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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 55373
   :PG.Title: The Story of Westminster Abbey
   :PG.Released: 2017-08-16
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Violet Brooke-Hunt
   :DC.Title: The Story of Westminster Abbey
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1902
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE STORY OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY
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      "*It is with history as with travelling through a great
      country.  The by-ways are often the most pleasant.*"

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   .. _`HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL`:

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      HENRY VII's CHAPEL.

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      The Story of
      Westminster Abbey

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      *Being some Account of that Ancient
      Foundation, its Builders and
      those who Sleep therein.*

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      BY

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      VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT

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

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

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   INTRODUCTION

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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."

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VIOLET BROOKE-HUNT.

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45 ALBERT GATE, S.W.
*February* 1902.

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CONTENTS

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`PART I`_

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*WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN THE ABBEY*

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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`_

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`PART II`_

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*AMONG THE MONUMENTS*

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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`_

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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`Henry VII.'s Chapel`_ . . . . . . Frontispiece

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`Vaulting in Henry VII.'s Chapel`_

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`The Confessor's Funeral, from the Bayeux Tapestry`_

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`St. Edmund's Chapel`_

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`Picture and Tapestry in the Sanctuary`_

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`The Confessor's Chapel`_

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`Tombs of Edward I. and Henry III.`_

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`Entrance to the Chapter House`_

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`The Coronation Chair`_

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`Pyx Chapel`_

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`Tombs of Richard II. and Edward III.`_

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`Henry of Lancaster Crowned at Westminster`_

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`Henry V.'s Tomb`_

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`Plan of Tombs in the Chapel of the Kings`_

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`Gates of Henry VII.'s Chapel`_

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`Plan of Chapel of Henry VII.`_

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`Tomb of Queen Elizabeth`_

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`Interior, Looking East`_

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`Jerusalem Chamber`_

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`Prince Rupert`_

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`Oliver Cromwell`_

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`Chaucer's Tomb`_

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`Poets' Corner`_

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`Dr. Samuel Johnson`_

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`George Frederick Handel`_

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`David Livingstone`_

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`Charles Darwin`_

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`William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham`_

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`Rt. Hon. Warren Hastings`_

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`West Transept`_

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`Lord Tennyson`_

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`The High Altar`_

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ERRATUM.

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Page 99, line 1, for 1388 read 1399.

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

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.. _`PART I`:

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   PART I

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   WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN
   THE ABBEY

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.. _`VAULTING IN HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL`:

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   VAULTING IN HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL.

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.. _`IN THE MISTY PAST`:

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   THE STORY OF
   WESTMINSTER ABBEY

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   CHAPTER I

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   IN THE MISTY PAST

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"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.

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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.





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.. _`THE HALLOWING OF THE ABBEY`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE HALLOWING OF THE ABBEY

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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."

.. _`THE CONFESSOR'S FUNERAL, FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY`:

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   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: THE CONFESSOR'S FUNERAL. FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

   THE CONFESSOR'S FUNERAL. FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

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.

So the oath was taken and the prayers were ended.
But there was yet to follow that sacred rite of mystic
meaning, which was enacted as Eldred poured the holy
oil on the head of the king, beseeching God, that as of
old, kings, priests, and prophets were anointed, so now
the oil poured on the head of His servant might be a
true sign of the sanctifying of his heart, a means of
grace for His glory and the welcome of His people.
The crown was placed on his head; the sword was
handed to him; sceptre and rod were given one after
the other into his hands; while with each act the
solemn voice of the Archbishop rose in prayer that a
yet brighter crown in the heavenly country might be
his, that he might ever with the sword defend the
Church and the people against all adversaries, that his
sceptre might be a sceptre of righteousness, and that he
who had been anointed with the holy oil might stand
fast in the strength of God.

Thus was Harold set upon the royal throne; on his
head was the crown, in his hand the sceptre, his sword
was borne by two chiefs, "while all the people saw him
with wonder and delight."

Directly the coronation ceremony was over, the Mass
was celebrated.  Then all adjourned to the Palace hard
by, and a great banquet was held on this Twelfth Night,
the last day of the Christmas festival, into which so
many and varied scenes had been crowded.

Little had those members of the Witan dreamt when
they set out from their homes, of all that would have
have happened ere they returned—Christmas festivities
and meetings of the Council; the consecration of the
new church; the death of King Edward; the choosing
of King Harold; the burying of the old king and the
crowning of the new, all had followed one after the
other in those short wintry days.

And the Abbey itself had been the centre round
which all these events had taken place.

It could never sink back into being a mere Benedictine
monastery of seventy monks, attached to the
Church King Edward had built.  A greater future lay
before it, and I doubt not that the Abbot Eadwine,
shrewd man that he was, conscious of the charter which
gave him and his successors a peculiar independence,
rested well satisfied on that old Christmas night.





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.. _`SAXONS AND NORMANS AT WESTMINSTER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   SAXONS AND NORMANS AT WESTMINSTER

.. class:: center

   "Cynge Harold lytel stilnesse gehed."

.. vspace:: 2

King Harold, like King Edward, spent much more
time in London, and consequently at Westminster, than
any of his predecessors had done, though not for the
same reason.  Edward was reluctant to leave the
building in which he took so deep an interest;
Harold, knowing full well the unsettled state of the
kingdom he had to defend, held that London, "guarded
alike by strong walls and the strong hearts of its
citizens," was the best starting-point for any expedition he
might be called on to undertake.  So instead of spending
the Easter Feast at Winchester, as had been a
long-established custom, he came to Westminster and there
assembled the Witan Gemot.  He had faithfully
carried out every request made to him by the dying
King Edward.  In every way his position was
stronger than it had been three months before, and this
Easter festival saw him at the zenith of his power.
Suddenly a sign appeared from Heaven, which brought
terror and desolation to the hearts of men.  The Easter
hymns were still being sung in the Abbey, when "the
sky became ablaze with a mighty mass of flame, which
some called a comet."  This appearance brought about
a state of panic in those days of superstition.  First one
interpreter and then another stood up to declare what
it might portend, and to prophesy of terrible events
about to be accomplished.  One and all said the same,
the sword of the Lord was drawn by this token, and
who should tell where it was destined to fall?

Over the seas in Normandy, William had heard in
simple but sufficient language of all that had taken place
at Westminster in those first days of the year 1066.  A
messenger, who had come on an English ship, brought
the news, "King Edward has ended his days, and Earl
Harold is raised to the kindom."

William's wrath was intense.  "Oft times he laced,
and as oft unlaced his mantle; he spake to no man, and
no man dared speak to him."  The crown of England he
declared was his and his alone, promised to him by
Edward years before, when he went on a visit to the
English court, and Harold, shipwrecked on the coast of
Normandy, had sworn to support his claim.  At once he
sent a message, or probably several messengers to Harold,
demanding from him the crown.  The Englishman's
answer was given with no uncertain sound.  Had
William really been chosen king by Edward and the Witan,
he would have supported him, but things were all
changed now, and he, Harold, could not give up a crown
set on his head by the will of the nation, except at the
nation's will.  William then decided on an appeal to
force.  His people, bold and adventurous, rallied to his
side, and set about preparing a fleet in which to cross
the seas, and his chief counsellor, the Abbot Lanfranc,
obtained for him from Rome the sanction and blessing
of the Church on his undertaking, representing that it
would be for the spiritual welfare of England.  For
even in those early days England had shown an
independence and a restiveness under Roman control which
could not be allowed to continue unrebuked.

William was indeed a formidable foe, and he was
not the worst or only foe, for Harold was suddenly
called on to face his own brother, Tostig, who had turned
against him, demanding half the kingdom, and who to
enforce this claim had enlisted on his side Harald
Hardrada, the warrior king of Norway, whose fame as
a fighter was known from Iceland to Africa.  With an
army, these two landed in the North and moved on to
York, fighting their way victoriously.  But from London
Harold was marching at the head of his house-carls,
drawing into his train ready volunteers.  As they came
along the Roman road with a speed almost incredible,
their hearts beating high at the thought of an encounter
with traitors and a foreign foe, they told one another how
King Edward had appeared to Harold on the night
before their start, bidding him be strong and very
courageous, for the victory would be surely his.  On
the 25th of September the armies faced each other, and
there came a messenger from the enemy's camp offering
terms.  Harold's answer was characteristic.  To his
brother he promised peace and forgiveness, "for he is
an Englishman.  But to Harald Hardrada, who is a
foreigner and an enemy, I will give him six feet of
English ground; or, as I hear he is taller than most men,
I will give him seven feet.  But this is all the English
ground he will get from me."

The battle was a fierce one and bravely fought, but
the Norsemen were utterly vanquished, and Harald
Hardrada was left sleeping on that seven feet of ground
which the king had offered him.  As was his wont,
Harold of England showed nothing but generosity to
those of the conquered Norsemen who remained, and
sent them back in four-and-twenty ships to their own
shores.  Then with the remnants of his own army he
set out by the way he had come to London, having first
summoned a hasty Witan Gemot where he was, to tell
them that the Normans had landed in the South.  He
told them of the work which lay before them, and they
answered him with a shout, "The heart of Harold failed
not, and the hearts of the Englishmen beat with their
king."

October the 5th found him in London at his palace
of Westminster, and here to his standard flocked brave
and trusty men from the shires of the east, the south,
and the west, impelled by a passionate patriotism.  Even
from the cloisters there came willing soldiers, for many
of the monks refused to stay and pray in safety when
they could strike a blow for England on the battle-field.

.. _`ST. EDMUND'S CHAPEL`:

.. figure:: images/img-036.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: S. EDMUND'S CHAPEL. SHEWING TOMB OF JOHN OF ELTHAM, YOUNGER SON OF EDWARD II.

   \S. EDMUND'S CHAPEL. SHEWING TOMB OF JOHN OF ELTHAM, YOUNGER SON OF EDWARD II.

There was much coming and going of armed men
round Westminster during those days of preparation,
and it was to Westminster Palace that Huon Margot, a
monk, came, bearing a message to the king from Duke
William.  The message was a demand for submission, a
challenge, and Harold proudly sent back the answer,
"Tell the Duke I will seek him out and do battle with
him."  Then Gurth, the brother of Harold, found him
in the Palace, and thus besought him—

"Fair brother, remain here, but give me your troops;
I will take the adventure upon me and will fight
William.  And while I fight the Normans, do you
scour the country, burn the houses, destroy the villages,
and carry away all the swine, goats, and cattle, that
they may not find food or anything wherewith to
subsist."

All the men who stood round in the chamber said—

"This is good counsel.  Let the king follow it."

But Harold sturdily refused to hold back from danger
which he was called upon to face, neither would he
allow the country to be harried.

"Never," he declared, "will I burn an English village
or an English house; never will I harm the lands or
goods of any Englishman.  How could I injure the people
I should govern?  How could I harass those I would
fain see thrive under my rule?"

And a few hours later, the king at the head of his
army marched through Kent and Sussex to the high
ground of Senlac, where he pitched his camp, within
seven miles of the Norman invaders.

I am trying to tell you of scenes in history which are
linked with the Abbey or Palace of Westminster, so I
must not dwell on the days that followed.  Harold, the
fearless soldier, lay dead beneath the standard he had so
gallantly defended, and around him lay the flower of his
race, faithful to the end.  The men who remained were
leaderless and hopeless; they could no more offer
resistance to the ruthless Norman soldiers, and at last
they gave way.

William did not immediately march on London.
Tidings came that the citizens of London were eager
to fight again.  So he first subdued the country around,
and forced Dover, Winchester, and Canterbury into
submission.  Then harrying and burning wherever he was
opposed, he made his way through Surrey, Hampshire,
and Berkshire, purposing to lay waste the north and east
of London, as he had done the south and west.  He did
his work all too well; even the stout hearts of the
Londoners quailed, and at Berkhamstead a deputation came
to him owning him as conqueror, laying the crown at
his feet.  It was a bitter moment for the men who
undertook this shameful errand, but no other way was
open to them in that dark hour, and immediately
arrangements were made for the coronation ceremony.
William, who consistently professed the deepest respect
for the memory of King Edward, his "predecessor,"
declared that he would only be crowned in Westminster,
"which peculiar respect," says Dart, "seems not only to
arise from the pretence of his title from him, but the
better to ingratiate himself with the people, with whom
he stood but indifferent, by expressing extraordinary
reverence for their buried favourite."

On Christmas Day, in the year 1066, the Abbey
once again saw a great gathering.  A guard of Norman
soldiers waited without; inside mingled together wise
men of two races, Saxon and Norman.  Before the
high altar, on the gravestone of the Confessor, stood
the Conqueror, on one side a Norman Bishop, on the
other, Eldred, Archbishop of York.  Once again the monks
chanted the *Te Deum*, and then followed an innovation.
For half that multitude assembled there knew not
the English language, and the question as to whether
they would have this man to be their king had to be
twice asked, once in English, once in Norman.

"Yea, yea, King William," was the answer, given
with a shout which so startled the Norman soldiers
outside, that at once they imagined some disturbance was
being made, or some insult was intended to their king.
In their wild anger, they began to set fire to the
buildings near at hand, and as the flames dashed upwards,
the astonished people rushed out of the Abbey to see
what all this might portend.  So the body of the great
church was empty, and in dramatic solitude the
Archbishop went on with the service, surrounded only by the
monks.  William was greatly overcome as he stood thus
alone before the altar; there was something terrible in
the loneliness and the stillness of the deserted church.
He trembled exceedingly, and could scarce command his
voice.  It seems as if he had shrunk from wearing the
crown of Edward, or still older crown of Alfred, "made
of gould wyer works, sett with slight stones and two little
bells," for he had caused to be brought a new crown,
very heavy with gems, and this was the diadem set on
his head by Eldred, after he had made the usual vows,
with one specially added, in which he solemnly undertook
to rule his people as well as the best of the kings
who had gone before him.

Still from without came the sounds of tumult and
excitement, still within the gleaming choir the solemn
service was continued to the end, and thus was William
the Norman crowned and anointed, made king indeed of
England, but never king of the English people.

Westminster did not fare ill under the new king.
Abbot Eadwine was discreet and wise, with much of the
courtier in him, and he managed to preserve himself and
his house in the good graces of the Conqueror.  The
building went steadily on, for money was not wanting,
it was no part of William's policy to hinder any of the
work undertaken by the Confessor.  On the contrary, he
confirmed all the charters, and when Abbot Eadwine
gracefully yielded to him the lands of Windsor, which
the king desired to enjoy, it being very convenient; for
his retirement to hunting, he gave in exchange many
other lands, besides making rich offerings.  Moreover
William set a rich pall over Edward's grave, presented
a cloth of great splendour with two caskets of gold for
the altar, and attended Mass in the Abbey Church most
diligently.

Eadwine, the last Saxon Abbot, died in 1071, and
was buried in the cloisters; he lay near to the very
centre of all the life in the monastery which had
so developed under his wise rule.  Here in the cloisters
the monks walked and talked, studied and transcribed;
here the novices and the boy scholars sought
their recreation; here was the great refectory, and close
by the infirmary and St. Catherine's Chapel; overhead
was the long bare dormitory.  Surely it was fitting that
the Abbots of Westminster should be laid in the
cloisters, and so they continued to be till the year 1222.
You will find the names of many of them recut on the
stone benches in the south cloister, if you look for
them, only unfortunately this was very carelessly done,
and in many cases the names are put over the wrong
graves.  It seems, too, that Eadwine's body was moved
from the south cloister and laid in the passage leading
to the Chapter-House, close to the faithful Hugolin, who
was the Chamberlain and close friend of the Confessor.

William appointed in Eadwine's place Geoffrey, a
Norman, but so evil were his ways that at the end of
four years, "having been first admonished by the king
and Archbishop Lanfranc, but not amending upon the
admonition," he was deprived and sent back to
Normandy in disgrace, where he died.  He was followed by
Vitelus, Abbot of Bernay, held by William to be wise
and a man of business, as indeed it was necessary the
ruler of a large monastery should be, and among other
things "being a stirring man, he let the monk Sulcardus,
the best pen they had belonging to the Abbey, draw up
the history of the place to give it a figure in the world."

During the rule of Geoffrey, the Lady Eadgytha,
widow of Harold, died at Winchester, and was buried
with great honour in the tomb of her husband, a tomb
which each year became more and more of a holy place
to the people of England.  Under the hard rule of
William, who, in the words of that honest chronicler
Master Richard Wuce, "was eke so stark a man and
wroth that no man durst do anything against his will,
beyond all metes stark to those who withstood his will,"
the hearts of the people turned to that tomb of an
English king, as the source from which they might hope
for deliverance, as the spot of comfort from whence came
signs from heaven that the saintly king still watched
over his sorely tried people.

On one day, a council of Norman clergy was assembled
in St. Catherine's Chapel at Westminster, their
object being to deprive the holy Wulstan, Bishop of
Worcester, of his see, on the ground that "he was a
very idiot, being unacquainted with the French
language."  Lanfranc ordered him to deliver up his staff and ring.
But Wulstan was before all else an Englishman.

"Truly, my Lord Bishop," said he, "you claim from
me the pastoral staff which it was not you who crave
me.  In deference to your judgment I resign it, though
not to you, but to Saint Edward, by whose authority I
received it."

Then he walked to the tomb of the glorious king.

"Thou knowest," he said in Saxon, "how reluctantly
I undertook this burden.  Only to thee can I resign the
charge of those thou didst entrust to my care.  Receive
thou my staff; give it to whomsoever thou mayest
choose."

Thus speaking, he struck his staff into the stone tomb,
and behold it sank in and stood erect, so that they who
stood by could not move it neither to the right nor the
left.  Word was sent to Lanfranc, who had remained
with the council in St. Catherine's Chapel, and he
indignantly sent Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, to put
an end to this foolish story and carry the staff away.
But Gundulph was powerless to move it, and on his
evidence Lanfranc himself came with the king.  Still
every effort was in vain, and at last Lanfranc
commanded Wulstan to take back the staff.

"My Lord and king," entreated the Bishop, "I pray
thee give now thy decision."  And the staff yielded
itself into his hands.

So the king and the Archbishop, frightened at what
they had seen, ran up to Wulstan, begging his forgiveness,
and he, having learned from the Lord to be meek
and humble of heart, threw himself in his turn upon
his knees.

I need not tell you that this is but a legend, and
between legend and history there is a great gulf fixed.
But it is through legends that we often learn the beliefs
and ideas held by the mass of the people, and this story
is one of many which explains how the tomb of Edward
became a holy shrine.

William of Normandy was not buried in the Abbey;
he did not even die in the country it had been his great
ambition to conquer and possess.  For in making war
against the king of France, he set fire to the town of
Nantes, and his horse, treading on a red ember, plunged
violently, throwing him to the ground, with such injury
to himself that he never recovered, but breathed his last
in a monastery at Rouen.

A hard ruler, indeed, he had been, yet Master Wace,
whom "himself looked on him and somewhile dwelt in
his herd," bids us remember that he was "mild to good
men that loved God, and made such good peace in the
land that a man might travel over the kingdom with
his bosom full of gold unhurt, and no man durst stay
another man."

"Wa, la wa!  May God Almighty have mild-heartedness
on his soul, and give him forgiveness of
his sins.  And may men after their goodness choose the
good in him withal fleeing from the evil, as they go on
their way that leadeth to God's kingdom."

Such are the kindly words in which Master Wace
ends his "Chronicle of the Conquest."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THROUGH SEVEN REIGNS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THROUGH SEVEN REIGNS

.. vspace:: 2

I am going to take you along very quickly through the
reigns of the Norman kings—William Rufus, Henry I,
Stephen, Henry II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and John,
and not make a long pause till we come to the year
1216, when Henry III., the royal builder of the Abbey
as we know it, came to the throne.  The Church of
Westminster, from the days of the Norman Conquest
onwards, became, as if by right, the coronation church,
"the head, crown, and diadem of the kingdom;" and
Oxford, Winchester, and St. Paul's, which had
witnessed so many coronations in the time of the Saxon
kings, were no more thought of for this purpose.  But
rather curiously none of the Norman kings were buried
here.  Of a foreign race they were, and some among
them rested in foreign tombs—the Conqueror at Caen,
Henry II. and Coeur de Lion at Fontrevault, while Rufus,
killed in the New Forest, was carried to Winchester,
Henry I. to Reading, Stephen to Faversham, and John
to Worcester, this last-named king having left
instructions that he should be dressed like a monk and
laid next good Bishop Wulstan, hoping by this
subterfuge to take in the devil!

The fact, however, of the Abbey being the recognised
place of coronation gave the Abbot a somewhat unique
position, for he it was who had to prepare the king for
the great ceremonial, though the actual crowning became
the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  All the
regalia, too, such as the crown of Alfred, the sceptre,
the ring of Edward the Confessor, were kept at
Westminster till the seventeenth century, when all that
remained of them after the destructive days of the
Commonwealth found a safer resting-place in the Tower
of London.  Yet still are they carried to the Abbey the
night before a coronation and placed for the night in
the Jerusalem Chamber, while the Dean and Canons of
Westminster still have the proud privilege of standing
within the altar rails by the Archbishop.

William Rufus had all the worst qualities of his
father without his sense of justice, and he was a cruel,
selfish king, but he left his mark on Westminster,
though not on the Abbey.  The Palace was not large
enough for his requirements, and he intended to rebuild
it on a great scale.  However he accomplished little
beyond the Great Hall, which to-day is known as
Westminster Hall, and leads to the Houses of Parliament.

.. _`PICTURE AND TAPESTRY IN THE SANCTUARY`:

.. figure:: images/img-047.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: PICTURE AND TAPESTRY IN THE SANCTUARY.

   PICTURE AND TAPESTRY IN THE SANCTUARY.

This hall, repaired and strengthened by Richard II. and
George IV., is in its way as full of interest as the
Abbey, for here always took place the banquet, a part of
the coronation ceremony, here were councils held, and here
was the scene of many a great state trial.  Thanks to
the affection felt by Rufus for Gilbert the Abbot, the
monastery was not taxed in the heavy way which had
once seemed likely during a reign under which the
whole nation groaned, and indeed the king granted some
new charters to it, for the belief steadily grew that the
burying-place of King Edward was the burial-place of a
saint, and this general feeling of veneration could not be
without its influence on Rufus.  A new dignity, if that
were needed, became attached to the royal tomb at this
time, for on its being opened by Lanfranc, Archbishop
of Canterbury, in company with many other bishops,
the king was found to be sleeping there as peacefully
as if he had been buried but a few hours, with no sign
of change on his fair white face.

On the news that Rufus had been found dead in the
new royal forest he had himself appropriated, his
younger brother Henry arrived in hot haste at
Westminster, to urge that he should be chosen and crowned
king before his eldest brother, Robert, could get over
from Normandy.  He was better known, and therefore
better liked, than Robert, so it came about as he wished;
but as delay was thought to be dangerous, the ceremony
was quite simple, "good swords being more thought of
than costly robes."  The fact, however, that Henry
came to the council, asking for their support, gave them
a power over him which they were ready to seize,
and before the deed was finally done they obtained
several important pledges from him as they met him
in Westminster Hall.  This partly explains, too, the
reason why Henry sought to win the goodwill of the
English nobles and the English people, for if Robert
had come over from Normandy to fight for the crown,
the Norman nobles could not all have been counted on.
And so, to please the English, he determined to marry a
princess of their race, the Princess Matilda, daughter of
Malcolm of Scotland, and great-grand-daughter of King
Edmund Ironside.  Only one obstacle stood in the way,
Matilda was a nun in the Abbey of Ramsey, but a nun
against her will, forced to take the veil by her aunt
Christina.  "In her presence I wore the veil with grief
and indignation," she said, "but as soon as I could get
out of her sight I did snatch it from my head, fling it
on the ground, and trample it under foot.  That was
the way, and none other, in which I was veiled."

Anselm, the large-hearted Archbishop of Canterbury,
declared that a vow so taken was not binding, and to
the great joy of the nation it was decided that she
should be married and crowned on the same day in the
Abbey.  It was an English crowd which gathered to
Westminster on that great Sunday of November 11, and
the shouts of Englishmen resounded the heartfelt "Yea,
yea," when Anselm from the pulpit asked them if they
would that this marriage should take place.

Matilda, who was "a very mirror of piety and
humility," and who was, moreover, shy at the sight of
the "prodigious multitude" assembled to gaze on her,
blushed a rosy red, the colour of her crimson robes, and
was greatly overcome.  She took up her residence at
Westminster Palace, and the fame of her good deeds
cemented still more closely the affection felt for her by
her subjects.  Henry loyally redeemed the promise he
had made before his coronation, and this was put down
entirely to the influence of his queen.

"Many are the good laws that were made in England
through Matilda, the good queen, as I understand,"
wrote the monk Robert of Gloucester.

To the Abbey adjoining her palace she was a generous
benefactress.  Each day in Lent she went thither barefoot
clothed in hair-cloth, and herself waited on the
poorest beggars who sought the charity of the monks,
even washing their feet.

"Madam, for Godde's love, is this well ado?" asked
a courtier.

"Sir," answered the Queen, "our Lord Himself example
gave for so to do."

Both Henry and his eldest son William were away in
Normandy when this good queen died at Westminster
in the year 1115, after eighteen years of happy married
life "withouten strife," and she was buried close to her
great-uncle, Edward the Confessor, all people mourning
her with sad tears.

Henry died in the year 1135, leaving no son, as
Prince William had been drowned in making an heroic
effort to save his sister Mary, and England was still so
much under foreign influence, that instead of his being
succeeded by his daughter Matilda or Maud, his nephew,
Stephen of Blois, was chosen king and crowned on
St. Stephen's Day.  In spite of this, a constant struggle
went on against the supporters of Maud, who were
many, and the whole reign was one of misery and
misrule for England.

"King Henry had given peace to the realm and had
been as a father to his people, but now was the whole
kingdom thrown into trouble and confusion."

Westminster suffered many things at the king's hands,
for he forced on the monastery an Abbot, Gervase de Blois,
who "managed very ill, disposing of many Abbey lands,
and being so lavish with the goods of the monastery,
that the monks were afraid he would have made away
even with the regalia," while many Abbey lands were
ravished and laid bare as the result of the civil warfare
between the Empress Maud and Stephen.

At last a compact was made that Stephen should
reign for his lifetime, and that Maud's son, Henry of
Anjou, should succeed him; and one year after this had
been agreed upon, Stephen died, lamented by no one.
Henry was a strong character, a great lover of justice
and order; indeed, he may be called the father of English
law, and to him we owe the system of trial by jury.
He found two great powers in the land, the Church and
the Barons, and he determined to hold in check the
influence of both.

Westminster was fortunate in having for Abbot,
Lawrence, a man of much learning, and what was even
more important, of much tact, for he managed to keep
on excellent terms with the king, whom he persuaded
to repair and cover with lead the roofs of the building.
It was he who gained for the Abbey the great honour
for which the whole nation had been longing, and as the
result of a sermon he preached before the king, the nobles,
and a great assembly of people, an embassy was sent to
Rome, praying that Edward the Confessor might be
raised to the honour of a saint.  More than once had
this appeal been made and refused, but now the Pope,
who feared Henry and had a great regard for Lawrence,
decreed that "this glorious light was to be no more hid
from the world."

Perhaps, too, the large sum of money, willingly
offered by pious Englishmen, carried some little weight.

At midnight on October 13, 1163, Abbot Lawrence
with the Archbishop Thomas à Beckett opened the
grave of Edward, and the "body of the glorious king,
who was henceforth to be honoured on earth as he was
glorified in heaven," was removed into a "precious
coffin," made ready by the order of Henry II.  The
celebrated "pilgrim ring" Lawrence drew from his finger
to keep in the monastery as a precious relic, and the
anniversary of this day was solemnly kept for many a
long year.

The king was so anxious to make safe the succession
of his eldest son, Prince Henry, that he insisted on his
being crowned during his lifetime.  But Prince Henry
did not live to succeed to the throne, and it was
Richard Coeur de Lion who was crowned as the next
English king.  A very vivid account has come down
to us through the Chronicle of De Hoveden describing
the doings on this day, telling how from the Palace to
the Abbey the ground was covered with woollen cloth
over which walked the long procession as it wended
its way to the ringing of bells, the swinging of censers,
lighted tapers shining everywhere.  Then before the
altar Duke Richard swore that he would all the days
of his life observe peace, honour, and reverence towards
God and the Holy Church, that he would put an end
to any bad laws or customs that were in his kingdom,
and confirm all good laws, in token of which Baldwin
of Canterbury anointed him with oil on his head,
his breast, and his limbs to signify glory, valour, and
knowledge, afterwards placing the crown on his head.

But the people who were gathered together for the
ceremony were filled with great forebodings of evil at
the sight of a bat who fluttered round the king, though
it was the bright part of the day, and at the sound of
a peal of bells which rang mysteriously.  And when
some among them caught sight of a party of Jews,
whose curiosity had overcome their prudence, Jews
and witches having been commanded by a royal
proclamation not to come near the Abbey or Palace lest
they should work evil to the king, they fell upon
them and beat them to death, thus laying the train
for a series of horrible Jewish massacres throughout
the country.

Richard, as you know, devoted himself to fighting
the battles of the Cross in Palestine, and England was
left to the mercy and the conflicts of the Barons.

When he fell in battle, his brother John succeeded
in getting himself elected king, though by this time
a right of inheritance had been established, and there
was living Arthur, the son of John's elder brother,
and therefore the lawful heir.  Never perhaps has a
king been crowned in Westminster who was so false
to God, to man, and to his people.  Even on his
coronation day he jeered and mocked during the
celebration of the Mass, and through the years which
followed no gleam of light breaks through his deeds
of treachery, cruelty, and crime.  "Hell itself is
defiled by his presence," wrote the uncompromising
chronicler of his reign.

Although the desperate Barons had forced him to sign
the Great Charter, they had no belief that he would
abide by it, and certain of them therefore entered into
treaty with Louis, the Dauphin of France, who came
over to England prepared to accept the crown.  Just
at this moment, however, John died, and the French
Prince was too hasty in assuming that the throne
was his, for he began to divide up the kingdom
and give lands to his French followers in a manner
which roused the indignation of the stalwart Barons.
John had left a little son of ten.  Why not make him
king, they reasoned?  The Council could rule the land,
and for adviser to the little Prince, who would be
more likely to carry out the spirit of the Great
Charter than that wise and trusted noble, William,
Earl of Pembroke?  So after a short struggle, Louis,
who had taken possession of the Abbey and many
other places in London, went back to France, and
the boy king, who had been hurriedly crowned at
Gloucester to make him secure, was crowned again in
Westminster with great rejoicings on the Whit-Sunday
of 1220.  Once more the people of London felt
that peace and prosperity would now be theirs, and
never before had a coronation day been kept with
such spontaneous joy.

The Abbot of Westminster was a certain Humez, a
Norman, "the last of that country," Widmore tells us
with glee, and he was anxious that the Abbey should
not be behind the other great churches of the day
through not having a special chapel dedicated to the
Virgin Mary.  For everywhere cathedrals and abbeys
were being enlarged, and the Lady Chapel, stretching
behind the high altar, held the place of honour.

Humez had obtained the necessary money from certain
pious persons, and with much wisdom begged that the
boy king should lay the foundation-stone of this new
chapel on his coronation day.  Henry, who from his
childhood was deeply religious, readily agreed; perhaps
it was on that day that the dream came to him of
leaving behind him some such memorial as this of
King Edward.  Certainly it was from watching the
building of this Lady Chapel, with its light pointed
arches and its graceful form, representing as it did
the "new style," that his dream took shape, so that
twenty-five years later he commenced the work of
completely rebuilding Edward's massive Abbey on the
beautiful Early English lines.  His reverence for the
memory of Edward almost amounted to worship, and
like his ancestor—for he proudly claimed to be of
Edward's stock through Queen Matilda—his religion
was more to him than anything else, for he spent
the greater part of his days praying or in attending
masses.  But he was also a great lover of all that was
costly and beautiful, and having married a French
Princess, he had become familiar with many of the
magnificent buildings of France.  So he felt that the
Abbey with its stately simplicity was not splendid
enough to hold the shrine of the sainted king, and
he determined to raise a building which was to be
"the most lovable thing in Christendom."

It is for giving us this most lovable thing that we
owe to Henry III. a deep measure of gratitude, and yet
heavy was the price paid for it at the time by those who,
being weak and defenceless, were powerless to resist the
heavy taxes laid on them.  The new Abbey was paid
for by the people: sometimes money was cruelly extorted
from them; sometimes a great fair was arranged in the
fields near Westminster, and all the shops in the
neighbourhood were commanded to be closed for many days,
so that the crowds would be forced to flock round the
Abbey and spend their money there; sometimes large
sums were extorted from the Jews; sometimes the king
was driven as a last resource to pawning the Abbey
jewels and treasures.  At all costs money had to be
found, and money in abundance, for Henry's ideas were
all on the most lavish scale, and could not be carried
out with less than £500,000 of our money.

So, in every sense of the word, the Abbey is the church
of the nation, built with the gold of the people.  And
there is another striking fact to remember.  Gradually
the clear-headed and patriotic among the Barons were
beginning to realise that though they had made the
king swear to observe the Great Charter, they had no
power of putting into laws which had to be observed
the different provisions of that Charter; and though
Henry was neither cruel nor tyrannical by nature, as his
father had been, he was weak, impulsive, changeable,
and extravagant.  His idea of power lay in the carrying
out of his magnificent ideas at Westminster, regardless
of the cost, till, says Matthew of Paris severely, "Oh
shame! his folly, by frequent repetition, came to be
looked on as a matter of course."

This is not the place to tell you at length how one
of the barons, Simon de Montfort by name, fought the
good fight by means of which the Charter became a
living power in the land; you must read of him in
other books, and learn how he came to be called the
father of English Parliaments.  What I want you to
remember now is that it was he who determined to
check the unjust taxation which was being imposed by
Henry in his efforts to raise the money for the building
of the Abbey.  "Let the king," he said, "call together
the barons and citizens, and let him tell them how much
money it is that he wants, and what he wants it for,
and then it will be for the barons and people to say
how much money they will give, and how it shall be
collected.  If the king asks what is right and just, then
what he asks will be given to him."

There was only one way by which king and people
could thus come face to face—Henry must summon to
Westminster a Parliament to discuss those matters with
him, and it must be a Parliament not made up of
bishops and barons only; all England must be represented.

So in the year 1265 the first real Parliament
assembled at Westminster—twenty-three barons, a hundred
and twenty churchmen, two knights from every county,
and two burgesses from every town.

To-day the Houses of Parliament and Westminster
Abbey stand side by side, a truly wondrous group of
carved grey stone; but as you look at them, I want you
to remember how it was through the building of the
Abbey that the first Parliament which at all represented
the people of England came into being.

Can you not imagine some of the scenes which took
place round Westminster during those days?  Can you
not fancy the interest and anxiety with which those
knights and burghers, many of them perhaps in London
for the first time, walked around the nearly completed
building, struck with amazement that so fair a thing
could be fashioned out of stone?  How closely they
must have watched the workmen, some of them
foreigners of great skill, but many of them entirely
English, masons, carpenters, builders, carvers, all doing
their part, all carrying out the designs of that
unknown architect, now held to be an English master of
the work, who had been sent by the king of France
to learn there the new style.  How eagerly they must
have chatted with the monks, who during this rebuilding
were living in the most uncomfortable manner, but
who nevertheless would be ready enough to take the
strangers inside, and point out to them one beauty
after another.  How their eyes must have been dazzled
by the wealth of colour and the exquisite carvings in
marble, stone, and oak.  How they must have marvelled
at the fairy lightness of those arches, the delicate
tracery of the windows, the glint and glitter of the
glass mosaic, the soft colours of the marble.

For in very truth this building of King Henry's
exceeded everything they had dreamt of or imagined.
In every way the new Abbey was far larger than the
old, though a limit was set on its length by the Lady
Chapel of Abbot Humez, which is now known to you
as the Chapel of Henry VII.  The old form of the
Cross was kept, but a ring of chapels encircled the
east end, while transepts, aisles, and cloisters were all
made longer and far loftier.  But the central point of
magnificence was the shrine of Edward the Confessor,
which lay immediately behind the high altar, made
to stand even higher than the altar by a mound of
earth said to have been brought all the way from the
Holy Land.

On the 13th of October 1269, the choir and east
end being all complete, the coffin of King Edward,
which had been kept during the rebuilding, first in the
"quire where the monks do sing," and then in the
Palace of Westminster, was solemnly carried back to
the Abbey by the king and his brother, his two sons
and many nobles, followed by a vast procession of
clergy and citizens, and placed with great pomp and
ceremony in the newly-made shrine.

The next time you go into Edward the Confessor's
Chapel, you must wander back in imagination
for more than six hundred years, and picture to
yourself that solemn service of the "Translation of
St. Edward."

.. _`THE CONFESSOR'S CHAPEL`:

.. figure:: images/img-059.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: THE CONFESSOR'S CHAPEL.

   THE CONFESSOR'S CHAPEL.

The workmen had done their work right well, and
we know at least the names of some of them; for Peter,
the Roman citizen who wrought the mosaic, has left
an inscription telling us that he finished the work in
1269; and among the Fabric Rolls of Westminster we
can find accounts sent in by Robert de Beverley, mason;
Brother Ralph, the convert; Alexander, the carpenter;
and Adam Stretton, clerk of the works, "for the wages
of masons serving before the shrine, carpenters, painters,
plumbers, glaziers, inferior workmen, and workmen sent
to divers places."

The tomb of the Confessor was in the middle of
the shrine, set on high "as a light to the church,"
and was divided into three parts: the base, in the
niches of which sick people were to be laid, that the
Saint might heal them; the tomb itself, of soft Purbeck
marble, rich with mosaic work of coloured gems and
stones, and above this a shrine of pure gold set with
all manner of costly jewels, sapphires, emeralds, and
rubies, whilst images in gold and silver of the Virgin
and the Holy Child, John the Evangelist and Peter,
stood around as guardian spirits.

Much of the old magnificence has vanished; time
has wrought its work, but more deadly than time have
been the ravages of covetous men who longed to possess
its treasure, or violent men who believed it to be little
better than an idol set up in their midst.

Yet it has a mellow beauty of its own, a dignity
enhanced rather than lessened by the traces everywhere
apparent of its former glory, and we see in it not only
an exquisite piece of work, but also that shrine which,
like a magnet, drew so many of England's kings and
queens to rest beneath its shadow.

.. _`TOMBS OF EDWARD I. AND HENRY III.`:

.. figure:: images/img-061.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: TOMBS OF EDWARD I. AND HENRY III.

   TOMBS OF EDWARD I. AND HENRY III.





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.. _`WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN EDWARD'S SHRINE`:

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   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   WITH KINGS AND QUEENS IN EDWARD'S SHRINE

.. vspace:: 2

As you stand in the Confessor's shrine, you will see all
around you the tombs of kings and queens, and in the
next chapters I am going to tell you something of those
who were thought worthy to lie in a place of such high
honour.

Henry III. was not at first buried in this chapel,
on which he had lavished so much thought and
wealth.  He died in the November of 1272, and was
carried to Westminster, the Knights Templars, who had
given some precious gifts to the Abbey, undertaking to
provide the coffin and to pay all the expenses of the
funeral, that it might be on a scale befitting one who
had been so princely in his dealings with the Church
and all matters concerning religion.  There is something
pathetic in the ending of Henry's life, for though he had
reigned nearly sixty years, he had not won the love or
trust of his people, and it has been truly said that "in
his time England did nothing great except against
him."  The old king was alone when the end came, for
his son Edward was away on a Crusade, and his brother,
Richard, had died the year before, broken-hearted at the
murder of his son Henry by a son of Simon de Montfort.
But the Templars spared nothing that could make the
funeral costly, so that, as the solemn procession passed
along, men declared that "the king shone more
magnificent dead than he had appeared when living."

He was laid before the altar, in the very place from
which the coffin of Edward the Confessor had been
removed, for it was considered that special virtues still
hovered round that spot.

Very different must the new choir have looked,
with its immense height, its delicate work, and its
mysterious flying buttresses, to the low, simple choir
of the Confessor's day.  Round the High Altar itself
was a blaze of colour, for all the mosaic work on the
floor, which you still can see, was freshly brought from
Rome by the Abbot Ware, who had gone there to do
homage to the Pope, the monks of Westminster having
refused to hold themselves subject to the Bishop of
London, and it was dazzling in its richness.  Quarrels
between the monks of Westminster and other dignitaries
seem to have occurred very often in those days, as the
monks, somewhat elated at the royal favours showered
upon their church, were inclined to be overbearing
and to resent any authority; while once at least during
Henry's reign there had been a serious fracas between
the "citizens of London" and the "men of Westminster"
on the occasion of some sports.  For when the "men of
London" seemed to be getting the mastery, the Baylif of
Westminster, with some men, harnessed themselves and
fell to fighting, so wounding the citizens that they
resolved to be revenged.  Spurred on by one Constantine
Fitz-Henulfe, they issued forth without any order, fought
a civil battle round Westminster, and pulled down as
many houses as they could belonging to the Abbot and
Baylif.  Nor when Constantine was captured would he
express any sorrow for his misdeeds.  On the contrary,
he affirmed gladly that "he had done it all, and had
done much less than he ought to have done."  The fact
that King Henry, among other punishments, forced
the citizens to pay many thousand marks for this raid,
did not tend to soften down the ill-feeling which
existed.

Even at Henry's funeral the dignity of the Abbot had
to be asserted, for he refused to allow the Archbishop to
read the service until he had signed a paper explaining
that his so officiating was not to be made a precedent,
or to rob the Abbot of any privileges.

So, with quarrels going on around him to the end,
King Henry was buried, and the Earl of Gloucester,
laying his hand on the coffin, solemnly swore fealty
to "Lord Edward," the lawful heir, then far away in
Palestine.

Edward I. was in a special sense a child of Westminster,
for he had been born in the Palace there, and
had been christened Edward after the Confessor.  With
all his faults, Henry was devoted to his wife and to his
children, and the young Edward spent much more of his
boyhood with his parents than was usual in those days.
He was delicate too, and often his mother had greatly
upset the old monks in the monastery at Beaulieu by
going to nurse him there when he had fallen ill while
on a visit.  He was kept during his boyhood under her
watchful eye at Westminster.  Probably he was taught
by one of the Westminster monks, and though we hear
that he was "fonder of actions than of books," he learned
to speak eloquently in French and English and to
understand Latin.  As he grew stronger he showed a great
liking for all outdoor sports, riding, hawking, hunting,
and sword exercises, and with his cousin Henry, the son
of Richard of Cornwall, his young French uncles, who
had taken up their abode at the Court, and the sons of
Simon de Montfort, he played many a game and had
many a boyish adventure round Westminster.  His
affection for the place never failed.  Had not he
watched it growing in grace and beauty, and was there
a single corner of it with which he was not familiar?
The deeply religious influence of King Henry, too, could
not fail to leave its mark on his son, who, in spite of
being his opposite in every other way, had always an
intense reverence for sacred things.  Henry was the
dreamer, Edward the doer, but among the many
fine qualities the young Prince possessed, one of the
most charming was his loyalty and patience towards his
father, which had never wavered, however sorely he had
been tried by Henry's utter incapacity to hold the reins
of government.

