declared 
 to be (from originals still remaining at Northampton and 
 Waltham), " the crown of English Gothic architecture." And 
 these were in addition to the three tombs and effigies at 
 Lincoln Cathedral, at the church of the Blackfriars, and most 
 magnificent of all, this one in the Abbey at the side of his 
 father. So she lies, very sweetly and richly shrined, her 
 tomb perpetuating her beauty and grace and courage. And 
 on the other side of Henry lies Edward her husband in his 
 plain grey chest, its native marble (laid down in quiet seas 
 perhaps a million years ago, before our island was an island 
 or the hum.an race had begun) symbolizing some steadfast 
 and enduring force of character. 
 
 179
 
 CHAPTER XI : The Spirit of a Nation 
 
 THE Abbey, then, is not a place of Death, but of Life. 
 It enshrines pre-eminently, not the Confessor nor any 
 other great founder, but the living Spirit of our Race. 
 That is a word to reiterate, if we would not forget to be proud 
 of our past ; and guarding tenaciously some measure of that 
 spirit through a gloomy present, hand on to the future a 
 record which shall be not altogether ignoble. Therefore one 
 examines a little closely the meaning of it. 
 
 Marshalling the facts, and diving down to the earliest 
 of them, the fabric itself is seen as the spirit made visible 
 of many generations of our forbears. Other generations stretch 
 behind, preparing the way for it, and other races are absorbed 
 into it, as are the Norman and even Saxon foundations on 
 which the structure is reared, and the French ideas from which 
 it was designed. But the structure itself is English, by so 
 much the richer for the foreign elements which it assimilated, 
 yet remaining essentially native. 
 
 The building is, too, more completely representative than 
 any or all of the monuments that have been crowded into it. 
 For while they commemorate each an individual, the fabric 
 is the united effort of many thousands of English folk, their 
 ideas embodied in their handiwork. Count the almost count- 
 less number of memorials in the building, both worthy and 
 unworthy, and you still will not reach a figure anywhere near 
 the total of the men who took a hand in the building of it. 
 And if it be replied — But these were mere units, mechani- 
 cally fulfilling a task; whereas each monument stands for a 
 1 80
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 mind and a conscious purpose — one must take leave to demur. 
 For that is an assumption based on the changed conditions 
 of modern labour ; and it quite forgets that many of the 
 monuments have little enough to do with mind, or anything 
 else but ugliness. 
 
 The most cursory glance at the original work proves that 
 the men who wrought it were intelligent and conscious artists ; 
 which is simply to say that they took joy and pride in 
 their job. Units they were ; without the supercilious mere, 
 which would have amused them could they have understood 
 it. And they were so little mechanical as to confound our 
 machine-ridden notions. They had a complete knowledge of 
 their subject, which they often practised in all of its many 
 departments. They had ideas of their own, based on tradition 
 and brought to the critical test of co-operative service. They 
 had an eye for beauty and freedom to follow it ; and their 
 hands were trained to various and cunning skill. Above all, 
 they possessed a sense of unity which made them join gladly 
 in a great collective effort. These men were the flower of 
 England when England was a nation of artists, before it 
 began to dream of other ambitions — colonial, imperial, or 
 commercial. 
 
 William Morris said: "Westminster Abbey, in spite of all 
 injuries, is a great work of art. ... It is a building second to 
 none amongst all the marvels of architectural beauty produced 
 by the Middle Ages. ... It is the work of no one man, but 
 of the people of south-east England working in the manner 
 which the traditions of the ages forced upon them . . . the 
 
 i8i
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 work of the inseparable will of a body of men who worked 
 as they lived, because they could do no otherwise." 
 
 It is for this reason that the fabric of the Abbey is itself 
 a most precious monument to the English spirit. In these 
 walls and arches, these piers, pillars and arcades, these windows 
 and vaulting : wherever remains a bit of the original work, 
 there are the living mind and hand of the men who made it. 
 
 It was not long, however, before this collective mind began 
 to yield place to individual genius. Of course there is a 
 sense in which the individualistic spirit was present from the 
 beginning. Edward the Confessor and Henry III no doubt 
 acted, like all mere humans, from mixed motives ; and built 
 their churches as well from ambition as from piety. But that 
 granted, one still sees those royal founders co-operating in a 
 real sense with their craftsmen. Sympathy, insight, friendship, 
 and encouragement they gave, with, in Henry's case at least, 
 downright hard thinking and anxiety. It is their spirit, no less 
 than the spirit of the workmen, for which the building stands. 
 But reading the Abbey history from its monuments, as the life 
 of a nation and not as the mausoleum of kings, we find that the 
 great individual mind began to appear there before the fabric 
 was complete. That is perhaps due to the fact that the 
 beginning of the nave was delayed for nearly a hundred years 
 after Henry the Third's work, and that it was long in finishing. 
 In that interval the period of what one calls the collective 
 mind waned from its zenith. Had the work proceeded 
 continuously, that period would probably have covered the 
 whole of it ; but progress was slow, with many interruptions ; 
 182
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 and the church, with the Lady Chapel of Henry VII, was not 
 completed until 1528. 
 
 From the first, of course, warriors and ecclesiastics had 
 found a burial-place in the Abbey : always there was that 
 strange alliance between the worshippers of Mars and the 
 servants of the Prince of Peace. The earliest monuments, 
 therefore, are the tombs of kings, soldiers, and prelates ; but 
 while they were preparing rich caskets to hold a little dust, the 
 nation was happily building a house meet for the Spirit of God, 
 and making of it, unconsciously, a home for the eternal Spirit 
 of Man. There is no monument in the Abbey for the men who 
 did that work. Their names were long forgotten, or totally 
 unknown ; and they have only recently been recovered from 
 limbo, and written down in a book, by Professor Lethaby. 
 The lay monuments do not begin until the great co- 
 operative epoch is on the wane ; and when they begin, when 
 the spirit of England becomes focussed in certain great 
 individual minds, who and what are they ? I think it is pro- 
 foundly significant that these earliest names are Chaucer and 
 John of Waltham : that is to say, the Poet and the Statesman. 
 There is another name, rather earlier than these two. Sir 
 William Trussel, Speaker of the House of Commons. We 
 have already seen that Trussel acted as Procurator for the 
 Parliament in the deposition of Edward II. But although we 
 know that he was buried in the Abbey, no monument remains 
 to him. On the other hand, the monument of Chaucer is 
 perhaps the best known of all : certainly it is equally popular 
 with that of the Confessor ; while that of John of Waltham, a 
 
 183
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 brass in a grey slab, has the most honoured position of all, in 
 the Chapel of the Kings itself. He was buried there in 1395; 
 and Chaucer was buried in the south ambulatory in 1400. 
 Thus the first gesture of this Spirit that we are watching is 
 toward the familiar genius of our race for Law and Poetry. 
 
 Of that aspect of the Abbey spirit, however, there is more 
 to be said than can be contained in this chapter. Other aspects 
 seize the eye as it glances down the historical review, and one 
 surprising fact brings it abruptly to a halt. During the whole 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the monuments which 
 are not royal are almost exclusively those of the noble families 
 which took their rise about this time. Stanley, Vere, Russell, 
 Cecil, Percy, Howard, Sidney — such names fill the roll as their 
 tombs fill the chapels, with no space left for any who did not 
 follow the fortunes of kings. So that one might believe the 
 English nation of that period to have been composed entirely 
 of dukes, earls, and counts, with their corresponding ' ladies,' 
 and of course a few knights thrown in. Yet there must have 
 been other members of the community, for one seems to 
 remember certain great events during those two hundred years, 
 and in particular something about an Armada. Of them, 
 however, the Abbey is blank and silent. There is no sign of 
 those impudent heroic adventurers, Drake, Frobisher, and 
 Hawkins ; and nothing to celebrate that wonderful year 1588, 
 in which all three chased the Spaniard from our shores and 
 made England mistress of the seas. 
 
