Chapter I: Part 1

"_It is with history as with travelling through a great
country. The by-ways are often the most pleasant._"

*The Story of
Westminster Abbey*

_Being some Account of that Ancient
Foundation, its Builders and
those who Sleep therein._

BY

VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT

AUTHOR OF
"PRISONERS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON," "LORD ROBERTS," ETC.

London
JAMES NISBET & CO., LIMITED
21 BERNERS STREET
1902

*INTRODUCTION*

Geoffrey's father had gone to be the representative of the Mother Country in one of the distant Colonies, and as the boy had "more brains than body," to quote his house-master, his parents had taken him with them for a time, making a long journey first. When he came home to go to Eton, I found him a much-travelled person, brimming over with a host of new ideas and impressions, though otherwise the same original dreamy boy as ever. The inches he had added to his height and his chest testified to the success of the experiment on that score, while it was evident that his active little brain and his big eyes had made the most of their opportunities.

"I seemed to be doing lessons all day," he confided to me, "only they weren't lessons out of a book, and they seemed so much easier to remember. I wish I could always learn things by seeing them!" As the Christmas holidays had to be spent in London, I took Geoffrey at his word, and one morning we wandered down to Westminster Abbey for the ostensible purpose of seeing the Coronation Chair. Of course we saw a great deal more, and one visit led to another.

"It's not a bit like a churchyard, though it is full of monuments," was Geoffrey's criticism one morning. "It is just a book about English history right from the very beginning; and please I want you to write it all down; because now I've seen the places and the monuments and the figures, I shall understand reading about them."

I demurred, but Geoffrey had answers for most of my objections, and here is his view of the matter, imparted to me in fragments and at intervals during the day.

"It's not only what I want," he said, "but I know some of the boys and girls where father is would like it too, especially if you put in plenty of pictures. You see though lots of them have never been over here at all, they always call England home, and they all mean to come some day. And of course when they do come they will go to Westminster Abbey, because it partly belongs to them. I am afraid I can't explain it very well, but what I mean is that now I have learned so many new things about the Abbey, I feel as if I understood ever so much more about history; not the dates and the Acts of Parliament and the dull parts, but the kings and the queens, and the important men who really lived and did things. And all those people must belong to every one who is English, no matter where they live, mustn't they? So if you put them all into a book, every one who reads it will know what to go and look for in the Abbey, and they won't feel quite strange when they get inside the doors, because they will see old friends all around them."

Geoffrey's remarks were suggestive, to say the least of them, and as he spoke I could not help feeling that there were other boys and girls besides those across the seas, and possibly some grown-up people too, who would learn to better know and love the Abbey, with its eight hundred years of unbroken traditions, if they could read its story written in simple language and told in a simple way.

That is at once my excuse and my justification for a book which does not aspire to be technical, exhaustive, or very erudite. Critics will find plenty to criticise, especially in the latter part, for I am well aware that with such a mass of material to draw from, much has been left unsaid that is nevertheless full of interest. Many events have of necessity been crowded into a few lines, when a few chapters would not have done them justice, while I plead guilty to having dwelt at greater length on some names than is perhaps warranted by their actual position in history. Broadly speaking, my desire has been, firstly, to consider the Abbey as including the Palace of Westminster, and to weave men and events connected with both into the story; secondly, to try and make clear how wonderfully representative, how all-embracing, is this glorious old Church, with its continual reminder to us that though former things may pass away, new things for ever spring up to fill the empty places.

Then Geoffrey had his favourites and I had mine, for both of us in our different ways are hero-worshippers, and thus has our selection been made.

For the rest, I can only feel that, despite its shortcomings, the book will not altogether fail in its object if it makes the Abbey a more familiar place to the boys and girls of the Empire, if it helps, in the words of Matthew of Paris, "to keep alive the memory of the good in the past generations, for the which all sacred historians have striven, from Moses down to the deep-souled chroniclers of the years in which we ourselves are living."

Many are the books to which I am deeply indebted, but especially would I mention, among other works, Dart's "History of the Abbey Church" (1723), Widmore's "History of the Church of St. Peter" (1750), Neale and Brayley on "The History and Antiquities of the Abbey" (1818), and portions of the Chronicles, Matthew of Paris, Froissard, and Stowe. Among modern works Dean Stanley's "Memorials" easily takes the first place, as much for the charm of its style as for its general value and admirable classification; and I am especially obliged to Mr. John Murray, the publisher, for allowing me to use two of the copyright plans from this book. Stanley's "Sermons on Special Occasions" are also so closely connected with Westminster Abbey that I have found them very suggestive.

The Deanery Guide is invaluable, and contains a storehouse of information concisely and correctly tabulated. No one should go round the Abbey for the first time without this excellent little work, and I gratefully acknowledge the assistance it has been to me. I must also include the "Annals of Westminster Abbey," by Mrs. Murray Smith; "Westminster Abbey," by W. J. Loftie; "Westminster," by Sir Walter Besant, and "A Little Guide to Westminster," by E. M. Troutbeck.