It was nearly two years after the death of Henry
before Edward was able to reach England, and yet all
had gone on quietly during the interval.  The new
king had been proclaimed; the assembly of prelates,
knights of the shire and citizens had met, had solemnly
bound themselves by the same oath as that taken by
the Earl of Gloucester at Henry's funeral, and three
men, the Archbishop of York, Robert Mortimer, Lord of
the Welsh Marches, and Robert Burnell, all trusty
friends of Edward, were appointed to carry on the
government for the time being.

On August 1, 1272, Edward landed at Dover, and on
August 19 he was crowned with his dearly loved wife
Eleanor, who had been at his side through all the perilous
years which were past.  "Nothing ought to part those
whom God has joined, and the way to heaven was as
near from Palestine as from England," she had declared.

Great were the rejoicings in London that day, for the
beautiful Eleanor had a warm place in all hearts, and
of Edward all had high hopes.  "In face and form he
is comely.  By a head and shoulders he outstrips most
every man," the citizens said as they marked his white
determined face, his eyes, which, though soft, could flash
like fire, his hair the colour of burnished gold, and his
well-knit figure straight as a dart.

And throughout his reign the nation understood
Edward.  His was a great simple character which
appealed to them.  His faults were the faults of a strong
man who will not be turned aside from his purpose;
his ambitions were bound up in England only.  To
make her a strong united kingdom was the dream of his
life, and though in this cause, he fought relentlessly,
alike against Llewellyn of Wales and Wallace of Scotland,
he strove with equal vigour to give his people good
laws, fair taxation, and just representation.  "That
which touches all should be approved by all," was his
creed, and it was he who developed the Parliaments of
Simon de Montfort, until, under his guidance, what was
called the Model Parliament was assembled at
Westminster in 1295.  So large was this new assembly,
that it was no longer an easy matter for all to sit
together in the hall of Westminster Palace, and a
division was made, the Barons remaining in the Palace,
and the Commons, or representatives of the people,
using the wonderful new Chapter-House, which formed
part of Henry III.'s work in the cloisters of the Abbey.
This Chapter-House was the place in which the monks,
with the Abbot and all the other dignitaries of the
Abbey, met once a week for conference.  Here
complaints were listened to, here misdeeds were inquired
into, here, tied to the central pillar, those older monks
who had offended were publicly flogged.  It was
designed for a meeting-place, with its rows of stone
benches and its stall at the east end for the high
officials; and what more natural than that the Abbot
should offer it to the king as the place where the
Parliament should assemble?

.. _`ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPTER HOUSE`:

.. figure:: images/img-067.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPTER HOUSE.

   ENTRANCE TO THE CHAPTER HOUSE.

The story goes that the prudent Abbot made one
condition with the offer, and stipulated that the
Chapter-House, being lent to the king for the use of the
Commons, the Crown should keep it in repair.  No doubt
the story is true, nor can we blame Abbot Wace for
making the best terms he could.  Can you not see
the knights and the burgesses making their way up
the cloisters, where the monks were working or walking,
through the door, with its wealth of gold and of
carving, past the graves of Chamberlain Hugelin, with his
wife and daughter, Abbot Eadwyn, and the chronicler
Seculdus, into that "incomparable building" which Henry
had determined should be unequalled in beauty?  Handsome
indeed had been their old meeting-place, but this
exceeded anything they had ever seen.  "In the centre
rose a slender pillar of grey marble, or rather a group
of shafts held together by moulded bauds, from which
seemed to spring the vaulted roof; the building was
eight-sided, in itself a new idea; the walls were richly painted
with frescoes setting forth the glories revealed to
St. John in his vision of that New Jerusalem, the city not
built with hands; the large windows had glass of wondrous
colours; saints stood in their niches, and from within
and without the Virgin Mother watched over the place."

Edward I., throughout his life, held the Abbey in
great reverence, and besides carrying on his father's
work and completing the choir stalls, he caused several
magnificent tombs to be set up there.  Always a
devoted son, he resolved that the tomb of Henry
III. should lack nothing in beauty; so he sent to Purbeck
for the marble, to Rome for the gold and glass mosaics,
and to these he added the precious stones of jasper to
be brought from France, while to a certain William
Torrel he entrusted the work of carving in gilt bronze
the fine effigy of the dead king, which, save that it has
been robbed of its jewels, is still in perfect preservation,
stately in its simplicity.  To this tomb the body of
Henry was removed; only his heart, as he had himself
desired, was carried to the Abbey of Fontrevault in France,
there to be placed near to where his mother, his uncle,
Richard Coeur de Lion, and others of his race lay buried.

In the same year the greatest blow of his life fell on
Edward, for after thirty-five years of the happiest married
life, Queen Eleanor, "the good merciful lady beloved of
all the English," died of slow fever near Lincoln.

"I loved her with a great love while she lived; I
cannot cease to love her while she is no more," said
Edward.  And his people loved him all the more for
his deep grief.  He came straight away from his journey
to Scotland, to follow that sad funeral procession which
slowly made its way to Westminster, and at each place
where they paused to rest, he caused a cross to be
erected to the memory of the "Chère Reine," one of
which, as you know, stood close to Charing Cross station.
She was buried in King Edward's Chapel at the feet of
Henry III., and once more the skilful hands of William
Torrel, "goldsmith and citizen of London," fashioned
in gilt copper a wonderfully wrought figure, "the finest
in any country" a great authority has declared, which
shows us a sweet strong face at peace with God, a
sleeping form, queenly and beautiful.  Another English
workman, Master Thomas of Leghton, made the screen of
wrought-iron which protects this monument, round which
run the words—

   |  "Ici Gost Alinor, jadis Reine de Engleterre
   |  Femme Al Rey Edward, Fiz le Rey Henri
   |  E Fille Al Rey de Espagne, Contesse de Puntiff
   |  Del Alme de li Dieu pur sa pitié eyt merci.
   |                                          Amen."

"The king, who loved her well, as she deserved, gave
to the monastery seven or eight manors, to the yearly
value of two hundred pounds, for religious services, and
for an anniversary to be performed for her, and for wax
tapers to be kept burning on her tomb both day and
night."

.. _`THE CORONATION CHAIR`:

.. figure:: images/img-069.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: THE CORONATION CHAIR.

   THE CORONATION CHAIR.

It being in the chapel of the Confessor that she who
was dearer than all else was laid, he brought here, as
if to lay it at her feet, his greatest trophy wrested from
the Scots, the famous stone of Scone, on which so many
kings of Scotland had been crowned.  This was put at
his command into a chair by a certain Walter of Durham,
who was paid one hundred shillings for his work, with
an extra sum of about £2, 12s. for carving, painting, and
gilding two small leopards, for the wages of carpenters
and painters, and for colours and gold employed.

When you look at this chair, remember that on it
every sovereign of England has been crowned from the
reign of Edward II.

Another trophy had been offered to the shrine of the
Confessor a few years before, and that was the golden
crown of the conquered Welsh Prince Llewellyn.  The
offering had been solemnly made by Edward's own little
son, Alphonso, a boy of twelve, who, dressed from head to
foot in chain-armour, and wearing a long cloak, followed
by nobles and knights, had laid it down at the feet
of the blessed King Edward, the jewels thereof being
applied to adorn the tomb.  In the same year the little
prince died, and was buried in this chapel of the kings.

More than one great disturbance agitated the Abbey
during the later years of Edward's reign.  First a fire,
which began in the Palace, spread rapidly and caused
much damage to parts of the building; then there were
several quarrels with some of the Begging Friars, a new
Order which was highly disapproved of by the regular
monks, for those begging orders got a great reputation
among the people, and likewise were in high favour with
the Court of Rome.  But worst of all, a terrible scandal
arose, which ended in forty of the Westminster monks
being thrown into prison.

King Edward, when he went to Scotland, left all his
jewels and treasures, with a sum of money, amounting
all told to the value of £100,000, in the care of the
Abbot, who carefully put away most of this charge in
the strongly made Chapel of the Pyx, and the rest in
the Refectory.  In the April of 1303 a great quantity
of treasure was stolen, and the king, very wroth, ordered
a strict investigation to be made, which ended in the
discovery that a certain small merchant or pedlar, named
Roger Podlicote, had got into the Abbey during the
night on several occasions, and had carried away his
booty in bags.  That he could have got in unaided was
impossible; he must have had accomplices within the
Abbey.  Besides, the Sacrist was found with a gold
cup, which he said he had picked up outside
St. Margaret's Church.  William the Palmer, keeper of the
Palace, declared he had noticed the Sacrist, the
sub-Prior, and many of the monks, coming and going
unusually often, carrying bags and hampers; while John
Abbas, a workman, told how Alexander the monk had
caused him to make tools of a special design, threatening
to kill him if he spoke aught of this.

.. _`PYX CHAPEL`:

.. figure:: images/img-070.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: PYX CHAPEL.

   PYX CHAPEL.

Podlicote, a most adventurous spirit, made a full
confession, in which he generously took all the blame
upon himself, saying he knew the ways of the Abbey
and where the treasury was; and being poor, he had
thought how easily he could obtain the goods which were
in the Refectory, which he had seen.  But considering
that this wholesale robbery went on for many months,
it is impossible to believe that Master Podlicote's nightly
visits to the Abbey through a window in the
Chapter-House were quite unknown to the monks, and no one
had much pity for them when they were committed to
the Tower for two years.  Still it was a great disgrace
to fall on a monastery which held its head so high;
besides, to quote Widmore, "it was a peculiar baseness
to wrong a prince who had been so kind to their house,
had readily renewed their charters, had improved some
of them, and had been very bountiful in giving them
lands of great value."

One action taken by the Abbot at this time, however,
greatly pleased both the king and the people.  For a
certain brave knight, John de St. John, governor for
Edward in Aquitaine, having been decoyed and taken
prisoner by the French, and being too poor to pay the
large ransom they demanded, was presented with a
generous offering by Abbot Wenlock, "a commendable
and charitable thing of public service," comments an old
writer, "seeing that monasteries did not always lay out
their money so well as for the liberty of a person in
high command, a gallant man whom, while fighting
valiantly for his prince, the chances of war had made
prisoner."  Edward's eventful reign was drawing to a
close; already he was the oldest king who had ruled
England, and his life had been a hard one.  He had
never spared himself in mind or body; he had never
wavered in his great aims; and his favourite motto,
*Pactum serva*, "Keep troth," words he had desired should
be carved upon his tomb, was the motto to which he had
consistently been faithful.  And yet over these closing
years a dark cloud hung, for his son, young Edward,
showed no signs of rising to his great responsibilities.
Tall and handsome to behold, he was weak, changeable,
and careless, given to gambling and low society, a tool
in the hands of first one and then another of his
worthless friends.  The old king knew all too well how useless
it was to dream that his son would carry on the work to
which he had devoted himself, but the knowledge was a
veritable cup of bitterness.  He had always sought to
inspire him with high thoughts, great enthusiasms, and
now, as the end loomed on the horizon, he made one
more effort, and appealed to the deepest feelings of the
young prince.  At the festival of Whitsuntide in
Westminster Abbey, he admitted his son, with many other
young nobles, to the order of knighthood, and throughout
one long night the Prince of Wales kept his vigil before
the altar at the shrine of the Confessor.  Then at the
royal banquet which followed, Edward, though so weak
he could barely stand, swore solemnly to march at once
to Scotland to crush the rebellion which had broken
out afresh when all seemed peaceful, and to avenge the
death of Comyn, who had been murdered in the church
at Dumfries by Robert Bruce.  The Scotsmen had not
kept troth, and the king was fierce with indignation.
But to this vow Edward added another, which was
made also by the prince and all the newly dubbed
knights in the ball at Westminster; they pledged
themselves that so soon as Robert Bruce was conquered, they
would no more bear arms against Christendom, but
would go to the Holy Land and conquer the infidel, or
die in the attempt to do so.

Without delay, king and army set off for Scotland,
but the great triumph for which he had longed was not
to be his.  His spirit was as strong as ever, only his
body failed him.  He struggled bravely on, then came
a day when he could only ride two miles, and at last he
had to own that he was face to face with an enemy
before whom even his strong will lay powerless.  Near
Carlisle he died, knight and warrior to the end.  He
entreated his son to tear himself away from his favourites,
and to set before himself the conquest of Scotland and
the recovery of the Holy Land, and he asked that his
bones might be carried about with the army till Scotland
was subdued, that his heart might go with the knights
to the Holy Land.  Then with a prayer for mercy on
his lips he passed away.

Edward II. had not even the grace to carry out one
of these dying requests.  Four months later Edward was
buried in the Confessor's Chapel near to his father, his
brother, and his wife, while to his memory was raised
only the plainest tomb, in striking contrast to the
beautiful monuments around it.  The new king scattered his
money among his favourites with too free a hand to
have anything to spare for the building of a costly
tomb.

Yet, after all, as you stand by the grave of this
"greatest of the Plantagenets," and look at the simple
unornamented monument, I think you will feel with me
that in its very simplicity and strength it is unconsciously
a truthful memorial of Edward, a striking description of
those qualities which in life he loved and strove after.
He was a man of action, not of words; a soldier, not a
saint; a statesman, not a dreamer.  For Edward the
Confessor there was a beautiful shrine, the delicate
work, the gold, the jewels, the angels, and the martyrs.
For Edward the First there was the uncarved block of
grey marble, and the blunt inscription—

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "Here lies Edward the First, the Scourge of Scotland.
   Keep troth."





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.. _`EDWARD III. AND QUEEN PHILIPPA`:

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   CHAPTER VI


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   EDWARD III. AND QUEEN PHILIPPA

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"The character of the reigning Prince, King Edward II.,
will not give leave to expect anything of great service
to this place," wrote grimly a chronicler of the Abbey.
Indeed, beyond the fact that he was crowned here, that
a riot nearly took place at the coronation, so angered
were the people at Piers Gaveston being given the place
of honour and allowed to carry the crown, in defiance of
the old king's last request, and that he made an offering
of two images to the shrine of the Confessor, there
is nothing to tell of Edward's reign in connection with
Westminster Abbey.

The country bore with the king for nearly twenty
years.  Then the Parliament assembled at Westminster
asserted itself.  The king, all were agreed, had shown
himself unfit to rule; he had violated his coronation
oath, he had oppressed his people, and had lost
Scotland.  It was only right, therefore, that he should be
deposed, and his son, a boy of great promise, be chosen
in his stead.  Out of that great assembly only four
voices were raised for the king, and a deputation was
sent to him telling him what his Parliament had
resolved to do.  To his honour, the young Prince
Edward refused to accept the crown unless with his
father's consent, but Edward II., "clad in a plain black
gown," submitted without a word to the decree of the
assembly, and listened unmoved as they told him how
they "rendered and gave back to him, once king of
England, their homage and fealty, counting him henceforth
as a private person, without any manner of royal
dignity."

So Edward III. was crowned on the 29th of January
1327, and the shield with the sword of state, Scottish
trophies of his grandfather's which were carried before
him, are the identical shield and sword which exist
to-day.

Only fourteen years old when he was crowned king,
young Edward had already impressed all those who
came in contact with him.  Men saw in him a worthy
successor of Edward I., whose great qualities stood out
in shining contrast after the second Edward's disastrous
reign.  He was strong, he was brave; he, like his
grandfather, passionately loved justice and passionately
loved England.  Nothing could have been more
unfortunate than his boyhood or his early education.
For neither his father nor his mother could he feel the
smallest respect, and the influences about the Court
were of the worst.  A weaker character would have
been swamped by circumstances, and would have sunk
to the level of its surroundings; Edward fought his way
through, and came out triumphantly on the other side.
When he was sixteen he married Philippa of Hainault,
and a year later a son was born to them.  The delight
of the nation was intense; Edward was deeply touched
at the signs of affection everywhere shown to him by
his subjects, and he resolved all the more earnestly, with
the growing strength of his young manhood, to be a
king indeed, to rule his people justly, to lead them
wisely, to live up to the great things expected of him.
England in those days was a young nation, just beginning
to feel its power, rejoicing in its strength and
its freedom, ready for action, for adventure, for
enterprise, and Edward represented in the highest degree all
these enthusiasms and aspirations.  He was able to
lead; he grasped the spirit of his people; king and
nation were at one in their aims, so that into the years
which followed were crowded great deeds and great
victories, victories made all the more honourable by the
chivalrous conduct of the conquerors.

I should like to linger over the stories of Edward and
his men-at-arms, the knights, the hobblers, and the
archers, who won such fame for England on foreign
battle-fields, but that would be to wander far away from
Westminster, so we must leave Crecy, Calais, and
Poitiers, and come back to the Abbey and the Monastery,
this little world of itself, where life went on in its
own way, regardless of wars in Scotland and France.

As usual, there were several disputes in progress, and
one between the Abbot and the king's treasurer ended
in a lawsuit which lasted both beyond the Abbot's and
treasurer's time.  The quarrel was as to who had the
right to visit the Hospital of St. James, a hospital
founded and endowed by some citizens of London for
fourteen leprous maids, on the ground where now
St. James's Palace stands.  No fewer than six chaplains
were attached to this hospital, to perform divine service
for the afflicted fourteen lepers, and as the building
stood within the parish, the Abbot declared that these
chaplains were under his authority.  To this the king's
treasurer would not agree, and hence the dispute.
Apparently at last the verdict was given in favour of
the Abbot, but the original Abbot and treasurer being
dead, and the new Abbot being indolent, while the new
treasurer was grasping, it ended in an actual victory for
the latter.

Another quarrel centred round the little chapel of
St. Stephen's, which had been founded by Edward
I. within the Palace at Westminster, and so liberally
endowed by Edward III. that it possessed its own
dean and canons.

In this chapel masses were said daily for past and
present kings, while altogether nearly forty priests were
attached to the foundation, all of whom lived in the
Palace.  Quite naturally the Abbot of Westminster
was not well pleased at this rich foundation within a
stone's throw of his Abbey, and insisted that it should
be placed under his jurisdiction, a claim which was
warmly supported by the Pope.  But in this "the
people of St. Stephen's," who had the Court on their
side, did not acquiesce; and at last the king, who was
not greatly interested in these matters, proposed a
compromise, which was accepted.  The Abbot was to have
the right of appointing the dean, and was to be paid
a yearly sum of money as a tribute to his authority;
while, on the other hand, the dean and canons were
to order their own services and control their own
affairs.

This chapel of St. Stephen's was very beautiful, more
beautiful, we are told, than St. George's Chapel at
Windsor.  But no traces remain of it or of its cloisters
and its chantry except the crypt.  In the reign of
Henry VIII. Westminster Palace was seriously
destroyed by fire, and the chapel was then altered, turned
from its original use, and given over to the House of
Commons as their Parliament House, another link, you
see, between the Palace, the Church, and the People.

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In the year 1349 the Black Death, that most terrible
plague, swept over England, killing nearly one half of
the people; fifty thousand of its victims were buried
in London, and the Abbey was not spared, for the
Abbot and twenty-six of the monks caught it and died.
They were buried in one grave in the south cloister,
covered by a large stone, which you will easily find,
although it has a wrong name, that of Gervase de Blois,
carved upon it; and that vast stone, says Dean Stanley,
"is the footmark left in the Abbey by the greatest
plague which ever swept over Europe."

Abbot Bircheston, who thus died, had not been very
satisfactory.  "It is well of this place that he continued
no longer," says the chronicler severely; "for he ran the
house into a great deal of debt, being himself extravagant
and his relations being wasteful people."  His
successor was that remarkable man Simon Langham, the
only Abbot of Westminster who ever became Archbishop
of Canterbury, and he did such great things for the
monastery that he won for himself the name of the
second founder.  Not only did he pay off the debts of
his predecessors, but he managed with great prudence
all the estates and revenues under his care, saved large
sums of money by his frugality, and, perhaps most
difficult task of all, brought the house once more into
excellent discipline.  This is what Plete, himself a
monk at Westminster, has to say of Abbot Langham:
"He rectified many abuses which had crept in, truly
a service as it is most useful to any place, so commonly
is it the most difficult also; and accordingly it cost him
a great deal of study, pains, and resolution to effect it,
as having many ill tempers to deal with, some being
indolent, others odd and particular, some extravagant,
and others perverse."

While he was Archbishop, and afterwards when made
a cardinal and living abroad, he never forgot the
Abbey where he had been educated and where he
had laid the foundation of his great career, but left to
it a sum equal to £200,000 to be spent on building,
and desired that he should be buried there.  So you
will find his tomb of marble and alabaster in the little
chapel of St. Benedict at the entrance to the south
ambulatory, the first monument of any importance set
up to the memory of a bishop or abbot.

He was followed by the Prior, Nicholas Litlington,
"a stirring person, very useful to the monastery," whose
mind was set on improving the buildings.  This was an
easy task enough, thanks to the legacy of Langham and
the good favour in which he stood with king and queen.
So at once he set to work, the monastery being the
object of his care.  He built the south and west
cloisters, setting his initials on the roof; the Abbot's
Palace, the College Hall, the Jerusalem Chamber, houses
for the bailiff, the cellarer, the infirmaries, and the
sacrist, a malt-house and a water-mill; and besides this
he presented the Abbey with much valuable plate and
many rich vestments.

"But," remarks an old writer severely, "as he was
enabled to do all this with the money left by his
predecessor Langham, he should have put some memorial
of the Cardinal upon the buildings.  Instead, he has
his own arms and the initial letters of his name on the
keystone of the cloister arches."

The Abbot's house built by Litlington is the present
Deanery; but the College Hall, once the Abbot's refectory,
now the dining-hall of the Westminster scholars, and the
Jerusalem Chamber, the room into which the Abbot's
guests used to pass when they had dined, are open to
the public at certain hours, and you must not forget
them when you are walking through the cloisters.
The Jerusalem Chamber has been restored since the
days of Litlington, though the fine roof and the actual
building stand now as then.  The glass in one of the
windows, however, is very old, as is the wonderful stone
reredos, which once must have been part of the high
altar.  In the dining-hall you must notice the gallery
at the one end in which the minstrels used to perform,
and the fine pointed windows; for as the Norman
architecture had given way to the Early English, and the
Early English had developed into the beautiful Decorated
style, so now another change was taking place, of
which Litlington's building is an early example, and
the Perpendicular style, which was entirely English, was
creeping in.

While Litlington was abbot, another royal funeral
took place in the Confessor's Chapel, for in 1369, "that
moost gentyll, moost lyberall, and moost courtesse fayre
lady, Phillipp of Heynault, died."

This is how a writer living at the time quaintly
describes the sad event: "There fell in England a
heavy case and a comon, righte pyteouse for the King,
his children and all his realme.  For the good Queen
of England fell sicke, the which sickenesse contynewed
on her so longe, that there was no remedye but deathe.
And the good lady whenne she this knewe and perceyved,
desyred to speke with the Kynge, her husbande.
And she sayde, 'Sir, we have in peace, ioye, and great
prosperyte, used all our time toguyer.  Sir, nowe I pray
you at our departyng, that ye will grant me my desyres....
I requyre you, that it may please you to take none
other sepulture whensoever it shall please God to call
you out of this transytorie lyfe, but besyde me in
Westmynster.'

"The Kynge all weepynge sayde, 'Madam, I graunt
all your desyre.'  Then the good ladye made on her the
sign of the Cross, and anone after she yielded up her
spiryte, the which I beleeve surely the Holy Angels
receyved with great ioy up to Heven, for, in all her
lyfe, she dyd neyther in thought nor dede, thynge
whereby to lose her soule, so farr as any creature coulde
knowe."

Her tomb was ordered to be made of "neat black
marble, with her image thereon in polished alabaster,
and round the pedestal, sweetly carved niches, with
images therein."  But what makes this monument
specially interesting is that the figure of Queen Philippa
is really a likeness and not a beautiful fancy picture, so
that as you look at that kind, motherly face you can
quite easily picture to yourself the queen who pleaded
for the lives of the citizens of Calais, and of whom it
was said at her death, "She had done many good
deeds in her lyfe; having succoured so many knyghts
and comforted ladyes and damosels."

Eight years later, King Edward was laid beside her, all
the glory of his life having passed from him with her.

"In his time, England had seemed to shine in her
meridian; learning was encouraged; gallantry, and that
the most honourable, was practised; the subjects were
beloved; the king was honoured at home and feared
abroad."  But after Philippa's death strength of mind
and body alike failed him; his favourite son, the Black
Prince, had died; his other sons neglected him, his
courtiers robbed him, and when the end came, there
was only a poor priest by his bedside, who pressed the
crucifix to his lips and caught his last dying word—Jesus.

His funeral, however, was magnificent; he was
carried through London with his face uncovered,
followed by his children and by the nobles and prelates
of England, and afterwards a fine tomb was set up
to him with figures of his twelve children kneeling
around.

But it was only round the tomb and in the sculptor's
fancy that those strong, high-spirited sons of Edward
and Philippa knelt in one accord, for from them arose
the quarrels and strife which later on brought to
England the greatest calamity which can come to any
nation—a civil war in its midst.

.. _`TOMBS OF RICHARD II. AND EDWARD III.`:

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   :alt: TOMBS OF RICHARD II. AND EDWARD III.

   TOMBS OF RICHARD II. AND EDWARD III.





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.. _`RICHARD II. AND QUEEN ANNE`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   RICHARD II. AND QUEEN ANNE

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Edward the Black Prince, that flower of English
chivalry, had left his little son Richard as his legacy
to the people who loved him so well.

"I commend to you my son," he said, as he lay
dying in Westminster Palace, "for he is but young
and small.  And I pray that as you have served me,
so from your heart you will serve him."

One year afterwards, this boy of eleven was crowned
in Westminster, and so "young and small" was he
that the long day with all its wearying ceremony was
too much for him; he fainted away, and had to be
carried from the Abbey to the Palace on a litter.

Never before had there been a coronation on so
magnificent a scale: the citizens of London, with their
good wives and daughters, were learning to enjoy
pageants and holidays, and it was now better than
half a century since a king had been crowned.  First
Richard had spent some days in the Tower, that great
fort of the capital, and then had come the wonderful
procession through Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the
Strand, the boy riding bareheaded, surrounded by a
band of young knights in new attire, forerunners of
the knightly Order of the Bath, winning all hearts by
his beautiful face and his lavish generosity.  For the
young king was from the first recklessly extravagant,
and while he with his nobles feasted in the Palace at
the coronation banquet, he caused the fountains outside
to pour forth wine in abundance, that all who would
might drink to their heart's desire.

John of Gaunt, his uncle, one of those many sons of
Edward III., was made Regent, and Richard, with the
approbation of all, was placed under the tutorship of that
accomplished knight, Guiscard d'Angle, Earl of Huntingdon,
to be instructed in the paths of virtue and honour.

But those were not peaceful days in England, and
John of Gaunt made the fatal mistake of defying the
knights of the shire and burgesses who composed the
House of Commons, and who really represented the
thoughts and feelings of the people.

"What do these base and ignoble knights attempt?"
he asked contemptuously.  "Do they think they be
kings or princes in the land?"

Nevertheless, in the end he was forced to flee from
England, so bitter was the feeling against him.  The
cause of the universal discontent was the heavy taxation,
the result of the long French wars, and the Bishop
of Rochester, in his sermon at the coronation, had boldly
touched on this with words of solemn warning.  For the
first time the great peasant population of England, who
had hitherto suffered in resentful silence, was in a
position to lift up a voice of protest, as the Black Death
had so ravaged the country that those labourers who
were left were able to make terms for themselves,
and to refuse to work without payment.  The
tax which brought the discontent to a crowning point
was the poll-tax, which was a tax of twelve pence
(about eighteen shillings) to be paid by every person
over fifteen; and when a certain Wat the Tiler killed a
tax-collector, who, not content with trying to force him
into paying this poll-tax, insulted his little daughter, the
men of Kent rallied in their thousands round Wat and
marched on London.  Richard was now only fifteen, but
he was at his best, full of courage, full of strength,
worthy grandson of Edward III., true son of Edward the
Black Prince.  He determined to ride out with a small
escort and meet these thousands of rebels face to face.
It was a bold stroke, and he knew the risk.  But he
would not be stayed.  There is a story, most probably
true, that he consulted the aged Anchorite of the Abbey,
for every monastery of importance had its Anchorite, a
monk who voluntarily set himself apart for the rest of
his life to live in one cell, praying for the house; and
more than one of the Anchorites of Westminster had
given counsel to the kings who sought them out, the
words of these holy men being held as sacred.  Certain it
is that, on the morning of this eventful day, he, with his
escort, heard mass in the Abbey, paid his devotions, and
made his offerings at King Edward's shrine, "in which,"
says an old writer, "the kings of England have great
faith."  Then he rode out to Smithfield.

"Here is the king," said Wat Tiler to his men.  "I
will go speak with him.  When I give you a sign, step
forward and kill every one except the king.  Hurt him
not, for he is young and we can do what we will with
him.  We will lead him with us about all England, so
shall we be lords of the kingdom without a doubt."

But in a few minutes, as you know, the scene had
changed.  Wat Tiler lay dead, and the boy king,
ordering that not one of his attendants should follow him,
rode forward into the midst of the excited crowd, and
said calmly, "Sirs, what aileth you?  I will be your
leader and captain.  I am your king."

The men were Englishmen, and this cool courage won
their hearts on the spot.  They crowded round the king
begging for pardon, which he granted to them at once,
forbidding his followers to strike a blow.  And so the
great rebellion ended.

As he rode back to London, Richard stopped to
reassure his mother.

"Rejoice and thank God, madam," he said, kissing
her, "for I have this day regained my inheritance and
the kingdom which I had lost."

If only the king had been true to the promise of his
boyhood, he might have ranked among the greatest of
our rulers.  As it was, he went on his way unchecked,
uncontrolled, till one after another his good points
sank into the background; cowardice took the place of
courage, cruelty of chivalry, and he who had said
confidently to his people, "I will be your leader and your
captain," proved himself to be utterly incapable and
helpless.

A year later Richard married Princess Anne of
Bohemia, the sister of that "good King Wencelaus,"
about whom was written the Christmas Carol you know
so well, and on their wedding day there were great
feastings at Westminster.  All the city guilds and companies,
splendidly arrayed, came out to do honour to the
rosy-cheeked and smiling girl queen, herself only sixteen; and
when at his coronation she entreated the king as a favour
to set free all prisoners in the country, the delighted
citizens gave her the name of "Our Good Queen Anne."

The young king spent much of his time in his Palace
of Westminster, and as you look to-day at Westminster
Hall, the only part of the fine building which stands, I
want you to try and imagine all the busy life which
centred there round the court and the church.  Everything
connected with Richard was done on a magnificent
scale.  He had a body-guard of four thousand archers;
he had a band of nearly four hundred workmen—carpenters,
jewellers, armourers, masons, tilers, furriers—whose
duty it was to work everything needed for the
king's service, and these, with their wives and children,
lived under the shadow of Westminster.  Then there
were all the servants connected with the royal kitchen,
the pantry, spicery, buttery, bakehouse, and brewery,
and there must have been a goodly number of these, for
a writer who belonged to the court tells us that every
day ten thousand folk that "followed the Hous" drew
their rations of food from the Palace.

Besides all these we must count the higher court
officials, the members of the royal household, the judges
who sat in Westminster Hall, the priests of St. Stephen's
Chapel, the bishops and abbots and nobles with all their
retinues, and then we may have some idea of the bustle
and life round Westminster Palace at a time when there
was "greate pride, and riche arraye, and all things much
more costious and more precious than was before or sith."

Look at Old Palace Yard and New Palace Yard,
with the dull old streets leading out of them, and
then imagine Richard's Palace, with its towers, its
posterns, its great halls and painted chambers, its
cloisters, its courts, and its galleries; "gabled houses
with carved timber and plastered fronts, cloisters which
glowed in the sunshine with their lace like tracery,
with the gold and crimson of their painted roofs and
walls; everywhere tourelles with rich carvings, windows
of tracery most beautiful, archways, gates, battlements;
chantry chapels, oratories, courts of justice, and interiors
bright with splendid tapestry, the colours of which had
not yet faded, with canopies of scarlet and gold, and
the sunlight reflected from many a shining helm and
breastplate, from many a jewelled hilt and golden
scabbard."  Would that the Great Fire which destroyed
all this had left us one little glimpse of its old splendour.

Inside the monastery, too, there was plenty of life
of a different sort, though the monks were by no means
cut off from the great world which lay at their door.
For the Abbey of St. Peter was the richest of all the
great houses, and was now at the height of its glory;
and Litlington's new buildings greatly added to its
importance, as the Abbot freely entertained in his new
palace the highest in the land.

Yet a daily routine was carried out.  Eight hours were
given to sleep and eight were spent in church; the
remainder were devoted to work—that is to say, some
monks taught the young, others studied and transcribed,
others had duties in the refectory and dormitory, and so
on.  Most of the monks had come here as young boys;
many of them spent here fifty and sixty years of their
lives, praying, working, teaching, learning.  But I think
sometimes the young men must have longed for some
share in the life outside of which they heard the echoes
daily, and saw all the outward splendours and delights.

Certain it is that Abbot Litlington was something
more than a monk.  For when, during the reign of
Richard, there was a great scare that the French were
about to invade England, he, though at that time
seventy, armed himself and set off with some of his
monks to the coast to defend his country.  And we
find that "one of these monks, Brother John, supposing
his courage equal to his stature, was a very proper person
for a soldier, being one of the largest men in the kingdom.
His armour, the invasion not taking place, was carried
into London to be sold, being so big that no person
could be found of a size that it would fit."

One other part of vanished Westminster comes into
prominence in this reign, and that is its Sanctuary,
which stood where now is Westminster Hospital.  It
was a massive square keep built of stone, each side
nearly eighty feet long, with a heavy oak and iron door,
stone stairs, strong dark rooms and thick walls, and besides
a belfry tower, in which hung those bells which rang
for coronations and tolled for royal funerals; it contained
two chapels.  This place was the haven of refuge alike to
innocent and to guilty; so long as they remained within
its walls the Church protected them and kept them.
Of course, originally these sanctuaries attached to the
religious houses had been intended to protect the weak,
the helpless, and the oppressed, but gradually all manner
of men, thieves, debtors, and law-breakers, gathered
round it, and at Westminster, where all the Abbey
buildings were counted as sacred ground, strange and
lawless crowds assembled; but the right of sanctuary
was jealously guarded.

Outside the world of Westminster the country was
full of discontent, which showed itself in parties and
in plots.  John of Gaunt had fled, and his place had
been filled by his brother, Thomas Woodstock, Duke
of Gloucester, who, with Gaunt's son, Henry of Bolingbroke,
and other nobles, had forced Richard, still a
minor, into accepting several of their demands.  But
directly he was of age Richard had his revenge; and
in the Council Chamber he made it clear that he
intended to keep all the authority in his own hands or in
the hands of those he himself should choose.  Francis,
a scribe, and the lame Clerk to the Council, has left us
a vivid picture of the scene.

"Then Richard stood in the doorway; upon his head
he wore a crown; in his hand he carried his sceptre;
on his shoulders hung a mantle of ermine, and through
the door I saw a throng of armed men, and heard the
clank of steel.

"Since the time of David there had not been a more
comely prince in the world to look upon than King
Richard....  Yet let no one say that his eyes were
soft.  This morning they were like the eyes of a falcon.

"'Good, my lord,' began the Duke of Gloucester.

"The King strode across the room and took his seat
upon the throne.

"'Fair uncle,' he said, 'tell me how old I am.'

"'Your Highness,' said the Duke, 'is now in his
twenty-fourth year.'

"'Say you so?  Then, fair uncle, I am old enough
to manage mine own affairs.'

"So saying, he took the Great Seal from the Archbishop,
and the keys of the Exchequer from the Bishop
of Hereford.  From the Duke of Gloucester he took his
office, he appointed new judges, he created a new
council.  'Twas a gallant prince.  Alas! that he was not
always strong; twice in his life Richard was strong—that
day and another.  That night there was high
revelry in the Palace: the mummers and the minstrels
and the music made the Court merry.  And the king's
fool made the courtiers laugh when he jested about the
Duke's amazement and the Archbishop's discomfiture."

Richard now fell entirely under the influence of his
own favourites, and the friction between himself and his
Parliament increased each year.  The one good influence
in his life was that of Queen Anne; over and over again
her sound sense saved the situation.  Once Richard,
in a fit of sulkiness, had gone to live at Bristol, very
privately, and to him there came the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who warned him that unless he returned to
London the citizens of London and the greater part of
his subjects would be very discontented.  Richard at
first refused to pay any attention to the Archbishop, but
at last the good advice of the queen prevailed; he
controlled his anger and said he would cheerfully go to
London.  On his arrival there, a special Parliament was
summoned, which made London and Westminster very
crowded; the king heard Mass with the crown on his
head in the chapel of the Palace; the Archbishop of
Canterbury performed the divine service, and was very
attentively heard, for he was an excellent preacher; and
then came the barons, prelates, and nobles to Richard,
with joined hands, as showing themselves to be vassals,
swearing faith and loyalty, and kissing him on the
mouth.

"But it was visible," adds Froissart, "that the king
kissed some heartily and others not."

Possibly, if Anne had lived, her sensible influence
might have saved Richard, in spite of the growing
irritation of his people at his reckless extravagance.  But
after only a few hours' illness the queen died at the
Feast of Whitsuntide 1394, in Sheen Palace, "to the
infinite distress of King Richard, who was deeply
afflicted at her death."

Richard was with her when she died, and so uncontrolled
was his grief, that, cursing the place of her death,
he ordered the Palace of Sheen to be levelled to the
ground.  He determined that hers should be the greatest
burial ever seen in London, and sent to Flanders for
large quantities of wax wherewith to have made the
torches and flambeaux, though this delayed the funeral
by some months.  He summoned all the nobles of the
land to be present in these words:—

"Inasmuch as our beloved companion the Queen,
whom God has hence commanded, will be buried at
Westminster on Monday, the 3rd of August next, we
earnestly entreat that you, setting aside all excuses, will
repair to our city of London the Wednesday previous to
the same day, bringing with you our very dear
kinswoman your consort at the same time.  We desire that
you will, the preceding day, accompany the corpse of
our dear consort from our manor of Sheen to
Westminster, and for this we trust we may rely
on you, as you desire our honour and that of our
kingdom."

So a great procession followed the queen from Sheen
to Westminster, and all were clothed in black, men and
women, with black hoods also.  Richard behaved as one
mad with grief, and when the Earl of Arundel arrived
late, he seized a cane, and struck him on the head with
such force that the unfortunate nobleman fell to the
ground.

A year later the king ordered the beautiful monument
which you see in the Confessor's Chapel, and so great
was his devotion that he had his own monument made
at the same time, with his hand clasped in that of
his dearly loved queen.  And the touching inscription,
of which this is a translation, was of his own
choosing:—

   |  "Under this stone lies Anne, here entombed,
   |  Wedded in this world's life to the second Richard.
   |  To Christ were her meek virtues devoted,
   |  His poor she freely fed from her treasures.
   |  Strife she healed and feuds she appeased.
   |  Beauteous her form, her face surpassing fair.
   |  Only July's seventh day, thirteen hundred, ninety four,
   |  All comfort was bereft, for through irremediable sickness
   |  She passed away into eternal joys."
   |

In spite of his grief, which was very real, Richard
married again; but the new queen had no influence
with him, and the breach between him and his people
widened daily.  "Nothing but complaints were heard;
the courts of justice were closed; the enmities
increased, and the common people said, 'Times are sadly
changed; we have a good-for-nothing king, who only
attends to his idle pleasures, and so that his inclinations
are gratified cares not how public affairs are managed.
We must look for a remedy, or our enemies and
well-wishers will rejoice.'"

So writes Froissart, who lived in England at the
time; and he goes on to say how the people declared
to one another, "Our ancestors in former days provided
a remedy; our remedy is in Henry of Lancaster.  Him
we must send for and appoint him regent of the
kingdom.  For these people are most obstinate, and
of all England, the Londoners are the leaders."

.. _`HENRY OF LANCASTER CROWNED AT WESTMINSTER`:

.. figure:: images/img-097.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: HENRY OF LANCASTER CROWNED AT WESTMINSTER.

   HENRY OF LANCASTER CROWNED AT WESTMINSTER.

This being the feeling in the country, the time was
ripe for John of Gaunt's banished son, Henry
Bolingbroke, who had long been waiting for his hour.  He
landed with but thirty men, while Richard was away
on one of his highly unpopular expeditions in Ireland;
soon he had an army of fifty thousand with which he
marched to London, and Richard when he returned agreed
meekly, without a word, to all that was demanded.  He
signed a deed prepared by Parliament in which he said
that "he was incapable of reigning, worthy to be
deposed, and willing to renounce the throne."

"If it pleases you, it pleases me also," was his feeble
remark.

Then he was put into prison, first in the Tower,
afterwards in Pontefract Castle, and from this last
place he never came out alive.  His death was very
sudden; some said he fell sick, some said he was
starved, almost certainly he was murdered.  He was
buried at Langley, though many a long year
afterwards his body was moved to Westminster by command
of Henry V., and laid in the tomb he had chosen close
to his wife, after it had been carried through London
followed by 20,000 persons, of whom "some on him
had pity and some none."

So husband and wife lie united at last under this
fine tomb, which cost £10,000 in our money.  But
in one detail Richard's wish is ungratified to-day, for
his hand and hers, which on the monument were clasped
together, have been ruthlessly broken off.

Another memorial of Richard in the Abbey is his
portrait, which you will find in the choir near the
altar, and which is "an ancient painting of the
unhappy, beautiful prince, sitting in a chair of gold
dressed in a vest of green, flowered with flowers of
gold and the initial letters of his name, having on
shoes of gold powdered with pearls, the whole robed
in crimson lined with ermine, and the shoes spread
with the same fastened under a collar of gold."  It
is valuable because it is the first portrait we have of
an English king.

Richard rebuilt Westminster Hall, and built a fine
porch called Solomon's Porch, where now stands the
great north entrance; but of this porch not a trace
remains.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HENRY V. AND HIS CHANTRY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   HENRY V. AND HIS CHANTRY

.. vspace:: 2

On the last day of September 1399, Westminster was
well astir, for Parliament had met to decide an
all-important question.

Richard had renounced the crown, and his cousin,
Henry of Lancaster, claimed it.

"Risyng from his place, mekeley makyne the signe of
the Crosse, he saide unto the people, 'In the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster,
claim the realme of Englande and the crowne, as that I
am dyscended by righte lyne of bloode from that good
Lord King Henry III."  Moreover, he proceeded to
make clear, Richard had resigned the crown into his
hands, and he had also won it by right of conquest.

