FROM THE CONFESSOR TO GEORGE V.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1160, 22 June 1911, Page 10

FROM THE CONFESSOR TO GEORGE V.

Story of 'Westminster Abbzy Westminster Abbey, the scene of English Coronations from William Hie Conqueror to George V, has been well called "that antique pile where Royal heads receive the sacred gold," and at the very mention of Westminster a flood of historic memories rushes upon the mind. Everybody knows where Westminster is, and every Briton gees lo the grand old Abboy there at tho lirst opportunity. The founding of the great church of St. Peter, under whose "high embowered roof" every English King and Queen sinec the Conquest has been crowned, dates back to the impenetrable mists of hoary antiquity. Tradition says a Pagan temple dedicated to Apollo stood erstwhile where the Abbey's stately structure now is reared, but though many long-dead writers favoured the legend, Sir Christopher Wren, when he surveyed tho splendid edifico now standing on'Thorney Island, eonld find no tangible trace of the trustworthiness of this, nor tho later story that Sebert, the East Saxon King, dedicated the first Abbey Church that had existence oil the site to the worship cf the one true God in the early years of the seventh century of our era. Monastic scribes chronicled that that early Christian monarch, whoso bones are'said to have been buried here, ordered Melitas, Prelate of London, to consecrate the church, but that- St. Peter himself came miraculously in tho night preceding the 1 date fixed for the. ceremonial, and dedicated the building to the service of the Most, High. This strange piece nf sunsrnaturalism was believed in by many long after'the'age of miracles had-pnssecl, but the utmost approach to precision tlint therefrom can be deducted is that a church of some, dimensions was erected at Westminster by some of the first converts to. Christianity in Britain. The early building which undoubtedly, whoever reared it, did have existence at. Wostminsler some 1201) years aro, stood where now the eastern angle of tlie Abbey rests, but. the Saxons soon forgot their new .religion, and lapsed into their pristine Paganism. ' " ', Demolished by the Danet. ■Then the. Danes 'came and demolished the-church,' but, after their dynasty had run its days, .Edward the Confessor arose, and with him Westminster Abbey..' Sixteen years the statelv cathedral 'was building. On tho Festival of the Holy Innocents, December 28,. 10G5, the liew Abbsy was dedicated, and the King, who died eight days afterwards, was buried by, his. own desire in front of the High Altar in the Church of which he had just witnessed the completion. From thence forward the story of the. Abbey is clear. The third Henry began to rebuild the Abbey in 1220, ant. tho erection of tho Chapter House was commenced ' thirty years later. Then there was a disastrous fire, and restoration by Edward I and II followed. _ Abbot Littington added several buildings," among them the Jerusalem' Chamber, in tho, reign of the third Edward. Then Henry VII in the dawning days of .the sixteenth centurv raised tho magnificent structure which ' Leyland styled "the miracle of the world." "Now for 'Westminster Abbey or a. peerage," .exclaimed Lord Nelson on the eve Of one of his great naval engagements, and.-lie-named Westminster-Abbey rather than York Minister or St. Paul's, where ho'was Actually buried, because in the .cqnrso of ages Westminster' Abbey had become") the National Mausoleum, tho resting-place of famous .Englishmen of every i-puk .and creed, and every form of 'mind and genius, from' monarch to missionary—like . 'Jlavid Livingstone—from politician do poet, and from noble philanthropists like Earl Shaftesbury to lioulo naturalists:like CharleS'-Darwin. • A Burial . Place of Kinns. : • As a ■ place of. sepulture^of;^owv:Soye-, reigns the-Abbey is of eat.;,. the'loiiib of„ilehry, »V,I J, ,Uio ; 3a l licl-ivard'VJj piety, • .brought from tlib '-Holy'] Land: Here if(,.buried <Etl*yard.:l's little-son Al- : 'foiis'o, to' whom 'lie''gave : the/golden, crown of'tho last : Welsh ! King to haug before tho. .Cqnfessor.'s shriiie, Here ■is buried tho Conqueror :of ;Scotland' and -Wales.'in' a .tomb simple as. a ; soldier's should be.. The Kingr.liad desired that' his'flesh' should'bo. boiled, and his-bones left to b'c carried at the head of tho first English' army ;that invaded' Scotland, while two thousand pounds of silver were stored up, and one hundred, and forty kniglits'chosen to bear liis heart to the Holy Land as soon as" Scotland should be subjugated. Once, every two years tuo tomb was opened, and the wax of the King's cerecloth renewed. But tho conquest of Scotland never came, and the King's heart never visited Palestine a second time. When the House of Lancaster seized the sceptre Edward I and his dying wish were soon'forgotten. The body remained unseen until Horace Walpole's flippant