For more general information and for biography I have turned to the standard histories, especially to Freeman's "Norman Conquest," and to those most useful lists of authorities given in the "Dictionary of National Biography."

VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT.

45 ALBERT GATE, S.W. _February_ 1902.

*CONTENTS*

*PART I*

_WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN THE ABBEY_

I. In the Misty Past
II. The Hallowing of the Abbey
III. Saxons and Normans at Westminster
IV. Through Seven Reigns
V. With Kings and Queens in Edward's Shrine
VI. Edward III. and Queen Philippa
VII. Richard II. and Queen Anne
VIII. Henry V. and his Chantry
IX. The Wars of the Roses and the Third Royal Builder
X. The Abbey and the Reformation
XI. In the Chapel of Henry VII.
XII. From the Stuarts to Our Own Times

*PART II*

_AMONG THE MONUMENTS_

XIII. Puritans and Cavaliers in the Abbey
XIV. Chaucer
XV. Spenser, Addison, and the Poets' Corner
XVI. Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and Sheridan
XVII. The Musicians in the Abbey
XVIII. Wilberforce and his Fellow-Workers
XIX. Pitt and the Statesmen's Corner
XX. Lawrence and the Indian Heroes
XXI. Dickens, Browning, and Tennyson
XXII. A Last Wander Around

*LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*

Henry VII.'s Chapel . . . . . . Frontispiece

Vaulting in Henry VII.'s Chapel

The Confessor's Funeral, from the Bayeux Tapestry

St. Edmund's Chapel

Picture and Tapestry in the Sanctuary

The Confessor's Chapel

Tombs of Edward I. and Henry III.

Entrance to the Chapter House

The Coronation Chair

Pyx Chapel

Tombs of Richard II. and Edward III.

Henry of Lancaster Crowned at Westminster

Henry V.'s Tomb

Plan of Tombs in the Chapel of the Kings

Gates of Henry VII.'s Chapel

Plan of Chapel of Henry VII.

Tomb of Queen Elizabeth

Interior, Looking East

Jerusalem Chamber

Prince Rupert

Oliver Cromwell

Chaucer's Tomb

Poets' Corner

Dr. Samuel Johnson

George Frederick Handel

David Livingstone

Charles Darwin

William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham

Rt. Hon. Warren Hastings

West Transept

Lord Tennyson

The High Altar

ERRATUM.

Page 99, line 1, for 1388 read 1399.

[Transcriber's note: the above erratum has been applied to this text.]

*PART I*

*WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN
THE ABBEY*

*THE STORY OF
WESTMINSTER ABBEY*

*CHAPTER I*

*IN THE MISTY PAST*

"Without the walles of London, uppon the river Thames, there was in Times past, a little monasterie, builded to the honour of God and St. Peter, with a few Benedict monkes in it, under an Abbote serving Christe. Very poore they were, and little was given them for their reliefe. Here the king intended, for that it was near to the famous citie of London, and the river of Thames, that brought in all kinds of merchandizes, from all partes of the worlde, to make his sepulchre: he commanded that of the renters of all his rentes the work should be begunne, in such a sorte, as should become the Prince of the Apostles."

These are the words which gather up the early story of Westminster Abbey.

Try to forget for a few moments that pile of splendid and richly decorated buildings, majestic and dignified in its beauty, which to-day stands out so clearly against the grey of London skies as if conscious of its right to be regarded as the most wondrous treasure belonging to London City, and come back with me a journey of many hundred years, to make the acquaintance of the Abbey as it appeared to the boys and girls who lived under Saxon and Danish, English and Norman, Plantagenet and Tudor kings. For only so will you come to understand how the history of the Abbey has been interwoven with the history of England; how, in days gone by, kings and nobles, commons and people gathered beneath its shadow, making it not only the centre of the nation's life and activity, but also the starting-point from which set out every English sovereign called to the throne, the resting-place to which so many of them were borne back, when they had received their summons to the high court of the Great King.

Then you will feel something more than a sense of wonder as your eyes rest on its beauties. It will speak to you in a language of its own, as it tells you of that past which you must learn to know aright if you are to play your part nobly in present or in future days. It will open your ears so that you will catch echoes of the melodies which float down the ages. It will bring to your heart a thrill of reverence and a thrill of pride, as you realise that this treasure-house of memories is a national inheritance in which you have a share. It will make you familiar with that company of men and women who, by reason of their goodness or their greatness, or their many gifts, so won the respect of their fellows, that in death they were deemed worthy to lie within walls "paved with princes and a royal race." And it will teach you, as no book can teach you, the story of the land we love, the land which all the great men of history--kings, soldiers, statesmen, poets, workers, and thinkers have helped to build up, that it might be ours to inherit and then to pass on to coming generations in unsullied greatness.

