THE ABBEY-CHURCH OF WESTMINSTER.
THIS is the Pantheon of England's Greatest Dead. As I stand here under
the groined roof of this vast and glorious Nave, with the sunbeams
streaming in through rose windows, and falling softly on sculptured
figures and tombs of Kings and Queens long mouldering in the dust,
their bodies recumbent in monumental brass, their hands clasped as in
prayer, with heroes, and poets, and statesmen, law-givers, and royal
murderers, lying silently around me on either hand, and under my feet
beneath the worn and antique stones which form the pavement, I realize
that I am in the Valhalla of the Anglo-Norman Race, a race that has
been prolific of strong wills, great minds, and heroic deeds.
This is the most sacred spot in all Great Britain, this spot enclosed
by the four walls of Westminster Abbey. It does not seem an edifice
raised by human hands, rather would it appear, as I look to the roof,
supported by most marvelous pillars, resembling an interlaced avenue of
royal forest trees, that it had been constructed by beings of another
world.
It was a grand faith that inspired Westminster Abbey, a faith that
believed in sacrificing all earthly aspirations for the honor and glory
of God.
Thus musing I am interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, as I stand
leaning against a pillar in the gloom of the vast pile.
"Would you like to see the Habbey, sir?--its sixpence to see the
Chapels--there's nine on 'em: the Hambulatory, the Nave, Transept,
Choir, Chapels, and Cloisters, are free--beautiful sights--only
sixpence, sir."
I turned, and saw a man in a black fustian gown, bareheaded, with a
tall thin stick in his right hand; he was old, and seemed to need its
frail support. This was a prebendary's "Verger," a sort of a porter
or Abbey guide, whose main object was to collect as many sixpences
as possible, but ostensibly he was a cicerone of the monuments and
architectural beauties of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's,
Westminster.
Numbers of visitors were straying in and out of the Abbey, looking at
the monuments, criticising the works of art, the mural tablets, or
gossiping over the ashes of dead Kings, as if they were in a concert
room, while here and there might be seen some scholar or learned man
delving for facts, and poring over the musty Latin of the crumbling
tombs.
In Westminster Abbey rival statesmen rest in peace, the tongue of
the orator is mute, side by side rest the Crowned head and the
Chancellor with his great seal, the Archbishop and the Play-actor, the
philanthropist and the seaman, who died by his guns on the deck of
the vessel of war, the divine and the physician, the Princess and the
Soubrette, all mingle common dust together.
In Westminster Abbey, the powerful, spiritual, Roman Catholic prelate
has celebrated High Mass with more than Eastern magnificence, the
Introit has issued forth from his lips, and the acolytes have answered
his "Dominus Vobiscum" with their "Amen;" and here the stern Puritan
has knelt in his less formal prayer.
Here the dread sentence of excommunication has been launched forth in
all its terrors from the lips of Papal legates, enthroned, and in Abbot
John Estney's room Caxton printed the first English Bible.
Here the magnificence and pomps of the coronation of a King have been
followed by the solemn and beautiful burial service for the dead, and
the pealing organ, and the swelling choir, reverberating through the
lofty grey-grown aisles, have chained men's minds to the power of
Almighty God.
[Sidenote: DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY.]
Westminster Abbey is the finest and noblest specimen of Gothic
architecture in all England.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
Its dimensions are:
FEET.
Exterior.--Length from east to west, including walls, but exclusive of
Henry VII's Chapel, 416
Height of the West Tower to top of pinnacles, 225
Interior.--Length within the walls to the piers of Henry VII's Chapel, 383
Breadth at the Transept, 203
Nave.--Length, 166
Breadth, 38
Height, 102
Breadth of each Aisle, 17
Extreme breadth of nave and its aisles, 72
Choir.--Length, 156
Breadth, 31
Height, 102
THE DIMENSIONS OF HENRY VII'S CHAPEL ARE--
Exterior.--Length from east to west, including the walls, 115
Breadth, including the walls, 80
Height of the Octagonal Towers, 71
Height to the apex of the roof, 86
Height to the top of Western Turrets, 102
Nave.--Length, 104
Breadth, 36
Height, 61
Breadth of each Aisle, 17
In a fine vault, under Henry VII's Chapel, is the burying-place of the
Royal family, erected by George II, but not now used.
