THE SCENE OF TO-DAY'S GREAT CEREMONY.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11347, 9 August 1902, Page 7

THE SCENE OF TO-DAY'S GREAT CEREMONY.

Westminster Abbey baa. been described as "an elaboration of English history." All the English Coronation since the Norman Conquest have taken place there, the most stirring events of British history and tradition have centred round its storied pile, and there, in the various chapels, sleep England's illustrious dead. To be crowned be- , side the grave of the last Saxon King was a privilege which no English Sovereign has ever dreamt of foregoing. Great privileges consequently accrued to the abbot and brethren of the medieval monastery, one of which was, in some cases, the heavy task of shriving the King's conscience before he was anointed with the holy oil. Edward the Confessor, who reigned from 12/2 to 1307, was the first King who made Westminster Palace his home. The building was enlarged by William Rufus, who added the large hall, which is all that now remains standing of the original structure. King Stephen, whose Coronation banquet was hardly a success, erected the Church of St. Stephen, where Parliament met from ths reign of Edward VI. till 1834, when a great fire destroyed the painted chamber where Edward the Confessor died, and where the death warrant of Charles I. was signed ; the star chamber, with its ceiling that "rivalled the glories of the heavens" ; and the old House of Lords, beneath which Guy Fawkes was discovered amongst his 'barrels of gunpowder. Westminster Hall, which escaped destruction, is now part of the public entranoe to the House of Commons. It was built by William Rufus in the eleventh century, and by Richard 11., and was the scene of the Coronation banquet down to the reign of George IV., While also for many centuries the law courts were held there.

When Peter the Great came to London and was taken to see W T esbm__ster Hall he was much astonished at the sight of so many men in wigs and gowns. When he was told that they were lawyers he was astounded beyond all description. ' lawyers !" he exclaimed; "why, I have only two lawyers in the whole of my empire, and I asm going to hang one of them when I get bae_.." All the great functions of the (middle ages were beld at the Abbey. There Henry TH. welcomed his bride, Eleanor of Provence —who was subsequently hissed and stoned as sbe passed through the streets of London —before, as the historian says, "such a multitude of the nobility of both sexes, such numbers of the religious and such a variety of stage players that the city cf London could scarcely contain them." In 1253 Henry at the same place, was compelled to confirm the ancient charters of English liberty. William Wallace was tried and sentenced at Westminster; Sir Thomas More, the great and wise Lord Chancellor; Strafford, the strong Minister of the weak Charles 1., and Charles himself, heard their death sentences there. Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes were executed within the Abbey precincts, and it was in Westminster gate house that Lovelace, the Cavalier, wrote the lines— Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage. Of Westminster Abbey bsfore the time of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), who is regarded as its founder, very little is known. " One quaint old story," says a recent writer, " tells us that Sebert, King of -the ifest Saxons, founded a minster in the west dedicated to St. Peter, to rival the minster in the east, which his Bishop, Mellitus, was buildingi to the honour of St. Puul. But the ground on which the Abbey stands was at that time a tiny islet overgrown with thorns and surrounded when the tide was high, by dangerous marshes. Sebert died in the year 616. One hundred and seventy years later Offa, the mighty king of Mercia, gave a grant of land to a church which he describes in the charter sometimes as St. Peter's, sometimes as Thorney, and sometimes as Westminster. During this period, while the Isle of Thorns was slowly rising up high and dry out of the mud, flats, the first church at Westminster was probably built." It was destroyed at least once by the interfering Danes, to whom the crossing of marshes was apparently as enjoyable as a picnic. Such" a site, safe from attack, except by water, and abounding in fish, for which tihe monks appear to have had ravenous appetites, and within easy reach of London, seemed made for an abbey. The extraordinarily good works performed by Edward the Confessor when rebuilding the Abbey would requite many volumes to narrate. The Confessor seemto have already received enough praise to satisfy any one man. The Abbey plays an important part, not only in history, but also in general literature, poetry and song. Francis Beaumont was inspired amongst the tombs of the migihty dead to write: — Mortality behold and feare, What a change of flesh is here! Think how many regall bones Sleep within these heaps of stones; Here they He, had reaimes and lands, Who now want strength to stir their hands.