 Thus the intrepid sailor-spirit, most ancient of all, which 
 made our race possible and without which neither Law nor 
 184
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 Poetry could have been, has no place in the Abbey until a much 
 later date. Our most glorious naval epoch is unrecorded there ; 
 and if we were bound to accept the monuments of this long- 
 period as representative of the national spirit, it would be a 
 rather poor affair. A malicious eye might even see it, by an 
 oblique turn, as the native trait which so dearly loves a lord ; 
 and one could hardly deny the impeachment. On the contrary, 
 one would have to grant to the cynic that even two centuries of 
 our history are not too much to give that particular weakness 
 its due proportion. But fortunately we are not bound to accept 
 these noble men and noble dames as the whole nation of that 
 time. Of its greater activities and achievements they do not 
 speak ; and yet there is one figure which appears at the end 
 of the period, in 1599, which sums up the whole and thus 
 saves it from utter silence and oblivion. It is, of course, 
 the poet Spenser ; and he brings in, as on a flood tide, 
 the romance that was, after all, the dominant spirit of that 
 adventurous age. 
 
 There followed other poets upon Spenser ; but it was not 
 until a half-century later that the Abbey took on its unique 
 character, and became fully the spiritual home of English folk. 
 Princes, prelates, and soldiers had been there from the begin- 
 ning. Statesmen and poets came in very early, followed by 
 a throng of nobles ; but in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century there entered the people, to take possession of the 
 building which the people had made. Now this event was not 
 accidental ; and it did not follow from any caprice such as one 
 may fairly describe the burying of John of Waltham in the 
 
 185
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Royal Chapel and the burial of Hugolin in the Confessor's 
 treasury. Neither was it, as so many movements of the 
 English mind are, tentative and half-conscious. The change 
 was deliberate and complete. It was initiated by one named 
 Oliver Cromwell, a typical English man of action who possessed 
 also the rather un-English faculty of reasoning to his acts. So 
 that while Hugolin lies in the Abbey because he happened to be 
 Treasurer to St Edward, and John of Waltham only secured 
 his place there, against indignant outcry, because Richard II 
 happened to be fond of him, the greater soldiers and sailors 
 of the Commonwealth came in because Cromwell reasoned 
 that so a nation's spirit would be exalted. 
 
 So far from injuring the Abbey, Cromwell had a profound 
 veneration for it. We may, if so it please us, accept the cynical 
 view that he got himself buried in the Lady Chapel because he 
 believed that he was founding another dynasty. There will still 
 remain the recorded fact that he laid the Commonwealth heroes 
 in the Abbey in order that the honour thus paid to them should 
 stimulate national endeavour. They came in full array ; and 
 among the more famous were Ireton, Pym, Blake, Bradshaw, 
 and the Earl of Essex. Cromwell, with some members of his 
 family, was laid in a vault at the extreme east of the building, 
 i.e. at the east end of the Lady Chapel. They are not there 
 now ; and if you go to search for them, you will not know 
 where to look. For at the Restoration, the bodies of those 
 great men, to the number of twenty-one, were dug up and flung 
 together into a pit outside the Abbey. Those of Cromwell, 
 Ireton, and Bradshaw were hanged at Tyburn ; and their heads 
 i86
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 struck off and set up in Westminster Hall — this was at the 
 express command of Charles II, so blessedly restored. The 
 fact is not one to dwell upon. If the responsibility of it lay 
 with the nation, the national spirit could hardly have borne the 
 shame of it. Certainly, and quite literally, it would not have 
 survived here in the Abbey. But for the honour of that 
 spirit it must be recorded that the deed was the deed of a 
 King ; and of a King whose illegitimate children were afterward 
 buried in the very vault from which he had ejected the great 
 Protector. 
 
 The bones of Cromwell were buried at Tyburn beneath the 
 gallows on which his dead body was hanged. The spirit of 
 Cromwell remained in the Abbey, and his purpose prevailed 
 there. For from that time were gathered into it, with few 
 exceptions, all that was eminent in every department of English 
 life. Many who were not eminent, and who were even un- 
 worthy, got in too ; but let them rest. Their presence serves to 
 emphasize the catholicity of this English temper. So too with 
 the incongruity of the crowded monuments. Some of them are 
 ludicrous ; and many of them hurt one's sense of fitness. Yet, 
 without condoning either bad art or bad taste, one sees that 
 they are but the price we have to pay for the complete ex- 
 pression of national mind and character. It appears that we 
 English are like that. It is as though Cromwell bequeathed to 
 us, as an inseparable part of the logical liberal principle on 
 which he threw open the Abbey to the people, some part of 
 the Puritan blindness to beauty. 
 
 However that may be, from the middle of the seventeenth 
 
 187
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 century its doors were open to all, and continued so until 
 absolute repletion forbade further admittance. Thus, besides 
 royal and noble persons and great soldiers, sailors, and states- 
 men : in addition to the poets, theologians, men of letters, 
 scholars, and musicians who may be said to represent the older 
 order of our civilization, we find the men of the new order — 
 scientists and philosophers, colonists and imperialists, explorers, 
 philanthropists, and engineers. While to complete its repre- 
 sentative character are private citizens and foreign guests. 
 
 Among such a multitude one is almost bewildered. It is 
 impossible to think of them coherently, in the mass, much 
 less to envisage their one essential meaning. What we can 
 do, however, is to take here and there a great individual figure 
 and try to understand what it stands for in English life and 
 character. In this way we may perhaps see not only what was 
 its peculiar gift to our spiritual history, but may even catch a 
 glimpse past this almost chaotic diversity to the unity of the 
 national spirit which the Abbey enshrines. 
 
 Poets and statesmen must be left aside for the moment. 
 Their numbers and their significance are too important to 
 include in so rapid a survey; and they must be considered 
 separately. But we may enter other spheres in which the 
 native genius, though it roamed the world or adventured into 
 what was, in the region of thought, a new universe, found itself 
 equally at home. Let us therefore look first at Robert Blake, 
 Admiral, who was buried in the Abbey in 1657. And if it be 
 asked, Why first at him ? the answer is simple. He stands for 
 the sea, and the sea made us, not only as a nation and a 
 188
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 maritime power, but as, vastly more ancient and remote, it 
 made all life. 
 
 Blake came from a typical English family. His father was 
 a merchant at Bridgwater in Somersetshire, and Robert, born 
 in 1599, was the eldest of twelve sons. He was educated at 
 the Bridgwater Grammar School and at Wadham College, 
 Oxford, where it appears that they suspected him of Republican 
 tendencies. They would, of course ; and he need not, merely 
 for that reason, have been a very red revolutionary. As a fact, 
 he was of too moderate a temper and too large an outlook to 
 be a violent party man. Schooling over, he went back to 
 Bridgwater and continued successfully his father's business. 
 It was as a merchant, and for trading purposes, that he made 
 his first voyages and learned a sailor's craft. One likes to 
 speculate what might have happened if Merton had not rejected 
 him as a Fellow. It seems that his figure was too short and 
 ungainly for them. Had he but had a few more inches, and 
 been a little better looking, Oxford might have gained another 
 beautiful don — and England would have lost her noblest sailor. 
 
 From the year 1642 Blake served in the Civil Wars : he 
 defended Bristol, attacked Bridgwater, held Lyme against the 
 Royalists, took Taunton from them and held it. He was 
 primarily a man of action, and is said to have been brilliant 
 in command ; yet in 1645 he sat in Parliament as Member for 
 Bridgwater, and was afterward a member of the Council of 
 State. It was as a soldier that he had been trained in war ; 
 yet he was appointed to the chief command of the Fleet in 
 1649, It is as a great naval hero that we think of him, and 
 
 189
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 yet his fleet was composed largely of merchant ships which he 
 fitted out as men-of-war. With such vessels he destroyed 
 Prince Rupert's fleet, subdued the Scillies, and took Guernsey 
 and Jersey from the Royalists. 
 
 In 1651 he sailed against Van Tromp. In 1652 that 
 master of strategy was too much for him; but in 1653 Blake 
 put to sea again, and the great Dutchman was finally beaten. 
 During this time he was acting as senior commissioner of the 
 Admiralty. In 1654 he scoured the Mediterranean for African 
 pirates. In 1655 he punished the Turks at Porto Farina, and 
 in 1657 he won a great naval victory over the Spanish at Santa 
 Cruz of Teneriffe. Afterward, falling ill, he sailed for England ; 
 but he died as his ship was entering Plymouth Sound, and was 
 brought to the Abbey and buried with great pomp. 
 