The cost of Henry VII's Chapel was originally about £200,000 of the
present money, but since then £50,000 in addition have been expended
in repairs. The roof is the most beautiful piece of work of its
kind in the world, and is not excelled by any Saracenic or Moorish
ornamentation known.
No living being has ever computed the cost of the Abbey itself, but the
sum, altogether, since the foundations were built, must be very great.
The "Lord Abbot of Westminster" was one of the most powerful barons in
England, and sat in Parliament as a great spiritual peer.
The Abbey Church, formerly arose a magnificent apex to a Royal palace,
surrounded on all sides by its greater and lesser sanctuaries, (where
no criminal could be arrested,) and its almonries, where a profusion of
food was daily delivered to the poor, and raiment to the naked. It had
its bell-towers, the principal one being 72 feet 6 inches square, with
walls 20 feet thick; chapel, gate towers, boundary walls, and a train
of other buildings, of which we can at the present day scarcely form an
idea.
[Sidenote: A WEALTHY SOCIETY.]
In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames
to Oxford Street, and from Vauxhall bridge to the Church of St.
Mary-le-Strand, in a demesne of three square miles, on what is now the
most valuable part of London, the Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster,
possessed besides, _ninety-seven towns and villages, seventeen hamlets,
and two hundred and sixteen manors_. Its officers fed hundreds
of persons daily, and one of its priests, who was not an Abbot,
entertained at his Pavillion at Tothill, a King and Queen of England,
with so large a retinue that seven hundred dishes did not suffice for
the first table, and the Abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III,
rebuilt, at his own expense, the stately gate-house which gave entrance
to Tothill Street, and a portion of the wall remains to this day.
During the long ages, while men of noble Norman birth monopolized
nearly every office of emolument and trust in the kingdom, nearly all
the Lord Abbots of Westminster were of Norman birth or extraction. To
be chosen Lord Abbot of Westminster, it was necessary for the Monks,
headed by the prior, to select the Abbot "per Viam Compromissi,"
that is, the Monks met in a body and selected a chosen few, who, in
their turn, selected the Lord Abbot. Then there was the method "per
Viam Spiritus Sancti," which means by the special influence of the
Holy Ghost, or all the Monks of the Abbey concurring unanimously in
the election. After that the assent of the King had to be got, and
the assent of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, and even then all was
not secure, for the newly elected Abbot was often forced to make
the long and tedious journey to Rome and get the investiture of the
Abbey from the Pontiff, in person, and sometimes this cost money,
and trouble, that a person would hardly credit in these days. Abbot
Richard de Kedyington, who had been prior of Sudbury, a cell subject to
Westminster Abbey, on his election made the journey to Avignon, where
the Pope was, for confirmation, and was three years there before he
obtained investiture, and then it cost him eight thousand florins,--a
large sum of money in those days--to obtain it. In 1321, when 5,500
florins had been paid, Pope John XXII remitted the remaining 2,500
florins of the debt.
Abbot Richard de Crokesley, together with a number of other nobles, and
Poitevins, who had incurred the enmity of a powerful party who were
opposed to court favoritism, were poisoned by the steward of William,
Earl of Clare, and Crokesley died July 1258, of the effects of the
poison.
Phillip de Lewisham, who was elected to succeed Crokesley, was so gross
and fat that he procured a dispensation, so that he would not have
to go to Rome to be confirmed. An able deputation of monks went in
his place, and when they returned with the Pope's confirmation, after
having to pay 800 marks to certain Cardinals, who opposed it, they
found that Abbot de Lewisham had died during their absence.
Gislebertus Crispinus, a monk, of the abbey of Bec, in Normandy, and
belonging to one of the noblest families in that duchy, was chosen
abbot in 1082. He was a very learned man, and held a great disputation
at Mentz, in Germany, with a deeply versed Jew, on the "Faith of the
Church against the Jews."