Then the Archbishop asked the assembly if they
would have Henry for king, to which with one voice
they answered "Ye, ye, ye," and after that the
Archbishop led Henry to the king's throne and set him
thereon with great reverence, making to him a long
"oryson" from the words, "When I was a child, I
spake as a child; but at the time when I came unto the
state of a man, I put away childish things."

"A chylde," he said, "will lyghtly promise and as
lyghtly brake his promise, doing all thinges that his fancye
giveth him unto, and forgettinge lyghtly what he hath
done.  By which reason it followyth that great inconvenyence
must fall to that people a chylde is ruler and
governour of.  But now we ought all to rejoyse that a
man and not a chylde shall have lordeshype over us,
a man that shall govern the people by skylful doyngs,
settyne apart wylfulnesse and all pleasure of himself."

And the people answered "Amen" with great gladness;
they clapped their hands for joy and did homage to the
new king, while the coronation was fixed for the 13th
of October, the Feast of St. Edward.

Froissart has left us a vivid account of that great
day, which you shall have in his words.

"On the Saturday before the coronation, the new
king went from Westminster to the Tower attended
by great numbers, and those squires who were to be
knighted watched their arms that night.  They amounted
to forty-six, and each squire had his chamber and his
bath in which he bathed.  The ensuing day, the Duke
of Lancaster, after mass, created them knights, and
presented them with long green coats with straight sleeves.
After dinner on this Sunday, the Duke left the Tower
on his return to Westminster; he was bareheaded, and
there were of nobility from eight to nine hundred horse
in the procession.  The Duke was dressed in a jacket of
cloth of gold, mounted on a white courser, with a blue
garter on his left leg.  The same night the king bathed
himself, and on the morrow confessed himself and
heard three masses.  The prelates and clergy who had
assembled, then came in a large procession from
Westminster Abbey to conduct the king thither, and returned
in the same manner, the king and nobles following.
The dukes, earls, and barons wore long scarlet robes,
with mantles trimmed with ermine and large hoods of
the same.  The dukes and earls had three bars of
ermine on the left arm, the barons but two.  On each
side of the king were carried the sword of mercy and
the sword of justice, and the Marshal of England carried
the sceptre.

"The procession entered the church about nine o'clock,
in the middle of which was erected a scaffold covered
with crimson cloth, and in the centre a royal throne
of cloth of gold.  When the Duke entered the church,
he seated himself upon the throne, and was thus in
royal state, except having the crown on his head.

"The Archbishop of Canterbury proclaimed how God
had given them a man for their lord and sovereign, and
then asked the people if they were consenting to his
being consecrated and crowned king.  They unanimously
shouted out Ay.

"After this the Duke descended from the throne, and
advanced to the altar to be consecrated.  He was
anointed in six places, and while this was doing the
clergy chanted a litany that is performed at the
hallowing of a font.

"The king was now dressed in churchman's clothes,
and they put on him crimson shoes.  Then they added
spurs; the sword of justice was drawn, blest, and
delivered to the king, who put it into the scabbard.  The
crown of St. Edward, which is arched over like a cross,
was then brought and blessed, and put on the king's
head by the Archbishop.

"When mass was over, the king left the Abbey and
returned to the Palace, and went first to his apartment,
then returned to the Hall to dinner.

"At the first table sat the king; at the second, five
great peers of England; at the third, the principal
citizens of London; at the fourth, the new created
knights; at the fifth, all knights and squires of honour.
And the king was served by the Prince of Wales, who
carried the sword of mercy.

"When dinner was half over, a knight of the name of
Dymock entered the Hall completely armed, mounted on
a handsome steed.  The knight was armed for wager of
battle, and was preceded by another knight bearing his
lance; he himself had his drawn sword in one hand
and a naked dagger at his side.  The knight presented
the king with a written paper, the contents of which
were, that if any knight or gentleman would dare
maintain that King Henry was not the lawful sovereign, he
was ready to offer him combat in the presence of the
king, when and where he would.

"After King Henry had dined and partaken of wines
and spices, he retired to his private apartments, and all
the company went.  Thus passed the Coronation Day of
King Henry, who remained that and the ensuing day at
the Palace of Westminster."

But though Henry was thus firmly set on the throne
by the will of Parliament, he knew full well that he was
not the lawful heir while the Earl of March, the
descendant of John of Gaunt's elder brother, was alive,
and this fact put him very much at the mercy of his
Parliament throughout his reign.  He was there by the
will of Parliament, and therefore, according to their will
he must act.  His was a troubled, anxious rule; for
rebellions broke out in many different parts of the
country, and Henry never felt really secure.

With Westminster he had little to do, save at the
beginning and end of his reign, and he has left no
memorial of himself in the building.  Yet he is the one
king who died within the Abbey walls.

To ease his conscience, he had resolved to make a
pilgrimage to the sepulchre of the Lord at Jerusalem,
and this in spite of the fact that he was suffering from
a grave disease.

"Galleys of warre" were made ready for the expedition,
and the king came to Westminster, both to meet
his Parliament and to pray in the shrine of Edward for
the blessing and protection of that saint, though he
firmly believed an old prophecy that he should die in
Jerusalem would be now fulfilled.

While kneeling in the shrine, he became so ill that
those about him thought he would die in that place.
But with difficulty they moved him to the fine chamber
in the Abbot's house, carrying him on a litter through
the cloisters, and "there they laid him before the
fire on a pallet, he being in great agony for a certain
time."

At last, when he came to himself, he asked where he
was, and when this had been told him, he inquired if
the chamber had any special name.

He was told its name was Jerusalem.

"Then sayd the Kynge: Laud be to the Father of
Heaven, for nowe I knowe I shall dye in this chamber,
accordynge to ye propheseye of me aforesayde, that I
should dye in Jerusalem."

So, in that dark tapestried room, the king, lying there
in his royal robes, just as he had come from doing honour
to St. Edward, made himself ready to die.  His son,
Prince Harry, was with him, though between the two
there had been many a misunderstanding and quarrel
during the last few years; and Shakespeare, taking his
facts from the French chronicler, tells how Henry lay
there unconscious, his crown on a pillow at his side,
and at last seemed to breathe no more.  Whereupon the
attendants, believing him to be dead, covered over his
face, and Prince Harry first held the crown in his hands,
then set it on his own head.

This very act seemed to call the dying king back to
life, for he groaned, came to himself, and missed the
crown.

"What right have you to it, my son?" he asked
reproachfully.

The Prince made answer: "My lord, as you have
held it by the right of your sword, it is my intent to
hold and defend the same during my life."

To which replied the king: "I leave all things to
God, and pray that He will have mercy upon me."

And thus saying he died.

But the English chroniclers give another picture of
the Prince, and describe him sobered and awestruck in
the presence of Death, kneeling at his father's side as
the priest administered the Holy Sacrament, tenderly
recalling his wandering mind and saying—

"My lord, he has just consecrated the Body of the
Lord Christ: I entreat you to worship Him, by whom
kings reign and princes rule."

Then the king raised himself up to receive the cup,
blessed his son, kissed him, and died.

Prince Harry wept distractedly, full of remorse as he
thought of all the follies and mistakes of his past life,
which had so added to the sorrows of the dead king.
But all that was good and great in him came to the front
now.  Alone, in a little chapel inside the Abbey, he
passed the rest of that day, kneeling in utter humility
before the King of kings, praying for pardon, for peace, and
for strength.  "Then, when the shades of night had fallen
upon the face of the earth, the tearful Prince in the
darkness went to the Anchorite of Westminster (whose
stone cell lay on the south side of the infirmary cloister),
and unfolding to this perfect man the secrets of his life,
being washed in penitence, he received absolution, and
putting off the cloak of iniquity, he returned garbed in
the mantle of virtue."  Nor was this sudden change the
impulse of a moment, for "Henry, after he was admitted
to the rule of the land, showed himself a new man, and
tourned all his wyldness into sobernesse, wyse sadnesse
and constant virtue."

The king, at his own wish, was buried at
Canterbury by the side of the Black Prince; some chroniclers
say, because he trembled at the thought of lying near
Richard's tomb in the Confessor's Chapel; and nothing
disturbed the peace of the Abbey till the following
spring, when on Passion Sunday, "a daye of exceedinge
rayne and snow," Henry V. was crowned.

His first act as king was to give King Richard an
honourable burial in the tomb he had chosen, to
order that tapers should burn around his grave "as long
as the world endureth," and that dirges and masses
should be said for his soul.  Then he concerned himself
with the building which had stood still throughout his
father's reign, and he made as his chief architect the
wealthy and generous Whittington, now Lord Mayor of
London—possibly the hero of the old story—with a
monk of Westminster named Haweden.  To those two
was entrusted the work of completing the nave and all
the western part of the Abbey.

Henry was brave and adventurous, the nobles were
longing for war, and France, at that moment divided
against itself, almost invited attack.  The old pretext
did well enough; Henry laid claim to the throne of
France and invaded the land, scorning all idea of
compromise.  Disease attacked his army, so that when he
came face to face with his foe he had but 15,000
men to their 50,000.  But his courage rose to the
crisis, and when one of his knights sighed for the
thousands of brave warriors in England, he said
warmly—

"I would not have a single man more.  If God
give us the victory, it will be plain we owe it to His
grace."

And the battle there fought and won was the great
battle of Agincourt, the victory once again of the English
archers.  Henry had always been loved by the nation,
now he became their hero and their darling.

   |  "Oh, when shall Englishmen
   |  With such acts fill a pen,
   |  Or England breed again
   |  Such a King Harry?"
   |

The news of the triumph was quickly sent to London
by a special messenger, and the Mayor, with the
commonalty and an immense number of citizens, set out
on foot to make their pilgrimage to St. Edward's shrine,
there to offer devout thanksgiving for the joyful news.

And to this procession there joined themselves very
many lords and peers of the realm, with the substantial
men, both spiritual and temporal, for all knew that
thanksgiving was due unto God, and to Edward, the
glorious Confessor.  Therefore went they like pilgrims
on foot to Westminster, as aforesaid, passing through
the newly built nave.

Later on, when Henry made his triumphant entry
into London as the victor of Agincourt, "the gates and
streets of the cities were garnished and apparelled with
precious cloths of arras, containing the victories and
triumphs of the king of England, which was done to
the intent that the king might understand what remembrance
his people would leave to their posterity of these,
his great victories and triumphs."

But the king would not have any ditties to be sung
of his victory, for he said the glory belonged to God, and
the hymn of praise he commanded was a joyful *Te
Deum*, which rang through the vaulted arches of the
Abbey, led by the monks, swelled by countless voices
of brave Englishmen.  Nor would Henry allow his
battered helmet of gold and his other armour, "that in
cruel battaille was so sore broken with the great strokes
he hadde received," to be carried before him or shown
to his people.  With a fine modesty, he sought in no
way to glorify himself.  The memory of his early
manhood, with its dark side, was ever before his eyes; the
conflict with the enemy within was ever waging, and
the knowledge of his own weakness swept over him even
in the hour of his greatest triumph, so that he could not
but be humble as a little child.

Peace was at last made with France, the terms being
that Henry should marry the French king's daughter,
Katherine, who possessed "a white oval face, dark
flashing eyes, and most engaging manners," and that he
should succeed to the throne of France on the death of
his father-in-law.  In the February of 1421 he brought
his pretty bride to England, where the people received
her "as if she had been an angel of God," and on the
24th of that month she was crowned by the Archbishop.

In the words of Robert Fabyan, an alderman of
London, but devoted to the pleasures of learning, "I will
proceed to show you some part of the great honour that
was exercised and used upon that day."

After the service in the church was ended, Queen
Katherine was led into the great hall of Westminster,
and there sat at dinner at Henry's side, while close to
her sat the captive Prince James of Scotland, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and many great nobles.  The
Countess of Kent sat under the table at the right side
of the queen, and the Countess Marshal on the left side,
holding her napkin, while the Earl of Worcester rode
about the hall on a great courser to keep room and
order.  Being Lent, no meat was allowed, excepting
brawn served with mustard, but of fish there was a great
choice; "pyke in herbage lamprey powderyd, codlyng,
crabbys, solys, fresshe samon, dryed smelt, halybut,
rochet, porpies rostyd, prawys, clys roast, and a white
fisshe florysshed with hawthorne leaves and redde
lawrys."  Wonderful ornaments called "subtelties"
were on the table, being images intended to symbolise
the happy event, and fastened on to these were labels
with such verses as—

   |  "To this sign the king
   |  Great joy will bring,
   |  And all his people
   |  The queen will content."

Or—

   |  "It is written
   |  And can be seen,
   |  In marriage pure
   |  No strifes endure."
   |

Katherine's pity was roused by the clever and
charming young Scottish prince who had been so long a
prisoner, and who was now deeply in love with Lady
Joanna Beaufort, a lady he had seen in the gardens of
Windsor Castle, and at this banquet she pleaded for him
with her husband, with the result that he was eventually
set free, and allowed to marry the lady of his love.

In spite of the peace which had been made, the
French people were not inclined to submit to their
conquerors, and within a few months of Katherine's
coronation war broke out again, which sent Henry off in haste
to France.  He was still victorious, and when besieging
Meaux the news was brought that Katherine had given
him a son.  At the same time came a loving letter from
the queen herself, begging that she might join him in
France so soon as her health would permit.  The
permission was readily granted, and she came, but not too
soon; for Henry, who had bravely fought illness as he
fought all other enemies, was conquered at last, and
died at Vincennes, he, "mighty victor, mighty lord, being
carried there helpless on a litter."

In the third year of his reign Henry had made his
will, in which he had set down careful instructions as
to his own burying, which was to be at Westminster,
among the kings; and as by now there was but little
room left in the Confessor's Chapel, he directed that at
its eastern end, where the relics were kept, a high place
should be made, ascended on each side by steps, and
that there should be raised an altar, while underneath
it his body should be laid.  To this altar he
bequeathed plate, vestments, and a sum of money for the
Abbey, in token of which three monks of the Abbey
were daily to say three masses there for his soul.

He had been a great benefactor to the Abbey, for
besides having completed the nave, he had paid to it a
thousand marks yearly, restored to it a ring valued at a
thousand marks, and given such valuable presents as a
Psalter and other fine books; so the monks were anxious
to do him all honour, while the people of London were
determined to worthily show their sorrow and their
love.

The great funeral procession set out from France, and
by slow stages reached London.  The coffin had been set
on an open chariot, and behind it was carved an image
of the king made of leather and painted to look lifelike,
clothed in purple with ermine, holding a sceptre, crowned
and sandalled.  The queen and King James of Scotland
followed as chief mourners; a thousand men in white
bore torches; throughout the day chants, hymns, and
sacred offices were sung by the priests, and wherever his
body rested for awhile in a church, masses were said.

From Paris to Calais, Calais to Dover, Dover to
Canterbury, and Canterbury to London, this solemn
journey of many weeks was made, while once on English
soil the procession was greatly lengthened.  The streets
of London were draped in black; each householder stood
at his door with a lighted torch; before the royal coffin
rode the king's favourite knight and standard-bearer, Sir
Louis Robsart, and many lords bore the banners of saints.
Men at arms, in deep black and on black horses, formed
the guard of honour; behind came his three chargers,
then followed the royal mourners, and once more came
a touch of relief from the rich vestments of the bishops
and abbots, and the white robes of the priests and
singers.

"So with great solemnity and honour was that
excellent prince brought unto the monastery of
Westminster, and there at the feet of St. Edward reverently
interred, on whose soul, sweet Jesus, be merciful."

The little king of England was not yet a year old,
but directly after the funeral Parliament met, and Queen
Katherine rode through the city of London in a chariot
drawn by white horses, surrounded by the nobles of the
land.  She held her baby in her arms, and in the words
of one who watched, "Those pretty hands which could
not yet feed himself, were made capable of wielding a
sceptre, and he who beholden to his nurses for food, did
distribute law and justice to the nation."  By his
Chancellor the infant king saluted, and to his people spoke
his mind, by means of another tongue.  Alice Boteler
and Joan Ashley were appointed by this year-old child
to be his governess and nurse, "from time to time
reasonably to chastise us as the case may require, to
teach us courtesy and good manners, and many things
convenient for our royal persons to learn."

The building of the chantry over the grave of Henry
V. was not long delayed, and all his instructions were
carefully carried out.  You will see it is a little chapel
of itself at the east end of the Confessor's Chapel, standing
so high, that at first the people from the farther end
of the Abbey could see the priests celebrating mass at
its altar.

.. _`HENRY V.'s TOMB`:

.. figure:: images/img-112.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: HENRY V.'s TOMB

   HENRY V.'s TOMB

But before long the stone screen put up about this
time, to the further honour of St. Edward, cut it off
from view.  How exquisite must that screen have
been, with its lacework tracery, its niches full of
saints, its brilliancy of gold, of crimson, and of blue!
You must look carefully at the carvings, which tell the
story of Edward's life, fact and legend blended together.
Here I will tell you shortly what each scene is meant
to represent, beginning from your left as you face the
screen.

The first two describe the birth of Edward; the third,
his coronation; the fourth, his dream of the devil
dancing for joy over the piles of money collected by
the much-hated tax called Danegeld, a dream which so
alarmed the king that he did away with the tax.  The
fifth shows how Edward had mercy on a thief who tried
to steal his gold, for the king said, "Let him keep it;
he hath more need of it than us."  The sixth tells how
Christ appeared to the king at the Holy Sacrament; the
seventh and eighth describe the crowning of the king of
Denmark and a quarrel between Harold and Tostig.
The ninth and tenth go back to legend, the vision of
the Seven Sleepers and the appearance of St. John as
a pilgrim; while the twelfth and thirteenth describe
St. John giving back the ring to the pilgrim, and the
pilgrim's bearing it to King Edward.  The eleventh
shows the king washing his hands on the right, and on
the left are three blind men, waiting for their sight to be
restored to them when they wash their eyes in the water
Edward had used; and the two last tell of the king's
death and the dedication of the Abbey.

The chantry of King Henry was less ornate than this
screen, but it was nevertheless very beautiful.  You
must look at the pattern of the open work on the iron
grating which is round the tomb gates, and pick out
the fleur-de-lis, the emblem of France, claimed by
Henry as his inheritance.  The figure of the king was
the special gift of his widow, and was carved of the best
English oak, with a head of silver, and its value made
it too great a temptation to some "covetous pilferers
about the latter end of Henry VIII., who broke it off
and conveyed it clean awaie."

Over the chantry you will see a helmet, shield, and
saddle; and though the helmet is certainly not the one
which Henry kept hidden from all people at the Agincourt
festival, it is certainly as old as the funeral day,
and was probably made for that occasion.

In the year 1878, Katherine of Valois, who had
first been buried in Henry III.'s chapel, then left for
more than two hundred years in a rudely made coffin,
open to the public gaze, by her husband's tomb, and
afterwards laid in a side chapel, was at last buried under
the altar slab in the Chantry Chapel of Henry V., and
here within the calm shelter of Edward's shrine were
carried the remains of two other queens, Eadgytha, the
wife of Harold, and good Queen Maude, the wife of
Henry I.  Here, too, rest two tiny royal children,
Margaret of York, the baby daughter of Edward IV.,
and her niece, Elizabeth Tudor, the three-year-old child
of Henry VII. and Elizabeth.  Their little marble
tombs are plain and bear now no name.  One other
royal prince is buried here, Thomas of Woodstock, the
uncle and for some time the adviser of Richard II., who
certainly suffered heavily for any advice he gave, good
or otherwise, for he was smothered to death at Calais
with Richard's consent.  And one man not of royal
birth lies here—John of Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury,
for whom this same Richard II. had so great a liking,
that, defying every one, he ordered him to be laid among
kings, close to the tomb of the Confessor.

I wonder if by now you know thoroughly that
chapel which holds our earliest and some of our greatest
kings and queens?  Does that stately tomb in the
centre call to your mind Edward, the dreamer and the
builder, the dramatic ending of his life, the splendid
ceremony of his burial within these walls, when he was
honoured not alone as king of England or founder of
the Abbey, but as a saint of the Church?  Does the
tomb of Henry III., with its remains of soft coloured
marble and gilt mosaics, tell you of Westminster's
second great builder, a lover of beauty and religious
observances, but withal weak and extravagant, and
incapable of rising to his great responsibilities?  Does
the rugged, undecorated monument of Edward I. show
you the man, strong, stern, and steadfast, or the tomb
of his beloved Eleanor speak to you of his wonderful
love for her and of her sweet goodness?  And when
you look at the resting-place of Edward III. and
Philippa, does it not call up to your mind the days of
chivalry and the feats of English soldiers, the victories
of Poitiers and Crecy, the siege of Calais and the
compassionate pleading of the kindly queen?  You stand
by the tomb of Richard and Anne, united at last, and
do not you think, "Oh, the pity of it," when you
remember how Richard might have been strong and
brave, had only he kept true to his best self?  And
then, do you not turn with a thrill of pride to the
lofty chantry which encircles the grave of Henry V.,
the best loved king England ever had, the king who
set a glow of patriotism alight in his realm, who rose
above his failings and his faults, and gave to his people
the fine example of a man who was victor over himself
as well as victor over his foreign foes?  Worthily I
think does Henry's chantry crown the Confessor's shrine.

If some of these thoughts have come to you, this
chapel will have taught you more history than any
number of books or any number of dates.  Because
history only grows real to all of us, when the men and
women about whom we read and learn cease to be mere
figures and become our familiar acquaintances, till we
fit them in as it were to their proper places in the story
of England—places which are not always bounded by
the years of a reign, which often cannot be bounded
even by centuries.

.. _`PLAN OF TOMBS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE KINGS`:

.. figure:: images/img-116.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: TOMBS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE KINGS.

   TOMBS IN THE CHAPEL OF THE KINGS.





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.. _`THE WARS OF THE ROSES AND THE THIRD ROYAL BUILDER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   THE WARS OF THE ROSES AND THE THIRD
   ROYAL BUILDER

.. vspace:: 2

Little Henry VI. was not crowned till he was nine
years old, and one old writer says that "so small was
he, he could not wear the crown, and a bracelet of his
mother's was placed on his head."  He was a dreamy,
gentle boy, and, far from being excited or happy on his
coronation day, we hear how "very sadly and gravely
he beheld all the people round about him, at the sight
of which he showed great humility."  His mother,
Katherine, had married a Welshman named Owen
Tudor, much to the anger of those about the court and
the nobles, who considered that by so doing she had
demeaned herself, and after this she was allowed to see
very little of her son, who was therefore left entirely
to his uncles, the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of
Gloucester.  Like Edward the Confessor, Henry was fit
for a cloister but not for a crown, and he was called to
reign in troublous times, when strength of will and
purpose were more needed in a king than saintliness or
simplicity of life.  His uncles, who realised his
weakness, arranged that he should marry Margaret of Anjou,
a woman who was brave, ambitious, and masterful; but
the fact that she soon got Henry completely under her
control only brought about in the end his destruction
and hers.  In France the English lose all that they had
won, for a deliverer of France had arisen in the girl
Joan of Arc, who gave fresh courage and hope to her
fellow-countrymen and led them on to victory as though
she had been a saint sent by God.  Then back to
England came those many thousands of soldiers who had
been fighting abroad all these years, and they were not
inclined to settle down to a peaceful life; they wanted
adventure, excitement, and plunder, and they were
ready to flock round any leader who could promise
them the chance of a fight.  You will remember how,
when you looked at Edward III.'s tomb, with the
figures of his sons kneeling round, I told you that
the descendants of those sons brought civil war upon
England; and it was in the reign of Henry VI. that
this terrible war broke out.  Henry, as you know, was
descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and
his grandfather, Henry IV., had gained the throne by
will of Parliament and by right of conquest, but not by
right of inheritance.  Now there was living Richard,
Duke of York, who was descended from the Duke of
Clarence, the elder brother of John of Gaunt, and when,
owing to Henry's weakness and the jealousies of the
great nobles, two parties gradually began to form
themselves, these parties naturally became divided
into those who supported the king, that is to say,
the House of Lancaster, and those who supported the
House of York.  At first there was no thought of civil
war; these two parties merely opposed each other and
schemed one against the other; but before long feeling
ran so high that open warfare became inevitable, and
each side took as its badge a rose.

So began the Wars of the Roses, and there followed
those terrible battles of Northampton, Wakefield,
St. Albans, Towton, Barnet, and Tewkesbury, in which
thousands of Englishmen were slain (20,000 at Towton
alone), the victory resting first on one side and then
on the other, though finally with the Yorkists.  The
Duke of York had been killed early in the campaign,
but his place had been filled by his young son, Edward,
and at last, after the battle of Tewkesbury, King
Henry and Queen Margaret were taken prisoners, their
son Edward having been killed in battle or murdered
afterwards.  Both were taken to the Tower, and one
night, between eleven and twelve, King Henry was put
to death, the Duke of Gloucester and divers of his men
being in the Tower that night.  So Edward of York
ascended the throne, the fourth king of that name, and
the first stage of the War of the Roses was ended.

Henry was not buried at Westminster; in the darkness
of the night his body was carried from the Tower,
put on to a lighted barge, and, "without singing or
saying," conveyed up the dark waters of the Thames
to his silent interment at Chertsey Abbey.  And yet
this gentle, humble king had loved the Abbey well,
and had greatly longed to lie near to St. Edward, by
his father and his ancestors, having chosen the spot
where the relics had been kept, as a "good place."

Edward IV. reigned for twelve years, but he did not
reign in peace; and once his wife Elizabeth was in such
distress and danger that, with her three little girls,
Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely, and one faithful attendant,
Lady Scrope, she fled to Westminster for sanctuary, and
threw herself on the mercy of Abbot Mylling.  In this
gloomy place of refuge her son was born, she being
tended by a certain Mother Cobb, who also lived in
sanctuary, while the Abbot sent her some few things
for her comfort, and a kind butcher named Gould
provided "half a beef and two muttons every week."

It was a strange birthplace for an English prince;
but his christening, which took place in the Abbey, was
not without honour, though the ceremony was carried
out as though he were a poor man's son.  He was
given the honoured name of Edward, the Abbot was
his godfather, and the Duchess of Bedford with Lady
Scrope stood as his godmothers.  When peace was
restored, Edward IV. at once came to Westminster to
comfort his queen, and he did not forget to reward
those who had helped Elizabeth in the hour of her
distress.  To Nurse Cobb he gave £12 a year; from
the butcher he ordered a royal shipful of hides and
tallow; while the Abbot, for "his great civility," was
made a Privy Councillor, and afterwards Bishop of
Hereford.

But though Elizabeth left the Sanctuary, she was
once more to return to its kindly shelter.  She had
always a mistrust of her husband's favourite brother,
the Duke of Gloucester, and when King Edward died
in 1473, she at once went back to Westminster with
her daughters and her second son, the Duke of York.
Her eldest boy, Edward, was already in his uncle's power
and in the Tower, although the Duke of Gloucester
had made him enter London in state, he riding
bare-headed before him, and saying to the people loudly,
"Behold your prince and sovereign."  But the queen
was not to be deceived by this.  "Woe worth him,"
she said bitterly; "he goeth about to destroy me and
my blood."

This time Elizabeth and her children were given
room in the Abbot's palace, probably in the dining-hall,
and there the Archbishop of York came to her
to deliver up, for the use of her son, the Great Seal,
entrusted to him by Edward IV.  He found her sitting
on the floor, "alone on the rushes, desolate and
dismayed, and about her was much rumble, haste, and
business with conveyance of her household stuff into
sanctuary.  Every man was busy to carry, bear, and
convey these stuffs, chests, and fardels, and no man
was unoccupied."  In the distance could be heard the
noise of the workmen already beginning the preparations
for the coronation of King Edward, which the
Duke of Gloucester was apparently pushing forward
with all haste.  But as the Archbishop looked out of
his window on to the Thames, he saw the river covered
with boats full of the Duke of Gloucester's servants,
keeping a watch over the queen's hiding-place.

Richard of Gloucester's next move was to get
possession of the little Duke of York, and as he was
now appointed Protector, having altogether deceived the
Council as to his real intent, this was no very difficult
matter.  And the poor queen had only a mother's
love and a mother's fears to set against these mighty
men and the fair sounding argument "that the little
king was melancholy and desired his brother for a
playmate."

"I deliver him into your keeping, my lord," she
said to the Archbishop of Canterbury, her face white,
her voice trembling, "of whom I shall ask him again
before God and the world.  And I pray you, for the
trust which his father reposed in you, that as you
think I fear too much, so you be cautious that you
fear not too little."

Then she threw her arms round the boy and covered
him with kisses.

"Farewell, mine own sweet son," she sobbed; "God
send you good keeping.  And God knoweth when we
shall kiss together again."

Her worst fears were realised.  She never saw her
boys again, never knew how they were murdered in the
Tower, or even where they were buried.  And from her
dwelling-place within the Sanctuary precincts she could
see and hear all the preparations that were being made
for the coronation of Richard III., while she "sobbed
and wept and pulled her fair hair, as she called by name
her two sweet babes, and cried to God to comfort her."

For nearly a year she remained where she was, then
Richard, having taken an oath before the Lord Mayor
and the Council to protect her and her daughters, she
moved out of Sanctuary into some humble lodgings
near Westminster, where her one friend seems to have
been a doctor named Lewis, who was also a priest, and
apparently something of a politician too, for he began
to plan with the queen for the marriage of her eldest
daughter, Elizabeth, with Harry of Richmond, who,
through his mother, Margaret Beaufort, was the hope
of the Lancastrian party.

Richard III. was already hated in England, and as the
story of the way in which he had caused his little
nephews to be murdered became generally known, the
hatred increased tenfold.  So the Lancastrian party
thought the moment had come for them to make another
effort.  Harry Richmond landed at Milford Haven from
France with 3000 men, and soon an eager, willing army
flocked to his standard.  At Bosworth field he met
Richard in battle.

"Let courage supply the want of our numbers," he
cried.  "And as for me, I propose to live with honour
hereafter, or die with honour here."

Evening found him the victor of the day; Richard lay
dead on the field, and his crown, which he had worn into
battle, was found hanging on a bush.  There on the
scene of his triumph the crown was set on Henry's head,
while the soldiers shouted joyfully, "God save King
Henry VII.," and then burst into a solemn *Te Deum*.

In October Henry was formally crowned in the Abbey,
and in the Abbey, too, a few months later, he married
the Princess Elizabeth, once the helpless, homeless
Sanctuary child.  So were the Houses of York and
Lancaster made one; so were the red roses and white
roses grafted together, and the people of London
celebrated the happy event with bonfires, dancing, songs,
and banquet.  Cardinal Bourchier, himself of Plantagenet
stock, performed the marriage ceremony, and so, as
an old writer prettily puts it, "his hand held the
sweet posie wherein the white and red roses were first
tied together."

Not till a year later was Elizabeth crowned, and by
then a little son had been born to her, named Arthur
at his father's wish, in memory of the stainless King
Arthur, whom Henry VII. claimed as an ancestor
through his Welsh grandfather, Owen Tudor.

It was about this time that a great change came over
the people of England in regard to their opinion of
Henry VI.  They had begun by pitying him for his
misfortunes; then they had called to mind his patience
and humility, his kind deeds, his love of learning, and
his pure life, till at last in their eyes he became nothing
short of a saint.  Richard III. had caused his body to
be removed from Chertsey to Windsor, much to the
anger of the priests at Chertsey, who had spread abroad
stories of wonderful miracles performed at his tomb,
which stories, being readily believed, had drawn many
pilgrims to the place.  And pilgrims never came empty-handed.

Henry VII. came under the influence of this feeling,
and he resolved that honour should now be done to this
king, whom men had liked and pitied, but had never
honoured in life.  He had already decided to build a
new chapel to the Virgin Mary in the Abbey, or rather
to entirely rebuild the Lady Chapel of Henry III., and
here he intended Henry VI. should be reburied under a
costly tomb.  He went so far as to petition the Pope to
add King Henry's name to the list of saints; but the
Pope would only agree to do so for an extravagant sum
of money, and Henry Tudor thought the money could be
more profitably spent in other ways.  So the matter was
allowed to drop, and although the council which had
been summoned to decide where Henry should finally be
buried—in Windsor, Chertsey, or Westminster—gave
their judgment in favour of Westminster, it is very
doubtful if his body was ever moved to the Abbey at
all.  Certainly no monument was raised to his memory.
However, the building of the Lady Chapel went on apace,
only its purpose was changed.  It was no longer to be
the chantry of Henry VI., but the chapel of Henry VII.,
the burying-place of the Tudor kings and queens of
his race.

Henry was a curious mixture of a desire to hoard up
money, and a desire to build what he undertook on a
very lavish scale.  He saved more money than any other
English king, and he certainly spent less, for he was
simple in all his tastes, a silent, gloomy man.  But he has
left behind him in Westminster Abbey a piece of work
as beautiful as wealth and art could make it, a building
"stately and surprising, which brought this church to
her highest pitch of glory," and though his original ideas
as to its purpose were frustrated, his longings that here
"three chantry monks should say prayers for his soul so
long as the world endured," being ruthlessly disregarded
by his own son, Henry VIII., his chapel still stands, so
that with Edward the Confessor and Henry III. he ranks
among the three great royal builders of the Abbey.

Before you go into this chapel stand for a minute in
King Edward's shrine, with its stately simplicity; then
pass under the chantry of Henry V., simple too, but
telling of strength, of life, and vigour; walk up the steps
of Henry's Chapel into the dark entrance, and then stay
still in the doorway to drink in the matchless beauty
before your eyes.  Here, simplicity is a word unknown;
everywhere, inside and out, is a wealth of carving; no
spot or corner was deemed too hidden away to be
ornamented; roof and walls alike are covered with
delicate lacework and rich embroidery made out of
stone.

.. class:: center

   "They dreamed not of a perishable house who thus could build."

.. vspace:: 2

The foundation-stone was laid one afternoon in the
January of 1502 by Islip, "that wise and holy man who
was Abbot of the Westminster monks," and the building
was solemnly dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary by
order of Henry VII., king of England and France and
Lord of Ireland.  The work went on quickly, for money
was not lacking.  Abbot Islip was a man of action, and
Henry was feverishly anxious that the building should
be completed in his lifetime.  Here it was that he
meant to be buried, for just because his claim to the
throne was not a very good one, he was doubly anxious
to link himself on by many different ways to the kings
of the past.  Everywhere in his chapel, round his tomb,
on the roof, and on the doorways, you will find his
different badges set up, as if to say, "Each one of these
badges gave me the right to be king of England."  You
will see over and over again the York and Lancaster
roses; the portcullis and the greyhound, both of them
Beaufort badges, which had come to him through his
mother, Margaret Beaufort, the direct descendant of John
of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; the red dragon of
Cadwallader of Wales, the last British king, whom
Henry alone of all the English kings proudly claimed as
his ancestor, through Owen Tudor, his father; and the
lion, which always figured in the royal arms of England.
These badges, everywhere carved, were Henry's challenge
to any one who might dispute his claim.

"We will," said Henry, "that this chapel be
wholly and perfectlie fynished with all spede; and
the windows glazed with stories, imagies, badgies, and
cognoisants; that the walles, doors, archies, windows,
vaults, and imagies, within and without be painted,
garnished, and adorned in as goodly and rich manner as
such a work requireth and as to a king's work appertaigneth."

But in spite of all the speed the king died before the
work was finished, and never saw his chapel in all its
costly beauty.  Only a few days before his death he
gave the Abbot £5000 more, "in redy money by the
hande," for the carrying on of the work, and his will
showed how deep his interest lay, for he solemnly
charged his executors to advance whatever money was
needful, and to choose for the high altar "the greatest
Image of our Lady we have in our Juel house; a Crosse
of plate of gold upon tymber, chalices, altar suits,
vestments, candlesticks, and ornaments," all of them to bear
the royal badges.  "And for the price and value of
them," he concluded, "our mynde is, that thei bei of
suche as appertaigneth to the gifte of a prynce; and
therefore we wol that our executours in that partie
have a special regarde to the lawe of God, the weal
of our soule and our honour royal."

Queen Elizabeth had died some years before her
husband, and had been impressively laid in some side
chapel of the Abbey.  Now, on Henry's death, both
were buried together in the tomb which the king had
ordered should be in the middle of the Chapel by the
high altar, and about which he had left minute
instructions as to the images of himself and the queen,
the inscription, the tabernacles round the tomb with
the images of saints and angels, and the grating of copper
and gilt for its protection.

Certainly the tomb was made worthy of the exquisite
chapel which enshrined it, and Henry's wishes were
faithfully carried out in this respect.  An Italian,
Torregiano, made the images of the king and queen in gilt
bronze, and Torregiano was something of a genius, for
all his images have a wonderful life of their own.  Yet
he must have been anything but a pleasant visitor to
the monastery precincts, for he was a bold man, with a
loud voice, frowning eyebrows, and fierce gestures, who
daily boasted of his feats among the beasts of Englishmen,
and told how he had broken the nose of his rival
Michael Angelo; or how he had shattered to pieces an
image of the Virgin, because there was some dispute
about the price to be paid him.  However, we must
forgive him his violent temper out of gratitude for his
beautiful work.

The grating round the tomb was made by English
workmen, and here again you will see everywhere the
king's badges.  And I want you to notice, too, the little
angels who stand round the king and queen, for they
look as if they had just flown there for a moment, so
lightly are they poised.  Then you must look at the
carvings round the tomb, those Saints whom the king had
chosen to be his guardians: the Virgin Mary with Christ
in her arms and St. Michael at her side; St. John the
Baptist pointing to a picture of the Lamb of God; St. John
the Evangelist holding his Gospel in his hand, an eagle
standing at his feet; St. George of England standing on
the vanquished Dragon, and with him St. Anthony dressed
as a monk; Mary Magdalene with her box of precious
ointment; St. Barbara holding a three-windowed tower;
St. Christopher bearing on his shoulder the Christ Child,
and St. Edward the Confessor crowned in glory.

Just outside the screen must have stood a beautiful
altar, also the work of Torrigiano, an altar of white
marble, gilded with fine gold, enriched by inlay and
carving, the central figure being "an image, erth coloured
of Christ dead;" but this was wrecked by a fanatic
named Marlow in the time of the Commonwealth, whose
"ignorant zeal was such that he brake it into shivers,
though it was a raritie not to be matched in any part
of the world."

As you stand in the chapel I want you to gaze up at
the vaulted roof, which seems as though it hung in mid
air, so wonderful is the design with its fairy grace and
lightness; for here you see a beautiful example of that
fan-tracery vaulting which was peculiarly English in its
style, and which in this case was probably the work of
two English masons, John Hyharn and William Vertue.
Then you must look around at the army of Saints and
Martyrs who guard the walls; king, apostle, saint
confessor, all are here, and the niches in which they stand
are delicately carved and decorated.  And you must
try to imagine the glory of the windows in those early
days when, filled with "goode, clene, sure, and perfyte
glasse of oryent colours, and the imagery of the story
of the olde lawe and the new lawe," they reflected their
rich hues around.  Now only one little part of those
many painted windows remains, but that is a figure of
Henry VII., who looks down over the chapel which he
raised.

The carved oaken stalls intended for the monks were
not all finished at this time, and as is so often the
case with such stalls, there is nothing sacred about the
character of the ornaments carved on them.  On the
contrary, they aim at being amusing; and you will find
quaint figures of monkeys winnowing corn; of foxes in
armour riding on the backs of cocks; of fiends seizing
a miser; of turkeys chasing a boy; a bear playing
on bagpipes, and so on.  In the year 1725 George
I. reconstructed the old order of Knights of the Bath, and
as from the days of Richard II. it had been the custom
only to create such knights at a coronation and when
a Prince of Wales was created, the Order had many
associations with Westminster.  So this Chapel of
Henry VII. was set apart as the Chapel of the Order,
just as the Chapel of St. George's, Windsor, was set
apart for the Order of the Garter; and here for nearly
a hundred years every knight was installed; here was
hung his banner; and here was fastened up over his
stall the plate on which was emblazoned his coat of
arms.  But gradually the Order became so large that
the many ceremonies connected with it had to cease,
and now only the banners which hang here tell us of
bygone days.

.. _`GATES OF HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL`:

.. figure:: images/img-131.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: GATES OF HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL.

   GATES OF HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL.

As you come out, take a last look at the massive
gates of oak and metal serried with badges, and then
stand once more in the middle of the sixteenth century,
when that mass of carving was made yet more rich and
beautiful by the colours which blazed everywhere, from
the crimson, blue, and purple of the windows; the gold
and silver vessels on the altar; the gleaming brass of
the images; the gorgeous vestments of the priests; the
dazzling whiteness of the marble; the glitter of the
tapers round the tomb.  Think of how Abbot Islip must
have gloried in this new gem of dazzling beauty now
added to the Abbey, already so rich in treasure; for
Islip was of "a wakeful conscience" and held himself
the steward of the house of God, so that he too did
some building to this place, and evidently won the
confidence of the king, who made him paymaster of the
workmen.

As for Henry himself, the chapel has become a far
greater memorial of him than he can ever have deemed
possible.  It matters little to us now what was his real
motive in raising it, even if it were possible to point
to any one unmixed motive which inspired him.  For
us it is enough that the chapel stands, and though we
need not, with Fabyan the chronicler, wax enthusiastic
over "the excellent wysdome, sugared eloquence,
wonderfull dyscression, the exceedynge treasure and rychesse
innumerabyll" of this silent, almost gloomy king, let
us with the same chronicler "remember his beautyfull
buildyngs and his liberell endowments at Westminster,
and pray that he may attain that celestyall mansion
whych he and all trew Christen soules are inheritors
unto, the whyche God hym graunt."

.. _`PLAN OF CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.`:

.. figure:: images/img-133.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.

   CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE ABBEY AND THE REFORMATION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ABBEY AND THE REFORMATION

.. vspace:: 2

A few months after the death and burial of Henry
VII., another royal funeral took place in this beautiful
chapel of the Tudors, the funeral of his mother,
Margaret, the "venerable lady," whose influence was
far-reaching, and whose holiness had won for her such
universal love and reverence.

"It would fill a volume to recount her good deeds,"
says her biographer, and he goes on to tell how she
lived a life of prayer and simplicity, being a member
of no leas than five religious houses; how she herself
waited on the poor, the sick, the dying, and how she
freely gave of her wealth for the encouragement of
learning.  "Her ears were spent in hearing the word of
God, her tongue was occupied in prayer, her feet in
visiting holy places, her hands in giving alms."  She
provided an almshouse for poor women near Westminster
Abbey, and another at Hatfield, and besides founding
schools and colleges, she maintained many poor scholars
at her own expense.  She also translated many works
in the English tongue.  It was in Westminster that she
desired to be buried, and she made many gifts to the place
which her son was so richly beautifying, stipulating in
return that prayers should always be said here for
herself and all her family.  She was destined to
outlive son, daughter-in-law, and grandson, and it was
not till 1509 that her useful life of close on
three-score years and ten came to an end, and she passed
peacefully away, "the almoner of God, the friend of
the poor, the supporter of true religion, the patroness of
learning, the comforter of the sorrowing, the beloved of
all."  As you stand by her monument in the south aisle
of Henry VII.'s Chapel, look at her strong, noble face,
beautiful in its calm old age, her hands clasped in prayer
as was their wont; and while you are lost in wonder at
the skill of the sculptor, probably Torrigiano, I think
you will realise something of the goodness and purity of
Margaret Richmond, which this sleeping figure makes so
vivid, and will understand how "every one that knew her
loved her, for everything she said or did became her."  It
was well for her that she did not live long enough to
see her clever imperious grandson seeking to destroy so
many of the things which she had loved and guarded.

