We now come to the kings and queens who are buried in Westminster
Abbey, and this will be the last chapter of my book.
You remember my telling you how Henry III. built a new shrine for
Edward the Confessor. Three years after this Chapel of Edward the
Confessor (as it is called) was finished, King Henry III.,[31] who had
reigned for fifty-six years, died, and was buried in the Abbey which
he had loved so long. His son Edward, who now became Edward I., was
just starting home from the Holy Land with his wife, Queen Eleanor, who
always went with him on all his journeys, when his father died, and he
brought with him from the East the marble for the tomb.
I expect you will all remember having heard of this Queen Eleanor, the
wife of Edward I. She was so brave and so fond of him that she would go
with him when he went on his crusade to the Holy Land; and when people
told her that it was dangerous, and that she might be killed, and tried
to persuade her to stay at home, her only answer was, “The way to
heaven is as near from Palestine as from England.”
She was not killed, or even hurt; but there is a story told of how,
while they were in the Holy Land, Edward was wounded by one of his
enemies, who stabbed him in the arm with a poisoned dagger. This would
certainly have killed him, if Eleanor had not at once sucked the poison
out of the wound, and so saved his life.
Edward I.--Edward Longshanks, as he was called, for he was more than
six feet high--and Queen Eleanor were crowned King and Queen of England
in Westminster Abbey when they came back from the Holy Land. After the
coronation a great banquet was given, to which Edward and his brother
Edmund and all their nobles and attendants came--five hundred of
them, riding on five hundred magnificent horses. When they dismounted,
the horses were let loose in the crowd, and anybody who succeeded in
catching one was allowed to keep it.
When, after having been Queen of England eighteen years, Eleanor[32]
died at Hardby, in Nottinghamshire, her body was brought to
Westminster, to be buried in the Abbey. From Nottinghamshire to London
was a long journey in those days, and it had to be done by stages.
Wherever the funeral procession stopped, Edward ordered a cross to be
put up in memory of the queen. They were called the “Eleanor Crosses,”
and there were altogether twelve of them. The last was in London, at
Charing Cross, which was the final halting-place before the procession
reached the Abbey.
Edward I. was a great soldier, and gradually he “filled the Confessor’s
Chapel with trophies of war.” One of these trophies you must specially
notice when you go over the Abbey. At the west end of the Confessor’s
Chapel stand two chairs. One is a plain, very old-looking wooden chair,
much scratched and battered, and underneath it is a rough-looking bit
of stone. This old stone is called the “Stone of Scone,” and on it all
the Kings of Scotland had been crowned at Scone, which was the capital
of Scotland up to the time when Edward I. became King of England.
Edward I. and Alexander III., King of Scotland, were always at war; and
when the English at last conquered the Scotch, Edward took away this
ancient treasure, the “Stone of Scone,” and brought it to Westminster
Abbey, that our kings might be crowned upon it, as Kings of England and
Scotland. The wooden chair was made by his orders, and the stone put
underneath it, and there it has been ever since, for nearly six hundred
years.
The other chair was made long afterwards for the coronation of William
III. and Mary. Between the two are the sword and shield of Edward
III., which he is said to have used in all his many wars against
France. The sword is seven feet long, and weighs eighteen pounds.
Edward I.,[33] “the greatest of the Plantagenets,” was buried close by
Queen Eleanor, but his tomb is quite plain. There is no figure on it,
and no carving, as there is on the tombs of the other kings and queens.
Dean Stanley explained, when he showed us the Abbey as children,
that, for many years after Edward I. died, there was a kind of belief
that, although the king was dead, yet, if another war broke out with
Scotland, he would once again lead his army against the enemy, as he
had so often done before. And so from time to time they would come and
lift off the great marble slab which covered his tomb, and which was
easily moved, and look in to see if the king was still there.
The first of our kings who was crowned on the “Stone of Scone” was
Edward I.’s son, Edward II. He was crowned in the Abbey, but was not
buried there. The next king who was buried there was Edward III.,[34]
whose sword and shield we saw just now.
Richard II.,[35] the grandson of Edward III., is sometimes called the
“Westminster King,” because he was crowned and married and buried in
the Abbey.
