WESTMINSTER
"The devout King destined to God that place, both for that
it was near unto the famous and wealthy City of London, and
also had a pleasant situation amongst fruitful fields lying
round about it, with the principal river running hard by,
bringing in from all parts of the world great variety of
wares and merchandise of all sorts to the city adjoining;
but chiefly for the love of the Chief Apostle, whom he
reverenced with a special and singular
affection."--_Contemporary Life of Edward the Confessor in
Harleian M.S._
"The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames."--_Matthew
Arnold._
"Westminster Abbey," said Dean Stanley, "stands alone amongst the
buildings of the world. There are, it may be, some which surpass it in
beauty or grandeur; there are others, certainly, which surpass it in
depth and sublimity of association; but there is none which has been
entwined by so many continuous threads with the history of a whole
nation."
The old Abbey of Westminster, is, indeed, in itself an epitome of
English history. Elsewhere in London, you must dig and delve for it,
study and reconstruct; here, you have it all together, a chain in a
manner unbroken, from Edward the Confessor to the latest of our
Hanoverian Kings, crowned here, so lately and so splendidly, in the
place of his fathers.
The church has, in a manner, been founded many times; by tradition, by
rebuilding, by frequent restoration and enlargement. The earliest
church, or temple, on this ancient site is, indeed, almost lost in the
semi-fabulous mists of early history. To all famous fanes, the
after-years have a tendency to ascribe legendary and miraculous
beginnings; thus, the magic haze that surrounds the primitive church
of the doubtful Saxon King Lucius is hardly less than that covering
the Temple of Apollo, the Sun-god, said to exist here in Roman times.
At any rate, it is clear that on this favoured spot, once the little
sandy peninsula of "Thorney Island," was an early sanctuary and
settlement, both Roman and Briton. In King Sebert's time the mists of
antiquity lift, but still slightly. Sebert, King of the East-Saxons,
was, early in the seventh century, the traditionary founder of a
church here, dedicated to St. Peter. According to the story, Sebert,
just returned from a Roman pilgrimage, was about to have his church
consecrated by the bishop, Mellitus; when, one evening, a poor Saxon
fisher, Edric, who was watching his nets along the shore, saw, on the
opposite river bank, a gleaming light, and, approaching it in his
boat, found a venerable man who desired to be ferried across the
stream. There, the mysterious stranger landed, and proceeded to the
church, where, transfigured with light, and attended by hosts of
glittering angels, he consecrated it, being, indeed, no other than St.
Peter himself:
"Then all again is dark;
And by the fisher's bark
The unknown passenger returning stands.
_O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with thee_
_The fisher from the Lake of Galilee_--
"So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands;
Then fades, but speaks the while:
_At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate_
_How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle,_
_Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate._"
The chronicle relates the story thus:
"Know, O Edric," said the stranger, while the fisherman's
heart glowed within him, "know that I am Peter. I have
hallowed the church myself. To-morrow I charge thee that
thou tell these things to the Bishop, who will find a sign
and token in the church of my hallowing. And for another
token, put forth again upon the river, cast thy nets, and
thou shalt receive so great a draught of fishes that there
will be no doubt left in thy mind. But give one-tenth to
this my holy church."
The story continues that Bishop Mellitus, on hearing Edric's
miraculous tale, changed the name of the place from Thorney Isle to
West Minster.
The tomb of the first traditionary founder of St. Peter's church of
Westminster is still shown in the Abbey to-day, as it has been shown
ever since the time of its erection. Through all the vicissitudes of
the Abbey, its many alterations and restorations, this early relic has
always been treated carefully and with respect. The King of the
East-Saxons sleeps in peace in the choir, with his wife Ethelgoda and
his sister Ricula, first of a long line of kings and potentates.
But if Sebert was the traditional founder of the Abbey, Edward the
Confessor was, unquestionably, its real founder. And, for that matter,
the legends that surround the mysterious Sebert still linger, like a
halo, round the Confessor's memory; he who was, we are told, so
saintly, that being one day at mass in the ancient minster, he saw
"the Saviour appear as a child, bright and pure as a spirit." Truly, a
picturesque age to live in! The rebuilding of the Confessor's church
was, as in the later time of Rahere, the outcome of a vision, and of a
direct message from the saint. Edward, said St. Peter, must rebuild
the ancient minster of Thorney. Edward rebuilt it, laying the
foundation stone in 1049, and naming it "the Collegiate Church of St.
Peter of Westminster." It was the work of the King's life, and it was
only consecrated eight days before his death. Of the Confessor's
chapel and monastery all that now remains is the present "Chapel of
the Pyx," with portions of the Westminster School Buildings and of the
walls of the South Cloister. For Henry III., the Abbey's second
founder, who had "a rare taste for building" pulled down, in 1245,
most of his predecessor's work, and made the splendid miracle-working
shrine that contains the relics of the royal saint. But it was Henry
VII., in 1502, who was the great builder and transformer of the Abbey.
