THE HOUSE OF STUART AND THE COMMONWEALTH
“_The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world._”
TENNYSON (_The Passing of Arthur_).
From the Tudors and the great people of their reigns we pass on to the
House of Stuart, to the troubles of the great Civil War, and to the
Restoration of the Stuarts in 1661.
The Abbey history at this time helps us to realise that it was an age of
struggle between liberty and despotism, an age when the people were
determined to become more and more self-governing. The Tudors had been
clever enough and strong enough to rule without making their people
discontented. The Stuarts were not wise enough to see that the English
spirit of independence would not bear any tyrannical form of government,
and as the Stuarts found it difficult to understand this, they ended by
losing their kingdom altogether. We shall see how all these things left
their mark upon the Abbey itself.
As this chapter has to do with a long and eventful time in English
history, it will be divided into three parts. The first part will be
about the earlier Stuarts; the second, about the Commonwealth; and the
third, about the Stuart Restoration and the most famous men of the
Stuart and Commonwealth times.
I
The first of the Stuart family to be laid to rest in the Abbey was
Margaret, Countess of Lennox, the mother of Lord Darnley. Margaret was
the daughter of the Earl of Angus and of Margaret Tudor, daughter of
Henry VII. Her epitaph tells us that she “had to her great-grandfather,
King Edward IV; to her grandfather, King Henry VII; to her uncle, King
Henry VIII; to her cousin-german, King Edward VI; to her brother, King
James V of Scotland; to her son (Darnley), King Henry I of Scotland; to
her grandchild, King James VI (of Scotland) and I (of England).” This
epitaph is again an English history lesson in itself, if we think over
it carefully. Margaret’s mother was first married to King James IV of
Scotland, and on his death she married the Earl of Angus. Margaret
Lennox was thus half-sister to James V of Scotland, and she therefore
was a link between the English and Scottish royal houses. She married
Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. Her eldest son, Lord Darnley, married
Mary, Queen of Scots, and was called King. Her second son was Charles
Stuart, father of the Lady Arabella, of whom we hear so much in the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Margaret died in 1578, and is buried in
the south aisle of Henry VII’s Chapel, where she has a very fine tomb.
Round the tomb are the kneeling figures of her children, Lord Darnley
and Charles Stuart among them. Lord Darnley is represented wearing a
royal robe, and there are the broken remains of a crown over his head.
Charles Stuart is buried here with his mother.
The chief and most interesting Stuart monument in the Abbey is that of
Mary, Queen of Scots. This monument is also in the south aisle of Henry
VII’s Chapel, and stands above the great Stuart vault, where so many of
the Stuart family rest. After Mary’s execution at Fotheringay in 1587,
Queen Elizabeth ordered her body to be solemnly buried in Peterborough
Cathedral. But when James I came to the throne he commanded that his
mother’s remains should be brought to Westminster, and buried in the
Abbey. He also said that she was to have a monument equal to that of her
cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and that the same honour should be paid to her.
A copy of the warrant of James I for the removal of his mother’s body
hangs on the wall near her tomb. Queen Mary was buried at Westminster in
1612, and the splendid monument we now see was erected to her. It is
very like Queen Elizabeth’s, only larger and more costly. Her tomb in
the Abbey was at one time almost a place of pilgrimage.
In 1607, two little princesses, Mary and Sophia, daughters of James I,
died, and were buried near Queen Elizabeth, in the north aisle of Henry
VII’s Chapel. Their tombs are also close to the spot where the bones of
Edward V and Richard Duke of York were afterwards placed. Dean Stanley
used to call this corner of Henry VII’s Chapel “Innocents’ Corner,”
because these four children are buried here. Princess Mary was the first
of James I’s children born in England, and was therefore the first
“Princess of Great Britain.” She was only two and a half years old when
she died, and seemed to be wonderfully quick of understanding. When she
was dying she kept saying: “I go, I go, away I go.”