Now if we wish to trace back to its first commencement that "little monasterie without the walles of London," we must frankly admit that concerning its earliest history any information we possess is of a very shadowy character. Certain it is that for some centuries a religious building had existed on Thorn-ea, one of those many little islands standing above the reach of the floods which rose at high tide in that part of the Thames where it broadened out into a great marsh. Possibly the Romans had a station at Thorn-ea, as Roman bricks and pieces of mosaic and such remains as a fine Roman coffin have been discovered from time to time, and Bede, our first English historian, states that Lucius, king of Britain, himself a Christian, built a church on Thorney Island about the year A.D. 178. For nearly four hundred years England had remained the conquered province of the Roman Empire. Then the greatness of that power began to wane; Rome was threatened at her own doors by the Goths, and to defend herself she had to call back her legions from Britain and leave the island to its fate. Picts, Scots, and Saxons bore down on it, and the Saxons, "fierce beyond other foes, cunning as they are fierce, the sea-wolves that live on the pillage of the world, to whom the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend," swept all before them. Wherever they went on their victorious way they slaughtered and shattered, and whatever Christian church existed on Thornea they razed to the ground. For awhile the curtain falls, then it rises to show us Sebert, a Christian king of the East Saxons, who lived at the beginning of the seventh century. He was converted and baptized by Mellitus, the Bishop of London, and founded the Minster of St. Paul on the east side of London. But in years to come, when Thornea was no longer a desolate "Isle of Thorns overrun and wild," but the spot above which there towered the Abbey, the Palace and the Monastery all grouped together under the name of the West Minster Foundation, the monks declared that King Sebert had raised a second church in this very place, dedicated to St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles. Furthermore they told how one dark and stormy Sunday night, the eve of the day set apart by Bishop Mellitus for the consecration of the new church, Edric, a fisherman busy at his craft, heard a voice calling him from the opposite side of the river. He went across in his boat, and found there a stranger, who begged to be rowed over to the island. This Edric did with some difficulty, as the waters were rough, and raised with "prodigious rains," and the stranger, landed safely on the island, at once went towards the newly builded church. "Watch well this night, Edric," he said as he left the astonished fisherman. So Edric waited and watched, and in the space of a few moments he saw the empty church ablaze with light, standing out without darkness or shadow in the wild night. Voices, such as he had never heard before, sang chants and hymns:--

"Yonder swelled that strain,
And still the Bride of God, that Church late dark,
Glad of her saintly sponsors laughed and shone,
The radiance ever freshening....
The fisher knew that hour
That with vast concourse of the sons of God
That Church was thronged."--AUBREY DE VERE.

Then the lights faded, the music died away, and once more the stranger stood at Edric's side.

"Give me to eat," he asked of him.

But Edric had as yet caught nothing.

"Cast forth thy nets, for the Fisherman of Galilee hath blessed thee," said the stranger, and then he added, "Tell Mellitus on the morrow what you have seen, and show him the token that I, Peter, have consecrated mine own church at Westminster. For yourself, go out into the river; of fish you shall catch plenty, and many salmon. But the tenth of all you take, you shall pay to my church, and never again shall you seek to catch fish on any Sunday."

With these words the stranger vanished, leaving Edric to ponder on the wonderful things he had seen and heard.

On the morrow, when Bishop Mellitus, accompanied by his priests and singing-boys, arrived to dedicate with all such honour as he could the Minster of Thorney, he was met by Edric, who held in his hand a salmon, and gave the message which had been delivered to him. Furthermore, he pointed out to him the marks of the twelve crosses of consecration, in memory of the twelve Apostles, on the church within and without. And the Bishop believed his words, for he saw everywhere the signs; so he went from the church saying: "The dedication had been performed sufficiently, better and in a more saintly fashion than he could have done." So he held a service of thanksgiving for this token of heavenly favour, and then made his way back to London, to enjoy with a good conscience the fish which Edric had presented to him.

Quaint and picturesque as is the legend, it is clearly nothing but a legend, told by the monks of St. Peter's for various reasons, the most probable being that they were anxious to prove their superiority over the monks of St. Paul's. It is not even a certainty that King Sebert played any part at all in the history of Thorney Island, for in several of the oldest chronicles we are told about "a dweller or citizen of London by name Sebert who was excyted to make a church in the worship of St. Peter in the West End of London, which that time was foregrowen with bushes and bryeres exceedynglye." But, on the whole, I think we may allow the monks to keep King Sebert as their founder, and accept the story that he and his queen were buried in leaden coffins in this early church, that their bodies were removed to the restored church more than four hundred years later, and once again, in the reign of Henry III., were taken from their resting-place to be laid with great ceremony in the tomb which now you can see just inside the south ambulatory of the Abbey.