To him we owe the fine perpendicular chapel called by his name, "the
most beautiful chapel in the world," the one building that impresses,
at first sight, every visitor to London. Westminster Abbey, as we see
it now, is probably in externals much as Henry VII. left it, except
for the addition of Wren's two western towers, and "the fact that in
the middle ages it was a magnificent apex to a royal palace,"
surrounded "by a train of subordinate offices and buildings, and with
lands extending to the present Oxford Street, Fleet Street, and
Vauxhall."
Yet, without any of its former palatial accessories, is not the gray
fret-work of Henry VIIth's chapel, as it breaks on the delighted
vision of the traveller down Whitehall, an ever-renewed joy and
wonder? To Henry Tudor we owe the union of the houses of York and
Lancaster; yet we remember him far more by this, the chapel that he
has given us for all time. Truly, he too must have had "a rare taste
in building!" "It is to the exaltation of the building art," says Mr.
Ruskin, in an eloquent passage, "that we owe:
--"those vaulted gates ... those window-labyrinths of
twisted tracery and starry light; those misty masses of
multitudinous pinnacle and diademed tower; the only
witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of the faith and fear
of nations. All else for which the builders sacrificed, has
passed away--all their living interests, and aims, and
achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we see
no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority,
happiness--all have departed, though bought by many a bitter
sacrifice. But of them, and their life and their toil upon
the earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those
gray heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken with them
to the grave their powers, their honours, and their errors;
but they have left us their adoration."
But, apart from the beauty of its architecture, apart from the
associations and traditions of its early history, apart from its
honour as the place of coronations, the feeling that every true
Englishman has for the Abbey of Westminster must necessarily be
strong; for it represents to him not only the essential spirit of his
mother-city; it is also, in a sense, his national Valhalla,
--"place of tombs,
Where lie the mighty bones of ancient men."--
Here, in this "cathedral close of Westminster," is his true
fatherland. This, he may say, is his national Holy of Holies; the
sacred spot:
"Wo meine Traueme wandeln gehn,
Wo meine Todten aufersteh'n."
Here he may feel all the reverence, all the love for his country, that
is ever the birthright of the true citizen. For, not only kings,
queens, and nobles, but also the great and mighty in art, science,
literature, are buried within this narrow space. It is England's
Temple of Fame, her crowing glory of a life of honour and merit. The
"immortal dead" are thus in their death brought near to each one of
us, and become part of our special family. They are our national
inheritance.
Westminster Abbey is "the silent meeting-place of the dead of eight
centuries," the "great temple of silence and reconciliation where the
enmities of twenty generations lie buried." Death is ever the great
peacemaker. Round the mediaeval shrine of Edward the Confessor, in its
faded and rifled splendour, lie, in a closely-joined circle, the
peaceful Tombs of the Kings; sturdy Plantagenets, their warfare
ended, the features of their effigies composed in an eternal calm.
They sleep well, after life's fitful fever! In Henry VIIth's chapel,
Mary and Elizabeth, sisters of bitter hate and strange destiny, rest
together in a contracted sepulchre, admitting of none other occupant
but they two. "The sisters are at one; the daughter of Catherine of
Aragon and the daughter of Anne Boleyn repose in peace at last." On
their monument is the striking inscription: an inscription placed
there by James I.; "closing," said Dean Stanley, "the long war of the
English Reformation;" "Regno consortes et urna, hic obdormimus
Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis." And those great
statesmen of a later age, Pitt and Fox, their life-long rivalry ended,
rest in the north transept, dying in the same year, and buried close
together:
"Here--taming thought to human pride--
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry--
'Here let their discord with them die.'"
The figure of William Pitt, Lord Chatham, in parliamentary robes, his
arm outstretched as if speaking, rises high above the surrounding
monuments:
"High over those venerable graves," says Macaulay, "towers
the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his effigy,
graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and
outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to
hurl defiance at her foes."
In another splendid passage, Macaulay describes the later burial of
the son near the father:
"The grave of Pitt had been made near to the spot where his
great father lay, near also to the spot where his great
rival was soon to lie.... Wilberforce, who carried the
banner before the hearse, described the awful ceremony with
deep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he
said, the eagle face of Chatham from above seemed to look
down with consternation into the dark house which was
receiving all that remained of so much power and glory."
"The silence of death," says Dean Stanley, "breathes here the lesson
which the tumult of life hardly suffered to be heard."