The baby Princess Sophia, named after her grandmother, the Queen of
Denmark, is buried in her pretty cradle-tomb, which is one of the best
known in the Abbey. A few years later the eldest brother of these two
little girls, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, died, and was buried in
the same vault as his grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots. There was great
grief in the country at the death of this promising young prince, who
was especially the hope of the Puritan party.
Arabella Stuart, who had such a troubled life, and who was always being
suspected of wishing and trying to be made Queen of England, died in
1615, and was buried in the great Stuart vault. Her coffin was placed on
the top of the coffin of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, died in 1619, and is buried in
the central aisle of Henry VII’s Chapel, not far from the tomb of Henry
VII himself.
King James the First, who died in 1625, is not buried with any of his
own Stuart family, but in the great Tudor vault where Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York lie. It is supposed that James wished this because the
Stuarts claimed the English throne through the House of Tudor. When we
think of these two Kings, one really a Welshman and the other a
Scotchman, we remember that it was at James I’s succession that the
Scottish crown was united to that of England and Wales. The United
Kingdom may be said to have been begun then, although the actual formal
union did not take place till long afterwards.
We should also remember that our Colonial Empire really began in James
I’s reign. Sir Walter Raleigh’s settlement in Virginia had indeed been
given up, but in 1607 and 1610, settlements were again made in Virginia
and also in Newfoundland. And more important still, it was in James I’s
reign that the celebrated “Pilgrim Fathers” sailed from Plymouth in the
_Mayflower_ and crossed to America. They landed in Massachusetts Bay,
and called their first settlement New Plymouth.
In 1629, the infant Prince Charles, eldest child of Charles I, was
buried in the Stuart vault, and in 1640, another child of Charles I, the
little Princess Anne, was laid there also. Soon after her funeral, the
troublous days began, and it was not long before the Abbey passed into
Cromwell’s hands.
II
We must now turn to think of a very different state of things and of
very different people, namely, the Parliamentarian Government and the
great men of the Commonwealth. Between the years 1653 and 1660 the
Parliamentarian Party made great changes in the government and services
of the Abbey, and the Presbyterian form of worship was established.
Again, as at the time of Henry VIII, various ornaments and other
possessions of the church were removed and sold.
Archbishop Laud, one of the chief advisors of Charles I, and a great
enemy of the Puritans, was at one time Prebendary of Westminster, and
had great influence and authority in the Abbey while he was one of the
Chapter. In his old age Archbishop Laud was imprisoned for three years,
and, sad to say, he was finally executed by order of the Long
Parliament.
Many of the famous Parliamentary soldiers and statesmen were buried in
the Abbey, as they most of them certainly deserved to be. Whether we
like all they did or not, we grieve to think that the bones of these
great Englishmen were nearly all taken out of their graves at the time
of the Stuart Restoration, and buried in a large pit outside the Abbey
walls. To us it seems a mean and unworthy revenge, but perhaps we can
hardly understand how angry the Royalists were.
We see, however, that from this time onward it was no longer thought
necessary that people must be of royal or noble birth in order to
deserve a grave in the Abbey. Any man who had done any especial service
to his country and nation, whether in peace or war, was henceforward
thought worthy of a place there, and this is just what helps to make the
Abbey one of the most interesting places in the world.
The chief man of the Parliamentary party to be buried in the Abbey was,
of course, Oliver Cromwell himself. He died in 1658, and was buried in
Henry VII’s Chapel. Although he was only called Lord Protector, his
funeral was very stately, like that of a sovereign. It seems to us a
curious thing that Cromwell should have wished that he and his family
should be buried in this Chapel, among the royal Tudors and Stuarts, but
so it was.
Henry Ireton, son-in-law of Cromwell, and deputy for the Protector in
Ireland, died in 1651, and was buried in the Cromwell vault in Henry
VII’s Chapel.
John Bradshaw, President of the Council that condemned Charles I to
death, died in 1659, and was also buried in the Cromwell vault. Bradshaw
had lived for some time at Westminster, the Deanery having been leased
to him. An old story says that his ghost used to haunt part of the
Triforium.