Henry VIII. came to the throne with splendid
opportunities.  He was gifted far above the average: his
manners were genial and taking; he could talk many
languages; he was devoted to sport, a good musician, an
admirable wrestler; fond of amusement, but fond also of
more serious things; and the people were prepared to
love their King Hal, for he was in every way a contrast
to his father, who had never won their affections.
Henry was a strong man, who resolved to be no puppet
in the hands of any party or minister.  Yet it was his
will which ruined his character, for it was a will entirely
bent on gaining its own ends, unchecked by any sense
of duty, untouched by any appeal to high or noble
motives.  What he desired he must have, and all that
stood in his way must be swept aside: he would spare
no one who thwarted him; nothing weighed in the
balance against the gratification of his own whims and
fancies.

You will remember that he was not the eldest son
of Henry VII.  His brother Arthur, Prince of Wales,
had died in 1501, a few months after he had married
Katherine, the Infanta of Spain, and chiefly because the
idea was at first strongly opposed, Henry made up his
mind to marry his widowed sister-in-law.  When he
came to the throne, he at once carried out his will in
this matter, and brushed aside all the objections that
were raised on account of the close relationship existing
between the two.  The marriage took place at Greenwich,
and the double coronation followed at Westminster
on Midsummer Day in the year 1509, "amid all the
rejoicings in the world."  Katherine made a beautiful
queen, dressed in white with cloth of gold, her long hair
hanging down to her feet, and little dreamt any of those
who cheered her on her way of all that was to spring
out of that marriage, for Henry seemed to be the most
devoted of husbands.  In 1511 their son was born, and
had such an elaborate christening that he took a cold
from which he never recovered.  "His soul returned to
among the Holy Innocents of God," says a Westminster
manuscript, and we are told how "the queen made
much lamentation, but by the king's persuasion she
was at last comforted."  The baby prince was certainly
buried in the Abbey, though exactly where is unknown.
But his death, unimportant as it must have seemed at
the moment to those who took part in the funeral,
had in reality a deep significance.  Henry was
incapable of loving any one for long, and as he began
to grow weary of Katherine, he made it a grievance
that her other child was a daughter and not a son.
Furthermore, he argued to himself that he had done
wrong in marrying his brother's widow, so that the
death of his son was the sign of God's wrath, and then
he began to devise how he could dissolve his marriage
with her, to wed instead her fascinating maid of honour,
Anne Boleyn.  Only the Pope could grant him the
divorce that he desired, and accordingly Henry sent his
all-powerful favourite, Wolsey, to Rome to get this
consent.  But the Pope, much as he feared Henry,
feared the Emperor Charles V., the nephew of Queen
Katherine, much more, and Wolsey, on his side, was
anxious not to offend the Pope, as his ambition was
to succeed him, so it all ended in his going back to
Henry without having the desired permission.  Henry
was furious, and Wolsey, disgraced, died broken-hearted.
The king's next step was to defy the Pope, and to send
round to all the ministers in Europe, asking them
whether in their opinion his marriage with Katherine
had been a legal one.  But their answer in almost every
case was the opposite answer to what Henry had
determined on, and their opposition only increased his
determination, till at last, urged thereto by Thomas
Cromwell, Wolsey's successor in his favour, he took the
bold step of declaring that he himself was the head of
the Church in England, the defender of the faith, and
that therefore the Pope had no power to forbid the
divorce.  He was clever enough to know that for many
a long day the independent spirit of the English nation
had rebelled against the power of the Pope in the land;
that the revival of learning had set men thinking for
themselves; that the teaching of Luther and the other
reformers had prepared the way for a great change in
England, and that he could count on his Parliament to
support him in declaring himself supreme head of the
Church in this land.  Thus whilst pretending to cleanse
and purify the Church, and reform the many errors
which had crept in, Henry really was true to his general
policy of sweeping out of the way any obstacle to his
wishes.  The Pope had opposed him, so from henceforward
he would deprive the Pope of all authority in
England.  He divorced Katherine, and married Anne
Boleyn, while those few men who refused to go against
their conscience by declaring the king to be in the right
on this question of his marriage, when they felt him to
be in the wrong, did so at the cost of their lives.

But the king had not yet finished with the Pope;
urged thereto by Cromwell, who earned for himself
the name "The Hammer of the Monks," he proceeded
to attack all the monasteries and religious houses in
England, and there were many hundreds of them, which
were under the immediate jurisdiction of Rome.  To
these religious houses England owed no small debt of
gratitude: the monks had been teachers, scholars,
chroniclers, architects, carvers, painters, translators, and
illuminators; they had nursed the sick, they had
relieved the needy; they had been the great employers
of labour, the tillers of the soil, and, untouched by the
ebb and flow of the tide outside, they had gone quietly
on with their daily round of work and prayer, keeping
their lights ever burning before the altar to signify
that their house was "always watchynge to God."  But,
as they became rich and powerful, they fell away
from their high ideals; the threefold vow of poverty,
obedience, and purity ceased to sanctify their lives;
luxury took the place of plain, frugal living; the monks
no longer laboured with their own hands, but kept
great retinues of servants, and the money that should
have been spent for the glory of God and the church
was squandered in extravagant living.  The abbots
were under no control save that of Rome, and Rome
was far away, so that there was no power from outside
to correct, to reform, and to purify.  Gradually, too, the
monasteries had lost their hold over the people; resting
on their past, they made no effort to keep pace with
the present; they bitterly opposed any education save
that which they held in their own hands; they resented
progress and enlightenment; they were no longer centres
of light and learning; their fire had burnt out, quenched
by covetousness, by wrong-doing and by luxurious
living.

Cromwell saw in them an opportunity which Henry
was all too ready to grasp.  A Commission was formed
to visit and report on the universities and all
religious houses; and when the visitors had finished their
work, which they had done carefully and thoroughly,
they laid their verdict before the House of Commons
in the famous Black Book, which was destroyed some
years later by order of Queen Mary.  Much of what
it contained is therefore lost to us, but as the Commons,
who sat, remember, in the Chapter-Room at Westminster,
heard clause after clause read out, which told, with a
few honourable exceptions, a terrible story against the
monasteries, they could not restrain themselves, and
over and over again shouts of "Down with the monks"
rang through the vaulted building.  Generally speaking,
the largest of the monasteries had come well out of
the inquiry, and Parliament therefore began by only
dissolving the smaller houses, at the same time ordering
that the lands and incomes of these latter should be
handed over to the king, as head of the Church, to be
spent in the "high and true interests of religion."  Certainly
the Commons had none but high motives in
passing this Act, and never dreamt of a general
dissolution, or the appropriation of all that immense
wealth for anything but religious or educational
purposes.  They had not realised Henry's greed, "which
no religion could moderate, or the force of his will,
against which nothing, however sacred, seemed able
to stand."

The monks at Westminster naturally heard very
quickly all the particulars of the deliberations which
had taken place inside the Chapter-Room.  How they
must have lingered about the cloisters that day; how
eagerly and excitedly must they have talked during
those hours when talking was allowed, wondering in what
way all these things would end; how they must have
speculated as to their own future, and that of the
few other large monasteries in which the Commissioners
had declared that "thanks be to God, religion had
been right well kept and observed."  They had not
long to wait.

A general order issued shortly afterwards, ordering
the removal of all shrines, images, and relics, made it
clear that Henry and his ministers had other ideas
beyond the reformation of religious houses; and the
monks, who gauged the character of the king, hastily
moved the body of St. Edward to some sacred spot,
that, at least, this holy possession of the Abbey might
not be lost to it.  They managed, too, to hide some
of the treasures which beautified Edward's shrine, but
much of the gold and many of the jewels became the
property of the king.  Altogether nearly 800 monasteries
fell into the hands of Henry, and without any
compunction he appropriated their lands and their
wealth, giving away to his favourites of the moment
what he did not desire to keep for himself.  Inside
the religious houses the greatest excitement prevailed,
and much diversity of opinion; for some there were
among the abbots and monks who were prepared to lose
their lives rather than willingly surrender themselves
to the king's will, while others, more the children of
this world than the children of light, deemed that by
submission could they best hope to save something in
this overwhelming deluge.

At Westminster, under Abbot Benson, the monks
chose a prudent course, the abbot being one, as an
old writer severely remarks, "whose conscience was not
likely to stand in his way on any occasion," and in
the January of 1540 the Abbey with all its wealth
was voluntarily handed over to the king.

Partly perhaps on account of this absolute submission,
but much more because even Henry had still reverence
for a place which was peculiarly royal in all its
associations, Westminster was in some degree saved.  The
old order indeed was destined to pass away; its wealth
was to be a thing of the past, save for the wealth of
beauty in sculptured stone which could not easily be
taken from it, and which still remained unrivalled even
when all the gold and jewels and plate excepting a
silver pot, two gilt cups, three hearse clothes, twelve
cushions and some other clothes, had been carried away
to satisfy greedy courtiers, "leaving the place very
bare."

But Henry converted the building into a cathedral,
giving it a bishop, a dean, prebendaries, minor canons,
all these offices with the exception of the Bishopric
being filled by the monks belonging to the establishment.
The Bishop, Thirleby, was ordered to make the
abbot's house his palace; Abbot Benson, now Dean,
took up his residence in humble quarters, and all the
old glory of the monastery departed for ever, while
Henry was quite £60,000 a year richer in our money.
Those of the monks for whom no place could be found
under the new system were pensioned off, and many
of the buildings, such as the refectory and the smaller
dormitory, no longer needed for the cowled figures who
for so many generations had used them, were pulled
down or put to fresh uses.

Nor was the monastery the only part of Westminster
which fell from its greatness.  Earlier in the reign of
Henry a fire had destroyed much of the old Palace,
and the king, who cared but little for it, set his heart
on York House close by, at Whitehall, once the London
house of the Bishops of York, afterwards the residence
of Wolsey.

The Cardinal lived in state; indeed Westminster was
but a humble dwelling compared to this magnificent
palace, and on his disgrace, Henry took possession of it.
For more than a hundred and fifty years it was the
royal palace, with fine courts, halls and chambers, its
own chapel and offices, its bowling-green, tent yard,
cock-pit, and tennis courts, and meanwhile the gabled,
sculptured Westminster Palace, the home of Saxon,
Norman, and Plantagenet kings, fell to pieces.  For us,
both are now but phantom palaces, with hardly a trace
of either remaining to recall the glories of the past.

But in the story of the Abbey, this change from
Westminster to Whitehall had more than a passing
effect; from henceforth the old intimate association
between the Palace and Abbey ceased to exist, and
Henry thus broke one more link with the traditions
of his ancestors.  Not even the chapel of his father,
now no longer called the Lady Chapel, but instead
St. Saviour's Chapel, had any attractions for one in whose
nature reverent affection for old associations was
entirely absent, and at his own desire, Henry was buried
at Windsor, by his "true and loving wife, Jane Seymour,"
who had kept in his good graces by giving him
a son, and then dying before he had time to grow
weary of her.  Of all his wives, only the plain and
placid Anne of Cleves was buried in the Abbey, on the
south side of the Altar, and "she had but half a
monument," says Fuller, though her funeral was an elaborate
one, by order of Mary, who was then queen.

King Edward VI., just ten years old, succeeded his
father; and the members of his council, especially his
uncle, the Duke of Somerset, strongly in favour of the
Reformed Church, were determined that the Pope
should not win back any of his old authority.  In this,
all the thinking people were of their opinion, but some
of the poor people, who had formerly received much in
charity from the monks, were very bitter, and there was
more than one rebellion in favour of the monasteries.
However, these were put down, and the reformers went
on with their work.  Edward was crowned as Head of
the Church in England, and, for the first time, a Bible,
translated into the English tongue, was set in his hands
at the coronation service.  For only within the last ten
years had the Bible been read to the people in a
language they could understand, and you will remember
how first Wycliffe, and then Tyndale, had failed in their
attempts to place this book in the hands of all, that all
might read and learn of God's teachings, by the light of
the understanding which God had given them.  Two
years after the coronation a Prayer-Book was published,
also in English, not exactly the same Prayer-Book as we
use now, for as time went on the spirit of the people
changed in favour of a still simpler service than that which
found favour with the early reformers in England, and
in the reign of Charles II. a revised Prayer-Book was
issued, as in the reign of James I. our present translation
of the Bible was authorised.  But it was in Edward's
reign that an English Bible and Prayer-Book first found
their way into the Abbey.

The plan of having a Bishop at Westminster does
not seem to have succeeded.  Thirleby was removed to
Norwich, and Richard Cox became the Dean.  But
he remained in the simple quarters, near the Little
Cloister, which had been assigned to Dean Boston, and
the Abbot's house passed into the possession of a
layman for the time being.  Protector Somerset had
certainly no feeling of veneration for the grand old pile
of buildings.  Not only did he put the Abbey under the
Bishop of London, and insist on cart-loads of stone,
which once had formed part of the solid monastery
buildings, being used for his own palace, Somerset
House, but of the few lands which still remained to
the Abbey, he took some and made them over to
St. Paul's, from time immemorial the rival of Westminster.
You have often heard the saying "robbing Peter to pay
Paul;" now you know its origin.  And as if to cut
off every possible association with the past, the House of
Commons moved from the Chapter House to St. Stephen's
Chapel, part of the old Westminster Palace, and there
met until the great fire in 1834, after which the present
Houses of Parliament were built.

But with the death of Edward, who had reigned seven
years, and the defeat of the Protestant party, who had
tried to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne, there came a
flicker of prosperity to the Abbey, a dim reflection, as it
were, of its bygone greatness.  For Queen Mary was a
devout Roman Catholic, and so soon as it lay in her
power, she dissolved the chapter or cathedral body,
restored the monastery, and gave the post of Abbot to
Fakenham, who was "a person of learning, good-natured,
and very charitable to the poor."

Edward was buried at Westminster, close to his grandfather,
Henry VII., and underneath the altar of Torrigiano,
of which I have already told you, so that the last
Roman Catholic and the first really Protestant king of
England lay side by side, under the same exquisite roof,
a striking commentary on the fact that the Reformation
was not a complete wrench with the past, but a transition
from old to new according to the unchangeable law
of progress.

Mary was crowned on October 10, and on the
coronation morning she journeyed in the royal barge from
Whitehall to the private waterstairs of old Westminster
Palace, and from thence went into the Parliament
chamber, where she robed.  Blue cloth covered the
ground all the way from Westminster Hall to the
choir in the Abbey, but here the altar blazed with
cloth of gold, and rich covers hung all around, while
the floor was strewn with fresh rushes, a quaint
contrast to everything else.  The Archbishops of
Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London
were already in the Tower as prisoners, so it was
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who met the queen and
performed the service, at which there was much dismay
among the people, for they said it had ever boded
ill for England when the Archbishop did not crown the
sovereign.  The old coronation service with its full
ceremonial was used, and the queen was very devout,
kneeling long in silent prayer.

Four days later, the queen again rode to the Abbey,
this time to open her Parliament.  But the occasion did
not pass by without some disturbances, for some who
refused to kneel while the Mass was being celebrated
were turned out by force.

The restoration of her religion was the object dearer
than all others to Mary's heart, and her unfaltering
belief that in so doing she was working the will of God,
added to her passionate enthusiasm for her faith, are the
only excuses we can plead for her, when we shudder
at the cruel persecutions which made England a land
of terror during the next few years.  Here it is only
necessary to say that, as always, persecution purified
and strengthened the very cause it was destined to
destroy, and Mary, during her five years' reign, made her
people hate her so bitterly, that nothing but her death
prevented a general rebellion.

She died a wretched, lonely woman, conscious of her
utter failure.

"My oppressed heart is pierced by many wounds,"
she said bitterly at the last.

Her funeral took place with much state, but the only
real mourners were the priests and monks, who feared
for their own fate.  Mary had entreated that she
might not be buried in royal array.  Her crown had
brought her no happiness, she said, and she did not wish
to be encumbered by it now.  Behind her coffin rode her
ladies, with black trains so long that they swept the
ground.  Mass was said before the High Altar for the last
time, while Fakenham, the last Abbot of Westminster,
as he himself well knew, preached a great sermon on the
dead queen, and, in a voice trembling with deep feeling,
told how she was too good for earth, a veritable angel,
who had found the realm poisoned with heresy, and had
purged it.

But his words found no echo in the heart of those
around, and the funeral ended in a scene of disorder, for
the people had no respect for the dead, and plucked
down all the hangings and draperies, while the
Archbishop of York, "in the midst of the hurly-burly,
pronounced that a collation was prepared," whereupon the
lords, ladies, and knights, with the bishops and Abbot
Fakenham, hurried to another part of the building for
dinner.

And no monument was erected to the memory of her
who was the last queen of the old faith to be buried in
the Abbey.





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.. _`IN THE CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.`:

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   CHAPTER XI


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   IN THE CHAPEL OF HENRY VII.

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On November 17, 1558, Mary died, and that very day
Parliament met in old Westminster Palace "to proclaim
without further halt of time the Lady Elizabeth as queen
of this realm."  Shouts of "God save Queen Elizabeth"
resounded through the walls, and outside the cry "Long
live our Queen Elizabeth" was taken up with heartfelt
intensity by the people, who believed, and not in vain,
that with her their deliverance had come.  She had
suffered, they had suffered, both in the same great
cause, and now together they were standing in the dawn
of a day which promised to be fair and radiant.  The
Spanish influence, which they hated passionately, as
Englishmen have ever been wont to hate foreign
interference, had received its death-blow, for here was a
queen, "born mere English, here among us, and
therefore most natural to us," who understood them, and
whom they could freely trust.  No wonder that there
were no signs of mourning for the dead queen, only
irrepressible joy and relief at the accession of the new
sovereign they were prepared to love so loyally.  But
no wonder either that the echoes of the cheers which
reached the Abbey fell on some hearts which could not
respond to them.  To Fakenham, with his handful of
monks, those shouts of joy were as a death-knell, though
the Abbot himself may have had some hopes that
Elizabeth would remember how he had pleaded with
Mary for her freedom.

The coronation festivities, which began January 15,
put London in a delirium of rejoicings, and though the
royal exchequer was so low that there was no money
available for costly preparations, the people more than
compensated for this by the pageants and decorations
they organised out of the fulness of their hearts.  "The
queen," says an officer who followed the procession, "as
she entered the city was received with prayers, welcomings,
cries and tender words, with all those signs which
argue the earnest love of subjects towards their sovereign.
She, by holding up her hands and glad countenance to
such as stood afar off, and most tender language to those
that stood near, showed herself no less thankful to
receive the people's goodwill than they to offer it, and
to such as bade 'God save her Grace,' she said in
return, 'God save you all,' so that the people were
wonderfully transported at the loving answers and
gestures of the queen."

Only one bishop could be found to read the coronation
service, as those few Protestants who had escaped
with their lives across the seas had not yet returned
from their exile, and the Roman Catholics refused to
assist, though no alterations were introduced into the
service, excepting that the Litany, the Gospel, and the
Epistle were ordered to be read in English.  This bishop,
with the singers, met the queen at Westminster Hall
on the following day, a Sunday, and to the fine old
hymn, "Hail, Festal Day," the procession wended its
way into the Abbey, and the solemn ceremony took
place.

Nor did Elizabeth at first make any changes in the
Abbey services.  It was her desire, she declared at the
opening of her Parliament ten days later, "to unite the
people of the realm in one uniform order," and though
she was determined that the English Church should be
utterly severed from Roman control, and that the Bible
should be an open book, she understood the bulk of her
people well enough to know that, as Bishop Creighton
has so clearly put it, "what they wished for was a
national church, independent of Rome, with simple
services, not too unlike those to which they had been
accustomed."  So, at the state service in the Abbey on
this occasion, the Mass was celebrated with the usual
ritual, though the sermon was preached by a certain
Doctor Cox, who was a vigorous Protestant.

Elizabeth's first Parliament gave over to her all the
religious houses revived by her sister, and she decided
to once more make Westminster a Cathedral church,
though without a bishopric.  Possibly if Fakenham had
been a more time-serving man, he might have managed
to stay on under the new regime as Dean, but he was
uncompromisingly true to his principles; he refused to
acknowledge any one but the Pope as head of the Church,
and in the House of Lords he made a strong speech
against the English Prayer-Book.  His reign at
Westminster had been a short one, but he had not failed in
his duty towards the precious trust committed to his
care.  The Confessor's Chapel, shrine of the English
saint, was still the greatest treasure of the Abbey, and
to this he had caused the body of the king, hidden,
you will remember, by the monks at the first threat of
dissolution, to be carried back "with the most goodly
singing and chanting ever heard," after he had repaired
the shrine itself to the best of his ability, assisted by
Queen Mary, who had sent him some jewels.  Moreover,
in Parliament he successfully defended the right
of sanctuary, so that this remained for some time longer
at least an Abbey privilege, and altogether it is pleasant
to remember this last Abbot as one who was true to the
light as he saw it, a kindly, moderate, honest man, a
firm friend, a fair enemy, a fine solitary figure standing
out among his fellows.  It is said that when in 1560
the bill was passed in Parliament which decided the
fate of Westminster and the other remaining
monasteries, a messenger who came to bring the news to
Abbot Fakenham found him busy planting young elms
in the Dean's yard.

"Cease thy labours, my lord Abbot," he said.  "This
planting of trees will avail thee nothing now."

But the old Abbot was not so mean-spirited.

"I verily believe," he made answer, "that so long
as this church endureth, it shall be kept for a seat of
learning."

And he went on contentedly with his work.

He lived for twenty-five years after he left the
Abbey, under a certain amount of restraints, and great
efforts were made to induce him to change his faith.
But he never wavered, and so far as possible withdrew
from all controversy, spending his time and his
substance among the poor.  "Like an axil tree, he stood
firm and fixed in his own judgments," says Fuller,
"while the times, like the wheels, turned backwards
and forwards round him."

Westminster stood aloof from the keen religious
controversies which raged around, and quietly stepped into
its new position.  It was now neither a monastery nor
a cathedral, but a "collegiate church," as it is to-day,
with its Dean and Chapter and its school.  Very
little, if anything, happened to disturb the peace
of the Abbey under the rule of its three excellent
Deans appointed by Elizabeth—Bill, Goodman, and
Andrewes; the only sign of the times which deserves
noticing being that more and more it became the
custom to bury distinguished people not of royal
blood within these honoured walls.  Otherwise we
may well quote the words of Widmore, who in
summing up this epoch in Westminster history,
concludes—"It may here be remarked that though
misfortunes and disturbances in a place give opportunity
to an historian to make observations and show his
eloquence, while they also entertain the reader, yet
peace and quietness are good proofs both of the
happiness of the times and the discretion of those
who govern."

On the 24th of March 1603, Elizabeth died after a
reign of forty-four years, during which she had never
lost her hold over the hearts and minds of her people.
As a woman she had her failings and weaknesses, but
as a queen she had done right well for England, and
"round her, with all her faults, the England we know
grew into the consciousness of its destiny....  She
saw what England might become, and nursed it into
the knowledge of its power."

The outburst of grief at her death was her people's
acknowledgment of the debt they owed her.  They had
trusted her, and not in vain; she had understood them,
had served them, and had loved them.  On the day of
her burying at Westminster "the city was surcharged
with multitudes of all sorts, in the streets, houses,
windows, leads, and gutters, and when they beheld her
statue lying on the coffin, set forth in royal robes, having
a crown upon the head thereof, a ball and sceptre in
either hand, there was such a general sighing, weeping,
and groaning as the like hath not been seen or known
in the memory of man, neither doth any history mention
any people, time, or state to make the like lamentation
for the death of their sovereign."

Nor did her memory fade away with her life, for her
tomb, which you will find in the north aisle of Henry
VII.'s Chapel, became familiar to her people throughout
the length and breadth of the land, "a lovely draught
of it being pictured in the London and country
churches."

The monument raised to her memory by James I. is
a fine one of its kind, and the sculptor has given us
an impression of her strength and power as she lies
sleeping there in royal state, guarded by lions, though
I think we cannot help missing the exquisite little
figures of saints and angels banished in deference to
the increasingly severe views of the English Churchmen.
Here is the translation of the Latin inscription round
the monument, which certainly described, and in no way
exaggerated, the feelings of the nation towards her:—

"To the eternal memory of Elizabeth, Queen of
England, France, and Ireland, Daughter of Henry VIII.,
Grand-daughter of Henry VII., Great-Grand-Daughter
of Edward IV.  Mother of her Country.  A Nursing
Mother of religion and all liberal Sciences, skilled in
many languages, adorned with excellent adornments
both of body and mind, and excellent for princely
virtues beyond her sex.  Religion to its primitive
purity restored; peace settled; Money restored to its
just value; Domestic Rebellions quelled; France
relieved when involved with internal divisions; The
Netherlands supported, the Spanish Armada vanquished;
Ireland, almost lost by rebels, eased by routing the
Spaniards; the Revenues of both Universities much
enlarged; and lastly, all England enriched.  Elizabeth,
during forty-five years, a very prudent Governor, a
victorious and triumphant Queen, most pious and most
happy, at her calm death in her seventieth year, left
her remains to be placed in this Church which she
preserved, until the hour of her Resurrection in Christ."

In arranging for this lengthy epitaph, James could
not fail to be reminded that Queen Mary, who lay in
the same tomb as Elizabeth, was passed over in cold
silence, so he added a simple sentence pathetic in its
restraint, almost an appeal on behalf of the one whose
life had been such a failure.

"Here rest we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary,
fellows both in throne and grave, in the hope of one
resurrection."

.. _`TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH`:

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   :alt: TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

   TOMB OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

In life everything had tended to separate them, but
in death they lay together at peace.

James erected another monument in this chapel, on
the southern side, and this was to the memory of his
mother, the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots.  She had
been buried at Peterborough, but her son, when he
came into the inheritance which was his, through her,
very rightly caused her to be buried among the kings
and queens of England.  Here again death reconciled
two implacable foes, so that Mary Queen of Scots lies
opposite to Elizabeth in this chapel of the Tudors.
The marble figure, with its sweet, finely-cut face and
its graceful draperies and its delicate lacework, is full
of charm, and makes familiar to us one whose fascinating
beauty was her own undoing.

And now we come to a new phase in the history of
the Abbey; for though after the days of Queen Elizabeth
several kings and queens of England were buried within
its walls, to none of them was a monument raised, not
so much even as an inscription was cut on the stones
over their graves.  With the Stuarts began a new race
of kings, and under their rule there grew up a new set
of relations between king and subjects.  They preached
the doctrine of the divine right of kings, declaring
themselves to be above any laws which their people might
desire to make through Parliament, so the battle had to
be fought out between king and Parliament, a battle so
fierce that it brought once more civil war to England,
cost Charles the First his life, and caused James II. to
flee to foreign lands.  But from that struggle with its
many errors there at last developed

   |  "That sober freedom out of which there springs
   |  Our loyal passion for our temperate kings,"

which holds together to-day the throne and the nation
as never before in our island story.

So you will see how, as the people became more and
more the ruling force in England, it was the representatives
of the people—statesmen, soldiers, sailors, writers,
musicians, travellers, thinkers, discoverers, and
benefactors—who stepped into the foremost places, and who
were thought worthy of a resting-place among the great
kings of old in the Abbey, while, with a few exceptions,
the sovereigns of England were buried at Windsor, now
the most important of all the royal palaces.

It is in Henry VII.'s Chapel that James I. himself
was buried in the founder's tomb, and his wife Anne of
Denmark lay close to him.  Near at hand you will see
a beautiful little monument of a baby in a cradle, which
marks the grave of Princess Sophia, a baby daughter
of James I.  The king gave orders at her death that
she should be buried "as cheaply as possible, without
any solemnity," but in spite of this, and although she
was only two days old, a great number of lords, ladies,
and officers of state attended, followed the little coffin,
which was brought up on a black draped barge from
Greenwich, and which was met at the Abbey by the
heralds, the dean and prebends, with the choir, while
an antiphon was sung to the organ.  The royal sculptor,
Nicholas Pourtian, was allowed the sum of one hundred
and forty pounds for her monument, and he must have
been a great lover of children or he could not have
thought out anything so charming as this yellow-tinted,
lace-covered cradle with its tiny baby occupant.

Nor is the inscription less pretty in idea than the monument,
for it tells us how Sophia, "Royal Rosebud, snatched
away from her parents, James, King of Great Britain,
Ireland and France, and Queen Anne, that she might
flourish again in the Rosary of Christ, was placed here."

Next to her is her sister Mary who lived to be two,
and then died of fever, saying many times over in her
wanderings these same words, "I go, I go, away I go."  Hers
too is a very natural little figure, in spite of the
stiff straight clothes and the quaint cap; and the carver
has put a great deal of life into the weeping cherubs, to
whom surely not the most rigid Puritan could have
objected.  In this same corner were laid, some years
later, the bones found by some workmen under the
stairs at the Tower of London, supposed to be those of
the little princes who had been murdered there, so that
at last King Edward the Fifth and his brother were
honourably buried near their more fortunate sister
Elizabeth of York.

The tomb of Mary Queen of Scots is really a Stuart
vault, and it might almost be called the vault of Royal
Children, for more than thirty are buried under it.
Here, without any monument, but an inscription on the
floor, lies Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of
James, who gave such high promise both of character
and ability, that he had won the hearts of the people, and
more especially of the Puritans, in a remarkable degree.
James, though holding very unsatisfactory views as to
the rights and duties of a king, had nevertheless brought
up his son wisely and had educated him most carefully.
Before he was six he had been instructed "how to
behave towards God, how to behave when he should come
to be king, and how to behave in all those matters
which were right or wrong according as they were used;"
and when he was only nine he wrote in Latin to his
father giving an account of the books he had been
reading, which included Cicero's Epistles.

According to the law of Scotland, the heir to the
throne was not allowed to be brought up by his parents,
but was sent to Stirling Castle, to be under the care of
the Earl of Mar, who held the right to be the hereditary
guardian, and this accounts for the many letters which
passed between the little prince and the king and
queen.  When Elizabeth died and James became king
of Great Britain, he had to go hastily to London, but
about a year later he sent for the queen to come "with
the bairns to Windsor, where he prayed God they should
all have a blyth meeting."  As they arrived there during
the festival of St. George, Prince Henry was at once
made a Knight of the Garter, and his "princely carriage
and his learned behaviour" on that occasion greatly
impressed every one who saw him.  The coronation of
James was fixed for St. James's Day, but because of the
plague raging in London, all the fair pageants and the
public rejoicings were hastily countermanded, so that the
ceremony was almost a private one, even the usual
procession through the city being left out.  Great was the
disappointment of the Londoners, though they were
promised that so soon as the plague had disappeared the
king, with the queen and their children, would visit the
city with all the state of a coronation procession.

One part of this coronation service was of special interest;
and to many people it meant the fulfilment of an old prophecy.
For more than eight hundred years before these words had
been roughly carved on the sacred stone of Scone—

   |  If Fates go right, where'er this stone is found
   |  The Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crowned.

And now, seated on the Coronation Chair which held that
stone, James VI. of Scotland was crowned as James
I. of England.

Prince Henry was still brought up away from home,
first in company with his sister, the merry and witty
little Princess Elizabeth, who afterwards married the
Elector Palatine.  Brother and sister were devoted to
each other: both were full of the highest spirits,
ready for any adventure; both loved riding and games,
and would "mount horses of prodigious mettle;" and
it was a great grief to them when they were parted,
though, woman-like, Elizabeth fretted the longer.  Prince
Henry was more of a philosopher.

"That you are displeased to be left in solitude I can
well believe," he wrote to her; "you women and damsels
are sociable creatures.  But you know those who love
each other best cannot always be glued together."

Meanwhile Henry took up his residence at Hampton
Court.  The Gunpowder Plot left a deep impression on
him, for had it succeeded he would have lost his life,
and he became still more serious and thoughtful, making
friends only with those who could teach him something
about the many things in which he took an interest,
ships, guns, fortifications, books, foreign lands, politics and
so on.  For Sir Walter Raleigh, that adventurous sailor
and treasure-hunter, now a prisoner in the Tower, he had
the greatest affection, and spent many hours walking up
and down the terrace with him talking of ships and the
sea, to the great delight of the old man, who found him
an enthusiastic and intelligent companion and at one with
him in his opinion that a strong navy meant peace for
England.  In vain Henry pleaded with his father to set
free this prisoner who had committed no crime save that
of offending Spain.  But James and his son were of very
different natures, and James was always doggedly
obstinate.  "No one but the King would shut up such a
bird in a cage," said the boy sadly.

.. _`INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST`:

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   :alt: INTERIOR LOOKING EAST.

   INTERIOR LOOKING EAST.

In 1610 he was created Prince of Wales and there
were great festivities in the White Chamber of Westminster
Palace, as there, in the presence of the Lords and
Commons, he knelt before the king, wearing a robe of
purple velvet, to receive the crown of Llewellyn.  Once
again he won all hearts, and the members of Parliament
congratulated themselves that so worthy a prince was
heir to the throne.  He became more and more the idol
of the people, and indeed rarely if ever since the days of
Edward, the Black Prince, had a king's son been so full
of promise.  But to the utter grief of the nation he
died two years later, after a short illness.

"Are you pleased to submit yourself to the will of
God?" asked the Archbishop, when all hope was given up.

"With all my heart," the boy answered simply.

"I had written him a treatise on the 'Art of War by
Sea,'" said Raleigh, when the sad news reached him.
"But God hath spared me the labour of finishing it.  I
leave him therefore in the hands of God."

When the long funeral procession passed through the
streets "there was a great outcry among all people," and
it was to the sounds of weeping and wailing that the
boy-prince, who had won so much love and respect,
was carried to Westminster Abbey.  There, close to him,
was laid more than forty years later, his dearest sister,
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, who, after a sadly
adventurous life, spent her last few years peacefully in
London, cared for and watched over by Lord Craven,
whose devotion to her had been lifelong, as unchanging
as it was chivalrous.

Another brother and sister are buried here, Anne, the
little daughter of Charles I., and Prince Henry, his third
son.  Anne died before all those troubles began, which
saddened the childhood of her brothers and sisters, and
made them prisoners in the hands of their father's
enemies, as she was only four when she fell into a fast
consumption.

"I am not able," she said wearily, the night she died,
"to say my long prayer, but I will say my short one.
'Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, lest I sleep in death.'"

Little Henry, the Duke of Gloucester, was extraordinarily
like his uncle Henry in every way, old for
his age, clever, thoughtful, "with a sweet method of
talking, and a judgment much beyond his years."  He
was taken from his father almost before he knew him,
and was, with his sister, also a Princess Elizabeth, kept
practically a prisoner in London by the Puritan party.
But he was not unkindly treated, for so engaging
was he both in conversation and in manners, that
many of the Puritans thought he would make a good
ruler for England if only he were strictly brought up,
and kept away from the influence of his mother or the
court.

When the sentence of death was passed on King
Charles, he asked to see the two of his children who
were in London, and after some delay the request was
granted.  Awe-struck, the little couple came into his
presence, and the king seems to have grasped what was
likely to happen.  He lifted the Duke of Gloucester on
to his knee.  "Sweetheart," he said, "they will cut off thy
father's head, and mark, child, perhaps they will make
thee a king.  But you must not be a king while your
brothers Charles and James be living."

"I will be torn in pieces first," answered the
white-faced child, with a determination which made so great
an impression on Charles, that even at that sad moment
he rejoiced exceedingly; while the little Duke, who up
till now had rarely seen his father, could carry away
as a last memory the picture of one whose courage was
highest when the need for it was greatest, and who, if
he had faced life weakly, met death bravely.

With his sister he was taken to Carisbrooke Castle, but
here his existence was very sad, for Princess Elizabeth, like
her sister Anne, fell into a consumption, and not being
properly cared for, she died.  So lonely was he now,
that those who had the charge of him, still nursing
the idea that one day he might become king, sent him
abroad to Leyden, with a tutor, and here he won for
himself the pleasant reputation of being "a most
complete gentleman and rarely accomplished."

With the Restoration Henry gladly returned to England,
and at once begged his brother to find him some
work to do, as "he could not bear an idle life."  So he was
made Lord Treasurer.  He proved himself to be a good
man of business, while in his leisure hours he gathered
round him men of letters and learning, and soon became
as popular in London as he had been in Leyden.  Then
a sudden attack of smallpox killed him, and once again
a funeral procession wended its way to Westminster
amid signs of very real sorrow.  For his fair life had
won him many friends and never an enemy.

Of Prince Rupert, who was buried in this vault, that
gallant soldier in the Royalist cause, more in another
chapter, and this one shall end with a few words about the
luckless "Lady Arabella Stuart."  She was a cousin to
James I., as her father's brother was the Earl of Darnley
who had married Mary Queen of Scots; but besides this
she was of royal birth, and her grandmother, the
Countess of Lennox, whose tomb you will find close by,
claimed, as you will see inscribed thereon, to have "to
her great-grandfather Edward IV., to her grandfather
Henry VII., to her uncle Henry VIII., to her grandchild
James VI. and I."  Arabella's father had committed
the unpardonable offence of marrying without Queen
Elizabeth's permission Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter
of the celebrated Bess of Hardwick, and for so doing
the young couple were promptly sent to the Tower, in
company with both the mothers-in-law, one of whom,
the Countess of Lennox, had already twice been
imprisoned for matters of love—an early attachment of
her own to Thomas Howard, and the marriage of her
elder son to Mary Queen of Scots.  The young Earl
of Lennox died very soon after his marriage, and
Elizabeth relented so far as to allow yearly £400 a
year to his widow and £200 to his little daughter
Arabella.

When she was twelve, Arabella was sent for by the
queen to London, and being very handsome as well as
clever, she soon began to attract attention.  The Roman
Catholic party, always on the look-out for a weapon to
use against the crown, turned their attentions to her,
and her position became a dangerous one, though she
herself was entirely loyal and very prudent.  The great
Lord Burleigh, however, was always her good friend,
and when James came to the throne, he gave him a
wise hint to "deal tenderly with this high-spirited and
fascinating young lady."  James took his advice, and
Arabella lived at his court, nominally as the governess
of the Princess Elizabeth, but actually as if she herself
had been a daughter.  She was a favourite with all,
especially with Henry Prince of Wales, for she was highly
educated and a most delightful companion.  But though
she had many lovers, she would look at none of them,
declaring "she had no mind for marriage."  However,
unfortunately for her, she lost her heart to William Seymour,
whom she married in spite of the disapproval of James.
And then began her troubles, for Seymour was utterly
unworthy of her, and had only married her to advance
his own position.  When he was put into the Tower,
and his wife was kept as a prisoner at Lambeth, his only
idea was to make good his own escape, leaving Arabella
to her fate; whilst she, still believing in him, risked
everything to set him free.  It was only when she found
that he had fled to Ostend without her that the full
force of her sorrows overwhelmed her.

She had hardly a friend, for even Prince Henry
seems to have sided for once with his father, and greatest
of all was the bitterness of realising that her husband
cared nothing for her.  He did not even write to her,
lest in so doing he might endanger his own safety.

She was sent to the Tower, where first her health,
then her mind gave way, and she became as a little
child, singing nursery songs, prattling of childish things.
Death was a merciful release.  Secretly, by dead
of night, she was taken from the Tower to the Abbey
on a barge, and buried without any ceremony in the
vault under the tomb of her aunt.  She had often
described herself as the "most sorrowful creature living,"
and, indeed, I think that under this tomb in Henry VII.'s
chapel lie three royal women of the Stuart race whose
lives were all the saddest tragedies, Mary Queen of Scots,
Elizabeth of Bohemia, and the Lady Arabella.  "God
grant them all a good ending," as the old chroniclers
were wont to say.  At least now, after life's fitful fever,
they sleep well in the calm of the old Abbey.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FROM THE STUARTS TO OUR OWN TIMES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   FROM THE STUARTS TO OUR OWN TIMES

.. vspace:: 2

When James I. came to the throne, Lancelot Andrewes
was Dean of Westminster, and he devoted himself to
the care of the school, which, under Elizabeth's
endowments, was now prospering greatly.  He had this
excellent reputation, "that all the places where he had
preferment were better for it," and it is certain that
either he must have been a remarkable master or the
Westminster boys must have been models of their kind,
for this is how Hacket, once his pupil, rapturously
describes him:—

"Who could come near the shrine of such a saint and
not offer up a few pæans of glory on it?  Or how durst
I omit it?  For he it was that first planted me in my
tender studies and watered them continually with his
bounty....  He did often supply the place of head-master
and usher for the space of an whole week together, and
gave us not an hour of loitering time from morning till
night.  He never walked to Chiswick for his recreation
without a brace of this young fry, and in that wayfaring
leisure had a singular dexterity to fill those
narrow vessels with a funnel.  And what was the
greatest burden of his toil, sometimes twice in the
week, sometimes oftener, he sent for the uppermost
scholars to his lodgings at night and kept them with
him from eight to eleven, unfolding to them the best
rudiments of the Greek tongue and the elements of
Hebrew grammar.  And all this he did to boys without
any compulsion or correction; nay, I never heard him
to utter so much as a word of austerity."

Altogether Andrewes was a man of great influence
and renown both as a scholar and a preacher, so he was
promoted to a bishopric after a short time, and was
succeeded by Richard Neile, who had himself been a
boy of Westminster School, and who, therefore, in his
turn carefully fostered its growth.  He too became a
bishop in three years, and of the two deans who followed
him, Montague and Tounson, we know little except that
the one was "a person of wit and entertaining conversation,"
and the other "one of a graceful presence and
an excellent preacher, who left a widow and fifteen
children unprovided for."

It is Hacket who again gives us an amusing picture
of the excitement among all the divines when it became
known that Tounson was to be Bishop of Salisbury and
that the Deanery of Westminster was vacant.

"It was a fortunate seat," he says, "near the Court.
Like the office over the king of Persia's garden at
Babylon, stored with the most delicious fruits.  He
that was trusted with the garden was the Lord of
the Palace."

Among those who earnestly desired the post was
John Williams, one of the chaplains to James I.,
and in these words he applied for it through Lord
Burleigh:—

.. vspace:: 2

"MY MOST NOBLE LORD,—I am an humble suitor, first
to be acknowledged your servant, and then that I may
with your happy hand be transplanted to Westminster
if the Deanery shall still prove vacant.  I trouble not
your Honour for profit, but for convenience, for being
unmarried and inclining so to continue, I do find that
Westminster is fitter by much for that disposition.  If
your Honour be not bent upon an ancient servitor, I
beseech you to think on me."

