the Royalist cause, more in another chapter, and this one shall end with
a few words about the luckless "Lady Arabella Stuart." She was a cousin
to James I., as her father's brother was the Earl of Darnley who had
married Mary Queen of Scots; but besides this she was of royal birth,
and her grandmother, the Countess of Lennox, whose tomb you will find
close by, claimed, as you will see inscribed thereon, to have "to her
great-grandfather Edward IV., to her grandfather Henry VII., to her
uncle Henry VIII., to her grandchild James VI. and I." Arabella's
father had committed the unpardonable offence of marrying without Queen
Elizabeth's permission Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of the
celebrated Bess of Hardwick, and for so doing the young couple were
promptly sent to the Tower, in company with both the mothers-in-law, one
of whom, the Countess of Lennox, had already twice been imprisoned for
matters of love--an early attachment of her own to Thomas Howard, and
the marriage of her elder son to Mary Queen of Scots. The young Earl of
Lennox died very soon after his marriage, and Elizabeth relented so far
as to allow yearly L400 a year to his widow and L200 to his little
daughter Arabella.
When she was twelve, Arabella was sent for by the queen to London, and
being very handsome as well as clever, she soon began to attract
attention. The Roman Catholic party, always on the look-out for a
weapon to use against the crown, turned their attentions to her, and her
position became a dangerous one, though she herself was entirely loyal
and very prudent. The great Lord Burleigh, however, was always her good
friend, and when James came to the throne, he gave him a wise hint to
"deal tenderly with this high-spirited and fascinating young lady."
James took his advice, and Arabella lived at his court, nominally as the
governess of the Princess Elizabeth, but actually as if she herself had
been a daughter. She was a favourite with all, especially with Henry
Prince of Wales, for she was highly educated and a most delightful
companion. But though she had many lovers, she would look at none of
them, declaring "she had no mind for marriage." However, unfortunately
for her, she lost her heart to William Seymour, whom she married in
spite of the disapproval of James. And then began her troubles, for
Seymour was utterly unworthy of her, and had only married her to advance
his own position. When he was put into the Tower, and his wife was kept
as a prisoner at Lambeth, his only idea was to make good his own escape,
leaving Arabella to her fate; whilst she, still believing in him, risked
everything to set him free. It was only when she found that he had fled
to Ostend without her that the full force of her sorrows overwhelmed
her.
She had hardly a friend, for even Prince Henry seems to have sided for
once with his father, and greatest of all was the bitterness of
realising that her husband cared nothing for her. He did not even write
to her, lest in so doing he might endanger his own safety.
She was sent to the Tower, where first her health, then her mind gave
way, and she became as a little child, singing nursery songs, prattling
of childish things. Death was a merciful release. Secretly, by dead of
night, she was taken from the Tower to the Abbey on a barge, and buried
without any ceremony in the vault under the tomb of her aunt. She had
often described herself as the "most sorrowful creature living," and,
indeed, I think that under this tomb in Henry VII.'s chapel lie three
royal women of the Stuart race whose lives were all the saddest
tragedies, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and the Lady
Arabella. "God grant them all a good ending," as the old chroniclers
were wont to say. At least now, after life's fitful fever, they sleep
well in the calm of the old Abbey.
*CHAPTER XII*
*FROM THE STUARTS TO OUR OWN TIMES*
When James I. came to the throne, Lancelot Andrewes was Dean of
Westminster, and he devoted himself to the care of the school, which,
under Elizabeth's endowments, was now prospering greatly. He had this
excellent reputation, "that all the places where he had preferment were
better for it," and it is certain that either he must have been a
remarkable master or the Westminster boys must have been models of their
kind, for this is how Hacket, once his pupil, rapturously describes
him:--
"Who could come near the shrine of such a saint and not offer up a few
paeans of glory on it? Or how durst I omit it? For he it was that
first planted me in my tender studies and watered them continually with
his bounty.... He did often supply the place of head-master and usher
for the space of an whole week together, and gave us not an hour of
loitering time from morning till night. He never walked to Chiswick for
his recreation without a brace of this young fry, and in that wayfaring
leisure had a singular dexterity to fill those narrow vessels with a
funnel. And what was the greatest burden of his toil, sometimes twice
in the week, sometimes oftener, he sent for the uppermost scholars to
his lodgings at night and kept them with him from eight to eleven,
unfolding to them the best rudiments of the Greek tongue and the
elements of Hebrew grammar. And all this he did to boys without any
compulsion or correction; nay, I never heard him to utter so much as a
word of austerity."