Gervase de Blois, an illegitimate son of King Stephen, was made
abbot in 1141. This man was not fit to be a priest, being insolent,
arbitrary, and unjust, and, instead of attending to his duties as
head of the abbey, he was often in armor, depredating, or hunting, or
hawking. He dissipated the manors, livings, tithes, vestments, and
ornaments of the abbey, and was finally admonished to behave himself by
Pope Innocent, but the abbot disregarded the admonition of the Pope and
was then deposed by King Henry II, in 1159. He died in a year after.
The Lord Abbot Laurentius, his successor, was a wise, just, and prudent
man, much trusted by King Henry II, and the Empress Maud. It was Abbot
Laurentius who first obtained for himself and successors the privilege
of wearing the mitre, ring, and gloves, until then the symbols of
Episcopacy, and only allowed to the Bishops by the Pope. The wearing of
these symbols gave the mitred abbots of Westminster, and other abbeys,
the right to sit as peers in parliament, the same as bishops to whom
the right belonged exclusively, before Abbot Laurentius obtained the
grant.
[Sidenote: REVENUES OF ABBEY IN 1540.]
Simon Langham was one of the greatest abbots that ever wore the mitre
in the abbey. He was made Lord Chancellor of England, and Archbishop of
Canterbury, Bishop of Ely, and Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom by Edward
III. It was this prelate who deprived John Wickliffe of the mastership
of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, which was the first cause of Wickliffe's
investigating the scriptures.
On the 16th of January, 1540, the Abbey of Westminster, which had been
established for more than nine hundred years, having been founded by
King Sebert, a Saxon monarch, and his wife Ethelgoda, in honor of
St. Peter who was said to have appeared to the King in a dream, was
dissolved by order of Henry VIII, and the abbey was surrendered to the
King by Abbot Benson and twenty-four monks. The annual revenue, which
included the gross receipts, amounted to £3,977, equal to twenty times
the same amount of English money of to-day.
Westminster was made a bishopric, the abbey was advanced to the dignity
of a Cathedral, with an establishment of a bishop, (Thomas Thirleby,
dean of the King's Chapel,) a dean, twelve prebendaries, and inferior
officers. Abbot Benson, who was always on the winning side, was made
dean of the Abbey, five of the monks were chosen prebendaries, four
other monks were made minor canons, and four more were elected to be
King's students in the University. The other twelve monks who did not
approve of the change were dismissed, with pensions of from ten pounds
a year to five marks. A revenue of £586 a year, and the Abbot's house
was allotted to the Bishop. Dean Benson died in an unhappy state from
the repeated attempts made by the rapacious nobles and courtiers to
deprive him of the lands of his deanery. He was buried in the abbey,
but the inscription on his tomb was obliterated. The bishopric of
Westminster lasted only ten years, and was then suppressed and reunited
to that of London, to which it has since belonged. Numerous attempts
were made by the partisans of the See of London to rob and deprive
the abbey of its lands and revenues, and hence arose the saying of
"robbing Peter to pay Paul," which is explained by the fact that the
patron saint of the See of London was St. Paul, while St. Peter was the
guardian of the Abbey of Westminster.
In 1556, Queen Mary being on the throne, the Church of Westminster
again became an abbey by order of the Queen, and John Feckenham was
made abbot of Westminster. He was held in general esteem for his
learning, charity, and piety, and he was continually engaged in doing
good offices for the Protestants who suffered by the laws of the realm
for their faith. Three years after, Mary having died, the monastery was
again suppressed by order of Queen Elizabeth, and the abbot and monks
were again turned out of the abbey. In 1560 the abbey, by enactment,
was made a collegiate church, which it remains to this day, and was
endowed with the lands which had belonged to the abbot and monastery.
Since that time Westminster Abbey has been governed by a dean and
chapter, and has had thirty-three deans in regular succession of the
Protestant faith.