As, then, the Appian Way was to the Romans, so is Westminster Abbey to
us, our "Highway of Tombs." As the stranger walks along the vast Nave
and the Transepts, he passes through a veritable City of the Dead,
commemorated here by every kind of monument, statue, bust, tablet,
cenotaph, tomb. Here are now no more the simple tombs and effigies of
the earliest time, no more the rich, imposing magnificence of the
mediaeval shrines, but a later efflorescence of sculpture and ornament,
an efflorescence differing as widely from the severity of former ages,
as the laudatory epitaphs differ from the simplicity and humility of
the early inscriptions. Justice and Mercy, Neptune and Britannia,
cherubs and clouds, are generally very painfully in evidence, and in
their vast size and depressing ubiquity testify to the false taste of
their day. Nor are the monuments always deserved. "Some day," said
Carlyle, cynically, "there will be a terrible gaol-delivery in
Westminster Abbey!" The worst of such theatrical sculpture is, also,
that it always takes up so much room; we, in our day, should often be
glad of the space of one cloudlet,--of one unnecessary virtue,--for
the modest perpetuation of a great man's memory. Who now recalls the
merits of the forgotten magnates of past ages? but Dickens's humble
grave-stone is ever freshly tended, bright with geranium or violet.
Ruskin's small tablet and bas-relief must hang in a dark, unnoticed,
corner, and Tennyson's bust is relegated to a pillar of Poet's Corner.
And what is left, one may ask, of our National Valhalla, for the great
names of a future age?
The solemn dignity of the Confessor's Chapel, and of Henry VIIth's
beautiful chapel behind it, have, after the crude monuments of the
Nave, all the calm of a secluded byway after the clamour of a noisy
street.
Westminster Abbey is full of beautiful pictures. On a sunny day,
especially, the play of light and shade on its pillars, the fretted
tracery of its interlaced arches, the fine harmony of its proportions,
the golden, mellowing, subdued light that enters through its "rose"
windows, the colour of its many tombs and rich marbles, that, on a day
of London winter, so beautifully harmonises with the whole, may well
tempt many an artist. To gain the full glory of the long aisles in
their aerial perspective, the Abbey should be seen from the far end of
the Nave. Everywhere is beauty; but perhaps one of the most lovely
"bits" in the church is that furnished by the three canopied tombs of
Henry III.'s family,--the tombs of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of
Lancaster, Countess Aveline, his wife, and Aymer de Valence. These
three tombs make a charming picture from the Sacrarium, where they
stand; viewed, too, from the aisle just beneath them, two of them
tower up grandly, to their full height; the third, however, that of
Aveline, is hidden from the aisle by an ugly eighteenth-century
monument. (Truly, the eighteenth century has much to answer for!) The
lofty pinnacles of these tombs, the richness of their sculptured
foliage and crockets, and the calmness of their supported effigies,
are very impressive. Among other strikingly picturesque views is that
of the small chapel, or rather, doorway, of St. Erasmus, dating from
Richard II.'s time, a low arch supported by clustered pillars; and
also that of the splendid "Chantry of Henry V.," towering at the
entrance to Henry VIIth's Chapel, above the royal circle of tombs on
either side. Over the Arch that canopies Henry's tomb, (an arch in the
shape of the letter "H,") is the iron bar with the king's shield,
saddle and helmet,--the helmet which we would fain for poetry's sake,
think to be
--"that casque that did affright the air at Agincourt,"
--but which was, probably, merely a tilting-helmet made for the
funeral. There is a sad humanity about these blackened accoutrements
of the dead, standing out against the golden half-light of the
dimly-seen chapel beyond, hanging so long in their lofty position as
to seem a part of the Abbey itself. Have they not, before now,
appealed to the imagination of many a Westminster school-boy, sitting
below in the choir, and set him wondering about those old Plantagenets
and Tudors, who seem here so much more alive and human than in the
dull pages of a history book?
The best tombs of the Abbey are only free and open to inspection on
Mondays and Tuesdays within certain hours; on all other days, they are
locked up, and people are only "taken round" them at stated times and
under supervision. On Mondays and Tuesdays there is, mostly, a good
assembly of sightseers; and, whether one choses a free day, full of
people, or whether one rather elects to be taken round on a sixpenny
day in custody, in either case one inevitably loses much of the charm
and feeling of the beautiful old church and its associations. On free
days, boys have a tendency to clatter distractingly up and down the
wooden steps that lead to the Confessor's Chapel, with other
diversions natural to the juvenile mind; on sixpenny days, you go in
and out with the crowd in a depressing "queue," while each chapel in
turn is unlocked and its monuments explained in a sad monotone. No
other arrangement, no doubt, is possible; yet, who could penetrate to
the soul of the Abbey under such conditions as these? It is perhaps
not unnatural that the vergers, who have performed the office so
often, should feel a certain satiety in the process, and that they
should wish to hurry the visitor through the chapels as quickly and
perfunctorily as may be; and yet, how charming would it be to spend a
long afternoon here, in study or enjoyment, undisturbed! In an
unwashed and noisy crowd, a crowd which seems to imagine that the
Tombs of the Kings are a species of Waxworks, who can think, or enjoy,
or remember? Moreover, when one is, so to speak, "in custody," one
must always be very careful to do nothing which may draw down on one's
self the suspicion of the custodian. In this connexion one is tempted
to recall the story told of a certain too-conscientious verger in one
of our provincial cathedrals. A devout visitor knelt down at an
altar-tomb; an action for which the said verger promptly reprimanded
him. "I was only praying," murmured the visitor, rising abashed. "Oh,
that can't be allowed," said the verger; "we can't let people pray
about wherever they like; _that would never do_."