These three men, Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were always looked upon
as the chief regicides, and at the Restoration their bodies were not
only dug up, but they were hanged at Tyburn and buried beneath the
gallows. The heads were struck off by the executioner, and put up on
poles outside Westminster Hall.
Among other well-known names of the Commonwealth times are John Pym and
William Strode, who are buried close to one another in the North
Ambulatory. Pym was the famous leader of the popular party in the Long
Parliament. He died in 1643. Strode was one of the five members whom
Charles I demanded to have given up to him when he came to the House of
Commons with an armed force in 1641–42.
Another celebrated name is that of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the
great commander of the Parliamentary army. Essex was the son of Queen
Elizabeth’s favourite, that Earl of Essex whose death made her last days
so miserable. This younger Essex died in 1646, and was buried in the
Chapel of St. John the Baptist. He had a very splendid funeral, at which
his effigy was carried, dressed in his General’s uniform. After the
funeral some Royalists broke into the Abbey, stripped the uniform off
the effigy, and broke it in revenge for what they considered to be
Essex’s treachery. At the Restoration his coffin was not found, so he
was fortunately left undisturbed in his grave.
In the same Chapel is buried another great soldier of the time, Colonel
Popham, who distinguished himself both on land and sea. His body was
allowed to remain in the Abbey, but the inscription was effaced. Popham
died in 1651.
Yet another great name is that of Admiral Robert Blake, the first of our
naval heroes to be buried in the Abbey. It was Blake who defeated the
Dutch Admiral, Van Tromp, off Dungeness in 1652. Five years later he
destroyed the Spanish West-Indian fleet off Santa Cruz. Blake died on
board his flagship, the _George_, just before arriving at Plymouth after
this last victory. He was buried with great solemnity in Henry VII’s
Chapel. Blake was re-interred on the north side of the Abbey in 1661,
and a window and brass tablet have been erected to his memory in St.
Margaret’s Church.
Sir William Constable, once Governor of Gloucester, and one of the men
who had signed Charles I’s death-warrant, was buried in the Cromwell
vault, as was also Sir Humphrey Mackworth, who had taken Ludlow Castle
from the Royalists and was afterwards Governor of Shrewsbury. Colonel
Richard Deane, the companion of Blake and Popham, is buried here, and
General Worsley, commander of the soldiers who turned out the Long
Parliament, lies in a grave not far from the Cromwell vault.
Several of Cromwell’s family were buried in this same Cromwell vault,
but the bodies were all taken out at the time of the Restoration except
that of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, who is buried in a
different place, on the north side of Henry VII’s tomb, and whose
remains were thus left in peace.
[Illustration:
_Photo W. Rice, F.R.P.S._ _Allen & Co (London) Ltd Sc_
_Henry VII Chapel._
_Tomb of the Founder._
]
III
We now come to the time of the Restoration, and must think of the rest
of the Stuart family who are buried at Westminster.
King Charles I had been buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and
although there had been much talk of moving his body into a splendid
tomb in Henry VII’s Chapel, this was never done, and Charles I, like
Henry VI, still rests at Windsor.
The first Stuart to be buried in the Abbey after the Restoration was
Henry of Oatlands, Duke of Gloucester, son of Charles I. It was Henry
who, when he was a little boy, promised his father that he would be torn
in pieces before he would let himself be made King instead of either of
his elder brothers, Charles or James. He died in 1660, to the great
grief of Charles II, who had a very special love for him.
Then came a daughter of Charles I, Mary, Princess of Orange, mother of
King William III. She also died in 1660. Very soon afterwards,
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I, died, and was buried
in the great Stuart vault. She is very closely connected with the later
history of England, because her daughter Sophia, who married the Elector
of Hanover, was the mother of King George I, and therefore Elizabeth was
direct ancestress of King Edward VII. Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice,
who fought in the great Civil War, were sons of Elizabeth, and Prince
Rupert is buried here beside his mother.