A century later we find something tangible concerning the Church and Monastery of St. Peter; for Offa, the wise and strong king of Mercia, made certain gifts to it, and in the charter of 785 A.D. confirming these, he spoke of Thorney Island as a "locus terribilis," by which he probably meant "a sacred spot." But after this again there is silence. Once more Britain lay at the mercy of the invaders, this time the fierce Danes, who, as the Saxons had done, swept ruthlessly over the land, devastating and destroying as they went. The church at Thorney was in far too conspicuous a position to escape their notice; they fell upon it in all their fury, and only a few of the monks managed to reach London alive. So were the buildings "reduced to a very mean and low condition."

In time, however, the hand of the Dane was stayed. For a hundred years indeed had they held their sway of terror, till at last they were decisively beaten by Alfred of Wessex, that ideal warrior-king, who first freed his people from their oppressors, and afterwards, laying aside all personal ambition, devoted himself to the task of ruling them wisely and well.

The Peace of Wedmore was signed in 875, and probably the church and monastery of St. Peter were rebuilt soon after, but we know nothing till we come to the days when Dunstan was made Bishop of London, and "prevailed easily with King Edgar (as indeed he did, and ordered all in Church matters during the reign of that Prince), to have the monastery, then in ruins, restored, and that too at the king's expense; that is, the walls and what else remained of the ruins repaired and the place made habitable. And he brought hither from Glastonbury twelve monks to make it a small monastery of the Benedictine Order." Dunstan had grown up from childhood under the shadow of that famous monastery at Glastonbury, where he had been the pupil of the well-learned and deeply religious men who had come over there from Ireland, and when at last, after many years of varied fortunes, he found himself all-powerful, he made it his first object to introduce the strict Benedictine rule wherever it was possible in religious houses. For during the time when the Danes held the upper hand the people had fallen back into many heathen ways, and the priests no longer held the torch of Christ's religion on high, or sought to lead men from darkness to light. Dunstan was full of zeal, and under his strong influence King Edgar made many grants of lands and provisions to the Abbey of St. Peter, in which place Wulsinus, also a monk from Glastonbury, reigned as Abbot.

But once again the monks of Thorney Island were driven forth from their cells and their cloisters, this time also at the hands of the Danes, who, led by Sweyn, "marched through the land, lighting war beacons" as they went on their way, avenging the treacherous massacre of their fellow-countrymen in Wessex.

King Ethelred, the Unready, offered no resistance to the Danes, but let every city save London fall into their hands, and then fled from his kingdom, leaving Sweyn on the throne. However, in Canute, the son of Sweyn, there arose a friend to what remained of the religious house on Thorney, for he, "of a usurper being none of the worst," as an old writer cautiously admits, conceived a great affection for a good monk, Wulnoth, who had been brought up in the monastery there. When he became king, Canute raised Wulnoth to the position of Abbot, granted many favours to him and his house, and there is little doubt that he built for himself a dwelling-place at Thorney so as to be near Wulnoth, whose conversation pleased him, the Abbot being a man of singular sincerity. It was a rest to him to turn from the cares and responsibilities of his kingdom to the peaceful simple life of the Benedictine house. God had called him to the camp and the court, and he had vowed never to spare himself in what was good or needful for his people. But in his latter days it was the calm of the cloister that he loved. Nothing remains of the palace he built there, save the record that it was burned down in a later reign, but it is probable that the well-known incident of the courtiers and the tide took place on Thorney Isle.

Canute was but forty when he died, and with him died the peace which had been such a blessing to his people while he reigned. For he left three sons, and between two of these, Harold and Hardicanute, there was sharp strife as to who should become king of England. First they divided the land, then Harold became sole king. But three years later he died, and was buried in the Church of St. Peter, under the shadow of the walls his father had loved so well. From thence, however, his fierce brother Hardicanute dragged forth his body and had it thrown into the Thames hard by.

Such a deed as this stamps the man, and shows him as he was, cruel, revengeful, and fierce. His people suffered many things at his hands, and when he died of hard drinking at the end of two years, there was a great longing throughout the land to shake off the last trace of a Danish yoke and to have for king one of their own race. Their hearts turned towards Edward, the younger son of Ethelred the Unready, whose life hitherto had been chiefly spent in Normandy, whither he with his mother, Emma of Normandy, afterwards the wife of Canute, had taken refuge when Sweyn had conquered England. Little did they know of him, save that he was of their blood, and had been exiled from his land and his birthright by a foreign foe. But his face was gentle, like that of a woman, with white skin, pink cheeks, blue eyes and golden hair; his voice was low, his manner serious and kind, his ways were simple and he had a reputation for great holiness.

Earl Godwine, the all-powerful noble who had served under Canute and had vainly endeavoured to restrain his sons, was at one with the people of England in this matter, and so it came to pass that "before King Hardicanute buried were, all folk chose Edward to king at London." For awhile Edward hesitated. A throne had no attractions for him, and he was almost a stranger to English manners and English life. But Godwine, who had gone out to Normandy as the bearer of the message from the people, over-persuaded him and brought him back. The Witan met at Gillingham in Dorset to confirm the choice of the citizens of London, and Edward was crowned in Winchester Cathedral on Easter Day with great ceremony, many foreign princes and ambassadors being present to do him honour.