.. vspace:: 2

Fortunately for Westminster he obtained his heart's
desire, and in 1620 began his useful rule.  He took for
his exemplars Abbot Islip and Dean Andrewes, imitating
the first by carefully restoring the many parts of the
Abbey which through neglect were falling in ruins, and
the second by encouraging the school.  Then, "that
God might be praised with a cheerful noise in His
sanctuary," he obtained, as Hacket tells us, "the sweetest
music both for the organ and for voices of all parts
that was ever heard in an English quire;" and in
Jerusalem Chamber he gave many entertainments with
music, which "the most famous masters of this delightful
faculty frequented."  To enlarge the boundaries of
learning he turned one of the deserted rooms in the
cloisters, of old used by the monks, into a library,
bought out of his own means a large number of
books from a certain Mr. Baker of Highgate, and was
so public-spirited that he allowed men of learning
from all parts of London to have access to those precious
works.

He was in great favour with James, who made him
Lord Keeper of the Seal and Bishop of Lincoln,
allowing him to hold Westminster at the same time, and
though his enemies had much to say on the subject
of his holding so many offices, it must be said in
justice that he got through an amazing amount of work.
Under him it seemed as if some of the splendid
hospitalities which had ceased since the days when the
Abbots kept open house were to be revived, for Dean
Williams entertained in Jerusalem Chamber the French
ambassadors who came over to arrange for the marriage
between Prince Charles and Princess Henriette.

Before the feast he led them into the Abbey, which
was "stuck with flambeaux everywhere that they might
cast their eyes upon the stateliness of the church," while
"the best finger of the age, Dr. Orlando Gibbons,"
played the organ for their entertainment.

You will see a memorial of this banquet in the
carvings over the mantelpiece in the Jerusalem Chamber
for on one side is Charles I. and on the other side his
French bride.

But with the death of James I., Lord Keeper, Bishop
and Dean Williams fell upon evil days, for he was
disliked by the Duke of Buckingham and Laud, who
entirely influenced the king, and was not even allowed
to officiate on the coronation day.

.. _`JERUSALEM CHAMBER`:

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   :alt: JERUSALEM CHAMBER.

   JERUSALEM CHAMBER.

Under the Commonwealth the Abbey fared badly, for
with a fanatical horror of anything that reminded them
of royalty or of Rome, the Parliamentarians had not the
smallest regard for it, and delighted in showing their
contempt for its past.  How far the soldiers were
allowed to desecrate its walls and its altars it is difficult
to clearly ascertain, and we may fairly believe that the
story of how they pulled down the organ, pawned the
pipes for ale, and played boisterous games up and down
the church "to show their Christian liberty," is a great
exaggeration, even if any such thing took place at all.
Certainly the altar in Henry VII.'s chapel, under which
lay buried Edward VI., was destroyed, the copes and
vestments were sold, and many windows and monuments
supposed to teach lessons of superstition and
idolatry were demolished.  No dean was appointed.
The church being put under a Parliamentary Committee,
Presbyterian preachers conducted morning exercises,
which took the place of the daily services, and
Bradshaw, the President of the court which tried and
condemned to death Charles I., settled himself into the
deserted deanery.  A strange sight indeed it must have
been to those who noted it to watch this man going
backwards and forwards between Abbot Islip's house
and the Hall of Westminster Palace, holding in the
hollow of his hand the life of the king of England!

Westminster School, which, under Elizabeth, had been
set on its new and enlarged footing, and since then
had vigorously expanded under the various head-masters,
alone continued to flourish.  Its scholars naturally were
closely connected with the life that centred round
Westminster: they listened to the debates of Parliament,
they flocked to hear the trials in Westminster Hall,
they attended the services in the Abbey.  Their feelings
ran high during the Civil War.  Pym, Cromwell, and
Bradshaw they hated; the execution of Charles roused
their deepest indignation, and they listened in awed
horror as Bushby, their master, read solemnly the prayer
for the king at the very moment when the scaffold was
being erected at Whitehall.  It was the strong personality
of Bushby and his tactful management which saved the
school from being seriously interfered with at the hands
of the all-powerful Parliament, so that for fifty-five years
this model for head-masters "ruled with his rod and his
iron will, and successfully piloted this bark through very
stormy seas."  He was full of enthusiasm and energy
and he was more anxious that his pupils should become
men of action and character than accomplished scholars.
His monument, which is near the Poets' Corner shows
him, in the words of the inscription, "such as he
appeared to human eyes;" and the words which follow
tell how he "sowed a plenteous harvest of ingenious
men; discovered, managed, and improved the natural
genius in every one; formed and nourished the minds of
youths, and gave to the school of Westminster the fame
of which it boasts."

But the Abbey was a national institution, too firmly
builded on the rocks to be more than shaken by the
passing storms.  It had weathered the earthquake of
the Reformation, it had survived the tempests of the
Revolution.  With the Restoration came the calm, and
quietly the old life was resumed.  I have but little
more to tell you of the inner story of the Abbey, nor
from this time forward do kings and queens play any
very important part in its story.  It is the tombs and
monuments which now begin, more closely even than
before, to cement the tie between Westminster and the
pages of English history.  So I will only tell you in
a few words how Dean Sprat busied himself with the
restoration of the great buildings, the architect being Sir
Christopher Wren, who, as you know, designed St. Paul's
Cathedral, and rebuilt so many of the old London
churches which the Great Fire had destroyed, and how
Dean Atterbury carried on the work, including the rebuilding
of the great dormitory, until his devotion to the Stuart
cause and his opposition to George I. caused him to be sent
first to the Tower, and afterwards as an exile to France.
Atterbury loved well his Abbey, and his last request
was that he might walk through it once more, especially
to see the glass which was his own gift to it, and which
still exists in the beautiful rose window over the north
door.  But the sad thing about these so-called
restorations is that so much of the matchless old work was
destroyed, and nobody seemed in the least concerned at
this.  That was an age when the glories of medieval
architecture appear to have lost all their charm in men's
eyes, when the love of beautiful things was at its lowest
ebb.  The Westminster boys played their games in the
chapels, and were allowed to skip from tomb to tomb in
the Confessor's shrine; hideous monuments were erected
and crowded together, nothing old was reverenced, and
we can only be thankful that more was not destroyed or
hopelessly ruined.  And yet, in spite of this apparent
indifference, here and there were men who found themselves
stirred when they came within those walls as they
were stirred nowhere else, so that many a writer, including
Addison, Steele, and Goldsmith, and earlier still, John
Milton, has paid homage, even in those unimaginative
days, to that fair place, "so far exceeding human
excellence that a man would think it was knit together
by the fingers of angels."

One more dean I must tell you of, and that is Dean
Stanley, who, with his wife, lies in the south aisle of
Henry VII.'s Chapel.  For it was when he was appointed
to Westminster in 1864 that once again the Abbey
became something more than a great memory of former
days.  First of all he unfolded the storied past, clearing
up many a mystery, setting right many an error, and
then, impelled by a deep reverence for all its great
associations, he consistently carried on its history.  In
every trace of his work we find this same wise spirit of
sympathy and understanding.  To him the Abbey was
our greatest national treasure; his ideal was, not only
so to keep it, but to make it a living influence among all
English-speaking people.  And thanks in no small
degree to him, Westminster Abbey is to-day a very magnet
in the heart of the empire, to which high and low rich
and poor, learned and ignorant are drawn from far and
near, to drink in, as they are able, its memories and its
beauties, to do homage to those great souls whom it honours
there to read as from a book stories of Englishmen who
whether as kings or statesmen, abbots or deans, nobles
or commoners, poets or patriots, added at least some
stones to that other building, not fashioned by hands
alone, which grew up side by side with Edward's church,
and thus became the builders of our nation.

But we have gone forward, quickly, and I must take
you back for a moment to Henry VII.'s Chapel, where
still after the Restoration some royal funerals took place.
With the outburst of loyal feeling, it was felt by many
that Charles I., who had been buried at Windsor, ought
to be brought here, and Christopher Wren was
commanded to prepare a costly monument.  But nothing
further was done in the matter.  Charles II. was buried
at midnight most unceremoniously, close to the
monument of General Monk, and one who was probably
present adds, by way of comment, "he was soon
forgotten."  Ten children of James II. were laid in
the spacious vault under Mary Queen of Scots
monument, but he himself, having fled from his kingdom,
died abroad and was buried in Paris.  William and
Mary, Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of
Denmark, all lie near Charles II., and the seventeen
children of Anne are just behind in what is really the
Children's Vault.  One of these children, Prince William
Henry, another Duke of Gloucester, though he only lived
to be eleven, was such a quaint little boy that his tutor
wrote a biography of him.  He was always very delicate,
but though his body was weak his mind was precocious
and his spirits were unfailingly high.  From the time
he was two his craze was for soldiers, and he had a
company of ninety boys from Kensington for his
bodyguard, whom he drilled and ruled by martial law.  These
boys he called his horse-guards, and they wore red
grenadiers' caps and carried wooden swords and muskets;
but, however much they may have pleased the little
prince, who lived at Camden House, they were somewhat
of a terror to the people of Kensington, as, "presuming
on being soldiers, they were very rude and challenged
men in the streets, which caused complaints."  This
tutor of his, Jenkin Lewis, who entered thoroughly into
the spirit of the little Duke, gives a delightful account
of a visit paid to him by his uncle, the grave William
III., who appears to have been very fond of him.

Altogether the Duke must have been a charming little
boy, plucky, generous, and remarkably bright.  If he
fell down and hurt himself, he would say, "A bullet
in the war had grazed me," and though, to please the
queen, he learnt dancing from an old Frenchman, he
confided to his tutor that the only thing he loved in
that way was the English march to a drum.

Greatly to his joy the king decided to make him a
Knight of the Garter when he was only six years old,
and to add to the honour William tied on the Garter
himself.

"Now," said the boy proudly, "if I fight any more
battles I shall give harder blows than ever."

He was as quick and interested at his lessons as he
was at soldiering, and we bear of his making amazing
progress under the Bishop of Marlborough in the history
of the Bible, geography, constitutional history, and many
other subjects, while his tutor had taught him "the
terms of fortification and navigation, the different parts
of a ship of war, and stories about Cæsar, Alexander,
Pompey, Hannibal, and Scipio.  It was his tutor who
put into verse, and persuaded Mr. Church, one of the
gentlemen of Westminster Abbey, to set to music, the
Duke's words of command to his boys, which ran thus:—

   |  "Hark, hark! the hostile drum alarms,
   |  Let ours too beat, and call to arms;
   |  Prepare, my boys, to meet the foe,
   |  Let every breast with valour glow.
   |  Soon conquest shall our arms decide,
   |  And Britain's sons in triumph ride.
   |  In order charge your daring band,
   |  Attentive to your chief's command.
   |  Discharge your volleys, fire away;
   |  They yield, my lads, we gain the day.
   |  March on, pursue to yonder town;
   |  No ambush fear, the day's our own.
   |  Yet from your hearts let mercy flow,
   |  And nobly spare the captive foe!"
   |

When in 1696 a plot formed against William III. was
discovered, the Duke determined not to be behind
the Houses of Parliament, who offered their loyal
addresses to the king, so he drew up a little address
of his own in these words, which was signed by
himself and all his boys: "We, your Majesty's faithful
subjects, will stand by you as long as we have a drop
of blood."

On the 24th July 1700 he was eleven and had a
birthday party, which of course meant a sham fight
among his boys; and when on the next morning he
complained of feeling ill, every one naturally thought
he was only over-tired or excited.  But a bad throat
and high fever soon showed that there was serious
mischief, and within a week he died.  "To the
inexpressible grief," wrote the Bishop of Salisbury, "of all
good men who were well-wishers to the Protestant
religion and lovers of their country."

George II. was the last king to be buried in the
Abbey, and he was laid in the same stone coffin as
his wife, Queen Caroline.  You will find the
gravestones in the nave of Henry VII.'s Chapel, and near
to it are buried his two daughters, his son Frederick,
Prince of Wales, and several grandchildren.  Horace
Walpole, the son of Robert Walpole, who had for
twenty-one years been the Prime Minister of the king,
thus describes to us the last royal funeral at Westminster:—

"The procession through a line of foot-guards, every
seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining
the outside, their officers with drawn swords and crape
sashes, the drums muffled, the fifes, the bells tolling,
and the minute guns, all this was very solemn.  But
the charm was the entrance to the Abbey, where we
were received by the Dean and Chapter in rich robes,
the choir and almsmen bearing torches, the whole Abbey
so illuminated that one saw it to greater advantage than
by day.  When we came to the Chapel of Henry VII.,
all solemnity and decorum ceased, no order was observed,
people sat or stood where they would or could; the
Yeomen of the Guard were crying out for help, oppressed
by the immense weight of the coffin.  The Bishop read
sadly and blundered in the prayers, and the anthem,
besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served
as well for a wedding....  The Duke of Newcastle
fell into a fit of crying the moment we came into
the chapel and flung himself back in a stall, the
Archbishop towering over him with a smelling-bottle; but
in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his
hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with his glass to
spy who was or was not there.  Then returned his fear
of getting cold, and the Duke of Cumberland, who felt
himself weighed down, on turning round found it was
the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid
the chill of the marble."

But though Westminster was no longer to be the
church of the royal tombs, there was one ceremony
she was still to claim undisputed as her own peculiar
right.  A Coronation meant the Abbey; no other place
was ever dreamt of.  Charles II. here commenced his
reign with great glory.  James II. characteristically
grudged spending any money excepting £100,000 for
the queen's dress and trinkets.  William and Mary
were crowned together, for Mary refused to be queen
unless her husband became king with her, and it is
for this joint-coronation that the second chair of state
was made, which stands with the old Coronation Chair
in the Confessor's Chapel.  The members of the House
of Commons were present and "hummed applause at
the eloquent ending to Bishop Burnet's sermon, in
which he prayed God "to bless the royal pair with
long life and love, with obedient subjects, wise
counsellors, faithful allies, gallant fleets and armies, and
finally with crowns more glorious and lasting than
those which glittered on the altar of the Abbey."

Queen Anne, fat, gouty, and childless, found the day
a weary one.  Unlike her sister Mary, she was crowned
queen in her own right, and her husband was the first
of the nobles to do her homage.

When George I. was crowned many difficulties had
to be overcome, for everything had to be explained to
the king, who knew no English, by ministers who
stumbled badly over their German.  But George II. had
learnt the language of his people, and liking great
ceremonies as much as his father had disliked them,
his coronation day was celebrated in great state.  Queen
Caroline must have been ablaze with jewels, for besides
wearing all her own, she had borrowed what pearls she
could from the ladies of quality, and had hired all
manner of diamonds from the Jews and jewellers.
George IV. spent more money when he was crowned
king than any other of his race, but the day was not
without a very painful scene, as he refused to prepare
any place for his wife, Queen Caroline, and she indignantly
tried in vain to insist on her rights and to force
her way into the Abbey.  She failed, and her failure
so broke her spirits that she fell ill, and a few weeks
later she died.

William IV. was crowned at a critical moment, for
the country was in a state of excitement concerning
the Reform Bill, which, if passed, would give a vote
to a great number of people who did not possess
one, but which was being firmly opposed by the Duke
of Wellington and a strong party.  To avoid any risks
of riots or demonstrations the usual procession was left
out, even the usual banquet in the old palace, while
everything was as simple and private as possible.  But
seven years later those old grey walls looked down on
a Coronation Day which brought untold blessings to
England.  On June 28, 1838, Princess Victoria, a
slender girl in the first freshness of her youth, was
publicly recognised undoubted queen of the realm, and
took her solemn oath in the sight of the people to
perform and keep the promises demanded of her by
the Archbishop.  Here in the Sanctuary she was
anointed; here the spurs and the sword of state were
presented to her, and then laid on the altar; here the
orb was placed in her hands and the royal robe about
her shoulders; here the ring, the sceptre, the rod were
delivered to her; here was the crown of pure gold
set on her head, and the Bible, the royal law, placed
in her hands; here she ascended the throne, while her
nobles did her homage; here, taking off her crown,
she received the Holy Communion, and then passed on
into the Confessor's Chapel in accordance with the
time-honoured usage.

Vastly solemn indeed was the ceremony, calling to
mind as it did the long procession of kings and queens
who, without exception in that place, almost in those
identical words, had accepted the great trust to which
they had been called.  Some had been faithful; some,
through weakness or through wilful wrong-doing, had
violated the vow.  The strongest men had sometimes
wavered, the bravest men had faltered before their task.
But Queen Victoria never failed her people.  Through
weal and woe, through storm and sunshine, through
good and evil days, she watched over them and guarded
their interests.  She ruled over their hearts at home
and throughout those vaster dominions beyond the seas,
she bound them to her with bonds of loyal devotion, so
that when, in the dim light of a winter's day in
February 1901, the Abbey was filled with a vast
crowd of those who were there to pay their last tribute
to her memory, their universal sorrow was no mere
formality, but was in harmony with the sense of
personal loss which was felt by all who had owned
her as their Sovereign Lady.





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.. _`PART II`:

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   PART II

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   AMONG THE MONUMENTS

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.. _`PRINCE RUPERT`:

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   PRINCE RUPERT.

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.. _`PURITANS AND CAVALIERS IN THE ABBEY`:

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   CHAPTER XIII

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   PURITANS AND CAVALIERS IN THE ABBEY

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By a strange irony of fate, the royal chapel of the Tudors
was destined to be, at least for awhile, the burying-place
of many Parliamentary leaders, and perhaps stranger still
it is to realise how Roundhead and Cavalier, disgraced
minister and triumphant reformer, came at last to the
old Abbey, which opened its arms to receive them,
condemning no man, but committing all unto the care of
Him who judgeth with righteous judgment.  The Duke
of Buckingham and Pym, Cromwell and Prince Rupert,
Admiral Blake, Clarendon the historian of the great
rebellion, Essex and General Monk, all were buried
within a few feet of each other, and their names are
still engraved on Abbey stones, though some of them
sleep there no more.

These men, in their different ways, stood in the
forefront of that hard-fought Revolution, and as I want
Westminster to be something more to you than a place
of names and monuments, I will try to tell you enough
of each one for you to be able to fit them into their
proper places in the history of those stormy days.

We will begin with Buckingham, who, as young
George Villiers, was brought up to be a courtier, and
taught only such accomplishments as would fit him for
that part.  He was an apt pupil, graceful, witty,
versatile, full of charm, and from the moment he entered the
service of James I. as cupbearer, his upward career began.
He leapt from step to step with dazzling rapidity, and
the king became a mere puppet in his hands.  "I love
the Earl of Buckingham more than anything else," he
declared.  "Whatsoever he desireth must be done."  For
awhile Buckingham did not seriously interfere with
politics; his ambition was satisfied with personal power
and court influence, while his own position concerned
him much more closely than the affairs of the country.
But eventually he was drawn into the vortex, to his
own undoing, for his brilliancy was only superficial, his
wild schemes collapsed one after the other, while his
reckless extravagance, coupled with his disastrous
undertakings, staggered the Parliament, which had for a brief
moment believed in him.  However, Charles, who was
now king, implicitly believed in him through all his
failures, and supported his exorbitant demands for money
to carry on his unpopular and unsuccessful foreign
policy.  At last the gathering indignation burst.

"The Duke of Buckingham is the cause of all our
miseries," was the deliberate statement made in the
House of Commons, followed by a long list of charges,
and the determination, for the first time, to hold a
minister responsible to Parliament for his actions.  The
king was furious.  "None of my servants shall be
questioned by you, or it shall be the worse for you,"
he said scornfully, and he dissolved Parliament.  But
the trial of Buckingham was taken out of their hands,
for shortly afterwards he was stabbed to death by a
certain Fenton, a melancholy, malcontented gentleman,
who declared that he did so to rid the country of an
intolerable tyrant.  He was buried quietly in the Abbey,
and the king set up to his memory the elaborate but
hardly beautiful monument which you see.  You must
notice, though, the three figures of his children, for one
of them, Francis, a very gallant boy, "of rare beauty
and comeliness," fell fighting for the king at Kingston,
wounded nine times, yet scorning to ask quarter, standing
with his back against an oak tree till he dropped.

General Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, fought
on the Parliamentary side, and after the defeat of the
Royalists in England he was with Cromwell through his
victorious campaigns in Scotland and Ireland, remaining
behind as commander-in-chief for Scotland.  But it was
as a sailor rather than as a soldier that he made his
greatest reputation, for when the struggle began between
England and the Dutch for the command of the seas,
the Dutch challenging the English right to it, Monk,
and another Parliamentary officer, Blake, were appointed
generals at sea, it being thought that their ability to lead,
their energy and their good sense, would more than
compensate for their lack of technical experience.  So it
eventually proved, and after some close fighting Monk
was able to report that the English held the coast of
Holland as if it were besieged.  Parliament rewarded
Monk with a vote of thanks, a medal and a chain worth
£300, and he assured them that he had "no other
thought but to defend the nation against all enemies,
whether by sea or by land, as might be entrusted to
him."

Not altogether approving of the arbitrary way in
which Cromwell treated Parliament, he determined to
keep clear of politics and to remain a "plain fighting
man."  But while employed by the Protector he was
entirely loyal to him, and at once sent to him a letter he
received from Charles II. suggesting negotiations.  "An
honest, very simple-hearted man," was Cromwell's
remark on him.

But with the death of the Protector the whole aspect
of things changed.  Monk had fully intended to serve
Richard Cromwell as he had served his father, only it
became palpably evident that the new Protector was not
in any way capable of controlling the country or the
army, and within a few weeks dissatisfaction and
discontent were evident everywhere—the pendulum had
swung back, and England cried for a king once more.
With Richard Cromwell at the head of affairs, Monk saw
that the days of the Commonwealth were numbered.
"He forsook himself or I had never faltered in my
allegiance," he explained; for Dick Cromwell was as
anxious as any one to be rid of his office.  Through his
brother, Nicholas Monk, a sturdy Royalist, afterwards
made Bishop of Hereford, Charles sent a straightforward
letter to the general, judging rightly that plain words
were more likely to take effect with him.  "If you take
my interests to heart," wrote the king, "I will leave the
way and manner to you and act as you advise."

For awhile Monk hesitated, then he accepted the
situation.  He met the king at Dover, and served him
faithfully in whatever capacity it was desired of him,
assisting in the settlement of Scotland, or going to sea
with Prince Rupert, or keeping order in London during
those years of panic when first the plague, then the
Great Fire produced the wildest terror and confusion.
He died "like a Roman general and a soldier, his
chamber door open as if it had been a tent, his officers
around him," and England mourned an honest, duty-loving
man, brave on every point excepting where his
wife was concerned, and here he frankly admitted to a
"terror of her tongue and passions."  The king, who had
made him Duke of Albemarle, was present at his
funeral, and undertook to pay all the expenses, besides
erecting a monument to him.  But his memory and
gratitude were both short-lived, so that it was left to
the second Duke to see that his father's name and fame
were duly chronicled in the Abbey, that future generations
might know him as "an honest man, who served
his country."

Admiral Blake, buried in the Cromwell vault, first
went to sea to settle Prince Rupert, who with his tiny
fleet was a terror to English ships, and so successful was
he, that at last Rupert was thankful to reach France in
safety with his one remaining vessel.  For reward,
Parliament gave him a place in the council of state,
and he devoted himself to making the navy more
efficient, as he felt sure a war at sea with the Dutch
was imminent.  He desired to make his sailors men
of the same stamp as Cromwell's famous Ironsides,
but though he was a great disciplinarian he was very
popular, and his men fought for him with a will.  The
war began with a victory for Blake, which, far from
disheartening the Dutch, put them on their mettle, and
off Dungeness they compelled the English admiral to
retreat on Dover, after a fierce struggle.  So elated was
Van Tromp at this advantage, that as he passed along
the Channel he had a broom fastened to the masthead of
his ship to show how he meant to sweep the English
from the seas.  Blake was sorely grieved at his failure,
and for a moment gave way to a depression which led
him to entreat Parliament that he might be discharged
from "an employment much too great for him."  Then
his old spirit returned, and he asked "for more men to
fight again."

At the battle of Portland the fleets met once more,
and it was a terrible fight.  Though Blake was badly
wounded, the victory lay with the English.  He
followed up the advantages he had gained, and near the
North Foreland took eleven Dutch ships and 1350
prisoners, with a small loss.  His wound had by now so
affected his health, that he was compelled to return to
England, leaving Monk to fight the last great fight, in
which Van Tromp was killed, 6000 Dutchmen killed,
wounded, or made prisoners, and twenty-six of their
ships sunk or taken.  However, though the Dutch were
settled, it was necessary to assert the English power in
the Mediterranean, especially where Spain was concerned,
and Blake was the name to conjure with.  So, in spite
of his painful illness, he set out once more, "the one
man able to preserve the commonwealth," Cromwell told
him.  At Santa Cruz he met the Spanish fleet and
conquered it.  "To God be all the glory," he wrote in
his simply worded despatch which told of this great and
popular victory.

Then, feeling his increasing weakness, he asked leave
to return home, as "the work was done and the chain
complete."  But he died at sea, in sight of Plymouth
Sound.  His funeral in Westminster Abbey was a splendid
one, worthy of the splendid service he had rendered
to England, Cromwell having ordered that "no pomp
was to be spared, so as to encourage all officers to
venture their lives."  A lasting shame it is indeed that
at the Restoration his remains, with those of Deane, one
of his admirals, and other Parliamentary officers, were
taken from their graves, and buried without any mark of
respect in one common grave in St. Margaret's Churchyard.
Within the Abbey no monument marks his grave,
though he had held for England the supremacy of the
seas against vigorous attacks, and had made a reputation
for himself "very wonderful, which will never be
forgotten in Spain."

The very name of Prince Rupert breathes of romance
and adventure.  His mother was the fascinating and
high-spirited Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I.,
who had married Frederick, Prince Palatine of the
Rhine, and had persuaded him to accept the crown of
Bohemia when it was offered to him by the people, who
had just wrested their independence from the Emperor
of Austria.  But his reign at Prague was short, for
the Emperor won back his own, and the Queen of
Hearts, as Elizabeth was affectionately called, had to
escape with her children as best she could, Rupert being
but a few weeks old.  Her father, afraid of Spain and
the Roman Catholic powers, would do nothing to help
her, so she would have fared badly had it not been for
some faithful English friends, headed by Lord Craven,
and the people of Holland, who looked on the king of
Bohemia as a sufferer in the Protestant cause, and who
therefore gave his family a home besides a generous
allowance.  Frederick was not only deprived of his new
kingdom, but lost also his old possessions, for the
Emperor seized his lands on the Rhine and spoiled his
palaces.  Many a brave attempt he made to win back
the Palatinate, always to be baffled, and at last, after the
death of his eldest son, he fell into such a low state of
health that he died of a fever.  Elizabeth was left with
three sons and two daughters, Rupert being her idol, for she
believed him born to be a hero.  And truly he was a boy
to be proud of, excelling in everything he undertook, and
such a true soldier that, when he was only fourteen, his
tutors declared he was worthy to command a regiment.
When Charles I. became king, he invited two of his
nephews to England, and, with the queen, at once lost
his heart to Rupert, who was then about eighteen.  He
proposed making him a bishop or marrying him to an
heiress, but Rupert would hear of neither plan.  A
soldier's life, with plenty of adventure, was the only life
for him.

On the 22nd of August in the year 1642, the Civil
War broke out in England; the royal standard was set
up at Nottingham, and Prince Rupert was made General
of the Royal Horse, he being then but twenty-three.
His very presence, brimming over as he was with
enthusiasm, vigour, and determination, brought a breath
of new life to the men who "could not hold back
when the royal standard waved," yet "who did not
like the quarrel, and heartily wished the king would
yield and consent to what Parliament desired."

But Rupert was quite untouched by the general
feeling of depression.  The cause or its merits
concerned him but little; he knew nothing of the intensity
of the struggle, of the many unredressed grievances, of
the arbitrary treatment of the nation's representatives in
Parliament, of the total disregard for the opinions of the
people which had at last made nothing but war possible
between two such conflicting parties.  He only saw the
romantic side, a king called upon to defend himself in
his own realm against rebels and traitors, and so heart
and soul he espoused his uncle's cause.  A cavalier of the
cavaliers was Prince Rupert, with his handsome face,
long flowing hair, clean-shaved cheeks, beplumed hat,
and scarlet cloak, to which he added a very gallant
bearing and a lordly manner.  Directly he saw the
cavalry he was to command, less than a thousand
badly mounted untrained men, he dashed away like a
whirlwind, to scour the country in search of more.
Here, there, and everywhere he came and went like a
flash, "in a short time heard of in many places at great
distances," to quote a Parliamentary historian, till the
very sound of his name had a magic effect.  He
charmed some, he terrified others, but he did what he
would with them all, and in less than a month he rode
back to join the court at Shrewsbury, with a picked
force of three thousand men, well horsed and equipped.
Contrasted with the indecision of Charles, Rupert's
high-handed audacity was refreshing, and when the king left
him free "to steer his own course," he at once set out
for Worcester, which was threatened by Essex and the
Parliamentary army.

The Royalist plan was to march on London, a plan
which Parliament saw must at all costs be frustrated, so
Essex received imperative orders to intercept and check
the enemy.  At Edgehill, near Banbury, the armies met,
and the king, from his position on a hill-top, took view
of Essex and his army in the vale.

"I shall give them battle," he said.  "God assist the
justice of my cause."

Then he called a council of war, at which many
points of difference arose between the old soldiers and
the young.  Of course Rupert was the spokesman for
the latter, and this was not the first time he had come
into collision with the other generals of the Royalist
army.  Caution was a word unknown to him, and patience
did not exist in his vocabulary.  Slow and steady
tactics he abhorred; he scorned the enemy, and pleaded
vehemently for bold, dashing movements, which were,
he said, best suited to the high-spirited soldiers of the
king.  As usual he prevailed, for he was never one who
could be persuaded to change his opinion.  His plan
of battle was decided on, which meant that the Royal
Horse should charge and drive the Roundhead Cavalry
from the field, afterwards falling upon the flank of the
enemy's infantry, while the Royalist infantry attacked
them from the front.

"Then," he added, carried away by the thought of
a victory which seemed so obvious, "the day is ours."

When the battle began in earnest Rupert charged
with his cavalry, and so magnificently, that it seemed as
if all his prophecies were fully justified, for the
Roundheads were swept backwards till they broke and fled.
But so excited and eager were the horsemen to pursue
their flying foes, that they left all the Royalist infantry
unprotected, and when Prince Rupert returned with
such troops as he could rally from the chase, he found
all confusion and uncertainty.  Moreover, it was nearly
dark, and no one was ready to support Rupert when
he entreated that another charge might be made to
settle the day.  So, after all, it was only half a
victory for the king's army, even though he held the
road to London, while altogether quite 6000 Englishmen
lay dead on the field.

Charles next made a move to Oxford, where he
established his Court, for Oxford was almost the only
city at that time "wholly devoted to his Majesty," and
from here peace negotiations were again entered into,
with the usual result that both sides were left still
more bitterly opposed to each other.  Rupert was charged
with attacking two Parliamentary regiments at Brentford
during the negotiations when all fighting was suspended.
But with all his faults of impatience and impetuosity he
was far too honourable a soldier to have willingly taken
any unfair advantage of his foe, and it seems clear what
he did was at the king's command, or when he was
in ignorance of the stage which had been reached in
the negotiations.  While the king and the main army
lay inactive though full of talk at Oxford, Rupert
with his cavalry scoured the country round in search
of men, horses, food, and forage, and indeed whatever
they could lay hands on; for as Parliament held all
the money, the king's soldiers had to live off the
country as best they could, and wait patiently for
pay which rarely came.  The Prince, as was his wont,
journeyed far and wide, his special object being to
extend the king's territory all round Oxford and
to take in all the west of England.  So we
hear of him, sometimes successful and sometimes
baffled, at Cirencester, Banbury, Bristol, Gloucester,
Birmingham, and Wales, then moving northwards in
Leicester and Northamptonshire, till at the peremptory
command of Charles he made his way towards York,
which was in great danger, and which, "if lost," wrote
the king, "would mean little less than the loss of the
crown."

He relieved the town with great dash, but was so
eager to press on that he would not even wait to speak
to the governor, Lord Newcastle, who was very offended
at what he considered to be a want of respect.  Still
more angry was he when he received a message from
Rupert commanding him to follow the cavalry without
delay.  He made no haste to carry out this order, and
Rupert, who was in close touch with the enemy, waited
for him in vain.  The delay cost the Royalists dear, for
the battle of Marston Moor which ensued was a
complete triumph for the Roundheads.  But even then
Rupert did not lose heart, as did so many of his party.

"'What will you do?' asked General King of him.
'I will rally my men,' sayes ye Prince.  Sayes General
King, 'Nowe what will my Lord Newcastle do?'
Sayes he, 'I will go to Holland, for all is lost.'"

The defeat of the Northern army was decisive, and
Rupert felt the only help lay in Wales and the
west of England.  But defeat followed defeat.  At
Naseby the Parliamentary army was again victorious;
Bristol surrendered, then Oxford.  Nor was this all.
Among the king's nearest advisers were many who
disliked Prince Rupert, especially Lord Digby, and
when the Prince surrendered Bristol, he saw his
opportunity for revenge.  Very cleverly he worked on
Charles to such an extent that he made it appear as
if Rupert had weakly capitulated without any
justification, and the king, who all too easily forgot the
past, signed an order revoking the military authority
and position he had bestowed on his nephew.
The Prince was sorely hurt and indignant at this want
of confidence.  "It is Digby that is the cause of all
the distraction," he said quietly, and then proceeded
to defend his honour and his action, which he did in
a manner that commended itself to all fair-minded men.

Having written a full account of the siege, and
proved that holding out longer would have only meant
a useless sacrifice of valuable lives, he followed this up
by going straight to the king at Newark, in spite of
having been forbidden to do so by Digby.  "I am
come, sir," he said, "to render an account of Bristol."  At
first Charles would not listen, but Rupert insisted
on a court-martial, which at last was granted, and
which completely cleared him.  The king accepted the
verdict, but in a half-hearted way, which nettled the
Prince, who was already chafing at the unjust accusations
made against his honour.  A few days later he
vigorously fought the battle of another officer who had
been dismissed—also the victim of Digby's jealousy.

"No officer," he declared indignantly, "should be
deprived of his commission without being able to defend
himself against a council of war."

In his anger he applied to Parliament for permission
to return to Holland, but when the message came that
this would only be given on condition that he did not
fight again, he indignantly refused the terms.  His
loyalty was deeper than his anger when it came to
the test.

Ere long, however, the hopeless, weary struggle
reached its end.  The king threw himself on the
mercy of his Scottish army, who for £400,000 gave
him up to Parliament, and he was made a prisoner.
Rupert found his way to France, and later on he joined
the Prince of Wales in getting together a small fleet
which it was proposed to send to Ireland.  He entered
enthusiastically into this new career.  "The royal
cause," he said, "is now at sea."  Far and wide on the
ocean he was to be heard of with his ships, round
Spain, Portugal, in the Mediterranean and the West
Indies, near Azores and Cape Verde, seizing wherever
he could find them the treasure-ships belonging to
the English Parliament.  His name was a terror by sea
as it had been by land, and the adventurous life was
quite according to his liking.  With the Restoration he
came back to England, and Charles settled on him an
allowance of £4000 a year, besides giving him an
important command in the fleet.  But no real scope
was allowed him for his powers, and Charles, with all
his foreign intrigues, found Rupert too inconveniently
straightforward and resolute.

So the end of his life was a disappointment, though
when action of one sort was denied him, his eager
brain turned to science, chemistry, and inventions.
Most of his old friends had vanished; his mother had
died many years before, protected and comforted to the
last by Lord Craven, who had taken for a motto the
words "For God and for Her;" and of his sisters, one
was an abbess, the other married to the Elector of
Hanover.

He lived alone and quietly at his house in Spring
Gardens at the top of Whitehall, and when he died,
comparatively young, he was "generally lamented for an
honest, brave, true-hearted man, whose life had embraced
innumerable toils, and a variety of noble actions
by land and by sea."

"It is an infinite pity he is not employed according
to his genius," a friend of his mother's had written to
her long years before.  "He is full of spirit and action,
and may be compared to steel, which is the commanding
metal if it be rightly tempered and disposed.  Whatever
he wills, he wills vehemently."

And this criticism, which was true of him up to the
day he died, contains the essence of his successes and
of his failures.

It was in this vaulted chapel of the Tudor kings that
Oliver Cromwell was buried with regal magnificence,
his effigy robed in purple, surrounded by a sceptre, a
sword, and an imperial crown, being also placed in the
Abbey.  Many of his friends and followers—Pym, the
hero of his early days; Ireton, his son-in-law; Bradshaw,
the President of the Court which had tried and
condemned the King in Westminster Hall close by—were
already by his desire buried in the Abbey, as were most
of his immediate family; his old mother, who had always
said "she cared nothing for her son's grandeur, and
was always afraid when she heard a musket lest he
should be shot, and his best loved daughter, Betty,
Elizabeth Claypole.  The latter was such an attractive
girl, and "played the part of princess so naturally,
and obliging all persons by her civility," that
Cromwell feared lest her very charms should be a snare to
her, leading her thoughts from God.  His letters to her
show all the tenderest side of his strong nature.  "I
watch thy growth as a Seeker after truth," he once
wrote to her.  "To be a Seeker is to be of the best
sect, next to a Finder.  And such a one shall every
happy Seeker be at the end."

.. _`OLIVER CROMWELL`:

.. figure:: images/img-200.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: OLIVER CROMWELL.

   OLIVER CROMWELL.

Oliver Cromwell was ever a son of strife, and two
years after his death, on the anniversary of the king's
execution, his body was dragged from the grave by
order of the Restoration Parliament and publicly hung,
a similar revenge being meted out to Bradshaw and
Ireton, and the "pure-souled patriot John Pym."

So to-day we do not even know where he is buried,
and only a plate in the floor of Henry VII.'s chapel,
put there by Dean Stanley, shows us where once the
great man lay.

For great he surely was, even though narrow, relentless,
arbitrary, and overbearing; great, that is to say, if
high aims, honest ambitions, dogged courage, and
unswerving obedience to what he held to be the Divine
voice, count for ought in the standard we require of our
public men.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAUCER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   CHAUCER

.. vspace:: 2

Geoffrey Chaucer was the first English poet or writer
to be buried within the Abbey, and just as the
Confessor's tomb drew kings and queens to lie around it, so
Chaucer's grave, in a way undreamed of at the time,
consecrated one part of Westminster as the Poets'
Corner.  And what more fitting than that he who has
been so justly named the "poet of the dawn, the finder
of our fair language, the father of English poetry," should
rest, when his life's work was ended, near to those others
with whose names our early history is studded?

He was born in London about the year 1335, the
son of a merchant vintner, and throughout his life
London was to him "a city very deare and sweete."  He
was well educated, though where we know not, in
classics, divinity, astronomy, philosophy, and chemistry,
and naturally spoke French fluently, as its use was
general.  From his boyhood he loved reading only less
than he loved nature.

   |  "On bokës for to rede, I me delyte,
   |  Save certeynly whan that the moneth of May
   |  Is comen, and that I here the foulës synge,
   |  And that the flourës gynnen for to sprynge,
   |  Farwel my boke and my devocïoun."

And almost equally, too, he loved to see life, to travel
in foreign countries, to study, in a kindly sympathetic
spirit, human nature in all its forms, neither criticising
harshly nor condemning impatiently, but just observing
and understanding.

Those early years of his life marked a great epoch in
England, for Edward III. made the land ring with the
fame of his victories at Crecy and Poitiers; the valour
of his knights and soldiers; the fair and famous deeds
done in the name of that chivalry which was then at its
height; and young Chaucer seems to have caught the
reflection of all that enthusiasm and vigour.  He was
the child of his age, but he heard its sobs as well as its
laughter, the rattling chains of its slaves as well as the
clanking steel and the trumpet notes of its armed men.
The Black Death and the revolt of the downtrodden
peasants made a grim setting to the picture of
heart-stirring triumphs in the battle-field, and Chaucer saw
both the setting and the picture.

When he was about twenty he became attached to
the court in a humble capacity, but his pleasant manners
and conversation, his cheerfulness and his straightforward
simplicity, soon won him promotion, so that he
was made first gentleman-in-waiting, then esquire to
King Edward, who more than once spoke of him as his
"beloved valet," and who trusted him well enough to
send him on many important missions to foreign countries
as his messenger.  But Chaucer's greatest and unchanging
ally at court was the king's brother, John of
Gaunt.  For more than forty years their friendship
remained unbroken through many ups and downs of
fortune.

In 1369 John of Gaunt's first wife, Blanche, died,
young, beautiful, and beloved.  Chaucer had already
shown his power of writing excellent verse by a
translation he had made from a celebrated French poem
"Le Roman de la Rose," so it was only natural that
John of Gaunt should turn to him when in the sorrow
of the moment he desired the goodness and charm of his
lady to be commemorated.  The result was the "Book
of the Duchess," a story told as an allegory, for
Chaucer was under the spell of French literature, which
revelled in allegory.  In this book he tells how one
May morning, the sun shining in at his windows, and
the sound of the "sweete foule's carolling," drew him forth
into the forest, where, led thereto by a faithful dog, he
found a knight dressed in black, mourning all in a quiet
spot among the mighty trees.  His hands drooped, his
face was pale, he could not be consoled.  But finding
the poet a sympathetic listener, he told him the story of
his sorrow.

   |  "My lady bright
   |  Which I heve loved with all my might,
   |  Is from me deed, and is agone ...
   |  That was so fair, so fresh, so free."

Years of happiness he had spent with her, this sweet
lady, who yet was so strong and helpful.

   |  "When I hed wrong and she the right,
   |  She wolde alwey so goodëly
   |  Forgive me so débónnairly.
   |  In alle my youth, in alle chance,
   |  She took me in her governaunce.
   |  Therewith she was alwày so trewe,
   |  Our joys was ever y-liche newe."

And now she was dead.  Words of comfort were of no
avail.  The poet could no longer intrude on grief so
overwhelming.  He could only silently sympathise, and
then leave the mourning knight alone in his sorrow,
with the parting words

   |  "Is that your los?  By God, hit is routhe."
   |

Soon after he had written this touching tribute to the
memory of a woman who had been his ideal of goodness
and graciousness, Chaucer was sent on a mission to
Genoa and Florence, a journey which left its influence
upon him in a very marked manner, as he made the
acquaintance of Francis Petrarch, the Italian poet, and
through him he learned to know the works of Dante
and the delightful stories of Boccaccio.  A new world
was opened out to him, and eagerly he wandered through
it, eyes and mind open to every fresh vision that
unfolded itself before him.  From this time forward his
works were tinged with Italian influence, and thereby
became much the richer.  For he lost none of his own
sturdy individuality and fresh, pure style; he only added
to this more warmth, more colouring, more romance.