 An historian who did not love him proclaims his ability 
 as a navigator, his enterprise and his immense courage. Others 
 speak of his chivalry, his lenience to a defeated foe, and his 
 zeal for the honour of England. As a commander he was 
 more brilliant than subtle. As an officer he appears to have 
 been stern, but in his personal relations loyal and deeply 
 affectionate. When his brother Samuel, who was serving 
 under him, was accidentally killed in a useless skirmish, 
 Blake greeted the news officially with the words, " He had no 
 business there." But afterward they heard him crying in 
 his room : " Died Abner as a fool dieth." 
 
 One does not try, with our little measure, to estimate such 
 a man ; but some things are sun-clear. His life was given to 
 the service of England. He had no need of money, and served 
 190
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 neither for gain nor, as one might say of the Elizabethan 
 sailors, from sheer exuberance. His character was of complete 
 integrity : astonishingly of a piece, and of a fine piece, through- 
 out. His genius was of that native type (found most often 
 amongst our sailors) which somehow reconciles the diverse 
 qualities of the idealist and the man of action, and astonishingly 
 compels success. With great physical energy he had a power of 
 steady thinking : with dash, daring, and supreme courage went 
 an exact science : with a practical knowledge of the ways of com- 
 merce were joined chivalry and a complete devotion to a greater 
 cause. In Admiral Blake, then, is an authentic and powerful 
 gleam of that Spirit of the Nation which dwells in the Abbey. 
 But there is no monument to him, and his grave will not be 
 found there, for he was one of the Commonwealth men whose 
 bones were flung outside the Abbey by order of Charles Stuart, 
 second of that name upon the throne of England. 
 
 But now let us take greatness of another kind. Think for 
 a moment of Isaac Newton : 
 
 ... a mind forever 
 Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. 
 
 That is what Wordsworth said about him ; and Words- 
 worth, despite the jeers of the irreverent, could do a little 
 thinking of his own. If he himself never sailed those strange 
 seas alone (for he always carried a pilot) at any rate he 
 knew enough about them to judge the ability of a better 
 navigator than himself. It is, indeed, only by the witness of 
 other great minds that those who are not physicists can 
 approach a conception of Newton's grandeur. There was a 
 
 191
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 time when, with a too-complacent ignorance of Newton, and a 
 too-facile impatience with Pope, one thought the epitaph of 
 the little poet at Twickenham extravagant to the point of 
 blasphemy. It is almost too familiar to quote, but here 
 it is : 
 
 Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night. 
 God said, ' Let Newton be,' and all was light. 
 
 One challenged what seemed hyperbole, and had to confess, 
 abashed, not only the justice of the immense claim, but the 
 precise rightness of its expression. Again, one knew about 
 Voltaire's profound admiration : that he wrote a Philosophie de 
 Neuton, that he was present at the funeral in the Abbey, and 
 that he was responsible, among much other popularization of 
 our great philosopher, for floating the ' apple ' story, in 
 connexion with Newton's theory of universal gravitation. 
 Yet one dimly and perversely thought (if it can be 
 called thinking), that this feeling for Newton merely came 
 from Voltaire's partiality for England and all things English. 
 And this although one knew the relentless logic of the great 
 Frenchman's mind. 
 
 There would be no point in making that confession of 
 stupidity now, if I supposed it unique. But I believe the fact 
 to be that many people have a similar vague notion of 
 Newton's genius, and for that matter, of many other great 
 men buried in the Abbey. It is high time to open our eyes 
 and try to perceive of what stature our giants are. The effort 
 is especially difficult in the case of Newton. Did not Voltaire, 
 with an intellect as vivid as lightning and often as devastating, 
 192
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 say of him : " II a trouvd des vdrit^s : mals il les a cherchdes 
 et placdes dans un abime : il faut y descendre et les apporter au 
 grand jour." To plunge into the depths of Newton's thought 
 and bring his achievements to popular understanding was an 
 act of homage paid by the French philosopher to the English 
 one. In such a reflection the average mind can see something 
 of Newton's greatness — his lifelong passion for pure science, 
 his unremitting mathematical labours and their resultant dis- 
 coveries, recorded in the Principia : his theories — of gravitation, 
 of the spectrum, of optical and astronomical laws. We have 
 seen how Pope, epigrammatic and precise, summed up the 
 significance of those discoveries in the phrase, God said 
 ''Let Newton be,' and all was light. Voltaire, even better 
 equipped to comprehend Newton's science, has gathered it 
 into an epigram equally witty. It will be found in a poem 
 to his ' divine Emily ' which is prefaced to the Philosophie de 
 Neuton, the 1738 edition : 
 
 . . . Tame de la Nature, 
 Etoit enseveli dans une nuit obscure, 
 Le compas de Neuton mesurant I'univers, 
 Leve enfin ce grand voile et les cieux sont ouverts. 
 
 Average mortals, standing a long way off from that 
 Colossus, still can see, of the human aspect of the man, a 
 very great figure. The long life, from birth at Woolsthorpe 
 in 1642 to death at Kensington in 1727, was crowded with 
 toil : not only that incident upon his philosophy, but all that 
 is entailed in a hold upon affairs and service in the workaday 
 world. Besides holding the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, 
 
 N 193
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 the labour involved in the preparation and revision of the 
 Pnncipia, the constant argument and discussion which are 
 the breath of life to the scientist — he was first a Fellow of the 
 Royal Society, then a member of its Council and then its 
 President. He was elected and re-elected to Parliament to 
 represent the University of Cambridge ; and he served at the 
 Mint, as Warden and finally as Master, cleansing its ad- 
 ministration and making a revolution in the currency. Such 
 industry, apparently, is genius always stern to exact from 
 itself. 
 
 It is said that Newton had not a very impressive appear- 
 ance. He was of middle size, and no one would have guessed 
 from his manner the greatness of the man. That is not 
 surprising, perhaps, remembering how often the distinguished- 
 looking person is without distinction. But one who knew him 
 said he was " the whitest soul " ; and another : " Newton is 
 the greatest philosopher and one of the best of men." The 
 unassuming manner was rooted in a deeper modesty. He 
 put forward his theories, as he said, " without any absolute 
 positiveness " ; and every one knows the famous thing he said 
 one day toward the end of his life : 
 
 I do not know what I may appear to the world ; but to myself I 
 seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting 
 myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell 
 than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered 
 before me. 
 
 In that quiet voice one may hear a tone indubitably 
 English : witness to a character that this Spirit of a Nation 
 194
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 casts up a little more frequently, perhaps, than the stupendous 
 intellect of a Newton. 
 
 Among churchmen we might look at Simon Langham at 
 one end of the list, or Dean Stanley at the other. We should 
 see in both, despite their so different epoch and order of society, 
 great patriots, great English ecclesiastics, and great and 
 generous men ; while Langham, for all his official titles of 
 Treasurer of England and Chancellor, ranked perhaps not 
 much higher as courtier and statesman than his Victorian 
 successor. That, too — the close link between Church and 
 State, "between the Abbey and the Throne — is essentially 
 English and peculiarly of Westminster. 
 
 From the engineers we might take James Watt, and with 
 him the native aptitude for seizing an idea hitherto floating, 
 so to speak, in the void of theory, inventing for it a bodily 
 form, and giving it a practical application. Or we might go 
 and look at the great windows in the north aisle which 
 commemorate some engineer-makers of our modern world — 
 Kelvin, Baker, Siemens. Builders of bridges, makers of roads, 
 masters and directors of energy, movers of mountains, cutters 
 of canals and cleavers of a path through the sea — the spirit of 
 England through such men took hold on the natural laws that 
 Newton discovered, and by their aid bound nature herself to 
 the service of mankind. 
 
 Or, among the musicians who remind us that there is at 
 any rate one art in which we have excelled, and may — who 
 knows ? — excel again some day, there is Henry Purcell, 
 organist to the Abbey. He died in 1695 and was buried near 
 
 195
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 his organ. And there is Henry Lawes, buried in the cloisters 
 in 1662, for whom Milton, lover of music in that age when 
 England led the musical world, wrote a sonnet : 
 
 Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song 
 First taught our English music how to span 
 Words with just note and accent. 
 
 Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher 
 Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing, 
 Met in the milder shades of Purgatory. 
 
 Of Wolfe, and the Celtic warrior spirit which rushed from 
 
 Wales and from Ireland to fight the battles of England, there 
 
 is no space to speak adequately. Wolfe may stand for the 
 
 many who represent our colonizing genius, and who made of 
 
 our race a larger entity, not English any more, but British. 
 
 Again one sees, through the brilliance of the soldier, the 
 
 integrity of the man. It is a quality which has a habit of 
 
 recurring in our great men ; and if its repetition seems a little 
 
 monotonous, I cannot help it : I do but record the fact. Here, 
 
 again, integrity is seen to lie at the root of greatness ; while 
 
 there is also seen, as the individual note of his genius, that 
 
 characteristic of the English military spirit which does not love 
 
 militarism for its own sake. Wolfe hated compulsion, and 
 
 loathed the brutality of war. Every one knows that just before 
 
 his last battle he said that he would rather have written Gray's 
 
 Elegy than have the glory of taking Quebec. Yet under his 
 
 essential gentleness, his vivacity, his hot temper, and a 
 
 sensitiveness too fine for the rough business he had on hand, 
 
 was a responsibility which held him steadily to a detested 
 
 196
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 calling. He had the swift perception and daring executive 
 ability that made him a successful general ; but they also made 
 him a searching critic of himself and others. " We are the 
 most egregious blunderers in war" is one of his dicta which 
 throws light not only on Wolfe's mental attitude, and the 
 critical Celtic mind in its relation to the vSaxon, but on our 
 long story of muddling through in land warfare. Yet below 
 this Celtic impatience with the dull and the slow was a quality 
 which both Celt and Saxon share pretty equally ; and it is 
 expressed in the last order he gave at the final attack on 
 Quebec : " The officers and men loill remember what their 
 country expects from them" The words have a familiar ring 
 in English ears : and it is significant that they have. They 
 remind us of the last order of the great sailor who does not lie 
 in the Abbey. Yet Wolfe anticipated Nelson in that command, 
 or rather one should say, in that rallying-cry to the spirit of 
 patriotism. And who can say how many times in our history 
 the words of Wolfe's last order were anticipated, or when the 
 cry ' For England ' first was uttered ? 
 
 That cry was not the battle-cry of Livingstone. The mystic's 
 eye saw a larger horizon than that which bounded the shores 
 of Britain, a horizon wide as the whole of humanity. Of his 
 conversion in 1832, at the age of nineteen, he said : " I resolved 
 to devote my life to the alleviation of human misery." But 
 that sudden flower of resolution was from years of growth and 
 preparation in the patient Scotch way. We see Livingstone as 
 a little lad working in a cotton factory, with Virgil or Horace 
 propped open on the spinning-jenny so that he could catch a 
 
 197
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 few sentences as he worked. We see him as he grew older, and 
 always with the same big intellectual appetite, tackling the 
 natural sciences and finally deciding to become a medical 
 missionary. Then there was the labour of training in medicine 
 and divinity before he was fit to embark on his humane mission 
 to the dark continent. 
 
 The story of his life in Africa is one of the great epics of 
 the world. Physical courage, endurance, daring, and resource 
 are the least part of the wonder. For there were the spiritual 
 qualities, with goodwill at their root, of course, which carried 
 him unhurt among savage tribes, subduing them as by some 
 gentle magic ; and there were those other spiritual qualities — 
 of imagination, of tenacity, and of devotion to the advancement 
 of knowledge, which made him one of the greatest explorers 
 that an exploring race has produced. Livingstone the lion- 
 hearted, the practical mystic, brings to the Abbey spirit the 
 religious fervour of the Scots ; and he brings it in the Scots 
 way, with their grave intellectual strength, their moral force, 
 and their solid ability. 
 
 There is no finality in this subject, but our study of it 
 must stop somewhere. One may perhaps best close it on a 
 view which is not personal nor even national, but which is that 
 of the same clear-eyed Frenchman who taught us to understand 
 Newton. Voltaire was long enough a bogy with which to 
 frighten literary children. Mephistopheles himself had not so 
 dark a hue as that with which this Son of the Lightning was 
 painted. The Church in particular hated him ; and one sees 
 why. Is it not, therefore, a startling and an ironic fact, that 
 198
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 this building which is the heart of the English Church should 
 have received its most splendid eulogy from him ? 
 
 True, it is not for its ecclesiastical function that Voltaire 
 praises the Abbey ; but rather for the humane and catholic 
 temper that it represents, which we have seen dwelling there 
 as the Spirit of the Nation. His praise is associated with the 
 tombs of actors in the Abbey, of whom we might perhaps take 
 Garrick and Irving as the greatest figures, though Garrick 
 himself said of Mrs Gibber (who is buried in the north 
 cloister): "Gibber dead! Then tragedy expired with her I" 
 The point that struck fire from Voltaire was the double-edged 
 truth that here in England drama was honoured alike by 
 layman and churchman, whereas in his own country it lay 
 under a ban which condemned absolutely both the dramatist 
 and the acting profession. In his Vie de Moli^re he pours 
 out scorn against that anathema of the Ghurch which, at the 
 best, dealt undeserved pain to gifted and honourable people ; 
 and at the worst but served to manufacture crime. He tells 
 how Moliere, the blameless bourgeois — whom one always thinks 
 of as the wise Jester of the Gourt of Louis XIV, chastising the 
 follies of the age with such just and comical ridicule — how he, 
 who quite literally fulfilled an avowed purpose to correct people 
 while he amused them, was only got buried with difficulty in 
 consecrated ground. Louis, the shining Sun-king, himself 
 had almost to go down on his knees to the Archbishop of 
 Paris, and entreat him to allow his little friend the dramatist 
 and comedian to be buried in a church. So, when a brilliant 
 French actress, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, died, and the 
 
 199
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Church's law of excommunication still held, refusing the 
 sacraments to actors and denying them Christian burial, 
 Voltaire looked across the Channel and remembered that the 
 English had a different way of ordering these things : 
 
 Quoi ! n'est-ce done qu'en Angleterre 
 
 Que les mortels osent penser ? 
 O rivale d'Athene ! 6 Londre ! heureuse terre ! 
 Ainsi que des tyrans, vous avez su chasser 
 Les prejuges honteux. . . . 
 Quiconque a des talens a Londre est un grand homme. 
 
 L'abondance et la liberte 
 Ont apres deux mille ans chez vous ressuscite 
 
 L'esprit de la Grece et de Rome. 
 
 We reply, of course, to the kind Frenchman that that is 
 too much honour. No, we have not yet quite eliminated shame- 
 ful prejudices ; we do not dare to think so very hard, nor so 
 very boldly ; while as for the spirit of Greece and Rome, if we 
 had not inherited some faint gleam of it, I should like to know 
 what the old Universities, and their compulsory Greek, were 
 doing all those centuries. We are bound in truth to protest 
 that the life for which the Abbey stands is not a thing of 
 classical perfection and austere intellectual force. It is a much 
 more complex and imperfect thing which yet, familiar and 
 lovable, has its roots deep in the fibre of every English being. 
 
 Months after this book was written, and while it was just 
 issuing from the press, there occurred an event which set the 
 seal of our epoch upon the Abbey and revealed very strikingly 
 the aspect of it which this chapter has tried to express. 
 200
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 The Great War had been over for two years, and Europe 
 lay in the trough of a heavy sea of weariness and reaction. 
 Many evil effects had followed from that vast madness which, 
 like a storm in the world's brain, had left a habit of violence, 
 a cancerous cynicism, lassitude, pessimism, indifference. The 
 ideals for which the masses of men had fought were forgotten 
 or flouted : the magniiicent heroism with which so many had 
 given their lives seemed to have been wasted in achieving a 
 peace which was no peace, and in creating a new European 
 order hardly better than that which it replaced. Fierce material 
 ills darkened existence over a large part of the world ; and even 
 in England, happy by comparison with famine and disease 
 elsewhere, there were riots of unemployed ; men who had 
 fought our battles could not find the means to live ; and 
 party politicians could not summon sufficient greatness to 
 unite in healing the desperate state of Ireland. The life 
 of the spirit seemed dead. 
 