The Abbey has the following large clerical staff for its government:
One Dean, eight Prebendaries, one of whom is a Lord, and another a
Bishop; a sub-Dean, an Archdeacon, a Precentor, five minor Canons,
eleven Lay Clerks, two Sacrists, a Dean's Verger, a Prebendary's
Verger, a High Steward, who is a Duke, a Deputy High Steward, a
Coroner, a High Bailiff, Searcher and Bailiff of the Sanctuary, a
High Constable, a Head Master of Westminster School, Second Master,
forty Queen's Scholars on the Foundation, a Steward of the Manorial
Court, two Joint Receiver's General, a Chapter Clerk and Registrar,
an Auditor, a Commissory and Official Principal, a Registrar of the
Consistory Court, and a Deputy Registrar, an Organist and Master of
the Choristers, twelve Almsmen, four Bell-ringers, two Organ-blowers,
an Abbey Surveyor, a Clerk of the Works, a Beadle of the Sanctuary,
and last of all a College Porter and four Probationary Choristers, in
all a staff of eighty persons, a very slight reduction upon the old
administration of the Abbots of Westminster. These different office
holders, in all, receive salaries of about one hundred thousand pounds
a year, and the cost of the school, and the repairs of the abbey, make
the sundries amount to about twenty thousand pounds a year additional.
[Sidenote: TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.]
In the general plunder of monasteries and church property, which
distinguished the reign of Henry VIII, Westminster Abbey suffered
severely, but it was still worse treated by the Puritans in the great
civil war, the abbey being used as a barrack for the soldiers, by the
Parliament, who wantonly destroyed many of the tombs and monuments
that adorned the various chapels, the altars in the chapels dedicated
to the different saints being thrown down, the images broken, and the
richly stained windows shattered into fragments. The restoration of the
edifice was intrusted to Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's,
but he made a very botching piece of work in the additions which he
gave to the towers at the west end.
The imitation of the Gothic style in Wren's additions are wretched and
out of place in such an edifice as the Abbey. The front of the Abbey
has no columns or pierced works of carving, to which the Gothic style
owes so much of its lightness and elegance, and there is a mixture of
ornamentation such as the broken scrolls, masques, and festoons over
the grand entrance, which gives it a very heavy, flat appearance.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.]
The Abbey is very rich in monuments of all kinds, some of which are
very fine works of art. All along the walls, in the transepts and
aisles, in the Nave, in the chapels, in the flooring of the Abbey, and
everywhere around me I saw tablets, tombs, inscriptions, and medallions.
Among the most noticeable are those of Ben Johnson, John Milton,
Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry and first poet buried
in the Abbey, A.D. 1400, Dryden, Thomas Campbell, William Shakespeare,
Oliver Goldsmith, Joseph Addison, Handel the musician, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir William Davenant, and Robert Southey,
in the "Poet's Corner," which is situated in the south transept. They
are all richly ornamented with busts, effigies of the deceased, or
allegorical designs in marble, or brass, or bronze.
The tomb of Shakespeare is of marble, with a full length figure of the
great poet leaning on his left elbow, and has the following epitaph
written by John Milton, who was best fitted to write it:
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,
The labor of an age in piled stones,
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a star-y pointing 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,
For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Milton's epitaph is as follows:
"Three great poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd.
The next in majesty--in both the last.
The force of Nature could no farther go,
To make the third, she joined the former two."--
John Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera," wrote his own epitaph,
which is on his tomb;
"Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once; but now I know it."
[Sidenote: THE LAST CATHOLIC FUNERAL.]
There is a sarcophagus to Major John Andre who was executed as a spy by
order of George Washington. It has a representation of a flag of truce,
and Britannia in tears.
[Illustration: TOMB OF MILTON.]
Mrs. Oldfield, the actress who coquetishly ordered that she should
be buried in a fine Holland chemise, with a tucker, and a double
ruffle of lace, and a pair of white kid gloves, has a monument with
an inscription by Pope. Isaac Newton has also a very fine monument,
and William Pitt's monument cost £6,000. Henry Grattan, Robert Peel,
Charles James Fox, William Wilberforce, George Canning, and Lord
Palmerston also have monuments.
Mary Queen of Scots, and the Queen who slew her, have magnificent
monuments near each other, and similar in style. The funeral of Queen
Mary, sister of Queen Elizabeth, was the last one which was celebrated
in the Abbey with the ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church. She died
in 1558, and her body was brought from St. James Palace with great pomp
to the Abbey, on a splendid chariot. It was met at the great entrance
of the abbey by four bishops and Lord Abbott Feckenham in mitre, robes,
and with crozier. The body lay all night under the hearse, with a guard
of nobles and pages to watch it. On the fourteenth day of December it
was interred in the vault, and a plain black tablet was erected to be
placed over it by King James I, with the inscription:
ET MARIA SORORES
IN SPES RESVRRECTIONIS.