Altogether Andrewes was a man of great influence and renown both as a
scholar and a preacher, so he was promoted to a bishopric after a short
time, and was succeeded by Richard Neile, who had himself been a boy of
Westminster School, and who, therefore, in his turn carefully fostered
its growth. He too became a bishop in three years, and of the two deans
who followed him, Montague and Tounson, we know little except that the
one was "a person of wit and entertaining conversation," and the other
"one of a graceful presence and an excellent preacher, who left a widow
and fifteen children unprovided for."
It is Hacket who again gives us an amusing picture of the excitement
among all the divines when it became known that Tounson was to be Bishop
of Salisbury and that the Deanery of Westminster was vacant.
"It was a fortunate seat," he says, "near the Court. Like the office
over the king of Persia's garden at Babylon, stored with the most
delicious fruits. He that was trusted with the garden was the Lord of
the Palace."
Among those who earnestly desired the post was John Williams, one of the
chaplains to James I., and in these words he applied for it through Lord
Burleigh:--
"MY MOST NOBLE LORD,--I am an humble suitor, first to be acknowledged
your servant, and then that I may with your happy hand be transplanted
to Westminster if the Deanery shall still prove vacant. I trouble not
your Honour for profit, but for convenience, for being unmarried and
inclining so to continue, I do find that Westminster is fitter by much
for that disposition. If your Honour be not bent upon an ancient
servitor, I beseech you to think on me."
Fortunately for Westminster he obtained his heart's desire, and in 1620
began his useful rule. He took for his exemplars Abbot Islip and Dean
Andrewes, imitating the first by carefully restoring the many parts of
the Abbey which through neglect were falling in ruins, and the second by
encouraging the school. Then, "that God might be praised with a
cheerful noise in His sanctuary," he obtained, as Hacket tells us, "the
sweetest music both for the organ and for voices of all parts that was
ever heard in an English quire;" and in Jerusalem Chamber he gave many
entertainments with music, which "the most famous masters of this
delightful faculty frequented." To enlarge the boundaries of learning
he turned one of the deserted rooms in the cloisters, of old used by the
monks, into a library, bought out of his own means a large number of
books from a certain Mr. Baker of Highgate, and was so public-spirited
that he allowed men of learning from all parts of London to have access
to those precious works.
He was in great favour with James, who made him Lord Keeper of the Seal
and Bishop of Lincoln, allowing him to hold Westminster at the same
time, and though his enemies had much to say on the subject of his
holding so many offices, it must be said in justice that he got through
an amazing amount of work. Under him it seemed as if some of the
splendid hospitalities which had ceased since the days when the Abbots
kept open house were to be revived, for Dean Williams entertained in
Jerusalem Chamber the French ambassadors who came over to arrange for
the marriage between Prince Charles and Princess Henriette.
Before the feast he led them into the Abbey, which was "stuck with
flambeaux everywhere that they might cast their eyes upon the
stateliness of the church," while "the best finger of the age, Dr.
Orlando Gibbons," played the organ for their entertainment.
You will see a memorial of this banquet in the carvings over the
mantelpiece in the Jerusalem Chamber for on one side is Charles I. and
on the other side his French bride.
But with the death of James I., Lord Keeper, Bishop and Dean Williams
fell upon evil days, for he was disliked by the Duke of Buckingham and
Laud, who entirely influenced the king, and was not even allowed to
officiate on the coronation day.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM CHAMBER.]