He was only eleven years old when he became King of England. For a
week before his coronation he had lived in the Tower of London, which
was the custom in those days for all kings and queens before they were
crowned. The procession from the Tower to the Abbey was one of the
most splendid that had ever been seen. But the service was very long,
and the sermon was longer, and before it was over the king was carried
out fainting. After this there was a great banquet, at which he had to
appear again, and then at last the long day was over.
Five years later he was married in the Abbey to Queen Anne. After
reigning for twenty-five years, he was deposed by Henry of Lancaster,
and murdered at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire by his enemies--for he
had made many during his life. He was buried in Hertfordshire. When
Henry V. came to the throne, he ordered that Richard’s body should be
brought to Westminster, and then at last it was laid in the same tomb
in which, many years before, his wife, Queen Anne, had been buried.
Henry V.[36] when he was a boy was so wild that he was called “Madcap
Harry.” But he was particularly fond of the Abbey, and although most
of his reign was spent in fighting with France, he did a great deal to
improve and decorate his great church, and when the English won the
battle of Agincourt (of which you may have heard or read), his first
thought was to order a Thanksgiving Service to be held at Westminster.
He had always said he wished to be buried in the Abbey; so, when he
died in France his body was brought to England. “The long procession
from Paris to Calais, and from Dover to London, was headed by the King
of Scots, James I.... As it approached London it was met by all the
clergy. The services were held first at St. Paul’s, and then at the
Abbey. No English king’s funeral had ever been so grand. His three
chargers were led up to the altar, behind the effigy (a wax model of
the king carried outside his coffin), which lay on a splendid car,
accompanied by torches and white-robed priests innumerable, ... and at
the extreme eastern end of the Confessor’s Chapel was deposited the
body of the most splendid king that England had to that time produced.”
Above his tomb, on a bar which stretches across the steps leading out
of the chapel, are hung his helmet and saddle. The helmet is probably
the very one which he wore at the battle of Agincourt, and which twice
saved his life on that day; it is much dinted, and shows the marks of
many sword-cuts.
Henry VI. was crowned king when he was only nine years old, and on the
day of his coronation it is said that he “sat on the platform in the
Abbey beholding all the people about sadly and wisely.” But as he was
so young the service was shortened and he had much less to endure than
the last boy-king, Richard II.
There is a story told of how, toward the end of his reign, King Henry
VI. used to come and wander about in the Abbey between seven and eight
o’clock in the evening, when it was growing dusk. He generally came
quite alone, and only the abbot who carried a torch went with him round
the dark and silent church. One night he went into the Confessor’s
Chapel, where he spent more than an hour, wondering if room could be,
by-and-by, made for his own tomb. “It was suggested to him that the
tomb of Henry V. should be pushed a little on one side, and his own
placed beside it; but he replied, ‘Nay, let him alone; he lieth like
a noble prince; I would not trouble him.’ But close beside the shrine
of the Confessor there seemed to be room for another tomb. ‘Lend me
your staff,’ he said to Lord Cromwell, who was with him that evening;
‘is it not fitting I should have a place here, where my father and my
ancestors lie, near St. Edward?’ And then, pointing with a white staff
to the place indicated, he said, ‘Here, methinks, is a convenient
place;’ adding, ‘Forsooth, forsooth, here will we lie; here is a good
place for us.’” Three days afterwards the tomb was ordered to be made;
but it was never even begun, for Henry was deposed by Edward IV. and
died in the Tower, and from there his body was taken and buried in the
Abbey of Chertsey.
Close by all these great kings and queens are several tombs of
children. Among them is a monument to a little deaf and dumb girl of
five years old, the Princess Catherine, daughter of Henry III. “Close
to her, as if to keep her company, are buried her two little brothers,
and four little nephews.”
So far I have told you principally of kings who are buried in
Westminster Abbey, but now we come to the tombs of some of the Queens
of England.
You remember that Henry VII. had built a great and magnificent chapel
which was called after him. The first queen buried there was his wife,
Queen Elizabeth, who was the mother of Henry VIII.
She had had a life full of adventures. She was the daughter of Edward
IV., and sister of the two poor little princes who were murdered in the
Tower by their uncle Richard.
Princess Elizabeth was born in Westminster, and christened in the
Abbey, but she lived afterwards in the country at the palace of Sheen.
When she was four years old, her father, Edward IV., was defeated in
battle, and King Henry VI. was made King of England in his stead.