King James II, who died in France in the year 1701, was first buried in
the Chapel of the English Benedictines in Paris. It was hoped that his
body would at last be brought to Westminster to be buried near the
graves of the other Kings of England. But this never happened, and James
II was finally buried in the Church of St. Germains, near Paris. His
first wife, Anne Hyde, daughter of Lord Clarendon, and mother of the two
Stuart Queens, Mary and Anne, died in 1671, and is buried in the Abbey,
in the vault where Mary, Queen of Scots, rests. Many children of James
II are buried there also. But the son of his second wife, Mary of
Modena, the Prince James whom many people thought the rightful successor
to the throne, is buried in another great St. Peter’s—St. Peter’s at
Rome. Not only is James—the Chevalier de St. George, as he was
called—buried in St. Peter’s, but also his wife and his two sons,
Charles Edward (Prince Charlie) and Henry Benedict, Cardinal of York.
With the Cardinal of York the male line of James II ended, and we go
back to his two daughters, Mary and Anne.
William III and Mary II are both buried in the Abbey, near the other
Stuarts. Queen Mary’s funeral was a very solemn and mournful one, and
she was much lamented by her subjects.
Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, are buried close
by, and Queen Anne’s eighteen infant children are buried in the great
Stuart vault under the monument of Mary, Queen of Scots. Only one of
Queen Anne’s children lived for any time, and that was William, Duke of
Gloucester, who died in 1700, aged eleven, “of a fever occasioned by
excessive dancing on his birthday.”
There are a few other relations of the Stuart family buried in the
Abbey, but with Queen Anne the Stuart history really ends so far as the
Abbey is concerned. None of the Stuart Kings have any monuments.
We must now call to mind some of the chief men of the Stuart times whose
graves are at Westminster. The greatest contemporaries of James I, Lord
Bacon and Shakspeare, are not buried in the Abbey. Lord Bacon is buried
at Verulam; and although Shakspeare has a monument in the Abbey, he is
not buried there, but, by his own desire, at his own native Stratford.
When we think of the reigns of James I and Charles I, we often recall
the name of a man who was a great friend and favourite of both these
Kings. This man is George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whom James I
used to call by the silly name of “Steenie.” While we speak of
Buckingham, we remember that he had a great deal to do with preventing
Charles I’s marriage to a Spanish Infanta, and with bringing about his
marriage with Henrietta Maria of France. We also think of Buckingham’s
unsuccessful attempts to relieve La Rochelle, where the Huguenots were
besieged by Cardinal Richelieu, and in this way the French history of
that time seems to be brought very close to the Abbey.
As everyone knows, the Duke of Buckingham was murdered at Portsmouth in
1628, and he was buried in great state in Henry VII’s Chapel, where a
splendid monument was erected to him. Several of the Duke’s family are
buried in the same vault, and among them a young son, Francis, who was
killed in the Civil Wars, at the Battle of Kingston.
Sir George Villiers and his wife, the father and mother of the Duke of
Buckingham, are buried beneath a large monument in the Chapel of St.
Nicholas. It is said that the last meeting between the Duke of
Buckingham and his mother was a very sad and troubled one, as they had
both received a mysterious warning that some terrible thing was going to
happen to the Duke. When the Duke was murdered six months afterwards,
his mother appeared quite calm, as if she had been prepared to hear the
dreadful news.
Dudley Carleton and Lord Cottington, two men who held important offices
under the Stuarts, are buried in St. Paul’s Chapel. Dudley Carleton was
educated at Westminster School, and became first Secretary of State and
Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was actually with the Duke of
Buckingham when he was assassinated, and saw the murder. It was Carleton
who saved the murderer, Felton, from being torn in pieces by the angry
soldiers.
Lord Cottington was an able and accomplished man. He was ambassador in
Spain under James I, Charles I, and again under Charles II.
