History in Stone

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22335, 24 February 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

History in Stone

WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND ITS MONUMENTS

Westminster Abbey is English history in stone. It is an ancient building. • Most of it was consecrated in 1269, but beneath the present floor are parts of the

foundations of the church consecrated 200 years earlier. The later building was erected by

Henry 111 to honour St. Edward the Confessor, whose body was removed to an ornate shrine behind the High Altar, set on a mound of earth brought from the Holy Land. —————

But the greatest glory of the Abbey is more recent, and lies eastward of the Confessor’s shrine. Tbjs is the chapel of Henry VII, the wonder of the world. The first stone was laid in 1503; the last in 1519. King Henry VII made of the building an act of piety; he dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, "in whom hath ever been my*most singulier trust and confidence,"’ and endowed it "perpetually for ever while the world shall endure, that the ancient and ghostly enemy, nor none other evil spirit, have no power to invade me, nor with his terribleness to annoy me.” To make room for this chapel, Henry Ill’s Lady Chapel and the Chapel of Erasmus were demolished, also a house once occupied by Chaucer, and a tavern called the "White Rose.” In a sense the tavern sign still survives, for the White Rose of York, with the Red of Lancaster, may be seen again and again in the carved decorations. The chapel was intended to be a Shrine for “the bodie and reliques of our uncle of blessed memorie. King Henry VI.” That blessed monarch was to have been canonised (made a saint), and his body removed to Westminster.

But lor money reasons this was not done, and he is still uncanonised, and his body remains at Windsor. Henry VII, however, is buried in the chapel, in a tomb constructed by Pietro Torrigiano, an Italian of Florence, assisted by English brass and marble craftsmen. Time has diminished some of its glories, and the altar no longer enshrines a fragment of the True Cross and a leg of St. George. Henry’s mother, who died in the same year, 1509, is also buried there. , She was Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, a very great and public spirited lady.

A conspicuous sight in the chapel to-day is its furnishing for the Knights of the Bath, who are installed there. The knights use the 'tails that monks once used, and their banners hang above them. Their installation in Westminster Abbey dates from 1725. But the most splendid feature of all is the fan-work vaulting of the incomparable and almost unbelievable roof. “A fair sight of marvellous workmanship,” was an Elizabethan opinion of it. “The stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if ,by magic,” wrote Washington Irving, "and the splendid roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.” The chapel, with its aisles, is the memorial of many kings and queens. Edward VI, who died in 1555, is “buried at the head of his grandfather.” A chronicle of the time states that at his funeral “the greatest moan was made for him as ever was heard;”

Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded in 1587, and first buried in Peterborough Cathedral, was brought to the Abbey by her son, James I, and lies in the south aisle. In the north aisle is the tomb of Elizabeth, also erected by James I. but with less magnificence. At Elizabeth’s funeral procession, in 1603, says Stow, “there was such a general sighing,- groaning, and weeping as the like hath not beene seene or knowne in the memory of man.” Elizabeth’s coffin rests on that of her half-sister, Queen Mary, who was “interred without any monuments or other remembrance.” “Partners of the same throne and grave,” as the inscription says, “they sleep in the hope of one resurrection.”

James I, who died in 1625, lies in the nave, and, in 1658, in the central eastern chapel, the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, was given dignified burial. But, with the restoration of Charles 11, the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were disinterred and dishonoured.

In 1685, Charles II “was very discreetly buried at night without any manner of pomp,” as Pepys has recorded, “and soon forgotten after all his vanity.” Other sovereigns buried in the chapel are William of Orange (died 1702), and Mary (died'l694), Queen Anne (died 1714), with her 18 infant children, and George II (died 1760).

Perhaps the most vivid recollection that visitors carry away from the chapel, however, is of the Innocents’ Corner, where are laid the bones of the Princes ip the Tower —Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York—who were murdered, it is believed, by order of their uncle, Richard 111, in 1483. In the same “comer” is the monument that shows Princess Sophia, the three-days-old child of James I, lying in her cradle. . ,