Almost the first work of the new king was to build himself a palace, and the site he chose was one close to the little Benedictine monastery at Thorney Isle, which now was always called Westminster, a place no longer covered with brambles, but well cultivated by the monks, who were skilled tillers of the soil, and rendered green and fertile by the river which flowed hard by. Of the palace as he built it no traces are left to us, it having been all destroyed by fire, but we know it was made very strong, guarded by outer and inner walls fashioned after the manner of a Norman castle, probably nearly resembling the Council Chamber and Banqueting Hall which still remain in the Tower of London, little altered since the day when the early Norman builders completed their work. The Abbot of Westminster at this time was Eadwine, a very prudent man, and he soon attracted the notice of the king, who was by nature far more fit to rule a monastery than a kingdom. Edward was troubled somewhat in his mind, for when an exile in Normandy, he had taken a vow that should it ever please God to restore him to his rightful inheritance, he would go on a pilgrimage to Rome to do honour to St. Peter there; but now that he was safely established on the throne, his council made strong objections to his leaving the country, lest some evil should befall him or the Danes should take advantage of his absence to invade the land, while "the common people, publicly and with tears, showed their concern, entreating him to desist from so dangerous a voyage." Thus the king knew not how to act, desiring ardently to carry out his vow, and yet being unwilling to disregard the wishes of his people. Possibly it was Eadwine, living as he did so near to the king's new palace as to be often consulted by him, who proposed as a way out of the difficulty that a Bishop, with a fitting retinue, should be sent as an ambassador to Pope Leo, to explain to him how Edward was restrained from journeying thither himself, and to ask for a dispensation. This proposal was quickly carried into action.

Pope Leo readily absolved the king from his vow, desiring that instead he should build or restore some monastery to the honour of St. Peter, and make over to the relief of the poor such a sum of money as his journey would have cost him.

Edward was wonderfully pleased at the Pope's message, and resolved to begin at once a building worthy of the great Apostle. What more natural than that he should choose the little monastery at Westminster, which was very poor? It lay near to the city of London, and to that great river up and down which there was so much coming and going of ships. It lay near also to his own palace, and if the present humble buildings gave place to such an edifice as he intended to raise, where could a more suitable burying-place for himself be found when the time came for God to call him hence? Then, too, Abbot Eadwine found great favour in his eyes; and the monks there, under the strict rule of St. Benedict, had won for themselves a good report concerning the simplicity and holiness of their lives. So it seemed fitting that Westminster should be raised from its lowly state and be refashioned in a manner worthy of the saint whose name it bore.

Just at this time, too, Wulsinus, an aged and saintly monk at Worcester, had a wondrous story to tell of a sacred vision vouchsafed to him, in which St. Peter had appeared bidding him to deliver this message to the king. "There is," declared the Apostle, "a place of mine in the west of London, which I chose and love, the name of it being Thorney: which having for the sins of the people been given to the power of the barbarians, from rich is become poor, from stately low, and from honourable is made despicable. This let the king by my command restore and make a dwelling of monks, stately built and well endowed, for it shall be no less than the House of God and the Gate of Heaven."

The vision was made known to Edward, and shortly afterwards he commanded that a tenth of his entire substance, gold, silver, cattle, and all other possessions, should be set aside for the purpose of pulling down the old church and raising a new one from the very foundation.

So from this time the story of the Abbey passes from misty legend into proven history, and it is with Edward, named afterwards "the Confessor," that the glory must rest of having called into being that great religious house, destined in the future to be most closely linked with all that concerned alike the crown and the country.

*CHAPTER II*

*THE HALLOWING OF THE ABBEY*

King Edward had no sooner resolved on the site for his new Abbey Church, than he commenced the task of building it, pressing on the work with zealous eagerness, making it indeed the object of his life. In his character he lacked all those qualities which go to the making of a great king. His prayers and his visions so absorbed him, that in heart and mind he lived in the company of saints and angels, and the duties of government were altogether irksome to him. By birth partly Norman, by education and tastes entirely so, he knew but little of the people over whom he was called to rule, and wherever it was possible he willingly handed over all duties of government to others. Fortunately for himself and for England, there were two men ever at his side, who served both him and his people loyally and well, these being Earl Godwine and his second son, Harold, Earl of the East Saxons. Both were related to him, for Godwine was the father and Harold the brother of Lady Eadgytha, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the king, and both showed themselves to be rulers wise, just, and merciful.