Another well-known name of that time is that of Sir Thomas Richardson,
who was Lord Chief Justice in the time of Charles I. It was Sir Thomas
Richardson who had to tell Charles I that torture was illegal, when the
King wished to use it after the death of Buckingham. Sir Thomas used to
be called the “jeering Lord Chief Justice,” because of the sarcastic
things he used to say. For example, when he condemned Prynne, he said
that “he might have the _Book of Martyrs_ to amuse him in prison.”
We have already spoken about the burials of the great men of the
Commonwealth, and must speak of some of the famous people of the later
Stuart times after the Restoration.
The great Lord Clarendon, father of James II’s first wife, and therefore
grandfather of Queen Mary and Queen Anne, is buried near the steps of
Henry VII’s Chapel. Every one will remember the name of his famous book,
_The History of the Great Rebellion_.
In Henry VII’s Chapel, not far from the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, is
buried General Monck, the man who had so much to do with the Restoration
of the Stuart Kings. He was made Duke of Albemarle by Charles II. His
funeral was very stately, and a large monument was put up to him close
to the graves of the Stuart sovereigns, whom he had helped to bring back
to England.
There are several graves and monuments in the Abbey which remind us of
the great sea-fights with the Dutch that were going on just at this
time.
One of these is the monument to Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich, who
took such a great part in the victory over De Ruyter off Sole Bay in
1672. Lord Sandwich’s ship was somehow set on fire; it blew up, and he
perished with it. He was buried in General Monck’s vault in Henry VII’s
Chapel. Two young lieutenants, Sir Charles Harbord and Clement Cottrell,
who died with Lord Sandwich, are commemorated in the Nave.
Another distinguished sailor, Sir Freschville Holles, was also killed in
the engagement off Sole Bay, and is buried in St. Edmund’s Chapel. Sir
Freschville Holles had been knighted by Charles II after the naval
victory over the Dutch off Lowestoft in 1665. Five other officers, who
were all killed in this battle off Lowestoft, are buried in the North
Ambulatory.
Admiral Sir Edward Spragge and a young lieutenant called Richard Le
Neve, who were killed in a sea-fight with Van Tromp in the year 1673,
are also buried in the Abbey.
Another name we ought to remember is that of Sir Palmes Fairborne,
Governor of Tangier, who was killed when defending Tangier against the
Moors in 1680. His monument is in the Nave, and reminds us that Tangier
once belonged to England, having been part of the dowry of Catherine of
Braganza, wife of Charles II. Sir Palmes Fairborne was buried at
Tangier.
The Battle of the Boyne in the reign of William III is brought to our
minds when we look at the monument of General Philipps in the North
Transept. General Philipps fought on William III’s side in that battle.
He lived to a great age, and was Governor of Nova Scotia from 1720 to
1740.
In the Nave there is a monument to Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, who
distinguished himself in the naval war of Queen Anne’s reign, and fought
under Admiral Rooke at Cadiz in 1702. Sir Thomas Hardy did not die until
1732, but he really belongs to these later Stuart times. The taking of
Gibraltar in 1704 is recalled to our minds later on by the memorials to
Richard Kane and Coote Manningham. Kane held Gibraltar for eight months
against the Spaniards in George I’s reign.
We must now turn to some of the graves and monuments connected with the
great French war of Queen Anne’s reign—the War of the Spanish
Succession, as it was called.
The body of the great Duke of Marlborough, the victorious General at the
Battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, was buried in
the Abbey in 1722, and removed to the Chapel at Blenheim Palace
twenty-four years afterwards. The Duke’s first grave was in Henry VII’s
Chapel, in the vault where Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, and others had
lain.
In the Nave are monuments to General Killigrew, who was killed at the
Battle of Almanza in 1707, to Colonel Bringfield, who was killed at
Ramillies in 1706, and to Major Creed, who was killed at Blenheim in
1704.
In the North Ambulatory is a monument to Earl Ligonier, one of Queen
Anne’s Generals, who fought under Marlborough, and was at the Battle of
Blenheim. Lord Ligonier belonged to an old Huguenot family from the
south of France, and he, with some other distinguished Huguenots who are
buried in the Abbey, came over to England about the time of the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, when the Protestant worship
was forbidden in France, and many Huguenots took refuge in England. Earl
Ligonier died in 1770.