 Then, suddenly, the Spirit of the Nation was reawakened. 
 On the second anniversary of the Armistice, the nth of 
 November, 1920, a new Shrine was made at Westminster. 
 An unknown British soldier who had died fighting in France 
 was brought home to the Abbey, and was buried in the west 
 end of the nave. 
 
 It was no golden and jewelled shrine such as had been 
 made by Henry III for the Confessor, but a plain and simple 
 grave. Yet the Unknown was interred with great honour 
 and solemnity, in the presence of representatives of the whole 
 nation, and mourners of all classes. The King was his chief 
 
 201
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 mourner : the pall-bearers were high officers of all the fight- 
 ing forces : statesmen followed the King in the funeral 
 procession, and following them again marched ex-soldiers of 
 all ranks who had fought in the War. Thus the nation 
 came to the Abbey, to place there a sign that the Spirit of 
 England was not dead, but living still ; and as the Dean 
 uttered the words of the Burial Service, Earth to earth, ashes 
 to ashes, dust to dust, the King, standing at the head of the 
 grave, poured upon the lowered coffin some earth which had 
 been brought from France. 
 
 Later, when the ceremony was over, the grave was filled 
 with the same French earth; and this touch of symbolism 
 has perhaps the most intimate significance of the whole 
 impressive event. For it reminds us primarily that Britain 
 fought in the Great War because of her friendship with 
 France. In the longer view, of course, she fought in her 
 own defence ; but it is sober truth to say that the longer view 
 was hardly envisaged by the millions of volunteer British 
 soldiers who sprang to arms when Belgium was invaded 
 and France was threatened in 19 14. They were not apt to 
 look so far ahead, or reason about their own interests in just 
 that mood. They were prompted by indignation at the fate 
 of Belgium, and fidelity to France. Hence it was fitting 
 that this grave of a British soldier who died for France 
 should be made from French earth. But there is further 
 significance in it if we remember the age-old association of the 
 Abbey with French life and art and ideas. From the beginning 
 the influence of France was there, in the very fabric of the 
 202
 
 THE SPIRIT OF A NATION 
 
 church, in the character of its founders, in the lives of the 
 men who built it. So it continued through the centuries ; 
 and so, appropriately, the old friendship is crowned at last 
 by this tomb of a British soldier of the twentieth century. 
 
 But the larger meanings of that tomb are inescapable. 
 The Unknown Warrior who now comes to rest here brings in 
 with him, vicariously, the heroism and the sacrifice of a nation. 
 He brings the Spirit of the English race as it rose in 
 generous idealism in the epoch of world-crisis which we call 
 the Great War. In the Abbey "a terrible beauty is born" 
 at this new grave — a beauty quite unlike that of the other 
 Shrine at the east end of the church, where Edward, the 
 " martyr without blood-letting," rests. For this unnamed 
 martyr, of a peace-loving native temper like that earlier one, 
 nevertheless laid down his life for an ideal. Hating the 
 insanity of warfare with the hatred of the modern rational 
 mind, and shrinking from bloodshed with the modern 
 humane sensibility, he yet brought himself to the last horror 
 of killing his fellows. But he justified his act by a passionate 
 conviction that in this way he might protect the weak ; that 
 so he might help to give greater freedom and justice to 
 the world ; and, above all, that by this means old wrongs 
 would be put right, and war should be made to cease from 
 the world. That was his loftiest, his most determined motive. 
 At this Shrine, therefore, the ancient Spirit of England lives 
 with the strange new power of a nation risen in arms to 
 destroy for ever the arbitrament of arms. 
 
 203
 
 CHAPTER XII : The Law and the 
 
 Prophets 
 
 WE saw that almost from the beginning the Statesman 
 and the Poet found their way into the Abbey. 
 They gathered in great numbers as time passed, 
 and became dominant among all the varied elements of national 
 life represented there. So that to-day, entering the building 
 by the north door, and crossing inevitably to the south 
 transept, our path is lined by their cenotaphs. 
 
 Every bunch of school-children coming up from the 
 suburbs on the awesome adventure of a visit to the Abbey 
 sees first the statues of Chatham, Beaconsfield, and Gladstone. 
 Then they pass directly (with perhaps one fearful glance 
 en route toward the Holy Place and its mystery) to the tomb 
 of Chaucer. And they arrive finally, but only after a complete 
 exploration of Poets' Corner, at the Chapel of the Kings 
 and the Shrine of the Confessor. The progress is symbolic. 
 The phalanx of statesmen at the entrance stands at guard. 
 Law opens the path and makes the way clear ; and poets, kings, 
 and all else must follow after it. 
 
 Now that arrangement of the monuments just happens 
 to be so, of course. No one supposes that the deans who 
 allocated places to Peel, Grattan, and the rest intended thus 
 to set forth the truth that the statesmen stand for a power 
 greater than kings and an English instinct older than the 
 Church. I should not wonder if the idea never occurred to 
 them. It may even be that had they thought about the matter 
 204
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 in this way, the statesmen would not have occupied that site 
 at all, but would have been put in another less prominent one. 
 Yet the accident is the more illuminating. Evidently this 
 element is so much a part of our life as to be one with it ; it 
 is something so familiar that it passes unobserved. The civil 
 power predominates, in our matter-of-course way, without any 
 flourish of trumpets. Law — by which of course one does not 
 mean the mere legal flummery in which it wraps itself, but 
 the spirit of justice and order — is thus seen to be at the 
 basis of our national character and history. 
 
 That is a doctrine to deal confusion to other than kings 
 and ecclesiastics. "What!" one imagines the outcry. "Is 
 mere Law, prosaic and dry-as-dust, to rank higher than 
 Intellect, and Genius, and Heroism?" It certainly seems sheer 
 heresy. The shades of Newton, Chaucer, Blake, rise in august 
 protesting dignity. A hundred others rush before us with 
 reproachful eyes, proclaiming a hundred things more inspiring 
 — courage, self-sacrifice, patriotism, daring, learning, art, 
 philosophy, science, adventure, humane endeavour, pioneer- 
 ing, exploration, and many more. The air grows thick with 
 these ghosts of what were Englishmen, struggling manfully 
 for an idea. And they clamour, indignantly, that those ideals 
 should have the supreme place. 
 
 Probably, in any other country but England, they would 
 have the first place. France would certainly honour pure 
 intellect, Italy art, and Germany science. But England, while 
 she gathers them all under her wing in a motherly way, 
 makes it clear from the outset that the home in which she 
 
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 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 shelters them is made by the laws of the home, and that the 
 laws are for obedience. Even the wilful brood of genius, rest- 
 less, rebellious, discontented, impossible to satisfy by order and 
 rule, she subdues at last. Even the ancient Spirit of Poetry, 
 old as herself and, like herself, eternal, she draws into a union 
 with that Spirit of Law so close and complete that the two 
 seem to be the twin parts of her being. Yet in the twinning 
 there is a bias ; and the most English of English poets are 
 those who, like Wordsworth or Tennyson, accepted the ordered 
 fabric of society as it stands planted on the law of their 
 land. 
 