Of the two, Harold was the more beloved by king and country alike; indeed, one chronicler of that time boldly says that Edward's greatest claim to glory lies in the fact that he called Harold to the government of his realm. Tall of stature, beautiful in form and face, he excelled in all things, whether in the battle-field or at the council, and to his many gifts was added a noble and upright character, strong when the need for strength arose, but ever inclined to show mercy and compassion. This was the man on whose shoulders Edward virtually laid all the responsibilities of his realm, while he spent most of his time in his palace at Westminster, so that he might be on the spot to superintend the progress of the building, which went on apace, and to consult with Abbot Edwy as to the form it should take. It was on the church itself, rather than on the buildings of the monastery, that the king lavished his especial care. He meant it to be in the "new style," which he had learnt to love during his exile in Normandy, that land from which came forth those master-builders, many of them priests and scholars, whose handiwork is still to be found alike in Norman and in English minsters, beautiful as ever in its strength, its simplicity, and its dignity. Many were the Norman customs and ideas which Edward brought over with his Norman friends, and some of them were vigorously opposed by Harold, who was passionately English.

But as we go through the country and find one after another of those majestic buildings in grey stone, made so perfect as to defy the centuries, we must gratefully remember that it was King Edward who first of all set up this "new style" as a model in our midst.

One characteristic was, that every great church should be built in the form of a cross; in the centre the nave, at the east end the High Altar, and where the nave merged into the choir cross arms on the right and on the left, and so it was that Westminster was the first cruciform church in England.

This is a description of Edward's building, given to us in a French Life of the king, written very shortly after his death:--

"Now he laid the foundations of the church
With large square blocks of grey stone.
Its foundations are deep,
The front, towards the east he makes round,
The stones are very strong and hard.
In the centre rises a tower
And two at the western front,
And fine and large bells he hangs there.
The pillars and mouldings
Are rich without and within.
At the basis and the capitals
The work rises grand and royal.
Sculptured are the stones
And storied the windows.
All are made with the skill
Of good and loyal workmanship.
And when he finished the work,
He covers the church with lead.
He makes then a Cloister, and Chapter-House in front,
Towards the east, vaulted and round,
Where his ordained ministers
May hold their secret Chapter,
Prater and dorter,
And the officers round about."

Considering the size of Edward's building, for it was very little if any smaller than the Abbey as we know it to-day, it is unlikely that all the parts described by the French chronicler were finished during the lifetime of the king. Indeed, the royal builder seems to have known that his eyes would never rest on his work, perfected as he dreamt of it. His longing therefore was that church and choir might be completed and dedicated, and for the rest he made such munificent gifts in land and money, plate and jewels to the Abbot, that he had no fear but that the building of the monastery with its cloisters and dormitories, infirmary and refectory, would be easily accomplished, even if he did not live to see it.

Signs were not wanting to warn him that the hour of his death was near at hand. He had ever firmly believed in dreams and visions, and of late these had been full of solemn meaning to him. He had seen the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus turning from their right sides to their left, and this he judged to be an omen which told of a great upheaval, of wars, pestilence, and famine, which should last for seventy years. Then, too, the Christ Child had appeared to him as he stood near the High Altar in the newly finished choir, and had told him how soon he was to be called hence. And, most wonderful of all, two pilgrims, just returned from the Holy Land, came to the king with a strange story.

Some time before, Edward was on his way to the dedication of a church he had built to St. John the Evangelist, when he passed a beggar who pleaded with him for his charity in the name of the Apostle of Love. The king carried no money with him, and his much-loved Chamberlain, Hugolin, was not at hand. Yet so tender-hearted was Edward that he could not pass the beggar by, and he took from his hand a ring, "large, royal, and beautiful." The beggar took it and vanished. But these two pilgrims told how while they were in Syria and in great straits, having wandered from their path, an old man with a long, white beard, carrying two lighted tapers, stood in their pathway and questioned them. When they spoke of their country and their king, he became very joyous, and declared how great a love he bore to Edward. Furthermore he led them to a hostel hard by, told them that lie was none other than St. John the Evangelist, and gave them the ring, bidding them to take it back to the king with the assurance that in half a year he should stand at his side in Paradise.

Edward accepted the story with childlike simplicity. He fasted more rigorously, he prayed more earnestly, and he decided to hasten on the hallowing of his church.

The Feast of Christmas was at hand, and the king summoned the Witan for the first time to Westminster, that they might take part in the great ceremony. Little did he dream how through the centuries to come Abbey and Parliament would be welded together.

On Christmas Day, though ill, he, wearing his crown, took part in the services, and was present at the Christmas banquet in the palace. He conversed with the bishops and the nobles, and appointed the feast of the Holy Innocents as the day on which the great event for which he had so longed should take place.

But his strength began to rapidly ebb away, and all who saw him knew him to be a dying man. Too weak to do more than set his signature to the charter of the foundation, he still insisted that the hallowing should take place. Death held no terrors for him; it was but the gate through which he must pass ere he could join that white-robed host of saints and martyrs whose presence he had felt so near to him through life. Only, like Simeon of old, there was one thing he desired before he could say, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." Not till his church was consecrated would the desire of his heart be satisfied.