Another hero of the Dutch and French wars rests in the Abbey, and that
is Sir Cloudesley Shovel, one of the greatest naval commanders of the
time. His monument is rather curious, and represents him wearing Roman
armour and a wig such as was in fashion in his own day. The story of his
death is a very dreadful one. The Admiral had helped in the almost
entire destruction of the French Mediterranean squadron in 1707, and was
sailing for home when a violent gale drove his ship on to the rocks off
the Scilly Isles. The ship was wrecked, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel was
washed ashore, bruised and unconscious, but not quite dead. Thirty years
afterwards a fisherman’s wife confessed that she had found the body, and
that for the sake of a valuable emerald ring the Admiral wore she had
actually killed him.
In the Nave is a curious tablet in memory of Admiral Baker, who was
second in command to Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and brought the rest of the
ships home after Sir Cloudesley’s flagship was lost. Admiral Baker was
afterwards Governor of the Island of Minorca, which at that time
belonged to England. He died in Minorca in 1716, and is buried there.
Minorca had been added to our possessions by the first Earl Stanhope,
who did distinguished service in the War of the Spanish Succession. He
and three other of the Earls Stanhope have a monument on the Choir
Screen, opposite to that of Sir Isaac Newton.
We must now look back through all the Stuart and Commonwealth time, and
say a few words about the poets and other writers who belong to those
days, and who are buried in the Abbey.
Ben Jonson, the celebrated poet and play-writer, and a contemporary of
Shakspeare, is buried in the Nave, and has a monument in Poets’ Corner.
On the monument is the well-known inscription: “O rare Ben Jonson!” Ben
Jonson was born near Westminster; he was educated at Westminster School,
and during his last years he lived close to the Abbey. He died in 1637,
in a little house in St. Margaret’s Churchyard. There are one or two
famous stories about Ben Jonson asking for a grave in the Abbey. One
story says that he begged for eighteen inches of square ground in the
Abbey from Charles I. Another says that in a conversation with the Dean
he said he was too poor to have a full-length grave. “No sir, six feet
long by two feet wide is too much for me. Two feet by two feet will do
all I want.” “You shall have it,” said the Dean, and thus the
conversation ended. Whether these curious stories are true or not, it is
the fact that Ben Jonson was buried standing up. This was discovered
when Sir Robert Wilson’s grave was being made in 1849.
Looking round Poets’ Corner, we find the names of the following poets:—
Michael Drayton, author of the _Polyolbion_, who died in 1631. The
beautiful epitaph is said to be by either Ben Jonson or Francis Quarles.
[Illustration:
[_D. Weller_.
POETS’ CORNER.
]
Abraham Cowley, who died in 1667. He had a very grand funeral in the
Abbey, which was attended by many distinguished people. Cowley was
educated at Westminster School, and he was a devoted Royalist.
Sir William Davenant, the Cavalier, who succeeded Ben Jonson as
Poet-Laureate in Charles I’s time. He died in 1668.
John Dryden, Poet-Laureate to Charles II and James II. He was educated
at Westminster School under the famous Headmaster, Dr. Busby. Dryden
began by being a great admirer of Cromwell, but afterwards he became a
strong Royalist and held several offices under the crown after the
Restoration. He died in 1700, in great poverty, and is buried near
Chaucer. His best known poems are perhaps the Ode on “Alexander’s Feast”
and the “Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day.” His political satires “Absalom and
Achitophel” and “The Hind and the Panther” were the works which made his
fame in his own day.
On the south wall of Poets’ Corner is a small monument to Samuel Butler,
the author of a famous satire on the Puritans, called _Hudibras_. Samuel
Butler lived from the reign of James I until after the Restoration, and
died in 1680.
Francis Beaumont, who wrote plays with John Fletcher, is buried close to
Poets’ Corner with his brother, Sir John Beaumont, who was also a poet.