In Westminster Abbey they are hardly so particular; and yet, something
of this same sense of restriction the reverent visitor to the ancient
edifice also experiences. His spirit recoils from locked entrance
gates and tours of perfunctory inspection, and yearns for but one hour
of the "bliss of solitude," to invoke, if not the shades of the mighty
dead, at least something of the feeling that clings round their
memorial chapels. It is this feeling that Froude has so well
described: "Between us and the old English," he says in an eloquent
passage, "there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the
historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and
our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the
aisles of the cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures
sleeping on their tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of
what these men were when they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of
church bells, that peculiar creation of mediaeval age, which falls upon
the ear like the echo of a vanished world."
And now for the other side of the picture. I was once, on a "sixpenny
day," in the north aisle of Henry VIIth's chapel, admiring the quaint
cradle-tomb of that "royal rosebud" of three days old,--Princess
Sophia,--and pondering over that strange curse of Stuarts and Tudors,
when up came a couple, 'Arry and 'Arriet, of the usual cockney
honey-mooning type. They were evidently "doing" the London monuments
in style, and eschewed free days. The bride seemed tired and somewhat
apathetic; she evidently had to be kept severely up to the mark.
"Funny little nipper," said the young man peeping into the cradle:
"It's a won'erful big child for three days old," said the bride, with
some faint show of interest; and, "my! how silly it _is_ dressed! only
fancy, a cap like that there for a byby!" Then they turned to Queen
Elizabeth's effigy: "I don't like the looks of 'er," said the lady,
with something between a shudder and a giggle: "I come over jes' now
so faint," she continued, her pink colour fading: "it's 'ardly' 'elthy
in 'ere with all these corpses, is it?.... Wax-works is much nicer;
they don't give yer the creeps so. Let's go and 'ave a 'bus ride, an'
give the old Johnny the slip. I think we've 'ad our sixpennorth." So
they went, but alas! they had left me their desecration.
Strange, indeed, are Fate's ironies! Queen Elizabeth and her cousin,
Mary Queen of Scots, rest in the two side aisles of Henry VIIth's
chapel in stately tombs, much resembling one another, erected, with
praiseworthy impartiality, to his "dearest mother" and his "dear
sister," by King James I. In the Stuart vault, close to the unhappy
Queen of Scots, is buried Lady Arabella Stuart, "childe of woe"; that
poor prisoner of the Tower, separated from her loved and just-wedded
husband and kept by her cousin James I. in durance vile, till "her
reason left her," and she died. Even in death her disgrace followed
her, when, for fear of being thought too respectful to one "dying out
of royal favour," the authorities dared not even provide her poor body
with an adequate coffin! Poor "Ladie Arbell!" Of all the tragedies of
English history, none are sadder or more cruel than hers, or reflect,
more vividly, the inhumanity of the time.
The interior of Henry VIIth's Chapel,--in its darkened glory of golden
light, with its fretted roof, its "walls wrought into universal
ornament," its many statues and sculptures, and contrasted dark oak
choir stalls, with the banners of their owners, the Knights of the
Bath, hanging overhead,--is very fine. In the centre of the chapel is
the magnificent tomb of Henry VII., the third founder of the Abbey,
who, with much of the feeling of the men who built the Pyramids,
determined this as the splendid mausoleum of his race. The monument,
enclosed by a screen, or "closure," of gilt copper, is by Torregiano.
Here, with Henry, is buried his wife, Elizabeth of York, in marriage
with whom the king finally united the York and Lancaster cause. Hither
was brought in state, in 1502, the body of this last Queen of the
House of York, dead at twenty-seven, her waxen effigy, with
dishevelled hair and Royal robes, lying outside her coffin:
"The first stone of the splendid edifice founded by Henry
VII., and which was to contain all the glory of his race,
had only been laid a month when his wife, Elizabeth of York,
died. She lies in its first grave. More wrote an elegy on
the Queen, who died in giving birth to a child in the
Tower:--
"Adieu, sweetheart! my little daughter late,
Thou shalt, sweet babe, such is thy destiny,
Thy mother never know; for here I lie.