Under the Commonwealth the Abbey fared badly, for with a fanatical
horror of anything that reminded them of royalty or of Rome, the
Parliamentarians had not the smallest regard for it, and delighted in
showing their contempt for its past. How far the soldiers were allowed
to desecrate its walls and its altars it is difficult to clearly
ascertain, and we may fairly believe that the story of how they pulled
down the organ, pawned the pipes for ale, and played boisterous games up
and down the church "to show their Christian liberty," is a great
exaggeration, even if any such thing took place at all. Certainly the
altar in Henry VII.'s chapel, under which lay buried Edward VI., was
destroyed, the copes and vestments were sold, and many windows and
monuments supposed to teach lessons of superstition and idolatry were
demolished. No dean was appointed. The church being put under a
Parliamentary Committee, Presbyterian preachers conducted morning
exercises, which took the place of the daily services, and Bradshaw, the
President of the court which tried and condemned to death Charles I.,
settled himself into the deserted deanery. A strange sight indeed it
must have been to those who noted it to watch this man going backwards
and forwards between Abbot Islip's house and the Hall of Westminster
Palace, holding in the hollow of his hand the life of the king of
England!
Westminster School, which, under Elizabeth, had been set on its new and
enlarged footing, and since then had vigorously expanded under the
various head-masters, alone continued to flourish. Its scholars
naturally were closely connected with the life that centred round
Westminster: they listened to the debates of Parliament, they flocked to
hear the trials in Westminster Hall, they attended the services in the
Abbey. Their feelings ran high during the Civil War. Pym, Cromwell,
and Bradshaw they hated; the execution of Charles roused their deepest
indignation, and they listened in awed horror as Bushby, their master,
read solemnly the prayer for the king at the very moment when the
scaffold was being erected at Whitehall. It was the strong personality
of Bushby and his tactful management which saved the school from being
seriously interfered with at the hands of the all-powerful Parliament,
so that for fifty-five years this model for head-masters "ruled with his
rod and his iron will, and successfully piloted this bark through very
stormy seas." He was full of enthusiasm and energy and he was more
anxious that his pupils should become men of action and character than
accomplished scholars. His monument, which is near the Poets' Corner
shows him, in the words of the inscription, "such as he appeared to
human eyes;" and the words which follow tell how he "sowed a plenteous
harvest of ingenious men; discovered, managed, and improved the natural
genius in every one; formed and nourished the minds of youths, and gave
to the school of Westminster the fame of which it boasts."
But the Abbey was a national institution, too firmly builded on the
rocks to be more than shaken by the passing storms. It had weathered
the earthquake of the Reformation, it had survived the tempests of the
Revolution. With the Restoration came the calm, and quietly the old
life was resumed. I have but little more to tell you of the inner story
of the Abbey, nor from this time forward do kings and queens play any
very important part in its story. It is the tombs and monuments which
now begin, more closely even than before, to cement the tie between
Westminster and the pages of English history. So I will only tell you
in a few words how Dean Sprat busied himself with the restoration of the
great buildings, the architect being Sir Christopher Wren, who, as you
know, designed St. Paul's Cathedral, and rebuilt so many of the old
London churches which the Great Fire had destroyed, and how Dean
Atterbury carried on the work, including the rebuilding of the great
dormitory, until his devotion to the Stuart cause and his opposition to
George I. caused him to be sent first to the Tower, and afterwards as an
exile to France. Atterbury loved well his Abbey, and his last request
was that he might walk through it once more, especially to see the glass
which was his own gift to it, and which still exists in the beautiful
rose window over the north door. But the sad thing about these
so-called restorations is that so much of the matchless old work was
destroyed, and nobody seemed in the least concerned at this. That was
an age when the glories of medieval architecture appear to have lost all
their charm in men's eyes, when the love of beautiful things was at its
lowest ebb. The Westminster boys played their games in the chapels, and
were allowed to skip from tomb to tomb in the Confessor's shrine;
hideous monuments were erected and crowded together, nothing old was
reverenced, and we can only be thankful that more was not destroyed or
hopelessly ruined. And yet, in spite of this apparent indifference,
here and there were men who found themselves stirred when they came
within those walls as they were stirred nowhere else, so that many a
writer, including Addison, Steele, and Goldsmith, and earlier still,
John Milton, has paid homage, even in those unimaginative days, to that
fair place, "so far exceeding human excellence that a man would think it
was knit together by the fingers of angels."