He died in 1616.
But, as we all know, far the greatest poet of those days was John
Milton, whose monument is not far from the grave of Spenser.
Milton is not buried in the Abbey, but in St. Giles’ Cripplegate. As the
Abbey was always strongly Royalist, it was a long time before Milton’s
name was allowed even to appear on its walls, Milton having been so
prominent on the Parliamentarian side. Not even _Paradise Lost_ could
make them altogether forget his Puritan sympathies. However, in 1738,
the monument we now see in Poets’ Corner was put up by a certain William
Benson, who belonged to the Whig party in politics. Thus one of the
greatest English poets came at last by his own.
When speaking of Milton we are reminded of one of our best English
musicians, Henry Lawes, who wrote the music to _Comus_, and who is
buried in the cloisters. His brother, William Lawes, was a member of the
Abbey choir.
A fine bust of the well-known composer, Orlando Gibbons, has quite
lately been placed in the Abbey, in that North Aisle of the Choir which
is known as the “Musicians’ Aisle.” Orlando Gibbons was appointed
organist of the Abbey in 1623. His son, Christopher Gibbons, was the
first organist of the Abbey after the Restoration, and was a favourite
of Charles II. He is buried in the Cloisters.
Close by is the grave of Henry Purcell, who is perhaps our greatest
English composer. He belongs entirely to the Stuart times, and his life
was spent at Westminster. He was organist of the Abbey and composed some
of our finest English Church music, besides other things. He died in
1695, at about the same age as Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, that
is, 37. Above his grave is a tablet with an epitaph said to have been
written by Dryden. It runs as follows:—
“Here lies Henry Purcell, Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that
blessed place where only his Harmony can be exceeded.”
Two other well-known Church musicians of the Stuart times are buried in
this aisle; these are Dr. John Blow and Dr. William Croft, who were both
organists at the Abbey.
All English children will like to know that there is very soon to be a
window in the Abbey to John Bunyan, author of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_.
The window will commemorate his life and works.
Another remarkable writer of the Stuart and Commonwealth times, that
learned and holy man, Richard Baxter, author of the _Saint’s Everlasting
Rest_, has no memorial in the Abbey, but he is known to have preached
one of his finest sermons here in 1654, and this is very interesting to
remember.
The grave of Sir Robert Moray, First President of the Royal Society,
reminds us of the beginning of that great Society during the reigns of
the later Stuart Kings. Sir Robert Moray was both a soldier and a man of
science. Burnet calls him “the wisest and worthiest man of his age.” He
died in 1673.
The only painter who has a monument in the Abbey belongs to Stuart
times. This is Sir Godfrey Kneller, a celebrated portrait painter in the
reigns of Charles II, James II, William III, and Queen Anne. He was a
Westphalian by birth. He died in 1723, and was buried in the garden of
his house at Whitton. Kneller did not want to be buried in the Abbey;
for, he said: “they do bury fools there.”
Another interesting remembrance of these troubled Stuart days is the
monument in the Cloisters to Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey. He was the Judge
to whom Titus Oates professed to reveal the Popish plot of 1678. Sir
Edmund Berry Godfrey’s death was rather mysterious, and it was supposed,
though not on good foundation, that he had been murdered by some one
connected with the plot.
We must mention one more grave in the Abbey itself. This is the grave of
the wonderful old Thomas Parr,—“old Parr” as he used to be called. He
died in 1635, and always claimed that he had been born in 1483. He is
buried in the South Transept, and his epitaph says that “He lived in the
reignes of ten princes, namely: King Edward IV, King Edward V, King
Richard III, King Henry VII, King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen
Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, King Charles; aged 152 years, and was
buried here, 1635.”
We have now mentioned most of the principal people of the Stuart and
Commonwealth times who are in any way connected with the Abbey, and must
pass on to the history of the House of Hanover.
[Illustration:
[_W. Rice, F.R.P.S._
MONUMENT OF GENERAL WOLFE.
]