[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
This is the most renowned church in England, for in it her sovereigns
have been crowned, and many of them buried, from the days of Harold to
Victoria, and it contains the graves of her greatest men in
statesmanship, literature, science, and art. The abbey is the collegiate
church of St. Peter's, Westminster, and stands not far away from the
Thames, near Westminster Hall and the Parliament Houses. Twelve hundred
years ago its site was an island in the Thames known as Thorney Island,
and a church was commenced there by Sebert, king of Essex, but was not
completed until three centuries afterwards, in the reign of King Edgar,
when it was named the "minster west of St. Paul's," or Westminster. The
Danes destroyed it, and Edward the Confessor rebuilt it in the eleventh
century. Portions of this church remain, but the present abbey was begun
by Henry III. nearly seven hundred years ago, and it was not completed
until Edward III.'s time. Henry VII. removed the Lady Chapel, and built
the rich chapel at the east end which is named after him. Wren
ultimately made radical changes in it, and in 1714, after many changes,
the abbey finally assumed its present form and appearance. It has had a
great history, the coronations alone that it has witnessed being marked
events. They usually were followed by banquets in Westminster Hall, but
over $1,300,000 having been wasted on the display and banquet for George
IV., they were discontinued afterwards. At Queen Victoria's coronation
the crown was imposed in front of the altar before St. Edward's Chapel,
the entire nave, choir, and transepts being filled by spectators, and
the queen afterwards sitting upon a chair which, with the raised
platform bearing it, was covered with a cloth of gold. Here she received
the homage of her officers and the nobility. The ancient
coronation-chair, which is probably the greatest curiosity in the abbey,
is a most unpretentious and uncomfortable-looking old high-backed chair
with a hard wooden seat. Every sovereign of England has been crowned in
it since Edward I. There is a similar chair alongside it, the duplicate
having been made for the coronation of William and Mary, when two chairs
were necessary, as both king and queen were crowned and vested with
equal authority. Underneath the seat of the coronation-chair is fastened
the celebrated Stone of Scone, a dark-looking, old, rough, and
worn-edged rock about two feet square and six inches thick. All sorts of
legends are told of it, and it is said to have been a piece of Jacob's
Pillar. Edward I. brought it from Scotland, where many generations had
done it reverence, and the old chair was made to contain it in 1297.
These priceless accessories of the coronation ceremony, which will some
day do service for the Prince of Wales, are kept alongside the tomb of
Edward the Confessor, which for centuries has been the shrine of
pilgrims, and they are guarded by the graves of scores of England's
kings and queens and princes.
[Illustration: CLOISTERS OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY, INTERIOR OF THE CHOIR.]
The abbey's ground-plan has the form of a Latin cross, which is apsidal,
having radiating chapels. Henry VII.'s Chapel prolongs the building
eastward from the transept almost as much as the nave extends westward.
Cloisters adjoin the nave, and the western towers, built by Wren, rise
two hundred and twenty-five feet, with a grand window beneath them. The
church is five hundred and thirty feet long. The nave is one hundred and
sixty-six feet long and one hundred and two feet high; the choir, one
hundred and fifty-five long; the transept, two hundred and three feet
long, and on the south arm one hundred and sixty-five feet high. A great
rose-window, thirty feet in diameter, is in the north end of the
transept, with a fine portico, beneath which is the beautiful gateway of
the abbey. In the interior the height of the roof is remarkable, and
also the vast number of monuments, there being hundreds of them.
Magnificent woodwork in carving and tracery adorns the choir, and its
mosaic pavement comes down to us from the thirteenth century, the stones
and workmen to construct it having been brought from Rome. The fine
stained-glass windows are chiefly modern. But the grand contemplation in
Westminster Abbey is the graves of the famous dead that have been
gathering there for nearly eight centuries. No temple in the world can
present anything like it. Wordsworth has written:
----"Be mine in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought to find a refuge here,
Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam,
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts if it cross the threshold--where the wreath
Of awestruck wisdom droops."
[Illustration: KING HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL.]
Of the nine chapels surrounding the east end of the abbey, the most
interesting are those of Edward the Confessor, beyond the altar, and of
Henry VII., at the extreme eastern end. The shrine of King Edward above
referred to occupies the centre of his chapel, and was formerly richly
inlaid with mosaics and precious stones, which, however, have been
carried off. Henry VII.'s Chapel is a fine specimen of the architecture
of his time, and the monuments of Queens Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland
are in the north and south aisles. In the south transept is the Poets'
Corner, with monuments to all the great poets, and here, as well as in
nave and choir and the north transept, are monuments of hundreds of
illustrious Englishmen. In making these burials there is a sort of
method observed. Chaucer's interment in the Poets' Corner in 1400 led
the south transept to be devoted to literary men. The north transept is
devoted to statesmen, the first distinguished burial there being the
elder Pitt in 1778. The organ is on the north side of the nave, and here
the eminent musicians repose. In the side chapels the chief nobles are
buried, and in the chancel and its adjoining chapels the sovereigns.
Isaac Newton in 1727 was the first scientist buried in the nave, and
that part has since been devoted to scientific men and philanthropists.
Probably the finest tomb in the abbey is that of the elder Pitt, which
bears the inscription, "Erected by the King and Parliament as a
testimony to the virtues and ability of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham,
during whose administration, in the reigns of George II. and George
III., Divine Providence exalted Great Britain to a height of prosperity
and glory unknown to any former age." One of the finest of the
stained-glass windows in the nave is the double memorial window in
memory of the poets Herbert and Cowper, erected by an American, George
W. Childs. George III. and the British sovereigns since his reign have
their tombs at Windsor, preferring that noble castle for their last
resting-place.
Upon the east side of the abbey is St. Margaret's, the special church of
the House of Commons. Its east window contains the celebrated
stained-glass representation of the Crucifixion, painted in Holland,
which General Monk buried to keep the Puritans from destroying. Sir
Walter Raleigh is entombed here, and an American subscription has placed
a stained-glass window in the church to his memory, inscribed with these
lines by James Russell Lowell:
"The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came.
Proud of her past, wherefrom our present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name."