 The Romantic will protest furiously against this. He 
 will declare that it is ludicrously wrong : not a simple, mild 
 misreading of the facts, but the facts literally standing on 
 their heads. He will cite you poet after poet who flouted 
 the laws and raged against them and jeered at them. He will 
 name to you poets who were a law unto themselves. He 
 will, with vehement conviction, remind you that liberty is the 
 poet's life-blood, that always his genius is most vital when most 
 free, and that to bind him to the law is therefore to slay him. 
 Finally he will flourish at you a truly embarrassing list of 
 rebels from the roll of English poets, young, eager, and 
 recalcitrant, and will conclude in triumph : " And what about 
 Shelley and Byron ? " 
 
 Well, we shall retort — though without much zest for 
 scoring a point over this particular antagonist — IVhat about 
 them? Was not Shelley turned out of Oxford, and did not 
 the authorities at Westminster refuse burial in the Abbey to 
 206
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 Byron ? Which is to say that those two rebels, remaining 
 unreconciled to the Mother's laws, were outcast from her home. 
 Those are not facts to gloat over : one remembers them with 
 shame. And yet, as mere exceptions, these two poets illustrate 
 the rule that we are regarding. A greater than they might have 
 been cited in such an argument. Milton, at the first glance, 
 would seem to be our Romantic's chiefest support. He was 
 in a sense the greatest rebel of them all. He is not buried in 
 the Abbey for that reason ; and for a very long time there was 
 not even a monument permitted to him there. Yet, apart from 
 the mere data of history, which prove that his rebellion was 
 not against law but lawlessness, it seems hardly possible to 
 read six lines of his poetry without hearing the majestic har- 
 mony of his mighty spirit with the Spirit of Justice and of Order. 
 That he and many other poets made war against bad laws 
 does not mean that they were at enmity with that spirit, for bad 
 laws are its mere decaying garment. The English poet who 
 revolted against something unjust, false or obsolete, turned 
 upon it in direct attack. The thing was amended in conse- 
 quence. It was done slowly, perhaps, and incompletely : yet 
 it was done. The Spirit of Law responded to that extent to 
 the Spirit of Poetry. The relation between the two was so 
 close that they constantly acted and reacted upon each other. 
 If the more deliberate spirit took toll of some measure of poetic 
 ardour and audacity : if the poet became, when the fire of youth 
 burnt low, acquiescent and even approving : if he sometimes 
 forgot the younger vision of El Dorado, or the City of God, or 
 whichever had been his particular lodestar — one does not claim 
 
 207
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 that that was a very desirable consummation. One simply 
 records the fact, noting at the same time that he often turned 
 to cities nearer home and devoted himself to their amelioration. 
 It may be no cause for boasting that the high-soaring Spirit of 
 Poetry got its wings a little clipped in this process ; but it is at 
 least a cause for thankfulness that the Spirit of Law, apt to fly 
 too low and too heavily, was in England compelled to a rather 
 higher flight in consequence of that union. 
 
 It is easy to sneer at the conjunction of Poetry and 
 Politics. But the superior persons who do so forget that it 
 is something radical in the native temperament. They — the 
 superior ones — are tainted with the mode of the moment to 
 decry the politician, because they do not see quite what he 
 stands for, nor remember his large part in our history. The 
 fashion is un-English, for the plain reason that English poli- 
 ticians have usually been by comparison honourable men ; and 
 English political life a relatively clean affair. So much it owes 
 to its poetical partner. But the sneering phase will pass, 
 unless our national character has suffered a sudden and com- 
 plete change, which characters, either individual or national, 
 are not apt to do. Then it will be seen once more that the 
 function of the statesman in our island economy is the attaining 
 of the high ideals which have been set for him by the poet. 
 
 The statesman is the executant in that fellowship. He 
 must bring these El Dorados and Utopias into the region of 
 " practical politics." He it is who must declare that " Here 
 or nowhere is America " ; and proceed to make it so. And 
 because he is the man of action, the practical person who, by 
 208
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 dint of here a little and there a little, does at last get some- 
 thing done, the national love of action and solid attainment 
 elects him the predominant partner. He may have a very 
 indifferent measure of success : he has not yet, so far as I 
 have heard, created Utopia. But in popular estimation, which 
 is not always wrong, he is, as they say, "the real thing"; and 
 the poet is nowhere, by comparison. 
 
 Who and what is your poet compared with a real live 
 Member of Parliament ? I hear our engaging Romantic, so 
 lately dismissed, snort with rage in the distance. Yet the cold 
 truth is that in a crowd of average English people the poet will, 
 at best, take a second place to the Member for Deepdene. He 
 takes, as we have seen, a second place in the Abbey. You reach 
 the monuments of the poets only after passing through an 
 avenue of statesmen. You read the history of the Abbey and 
 learn the facts of Chaucer's burial. They are illuminating in 
 this regard. For Chaucer got his place here almost by in- 
 advertence. In old age and poverty he rented a small house in 
 the garden of the monastery, on the site where stands now the 
 Lady Chapel of Henry VH. He had been employed for a time 
 as Clerk to the Works at Westminster Palace, and consequently 
 held office in the royal household. It was probably by reason 
 of this slight link with royalty that they buried him in the 
 Abbey ; and they can have thought very little indeed about his 
 poetry, because he had no monument for over a century and a 
 half. The only sign to mark the whereabouts of his grave 
 during that long period was an epitaph on a leaden tablet which 
 hung from an adjacent pillar. But even that was not a tribute 
 
 O 209
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 of his compatriots. Our prophets have no honour in their own 
 country ; and it is significant that Chaucer's sole memorial was 
 an epitaph written by a foreigner. To this day one has to go 
 abroad to discover the greatness of Shakespeare — or Byron, 
 who will be quoted to your confusion in Italy, Germany, or 
 France. That Surigonius of Milan, the foreign poet who 
 wrote Chaucer's epitaph, should have been of the Italy that 
 Chaucer loved so well would doubtless sufficiently console his 
 shade for the neglect of his countrymen. He had learned not 
 to expect too much, in spite of (or was it perhaps because of?) 
 the favours of three successive kings. And at any rate he had 
 too sane a temper to care greatly what fame might do to his 
 reputation, and too sweet a soul to resent her follies. Irony 
 was not much in his line, particularly of the tragic variety. 
 And when at last they did give him a memorial, none would 
 have laughed more heartily than he at the fact that it was 
 a second-hand one. He would have thought it a delicious 
 joke. 
 
 The tomb of Chaucer in the Poets' Corner of the south 
 transept, which we all gaze at so reverently — and so we ought, 
 indeed, for it is a lovely thing — was not made for Chaucer. 
 Nobody knows whom it was made for ; but Mrs Murray Smith 
 thinks it might have come from one of the city churches which, 
 in that era of Dissolution, were being dismantled. In any 
 case, in 1551, that is, 151 years after he was buried, Nicholas 
 Brigham, who was a poet himself and knew how to love and 
 honour poetry, procured the tomb and set it up where it stands. 
 A portrait of Chaucer was painted on the back of it ; and it is 
 210
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 said that the poet's body was removed into it from his grave at 
 the entrance to the Chapel of St Benedict. But even that fact, 
 alas, is by no means established ; and arriving at last at this the 
 whole truth about the monument of the English nation to the 
 Father of English Poetry, we find that it has certain curious 
 aspects. First, that it was not erected by the nation at all ; 
 second, that it was ravished from some other church and had 
 contained some other poor body; and, lastly, that in all pro- 
 bability it does not contain the ashes of the poet. It is true 
 that such irony would only disturb that merry shade to a gust 
 of laughter ; and yet the mere recorder of the facts cannot but 
 taste their bitter flavour. 
 
 But contrast now the fate of the statesman of Chaucer's day 
 who was buried in the Abbey. John of Waltham was strictly 
 Chaucer's contemporary. He was buried in 1395, just five 
 years before the poet. He too had enjoyed royal favour, for 
 Richard H had exalted him to be Lord Treasurer, Keeper of the 
 Privy Seal, and Master of the Rolls. True, he was Bishop of 
 Salisbury, and therefore also had ecclesiastical dignity ; but 
 that was never alleged as the cause of the unique honour that 
 was paid to him in his burial. No, he was laid in the Chapel 
 of the Kings (the only unroyal person who ever found a place 
 there) on the deliberate command of Richard H, because he was 
 that King's favourite. Nothing inadvertent or hesitating about 
 this interment! It was, indeed, a thought too deliberate and 
 wilful for the taste of good conventional people and ecclesiastical 
 authority. But a protesting abbot could be squared *' by gifts 
 of money and vestments " ; and the early ancestress of Mrs 
 
 211
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Grundy, after the manner of her remote descendants, soon 
 forgot to frown when authority smiled. 
 