The queen, the Princess Elizabeth, and her two baby sisters had to
leave Sheen and come back to Westminster, where they were hidden in a
place of safety while all these wars (the Wars of the Roses, as they
were called) were going on. After two years, however, her father was
victorious. Henry was deposed, and Edward IV. was once more King of
England. To celebrate the victory, a great ball was given at Windsor
Castle, and the little six-year-old princess, who was a special pet
of her father’s, came down and danced first with him, and then with
some of the great nobles. When she was nine years old, her father and
Louis XI., the King of France, decided that, as soon as she was grown
up, she should marry the Dauphin, his eldest son, who, if he lived,
would in time become the King of France. Then began a busy time for
the little princess who might one day be Queen of France. Besides all
her English lessons, she had to learn to speak and write French and
Spanish, and she was always called “Madame la Dauphine,” even while
she was a little girl in the schoolroom. At last she was old enough to
be married, but when the time for the wedding came, the King of France
said he had found another wife for his son. Edward IV., who had set
his heart on seeing his favourite daughter the Queen of France, was
so disappointed and angry that he became very ill, and died. Then it
was that Elizabeth’s little brother Edward became Edward V., and the
day was fixed for his coronation in the Abbey. A great banquet was
arranged, and all the guests were invited; but before the day came, the
little king and his younger brother, the Duke of York, were both killed
by the order of their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who then made
himself King Richard III. of England. Now began a sad time for Princess
Elizabeth, who was first taken away from her mother and sisters, and
afterwards kept a prisoner in a lonely old castle in Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, during the time she was shut up here, many things had been
going on about which she probably knew nothing.
Richard III. was hated by every one, and two years after he had become
king, Henry, Earl of Richmond, one of the greatest nobles in England,
decided to try and depose him, and set free Princess Elizabeth. So
he got together an army and marched to Leicester, where the king was
then living. On the evening of a summer day the two armies camped at
a place called Bosworth Field, and there the next day a great battle,
the Battle of Bosworth, was fought, and Richard III. was killed. It is
said that the crown of England had, at the beginning of the battle,
been hidden in a hawthorn bush, and when afterwards it was found by a
soldier, the Earl of Richmond was at once crowned King Henry VII., and
all the soldiers who had been lying down, resting after the long fight,
stood up round him and sang the _Te Deum_.
When Princess Elizabeth, in her far-away lonely castle, heard cries of
joy from the people who came crowding to the doors of her prison she
guessed that something had happened and that a better time might be
coming for her. And soon came a messenger from the king, who had been
sent straight from the field of battle, with orders to set the princess
free and bring her to London.
The end of this story is really almost like the end of a fairy tale,
for her many troubles were now over, and the next year she married
Henry VII., and so became Queen of England. And when after many years
she died, she was buried--as I told you at the beginning of this
story--in the Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. Some years
later the king was buried beside her; and inside the bronze railings
surrounding the tomb (which stands behind the altar) you will see the
figures of Henry VII.[37] and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, lying side by
side.
Three other queens who are buried here are known to all of you. Two
of them were sisters, Queen Mary[38] and Queen Elizabeth,[39] the
daughters of Henry VIII.; and the third was their cousin, another
Mary--Mary Queen of Scots,[40] who was beheaded by the order of Queen
Elizabeth, because she was afraid that Mary wanted to make herself
Queen of England in her stead. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, though
they were sisters, had all their lives been enemies. They differed
about everything, but especially about their religion, for Mary had
been brought up a Roman Catholic, and Elizabeth and their little
brother Edward (who afterwards became Edward VI.) were Protestants.
Elizabeth and Edward were very fond of one another, and it is said that
Elizabeth used to spend a great deal of her time when she was quite a
little girl in doing needlework for her brother. On his second birthday
she gave him for a birthday present a little shirt which she had made
for him all herself, though she was then only six years old.
Both these queens, when little girls, were made to do a great many
lessons, and were taught Latin and Greek with their brother, as well
as French and Italian and Spanish. Queen Mary was always very fond of
music, and there is a story told of how, when she was only three years
old, some friends of her father’s (King Henry VIII.) came down to see
her at Richmond, where she was then living. The little princess--for
this was a long time before she became queen--was not in the least shy:
she welcomed her visitors, and after talking to them “and entertaining
them with most goodly countenance”--for so one of the gentlemen who was
there wrote about her afterwards--she played to them on the virginal
(a kind of piano), after which strawberries and biscuits and wine were
brought in, and the baby princess had nothing more to do but enjoy
herself. These three children, Mary, Elizabeth, and Edward, became in
turn Queens and King of England.