By his bedside stood his wife, the Lady Eadgytha, herself the founder of a convent church at Wilton. In life he had never loved her overmuch; like his kingdom, she occupied a very secondary place in his thoughts. But womanlike she forgot all that in this moment, and thought only how best she could help and comfort him. Calmly she carried out his every wish, and, acting as his representative, went, accompanied by her two brothers Harold and Garth, to the consecration of the Abbey Church by Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury.

"Magnificently finished was the church," says an old writer, and it is not difficult for us to picture what took place there on this joyous festival. The walls, massive and stately in their simplicity, gleamed in their freshness, and formed a vivid contrast to the colours to be found in the vestments of the bishops and the priests, the robes of the acolytes and singing boys, the distinctive dress of the monks, and the varied costumes of nobles, both Norman and Saxon, who were assembled there. The lights shone on the High Altar, clouds of incense floated around it, and for the first time those walls resounded with chant and hymn and solemn antiphon.

"The work stands finished," murmured the king as the echoes of the music floated across to him.

When the queen returned to his bedside, he lay unconscious, and she, kneeling on the ground, tried to restore to him warmth and life. But for many days he made no sign. Then suddenly, on the last day of the old year, came the final flicker. In a voice clear and strong, he spoke of two holy monks, and all that they had prophesied to him concerning the disaster which would shortly overthrow the land. So earnest were his words that they struck terror into the hearts of all present; only Stigand, the Archbishop, dared declare that the king babbled in delirium. Yet other things did Edward bequeath in those last days. To his friend the Abbot Eadwine he gave his body with the command that it should be laid in the Abbey Church, and to Harold, his brother-in-law, he commended the Lady Eadgytha, who had never failed in her duty towards him, and to whom he desired all honour should be accorded. Neither did he forget his Norman favourites, who had, he declared, left their native land for love of him.

Still there was one all-important bequest to be made, and in that moment Edward seemed to have understood, as he had never understood before, the hopes and longings of his people.

"To thee, Harold, my brother, I commit my kingdom," he said solemnly.

Then once more he became silent till near the end, when he turned to the weeping queen.

"Mourn not, my daughter," he said. "I shall not die, but live. For passing from the country of the dead, I verily hope to behold the good things of the Lord in the land of the living."

So he fell asleep; and to him St. Peter opened the gate of Paradise, and St. John, his own dear one, led him before the Divine Majesty.

The grief of the people was intense, and to it was added a wild terror as to what might now befall the land. Hurriedly, as if in a panic, the royal funeral took place on the Feast of the Epiphany, but one day after the king had breathed his last, and the Abbey became the scene of the deepest mourning. Dirges and penitential psalms filled its walls instead of joyful hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Edward, wrapped around in beautiful robes embroidered by Eadgytha and her maidens, and wearing the pilgrim's ring, was laid in royal state on a bier, and carried by eight men to the Abbey, there to be placed before the high altar.

"Bishops, and a multitude of abbots, priests, and ecclesiastics, with dukes and earls assembled together. A crowd of monks went thither, and innumerable bodies of people. Here psalms resound, the sighs and tears burst out, and in that temple of chastity, that dwelling of virtue, the king is honourably interred in the place appointed by himself."

So, in a halo of sanctity, ended the life and reign of Edward; and remembering all his piety, his humility, the nights of contrition he spent on the cold stones in spite of his wearing sickness, his deep reverence for all things holy, and the noble gifts he made to the Church, men spoke of him rather as a saint than as a king. And indeed as a ruler he left but little mark on his times. Yet the Abbey Church of Westminster is no small memorial for this last king of the Saxons to have bequeathed to the English nation, and for that alone we owe him a debt of gratitude which lends an unfading glory to his name.

Now, you will be wondering how much of the Abbey Church as Edward built it, stands to-day. And alas! there is but little of it left. For when Henry III., who had a special love for the Confessor, resolved to set up some worthy memorial of this "glorious king," he pulled down the greater part of the simple, stately building Edward had so loved, and set up in its place a much more ornate and magnificent piece of work. Edward built to the honour of St. Peter; Henry, to the memory of St. Edward. But generous as was his motive in pulling down that solid Norman building, which otherwise would have been standing firm as ever to-day, we cannot help regretting those vanished Norman arches and massive pillars.

When you stand by the altar rails, you can remember that the bases of the pillars on either side of the altar are those belonging to Edward's church; or if you go from the cloisters, where the south and the east walks join, into the little cloisters, you will pass under an old archway over the entrance, always known as the Confessor's door. Underneath, too, what used to be the ancient dormitory, but is now the great schoolroom of Westminster School, some very massive and solid buildings remain which evidently date from Edward, and there is also again the Chapel of the Pyx, or Chapel of the Chest, where treasures belonging to the sovereign and the monastery were kept. Neither of these latter places are shown to the general public, but when you go to see the Chapter-House, the entrance to which is in the east cloister, you will see to the right of it the doorway of the Pyx Chapel, which is wonderfully strong, and is said to be lined with the skins of Danes. The interior of this, with its stone altar and its solid stone arches, can have undergone very little alteration since Edward's day. You will get, too, what is probably a correct general idea of the whole building as it looked from the outside in those early days if, when you are in the Chapter-House, you look carefully at the pictures which are copied from the Bayeux tapestries. This wonderful piece of work, which was prepared for the rebuilt Cathedral at Bayeux in Normandy, was certainly embroidered during the lifetime of William the Conqueror, and may even have been the work of his wife, Queen Matilda. Most probably it was made in England, and is in itself a valuable addition to the very fragmentary history of those times. All its details seem to be very accurate, copied from what the workers actually saw and knew about, so there is no reason why the picture of the Abbey in that part of the tapestry which shows the funeral of the Confessor should not as accurately represent the building exactly as it stood.