One more dean I must tell you of, and that is Dean Stanley, who, with
his wife, lies in the south aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel. For it was
when he was appointed to Westminster in 1864 that once again the Abbey
became something more than a great memory of former days. First of all
he unfolded the storied past, clearing up many a mystery, setting right
many an error, and then, impelled by a deep reverence for all its great
associations, he consistently carried on its history. In every trace of
his work we find this same wise spirit of sympathy and understanding.
To him the Abbey was our greatest national treasure; his ideal was, not
only so to keep it, but to make it a living influence among all
English-speaking people. And thanks in no small degree to him,
Westminster Abbey is to-day a very magnet in the heart of the empire, to
which high and low rich and poor, learned and ignorant are drawn from
far and near, to drink in, as they are able, its memories and its
beauties, to do homage to those great souls whom it honours there to
read as from a book stories of Englishmen who whether as kings or
statesmen, abbots or deans, nobles or commoners, poets or patriots,
added at least some stones to that other building, not fashioned by
hands alone, which grew up side by side with Edward's church, and thus
became the builders of our nation.
But we have gone forward, quickly, and I must take you back for a moment
to Henry VII.'s Chapel, where still after the Restoration some royal
funerals took place. With the outburst of loyal feeling, it was felt by
many that Charles I., who had been buried at Windsor, ought to be
brought here, and Christopher Wren was commanded to prepare a costly
monument. But nothing further was done in the matter. Charles II. was
buried at midnight most unceremoniously, close to the monument of
General Monk, and one who was probably present adds, by way of comment,
"he was soon forgotten." Ten children of James II. were laid in the
spacious vault under Mary Queen of Scots monument, but he himself,
having fled from his kingdom, died abroad and was buried in Paris.
William and Mary, Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark,
all lie near Charles II., and the seventeen children of Anne are just
behind in what is really the Children's Vault. One of these children,
Prince William Henry, another Duke of Gloucester, though he only lived
to be eleven, was such a quaint little boy that his tutor wrote a
biography of him. He was always very delicate, but though his body was
weak his mind was precocious and his spirits were unfailingly high.
From the time he was two his craze was for soldiers, and he had a
company of ninety boys from Kensington for his bodyguard, whom he
drilled and ruled by martial law. These boys he called his
horse-guards, and they wore red grenadiers' caps and carried wooden
swords and muskets; but, however much they may have pleased the little
prince, who lived at Camden House, they were somewhat of a terror to the
people of Kensington, as, "presuming on being soldiers, they were very
rude and challenged men in the streets, which caused complaints." This
tutor of his, Jenkin Lewis, who entered thoroughly into the spirit of
the little Duke, gives a delightful account of a visit paid to him by
his uncle, the grave William III., who appears to have been very fond of
him.
Altogether the Duke must have been a charming little boy, plucky,
generous, and remarkably bright. If he fell down and hurt himself, he
would say, "A bullet in the war had grazed me," and though, to please
the queen, he learnt dancing from an old Frenchman, he confided to his
tutor that the only thing he loved in that way was the English march to
a drum.
Greatly to his joy the king decided to make him a Knight of the Garter
when he was only six years old, and to add to the honour William tied on
the Garter himself.
"Now," said the boy proudly, "if I fight any more battles I shall give
harder blows than ever."
He was as quick and interested at his lessons as he was at soldiering,
and we bear of his making amazing progress under the Bishop of
Marlborough in the history of the Bible, geography, constitutional
history, and many other subjects, while his tutor had taught him "the
terms of fortification and navigation, the different parts of a ship of
war, and stories about Caesar, Alexander, Pompey, Hannibal, and Scipio.
It was his tutor who put into verse, and persuaded Mr. Church, one of
the gentlemen of Westminster Abbey, to set to music, the Duke's words of
command to his boys, which ran thus:--
"Hark, hark! the hostile drum alarms,
Let ours too beat, and call to arms;
Prepare, my boys, to meet the foe,
Let every breast with valour glow.
Soon conquest shall our arms decide,
And Britain's sons in triumph ride.
In order charge your daring band,
Attentive to your chief's command.