At Westminster, that costly work of yours,
Mine own dear lord, I now shall never see."
In front of the chantry of his grandparents, is the altar-tomb of
Edward VI., the boy-king of sixteen, "flower of the Tudor name"; a
small portion of the frieze of his ancient monument, also by
Torregiano, has survived Republican zeal, and has been let into the
more modern structure.
In one of the five small apsidal chapels at the eastern extremity of
the Abbey is Dean Stanley's fine monument, a recumbent figure, by
Boehm. Here, in the "farthest east" of the Abbey that they so loved
and lived in, he and his wife, Lady Augusta, "devoted servant of her
Queen," rest until the judgment day. The Duke of Buckingham's huge
tomb, that almost blocks another of these small chapels, is
picturesque: and near it, on the floor of the main building, is a blue
slab simply inscribed with the name of "Elizabeth Claypole." Close to
the great shrine of Henry and Elizabeth rests peacefully this
favourite daughter of Oliver Cromwell, the only member of her family
suffered to remain in the Abbey after the Restoration, when the
mouldering bodies of her father and his myrmidons were exhumed and
hanged at Tyburn, showing the furious brutality, unconquered even by
death, of the
--"foolish people, unsounde and ever untreue."
The "great Temple of Silence and Reconciliation," that had condoned so
many even greater wrongs, has, here alone, failed to protect its dead.
Henry VIIth's Chapel is now mainly used for such functions as the
yearly convocation of the bishops, and for early bi-weekly services
for the deanery and its precincts, &c. Its banners are decaying, its
stalls are no longer used by the "Knights of the Bath"; and the last
banner placed here was that of the Duke of Wellington, in 1804.
As Henry VIIth's Chapel is the mausoleum of the Tudors, so is Edward
the Confessor's Chapel that of the Plantagenets. Here the whole space,
indeed, is "paved with kings, queens, and princes, who all wished to
rest as near as possible to the miracle-working shrine." In the royal
ring of tombs, the treasure, the jewels, the gilt-bronze accessories,
and, in some cases, the arms and even the heads of the effigies have
been raided at some past time. The beautiful effigy of Eleanor of
Castile, wife of Edward I, that "queen of good memory" who accompanied
her lord to the Crusades, and in honour to whom nine monumental
crosses were erected in London, still, however, remains intact. "The
beautiful features of the dead queen are expressed in the most serene
quietude; her long hair waves from beneath the circlet on her brow."
Edward I, the greatest of the Plantagenets, lies near on a bare
altar-tomb of grey marble; a plain monument for so great and glorious
a being. On the north side are the words: "Scotorum Malleus" (the
Hammer of the Scots). At the head of Eleanor, his daughter-in-law,
lies Henry III., the "second founder" of the Abbey; "quiet Henry
III., our English Nestor," who reigned fifty-six years; his effigy is
of gilt brass. Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V., the ancestress
of the Tudor line, rests under the altar of her husband's chantry; she
it was whose mummified corpse Pepys records that he kissed in 1668,
"reflecting upon it that I did kiss a queene." Queen Philippa of
Hainault, her husband Edward III., and the luckless Richard II.,
complete the royal circle.
Just in front of the screen that stands at the foot of the Confessor's
shrine, are the Coronation Chairs. The most battered and ancient of
these is the old coronation chair of Edward I, enclosing the famous
"Prophetic Stone" or "Stone of Destiny," of Scone; concerning which
the Scots believed, that wherever it was carried the supreme power
would go with it. Edward I. brought it from Scotland in 1297, in token
of the complete subjugation of that country. Every English monarch
since then has been crowned in this chair, and Queen Victoria used it
at her Jubilee service. The second coronation chair, (made for Queen
Mary II., wife of William III.), is only used when kings and queens
are crowned together: it was used for Queen Adelaide in 1831; and
lately for Queen Alexandra.