When Henry VIII. died, Edward, the youngest of the three, became King
Edward VI. But he had all his life been very delicate, and when he had
been king just six years, and was sixteen years old, he died, and then
Mary, his eldest sister, became queen. The reign of Queen Mary--Bloody
Mary she is sometimes called--was a terrible time in England, for,
as I told you, she was a Roman Catholic, and so determined was she
that all English men and women should be Roman Catholics too, that she
ordered those who were Protestants to change their religion and become
Catholics; and if they refused, they were burnt alive. Hundreds of
people were killed in this cruel way; and Queen Mary became at last
so much hated, that when she died, and the Princess Elizabeth became
queen, there was rejoicing almost all over England. For in spite of all
the queen had done to make England a Roman Catholic country, by far the
greater part of the people had remained Protestants, and now once again
had a Protestant queen to reign over them.
Almost the last time a Catholic Mass (or service) was held in
Westminster Abbey was at the funeral of Queen Mary.[41] The procession,
led by the monks, who knew that this was most likely the last service
in which they would ever take part, came from St. James’s Palace, where
she died, down to Westminster, and at the great West Door of the Abbey
were waiting four bishops and the Abbot of Westminster in all the
magnificent robes which Catholic priests wear.
The body of the queen was carried into Henry VII.’s chapel, and all
night the Abbey was dimly lighted by the hundred wax torches which were
held and kept alight by the soldiers of the Queen’s Guard. The next day
she was buried, and the Catholic Bishop of Winchester preached before
Elizabeth, who, although she hated the religion, did not refuse to
come to the funeral of her sister, as Queen Mary had done years before
on the death of their brother Edward, when, rather than come to a
Protestant service in the Abbey, she ordered a separate funeral mass to
be said before her in the Tower.
A little more than a month after this, Queen Elizabeth was crowned in
the Abbey, and for the next forty-five years “good Queen Bess,” as
she is often called, reigned over England, and did much that was wise
and good. One thing she did, however, that was neither wise nor good,
and that one thing I spoke about when I told you that two Queen Marys
were buried here, one of whom was Mary Queen of Scots, the cousin of
Elizabeth. The story of Mary Queen of Scots is a long and very sad one.
You will some day read about her, if you have not already done so, and
when you hear how she was imprisoned in Fotheringay Castle, and at last
beheaded, you will perhaps feel that in some ways Elizabeth could be as
cruel as her sister Mary.
These three queens are all buried in Henry VII.’s Chapel--Elizabeth
and Mary together in a white marble tomb, on the outside of which lies
the statue of Queen Elizabeth, and on which these words in Latin were
written by James I.: “Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we
two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in hope of our resurrection.” And not
far from them lies Mary Queen of Scots. After she had been beheaded
at Fotheringay Castle her body was buried in Peterborough Cathedral,
and from there it was brought to Westminster by her son, James VI. of
Scotland, who was also James I. of England, “that the like honour,” so
he wrote, “might be done to his dearest mother” as had been done to
Queen Elizabeth and the other Queen Mary.
We are now coming to the end of these stories, and I must only mention
in a very few words some of the other graves in this chapel of Henry
VII.
Oliver Cromwell[42] who, after Charles I. had been beheaded, made
himself Protector of England, was buried here among the kings and
queens. It is said that his funeral was more magnificent than any
king’s had ever been, and that an immense sum of money was spent upon
it. Close by him was buried Elizabeth Claypole, his favourite daughter,
and many of his soldiers and followers.
Three years afterwards his body was dug up and taken to Tyburn. There
his head was cut off, on the 30th of January, the anniversary of the
day Charles I. had been beheaded, after which his body was buried
under the gallows, instead of in Westminster Abbey.