time, when the prying Society of Antiquaries looked in and saw the corpse of the old terror of Scotland, six feet two inches long, wrapped in waxed cloth and cloth of gold. The men with wigs poured in pitch, upon the corpse, and so prevented tho desecrated body from being again . desecrated. Hero also repose the ashes of Edward 111, Richard 11, Henry V, and queens and princes of those faraway times. Henry VIII rests at Windsor. But his three children who attained the. Crown Were buried in their grandfather's .chapel.. Edward VI (without •Royal .monument), Mary, and Elizabeth. Here, .too, lies Mary Stuart. James I and . Anne of DeifTnark are near, and here, too, for a brief space—until the frenzy of the Restoration did cruel and idle violence to the dead—were laid several great men of tho Commonwealth, encircling the tomb of the Great Protector. Charles 11. rests unlionoured in the chapel. His .brother found a grave in his place of exile, but Aline and Mar.v . rejoined their ancestors, and were laid by - William : 11, strange lo say, without a fitting monument. Tho . first iving or th(. ITouso of Hanover sleeps far from the England he never loved. George 11, however, and Queen Caroline, with many of their progeny, fill, a large space .in the centre of the chapel. With theirs end tho line of the'.Royal tombs, George 111 having shown a preference for Windsor since followed by his immediate successors. Well might Beaumont, say: Here's an .acre sown indeed With the richest Royalist seed That the earth .could"ero suck in. Since the first man died of sm. And dull, indeed, must be the spirit which the sceilc presented in Henry Vll's Chapel does not awaken to symmthv The tombs aml monuments with- . n its precincts.not only tell the ordinary tale of the instability of human grandeur, but uiark strikingly the strange vicissitudes' ami-revolutions of our English history. : The Statesman's Aisle. It was not so known, however, until the middle.of the last century. Statesmen, of course, had been buried in the Abbey before this, but their rcs.ingplaces had been determined according to their greater or lesser importance. It seemed destined to become the Admirals Corner, for-more than any other class they had filled its wails and vacant niches. But at last one great name determined its future fate for ever. That name was the Earl of Chatham. 110 was temporarily buried at Hayes, in Kent, while St. Paul's and Westminster contested for his body. .Parliament decided for the Abbey on the ground that lie might be buried "near to the dust of kin's." The voungor Pitt was buried ill his father's' vault 2S years after lie had stood by to witness (ho burial of the great earl. . And there beside him is the monument'of Charles Fox. They were rivals in life, but now in death they are united. A year had not passed when Fox followed' Pitt to the grave. Henry Grathii, the Irish Demosthenes, sleeps here, so'dors Castleroagh. whose memory the Irish abhor; George Canning, he who "called ilipnew world to redress the balance of til? old." lirs here. So dees "Clemency" Canning, bis son. Ihe first Viceroy of India, and another Canning, our "Great Elehi in the East." Here lies Lord Palmerston, who had been a- member of every Government from 180G to ISM, and win had sat in 10 Parliaments, and bron elected to sit in the seventeenth. And here, also, roposo-: the remains of the "Grand Old Man,'-' -William Ewart Gladstoue. Holland, Tieriiey, Wilberforce, . Fowel, Buxton. Mackintosh, Cobdtn, .sic all buried here. Truly, Westminster Abbev contains the ashes of the great.

11l this historic building ficorge V will bo crowned to-dny, ns his ancestors ivcrc before him. It is scarcely possible that Mis .Majesty will realise oil Coroji.ition J)ay such thoughts mid fcelillfrs ;is expressed by Jeremy Taylor, for the aspect of (lie building will have undergone a great change, and it will be filled from floor to ceiling with the /auk ami beauty of an Empire on which the sun never sets. But before laving c.own our lien wo may give that eloquent divine's moralisings on the Abbey and its uses: "Where our kings are crowned their ancestors lio interred, and tliev must walk over llicir grandsiro's heads'to take 'their crown. There is an acre sow|i with Royal seed, the copy of the greatest change from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arcbecl coffin, from living like gods to ily-ing-like men. There is enough to cool the flames of lust, to abate the height of pride, to appease the itch of covetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours' of a lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and iho' peaceful, (ho fortunate and miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust and lay down thr.ir symbol of mortality, and tell all the world that when wo die our ashes shall bo equal to kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains and our crowns shall 1m less."