Opposite the wooden staircase that descends from the Confessor's
Chapel to the ambulatory below, a small doorway leads to the Islip
Chapel; where on "free" days, the "Wax Effigies" may be seen. This
curious and ghoul-like collection is the outcome of a custom dating
from ancient times; the custom of carrying in funeral procession,
first, the embalmed body open on the bier, and subsequently, the wax
effigy, or portrait model, for the crowd to gaze at; the effigy to
rest beside the tomb or monument. Remains of such effigies, broken,
mutilated and often unrecognisable, are extant even as far back as
Queen Philippa's time; these ghastly fragments are however, not on
general view. Eleven wax figures still remain; dirty, but in a
tolerable state of preservation; they suggest a very grimy and
antiquated Chamber of Horrors. Presumably taken from life, or, in
some cases, from a cast after death, they are invaluable as
contemporary likenesses. Charles II., an unpleasantly yellow, ogling
creature in wig and feathered hat, a ghoulish dandy with the
well-known "drop" in his cheeks, confronts us at the top of a narrow
wooden stair. If it be difficult to imagine his fascinations,--those
of his neighbour, "La Belle Stuart," are a trifle more suggestive; yet
here the lady is, surely, no longer very young; and we can hardly
connect her with the figure of "Britannia" on our pence, for which it
is said she consented to sit as model. Queen Anne's effigy (she died
at fifty) is, possibly, flattering; or it may be a more youthful
portrait. Her sad, pale face, in her gorgeous dress, suggest
remembrances of her eighteen dead children, buried in the Stuart Vault
of Henry VIIth's chapel, about the coffin of the Queen of Scots;
"pressing in and around, with their accumulated weight, the
illustrious dust below." Strange doom of the Stuart race! Were these
people merely human and not royal, would not such afflictions win our
sympathy? We hear of James II.'s faults--history is reticent about his
eleven dead children; of "Good Queen Anne's" virtues,--hardly a word
as to her maternal grief. Poor, kindly, amiable queen! as she sits
here in her tarnished grandeur, she seems, of a truth, overpowered by
the "load,"
--"wellnigh not to be borne,
Of the too great orb of her fate."
Mary II., a big woman, nearly six feet in height, towers over her
small husband, William III., who, nevertheless, stands on a footstool
beside her. Most witch-like of all is the effigy of Queen Elizabeth,
(a restoration of the Chapter, in 1760, of the original figure carried
at her funeral, which had by then fallen to pieces). The portrait is
evidently from a cast taken after death, for it suggests the wasting
of disease, the anguish of suffering. The Queen seems haunted and
hag-ridden; the wizened and weird appearance of the figure is in
horrid contrast with its gay attire; the high-heeled, gold shoes with
rosettes, stomacher covered with jewels, and huge ruff of the time. A
strange experience, indeed, is this "Islip Chapel"; and one that
leaves a lasting impression!
The small chapels round the Confessor's shrine, separated from it by
the Ambulatories, are filled with interesting mediaeval tombs, and some
brasses of great beauty. In one of them is the eighteenth-century
monument of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, by Roubiliac, so popular among
the Abbey sightseers. This theatrical figure of the skeleton Death
hurling a dart at the dying lady, so affrighted, says tradition, an
intending robber, that he fled in terror, leaving his crowbar behind.
And I can never leave the Abbey without admiring that lovely figure of
the beggar girl holding a baby, in the North Transept, that
commemorates, among surrounding politicians and soldiers, the
charities of a certain Mrs. Elizabeth Warren, dead in 1816.
How dazzlingly the sunlight of London gleams upon us, as we leave the
twilight of the Abbey! We may quit it by the small door of "Poet's
Corner," that door where poor, ill-used, foolish Queen Caroline beat
in vain and undignified effort for admittance to and participation in
her cruel husband's coronation; dying, one short fortnight afterwards,
"of a broken heart." From Poet's Corner we enter upon a pleasant green
sward, diversified by the flying buttresses that, in grand blackness
of London smoke, support the Chapter-House; emerging, presently, into
the strange twentieth-century bustle and din of Victoria-Street. Or,
going out through the front entrance in the North Transept,
("Solomon's Porch,") we come upon St. Margaret's Church, that building
which, beautiful in itself, renders such service to the Abbey, by
presenting it to the eye in its true proportions. The ancient
cloisters, part of which date from the early conventual buildings
here, (a Benedictine house connected with the foundation of the first
minster), may be reached, either through a door from the South Aisle,
or through the neighbouring "Dean's Yard," a pleasant square of
old-fashioned houses, where from time immemorial the merry
Westminster boys have played. If the visitor be of an antiquarian, or
historical, turn of mind, he may now penetrate to the old "Chapel of
the Pyx," a remnant of the earliest times, and the ancient
treasure-house of England's Kings; or to the Chapter-House, an
octagonal chamber, now restored to its pristine beauty by judicious
restoration. If, on the contrary, he merely prefer to wander vaguely,
every turn of the cloisters will present to him a new and charming
picture. Especially in spring are these cloisters delightful, when the
old trees of the courts and closes put on their early green, an
innocent green that contrasts so poetically with the crumbling grime
of the ancient walls. It is the eternal contrast of Life and of Death.