James II, who sought to re-establish the Roman Catholic Faith in
England, (like Queen Mary,) died at St. Germain En-Laye, in France,
and has no tomb in the Abbey. His intestines were given to the Irish
College, in Paris, the brains to the Scotch College, and the heart to
the Convent of Chaillot.
Admiral Kempenfeldt, who was drowned on the man-of-war Royal George,
which sunk with eight hundred men, all of whom were lost, off Spithead,
in 1782, is also buried here, with the epitaph on his tomb, written by
Cowper the poet:
"Toll, toll, for the brave--
Brave Kempenfeldt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfeldt went down,
With twice four hundred men."--
[Illustration: TOMB OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.]
The Chapel of Edward the Confessor, who founded the Abbey, is full
of dead Kings and Queens, so full that a poet has written of the
commingled Royal dust that is here reposing:
"Think how many royal bones,
Sleep within these heaps of stones.
Here they lie, had realms and lands,
Who now want strength to lift their hands.
Where, from their pulpit sealed with dust,
They preach, 'In greatness is no trust!'
Here's an acre, sown indeed,
With the richest, royalest seed,
That the earth did e'er suck in,
Since the first man died for sin."
[Sidenote: INTERMENTS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.]
Here lies buried Edward the Confessor, before whose tomb was kept
continually burning a silver lamp. On one side stood an image of the
Virgin, in silver, adorned with two jewels of immense value, presented
by Eleanor, Queen to Henry III; on the other side stood an image of
the Virgin, carved in ivory, presented by Thomas a-Becket. Edward I
offered the Scotch regalia and the antique stone on which the Kings of
Scotland were crowned at Scone; this latter relic is still preserved.
This shrine was composed of various colored stones, in Mosaic work;
but it is so dilapidated that very little idea can be formed of its
original beauty and grandeur.
Queen Editha, Queen Maud, Edward I, Henry III, Elizabeth Tudor,
daughter of Henry VII, Queen Eleanor, Henry V, the victor of Agincourt,
Queen Phillippa, Edward III--with his sword, seven feet long and
weighing eighteen pounds, together with his enormous shield, hanging to
his tomb,--Margaret of York, Richard II, and a host of others, are here
buried. Their tombs are of magnificent workmanship, with full length
figures lying recumbent and their hands clasped in prayer.
The Abbots and Priors of the abbey are buried in the walks of the
Cloisters, and I stood on three of these mural slabs, and looked at the
worn, full length effigies of the dead abbots, in full abbatical robes,
ring on finger, mitre on head, and crozier in hand, their Latinized
names almost worn away by the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands
of men and women who had paced the Cloisters since they were interred,
seven hundred years ago. And yet these tombs in Westminster Cloisters
are but as yesterday, when compared with the Pyramids of Egypt, or a
geological formation.
It was in Westminster Abbey that all the Kings and Queens of England
have been crowned, and when a monarch had been crowned previously, as
in the case of Henry III, whose coronation took place at Gloucester, it
was thought proper to have the ceremony again performed at Westminster,
in the presence of the nobles and the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries
of the land; the Archbishop of Canterbury always officiating in the
august ceremonial.
What wondrous scenes this proud old Abbey has witnessed! I can but
enumerate a few of these however. One day in the middle of Lent, 1176,
the King and his son came to London, while a Convocation of the Clergy
was being held in Westminster Abbey. The Papal Legate was present,
and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were also present. Thomas
a-Becket had been murdered by order of the reigning King Henry II.
Becket had been Archbishop of Canterbury. In the Convocation the then
Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of the Kingdom, sat on the right
hand of the Papal Legate. The Archbishop of York seeing this, when
he entered the Abbey, came in a rude manner and pushing between the
Primate and the Legate, as if disdaining to sit on the left hand of
anybody, thrust himself into the lap of the Primate in a swash-buckling
manner. The Primate would not move, and no sooner had the insult been
offered than the Bishops and Chaplains in the Abbey ran to the dais
and pulled my Lord of York down and threw him to the ground, and
began to beat him severely. The Archbishop of Canterbury then sought
to save him, and when he, the Archbishop of York, got on his feet,
he straightway went to the King whom he had advised to murder Thomas
a-Becket, and made complaint of the outrage which had been offered him.
