ROYAL TOMBS IN THE ABBEY

Evening Star, Issue 19786, 9 February 1928, Page 4

ROYAL TOMBS IN THE ABBEY

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR’S SHRINE ‘The- Royal and Medieval Tombs in Westminster Abbey ’ was the subject of a lecture delivered at the Surveyors’ Institution, Westminster, by Mr Lawrence E. Tanner, Assistant Keeper of Muniments at Westminster Abbey. The most important of _ the Royal and medieval tombs, he said, was the great shrine of Edward the Confessor, which was made in 12GS by Peter, a Roman of the Cosmati family, at the command of Henry HI. A\ itli the solitary exception of the interesting little ,shrine of St. Candida in the village church of Whitcclmrcli Canonicorum, in Dorset, it was the only shrine in England which survived the Reformation almost untouched, and still contained the body of its saint. It was while praying at the shrine that King Henry IV. had a stroke, and was carried by the terrified monks to the Jerusalem Chamber near by, thus fulfilling the prophecy Unit he would die at Jerusalem. A curious point about the shrine was that on each side, immediately under the cornice and opposite to each other, were removable blocks of stone, and there seemed little reason to doubt that these were deliberately made to enable objects to be passed from one side of the shrine to the other. These would touch the head of the coffin as they passed, and thereby acquire peculiar sanctity. Among the Abbey muniments was an indulgence which mentioned those held in special honor. They were a portion of the Holy Blood, the girdle of the Virgin Mary, the imprint of our Lord’s foot at the Ascension, and the ring given to the Confessor by St. John. The first of these was sent to Henry 111. by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1247. Henry himself bore it barefoot from St. Paul’s _to_ Westminster, and it was “ tho joyful surprise ” which greeted those who wore assembled in the Abbey to witness the knighting of his half-brother William of Valence. The tomb of Henry 111. was designed by Peter the Roman and dated from 1291. It was cr-y to talk of vandalism, blit no ■ doubt hits of mosaic were- cherished as sacred mementos. More disreputable was the “John Byl.son of Hull,’’ who scribbled his name on the tomb in the lilteenth century.

Almost exactly contemporary with Henry ITl.’s tomb was that, of his daughter-in-law, .F,lea nor ot Castile, the wile of Edward I. The gilt bronze effigy by William Torel was, perhaps, the loveliest tiling in the Abbey, and, looking at it, it was not difficult to believe that in her “ stritc ever found a peacemaker, the oppressed protection, and the distressed sympathy.” Edward was inconsolable at her loss, and ho made gilts to the Abbey which enabled masses to be said for her soul and candles to bo kept continuously burning before the tomb for nearly 250 years. To Edward we owed the link which bound the living to_ the dead. The Coronation Chair, in which every Sovereign had been crowned since Edward TL, was made in 1300-1301 to enclose the Stone of Scone. The chair, which was of oak, and cost £5 in those days, was elaborately painted by Master Walter, the King’s painter. The back was covered with names—many, he was afraid, of eighteenth century Westminster boys—and the late Lord Do Eos had left it on record that as a Westminster boy (1809-1815) he slept in the chair one night, but found that his slumbers were much disturbed by rats. - After a reference to other tombs Mr Tanner remarked that even in early days the question of space for future interments was causing concern. Among the Abbey muniments there had been preserved a. document which contained the sworn depositions of several persons who were present on more than one occasion when the Abbey was visited by Henry \I. One of them heard the King say, “Is it not fittvng that I slmlde have a place to be burred in here nyghe to Semt Edward where my fader and all my auncetors beth buryecl?” The abbot suggested that “ it was metcly for hym to lie in the chapell by bis fadre kyng Henry the Vth.” Whereunto he answered and said, “Nay, lei hym alone, he Helh lyko a nobyll prince; T wolle not treble hym.” Others suggested that Queen Eleanor’s tomb might be removed. “ Whereunto the seid kyng . . . shewed his mynde and saide that it myghte not well he in that place.” Then someone said that bis tomb could be erected elsewhere. To which the king “ gave them noono auswere.” Eventually after trying m vain to find a suitable place in the Lsdv Chapel, the King returned to the Confessor’s Chapel, and, leaning on Sir Richard Tnnst, all’s shoulder, lie borrowed a staff, and, pointing to the relic chest on the north of the shrine, asked if it could not be moved. The abbot immediately agreed, whereupon the King “ with his owne feotc mett out the Tengith of vii foot befoore and nyghe the place wher the Eeliques than stoode and commawndyd a masonthan heying present-ealyd Thurske , . . to marke oute there the place where he slndde lie.” In spite of his wishes, the “murdered saint” was buried, not at Westminster, but at Windsor. The tomb of Elizabeth, with the exception of the one designed to hold the bones of Edward V. and his brother, which were found in the Tower in 1674, was the last memorial to a Sovereign erected at Westminster. The funeral of George 11. was the last interment of a Sovereign in the Abbey Church, but in 1925, for the first time for nearly 200 years, the body of a Queen rested in the Abbey for a few brief hours before the interment at Windsor.