You must notice the part towards the east made round, and the stones which are "very strong and hard," with the main tower and the two smaller towers at the side. And notice too the figure of a man, who is standing on the roof of the Palace, and holding with one hand the weathercock on the east end of the Abbey.

May be the worker only sought to show the buildings of the Abbey and the Palace standing side by side, but all unconsciously that unknown hand prophesied what should be throughout the centuries to come, and told how Church and State should stand firmly linked together.

The members of the Witan had not departed to their homes on the conclusion of the festivities connected with Christmastide and the consecration of the Abbey. They knew the king was dying fast, and that before many days a great duty would rest on them. Rumours may have reached their ears that William of Normandy, cousin to Edward, meant to lay claim to the throne on his death, declaring that the king had promised to make him his heir, and that Harold himself had vowed to support him. But the sturdy Englishmen who formed that council were resolved that never with their consent should a Norman rule over them, and Edward knew full well the man of their choice when he pointed to Harold as their future king. There was an heir to the throne by right of birth, Edgar the Atheling. Still he lived far away unknown to them all, and the days had not yet come when men succeeded to the throne by right of birth alone. On the spot was Harold, the man they loved and trusted, "the shield of the kingdom, the shelter of the oppressed, the judge of the fatherless and the widow."

Edward had done his part. "Death snatched him from the earth, angels bore his white soul to heaven, and in his death he had been glorious, for he had made fast his realm to the noble earl."

The Witan did not hesitate so soon as the throne was theirs to fill, but of their number sent two, who sought out Harold where he stayed, comforting his widowed sister, and offered to him the throne as the man of their choice. Here again the copy of the Bayeux tapestry in the Chapter-House will help you to picture the scene. You will see the two nobles, one bearing the axe of office, the other holding a crown and pointing to the room in which lay Edward, from whence the crown had been borne. And you will see Harold--to quote the vivid words of Mr. Freeman, "at once wistfully and anxiously half drawing back the hand which was stretched forth to grasp the glittering gift. A path of danger lay open before him, and duty, no less than ambition, bade him enter upon the thorny road. And yet the risk had to be run. If he declined the crown, to whom should England offer it? Under him alone could there be the faintest hope that England would offer a united front to either of the invaders who were sure to attack her. The call of patriotism distinctly bade him not to shirk at the last moment from the post to which he had so long looked forward, and which had at last become his own. The first man in England, first in every gift of war and peace, first in the love of his countrymen, first in renown in other lands, was bound to be first alike in honour and in danger."

So Harold was virtually king of England, appointed by Edward, chosen by the Witan. Yet "full king" he was not until before the altar he and his people had given each other their solemn pledges, until "the blessing of the Church and the unction of her highest ministers had made the chosen of the people also the anointed of the Lord."

There was no time to lose. Already the members of the Witan had lingered for a much longer period than was their wont, and they were anxious to return to their homes. But to delay the coronation until their next meeting was too dangerous to be dreamed of. England could not be left without a king. The burial of Edward and the coronation of Harold must take place at once.

So it came to pass that amid unusual sorrow Edward was buried, as I have already described to you, in the dim light of the Epiphany morning, and a few hours later all was in readiness for the solemn coronation rite.

There can be but little doubt that it was in Westminster Abbey that the ceremony took place. Harold, led by two bishops, walked to the high altar followed by a long procession, the singers chanting the prayer that justice and judgment might be the foundations of his throne, that mercy and truth might go before his face. Then the king elect fell on his knees, and the grand strain of the _Te Deum_ rose to the skies.

And now Eldred, Archbishop of Northumberland, turned to the crowd and demanded of the prelates, the Theyns, and the people of England whether it was their will that Harold should be crowned king?

Their answer was a mighty shout of assent, which came from their very hearts. Then Harold, on his oath, swore to protect the Church of God and all Christian people, to forbid wrong and robbery to men of every rank, to strive after justice and mercy in all his judgments; and first the Bishop and afterwards Eldred prayed that the God who had wrought such mighty works, would pour down His best gifts on him chosen to be king of the Angles and Saxons, that he might be faithful as Abraham, gentle as Moses, brave as Joshua, humble as David, wise as Solomon, so that he might protect both the Church and his nation from all visible and invisible foes.