The King laughed at him for his pains. As he left the Abbey the monks,
and priests, and bishops, with a loud shout cried out at him, "Go,
traitor, thou didst betray the holy man Thomas a-Becket; go get thee
hence, thy hands yet stink of blood."
When the news reached the Archbishop of York (previously) that the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Becket) had been assassinated on the steps
of the Altar, he ascended his pulpit and announced the fact to his
congregation as an act of Divine vengeance, saying that Becket had
perished in his pride and guilt like Pharaoh.
In 1297, Edward I offered at the shrine of Edward the Confessor, the
famous stone, crown, and sceptre of the Scottish Sovereigns, together
with the Coronation Chair, now in the Abbey, on which all English
monarchs have to sit to be crowned. This chair was taken from the Abbey
of Scone, in Scotland, by Edward, having been brought to Scotland by
King Fergus from Ireland, three centuries before the Christian Era.
Before that period, it is said to have been used for many hundred years
by the Irish Kings for a like purpose.
[Sidenote: CORONATION OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.]
The Scots were very eager to get the stone back for the reason that
a legend existed that whoever possessed the stone should rule
Scotland. This old stone chair, or rather oaken chair with a stone
seat,--twenty-six inches in length, sixteen inches and three quarters
in breadth, and ten and a half inches in thickness--has seen many
strange changes in dynasties, for every king since Edward I, has sat in
it on his coronation day.
The ceremonies of coronation were very grand in the olden time and much
of their splendor has passed away or has become obsolete.
[Illustration: CORONATION CHAIR.]
One of the grandest sights ever witnessed in the Abbey was when Aldred,
Archbishop of York, crowned William the Conqueror, King of England.
The mail clad bodies of Norman soldiery lined every part of old London
to keep down the Saxons, while William, superbly mounted, and followed
by a train of two hundred and sixty barons, lords and knights, entered
the Abbey. When the multitude reached the high altar, Geoffrey, Bishop
of Coutances, asked the Normans if they were willing to have the Duke
crowned King of England, and the nobles, knights, and priests, among
whom the English lordships and abbeys were already parceled out, cried
aloud with one voice that they were. The Norman horsemen without the
walls of the abbey hearing the shout, fancied that the Saxons within
had attacked their countrymen, and immediately they set fire to the
houses around the abbey, and in a few minutes the abbey was deserted of
friend and foe alike with the exception of William and a few priests
who stood firm, although the Duke trembled violently as the crown was
placed upon his head. He declared that he would treat the English
people as well as the best of their kings had done, vowing by the
Splendor of God, his usual oath.
The coronation of Richard I, the Lion Heart as he was called, was
attended with great pomp.
On the third of September, 1189, the Archbishops of Canterbury, Rouen,
Treves in Germany, and Dublin, arrayed in silken copes, and preceded
by a body of clergy bearing the cross, holy water, censers and tapers,
met Richard at the door of his privy chamber in Westminster Palace,
and proceeded with him to the Abbey. In the midst of a numerous body
of bishops and ecclesiastics, marched four barons, each with a golden
candlestick and taper, then in succession--Geoffrey de Lacey with the
royal cap, John the Marshal with the royal spurs of gold, and William,
Earl of Striguil and Pembroke, with the golden Rod and Dove. Then
came David, brother to the King of Scotland, and present as Earl of
Huntington, and Robert, Earl of Leicester, supporting John the King's
brother, the three bearing upright swords in richly gilded scabbards.
Following them came six barons bearing a chequered table, upon which
were the King's robes and regalia, and now was seen approaching the
central object of this gorgeous picture--Richard himself, under a
gorgeous canopy stretched by six lances, borne by as many nobles,
having immediately before him the Earl of Albemarle with the crown, and
a bishop on each side. The ground on which he walked was spread with
rich cloths of Tyrian dye.
[Sidenote: THE MASSACRE.]