Discharge your volleys, fire away;
They yield, my lads, we gain the day.
March on, pursue to yonder town;
No ambush fear, the day's our own.
Yet from your hearts let mercy flow,
And nobly spare the captive foe!"
When in 1696 a plot formed against William III. was discovered, the Duke
determined not to be behind the Houses of Parliament, who offered their
loyal addresses to the king, so he drew up a little address of his own
in these words, which was signed by himself and all his boys: "We, your
Majesty's faithful subjects, will stand by you as long as we have a drop
of blood."
On the 24th July 1700 he was eleven and had a birthday party, which of
course meant a sham fight among his boys; and when on the next morning
he complained of feeling ill, every one naturally thought he was only
over-tired or excited. But a bad throat and high fever soon showed that
there was serious mischief, and within a week he died. "To the
inexpressible grief," wrote the Bishop of Salisbury, "of all good men
who were well-wishers to the Protestant religion and lovers of their
country."
George II. was the last king to be buried in the Abbey, and he was laid
in the same stone coffin as his wife, Queen Caroline. You will find the
gravestones in the nave of Henry VII.'s Chapel, and near to it are
buried his two daughters, his son Frederick, Prince of Wales, and
several grandchildren. Horace Walpole, the son of Robert Walpole, who
had for twenty-one years been the Prime Minister of the king, thus
describes to us the last royal funeral at Westminster:--
"The procession through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man bearing
a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers with drawn
swords and crape sashes, the drums muffled, the fifes, the bells
tolling, and the minute guns, all this was very solemn. But the charm
was the entrance to the Abbey, where we were received by the Dean and
Chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches, the whole
Abbey so illuminated that one saw it to greater advantage than by day.
When we came to the Chapel of Henry VII., all solemnity and decorum
ceased, no order was observed, people sat or stood where they would or
could; the Yeomen of the Guard were crying out for help, oppressed by
the immense weight of the coffin. The Bishop read sadly and blundered
in the prayers, and the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious,
would have served as well for a wedding.... The Duke of Newcastle fell
into a fit of crying the moment we came into the chapel and flung
himself back in a stall, the Archbishop towering over him with a
smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his
hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or
was not there. Then returned his fear of getting cold, and the Duke of
Cumberland, who felt himself weighed down, on turning round found it was
the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the
marble."
But though Westminster was no longer to be the church of the royal
tombs, there was one ceremony she was still to claim undisputed as her
own peculiar right. A Coronation meant the Abbey; no other place was
ever dreamt of. Charles II. here commenced his reign with great glory.
James II. characteristically grudged spending any money excepting
L100,000 for the queen's dress and trinkets. William and Mary were
crowned together, for Mary refused to be queen unless her husband became
king with her, and it is for this joint-coronation that the second chair
of state was made, which stands with the old Coronation Chair in the
Confessor's Chapel. The members of the House of Commons were present
and "hummed applause at the eloquent ending to Bishop Burnet's sermon,
in which he prayed God "to bless the royal pair with long life and love,
with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, faithful allies, gallant
fleets and armies, and finally with crowns more glorious and lasting
than those which glittered on the altar of the Abbey."
Queen Anne, fat, gouty, and childless, found the day a weary one.
Unlike her sister Mary, she was crowned queen in her own right, and her
husband was the first of the nobles to do her homage.
When George I. was crowned many difficulties had to be overcome, for
everything had to be explained to the king, who knew no English, by
ministers who stumbled badly over their German. But George II. had
learnt the language of his people, and liking great ceremonies as much
as his father had disliked them, his coronation day was celebrated in
great state. Queen Caroline must have been ablaze with jewels, for
besides wearing all her own, she had borrowed what pearls she could from
the ladies of quality, and had hired all manner of diamonds from the
Jews and jewellers. George IV. spent more money when he was crowned king
than any other of his race, but the day was not without a very painful
scene, as he refused to prepare any place for his wife, Queen Caroline,
and she indignantly tried in vain to insist on her rights and to force
her way into the Abbey. She failed, and her failure so broke her
spirits that she fell ill, and a few weeks later she died.