On his return to England he was made Comptroller
of the Customs of the Port of London, on the
understanding that he did all the accounts himself, so
important was it that this post should be filled by a man
who was both shrewd and honest; and in addition to
this both the king and John of Gaunt granted him certain
allowances and privileges, so that in worldly affairs
he prospered.  Good fortune, however, did not cause
him to become idle, and his poems followed each other
in quick succession.  There was the "Assembly of
Fowles," of course an allegory, and written probably
to celebrate the betrothal of young King Richard to
the Princess Anne of Bohemia.

"Troilus and Cresside" was a much deeper poem, full
of sadness, and Chaucer himself called it his "little
Tragedie," adding the hope that one day God might send
it to him to "write some Comedie."  It is in this work
that he refers to the great difficulty with which he,
in common with the other writers of his day, had to
contend—the unsettled state of the language.  The
struggle as to whether the French or English tongue
should prevail had been a fierce one, but it was now
in its last throes.  Chaucer, through his works, helped
more than any one else to develop our language as it
is to-day, and strenuously avoided those "owre curyrows
termes which could not be understood of comyn people,
and which in every shire varied."  But his own words
show the difficulties which beset him.

   |  "And for there is so great diversité
   |  In English, and in writing of our tong,
   |  So pray I God that none miswrite thee
   |  Or thee mismetre for default of tong,
   |  And red whereso thou be, or elles song,
   |  That thou be understood, God I beseech."
   |

And it is just because he wrote to be understood that
the charm of Chaucer's style remains for ever fresh and
entrancing.

In his "House of Fame" he had free scope for his
pleasant wit, especially when he tells of all he saw and
heard in the "House of Rumour," whither came shipmen,
pilgrims, pardoners, couriers, and their like, each
bringing scraps of news, which, whether true or false, were
passed on, growing like a rolling snowball.  He set fame
at its true value, and for himself only desires that in
life he might be able to "study and rite alway," while
for the rest—

   |  "It suffyceth me, as I were dedd,
   |  That no wight have my name in honde,
   |  I wot myself best how I stonde."
   |

The "Legend of Good Women" was written in praise
of all those maidens and wives who loved truly and
unchangingly.

Hitherto Chaucer, whose married life was not an
altogether happy one, had sung but little of love in its
highest, purest form.  But here, in a prologue sparkling
and radiant as the morning he describes, he tells
us how he went out to greet the daisy, the flower
he loved, and would ever love anew till his heart did
die.

   |  "Kneeling alway, til it uncloséd was
   |  Upon the swetë, softë, swotë gras
   |  That was with flourës swote embroidered all.
   |

In his dream there came to him the God of Love,
with his queen, Alcestis, who, daisy-like, was clad in
royal habits green—

   |  "A fret of golde she hedde next her heer,
   |  And upon that a white courone she beer."

She it was who made him swear that from henceforth
he would "poetize of wommen trewe in lovying,"
"speke wel of love," and so make a glorious
legend.

Chaucer had intended writing at least nineteen stories
on the lines decreed by Alcestis, but his days of
prosperity had come to an end for the time being, with the
exile of John of Gaunt, and he became so poor after
his dismissal from the Customs, that he had to raise
money on his pension.  And so the legend seems to
have been laid aside.

When Henry of Lancaster became king five years
later, he doubled the pension, remembering how his
father, just dead, had loved the poet; and so the cloud,
which had been heavy enough while it lasted, passed
away.  But it is to those dark days that we owe the
greatest of all Chaucer's work—his "Canterbury Tales"—work,
it must be remembered, which rings and re-rings
with cheerfulness, courage, sympathy, and
kindliness.  We know so little of Chaucer as a man but
this one fact stands out, that he never allowed his own
troubles or anxieties, or even his pressing poverty, to
over-cloud his heart or his mind.  For him the sun shone
always, though he saw it not, and because of that
sunshine no trace of bitterness or harshness is to be found
in his work.

In the prologue to the "Tales" Chaucer explains his
plot in the most natural and personal way.  One day in
the spring, he says, he was waiting at the Tabard Inn,
to rest before continuing a pilgrimage he had set out to
make to Canterbury, when twenty-nine other pilgrims,
all bound for the same destination, arrived.  He soon
made friends with them, and, finding their company very
entertaining, arranged to join this party.  Then came the
proposal that each one should tell two tales to enliven
the journey; a good supper at the end to be the reward
of the pilgrim whose story found most favour.  The
jovial host of the inn decided to join them, and one
morning in early spring the procession set out.  What a
motley crowd they were!  Yet Chaucer, with his happy
knack of describing people just as they appeared, has
made them all so real to us, that it is easy to picture
each one of them, and in so doing to get a vivid glimpse
of the men and women whom the poet was accustomed
to meet every day of his life.  But for Chaucer we
should know next to nothing about the people of his
day.  First came the knight, who "lovede chyvalrye,"
who had ridden far afield in his master's wars; a great
soldier, but tender as a woman, "a verrey parfyte gentil
knight."  With him was his son, acting as his squire,
great of strength, able to make brave songs, and to
sit well his horse, handsomely dressed, yet in his
manners "curteys, lowly, and servysable."  His
attendant was a yeoman, sunburnt and sturdy, who carried
the sheaf of arrows, which he could dress right yeomanly.
It seems likely that for a short while Chaucer served as
a soldier in France, and if so, how familiar these three
must have been to him.  Then came the prioress, very
"pleasant and semely," adopting court manners, and
impressing every one with the idea that she was so
compassionate and charitable that even to see a mouse in a
trap made her weep.  She had her own attendant nuns
and priests.  The monk was only interested in riding,
but the friar, who was licensed to hear confessions, raise
money, and perform the offices of the Church in a certain
district, was merry, the good friend of all rich women,
and reported to "hear confession very sweetly," being easy
with the penances he ordered.  Sometimes he lisped, "to
make his English sweet upon the tongue," and when he
sang to his guitar, "his eyes shone like stars on a frosty
night."  The merchant sat high on his horse, and talked
loudly of his increased wealth, a great contrast to the poor
clerk of Oxford, who looked hollow, wore a threadbare
cloak, and had not been worldly enough to get a benefice.
The sergeant-at-law, the landholder, the haberdasher,
carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, the cook, the sailor,
and the doctor, all had their special characteristics, but
of these there is not space to speak.  The wife of Bath
had a bold face and wore bright clothes; had buried five
husbands, all of whom she had ruled, and was quite
willing to try a sixth.  The poor parson, who was
"a shepherd holy and vertuous, never despising sinful
men, but teaching them the law of Christ, which he
faithfully followed," was, I think, the pilgrim whom
Chaucer most reverenced.  The religion of the monks
and friars revolted him, but those poor priests, leading
their simple lives of work and worship, were to his eyes
in very truth the servants of Christ, who witnessed
loyally to their Master, in spite of the contempt with
which their very poverty caused them to be treated.
His brother, the ploughman, was in his way as good a
man as the priest, for he was a true and honest labourer,
who lived in charity with all, loved God, and would, for
Christ's sake, "thresh, dyke, or delve for the poor widow's
hire."  The miller; the manciple, who bought the food for
an Inn of Court; the reeve or steward; the summoner to the
ecclesiastical courts; and the pardoner, with his packets of
relics which he always sold successfully, made up the
party; and all having agreed to the host's proposals as to
the tales to be told, they drew lots to decide who should
begin, the choice falling on the knight, whereat all
rejoiced.  "Tell us merry things," was the injunction of
the host, who was rejoicing in a spell of freedom from
his wife's sharp eyes and sharper tongue, and—

   |  "Speak ye so plain at this time, we you pray,
   |  That we may understandë what you say."
   |

Just as Chaucer gave to each pilgrim his own
individuality, so in every case he fitted the story to its teller.
The knight had a tale of love, romance, and adventure;
the clerk chose for heroine the patient, much-suffering
Griselda; the prioress told of a child-martyr, and the
poor parson, in earnest words, drew their thoughts
upward to "that parfyt glorious pilgrimage which each and
all must make to celestial Jerusalem."  Chaucer did not
live to finish all the tales he had planned out.  In the
year 1399 he had taken on a long lease a house at
Westminster, which stood where now is Henry VII.'s
chapel, and here he spent the last few months of his
life, reading and writing contentedly to the end, in high
favour at the Palace hard by, and the centre of a little
group who loved and revered him.  Probably the poor
priest's tale was his last bit of work, and that
significantly ends with words concerning the pilgrimage
of man to the Heavenly City, "To thilke life He
bring us, that bought us with His precious blood.
Amen."

Chaucer's wife had been dead many years, and of
his children we know nothing, except that to his son
Lewis he gave an astrolabe, an instrument for taking the
height of the stars, and wrote for him a "little treatise"
on the subject, in which he craves pardon for his "rude
inditing and his superfluity of words," explaining that a
child is best taught by simple words and much repetition.
But we can never think of Chaucer as alone or solitary
in his old age.  Rather was the house at Westminster
a pleasant haven of rest where he anchored surrounded
by his many comrades and friends.  So greatly honoured
was he, that when he died it was at once decided to
bury him in the Abbey.  The verses with which I
end have been called Chaucer's Creed, and some say he
repeated them just before his death.  Certain it is that
they guided his conduct through life.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center

   THE GOOD COUNSEL OF CHAUCER

.. vspace:: 1

..

   |  Flee from the crowd and dwell with truthfulness,
   |  Contented with thy good, though it be small.
   |  Treasure breeds hate and climbing dizziness;
   |  The world is envious, wealth beguiles us all.
   |  Care not for loftier things than to thee fall,
   |  Counsel thyself, who counsel'st others' need,
   |  And Truth shall thee deliver without dread.
   |
   |  Pain thee not all the crooked to redress,
   |  Trusting to her who turneth as a ball;
   |  For little meddling wins much easiness.
   |  Beware lest thou dost kick against an awl!
   |  Strive not, as doth a clay pot with a wall.
   |  Judge thou thyself, who judgest others' deeds,
   |  And Truth shall thee deliver without dread.
   |
   |  All that is sent receive with cheerfulness:
   |  To wrestle with this world inviteth fall.
   |  Here is no home, here is but wilderness.
   |  Forth! pilgrim, forth!  Forth, beast, out of thy stall!
   |  Look up on high, and thank thy God for all!
   |  Cast by ambition, let thy soul thee lead,
   |  And Truth shall thee deliver, without dread.

.. vspace:: 3

.. _`CHAUCER'S TOMB`:

.. figure:: images/img-214.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: CHAUCER'S TOMB.

   CHAUCER'S TOMB.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SPENSER, ADDISON, AND THE POETS' CORNER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   SPENSER, ADDISON, AND THE POETS' CORNER

.. vspace:: 2

Chaucer was buried in the year 1400, and it was close
upon two hundred years before another great poet,
Edmund Spenser, "followed here the footing of his
feet."  During much of this interval England had been
in a state of unrest and excitement.  First the Wars
of the Roses, then the Reformation, with the bitter
persecutions that followed it, had stirred men to the
very core.  Their eyes had been dazzled by the sudden
and vehement changes which had followed each other.
English blood had flown freely, English life had been
offered up on English soil, not only in the great battles
of the Civil War, but on scaffolds and in fiery names.
It had not been an age for poets or writers.  Of the
few who have left their mark on our literature during
that time, John Wycliffe had not even been allowed to
rest in peace after death, for his body was taken from
its grave and burnt, and his ashes were thrown into the
river Swift, while both Sir Thomas More and the Earl
of Surrey had been executed at the command of Henry
VIII.  One important piece of work had indeed been
commenced and carried on during those days of storm
which affected both earlier and later writers, and
which was distinctly connected with the Abbey.  For
in the year 1477, William Caxton had settled with his
printing press in the Almonry at Westminster, and had
issued his famous advertisement, in which he had made
known the fact "that if it should plese ony man,
spiritual or temporal, to bye ony pyes of two and three
commemoracions of Salisbro's use, enpryntid after
the forme of this present lettre, which been wel
and truly correct, lete hym come to Westmonester
into the Almonerye at the Red Pale, and he shal
have them good chepe."  He had learned his art
in Cologne and Bruges, having lived for nearly
thirty years in the latter place, where he traded as
a merchant, and during those years he had translated
a number of books into English.  Why he settled
on Westminster when at last he returned to England
as a middle-aged man, we know not, unless it was
that he fancied he should find quiet and security under
the walls of the Abbey, or that the abbots and monks,
as the patrons of learning, would prove themselves good
friends to him.  But here he came, and here from his
study, "where lay many and diverse paunflettis and
bookys," this wonderful man, who was master-printer,
translator, corrector, and editor, worked and directed
his apprentices.  Over a hundred different books were
issued from this press, among them being "The Canterbury
Tales," the "fayre and ornate termes" of which
gave Caxton "such greate playsir," that he desired to
make them widely known.  Many people, some friends,
some strangers, found their way, full of curiosity and
interest, to the quaint house, which was marked by a
large white shield with a red bar, there to watch
Master Caxton and his workmen at their strange new
craft, and many shook their heads, declaring that "so
many books could never find purchasers."  But the wise
printer heeded them not.  He worked with a will from
morn till eve, and marked his hours by the Abbey bells.
It was not only Chaucer's writings that he gave to the
public, but many other works which without him would
long have remained unknown or forgotten, and more
than any one else he helped to fix the language which
Chaucer had used, by himself using the same in all his
translations.  His busy life came to an end in 1491,
and he was buried in the Church of St. Margaret's,
Westminster.  But at the sign of the Red Pale his
favourite apprentice, Wynken de Worde, carried on the
master's work with the same extraordinary industry,
producing no fewer than five hundred separate books up
to the time of his death in 1535.  This date brings us
to within about twenty years of the time when Edmund
Spenser, Walter Raleigh, and Philip Sidney, the singing
birds and knightly spirits of the Elizabethan Court, were
born.  Like Chaucer, Spenser was a Londoner and he
describes his birthplace as

   |  "The merry London, my most kyndly nurse,
   |  That to me gave this life's first active source."

He proudly declared that "he took his name from an
ancient house," but we know little of his immediate
family.  His boyhood was spent at Smithfield, then
within easy reach of woods and fields, and he has given
us a glimpse of it in these words, which show that he
was a boy very much like all other boys:—

   |  "Whilome in youth, when flowed my joy full spring
   |  Like swallow swift, I wandered here and there
   |  for heat of headlesse lust me did so sting,
   |  That I oft doubted daunger, had no fear:
   |  I went the wastefull woodes and forrest wide
   |  Withouten dread of wolves to bene espied.

   |  "I wont to raunge amid the mazie thicket,
   |  And gather nuttes to make my Christmas game,
   |  And joyed oft to chase the trembling pricket,
   |  Or hunt the hartlesse hare till she were tame.
   |  What wrecked I of wintrie age's waste?
   |  Tho' deemed I my spring would ever last.

   |  "How often have I scaled the craggie oke,
   |  All to dislodge the raven of her nest?
   |  How have I wearied with many a stroke
   |  The stately walnut tree, the while the rest
   |  Under the tree fell all for nuttes at strife?
   |  For like to me was libertye and life."

He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and
afterwards at Cambridge, where an old biographer declares
"he mispent not his time, as the fruites of his labours
doe manifest, for that he became an excellent scholar,
especially most happy in English poetry."  But no
other memories remain to us of his university life
except the names of his two great and lifelong friends,
and all we know of him during the first few years
after he left Cambridge is that he lived in the
north, and that he fell violently in love with
a certain Rosaline, "a gentlewoman both of nature
and manners, worthy to be commended to immortalitie
for her rare and singular virtues," but who apparently
did not in any way return his ardent affections.  He
lamented her indifference so deeply that he left his
home and made his way to London, "all weeping and
disconsolate," and though he was by nature light-hearted
and pleasure-loving, he treasured the memory of her
many charms for fourteen years, until he met and
married the Elizabeth whom he described as "my
love, my life's last ornament."  But if it was despair
which drove Spenser to London, he had no cause ever
to regret the move, for it led to his making the acquaintance
of Sir Philip Sidney, who introduced him to his
uncle, the all-powerful Earl of Leicester.  Both received
him cordially, and in a short time he was mixing in
all the intellectual society of the day.  England was at
peace; Elizabeth's firm rule made for prosperity; the
new learning had taken root; the spirit of adventure, of
imagination, of chivalry had free scope; the spirit of
growth, of progress, of enterprise pervaded the air.  All
was ready for the coming of a poet who could sing as
Chaucer had done, and make sweet music with the
national language.  In the winter of 1579 Spenser
published, not under his own name, his "Shepherdes
Calendar," a series of shepherd tales, one for each
of the twelve months of the year, and these he dedicated
to "Maister Philip Sidney, that noble and vertuous
gentleman, most worthy of all titles, both of learning
and chevalrie."  At once the "new poet" leapt into
fame, though nothing could have been in greater
contrast than Chaucer's Tales and Spenser's Calendar.  The
first faithfully pictured life as it was without romance or
exaggeration; the second, according to the fashion of the
day, was in the form of a masquerade: the heroes and
heroines were all shepherds or shepherdesses; everything
took place in the country, every one was a rustic,
and the highest praise that could be given to Chaucer
was to call him the "god of shepherds."  So the Calendar
had none of that simplicity and truthfulness which gave
to Chaucer's work its great charm.  Shepherds and
shepherdesses, when put in all kinds of unnatural positions,
could not fail to be unreal and artificial, especially
when they were made to talk in the language of scholars.
But Spenser's strength lay in the melody of his verse,
in his sense of beauty and his power over language,
and it has been truly said that though he is not the
greatest of poets, his poetry is the most poetical of all
poetry.

Fuller, who wrote on the "Worthies of England," tells
us that Spenser was presented to Queen Elizabeth, who
was so overcome by the beauties of his poem, that she
ordered Lord Burleigh to give him a hundred pounds,
to which the cautious Treasurer objected, saying it was
too much.  "Then give him what is reason," said the
Queen.  But it was evident that Burleigh had not a
great liking for the new poet, probably because he was
such a friend of Leicester's, and Spenser saw nothing of
the money till he brought it to the Queen's remembrance
in a little rhyme.  He soon found that he could not
live by his poetry, but he had no desire to exist on
the favours of Leicester or Sidney, and preferred to
earn his own daily bread in some honourable and
independent way.  An opening came unexpectedly.
Ireland was causing much anxiety to the crown;
one Lord Deputy after another sent from England
had failed to restore to it order or good government,
and had come home depressed and disheartened,
if not actually disgraced.  In 1579 the Government
pressed Lord Grey de Wilton—the "good Lord
Grey"—high-minded, religious, and fearless, to undertake the
thankless task, and he, from a sense of duty, accepted
the office of Lord Deputy.  He invited Spenser to come
with him, as his secretary, and the offer was at once
accepted, though it must have cost the poet something
to tear himself away from the centre of life and
learning, from the society he so enjoyed, to bury himself in
a country regarded as only half civilised, and which at
that very time was in open rebellion.  He left behind
him Merrie England, with all that was pleasant to
him, when he went to Ireland, which was then in a
most turbulent and rebellious condition, and for the
time being his writing had to be laid aside for sterner
stuff.  But all honour to him that he chose work rather
than dependence.

Lord Grey de Wilton did not succeed any better than
his predecessors had done.  Naturally kind-hearted, he
nevertheless deemed it his duty to carry out a policy
of great severity, and himself almost a Puritan in his
religious views, he saw no hope for the distressful country
until Protestantism reigned there.  Spenser adopted the
same opinions as his master, and pitiless force was the
only weapon used in the warfare.  Of course it availed
nothing, and Lord Grey was recalled, more or less under
a cloud, for he had many enemies at home among those
who found him too uncompromisingly straightforward
and honourable, as well as among those who condemned
his fanatical severity and his ruthlessly heavy
hand.  Spenser, who stayed behind in Ireland, always
remained loyal to him, and sturdily defended that "most
just and honourable personage, whose least virtues, of
many most excellent, which abounded in his heroical
spirit, they were never able to aspire to, who with evil
tongues did most untruly and maliciously backbite and
slander him."

For the next few years the poet held various clerkships
and other posts, and at last he became the possessor
of Kilcolman Castle, where he lived for some time,
devoting his spare hours to the great work he so long
had in contemplation, "The Faerie Queene."  In 1590
he got permission to return for awhile to England that
he might publish that part of his book which he had
finished, a permission he owed to Raleigh, who had
read much of the work when staying as his guest in
Ireland, and who with generous sympathy longed to
give to the poet the fame which was so justly his.
Thanks to him, too, the Queen listened to some portions
of the poem, and was greatly delighted with the many
references made to herself.  For Spenser had learnt
how to flatter gracefully in his verse, and had realised
that to find favour in the Queen's eyes he would do
well

   |  "To lyken her to a crowne of lillies
   |  Upon a virgin bryde's adorned head,
   |  With roses dight and goolds and daffadillies;
   |  Or like the circlet of a Turtle true
   |  In which alle colours of the rainbow bee.
   |  Or like faire Phebes' garland shining new,
   |  In which alle pure perfection one may see.
   |  But vain it is to think by paragone
   |  Of earthly things, to judge of things Divine."
   |

He had dedicated his book to her, "The most High,
Mightie, and Magnificent Empress, renowned for
Pietie, Virtue, and alle gracious Government;" and
at the end of the dedication expressed the humble
hope that "thus his labours might live with the eternity
of her fame."  Elizabeth smiled graciously on one who
added such glory to her court, and gave Spenser a
pension of £50.  "The Faerie Queene" was greeted
with a chorus of enthusiastic praise, and the
publisher, who in an introduction had begged gentle
readers to "graciouslie entertain the new Poet," had
no reason to complain of the warm welcome given
to him.

Of course, the work was an allegory, a double
allegory, so to speak; for besides having a general
meaning to his story, he had a special one which
referred to living people, such as the Queen, Sir Philip
Sidney, Lord Grey, and so on.  The whole poem,
therefore, is rather complicated, and in great contrast
to the well-arranged plots which Chaucer had woven
into his stories.  The general idea was that in a
certain happy country there reigned a great Queen
Gloriana, around whose presence had gathered a body
of brave and fearless knights.  The queen decided
to hold a feast for twelve days, and on each day
an adventure was to be undertaken by one of these
knights for the purpose of righting some wrong,
releasing some captive, or succouring some oppressed
person.  Spenser purposed to tell of these several
adventures in twelve books, but only six were finished.
Now if in "The Faerie Queene" we attempt to unravel
the very knotted allegory, we shall soon get into difficulties,
for Spenser's greatest gifts did not lie in his power
of making a clear story, but in his perfectly chosen
language, his lofty thoughts, and the never-failing music
of his verse.  So the wisest plan, I think, is to read the
romances for their own beauty without trying to find
a hidden meaning in every line, and even so, we shall
everywhere discover rich gems.

It is strange that in spite of all the fame which
"The Faerie Queene" gave the poet, it brought him
neither wealth nor even work, and he "tourned back
to his sheepe" in Ireland.  He married, and poured out
his joy in an exquisite song called "Epithalamion."  Besides
this, he wrote more books of his great work,
many sonnets and hymns, and a treatise on Ireland.
He was made Sheriff of Cork, and altogether his worldly
affairs prospered; for Burleigh was dead, and it was
Burleigh who had always checked the Queen's generosity
towards him, "saying a song needed not such liberal
payment."  Suddenly a fresh and violent rebellion broke
out in Ireland.  Spenser's castle was attacked and set
on fire; his little child was burned to death; and all
his valued possessions were destroyed.  He came back
to London with his wife, homeless, penniless,
broken-hearted.  Over the next few months a veil is drawn;
how it came to pass that his many friends and admirers
knew nothing of his sufferings, or knowing did not raise
a hand to help him, remains a mystery.  This is certain,
that he died of grief and for lack of bread in a street
near Westminster.  After his death, indeed, his friends
came to the fore once more.  The Earl of Essex paid
all the expenses of his funeral, which took place in the
Abbey.  Poets and writers flocked to his grave-side,
throwing on to his coffin their songs of woe.  We may
take it for granted that Shakespeare was among the
mourners, and with him were all the brightest spirits
of the day.  Truly the broken-hearted poet was well
honoured on that last event of his life.  At some
period of his career, probably near the end, he had
written a poem on "Change and Mutabilitie."  God
grant that in those bitter closing days he found the
ray of hope he thus did sing of:—

   |  "Then gin I think on that which Nature sayd,
   |  Of that same time when no more Change shall be,
   |  But stedfast rest of all things firmly stayd,
   |  Upon the Pillars of Eternitie,
   |  That is contrayr to Mutabilitie.
   |  For all that moveth does in change delight:
   |  But thenceforth all shall rest eternally
   |  With Him, that is the God of Sabbaoth hight:
   |  O that great Sabbaoth God, grant me that Sabbaoth's sight."
   |

True it is that Spenser, the herald of the Elizabethan
day, gives to the Poets' Corner the reflected glory of that
period, but we can never cease to regret that Shakespeare,
its crown and its sun, lies so far away from Westminster.
Only the Abbey seems a fitting monument to
that great mind, our king of English literature.

   |  "Thou art a monument without a tomb,
   |  And art alive while still thy books doth live,
   |  And we have wits to read, and praise to give."

So wrote Ben Jonson.  With that thought, and the fact
that, a hundred and twenty years after his death, a
memorial to Shakespeare was put up in the Poets' Corner
by public subscription, we must rest content.  Ben
Jonson himself was buried here, having in his imperious
way demanded of the king "eighteen inches of ground
in the Abbey," and so he remained in death "a child of
Westminster."  He had been educated at Westminster
School, this turbulent, strong-spirited lad, with Border
blood in him, who could never settle down to the trade
of a builder, to which he had been apprenticed, and
who was heard of among actors and playwriters.  He
was the friend of Shakespeare; indeed, it is said that
the great man not only warmly praised his first play,
"Every Man in his Humour," but acted in it himself at
the Globe Theatre.  Jonson produced a great number of
plays and a still greater number of court masques.  He
was a master of plot, and everything he wrote was full
of force and personality.  Such a fiery character as his
could hardly fail to lead him into a series of quarrels;
but, in spite of this, he was held by his large circle of
friends to be "the prince of good fellows," and the
words, "O rare Ben Jonson," carved on his tomb by
order of Sir John Young, "who, walking here when the
grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteenpence to
cut it," is an epitaph that came from the hearts of those
who loved him and recognised his genius.  Francis
Beaumont, another Elizabethan playwriter, and the intimate
friend of the whole group of dramatists, lies here; as
does Michael Drayton, who wrote more than one hundred
thousand lines of verse, and who, despite the fact that
he was always quarrelling with his booksellers, whom
he described as "a company of base knaves I scorn
to kick," was known among his contemporaries as the
"all-loved Drayton."  Abraham Cowley, held in his day
to be a great poet, had a magnificent funeral and a most
flattering epitaph, but though one enthusiastic admirer
went so far as to declare that the Great Fire left the
Abbey untouched because Fate would that Cowley's
tomb should be preserved, his works did not long
survive him.  Close to him was laid John Dryden, who
as a boy had been well whipped by the great Doctor
Busby.  He says himself that he "endeavoured to
write good English," and he produced several plays and
some excellent political satires.  He was not a great
poet, but he had the knack of reasoning well in verse,
of choosing apt words, and of writing vigorously.  And
we must remember that he lived in the days of the later
Stuarts, when poets had well-nigh forgotten the sweet
music of the Elizabethan age.  Near to his tomb stands
the bust of his bitter enemy, Shadwell, of whom he had
written:—

   |  "Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
   |  Who stands confirmed in all stupidity.
   |  The rest to some faint meaning made pretence,
   |  But Shadwell never deviates into sense."

Even so did the Abbey unite these rival poets-laureate.

.. _`POETS' CORNER`:

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   :alt: POETS' CORNER

   POETS' CORNER

Another satirist, Samuel Butler, has a monument,
but not a tomb, in the Abbey.  He also died in abject
poverty, and of him these lines were written, which apply
to more than one of those commemorated in the Poets'
Corner:—

   |  "When Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
   |  No generous patron would a dinner give.
   |  Behold him starved to death and turned to dust,
   |  Presented with a monumental bust.
   |  The poet's fate is here in emblem shown:
   |  He asked for bread, and he received a stone."
   |

Thomas May, the historian; Davenant, the Royalist
poet-laureate; Sir John Denham, a Royalist versifier,
and John Phillips, a devoted imitator of Milton, are little
more than names to us; but then we must remember
that, with few exceptions, neither the poets nor the
poetry of that period which ended with the death of
William III. have lived on through our literature.
With the accession of Anne there came a burst of new
life, and the next great name we come to in the Abbey
is that of Joseph Addison, the most charming of our
prose writers.  To find his grave, however, we must
leave the Poets' Corner and go to General Monk's vault
in Henry VII.'s Chapel.  For here, close to his friend
Charles Montagu, Lord Keeper, he of "piercing wit,
gentle irony, and sparkling humour," the regular
contributor to our two earliest newspapers, the
*Tattler* and the *Spectator*, was buried.  His own
words, from an article in the *Spectator* when it was
about twelve days old, best describe both the man
and his aims: "It is with much satisfaction that I
hear this great city enquiring day by day after these
my papers, and receiving my morning lectures with a
becoming seriousness and attention.  My publisher tells
me that already three thousand of them are distributed
every day, so that if I allow twenty readers to every
paper, I may reckon about threescore thousand disciples
in London and Westminster, who, I hope, will take care
to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of
their ignorant and unattentive brethren.  I shall spare
no pains to make their instruction agreeable and their
diversion useful.  For which reason I shall endeavour
to enliven morality with wit and to temper wit with
morality....  I have resolved to refresh their memories
from day to day, till I have recovered them from that
desperate state of folly and vice into which the age is
fallen.  The mind that lies fallow but a single day
sprouts up in follies that are only to be killed by
assiduous culture.  It was said of Socrates that he
brought philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among
men, and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me that
I brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools
and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at
tea-tables and in coffee-houses."  Then, having given his
general aim, he goes on to especially commend his paper
to all well-regulated families; to those gentlemen of
leisure who consider the world a theatre, and desire to
form a right judgment of those who are the actors on
it; and to those "poor souls called the blanks of society,
who are altogether unfurnished with ideas, who ask the
first men they meet if there is any news stirring, and
who know not what to talk about till twelve o'clock in
the morning, by which time they are pretty good judges
of the weather, and know which way the wind sets;"
while finally he appeals to the female world: "I have
often thought," he says, "that there has not been
sufficient pains taken to find out proper employments and
diversions for the fair ones.  Their amusements seem
contrived for them rather as they are women than as
they are reasonable creatures.  The toilet is their great
scene of business, and the right adjusting of their hair
the principal employment of their lives.  This, I say, is
the state of ordinary women, though I know there are
multitudes of those that move in an exalted sphere of
knowledge and virtue, and that join all the beauties of
mind to the ornaments of dress.  I hope to increase the
number of those by publishing this daily paper, which
I shall always endeavour to make an innocent entertainment,
and by that means at least divert the minds of
my female readers from far greater trifles."

Faithfully and yet very pleasantly did Addison carry
out his scheme.  His humour was always kindly, his good
sense was unvarying, his thoughts were always generous
and true, and his easy unaffected language completed
the charm.  Instead of dropping to the level of his
readers, he raised them to the much higher level on
which he himself stood, and this without dull lecturing
or violent denunciations.  Religion, duty, love, honour,
purity, truth, kindliness, and public-spiritedness were
all real things to him, and he sought to make them
everywhere realities too, gilding his little moral pills so
cleverly, that until they were swallowed no one knew
they were pills, and then they left nothing but a sweet
taste behind.

"About an age ago," he writes, "it was the fashion
in England for every one who would be thought religious
to throw as much sanctity as possible into his face.  The
saint was of a sorrowful countenance, and generally was
eaten up with melancholy.  I do not presume to tax
such characters with hypocrisy, as is done too frequently,
that being a vice which, I think, none but He who
knows the secrets of men's hearts should pretend to
discover in another.  But I think they would do well
to consider whether such a behaviour does not deter
men from religion....  In short, those who represent
religion in so unamiable a light are like the spies sent
out by Moses to make a discovery in the Land of
Promise, when by their reports they discouraged the
people from entering upon it.  Those that show us the
joys, the cheerfulness, the good-humour that naturally
spring up in this happy state are like the spies bringing
along with them clusters of grapes and delicious fruits
that so invited their companions into the pleasant
country which produced them."

Two of his articles have Westminster Abbey for their
subject.  On one occasion Addison, as the Spectator,
goes there for a walk, and thus describes his feelings:—"I
yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the Cloisters
and the Church ... And I began to consider with
myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay
confused under the pavement of that ancient cathedral;
how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and
soldiers, monks and prebendaries were crumbled one
against the other; how beauty, strength, and youth,
with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay
undistinguished in the same heap of matter....  Some of
the monuments were covered with such extravagant
epitaphs that, if it were possible for the dead person
to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the
praises which his friends bestowed on him.  There were
others so excessively modest that they deliver the
character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew
so that they are not understood once in a twelvemonth.
I found there were poets which had no monuments, and
monuments which had no poets....  Sir Cloudesley
Shovel's monument gave me great offence.  Instead of the
brave, rough English admiral, which was the distinguishing
character of that plain gallant man, he is represented
on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long
periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions
under a canopy of state.  The Dutch, whom we are apt
to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater
taste....  The monuments of their admirals which
have been erected at the public expense represent them
like themselves, and are adorned with rostral crowns and
naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed,
shells, and coral.  When I look upon the tombs of the
great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read
the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes
out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a
tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I
see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the
vanity of grieving for those that we must quickly follow.
When I see kings lying by those who deposed them,
when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the
holy men that divided the world with their contests
and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment
on the little competitions, factions, and debates of
mankind.  When I read the several dates of the tombs,
of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred
years ago, I consider that great day when we shall
all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance
together."

The next visit Spectator paid to the Abbey was in
the company of Sir Roger de Coverley, his own creation,
that gentleman of ancient descent, whose "singularities
proceeded from his good sense, and were contradictions
to the manners of the world only as he thought the
world was in the wrong," and who was such a great lover
of mankind, with such a mirthful cast in his behaviour,
so cheerful, gay, and hearty, that "his tenants grew rich,
his servants were satisfied, all young women professed
love to him, and the young men were glad of his
company."  The squire was now spending one of his frequent
visits to London, and informed the Spectator that having
read his paper on Westminster Abbey, he should like to
go there with him, never having visited the tombs since
he read history.

"As we went up the body of the church, the knight
pointed at the trophies on one of the new monuments,
and cried out, 'A brave man!  I warrant him!'  Passing
afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his head
that way, and cried, 'Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a very
gallant man!'  As we stood before Busby's tomb the
knight uttered himself again after the same manner.
'Doctor Busby, a great man!  He whipped my grandfather;
I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a
blockhead.  A very great man!'  Among several other
figures he was very well pleased to see the statesman
Cecil upon his knees....  Sir Roger, in the next place,
laid his hand upon Edward III.'s sword, and leaning
upon the pommel of it gave us the whole history of the
Black Prince, concluding that, in Sir Richard Baker's
opinion, Edward III. was one of the greatest princes
that ever sat upon the English throne.  We were then
shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, upon which Sir
Roger acquainted us that he was the first who touched
for the evil, and afterwards Henry IV.'s, upon which he
shook his head, and told us there was fine reading in the
casualties of that reign.  Our conductor then pointed to
that monument where there is the figure of one of our
English kings without a head, and upon giving us to
know that the head, which was of beaten silver, had
been stolen away years before, 'Some Whig, I
warrant you!' says Sir Roger.  'You ought to lock your
kings up better.  They will carry off the body, too, if
you don't take care!'  The glorious names of Queen
Elizabeth and Henry V. gave the knight great opportunities
of shining.  For my own part, I could not but be
pleased to see the knight show such an honest passion
for the glory of his country, and such a respectful
gratitude to the memory of its princes."

Addison died when under fifty years of age, and the
story goes that in his last moments he sent for young
Lord Warwick, his stepson.

"Dear sir," said the lad, "any commands you may
give me, I shall hold most sacred."

"See in what peace a Christian can die," answered the
older man tenderly.

Years before, in his first letter as Spectator, he had
written these honest words, "If I can in any way
contribute to the improvement of the country in which I
live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it,
with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not
lived in vain."  And the knowledge that he had been
true to this pure ambition brought him a calm content
in that hour when all the things of this life vanished into
the dim background.

His funeral in the Abbey has been thus vividly described
by Tickell, his friend:—

   |  "Can I forget the dismal night that gave
   |  My soul's best part for ever to the grave?
   |  How silent did his old companions tread,
   |  By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead.
   |  Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
   |  Through rows of warriors and through walks of kings!
   |  What awe did the slow solemn march inspire,
   |  The pealing organ and the pausing choir;
   |  The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid
   |  And the last words that dust to dust conveyed!
   |  While speechless o'er the closing grave we bend—
   |  Accept those tears, thou dear departed friend!
   |  Oh, gone for ever, take this last adieu,
   |  And sleep in peace next thy loved Montagu."





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.. _`GARRICK, DOCTOR JOHNSON, AND SHERIDAN`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


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   GARRICK, JOHNSON, AND SHERIDAN

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Near together and under the shadow of Shakespeare's
monument lie three men whose lives brought them
into close contact with each other: David Garrick, the
actor and manager; Dr. Samuel Johnson, the critic and
conversationalist; and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, prince
of playwriters and parliamentary orators.  Little Davy
Garrick was the first of the trio on whom the curtain
fell, and his funeral in the Abbey, which took place
on the 1st of February 1779, was a most imposing
one.  The streets were crowded with people gathered
to see the last of him they had so delighted in applauding.
The procession extended far down into the Strand;
players from Drury Lane and Covent Garden mourned
the kindliest and most lovable of comrades; seven
carriages were filled with the members of the Literary
Club, and round the grave stood Edmund Burke, Charles
James Fox, Sheridan, Dr. Johnson, with many another
distinguished man.  That was a day of triumph for the
English stage.  True, indeed, other players had been
buried in Westminster—Anne Oldfield, who lies in
the nave; Anne Bracegirdle and Mr. Cibber, whose
graves are in the cloisters—but the death of David
Garrick was accounted a national loss, and all desired
to honour him, under whose wise guidance "the drama
had risen from utter chaos into order, fine actors had been
trained, fine plays had been written for the fine actors
to act, and fine, never-failing audiences had assembled
to see the fine plays which the fine actors had acted."  It
has often been said that even had he been neither
an actor nor a public character his name would have
gone down to future generations as a perfect English
gentleman, so great was the spell of his charm and
his influence.  He was born in an inn at Hereford
in the year 1716, the son of a penniless officer in
the dragoons, who had married Miss Isabella Clough,
the equally penniless daughter of the vicar-choral of
Lichfield Cathedral.  The lieutenant had to serve at
Gibraltar, and little David, a bright lad, ever ready
with a witty answer, got his early education in a free
school at Lichfield, presided over by a master who used
the rod freely, "to save his boys from the gallows," as
he assured them for their comfort.  An older boy at
the same school was Samuel Johnson, the son of a
highly respected bookseller in Lichfield.  In spite of
the great difference in their ages, he became David's
friend, and together they used to patronise such plays
as the companies of strolling players brought within
their reach, the acting taking place in such barns as
were available.  David, full of enterprise, organised and
drilled a little company of his own when he was barely
eleven, which company performed a play called "The
Recruiting Officer," to the admiration of a large and
interested audience, composed mainly of parents.  But
funds did not allow of many such pastimes, and a year
later David was sent out to Portugal to work in the
office of an uncle, a prosperous wine merchant there.
Never was boy more unfit for the daily routine of an
office, a fact which, fortunately, his uncle soon
recognised, for in a few months he was back again in
Lichfield, slightly in disgrace, it is true, and was sent
to his old school that "discipline might repair his
deficiencies."

.. _`DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON`:

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   :alt: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

   DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

Young Johnson, who by now had returned from Oxford,
had, thanks to the assistance of a wealthy friend,
Mr. Walmesley, set up a school of his own in the
town, dignified by the name of "The Academy."  At
this seat of learning Garrick studied for a while,
and years afterwards he wrote of his solemn ponderous
master, "I honoured him, he endured me."  But
the academy did not prosper, and Johnson, who had
already begun to write, determined to try his fate in
London.  Thither, too, young Garrick was bent, for it
had been decided that he was to study law, and kind
Mr. Walmesley had arranged to pay the expenses of
the special instruction he would need, declaring him
to be "of a good disposition, and as ingenious and
promising a young man as ever I knew in my life."
So together they set out, and together they lived
for awhile, Johnson finding a scanty livelihood as a
bookseller's assistant, David working as a student of
Lincoln's Inn.

Soon afterwards Captain Garrick died, and at the
same time died also the rich wine merchant uncle,
who left a fair sum of money to his brother's children,
with a special legacy to David, of whom he had been
particularly fond.  Then it was that for the first
time the boy's ambition took definite shape: he knew
there was only one life and one career for him, and
that was summed up in the stage.  His mother, though,
shrank in horror from the idea, and to his eternal
credit, rather than add to her sorrows, he set aside
his own wishes, and made one more desperate effort
to please his family by going into the wine business,
as the London manager, with his brother Peter.  Even
in so doing, theatrical life pursued him, for his wines
were so patronised by the coffee-houses and clubs to
which the actors resorted, that he considered it part of
his business to amuse and entertain his customers by
"standing on the tables at the clubs to give his
diverting and loudly applauded mimicries."  To make a long
story short, the genius that was in David would not
allow him to settle down to a wine merchant's career;
he became restless and dissatisfied, and one fine
morning two letters fell like bombshells into the Garrick
household at Lichfield: one from David, saying that
his mind was so inclined to the stage that he could no
longer resist it, and he hoped they would all forgive
him when they found he had the genius of an actor;
the other from an old friend, who hastened to assure
the family how great a success Davy's first appearance
had been, how the audience was in raptures, and how
several men of judgment had wondered that he had
kept off the stage so long.  Richard II. was the
ambitious part Garrick had undertaken.  "I played the
part to the surprise of every one," he wrote humbly
to his furious brother.  "It is what I doat upon, and
I am resolved to pursue it."  The *Daily Post* had an
enthusiastic notice about this unknown gentleman who
had never appeared before, "whose reception was the
most extraordinary and great that was ever known,
whose voice was clear, without monotony, drawling,
affectation, bellowing, or grumbling; whose mien was
neither strutting, slouching, stiff, nor mincing."  Pope,
most keen of critics, had watched him delightedly
from a box.  "That young man never had his equal,
and never will have a rival," he remarked; adding,
"I only fear lest he should become vain and ruined
by applause."