In this favoured spot, the Canons' houses, the old School of
Westminster, and the ecclesiastical precincts generally, are all
entangled in a labyrinth of cloisters, difficult to thread, save to
the elect. School and church buildings, cloisters, picturesque byways
and back streets, seem all here inextricably confused; but this only
renders the locality the more attractive. Suddenly, you come upon a
brass door, announcing, in spotless metal, "The Deanery." It is in a
quiet court, built up under the Abbey's very shadow; and here, facing
you, is the famous "Jerusalem Chamber," a most picturesque building
outside, with ancient, crumbling, (happily not "restored,") stones,
and painted glass windows. Here, as told in Shakespeare, King Henry
IVth died:
_King Henry_: "Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?"
_Warwick_: "'Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord."
_King Henry_: "Laud be to God! even there my life must end;
It hath been prophesied to me many years
I should not die but in Jerusalem,
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land;
But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."
_Henry IVth_, Act IV, Sc. 4.
The Deanery is a low gabled building, with a charming old-world air.
Further on is a small enclosure called "Little Cloisters;" a tiny
secluded court where the clergy of the Abbey live. Here is a curious
tablet that records the death of a poor sufferer "who through ye
spotted veil of ye smallpox rendered up his pure and unspotted soul."
Reached from Dean's Yard by a vaulted passage and an ancient gate, is
Little Dean's Yard, where is the classic gateway to Westminster
School.
The cloisters, like the Abbey itself, contain many monuments and
inscriptions. One in particular, "Jane Lister, dear childe, 1688"
charmed Dean Stanley, as recalling, in its simplicity, the early
monuments of the catacombs.
The blackened, time-honoured houses of Dean's Yard are now varied by
some new private mansions. Part of the square is now occupied by
"Church House," a kind of large ecclesiastical club and office. Its
main portion, which extends far back into neighbouring streets and
purlieus, is of cheerful red brick.
The narrow streets of Westminster are curious and interesting, if
occasionally just a trifle "slummy." They are generally old, tortuous,
and picturesque; but the old, as in other parts of London, is
gradually being displaced by the new. Westminster is now much sought
after as a residential neighbourhood; building is increasing there,
and rents are proportionately rising. The houses are often much
shadowed and built up to, yet, here and there, charming views of the
Abbey and its precincts almost compensate for want of light. The too
ubiquitous "flats" and "mansions" are multiplying here as elsewhere;
but Cowley Street has still an old world charm, and Queen Anne's Gate
has its attractions. On the Whitehall side, the late removal of the
obstructing Parliament Street, and the rebuilding of Government
offices, have made great structural alterations.
Just outside the Abbey is "Broad Sanctuary," a name that commemorates
the ancient rights and powers of the Church in protecting political
victims and offenders from the law. "The Sanctuary" in mediaeval times
was a square Norman tower, containing two cruciform chapels. Here did
that poor Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV., seek refuge
twice in her chequered and mournful life; it was on her second flight
hither, in her widowhood, with all her children, that her "young
princes, her tender babes," were dragged away from her to be murdered
by their uncle Richard of Gloucester.
In all the structural alterations of Westminster, its old Hall, built
first by William Rufus, has always mercifully been spared. It was
rebuilt by Richard II., who, if only for the sake of such a monument,
deserved of England a better fate. This Hall, which has witnessed more
tragedies than any other London building, is principally famous to us
as the place of trial of Charles Stuart, King of England, 1649. Here,
with the Naseby banners hanging over his devoted head, Charles showed
all that firmness and control that had been so conspicuously lacking
in his life. Macaulay describes it thus:
"The great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had
resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty
kings: the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of
Bacon and the just absolution of Somers; the hall where the
eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a
victorious party inflamed with just resentment; the hall
where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with
the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame."
[Illustration: _Victoria Tower, Westminster._]
On Barry's enormous Gothic Palace, the Houses of Parliament--Time,
which does so much both for the London buildings and for the opinions
of Londoners,--will no doubt deliver a favourable verdict. Its florid
richness of decoration, unsuitable, say art critics, to such a vast
building, was in imitation of Henry VIIth's miniature chapel opposite.
Its galleries and courts, almost as labyrinthine as the Westminster
cloisters, require a long experience to understand and unravel. That
Sir Charles Barry has worked Westminster Hall into his newer palace,
entitles him to our respect and gratitude. In Old Palace Yard is that
equestrian statue of Richard Coeur-de-Lion that has won so much praise
from the greatest of our art critics. Old Palace Yard, too, has tragic
associations. It was here that the Gunpowder Plot conspirators
suffered death, opposite the windows of the house through which they
had carried the gunpowder into the cellars under the threatened House
of Lords. Here, also, Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in 1618.