At the foot of the altar, Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury,
administered the oath, by which Richard undertook to bear peace, honor,
and reverence to God and Holy Church, to exercise right, justice, and
law, and to abrogate all wicked laws and customs. He then put off all
his garments from the middle upwards, like a modern prize fighter,
except his shirt, which was open at the shoulders, and he was annointed
on the head, breast, and arms, with oil, signifying glory, fortitude,
and wisdom. He then covered his head with a fine linen cloth and set
the cap thereon, placed the surcoat of velvet and dalmatica over his
shoulders, and took the sword of the Kingdom from the Archbishop to
subdue the enemies of the Catholic Church, and then put on the golden
sandals and the royal mantle, which last was splendidly embroidered,
and was led to the altar, where the Archbishop charged him on God's
behalf, not to presume to take this dignity upon him unless he were
resolved to keep inviolably the vows he had made; to which the king
replied:
"By God, His grace, I will faithfully keep them all: Amen." The crown
was then handed to the Archbishop, by Richard himself, in token that
he held it only from God, when the Archbishop placed it on the King's
head; he also gave the sceptre into his right hand, and the royal rod
into his left.
At the close of this part of the ceremony Richard was led back to the
throne, and High Mass being performed with grand pomp, Richard offered
as was usual, a mark of pure gold to the altar.
While the coronation was going on inside massacre and arson reigned
outside of the Abbey. Before the ceremony, Richard, by proclamation
had forbidden all Jews to be present at Westminster, either within or
without the Abbey, but some members of that persecuted race had rashly
ventured within the walls, and a hue and cry being set up at what was
deemed a sacrilege, the populace ejected a prominent Israelite and
beat him with sticks and stones. In a few minutes a report spread that
the King had ordered the destruction of the Jews, and the furious mob
spread all over the city, burning the houses and destroying the lives
of the miserable Jews. Men, women, and children of tender age were
burned alive in their domiciles, where resistance was made to the mob,
and the cries of the murdered children blended discordantly with the
sounds of the shaums, and jongleurs, and the shouts of the rabble, who
were celebrating the coronation. The riot became so formidable that at
last Richard, who was at dinner in Westminster Hall, ordered the Chief
Justiciary of the Kingdom, Ranulf de Glanville, to go and quell it, but
this was more easy to order than to perform, and the King's officers
were driven back to the Hall.
Through all that night and day the pillage, arson, and massacre
continued, and the next day the King hanged three of the rabble as an
atonement.
At the coronation of Henry IV, Sir John Dymoke, the Champion of
England, rode into the Hall of Westminster Palace, where dinner was
being served to the King, on horseback in complete armor, with a knight
before him bearing his spear, and his sword and dagger by his side, and
presented a label to the king on which had been written a challenge to
any knight, squire, or gentleman, who dared declare that Henry was not
rightful King of England. He then had a trumpet blown, and cried out
that he was ready to fight in the quarrel. The label was then taken and
cried by the heralds in six places in the town of Westminster, but no
person seemed ready to fight although Richard II had been deposed by
Henry IV and was then in a neighboring dungeon.
That most atrocious medieval fraud, Richard III, when about to be
crowned King, walked barefoot from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, a
distance of about six hundred feet, to let the crowds witness his
resignation and humility.
When Edward VI, a boy of sixteen, was about to be crowned, he laid
himself down upon the steps of the altar on his stomach while Cranmer,
Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, opened his shirt and rubbing the oil
between his shoulder blades, anointed him.
James I, who hated tobacco and witches, forbade the people to come to
Westminster to witness his Coronation, as the plague was then raging,
and James did not wish to catch the distemper.
[Sidenote: OMEN OF ILL LUCK.]
Charles I was crowned February 2, 1626, and his Queen, Henrietta,
being a Catholic, was not a sharer in the Coronation, nor was she a
spectator, and she would not accept the place fitted up for her in
the Abbey, but stood at the window of the Palace gates to look at the
crowd and procession, while her retinue of French ladies, nobles and
servants, were dancing within. When Charles walked up to the altar to
ascend the throne, Laud, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke
of Buckingham, Lord High Constable of England, offered him their hands
on either side to ascend the throne, but the King smilingly refused
their hands and said:
"I have as much need to help you, as you have to assist me."