But there was a simplicity of character and a fund
of good sense in David which saved him from this
latter fate, even though he quickly became the talk
of the town, the man about whom the fashionable
London world went mad.  After acting with
ever-increasing success in nineteen different parts, his
London season came to an end for the time being,
and in response to an urgent invitation he went over
to Dublin, where the craze for him was so intense that,
when a mild epidemic broke out, it was given the
name of the Garrick fever.  A second visit to that gay
capital was even more successful, and Garrick finally
returned to London with a clear £600 in his pocket.

It was then that various difficulties beset him, chiefly
owing to the bad management of the theatres and the
endless quarrels between the principal actors of the day;
but at last, thanks to the many friends who firmly
believed in him, and whose faith he never disappointed,
he was able to invest £8000 in Drury Lane Theatre,
and to become its manager as well as its leading actor.
His determination was to "get together the best
company in England," and it is characteristic of him that
he let no past jealousies or quarrels interfere with his
selection.  Even Macklin, who had violently attacked
him with tongue and pen, was engaged, as well as his
wife, and he skilfully smoothed down the sensitive
feelings of the various ladies.  He insisted on rehearsals,
which hitherto had seldom been enforced, and he also
insisted that players should learn their parts, a very
necessary proviso.  On the opening night he remembered
the friend with whom he had entered London,
when triumphs such as this had been undreamt of, and
it was Dr. Johnson whom he commissioned to write the
prologue, which he himself gave with splendid effect.
Later on he loyally did his best to make a success of
Johnson's heavy and somewhat clumsy play "Irene," and
thanks to his efforts and the money he freely spent on
its staging, it ran for nine nights, so that the Doctor
made the sum of £300.  But with this the author
was far from satisfied, and always declared that the
actors had not done justice to their parts!

It would take too long to dwell on the many plays
Garrick produced, the many parts he created, the wide
range of writers new and old he explored, and the
excellent standard he maintained.  Whether it was a
tragedy of Shakespeare's, or a comedy of Ben Jonson's,
or a pantomime, he threw himself heartily into them
all and never spared himself.  He knew his public and
catered for them, but at the same time he taught them
to understand and applaud the best.  His kindness to
every one with whom he came in contact was proverbial;
indeed, his greatest weakness lay in his good-nature.
He could not bear to vex people by refusing
them anything, and this trait often landed him into
difficulties with the army of playwriters to whose entreaties
that he would produce their works he seldom turned a
deaf ear.  And when these plays were too hopelessly
bad to be dreamt of, David tried to soften the blow by
a gift of money, sometimes actually a pension.  As
might have been expected, he had a wide circle of
acquaintances from the highest in the land to the
poorest Grub Street poets, and rarely was man so well
liked.  For in spite of his weaknesses—and he was
restless and sensitive to the point of touchiness—he never
allowed himself to be unjust or ungenerous to other
people, and no thought of self ever interfered with the
standard he had set up for his theatre and his own
profession.

More than once he talked of retiring, for the strain
of his life was heavy, and he looked forward to years
of restful enjoyment with his "sweet wife," who
had been before her marriage the celebrated dancer
Mademoiselle Violette.  But the very mention of such
an idea raised a storm of excitement.  Once even the
king intervened when David had taken an unusually
long holiday, and his Majesty requested Mr. Garrick to
shortly appear again.  The night when, thus
commanded, he reappeared in "The Beggar's Opera," was
one of his greatest triumphs; again "the town went
half mad," and the theatre was crowded to an alarming
extent.  All ideas of retirement vanished from David's
mind; the old magic had not lost its spell, and for
more than ten years longer he went on with his work
as vigorously as ever.

His fame became even more widespread, his public
loved him even more dearly, and from far-away country
places people journeyed to London so that they might
boast of once having seen the great Mr. Garrick.

But in 1776, an illness, which he had long kept at
bay, made itself felt, and he was the first to recognise
that the time had nearly come for the curtain to fall.
He gave a series of his greatest representations, ending
with Richard II.  "I gained my fame in Richard," he
said, "and I mean to close with it."—Though he confessed
to being in agonies of pain, in the eyes of his enraptured
audience he was as great as he had ever been in his
palmiest days of success, as graceful, as winsome, and as
gay.  His real farewell play, however, was "The Wonder,"
in which he took his favourite part, that of Don Felix,
and "as his grand eyes wandered round the crowded
house, he saw a sea of faces, friends, strangers, even
foreigners, a boundless amphitheatre representing most
affectionate sympathies and exalted admiration.  He
played as he had never played before.  When the last
note of applause had died away, the other actors left
the stage and he stood there alone.  The house listened
in awe-struck silence.  At first he tried in vain to
speak; for once the ready words would not come for
his calling.  When at last he went on to thank his
friends for their wonderful kindness to him, he broke
down, and his tears fell fast.  Sobs rang through the
theatre.  "Farewell!  Farewell!" was cried in many a
quivering voice.  Mrs. Garrick wept bitterly in her
box, and David slowly walked off the stage with one
last wistful glance at the sea of faces all around
him.

His interest in his theatre did not cease after he
had left it, and he was disturbed at finding that the
new manager, Sheridan, was sadly easy-going and
unbusiness-like.  But there was not much time left for
such things to trouble him.  Though he kept up his
merry heart and his sprightly manner to the end, and
though he delighted in the undisturbed companionship
of his wife, the disease gained rapidly and he suffered
much pain.  Gradually a stupor crept over him, and
though it sometimes lifted, so that with his old sweet
smile he had a jest or a word of welcome for his friends,
it never cleared, and he passed gently away in the early
dawn of a January morning, 1779, "leaving that human
stage where he had played with as much excellence and
dignity as ever he had done on his own."

So ended a prosperous, pleasant life, and rarely was
a man better liked by his fellows, or more genuinely
mourned.  Dr. Johnson, in this moment, forgot all his
later coldness towards the Davy he had once so loved.
He left a card on Mrs. Garrick, and "wished some
endeavours of his could enable her to support a loss
which the world cannot repair;" while he wrote those
well-known words, which Mrs. Garrick had engraved on
her husband's memorial monument in Lichfield Cathedral,
and which form an inscription more appropriate than
that on the Abbey tomb:—"I am disappointed by that
stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations
and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

David's devoted wife outlived him for over forty years,
keenly interested to the last in all matters theatrical, and
a well-known figure in the Abbey, where, little and
bent, she often made her way to the tomb which held
him she had so loved, and standing there would readily
recount over and over again to willing listeners the
triumphs of "her Davy."

Johnson, as we have seen, settled down in London
with the intention of making literature pay.  "No man
but a blockhead," he said in his strongest manner,
"ever wrote except for money."  Perhaps it was for
opinions such as these that his wife, more than twenty
years older than himself, declared him to be the most
sensible man that lived.  A curious figure he must have
seemed to those booksellers of whom he demanded
work as a translator, mightily tall and broadly made,
with a face which he twirled and twisted about in a
strange fashion, features scarred by disease, eyes which
were of little use to him, and a manner pompous and
overbearing, though redeemed by a kindliness of heart
not to be concealed.  But he managed to struggle
along, writing squibs or pamphlets, reporting speeches
in Parliament, trying his hand at plays or poetry, and
all the while working away at his Great Dictionary, for
which when finished he was to receive £1500, he out
of that sum paying his copyists and assistants.  He
founded a club at which he began to make his reputation
as a talker, and out of those conversations with
his special friends there came to him the idea of
starting a newspaper on the lines of Addison's *Spectator*.
But Johnson's heavy hand, his love of long discourses,
and the natural melancholy of his nature, did not fit
him for work such as this.  His *Rambler* only lasted
for two years, and certainly made him no fortune,
though it may have helped him to exist during that
time.  His Dictionary, when it was at last completed,
gave him a surer position in the literary world of
London, and he was paid the sum of £100 for his
story of "Rasselas," but most of this went in paying for
the last illness and funeral of his mother, and Johnson
seems to have been sadly in need of money.  Through
the influence of some friends, the king, George III. who
declared that he was most anxious to offer
"brighter prospects to men of literary merit," proposed
to give Johnson a pension of £300 a year.  At first
he would not hear of accepting it—indeed, there was
a rather formidable difficulty in the way, for in his
Dictionary he had defined the word pension as being
"generally understood to mean pay given to a State
hireling for treason to his country."  However, the
explanations and persuasions of his friends at last
overcame the obstacle, and from that time forward
he became one of the best known public characters.
A favourite such as David Garrick he could never
have aspired to be, and to fashionable folks, especially
to ladies, he was an untidy, conceited, rugged old man,
who ate enormous meals, drank sometimes twenty-five
cups of tea at one sitting, wore slovenly and dirty
clothes, half-burnt wigs, and slippers almost in tatters.
Then he contradicted flatly, and his anger was of a
very vehement kind; though he always declared himself
to be a "most polite man," and was occasionally
ceremonious to a wonderful degree.  And yet as he
discoursed, men listened to him with such pleasure
that they forgot entirely his many monstrous failings.
His power of argument was magnificent; never could
man so slay an adversary by his words as could this
vigorous, quarrelsome, brilliant talker, and though he
hit hard, he did not hit cruelly.  There was no venom
in his words, and however violently he argued, he
never seems to have lost a friend through it.  On the
contrary his circle of admirers constantly grew, and
cheerfully submitted to whatever demands he made
upon them.  Chief among those friends, of course,
stands the faithful Boswell, who idolised him with a
worship that must have been very wearisome.  If
Johnson so much as opened his mouth Boswell bent
forward wild with eagerness, terrified lest one precious
word should escape him; he sat as close to him as
he could get, he hung around him like a dog, and no
amount of snubbing could damp his ardour.  He delighted
in asking his master a series of such questions
as these:—"What would you do if you were shut up
in a castle with a new-born baby?" Or, "Why is a
cow's tail long?"

"I will not be baited with what and why," Johnson
would answer impatiently.  "You have only two subjects,
yourself and me.  I am sick of both.  If your presence
does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will."

Johnson's daily life seems to have been mapped out
in this wise.  He lay in bed late into the morning,
surrounded by an admiring circle of men friends, who
consulted him on every particular, and listened respectfully
to all his opinions.  He only rose in time for a
late dinner at some tavern which occupied most of the
afternoon, as other circles of friends came to listen to
him.  Then he would drink tea at some house, frequently
spending the rest of the evening there, unless he was
supping with other acquaintances.  Except for his "Lives
of the Poets," he wrote but little at this period of his
life, and said in excuse, "that a man could do as much
good by talking as by writing."

Johnson was generally melancholy, the result of his
miserable health to a great extent.  Yet his pessimism
never affected his wonderfully tender heart.  Of his
pension he barely spent a third on himself.  His house
became, after the death of his wife, the haven for a variety
of unfortunate and homeless people, and there lived in
it Miss Williams, a blind lady, whose temper was not
sweet; Levett, a waiter, who had become a quack
doctor; Mrs. Desmoulins, and her daughter, old
Lichfield acquaintances, and a certain Miss Carmichael.
Needless to say there was very little peace in that
household, and the poor old Doctor often dreaded going
home.  "Williams hates everybody," he wrote to his
really good friends, the Thrales.  "Levett hates
Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates
them both; Poll Carmichael loves none of them."

And yet this "rugged old giant," as he has been
called, provided for them all, and for many others who
came and went at their will, and who grumbled if
everything was not exactly to their liking.  As his bodily
sufferings increased, he nerved himself to face the end with
a touchingly childlike confidence.  His thoughts wandered
back to his wife.  "We have been parted thirty years,"
he said.  "Perhaps she is now praying for me.  God
help me.  God, Thou art merciful, hear my prayers,
and enable me to trust in Thee."  Years before, when
wandering about the dark aisles with Goldsmith, he had
pointed to the sleeping figures around, saying, "And
our names may perhaps be mixed with theirs."  So now
he was delighted when, in answer to his question, he
was told that he would be buried in Westminster Abbey.
"Do not give me any more physic," he asked the doctor
at the very last; "I desire to render up my soul to God
unclouded."

His funeral was a very quiet one, in great contrast
to Garrick's, but his executors felt that "a
cathedral service with lights and music" would have
been too costly; as it was, the Dean and Chapter charged
high fees, and the expenses came to more than two
hundred pounds.  But Boswell assures us that a
"respectable number of his friends attended," and though
the Abbey holds many a greater name than that of
Samuel Johnson, few that sleep there carried a braver,
kindlier heart throughout a life of constant suffering.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was the son of an actor
and manager who had been driven from Ireland, his
native country, by a series of misfortunes, and forced
to earn his living in England as a teacher of
elocution.  Want of money, endless debts, a wonderful
power of spending freely with an entire absence of
forethought, characterised the Sheridan family, and young
Richard was brought up on those very happy-go-lucky
principles.  He was sent to Harrow, where his tutor said,
"The sources of his infirmities were a scanty and
precarious allowance from the father;" and when he left
school, a handsome, brilliant, careless boy of seventeen
the state of the family purse made any further
education out of the question.  His father had settled in
Bath, and here Richard made the acquaintance of that
beautiful girl and wonderful singer, Elizabeth Lindley
"the link between an angel and a woman," as an Irish
bishop called her, whose father also taught music and
gave concerts in Bath.  She was very unhappy, as her
relations wished to force her into a marriage with a rich
but elderly gentleman whom she disliked, and in her
despair she confided her troubles to Richard Sheridan,
the one among her many admirers to whom she had
given her heart.  To make a long story short, the
young couple fled together "on a matrimonial expedition,"
as the *London Chronicle* worded it; and in spite
of all opposition they married, and took up their abode
in London, near Portman Square.  Though neither of
them had any private fortune, Sheridan refused to allow
his wife to sing in public.  This action of his was
warmly discussed by Dr. Johnson's friends, some of
whom said that as the young gentleman had not a
shilling in the world, he was foolishly delicate or
foolishly proud.  The Doctor, however, applauded him
roundly.  "He is a brave man.  He resolved wisely
and nobly.  Would not a gentleman be disgraced by
having his wife singing publicly for him?  No, sir, there
can be no doubt here."  But Sheridan had another
surprise in store for his friends, and suddenly it became
known that he had written a play called "The Rivals,"
with which the manager of Covent Garden Theatre was
entranced, a light, fresh comedy, bearing on fashionable
life in Bath.  It was produced, and in spite of its many
faults, chiefly arising from its having been written in
such hot haste, it made a reputation for its author, which
prepared the way for his great triumph two years later,
when he brought out "The School for Scandal," still the
most popular of English comedies.  With it he leapt
into fame, and though barely twenty-five, he became the
man whose name was in everybody's mouth.  With
characteristic airiness and vagueness in money matters,
he took upon himself the responsible duties of manager
to Drury Lane Theatre after Garrick retired, and
brilliant though he was, his recklessness and want of any
business habits, soon brought about a serious state of chaos
and rebellion there.  This, however, seemed to disturb
him but little, and he turned his attention to politics;
for at the Literary Club he had made many political
friends, including Fox, and he proposed going into
Parliament as an independent member, though he
believed that "either ministry or opposition would be
happy to engage him."  He found a seat at Stafford, and
freely promised employment in Drury Lane Theatre to
those who voted for him; while the necessary money for
the election, which of course Sheridan did not possess,
was provided by a gentleman in return for a share in the
Opera House.  His first speech was not a success, but
though disappointed he was not daunted.

"It is in me, however," he declared, "and it shall
come out."

Within a very short time the House of Commons listened
to him as it would listen to no one else.  By constant
practice he had trained himself to speak perfectly and
true to his Irish blood, he had a rich store of language,
a fund of wit and humour, and the power of handling
every emotion.  His great speech in the Warren Hastings
case lasted six hours, during the whole of which time he
held the House in the hollow of his hand, and when he
continued his attack in Westminster Hall, people paid
twenty guineas a day to hear him.  "I cannot tell you,"
wrote his devoted wife to her sister, "the adoration that
he has excited in the breasts of every class of people.
Every party prejudice has been overcome by such a
display of genius, eloquence, and goodness."

Sheridan indeed was at the height of his glory; but
fame is a dangerous pinnacle for the strongest of men,
and Sheridan had no foundation-stones of strength or
stability.  His wife's death was the beginning of his fall,
debt and drink did the rest.  All sense of honour seems
to have left him where money was concerned.  His
actors could get no payments save in fair words; he
kept the money which resulted from special benefits; he
borrowed where he could, and then plunged the more
deeply into debt, but he never curbed his extravagances,
or went without anything he desired, no matter to what
means he had to resort.  His buoyancy never failed him.
Even when his theatre was burnt to the ground with a
loss to him of £200,000, his ready wit did not desert him.
He sat drinking his wine in a coffee-house from where he
could see the flames, merely remarking to a sympathetic
friend, "A man likes to take a glass of wine by his own
fireside."  All the latter part of his life is painfully sad;
debt, poverty, and dishonour hemmed him in, and
excessive drinking brought on his last illness.  A few
days before his death he was discovered almost starving
in an unfurnished room.  Even then the bailiffs were
about to carry him away to the debtors' gaol, and only
the doctor, who stayed and nursed him to the end,
prevented this last disgrace.  The news of his destitution
horrified those who remembered him in the days of his
dazzling triumphs, and in one paper an eloquent appeal
was made to the public generosity, "that we may prefer
ministering in the chamber of sadness to ministering
at the splendid sorrows which adorn the hearse."  In
response, crowds of people, royal dukes included,
flocked to leave delicacies at his lodging.  But it was
too late; the fitful life with all its successes and failures
was over, the shining eyes of which he had been so
proud were closed for ever now, the man who had "done
everything perfectly" was no more: the greatest orator
of his day was silent.

He had always hoped to be buried in Westminster
Abbey, "where there is very snug lying," and if
possible next to Fox and Pitt.  Moreover, he had desired
that his passage to the grave should be quiet and
simple.  But his friend, Peter Moore, determined that
he should have a splendid funeral; every one was
invited and every one came.  The procession was of
great length, and "such an array of rank, so great
a number of distinguished persons" had never before
assembled within the memory of the beholders.  There
was just room for a single grave near to where David
Garrick lay, and here Sheridan was buried.  While
lest his name should be all too soon forgotten, a simply
worded tablet was immediately prepared—the last tribute
of Peter Moore.





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.. _`THE MUSICIANS IN THE ABBEY`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


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   THE MUSICIANS IN THE ABBEY

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The Abbey which has its poets, its writers, and its
actors, has also its musicians.  Henry Purcell, who lies
in the north aisle, spent his short life among
Westminster precincts, for he was horn in the year 1658 at
"an ancient house of Westminster, next door to the
public-house and skittle ground—the 'Bell and Fish.'"  His
father, a "master of musique, who could sing brave
songs," was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a singing
man of the Abbey, master of the choristers there, and,
most important of all, the musical copyist.  For under
the Commonwealth, church choirs and music had been
sternly repressed, organs had been broken up, singing
books had been burned as superstitious and ungodly, so
that when once more the old cathedral services were
allowed to be held, but few of the old service books
were left, and copyists had to make good the deficiency.
The older Purcell died when his little boy was quite
young, but Thomas Purcell, an uncle, also a gentleman
of the Chapel Royal, took him in hand, and at six years
old Henry became a chorister under that delightful
old Master of the Children of the chapel, Captain Cook,
a musician whose devotion to King Charles I. had led
him to turn soldier during the Civil War, and who in his
old age had returned to his first love.  Purcell was under
this original master for eight years, and the old soldier
seems to have taken a special pride in the little chorister.
But he did not live to see his favourite pupil become
famous, for in 1672 the old master died and was
buried in the Westminster cloisters, whither he was
followed two years later by his successor Humphreys.
Then John Blow, another pupil, became Master of the
Children, and, as it is specially stated on his monument
in the Abbey, at the same time "master to the famous
Henry Purcell."  It was everything to the boy to be
under so rare a teacher, for not only was he an excellent
musician, but also a man singularly sympathetic and
pure-minded, generous to a degree and without a thought
of self.  He became organist of Westminster Abbey,
but he resigned it because he thought it the very post
Purcell could fill with advantage.  He then accepted
St. Paul's, but having another pupil, Clarke, whom he
considered suited to it, he again set his own interests
entirely on one side and retired in his favour.

.. _`GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL`:

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   :alt: GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL.

   GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL.

Purcell became a copyist of Westminster, but he
chiefly devoted his time to composing operas, as the
managers of theatres offered him plenty of work.
He also turned his attention to church music and
anthems.  The year 1680 saw Purcell organist of the
Abbey at the age of twenty-two, and soon afterwards he
modestly brought out a book of sonatas for two violins,
a bass, and the harpsichord or organ, in the preface
to which he said he had faithfully endeavoured a just
imitation of the most famed Italian masters, and went
on to explain that, lest the terms of art should puzzle
his readers, *adagio* imported nothing but a very slow
movement; *presto*, *largo*, and *vivace*, a very brisk, swift,
or fast movement; and *piano* a soft one.  Operas,
anthems, and odes all seem to have flowed easily from
his ready pen, and a list of them would only be tedious.
Among his anthems, perhaps the best known is the one
composed for the coronation of James II., "I was glad
when they said unto me, we will go into the House
of the Lord."  The coronation of William and Mary,
however, led to quite a stir in the inner circle of the
Abbey, for Purcell allowed a number of persons to
watch the ceremony from his organ-loft, charging them
for admission.  Now to this there was no objection, but
when rumour related that the fees so obtained amounted
to some hundreds of pounds, the Dean and Chapter,
presuming that this was worth contending for, claimed the
money as their dues.  Purcell declared that he had a
right to organ-loft fees; and the feeling must have run
high, as in an old chapter note-book there runs the
order that "Mr. Purcell, the *organ blower*, is to pay such
money as was received by him for places in the organ-loft,
in default thereof his place to be declared null and
void."  How the quarrel ended is not known.  However,
Purcell did not leave the Abbey, but went on with
his flow of compositions, and won from the poet Dryden
the statement that "here we have at length found an
*Englishman* equal with the best abroad."  It was to
Purcell that Dryden turned for the music to his opera
King Arthur, "for," he declared, "the artful hands of
Mr. Purcell compose with so great a genius, that he has
nothing to fear but an ignorant, ill-judging audience."  Queen
Mary seems to have had a liking for very popular
music, and once seriously offended Purcell, when some of
his compositions were being performed to her, by asking
to have sung instead the old Scotch ballad, "Cold and
raw."  So when he next had to compose a birthday ode
for her, he carefully introduced the air of "Cold and
raw."  When the Queen died he wrote two beautiful
anthems for the funeral service in the Abbey, "Blessed
is the man," and "Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of
our hearts," of which a singer in the choir writes, "I
appeal to all who were present, to those who understood
music as well as to those who did not, whether they
ever heard anything so rapturously fine and solemn, so
heavenly in the operation, drawing tears from all, and
yet a plain natural composition, which shows the power
of music when 'tis rightly fitted and adapted to devotional
purposes."  At many a great public funeral since, this
touching music of Purcell's has been used, and nothing
has taken its place.

Delicate from his boyhood, it was early evident that
Henry Purcell's life as organist of the Abbey was to be
a short one, and in the year 1695 a pathetic little note
was added to his song, "Lovely Albinia," stating that,
"This is the last song the author sett before his sickness."  His
illness was just a wasting away, "dangerously ill in the
constitution, but in good and perfect minde and memory,
thanks be to God," to quote his own words.  A touching
account has been given, in Dr. Cumming's "Life
of Purcell" of the closing scene in this bright young
life:—

"He lay in a house on the west side of Dean's Yard,
Westminster, from whence he could probably hear some
faint murmurs of the Evensong service wafted from the
old Abbey close by, some well-remembered phrase,
perhaps, of one of his own soul-stirring anthems.  The
Psalms for the day (the 21st) to be chanted at
that evening service, concluded with words he had
set to music which the world was not likely soon to
forget, music which still remains unsurpassed in
truthfulness and dignity.  A more noble or more fitting
death-chant for a child of son" it would be difficult
to find—

   |  "'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
   |  From everlasting, and world without end.
   |  And let all the people say, Amen.'
   |

"So his gentle spirit passed into the better world,
there to continue his service of song and praise in
fulness and perfection."

His own anthems were sung at his funeral; the organ
he had so loved pealed out its rich farewell to him; and
on his gravestone are these words in Latin—

   |  "Dead?  No, he lives, while yonder organ's sound,
   |  And sacred echoes to the choir rebound."
   |

Dr. Blow went back to his old post as Abbey organist
on the death of his pupil, and devoted himself to church
music.  "To this," he said, "I have ever especially
consecrated the thoughts of my whole life.  All the rest I
consider but as blossoms and leaves.  With this I began
my youthful raptures in this art, with this I hope calmly
and comfortably to end my days."  His best known
anthem, "I beheld, and lo!" was written within a week
for James II., who had asked him if he could do as well
as the Italian composers, and the king, much pleased
with it, sent Father Peter to congratulate Blow after
service.  The priest, however, took it upon himself to
add that, "in his opinion, it was somewhat too long."  "That,"
replied Blow scornfully, "is only one fool's
opinion.  I heed it not."

Blow, who died and was buried opposite to Purcell in
1708, was considered by his fellow-musicians "to be
the greatest master in the world for the organ, especially
in his voluntaries, which he played gravely and seriously."  The
inscription on his grave declares "that his musical
compositions are a far nobler monument to his memory
than any that can be raised to him," and on the open
music-book below is given the *Gloria* from his fine
Jubilate in C major.

William Croft succeeded Blow as organist, and most
of his musical compositions were written for special
occasions; as, for example, his anthem, "I will give thanks,"
which was produced after the famous Blenheim victory.
He, too, was of a lovable, kindly disposition, and the
inscription on his monument ends thus quaintly: "He
emigrated to the Heavenly Choir, with that Concert
of Angels, for which he was better fitted, adding his
Hallelujah.  Awake up my glory!  Awake lute and
harp!  I myself will awake right early."

Half a century later, that prince among musicians,
George Frederick Handel, was buried in the Poets' Corner.
Though not of English birth or upbringing, he had become
an English subject, and had found a warm welcome in
the hearts of the English people.  From babyhood he had
shown the bent of his mind.  Even his toys were tiny
trumpets, horns, and Jew's harps, much to the annoyance
of his kind old father, the well-known doctor in the
German town of Halle, who thought this craze of George
Frederick's should be forcibly put a stop to, and who
decreed therefore, that "there was to be no more jingling,
neither was he to go into houses where music was practised."

The boy was outwardly submissive, but the longing
within was too strong for him.  Somehow he got
possession of an old clavichord, one of those muffled
instruments on which musical monks could practise without
disturbing the brethren, and this he smuggled up to
a garret in the roof of the house, where, with storks
to bear him company, he played away to his soul's
content.  It was in utter ignorance of all this, that
Dr. Handel took the little boy with him once, when
summoned to attend the Court at Sache-Weisseufels,
where the reigning duke delighted in learning, art, and
music.  Naturally, George Frederick found his way to
the organ-loft, where the good-natured organist lifted
him up, for he was but seven, that he might touch the
notes.  To his surprise, the child began to play with a
practised hand, and with so much style, that the Grand
Duke, who heard him, sent for the doctor and begged
him not further to thwart such a genius.  So from this
time forward the boy was allowed to study seriously,
under the enthusiastic organist of the Liebfrauen Kirche
in Halle, who taught him to play the harpsichord, the
organ, the violin, the hautboy, and other instruments,
besides the art of counterpoint.  When, after years of
study, he came to England, where Purcell's death had
made a blank not yet filled up, he was received with
open arms, his fame having preceded him.  At once he
was engaged to write an opera for the Queen's Theatre,
and having discovered a *libretto* which greatly pleased
him, a stirring story of the Crusades, his ideas poured
forth so fast and so easily, that in a fortnight he had
completed the work, and his "Rinaldo" was soon
the rage of the season.  Although Handel held the
post of Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, and
had only been given leave of absence for a "reasonable
time," he could not tear himself away from London, so
well did he like the place and the people.

From operatic music he turned to oratorio.  The Duke
of Chandos, who lived in almost regal state at his palace
at Cannons, maintained an orchestra and choir, so that the
musical services of his private chapel might be as nearly
perfect as possible.  To Handel he offered the post of
musical director, and thus, in church music, the great
composer's genius found a new outlet.  The wonderful
old Bible stories, with their vigour and dramatic force,
and the stately Bible language, with its rich simplicity,
strongly appealed to him, and it is because of his
oratorios and cantatas rather than through his other
works, that the name and the memory of Handel remain
for ever fresh among us.  "Esther" was his first great
work in this new line, first performed in a private
house at Westminster by the children of the Chapel
Royal, assisted by the choristers of the Abbey.  So
pleased were the guests, that a few days later the
performance was repeated at the Crown and Anchor tavern
in the Strand, and would further have been given at the
Opera House, had not the Bishop of London refused
permission for any choristers to take part.  Eventually, with
a new band of singers, the oratorio was publicly given,
by the king's command, in the Haymarket Theatre,
"with a great number of voices and instruments," and
it was specially announced that "there would be no
acting on the stage, though the house would be fitted
up in a decent manner for the audience."  To this
performance came all the royal family, while so great was
the crowd, that hundreds were turned empty away, and
six extra performances had to be at once arranged for.

"Deborah" and "Athaliah" soon followed, also "Acis
and Galatea," which latter, though not sacred music, served
to increase his popularity, his audiences numbering
thousands.  A great blow to him was the death of Queen
Caroline, his kindest, most sympathetic friend, and in
composing the anthem for her funeral in the Abbey he
wrote from the depths of his sorrowing heart.  Nothing
could exceed the pathos or the sweetness of that music,
with its undercurrent of desolate grief, and when, in the
February of 1901, the Abbey was thronged with a great
representative assembly, there to pay a last tribute of
reverence to another queen, this anthem rang once more
through the old walls.

Success to Handel was but a stepping-stone, leading
him towards something higher.  He was never satisfied
with himself, but went on from strength to strength,
conscious of his own power to produce music which
should live for ever.  His "Saul" and his "Israel in
Egypt" showed how completely he could throw himself
into the spirit of his subject, and through the pages of his
music, Saul, Goliath and David, the Children of Israel,
the Egyptians and Miriam, all spring into life for us.
As we listen, the story takes new shape, and the events
which surround it stand out with a new lurid light.

But the greatest work of all was not produced in
London.  Handel went on a visit to Dublin, where he
found audiences "more numerous and polite than he had
ever seen on like occasions," and the general enthusiasm "so
put him in good spirits," that after completing a second
series of concerts a special performance was announced,
at which "Mr. Handel's new grand oratorio called 'The
Messiah'" was to be given.  Furthermore, as a great crowd
was anticipated, ladies were begged to come without their
hoops, and gentlemen without their swords, for in this way
quite another hundred persons could be accommodated.

"The finest composition of musick that was ever
heard," was the verdict of that "grand, polite, and
crowded audience," and a liberal sum was received for
the "relief of the prisoners in the gaols," to which
charity Handel, with peculiar appropriateness, had offered
to devote the profits.  Strange to say, the new work
did not at once take root in London, but with repeated
performances its triumph became steady and lasting.
The subject was a great one.  The smallest mistake in
dealing with it would have jarred painfully, and so little
would have robbed that simple story of its majesty.
But Handel gave to it a new glory, a new splendid
dignity, and to many a heart those familiar words have
struck home with a reality hitherto undreamt of, through
the beauty and the force of his music.  Reverently he
touched the great mystery, and as the story took life
before his awe-struck eyes, he translated it into
harmonies worthy of so vast a theme.

"I did think I did see all heaven before me, and
the great God Himself," said Handel reverently, as he
spoke of the Hallelujah Chorus, which so deeply
impressed the audience in the Covent Garden Theatre on
the first night that, one and all, with the king setting
the example, they sprang to their feet and stood to the
end.  The musician had led them into the very Presence
of God.

Other oratorios followed—"Samson," "Judas Maccabeus,"
and "Jephtha"—but none of them equalled
"The Messiah."  To this great work Handel had given
freely of his best, before that dark cloud arose which
saddened all his later days.  For gradually blindness
crept over him, till at last his sight departed for ever.
In spite of this he continued to conduct his own works,
and to the last insisted on being led to the organ, that
he might play the concertos and voluntaries between the
parts of his oratorios.  And we hear how, when the fine
solo in "Samson"—

   |  "Total eclipse—no sun, no moon:
   |  All dark amid the blaze of noon,"

was sung with great feeling at one performance, the
sight of the blind composer sitting at the organ was so
indescribably touching, that many present were moved
to tears.

On the 5th of April, 1759, a notice appeared in the
*Public Advertiser* that "The Messiah" would be
performed in Covent Garden on the 6th of April for the
last time in the season.

Handel conducted his work, was carried fainting from
the hall, and in less than a week had passed away.
His own wish, when he knew how near the end loomed,
was that he might die on Good Friday, "in hopes," he
said, "of meeting my good God and sweet Saviour on the
day of His resurrection."  And in this trustful spirit
he went to the God he had so worthily worshipped.

His funeral was intended to be private, but thousands
came to it, and though no trace remains of the music
sung on that occasion, I cannot help hoping that some
boy's clear voice rang through the aisles as he sang
"I know that my Redeemer liveth."  Nothing would
have been so fitting, and those are the words, nobler far
than any epitaph, which the good taste of some friend
caused to be inscribed on his monument in the Poets'
Corner.





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.. _`WILBERFORCE AND HIS FELLOW-WORKERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   WILBERFORCE AND HIS FELLOW-WORKERS

.. vspace:: 2

The desire of Abou Ben Adhem that his name might be
handed on as one "who loved his fellow-men" would
form a fitting epitaph not only to those great-hearted
workers in the cause of humanity whom the Abbey has
delighted to honour—William Wilberforce, the liberator
of the slave, and David Livingstone, the missionary and
explorer in Darkest Africa—but also to those others who
toiled with them in the same great cause of freedom,
and whose claims to the grateful recollection of the
nation are recorded only by monuments—Granville
Sharp, Jonas Hanway, Zachary Macaulay, Fowell Buxton,
and Anthony Astley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury.  A
few words first about one of these latter, Granville
Sharp, for he it was who became the pioneer of that
noble band who never ceased from their labours till
they had freed the slave on British territory.

He was only a linen-draper's assistant, afterwards
becoming a clerk in the Ordnance Office; but the
monotony of his work never allowed monotony or
narrowness to enter his life.  His heart was responsive
to every high claim, and difficulties only meant to
him obstacles to be overcome.  Courage, energy, and
determination were his watchwords.  His brother was
a doctor in Mincing Lane, who saw poor people
free of charge, and among his patients was a negro
called Jonathan Strong, who had been brought to London
by his master, a lawyer, from Barbadoes, only to be
turned out into the streets friendless and homeless when
he fell ill.  Dr. Sharp treated him so successfully that
he became quite well, and Granville Sharp found him a
situation with a chemist, which he kept for some years,
until one day he was seen and recognised by his old
employer, who finding him well and active had him
seized, and kept in custody until he could be shipped
off to the West Indies.  Jonathan, in despair, thought
of Granville Sharp, and appealed to him for protection.
Sharp at once went to the Lord Mayor, who gave judgment
that the man had been wrongfully seized and held
without a warrant, and ordered him to be at once set
at liberty.  But then arose an unlooked-for difficulty.
Jonathan's late master had sold him, and his new owner
appeared with the bill of sale, claiming his property
and declaring he had been robbed.  Then came the
question as to whether the traffic in slaves which went
on openly, especially in London and Liverpool, was
lawful or not.  Was a slave free when he reached
England, or could he be seized and compelled to go
back?  The lawyers declared that no English law protected
the slave.  Granville Sharp refused to believe it.
During the next few years he spent every hour of his
spare time in studying the law; in wading through
masses of dry Acts; in sorting, sifting, verifying, and
quoting, though more than one friendly lawyer assured
him that all his work was a useless waste of time.  But
the result of his labours surprised them as much as it
cheered the heart of Granville Sharp, for it proved that
"there was nothing in any English law or statute which
could justify the enslaving of others."  He at once
published a plain, clear pamphlet which he called "The
Injustice of Tolerating Slavery in England;" and further
than that, certain in the justice of his cause, he went
down, armed with a writ of Habeas Corpus, to Gravesend,
where he had been told of a captured negro who
was being taken back by force.  He found the wretched
man chained to the mainmast, but after a fierce struggle
he got possession of him and returned with him in
triumph to London.  He did much the same in the
case of another negro called James Somerset, whose
owner promptly brought the matter before Lord
Chief-Justice Mansfield, who declared the question to be so
important and doubtful a one that he must take the
opinion of the judges upon it.  A very lengthy trial
followed.  At last the court gave the opinion, that every
man in England had a right to his liberty unless he had
broken the law; that the power to seize or claim a
slave in England had never been acknowledged by the
law, and that therefore Somerset was free.  It was the
first great step towards a more far-reaching freedom,
and it was mainly won by the careful, devoted study
of Granville Sharp, whose pamphlet had made a great
impression on the Lord Chief-Justice.  The next step
was to found a society for the Abolition of Slavery, and
to this flocked a number of men, chiefly Quakers, who
banded themselves together with most steadfast determination
never to cease from their labours until Parliament
had declared all traffic in slaves to be illegal in every
part of the British Empire.  This was a gigantic
undertaking, for British merchants dealt largely in
slaves, and they were so powerful a body that it was
certain the Government would shrink from opposing
them.  But this little band of religious, earnest,
chivalrous men had the strength which comes from the
conviction that theirs was a righteous cause destined in
the end to triumph over every obstacle.  One of their
number was William Wilberforce, a young and a
delicate-looking man, who when only twenty years of age
had been elected as member for Hull, with no powerful
support except what he derived from his own personal
influence and his independent character.  In London he
soon made his mark.  Pitt became his greatest friend,
and in society he was made much of, so full was he of
wit and charm; while in addition to his many other
gifts, he was an excellent singer.  But fascinating and
absorbing as was the life into which he was then thrown,
it did not satisfy him.  Even while he stood on a height,
he caught the glimpse of the height that is higher, the
which having once seen, no true man can rest until he
has attained it.  As the vision unfolded itself before his
eyes Wilberforce became a changed man, so much so
that for a time it was believed by his friends that he
would leave public life and go quietly to the country.
But his vision, instead of narrowing down his conception
of duty, broadened it out.  "To shut myself up,"
he said to his mother, "would merit no better name
than desertion.  It would be flying from the post in
which I have been placed, and I could not look for the
blessing of God upon my retirement."

Just at this crisis he came under the influence of two
or three people who felt intensely on the slavery
question, and in him they saw the very Parliamentary
champion they needed.  With his great influence, his powers
of speech, his many friends, his independent character,
and his high enthusiasms, Wilberforce seemed destined
for this work, and he eagerly grasped it.  Here was a
direct call from God, and to him now every gift, every
power he possessed was held as a sacred trust.  Besides,
he was respected by all parties in the House, and the
hope of the Anti-Slavery party lay in their cause being
non-political.  Victory could only crown their efforts
when the whole moral feeling of the nation was aroused,
and much, very much hung on their choice of a leader.
"Mr. Wilberforce," said Granville Sharp, "with his
position as member for the largest county, the great
influence of his personal connections, added to his
unblemished character, will secure every advantage to
the cause."  So from the year 1787, William Wilberforce,
chivalrous as any knight of old, gave up his life to
the righting of a great wrong and to the deliverance of
the oppressed.

For twenty years the fight went on, and though he
was successfully opposed over and over again by the
strong West Indian party, assisted by many of the
Tories and the majority in the House of Lords, he was
never baffled or disheartened.

"I am in no degree discouraged," he said after one
defeat.  "It is again my intention to move next year
for the abolition, and though I dare not hope to carry
the bill through both Houses, yet, if I do not deceive
myself, this infamous and wicked traffic will not last out
the century."

Both Pitt and Fox supported Wilberforce, but the
opposition was solid and wealthy, and the bill above
mentioned, brought in during the session of 1796, was again
defeated by 78 votes to 61.  The Revolution in France
was causing much excitement and apprehension among
all classes of Englishmen, and the opponents of Wilberforce
attempted, among other things, to prove that he
was at heart a revolutionist, and that his efforts to
set free a class who had always been kept in slavery
showed that he believed in the revolutionary "rights of
men."

"There is no greater enemy to all such delusions,"
Pitt warmly and indignantly made reply.

But by 1804 a change had come about.  All fears
regarding a revolution in England were allayed; every
year Wilberforce and his party, by their steady
persistence, their moderation, and their powerful appeals
to the highest motives, had gained converts to their
cause both in and out of Parliament, and the Bill of
May 30, 1804, was carried in the Commons by a
majority of over 70.  This was by far the greatest
triumph Wilberforce had yet gained, but to his regret it
was not proceeded with by the House of Lords, who
had thrown out the two previous bills, though, in fairness
be it said, the majorities with which they had come from
the Commons had been very small.  However, the
Abolitionists were by now accustomed to possessing their
souls in patience, and they knew the tide had turned in
their favour.  The death of Pitt put Fox, who of the
two men was the more zealous supporter of their cause,
into power; he prevailed upon a majority in the Cabinet
to declare that the slave trade was contrary to the
principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy, and
should be abolished by the House with all practicable
expediency.  In 1807 the bill was again brought in,
this time to be carried by a majority of 283 to 16.
The Solicitor-General made a powerful speech, in which
he contrasted the feelings of the Emperor of the French
in all his greatness with those of that "honoured man
who would soon lay his head on his pillow, knowing that
the slave trade was no more."  At this reference to
Wilberforce the House burst into delighted applause.
They had seen him during his many years of brave
fighting, and now that victory was at hand, they cheered
him with such cheers as had seldom before been given
to any man sitting in his place in either House.
Further opposition was useless, and the bill became
law.

"God will bless this country," was Wilberforce's
earnest declaration, in the gladdest, proudest moment of
his life.  His own share in the good work he counted as
nothing.

Much was won, but not all.  The slave trade was
abolished—that is to say, slaves could not be taken to
any British possession, or put on any British ships, and
our warships were instructed to capture any vessels
disobeying this order.  Yet slaves were still held by
British masters in the West Indies and on the American
coast.  Wilberforce, far from resting content with his
victory, made ready for a second fight, having now for
his lieutenant in the House of Commons, Fowell Buxton,
called Elephant Buxton, on account of his great size,
a man as energetic and indefatigable by nature as he
was powerful in appearance.  However sad the lot of
the slaves, they had been bought and paid for under
the old law by their masters, just as if they had been
cattle or any other marketable produce, so that if they
were to be set free by law, the money spent on them
must in honour be returned to these masters, or otherwise
they would be ruined, and a great injustice would
be done.  To compensate the owners, and thus honourably
to free every slave, required a large sum of
money, not less than £20,000,000; but so changed
had become public opinion throughout England, and
consequently in Parliament, that the money was voted
in 1833.  For the last few years Wilberforce had been
in failing health, and his old place in the House of
Commons knew him no more; but Buxton had valiantly
carried on the work, in a spirit best illustrated by some
words of his own:—

"The longer I live, the more certain I am that the
great difference between men, between the feeble and
the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy,
*invincible determination*—a purpose once fixed, and then,
death or victory!  That quality will do anything that
can be done in the world, and no talents, no circumstances,
no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature
a man without it."