 Meanwhile the King, because he loved his Master of the 
 Rolls " and greatly bewailed his death," did not intend to let 
 him lie unmarked in his honoured grave. He caused to be 
 prepared a beautiful brass to lie upon it, representing him in 
 his bishop's robes and insignia. And this may be seen in the 
 mosaic pavement of the Chapel of the Kings, south of the 
 tomb of Edward I. The statesman, then, who made so big a 
 figure in his life, who died laden with honours the very names 
 of which strike awe to Englishmen, and who was royally 
 entombed between the Shrine of the Confessor and the greatest 
 Edward, is a sufficient contrast to our poet, dying poor and 
 getting buried obscurely. 
 
 Did we not conclude that the poet, in the popular eye which 
 estimates the brave show of life, was simply nowhere beside the 
 politician ? And yet one pauses a moment, recollecting some- 
 thing. Who in his life ever before heard of John of Waltham ? 
 Certainly not I. And who ever goes to the Abbey to see 
 John of Waltham's tomb ? Perhaps, now and then, a solitary 
 of the strange race of brass-rubbers. Yet the second-hand 
 tomb in Poets' Corner draws to it like a magnet the 
 feet of wandering Britishers from all quarters of the globe ; 
 the hearts of foolish Britons beat rather more quickly as 
 they look at it ; and hosts of small children, happily 
 careless and uncomprehending of everything else in this 
 funny old dark building, know quite well what this spot 
 means, and gaze at it with sweet solemn faces. Irony has 
 
 212
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 another flavour now, and the laughing shade is avenged. Hut 
 it is little he cares about that. 
 
 The story of the first statesman and the first poet buried 
 in the Abbey might almost be a little parable of the relations 
 between the two spheres in succeeding ages. Perhaps they set 
 a precedent for it. On the whole, there has been poverty 
 and obscurity for the man of letters, but affluence and honours 
 for the statesman ; on the whole, success and applause for the 
 statesman and, except among a lettered circle, unpopularity and 
 indignity for the poet. The very aspect of the north transept 
 contrasts in this sense with that of the south. It is true that in 
 numbers the poets outrun Law, even though they are not all 
 buried here. In addition to Byron, Shelley, and Keats, the 
 greatest of all are missing. Shakespeare is not there, as some 
 allege because of the anathema inscribed on his tomb at 
 Stratford-on-Avon against any who should move his bones. 
 But the more probable reason is that he was not in the circle of 
 Court poets. The close connexion between the Abbey and the 
 Throne operated more than once to exclude the best and in- 
 clude the second-best ; though it is fair to add that the Church 
 played its part in interpreting the royal will. Thus Milton is 
 not here, though Congreve is : he had a magnificent funeral, 
 and lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber. Coleridge is at 
 Highgate, Southey at Keswick, and Wordsworth at Grasmere : 
 and these do not exhaust the roll of English poets who will 
 not be found in the English Valhalla. Yet most of them have 
 memorials here, outnumbering, as we said, those of the law- 
 makers in the north transept ; and there is a difference between 
 
 213
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 them which stresses their different fate. The monuments of the 
 statesmen may not make a large claim as art ; but at least they 
 present a show of dignity and importance ; whereas the motley 
 crowd in the south transept can lay claim to nothing but a 
 catholicity of taste and judgment run rather mad. The states- 
 man, as is evident from the cenotaphs, generally got his share 
 of cakes and ale. The poet, more often than not, got nothing at 
 all, partly because no one thought of offering him his share, 
 and partly because he was too proud to claim it. It becomes 
 monotonous to read, time after time, how he lived, so to speak, 
 in a garret, and died in poverty. History in this respect is 
 highly unoriginal. But — and here again one is brought up 
 short— not less regular and inevitable is her repetition of the 
 fact that after the cakes and ale are finished and the brave 
 show is done, it is the Living Word of the poet which survives. 
 So, at long last, the Spirit of Poetry triumphs ; and Milton's 
 sonnet Oji Shakespeav does but state the bare truth, not of 
 him only, but of every one of our long line of poets whose 
 work has become a national possession : 
 
 What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones, 
 
 The labour of an age in piled stones, 
 
 Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid 
 
 Under a star-ypointing Pyramid ? 
 
 Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, 
 
 What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name ? 
 
 Thou in our wonder and astonishment 
 
 Hast built thyself a live-long monument. 
 
 And so sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie, 
 That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 
 
 214
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 But in the meantime the difference in the fortunes of the 
 Law-maker and the Poet, and in, so to speak, their style and 
 manner, rather obscures the union of which we were speaking. 
 Who would guess that the parti-coloured and rather dis- 
 hevelled gentleman of the south transept is own brother to 
 the spruce and stately person of the north ? Or, since blood- 
 relationships leave room for bewildering diversity, who would 
 guess that the Maenad of the south transept and the sober 
 Law-maker of the north are twin souls born of the Spirit of 
 England ? Yet that appears to be the plain truth. Our race 
 expresses itself, at its highest, in the idea of Justice and of 
 Liberty, which is to say, the Law and the Prophets. The one 
 is its intellectual achievement, the other its spiritual grace. 
 The one is its science, the other its art. The one is its inborn 
 character, the other its heaven-sent genius. The one is the 
 civilizing power of order: the other the illuminating power of 
 light. The one is constructive, rational, patient : the other is 
 imaginative, visionary, creative. The one fulfils itself through 
 Politics and the other in Poetry. 
 
 It has chanced in our history that these two native 
 qualities have been sometimes paired in two pre-eminent men 
 as the leaders of their generation. Thus, as we have seen, 
 there were Chaucer and John of Waltham. Thus again, in 
 the spacious Elizabethan days, there were Burleigh and 
 Spenser. One does not call on the name of Shakespeare here, 
 because he cannot be lightly coupled in this way. No other 
 mind can match him : all others are, in a sense, included in his, 
 for the Spirit of England at its highest moment was concen- 
 
 215
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 trated in him. But Spenser is a representative figure, as is 
 Burleigh, Minister to the great Elizabeth and founder of the 
 Cecil race of statesmen. Lord Burleigh is not buried in the 
 Abbey, but his funeral service was held there in 1598. Spenser 
 was the first poet after Chaucer to be buried in Poets' Corner. 
 He too died poor ; but his fame was safe, for he was the 
 darling of his compeers. He was buried with great honour in 
 1599- Other poets from that astonishing Elizabethan band — 
 Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, Fletcher, and perhaps Shake- 
 speare himself, brought funeral elegies to throw into his grave, 
 with the pens with which they were written. Some of them 
 followed the Poet's Poet to a tomb in the Abbey when their 
 turn came. Ben Jonson and the Beaumonts, Drayton and 
 Davenant and Ayton lie here. 
 
 A century later saw another pairing in Milton and in 
 Cromwell. This was a portent which she who had mothered 
 them could not understand : so she cast them both out from 
 her. The fate of Cromwell's bones v/e already know ; and 
 Milton lies in St Giles', Cripplegate. He was buried there 
 in 1674. Royalist feeling was too strong against him to lay 
 him in the Abbey, and a chance memorial word of him in 
 some one else's epitaph was ordered by the Dean to be erased. 
 It was not until 1737 that England began with shame to realize 
 that she had again rejected one of her prophets ; and a tardy 
 monument was put up in the Abbey. 
 
 In Victorian times the dual elements appeared again in 
 two famous men. On Gladstone and on Tennyson descended 
 the cloak of the law-maker and the prophet. In them perhaps 
 216
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 is seen at the clearest this close English union between the 
 Spirit of Justice and of Liberty, of Law and of Poetry, for in 
 these two it is often the statesman who is the poet and the 
 poet who is the statesman. Gladstone pleading passionately 
 for the freedom of the Irish people to govern themselves : 
 Gladstone not a little out of favour with his royal mistress ; 
 and Tennyson the Laureate, courtly and suave, singing in his 
 smooth, sweet music about laws which broaden down " from 
 precedent to precedent" — are not the ancient roles here 
 almost interchangeable ? 
 