Then Laud presented the King to the great crowd of Nobles and people,
and said, in an audible voice, "My masters and friends, I am here come
to present unto you your King: King Charles, to whom the crown of
his ancestors and predecessors is now devolved by lineal right; and
therefore I desire you by your general acclamation, to testify your
consent and willingness thereunto."
Not a voice answered, and there was a stillness as of the grave through
the vast spaces of the Abbey. It was a bad omen of a reign, which ended
so disastrously, for the listening monarch.
At last the Earl-Marshal, Lord Arundel and Howard, said to the
spectators present: "Good people, I pray thee, why call ye not right
lustily, 'God save King Charles?'"
Thus admonished, they with one voice exclaimed, "God save Charles, our
King." In the adjoining hall, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated Lord
Protector of England, with a quiet ceremonial, attended by ushers, life
guards, State coaches, the Long Parliament, and several troops of horse.
When James II was crowned, the Royal bauble tottered on his head, and
this was supposed to be a prophetic omen of ill luck.
When George III was made King, with great pomp and circumstance, there
was present, unknown to the crowd, a young man who must have witnessed
the placing of the Golden Circlet on the brow of this fat, Hanoverian
Prince, with strange emotions. He could have said with truth, "My place
should have been by that chair; my father should have been sitting in
it," for it was the young Pretender, Charles Stuart; the last of his
royal and unfortunate race.
At all the late Coronations, the magnificent pomp and ceremonial
of the Middle Ages have been omitted, and the last time that these
Ceremonies were carried out was at the Coronation of George IV, when
the Celebration was a very fine one.
The wood-work of the Choir was removed and boxes erected, affording
an uninterrupted view of the Nave and Chancel, showing the Peers and
Peeresses in all their magnificence of robes, of satins and silks,
and head-dresses of feathers and diamonds. To these were added the
brilliantly illuminated surcoats of the Heralds and Kings-at-arms,
while the King himself sat in the royal Chair of State, which is over
two thousand years old, and there received homage from the great
officers of State, and Peers of the Realm, the Crown on his head and
Sceptre in his hand, the Garter and George around his neck, and the
velvet robes enfolding his body, which was then scorbutic from disease
and dissipation.
The challenge of the Champion of England was at this ceremony delivered
for the last time. After the banquet was over, at which seventeen
thousand pounds of meat, three thousand fowls, one thousand dozen of
wine, ten thousand plates, and seventeen thousand knives and forks,
were among the items, came the challenge to all who dared to dispute
the right of George to the throne of England.
It was an imposing sight, as the Duke of Wellington, with his Ducal
Coronet ornamented with strawberry leaves, on his head, and in his
flowing Peer's robes walked down the hall, cheered by the officers of
the Life Guards, who were present. He shortly afterwards returned,
mounted, and accompanied by the Marquis of Anglesey, the one-legged
cavalry officer of Waterloo, and Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the
Hereditary Earl Marshal of England.
[Sidenote: THE BANQUET AND CHALLENGE.]
The three Nobles rode gracefully to the foot of the throne, paid their
homage, and then backed their horses down the lofty hall. The hall
doors of the Palace opened again, and outside, in the twilight, a man
in complete armor of Milan proof, appeared on horseback, outlined
against the shining sky. He then moved, passed into darkness, and under
the massive arch, and suddenly Howard, Wellington, and Anglesey, stood
in full view of the vast assemblage, with the palace doors closed
behind them. This was the finest sight of the day, as the Herald read
the challenge, a glove was thrown down by a gauntleted hand as a token
of defiance, which was taken up instantly by Wellington, and then they
all proceeded to the throne, trumpets blowing, people shouting, and
flower-girls strewing the way with baskets of flowers.
The funerals of Lady Palmerston and George Peabody were the last that
have taken place in Westminster Abbey, and at the funeral of the former
a London reporter, in his eagerness to get an item, fell into the grave
of Lady Palmerston and nearly frightened a young lady mourner out of
her senses. Such is the story of this Mausoleum of Royalty and Heroism.
Westminster Abbey is only equaled for the antiquity and grandeur of
its mortal remains by the Abbey of St. Denis, in France, and those
world-old cemeteries, the Pyramids of Egypt.
[Illustration]