“Here are also buried,” says Dean Stanley, “some of our young princes
and princesses. There was that wonderfully gifted boy, Edward VI.”[43]
(of whom we have already spoken), “who was only sixteen when he died,
and who before that time had by his diligence and his honesty made
himself beloved and trusted by all about him. There is the good Prince
Henry, eldest son of James I., who when his foolish attendants provoked
him to swear because a butcher’s dog had killed a stag that he was
hunting, said, ‘Away with you! All the pleasure in the world is not
worth a profane oath.’ Then there was, again, that other Henry, Duke
of Gloucester, who sat on the knees of his father, Charles I., on the
day before his execution, and who when his father said to him, ‘They
will try to make you king instead of your elder brother,’ fired up like
a little man, and said, ‘I will be torn in pieces first!’ Then there
are two small tombs of the two infant daughters of James I. (one of
which is made in the shape of a cradle). And to these tombs of these
two little girls were brought, in after-days, by King Charles II., the
bones of the two young murdered princes (Edward V. and Richard, Duke of
York), which in his time were discovered at the foot of the staircase
in the Tower. Well might all these princes be mourned and have a place
in this Abbey, because many of them, though they died early, showed
of what stuff they were made, and that they would have been fit to be
kings and to be with kings.”
As I copied down these words of Dean Stanley’s, I was once more
reminded of him, and once more I seemed to hear him telling the
children gathered round him in the Abbey some of these stories which I
have just been telling you. And as the last words in this book about
the Abbey are his words, so the last grave which I want to tell you of
is his, and when you some day go to the Abbey you must not forget to
see (also in Henry VII.’s Chapel) the place where, together in one
tomb, are buried Arthur Stanley,[44] Dean of Westminster, and his wife,
Lady Augusta.
Dean Stanley knew more about Westminster Abbey than almost any other
man; and not only did he _know_ more, but by writing books and by
telling stories to his friends as he showed them over the great church,
he helped many other people, who but for him perhaps would not have
thought much about the Abbey at all to know something of the Church of
St. Peter on Thorney Isle.
And it is because I hoped that what interested us as children many
years ago might interest others now, that I have tried to remember, and
collect, and write down these tales from Westminster Abbey in something
the same way as they were told to us by the Dean.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Memorials of Westminster Abbey.”
[2] The Basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Paul, St. Lorenzo, and St.
Clement.
[3] The west door is hardly ever used now as an entrance for visitors,
and if we were really coming to the Abbey we should enter by another
door, called Solomon’s Porch, close by St. Margaret’s Church. But as
soon as we had got inside we should walk straight down to the great
west door, and imagine we had just come in that way.
[4] Montalembert, “Monks of the West.”
[5] No. 2 on plan.
[6] Gordon was fifty-two when he was killed.
[7] See Mr. Hake’s “Life of Gordon.”
[8] No. 3 on plan.
[9] No. 4 on plan.
[10] No. 5 on plan.
[11] No. 6 on plan.
[12] No. 7 on plan.
[13] Sir James Outram was born on the 29th of January, 1805, and Sir
Henry Havelock was born on the 5th of April, 1795; so at the time of
the siege of Lucknow Sir James was fifty-one, and Sir Henry sixty-two
years old.
[14] See “Havelock,” by Archibald Forbes (“English Men of Action
Series”).
[15] No. 8 on plan.
[16] No. 9 on plan.
[17] No. 10 on plan.
[18] No. 11 on plan.
[19] No. 12 on plan.
[20] No. 13 on plan.
[21] This is the actual inscription on the monument. The last line as
written by Shakespeare reads, “Leave not a rack behind.”
[22] No. 14 on plan.
[23] See Sir George Grove’s “Dictionary of Music.”
[24] No. 15 on plan.
[25] No. 16 on plan.
[26] No. 17 on plan.
[27] No. 18 on plan.
[28] No. 19 on plan.
[29] Also No. 19 on plan.
[30] No. 20 on plan.
[31] No. 21 on plan.
[32] No. 22 on plan.
[33] No. 23 on plan.
[34] No. 24 on plan.
[35] No. 25 on plan.
[36] No. 26 on plan.
[37] No. 27 on plan.
[38] No. 28 on plan.
[39] Also No. 28 on plan.
[40] No. 29 on plan.
[41] The last Catholic funeral service was held in the Abbey a few days
later, when by the order of Elizabeth a requiem mass was said for the
Emperor Charles V.
[42] No. 30 on plan.
[43] No. 31 on plan.
[44] No. 32 on plan.
Transcriber’s note:
On the Plan diagram (facing Pg 14), Geoffery Chaucer changed to
Geoffrey Chaucer.