Where Barry's palace now stands, stood, from Anglo Saxon days till
Henry VIIIth's time, the ancient palace of the English Kings; and
here, in their very palace, grew the germ of those Houses of
Parliament that gradually came to occupy the entire area. The Star
Chamber, the Painted Chamber, St. Stephen's Chapel, were parts of the
old building made familiar to us by association and by history. The
ancient palace was safe under the shadow of its abbey and sanctuary,
till Henry VIII., who defied both abbey and sanctuary, actuated by
Naboth-like desire of possession, moved his residence to Whitehall.
The Whitehall palace is gone as if it had never been; but that of
Westminster has risen again from its ashes. This sacred spot was the
place of our national liberties; here arose the "Mother of
Parliaments."
Not long ago, I was standing on Westminster Bridge in the gathering
twilight; the misty glory of a fine winter's day. The river edges were
sprinkled with a thin crust of silvery frost, the dulled red sun was
going down in splendour behind a galaxy of pink and golden clouds.
Insensibly, as the light faded, and the mist rose, I seemed to lose
the forms of the modern buildings, and to see, as though in a vision,
the "Thorney Isle" of the dim past. The huge "New Palace of
Westminster," with its towers, was for a moment blotted out.... There,
in the dreamy haze of sunset, I saw
--"the Minster's outlined mass
Rise dim from the morass."
--That, surely, was no longer the Terrace of the House of Commons,
but a marshy bed of osiers and rushes! The dark shadow yonder, across
the broad river, was it any more the grimy, disused Lambeth
landing-stage, or had it changed to the rude primitive boats of the
Saxon fisher-folk, "moored among the bulrush stems"? The clamour
yonder,--was it the shouting of drunken bargees, or merely the voices
of simple peasants, busy with their nets, singing the evening hymn?...
And was that a barge being towed up stream, or was it not, rather, a
boat crossing to the nearer shore, with its unknown, saintly
passenger? Then, suddenly, a blaze of light irradiating the gloom--is
it the miraculous glow from the consecrated Minster, or....
I start, for some one touches me gently on the shoulder. I turn round,
half expecting to see a Saxon hind in leather jerkin and thonged
sandals.... But a modern lamplighter with tall pole pushes past me,
and----
"Please, lydy, gimme suthin' jis' to keep the life in my little byby,"
wails the voice of the professional beggar, breaking the spell, and
disclosing an unhappy, shawled, and croupy infant. "I ain't got a
place ter sleep in this night. Gawd knows I ain't, dear lydy."
The woman's appearance suggests the public-house, and I realise all
the sinfulness of encouraging croupy (and possibly borrowed) babies to
be out at unseasonable hours; nevertheless, the simpler Anglo-Saxon
mood prevails, and the woman gets my sixpence. She departs with husky
blessings ... and a chorus of coughs. "Ah, poor soul," I thought as I
watched the wretched creature disappear to the shadow of some yet
darker archway, "would not you, and such as you, have found better
shrift in old days?--There was the convent;--there the sanctuary;
there the gracious, unquestioning succour; there the majestic houses
of the Father of Mankind and His special servants.... And ever at the
sacred gates sat Mercy, pouring out relief from a never-failing store
to the poor and the suffering; ever within the sacred aisles the
voices of holy men were pealing heavenwards in intercession for the
sins of mankind; and such blessed influences were thought to exhale
around those mysterious precincts, that even the poor outcasts of
society,--the debtor, the felon, and the outlaw--gathered round the
walls as the sick men sought the shadow of the apostles, and lay there
sheltered from the avenging hand, till their sins were washed from off
their souls...."
But the vision has fled--the present once more dominates.... Now the
lights begin, in serried rows and twinkling patterns, to glow along
the shores of the vast and deceptive Armida-palace; the "cruel lights
of London," hiding so much that is grim, sad, and terrible.... There,
grey against a background of rosy opal, the Houses of Parliament rise
from the silvery river in misty grandeur.... Then, gradually the
"nocturne" changes its key; the darkness deepens, and the Westminster
towers begin to loom up blackly against the lurid sky.... Big Ben
booms solemnly through the invading mist.... For how many centuries, I
wondered, has the evening bell resounded over the marshes of Thorney?
Only in the lapse of time it has somewhat changed its note.... Convent
bell,--church bell,--secular bell! It calls now no longer to prayer
and devotion, but to business, or, maybe, pleasure ... as the blaze of
light that now shines from its tower flashes forth the might of the
Temporal power, not the miraculous workings of the Eternal.... Yet,
"the Lord God of Israel, he slumbers not, nor sleeps." ... How loudly
the strokes peal!... One ... two ... three ... four....
"Move on, please," sounds the voice of the burly policeman, evidently
suspecting my motives, and accrediting me with suicidal intentions.
"Can't stay 'ere all night, y'know."
So I "move on"; and Night, and the river-mist, between them envelop,
as with a pall, the enormous city.