 But there have been periods when one supreme mind 
 has gathered into itself, as into a single flame, all the fires of 
 England's spirit. The lofty and lonely figure was then either 
 a poet or a statesman. Such a time was, by a paradox, the 
 Elizabethan era. That age, rich with manifold genius, great 
 in statecraft and in intellectual curiosity, equally daring in 
 physical and spiritual adventure, discovering with the zest 
 of youth a new heaven and a new earth, and revelling in them 
 with young exuberance — this age, with all its shining and 
 eager spirits, was summed up and given its ultimate expres- 
 sion in the one man Shakespeare. It was an Age of Poetry, 
 and only the great poet could finally express it. But in the 
 Age of Prose the great statesman was the pre-ordained. The 
 figure of Chatham stands out of the eighteenth century as 
 England's most eminent man, uniting richly in himself the 
 genius of both the Law and the Prophets. Like Shake- 
 speare in his day, Chatham was surrounded by brilliant men 
 who were eminent in his own sphere. Shakespeare had his 
 
 217
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 constellation of poets, many of whom lie in the Abbey. 
 Chatham in like manner had his planetary setting of states- 
 men — Fox, Grenville, Grattan, Castlereagh, Newcastle, and 
 others ; and most of these, too, have places here. It was an 
 Age of Reason and of Law: an age, significantly, of the 
 growing power of the House of Commons. The great 
 statesman was inevitably its supreme mind. Therefore in 
 Chatham's hands lay England's destiny, and he swayed it 
 powerfully in the direction which the genius of statecraft will 
 always take — toward material aggrandisement, military strength, 
 defensive alliances, and every bold measure which should tend 
 to give his country a proud and secure position among the 
 nations. 
 
 Yet in Chatham, where perhaps one would least expect to 
 find it, lived the idealism of the poet. In this practical person, 
 a man of action above all, a strong son of the age of reason, 
 proud, ambitious, inconsistent, burnt the unpractical and irra- 
 tional fire of the dreamer. We are not now concerned with 
 a complete portrait of Chatham, but only with essential features. 
 They are very clear. Honesty of purpose, austerity of life, 
 incorruptibility of character, ardent patriotism, and strong love 
 of liberty are the poetical qualities at the base of his immense 
 practical success and popularity. The fact but serves to 
 remind us once more how closely associated are the two 
 elements in English life. Do they come, perhaps, from cen- 
 turies of mental nurture on Roman law and Greek poetry? 
 It is possible. Our statesmen are bred in an atmosphere of 
 poetry, and our men of letters so often have given themselves 
 218
 
 THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 
 
 to a study of law. Yet something native to the English 
 character paradoxically combines the two. So that we have a 
 practical Pitt joining forces with an idealist Wilberforce for 
 the abolition of the slave-trade ; or a serious and responsible 
 Gladstone passionately enthusiastic for the liberty of Ireland. 
 
 On the ground of liberty, indeed, these highest representa- 
 tives of the national spirit have always met and greeted. One 
 might take as a clear example their long campaign together 
 for the freeing of slaves. The men who bore the brunt of that 
 Crusade for the greater part of a century were sober politicians : 
 some of them plain members of the House of Commons. But 
 to their patient and determined policy was added the zeal of the 
 enthusiast : they were at the same time poets and law-makers. 
 Wilberforce, whose name is most familiar because it is associated 
 with the victory of the Abolitionist cause, lies in the north 
 transept. But Granville Sharp, who literally devoted his life 
 to the defence of the negroes, has a memorial in Poets' Corner ; 
 and Zachary Macaulay and Powell Buxton both have monu- 
 ments. It is a group of names which illustrates very simply 
 and strikingly the English ideal of liberty and our manner of 
 achieving it. It illustrates also the way in which that poetical 
 ideal works itself out in service. Through the too tedious 
 machinery of petitions, and bills, and amendments, the idea 
 grows by small degrees into imperfect law, and the law is 
 often found to be an instrument for the greater freedom of 
 mankind. That is the point toward which the statesman and 
 the poet, in the relation that we have been considering, tend 
 to converge. In humanitarian service, not of our own race 
 
 219
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 alone but of others also, England has sometimes united those 
 two great forces of her spirit. It is a union exemplified in a 
 supreme altruist like Livingstone, or in the less brilliant figures 
 of philanthropists who lie buried in the Abbey. In so far, 
 then, as England has been a civilizing and liberating power, 
 she owes it to her Spirit of Law and of Poetry : and in so 
 far as English folk would seem by the evidence of their Abbey 
 to have somehow formed a habit of humane service, it was 
 because they remembered (though they would be too shy to 
 confess it) that this is all the Law and the Prophets, that ye 
 love one another. 
 
 220
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 John Flete (c. 1425) 
 
 Stow 
 Henry Keepe 
 
 F. Sandford 
 J. Crull 
 Browne Willis 
 John Dart 
 Richard Widmore 
 John Weever 
 Richard Gough 
 Neale and Brayley 
 L. N. Cottingham 
 
 J. G. Nichols 
 Mackenzie Walcott 
 
 G. G. Scott 
 C. H. Cooper 
 A. P. Stanley 
 
 M. C. and E. T. Bradley 
 William Morris 
 
 Alfred Higgins 
 
 H. J. Feasey 
 
 L. G. W. Legg 
 
 E. T. Murray Smith 
 (E. T. Bradley) 
 
 History of Westminster Abbey, ed. by 
 
 J. Armitage Robinson 1909 
 
 Survey of London 1598 
 
 Monumenta Westtnonasteriensia 1682 
 
 Lives of Edward the Confessor, Rolls Series, 
 
 ed. by H. R. Luard 1858 
 
 Genealogical History 1 707 
 
 The Antiquities of St Peter's 1711 
 
 Mitred A bbies 1715 
 
 Westmonasterium 1 742 
 
 An History of the Church of St Peter 175 1 
 
 Ancient Funeral Monuments ^7^7 
 
 Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain 1786 
 
 The History of the Abbey Church 18 18 
 
 Plans and Details of Henry VII Chapel 1822 
 
 Decorative Tiles {for floor of the Chapter House) 1 845 
 
 Memorials of Westminster 1 849 
 
 Gleanings from Westminster Abbey 1863 
 
 Memoir of Margaret, Countess of Richmond 1874 
 
 Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 
 
 Sth ed. 1882 
 
 Popular Guide to Westminster Abbey 1885 
 
 A paper on the Abbey written for the Society 
 
 for the Protection of Ancient Buildings i S93 
 
 " Renaissance Work at Westminster," a paper 
 
 in the Archceological Journal 1894 
 
 Westminster Abbey 1899 
 
 English Coronation Records 1901 
 
 The Roll-Call of Westminster Abbey 1902 
 
 221
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY 
 
 Violet Brooke-Hunt The Story of Westminster Abbey 1902 
 
 Westminster Abbey and the King's Craftsmen 1906 
 
 New Guide to Westminster Abbey 1909 
 
 Westminster Abbey 1909 
 
 The Nave of Westminster Abbey 1909 
 
 Founders of Westminster Abbey 191 1 
 
 Our Kings and Westminster Abbey 191 1 
 
 Westminster (Story of the English Towns) 1919 
 
 Two papers on the Abbey buildings in 
 Archceological Journal, xxxiii and li, 
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 W. R. Lethaby 
 H. F. Westlake 
 Francis Bond 
 R. B. Rackham 
 H. Troutbeck 
 Agatha Twining 
 H. F. Westlake 
 J. T. Micklethwaite
 
 Westminster Abbey Scrubbed 
 
 By United Press 
 
 LONDON, Jan. 10. — Workmen 
 scrambling over the sides and top 
 of Westminster Abbey in giving 
 that gigantic edifice its first scrub- 
 bing in centuries, discovered two 
 marble figures of angels carved in 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 The two pieces, exquisitely 
 enameled in color even to the rosy 
 complexions, were found on the cor- 
 ners of the window of the south 
 
 transept, buried beneath nearly an 
 inch of grime. 
 
 More remarkable discoveries are 
 expected by those directing the 
 work, who maintain the task will 
 require at least five years. Be- 
 cause of the unknown condition of 
 the stone work the job presents 
 many hazards and workmen must 
 of necessity, proceed with their 
 task 8lowtr<
 
 U.D 18 
 I 
 
 D 000 411 970 7