Wilberforce just lived to hear the glorious news
which crowned his life and work, and to realise that
from that day forward there would not exist a slave
in any British colony.  It was the great triumph of
righteousness, and humbly he thanked God that his had
been the privilege of leading the little army which had
gone on from strength to strength until its mission was
accomplished.  Two or three days later he passed peacefully
away, and immediately after his death this letter,
signed by all the leading members of both Houses of
Parliament, was sent to his son:—

"We being anxious upon public grounds to show our
respect for the memory of the late William Wilberforce,
and being also satisfied that public honours cannot be
more fitly bestowed than upon such benefactors of
mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in
Westminster Abbey, and that we, with others who agree with
us in these sentiments, may have permission to attend
the funeral."

So to the Abbey he was brought.  All public
business was suspended, and public men of every rank
followed him to the grave.  Members of Parliament
were there in numbers to show their reverence for one
whose eloquence had ever been put to the noblest uses,
and, fitly enough, his body was laid close to the tombs of
Pitt and Fox.

"If you carry this point in your life, that life will
be far better spent than in being prime minister many
years," a much-loved friend had said to Wilberforce when
he first resolved to devote himself to the cause of the
slave, and to set aside all thought of his own career and
ambition.  The young enthusiast had counted the cost,
but it had not changed him from his determination, and
though he lived and died plain William Wilberforce,
member of parliament, the Abbey roll of honour is made
richer by his name, and he rests worthily in the
Statesmen's Corner, great as any of those among whom he
lies.

.. vspace:: 2

Just as Wilberforce was nearing the close of his life,
a young spinner in some mills near Glasgow, glowing
with enthusiasm, was resolving to offer himself as a
medical missionary to China or Africa.  David
Livingstone, for he it was, came of homely Scottish stock.

"The only point of family tradition I feel proud of
is this," he declared.  "One of my forefathers, when on
his death-bed, called his children round him and said,
'I have searched diligently throughout all the traditions
of our family, and I never could find there was a
dishonest man among them....  So I leave this precept
with you, Be honest.'"

.. _`DAVID LIVINGSTONE`:

.. figure:: images/img-276.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

   DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

And perfectly honest David Livingstone certainly
was to the end of his days.  Though he went to work
in the mills when ten years old, his love of books made
him learn eagerly in every spare moment and on so late
into the night, that his mother, half in anger, half in
pride, often went to him at midnight and carried off every
available light.  However David was a sturdy youth,
or twelve hours' work each day in the factory added to
six hours' reading would have ruined his health.  He
was twenty-five when he offered himself to the London
Missionary Society, and he was sent for a three months'
trial to a training-place in Essex.  But when he had to
deliver his first sermon, every idea fled from his brain.
"I have forgotten all I had to say, friends," he announced
frankly, and left the pulpit.  But for his other sterling
qualities, this would have put an end to his career.  As
it was, he was given another three months and came
successfully out of the ordeal, after which he went for
two years to a London hospital.  Africa was to be his
destination, "Don't go to an old station," Dr. Moffat,
the veteran missionary, said to him on the eve of his
ordination.  "But push on to the vast unoccupied
district to the north, where on a clear morning I have
seen the smoke of a thousand villages no missionary has
ever reached."  Kuruman, an important station of the
Missionary Society, more than seven hundred miles up
country, was his first halting-place after leaving Cape
Town, and he set himself with great energy to learn the
language of the natives, acting at the same time as their
doctor.  In this last capacity he soon made his name
famous, and patients came to him over enormous
distances.  Splendid patients they were too, he always
declared, perfectly obedient and of extraordinary courage.
When once he had mastered their language, which he
did in a short while, he combined his missionary and
medical work very happily.

In 1843 he left Kuruman to form a new station
about two hundred miles to the north-east at Mabotsa,
and whilst here he married a daughter of Dr. Moffat, a
girl who had lived among missionaries for many years,
and so was accustomed to the rough, solitary existence
which would be her lot.  "My time," wrote Livingstone
to a friend, "is filled up with building, gardening, cobbling,
doctoring, tinkering, carpentering, gun-mending, farriering,
preaching, schooling, teaching, and lecturing, while
my wife, in addition to her usual work, makes clothes,
soap, and candles, and teaches classes of children."

Gradually it dawned upon Livingstone that a great
work awaited him in the interior, but it was a work
which he must face alone.  "I must not be a more
sorry soldier than those who serve an earthly sovereign,"
he wrote to the Directors of the Mission, to whose care
he commended his family.  "And so powerfully am I
convinced it is the will of God, that I will go, no matter
who opposes."

Therefore in 1852, having seen his wife and children
off to England, he started in his Cape waggon and again
made for Kuruman, after leaving which he was constantly
harassed by parties of Boers, who believed he was
teaching their slaves to rise in revolt.  But he reached
the land of Sebituan, a friendly chief, safely, and found
the warmest welcome awaiting him.  As doctor and
missionary his hands were full, and seeing the field of
work opening all around him, he grew more and more
anxious to become the pioneer missioner to the very
interior.  Fever, he realised, would be his worst enemy.
"I would like," he wrote in his journal, "to discover
some remedy for that terrible disease.  I must go to
parts where it prevails most and try to discover if the
natives have a remedy for it....  I mean to open up a
path to the interior or perish.  I never have had the
shadow of a doubt.  Cannot the love of Christ carry the
missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?"

The travels of Livingstone through that unknown
country which he practically discovered, would have to
be closely followed on a map from point to point to
be made clear.  Otherwise they are a mere string of
strange names.  He set out in the November of 1853.
"I had three muskets for my people and a double-barrelled
gun for myself," he said.  "My ammunition
was distributed through the luggage, that we might not
be left without a supply.  Our chief hopes for food were
in our guns.  I carried twenty pounds of beads, a
few pounds of tea, sugar, and coffee.  One tin canister
was filled with spare clothes, another was stored with
medicines, a third with books, and a fourth with a
magic lantern.  A small tent, a sheep-skin, and a
horse-rug completed my equipment, as an array of baggage
would have excited the tribes."  Four years later, worn
out by frequent attacks of fever, but otherwise perfectly
satisfied with the result of his journeyings into parts
where as yet no other Englishman had penetrated,
Livingstone sailed for England, having heard nothing of
his family for three years.  He at once became the
hero of the hour; dinners were given, speeches were
made in his honour, and he was asked to equip and
command a government expedition for the exploration
of that part of South-Eastern Africa through which the
river Zambesi flows.  After some consideration he
decided to undertake this, though it meant that from
henceforth he would cease to be a missionary pure and
simple.  But he looked at the question in its broadest
aspect.  "Wherever I go," he said, "I go as the servant
of God, following the leadings of His Hand.  My ideal
of a missionary is not that of a dumpy man with a Bible
under his arm.  I feel I am not my own.  I am serving
Christ in labouring as well as in preaching, and
having by His help got information which I hope will
bring blessing to Africa, am I to hide the light under a
bushel, because some will not consider it sufficiently
or even at all missionary?  I refrain from taking any
salary from Missionary Societies, so no loss is sustained
by any one."

In the March of 1858 he returned to his work, and
Mrs. Livingstone started with him to go at least as
far as Kuruman.  This second Zambesi expedition lasted
nearly six years, and as Livingstone stood on the shores
of Lake Nyasa, he was able to feel that he stood where
no white man had ever stood before him.  Three years
later, Bishop Mackenzie and six missionaries followed
him here, but among the many sorrows which fell upon
him about this time, was the death of the "good bishop"
from fever, the death of his own wife, and the growing
feeling that the extreme unhealthiness of the district
would make anything like colonisation impossible.  His
third great journey, commenced in 1866, was his last,
and when more than three years passed by without any
tidings of him, owing to his long stay in the country of
the cannibal Manyema, the editor of the *New York
Herald* equipped an expedition to go in search of him
the man in charge of it being Henry Stanley, whose
orders were "to find Livingstone, living or dead."  It
was in 1871 that the two men met face to face at
Tanganyika, and the relieving party found the object
of their search almost alone, worn out, fever-stricken,
cut off from all news of his children, and as near to
despair as was possible to one of his strong faith and
brave nature.  But when Stanley, after many attacks
of fever, returned to Europe, he could not persuade his
companion to leave the country, which held him as a
magnet.  He was determined to find the sources of
the Nile, and the determination cost him his life.  The
district through which he fought his way has been
described as "one vast sponge," and was poisonous to
the last degree.  His strength failed, and though his
faithful natives bore him along on a litter with the
utmost tenderness, his sufferings were terrible.  He
died on the first of May 1873, alone save for his natives,
"the greatest and best man who ever explored
Africa."  Believing that to labour is to pray, if the work be done
for God's glory and not for self-advancement, David
Livingstone's life had been one long prayer, and throughout
those lonely dangerous journeyings the sense of God's
Presence had been his stay and comfort.  Around the last
hours of the brave man a veil is drawn.  But who can
doubt that the love of God overshadowed him, and
made even that desolate, marsh-like place a road of
light, along which the worn-out traveller passed to Him,
his one true goal?

His native servants behaved with beautiful devotion,
and would not leave him alone in death.  His heart
they buried where he died, but as best they could they
embalmed his body, and by slow stages made their way
towards the coast with their precious burden, which they
were determined somehow to get to England.  At one time
every one of them was stricken down by the terrible fever,
but on they went for many a month, through swamp
and desert and through hostile lands.  Nothing could
daunt them.  Their master must lie in his home, far
away, over the seas.  When at last they reached
Zanzibar and handed over the trust they had so loyally
guarded, they barely received a word of thanks.  But
one friend of Livingstone's came forward just in time,
and undertook to pay all expenses for two of their
number to go to England and be present at the funeral.
Susi and Chuma, two of the slaves the Doctor had freed,
and his most devoted attendants, were chosen to go
with their master till the end of his journey.  It was
almost a year after his death when the great traveller
was borne into the Abbey, and those two stood there
among the mourners, awe-struck but contented.  Their
task was accomplished; the white man who had been
their deliverer lay among his own people.

A very simple inscription, ending with the words,
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.  Them
also must I bring," marks the place in the nave where,
with a curious significance, Livingstone, an architect of
the Empire, lies close to other architects, Sir Charles
Barry, Sir Gilbert Scott, and John Pearson, whose
works are to be seen in the Houses of Parliament,
Westminster Abbey, and Westminster Hall.

We cannot leave these lovers of humanity without
one glance at the statue of the good Earl of Shaftesbury,
the friend of little children and of all those who were
desolate and oppressed.  Possessed of all that could make
life attractive to him, he devoted himself to his dying day
to the service of his fellows, and his name will go down
to history as the liberator of the white slaves in England.
For, as Wilberforce championed the negro, Shaftesbury
fought long and steadily in the cause of the women and
children employed in factories and collieries, who worked
sometimes for thirty-six hours at a time under the most
appalling conditions.  At last he forced Parliament to
take action, and to pass the Ten Hours' Bill, besides
insisting that factory inspectors were appointed to see that
all workers were protected as the law intended they should
be.  That was his greatest work, but to tell of all that
he did would fill a volume with a record of golden deeds.
Ever ready to lead an unpopular cause; an enthusiast
without being a fanatic; strong, clear-headed, steadfast,
reliable, and single-hearted, he stands out a noble figure
in the social history of the nineteenth century.  Just
before his death, in 1885, his friend, Dean Stanley,
in writing to him, spoke of Westminster Abbey as the
place where he should rest.  But the old man shook
his head and begged to be buried in his country home.

However, the Abbey could not altogether refrain
from doing him honour, and through streets lined with
people, many of them the poorest in the land, most of
them wearing some outward sign of mourning, a bit
of black ribbon or a scrap of crape, followed by deputations
from almost every charitable association, the coffin
was carried to Westminster.  Around it stood high and
low, rich and poor.  The wreaths sent by royal princes lay
Bide by side with the tributes from the flower-girls and
the boys on the training-ships.  A mighty volume of
sound ascended to the vaulted roof, as the familiar hymn
was sung—

   |  "Let saints on earth in concert sing,
   |    With those whose rest is won,
   |  For all the servants of our King
   |    In earth and heaven are one!"

Then the organ ceased, the Blessing was given, and the
great procession left the Abbey to the march of the
coster-mongers' band, to the tramp of thousands of feet, whose
way in life he had made more easy and more blessed.

In the north aisle of the nave rest three great men,
builders in another way, who have served the world by
their thoughts—Newton, Herschel, and Darwin.

Sir Isaac Newton made one of the most wonderful
discoveries in the world of science and nature, the law
of gravitation, and also invented a method by which
the whole course of a comet could be calculated.  On his
monument you will see a globe, covered with constellations
and the path of a comet, while below are groups of
children weighing the sun and the moon.  The long Latin
epitaph was one which greatly offended Dr. Johnson, who
said that "none but philosophers could understand it."

Sir John Herschel was the son of a distinguished
father, and from his boyhood he resolved to follow in
his father's footsteps.  "To put my shoulders to the
wheel, and to leave the world a little better than I found
it," was the ideal he set before himself whilst at
Cambridge, and in this spirit he carried on the work of making
a careful study of the stars in the southern hemisphere,
which had never been done before.

Besides astronomy he was devoted to books, especially
to poetry, and translated many of Schiller's poems, as
well as parts of the "Iliad," into English.  "Give a
man," he said, "once the taste for reading good books,
and you place him in contact with the best society in
every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the
tenderest, the bravest, and the purest of characters who
have adorned humanity.  You make him a denizen of
all nations, a contemporary of all ages."

His eyes were fixed on the stars; his heart was ever
set on those things that are above.  These are the
beautiful words in which he has described the object
and the end of all his study:—

"To spring even a little way aloft, to carol for awhile
in bright and sunny regions—to open the doors of the
human mind to let in light and knowledge, always
sure that right will come right at last—to rise to the
level of our strength, and if we must sink again, to sink
not exhausted but exercised, not dulled in spirit, but
cheered in heart—such may be the contented and happy
lot of him who can repose with equal confidence on the
bosom of the earth, or ride above the mists of earth
into the empyrean day."

He died loaded with honours in 1871, though no man
sought fame or honour less.

   |  "Enough if cleansed at last from earthly stain,
   |  My homeward step be firm, and pure my evening sky."

Thus had he written, and how could longing soar higher?

.. _`CHARLES DARWIN`:

.. figure:: images/img-286.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: CHARLES DARWIN.

   CHARLES DARWIN.

Charles Darwin was perhaps the greatest man of the
three, for after long years of patient hard work, bravely
carried on through bad health, he produced as the result
of his experiments a wonderful book called "The Origin
of Species," in which he explained how the world, instead
of being created all at once as it is to-day, has grown
slowly and very gradually, through many processes, just
as we ourselves, our minds, and all our powers have
developed from a state of savagery into our present state
of civilisation.  When first Darwin published his work
explaining all this, some people were frightened and
horrified, and declared that he wanted to upset all
the old ideas about God and religion.  But thus they
had said whenever a new discovery had been made,
and yet with each new discovery we have only learnt
more and more how great God is, and how—

   |  "He moves in a mysterious way
   |    His wonders to perform."

So all such great discoverers as Newton, Herschel, and
Darwin give us in reality the same message, which is
never to be afraid of truth, for truth comes from God,
and the only danger is when we doubt, even for a
moment, that it must come triumphant out of every
honest discussion.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PITT AND THE STATESMEN'S CORNER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   PITT AND THE STATESMEN'S CORNER

.. vspace:: 2

When William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was buried in the
north transept at Westminster Abbey in the year 1778,
Parliament having decreed that "he ought to be brought
near to the dust of kings," and not lie in St. Paul's
Cathedral, earnestly though the City of London begged
for this favour, he drew to that part of the Abbey so
many distinguished ministers of the Crown, that it soon
received the name of the Statesmen's Corner, in
distinction to the Poets' Corner which Chaucer had created.
Pitt the elder and Pitt the younger, Fox, Canning,
Palmerston, Castlereagh, Grattan, and Gladstone—these
are the names which most closely belong to the Statesmen's
Corner, and through their lives we can catch
glimpses of English political life from the reign of
George II. down to our own day.

William Pitt entered Parliament in 1735, and joined
the party calling themselves the Patriots, rallying
round the Prince of Wales, who was always at enmity
with the King and Queen.  This party naturally included
any one opposed to Walpole, still the all-powerful
minister at Court.  The Patriots were young men, talented
and vigorous, and their first signal victory was obtained
when they forced Walpole into declaring war against
Spain, that country, they insisted, having systematically
hampered, injured, and insulted British traders, in spite
of treaties and negotiations.  Walpole was before all
else a peace minister; but the Patriots, supported by the
country, declared that war was necessary if England
was to uphold her position and power on the seas,
and Pitt, full of energy and eloquence, was one of
the most powerful, though one of the youngest, among
the Patriots.  This war, as Walpole had foreseen, was
but the prelude to a general disturbance; England
became involved in Continental quarrels, and the Stuart
party seized this opportunity of making a final, though
unsuccessful attempt to place Prince Charles Edward on
the throne.  After nine years a treaty of peace was
signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, and broadly speaking, the
result of the war, so far as this country was concerned,
was that we had been successful on the seas, in Canada,
and in India, unsuccessful on the Continent.  Walpole
had resigned, Newcastle was a Prime Minister "who
had neither judgment nor ability," and Pitt became
more and more the ruling power.  The year 1757 saw
him virtually Prime Minister, and with his whole might
he set himself to arouse a national spirit in England, to
make the people see that our real future lay not in the
Continent, but in the Colonies.  "I can save this
country, nobody else can," he said confidently at this
time, and it was no vain boast.  The years which
followed were glorious years.  In India, France had
joined with a powerful native prince to oust the British
traders, and had been utterly defeated at Plassey by
the genius of Clive, who had but a handful of troops
as against seventy thousand.  That victory made the
British masters of the whole province of Bengal, and
laid the foundations of our Indian Empire.  From
henceforward the French power in India rapidly
declined.  In America an equal triumph crowned Pitt's
policy.  In Wolfe he had found a man able to do
in the West what Clive did in the East, and Canada
became a British Colony.  Wolfe himself fell in the
great struggle for Quebec, as did Montcalm, his rival
French general, and a monument stands in the north
ambulatory of the Abbey to the memory of the gallant
young leader, who died in the hour of his victory.  "It
is necessary to watch for a victory every morning for
fear of missing one," was the remark of Walpole's son
Horace.  And the nation felt that it was Pitt whose
policy and whose power had made all these things
possible.  Parliament was entirely in his hands, he
swayed the Commons by his eloquence just as he
impressed them by his strength; the King supported him,
and the people adored him.

But in 1760 George II. died, and his second son
George, who succeeded him (Frederick Prince of Wales
having died), did not care for a minister so fearless and
independent.  Neither was Pitt without enemies.  When
he saw that his opponents, supported by the King,
were determined to make a peace with France of which
he could not approve, he resigned, after making a powerful
speech though he was very ill at the time.  His words
concluded thus: "It is because I see in this treaty
the seeds of a future war that it meets with my most
hearty disapprobation.  The peace is insecure, because
it restores the enemy to his former greatness; the peace
is inadequate, because the places gained are no
equivalent for the places surrendered."  Before a year was
over, all that Pitt foretold had come to pass, and
England was again at war with Spain.  Bute, who
had been virtually Prime Minister since Pitt gave up
office, now resigned, leaving in power Grenville, the
leader in the House of Commons, and in a very short
time Grenville brought forward a measure concerning
America, which was so short-sighted and so opposed to
the colonial spirit, that it could only have a disastrous
ending.  Practically all North America was in British
hands, and it was divided into thirteen different States,
besides Canada.  Those States had their own Colonial
Assemblies, but the supreme power rested with the
British Parliament.  In 1765 Grenville brought in the
Stamp Act, by which American colonists had to use
legal paper stamped in England for all their agreements,
and this was carried without the consent of the
colonists, as they had no representatives in Parliament,
so that besides imposing a tax on them, Parliament had
really tampered with one of their most sacred rights
as British subjects.  The Act was very badly received
in America, and relations became so strained that Pitt,
to whom any matter affecting the Colonies was very
dear, came out of his retirement to protest against the
Act, and brought all his splendid fearless eloquence to bear
on the subject.  "This kingdom has no right to tax the
Colonies," he argued, and he went on to declare—

"I rejoice that America has resisted.  Three millions
of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily
to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments
to make slaves of the rest....  The Commons
of America have ever been in possession of their
constitutional right of giving and granting their own money.
They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed
it....  A gentleman asks, 'When were the Colonies
emancipated?'  I desire to know when were they made
slaves? ... I stand up for this kingdom.  I maintain
that our legislative power over the Colonies is sovereign
and supreme in every circumstance of government and
legislation.  But taxation is no part of the governing
or legislative power.  Taxes are a voluntary gift and
grant of the Commons alone.  When therefore in this
House we give and grant, we give and grant what is
our own.  But in an American tax what do we do?
We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give
and grant to your Majesty—what?  Our own property?
No; we give and grant to your Majesty the property of
your Majesty's Commons of America.  It is an absurdity
in terms.  I beg leave to move that the Stamp Act
be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately; that
the reason for the repeal be assigned because it was
founded on an erroneous principle.  At the same time
let the sovereign authority of this country over the
Colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be
devised, that we exercise every power except that of
taking their money out of their pockets without their
consent."

Pitt still held his sway over the House of Commons,
and the Act was repealed.  A few months later he was
again Prime Minister, but now no longer as William
Pitt, the great Commoner.  He had accepted a title, to
the disappointment of many of his followers, who had
revered him in the past for his entire independence;
and after he sat in the Lords as Earl of Chatham,
his influence never made itself felt in the same way.
Besides, his health continually broke down, bravely
though he struggled against it, and he was often laid
aside for many months at a time.  During one of these
periods, another irritating Act was passed, taxing all
the tea, glass, and paper imported into America, and
as this occurred just when the sore feelings over the
Stamp Act had been allayed, it was particularly
unfortunate.  The Colonists looked on it as an act of
revenge for their victory and determined to resist it,
while the King was unfortunately surrounded by a
party, of which Lord North was the chief, who urged
him, whatever the cost might be, to force America into
submission.  Lord North becoming Prime Minister was
the signal for an outbreak of public feeling in America;
riots occurred, and some tea-laden ships in Boston
harbour were boarded, the tea being all thrown into
the water.  Again Chatham raised his voice on the side
of consideration, of common sense, and of conciliation.

"My Lords," he said, after he had used one telling
argument after another to prove how useless and
irritating had been the action of the Government, driving
these loyal sons of the old country into actions which
were the result of despair, and which in cooler moments
they would heartily regret, "I am an old man, and I
plead for a gentle mode of governing America, for the
day is not far distant when America may vie with these
kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also....  If
we take a transient view of those motives which
induced the ancestors of our fellow-subjects in America
to leave their native country to encounter the
innumerable difficulties of the unexplored regions of the
western world, our astonishment at the present conduct
of their descendants will naturally subside.  There was
no corner of the world into which men of their free and
enterprising spirit would not fly with alacrity rather
than submit to the slavish and tyrannical principles
which prevailed at that period in their native country.
And shall we wonder, my Lords, if the descendants of
such illustrious characters spurn with contempt the hand
of unconstitutional power, that would snatch from them
the dearly-bought privilege they now contend for?  My
Lords, proceed like a kind and affectionate parent over
a child whom he tenderly loves.  Instead of these harsh
and severe proceedings, pass an amnesty on their
youthful errors; clasp them once more in fond, affectionate
arms, and I venture to affirm you will find them children
worthy of their sire."

But his powerful pleading fell on deaf ears.  All in
vain did he urge that though the Government might be
revenged on America, no Government could conquer it.
In 1775 war, terrible as a civil war, broke out between
the old country and the new.  The Congress raised an
army, and set at the head of it George Washington.  "The
man first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of
his countrymen," solemnly declared that from henceforth
the United Colonies would be free and independent
States, and carried on the campaign with the utmost
success, assisted by France.  Dismayed at last and
astonished, Lord North and his ministers began to talk
of conciliation.  But it was too late.  Two British
forces, each of about four thousand men, had been forced
to surrender to the American troops.  No longer was it
possible for England to make terms.

At home there was consternation, irresolution, and a
sense of deep resentment against the Government which
had so blundered.  Chatham was a dying man, but he
yet had something to say.  Weakness, irresolution, or
fear were unknown words to him, even though now he
admitted—

"I tremble for this country; I am almost led to
despair that we shall ever be able to extricate ourselves."

On the 7th of April 1778 he lifted up his voice for
the last time, this time against an ignominious
surrender, which the discomfited Government, terrified by
the action of France, were all too ready to accept.
Conscious himself of his fast-ebbing strength, Chatham,
the Imperialist minister of the eighteenth century,
summoned all his old fire and eloquence to his aid, and spoke
with intense feeling, rejoicing, he said, "that the grave
had not yet closed on him, pressed down as he was by
the hand of infirmity."

Panic-stricken, the Government were inclined to offer
absolute independence to all the Colonies.  Chatham
vigorously opposed the idea.

"His Majesty," he declared, "succeeded to an empire
as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied.  Shall
we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious
surrender of its rights and fairest possessions?  Shall
this great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire
the Danish degradations, the Scottish invasion, the
Norman Conquest, that has stood the threatened invasion
of the Spanish Armada, now fall prostrate before
the house of Bourbon?  Shall a people that seventeen
years ago was the terror of the world, now stoop so
low as to tell its ancient and insatiate enemy, 'Take
all we have: only give us peace.'  In God's name, if
it be absolutely necessary to declare for peace or war,
and the former cannot be preserved with honour, why
is not the latter commenced without hesitation?  My
Lords, any state is better than despair.  Let us at least
make an effort; and if we must fall, let us fall like
men!"

With this brave appeal Chatham sat down exhausted.
A few moments later he was carried fainting out of the
House, which at once adjourned.  And within a month,
he who has been described as "the first Englishman
of his time," had passed from the troubled arena of
politics.

.. _`WILLIAM PITT, FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM`:

.. figure:: images/img-296.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: WILLIAM PITT FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.

   WILLIAM PITT FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.

His monument in the Abbey shows him to us as he
must often have looked when, wearing his Parliamentary
robes, he addressed the House in that clear, sweet
voice of his, which he could use with such wonderful
effect, and the sculptor has well caught the expression
of his fearless strength.  Near him stand Prudence and
Fortitude; below is Britannia, Mistress of the Seas;
and the inscription tells how, under his administration,
Great Britain was exalted to a height of prosperity and
glory, unknown in any former age.

His second son, William, was born in 1759, the year
that was perhaps the most successful in his father's life,
and as he was too delicate to go to school, the older
man personally supervised the early education of this
his favourite child.  When quite small, Chatham began
to give him lessons in public speaking, making him
stand on a platform to recite poetry or speeches, and
later on teaching him to argue their points.  With such
a teacher and such a ready pupil, it is not surprising to
hear of excellent progress made.

Little Willy Pitt, as he was called, soon showed in
which direction his inclinations lay.  "I am glad I am
not the eldest son," he remarked, when he was seven,
"as I want to speak in the House of Commons like
papa."

He was only nineteen when his father died, but it was
he who had helped the old statesman to his place in
the House of Lords on the last day of his life, he who
assisted to carry him out, and he who stood as chief
mourner at that impressive funeral in the Abbey, his
elder brother being abroad.  The thought of any life
but a political and a public one, never entered his mind,
and two years later he became a member of Parliament.
The first step up the ladder was taken.  Already a trained
speaker, his gifts were at once recognised by the House.
Members of both parties generously praised him, and
prophesied that his would be a great career.  "I doubt
not," said honest William Wilberforce, "but that I shall
one day see him the first man in the country."  His
likeness to his father was remarkable.  "Language,
gesture, and manner were all the same," wrote his
delighted tutor.  "All the old members recognised him
instantly, and most of the young ones said this was
the very man they had so often heard described."

But it was not on his father's merits that William
Pitt sprang into immediate fame; his own personality
was his passport.

Thirteen years before, another young man had entered
Parliament, Charles James Fox, the brilliant,
excitement-loving son of Lord Holland.  After Eton and
Oxford he had been sent abroad to complete his
education, but so great were his follies and extravagances,
that his father had to firmly summon him home.  This
mandate, we are told, "he obeyed with great reluctance,"
and he seems to have gone back with an extensive
wardrobe of clothes in the latest and most costly
fashions, leaving behind him enormous debts in every
town he had visited.

Lord Holland, who flattered himself that he had
studied the world and human nature with great attention
and success, decided that a seat in the House of
Commons would best steady this irrepressible young man,
and provide him with occupation and ambition, so, though
he was only nineteen, and therefore legally not entitled
to become a member, he was duly elected, the Speaker,
by wilful or accidental oversight, offering no
opposition.  He too from the first delighted the House as a
speaker, for he was fresh, forcible, and graceful, with
a great personal charm of manner and an entire absence
of conceit, and no one gave a more cordial welcome to
Pitt than he did, little dreaming in how short a time
this young man would be his lifelong and his successful
rival.  Rockingham, who had succeeded North as
Prime Minister, died suddenly in 1782, and from every
point of view Fox appeared to be the man who ought
to have succeeded him.  But the King cordially disliked
Fox, and sent instead for Lord Shelburne.  Fox, ever
impetuous and hasty, refused to serve under him,
and Shelburne turned to Pitt, who thus at the age of
twenty-three became Chancellor of the Exchequer and
leader of the House of Commons.  A year later Lord
Shelburne resigned, and the Premiership was offered to
Pitt, an honour greater perhaps than any honour ever
offered to a young man of twenty-four.  He declined
it; the Duke of Portland accepted it; and Fox became
leader in the House of Commons, with what seemed
to be a strong coalition Government at the back of him.
For the moment the Whigs were all-powerful, and against
them stood Pitt, who refused to be a member of any
coalition, with a handful of men who had belonged
to the old Chatham party.  No one hated the present
arrangement more than the King, and before long he
saw an opportunity of crushing it.  Fox, chiefly by his
own magnetic influence, had carried a bill concerning
India through the Commons, but the Lords, influenced
by the King, threw it out, whereupon he dismissed the
Government, and persuaded Pitt to accept the office of
Prime Minister.  Never before had such a state of
things prevailed.  The Premier was a youth of twenty-four,
with a majority of two to one against him in the
House of Commons!  Whatever he brought forward
was defeated.  Fox used all his eloquence against him,
and over and over again he was put in an impossible
position.  Pitt, Lord Rosebery has told us, was never
young.  Certainly, at this crisis, his patience, his caution,
his firmness, and his cool judgment would have done
credit to a statesman of half a century's experience.
He did not make a mistake, and gradually he won
the country to his side.  Before many months were over,
Parliament was dissolved; an election had taken place;
and Pitt came back into power with a large majority.
For seventeen years he remained in office.  Nothing
could have been greater than the contrast between
him and his strenuous opponent Fox, who was the most
impulsive, genial, and lovable of men; extravagant in
every direction, in his likes, his hates, and his sympathies;
easily stirred and able to pour forth a torrent of
passionate eloquence; living always in the excitement
and impulses of the moment, with never a thought for the
morrow.  Pitt, on the contrary, was cool and thoughtful.
He stood, as it were, aloof from all the world, though
on the rare occasions when he unbent, he was full of
charm.  "Smiles were not natural to him," said a
contemporary.  "He is," said Wilberforce, who unfeignedly
admired him, even though he could not always follow
him, "one of the most public-spirited and upright men
I ever knew."  And he was called upon to guide the
ship of State through troubled waters.  It was his
task to raise the money in payment of the American
war bill, for a debt of about twenty millions stared
him in the face.  Then he had to face more than
the usual amount of difficulty with Ireland, where the
celebrated Dublin Parliament which Henry Grattan, its
brilliant leader, had forced Fox to agree to, proved itself
so unable to cope with the task undertaken, that riots
and disturbances broke out in every quarter.  Pitt
believed that only one solution was possible, namely,
that instead of a separate Parliament at Dublin, the
Irish members with the Scotch should sit at Westminster,
and in the year 1799 he brought in the Act
of Union, which was carried during the next session,
in spite of a strong speech against it by Grattan, who
was dragged from his sick-room for the occasion.  Pitt
had also to contend with a restless wave which swept
over England, the result of the French Revolution.  But
though the young minister was always ready for reform,
he would have nothing to do with violent changes or
with revolution, neither was he afraid to bring in such
measures as seemed likely to repress the revolutionary
spirits in England.  The French leaders, not content
with having executed their king and queen, and having
waged war on Austria, when that country moved to
rescue the luckless Austrian princess, now Queen Marie
Antoinette, went to the further length of declaring that
every country not agreeing with the doctrines of the
Revolution was to be regarded as an enemy, and
was to be forced into war.  For some while Pitt
managed to hold the English people from plunging
into the conflict.  He was altogether a peace minister.
But public opinion was too strong for him; the old
hatred of France was there, and the events of the last
few years had fanned it into life.  Pitt had to bow to
the will of the nation, though it was the French who
finally declared war in 1793 by an attack on Holland,
after which England could no longer stand aloof, though
Fox, in his hot-headed way, declared that in his opinion
we had no right to demand the withdrawal of French
troops from the Netherlands.  From that time until the
day of victory at Waterloo in 1815, the fight between
England and France continued with more or less intensity.

And the final issue was due in no small degree to Pitt,
who, though he hated the war, had during his long
ministry of peace freely spent millions of pounds on
the British navy, recognising that so long as England
was mistress of the seas she was safe.  From the
moment, too, that war was declared, he threw himself
heart and soul into every measure for carrying it
through successfully; never for a moment did he show a
weak front, or fail to be the leader in every sense of the
word.  When Napoleon, elated by his series of triumphs
on the Continent, prepared to invade England, it was
Pitt who gave an impetus to the volunteer movement
by himself raising a force of 3000 men, and placing
himself at their head.  "His spirit will lead him to be
foremost in the battle, and I am uneasy at it," said
Wilberforce; "yet it is his proper post, and I can say
nothing against it."  In an incredibly short time a
volunteer force of 300,000 was enrolled, "their good
sense and firmness supplying their want of experience."  But
though his spirit was as strong as ever, his delicate
frame was giving way under the high pressure at which
he had lived.  True to his promise to Wilberforce, he
had pushed forward the Abolition of Slavery Bill, and
he did not relax an effort as regards his war policy,
though on the Continent Napoleon was still all
victorious.  Wellesley, a young soldier, had just come back
from India with a good reputation, and Pitt, then a
dying man, sent for him.  He knew that what England
wanted now was a great soldier to lead her armies;
her navy was safe under such commanders as St. Vincent,
Collingwood, and Nelson.  For hours he talked
to Wellesley, only ceasing when he fainted from
exhaustion.  "The greatest minister that has ever
ruled England," was the verdict of the soldier
statesman.  Then came the news of the victory at Trafalgar,
saddened only by the death of the heroic Nelson.  But
Pitt was drifting far away from all these things.  His
mind wandered as his life flickered out; only just at
the end there was a rally.  "Oh my country!" he
cried; "how I leave my country!"  That was his last
thought and his last speech.

When the usual proposal was brought forward that
he should be buried at Westminster at the expense of
Parliament, and that a monument should be erected, Fox
characteristically felt bound to oppose it.  "He could
not honestly," he said, "call a man an excellent statesman
who had consistently supported so bad a system."  But
when it was further suggested that Parliament
should pay the debts he had left and provide for his
nearest relations, no one agreed so cordially or so readily
as Fox.  Wrong-headed he often was; wrong-hearted
never.

Into the same grave as his father William Pitt was
laid in the presence of all the distinguished people of the
day, his pall-bearers being six men each of whom had
been, or was to be, a Prime Minister of England.  "The
figure of the first William Pitt," wrote Wilberforce,
"seemed to be looking down with consternation into the
grave of his favourite son, the last perpetuator of the
name he had ennobled.  It was an affecting ceremony."

Pitt was still a young man, only forty-seven, yet
into those years he had crowded a glorious life, and
it was with truth that the herald proclaimed over his
grave, "He lived not for himself, but for his country."

Eight months later, Fox, who did not live to enjoy
the power his rival's death had placed within his reach,
was buried close to him in the Abbey.  During his
short spell of office, he had carried Wilberforce's Slave
Bill, and had frequently said he could retire happily
when once that bill was made safe.  He disdainfully
refused a Peerage.  "I will not close my politics
in that foolish way," was his remark.  Near together
too, though not in the Statesmen's Corner, are the
monuments of these two whose lives were throughout
so interwoven.  Pitt towers in lonely state over the
west door, standing there as if he were about to pour
forth his magnificent eloquence on the statues below
and charm them back into life for one brief moment.
Fox lies surrounded by weeping figures, one of whom
represents the negro whose cause he had so powerfully
championed.  And so the great Mother Church gathers
them both to herself, claiming each as a noble son of
England.

Henry Grattan, the Irishman, is buried close to Fox,
his friend and hero.  He had often told his followers
that he wished to lie in a quiet churchyard of his
loved Ireland, but they had other ideas.  "Well then,"
he said resignedly, "Westminster Abbey!"  His
funeral had a very distinctive touch, for it was
attended by hundreds of Irish children from various
charitable institutions, all of whom wore dresses of
bright green.

Next to the imposing monument of Chatham is a
statue to Lord Palmerston, that most English of statesmen.
He went into political life more from a sense of
duty than from any particular liking for it, or from any
feelings of ambition.  But into every office that he held
he carried with him a sturdy independence, a dogged
tenacity of purpose, a fund of common sense, and a very
clear idea of what he meant to attain.  Add to this that
he was the essence of good-nature, the most genial of
friends, simple and straight, manly and cheery, and we
have some idea of the man whom the nation insisted on
having for Prime Minister, when he was over seventy years
of age, at a critical moment when it was felt that only a
strong, fearless, popular statesman could guide the ship
out of the storm.

And then, in contrast to the kindly, contented Palmerston,
comes the tomb of Lord Castlereagh, a statesman as
much out of touch with the people as "Pam" was their
hero.  He was Secretary of State for War in those days
when the struggle with France was beginning, and
because at first things went badly he was made the
scapegoat.  It was he who planned that combination of
forces which at last broke down the French resistance,
but that was not realised till long afterwards; in those
early days his policy was not successful, so it was
unpopular.  He stood aloof from all men; he was cold,
indifferent, wanting in tact, with no gifts as a speaker,
and yet, looking back now on his work, it is easy to
see how well he faced a period of unexampled difficulty.
Nevertheless, he was invariably misunderstood, and
therefore unjustly disliked, so that at last his mind gave
way under the storm of hatred and abuse levelled against
him, and, in a dark moment, he put an end to his life.
Even at his funeral in the Abbey, the crowds could not
forget their dislike of him, and shouted exultantly as
the coffin was carried inside the doors.  But the Abbey
gave him a welcome and a resting-place.

On the opposite side stand the statues of the three
Cannings: George Canning, the statesman; his youngest
son, Lord Canning, first Viceroy of India; and their
cousin, Lord Stratford de Radcliffe, "the wise old man of
the East," who was our ambassador at Constantinople
during those years which led up to the Crimean War,
and whose influence, supported by the Government at
home and France, made it possible for Turkey to hold
Russia at bay.  The verse on the statue:

   |  "Thou third great Canning, stand among our best
   |  And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased;
   |  Here silent, in our Minster of the West,
   |  Who wert the voice of England in the East,"

is the work of Tennyson, who has only written one
other epitaph in the Abbey.  Close together are the
monuments of Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli,
Earl of Beaconsfield.  Peel was the Minister who, in
the face of violent opposition, caused the tax on imported
corn to be repealed, thereby making bread cheaper; and
Disraeli, who first won his reputation by the persistent
manner in which he fought this policy of Peel's,
doggedly forged his way to the front against much
prejudice, until he, though not an Englishman by race,
held the proud position of being the loved and trusted
Prime Minister of Queen Victoria.  The statue of
Beaconsfield—for by his own desire he was buried next
to his wife in the country churchyard at Hughenden—casts
its shadow over the grave of William Ewart
Gladstone, whose family only consented to his being
laid there on the condition that Mrs. Gladstone should
eventually rest beside him, even as Lady Palmerston
lay by her husband's side.  The coffin which contained
this old statesman, who was better loved and better
hated perhaps than any public man of our generation,
was placed for some time in Westminster Hall, and
nearly a quarter of a million people passed through to
pay their last token of respect.  The time has not yet
come when his place in English history as a statesman
can be fairly judged, but friend and foe alike can bear
tribute to his brilliant intellect; his talents as a financier;
his excellent learning; his wonderful personality; his
rich eloquence; his generous sympathies; his stainless
private life; and to those other qualities which his political
opponent Lord Salisbury so finely described as making
him "a great Christian."  "God bless you, and this
place, and the land you love," had been his last public
utterance, and in the spirit of that message we leave
him, who in life stirred up such sharp dissensions,
sleeping peacefully in the Abbey.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LAWRENCE AND THE INDIAN HEROES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   INDIAN STATESMEN AND SOLDIERS: LAWRENCE
   AND THE HEROES OF THE MUTINY

.. vspace:: 2

The Indian Mutiny, which produced "such a breed of
warlike men," the equals of whom have rarely, if ever,
been found awaiting their country's need of them, is
especially commemorated in the Abbey, which holds the
graves of Lord Lawrence; Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde;
and Sir James Outram.  Only a monument does honour
to Warren Hastings, whose name is so indissolubly
linked with Westminster and with India, for it was at
Westminster School that he was educated, the favourite
pupil of the head-master Dr. Nichols, who found him
"a hard student, bold, full of fire, ambitious in no
ordinary degree;" and it was to India that he went,
when eighteen, into the service of the East India
Company.  To the building up of the British Empire in
India he gave his life, working with unfaltering courage
under a thousand difficulties, sometimes no doubt
making errors of judgment, more often the victim of other
men's intrigues and treachery, but always the dauntless,
enthusiastic servant of the State.  And his reward was
disgrace, confiscation, and impeachment.  He was used
by Ministers at home as a cat's-paw in the game of
politics.  Burke and Fox charged him in Parliament
with cruelty, extortion, and corruption, while Sheridan's
brilliant eloquence so dazzled the Commons as to obscure
all their calm judgment, and they impeached Warren
Hastings at the bar of the House of Lords for "high
crimes and misdemeanours."  In the February of 1788
this most famous of trials commenced in Westminster
Hall, and it took Burke two days to get through his
list of charges.  All the force of his great powers as
an orator was brought to bear against the accused, who
"stood there small, spare, and upright, his bearing a
mixture of deference and dignity, his soft sad eyes
flashing defiance on his accusers; the lines of his
mouth and chin firm, his face very pale but calm."

The trial lingered on and on; it was seven years
before the verdict was given, a verdict which practically
cleared Hastings, and proved that, if on occasions
he had been unnecessarily ruthless or hard in his rule,
he had not so acted from any selfish or unworthy
motive, but because he believed that thereby he was
best serving the interests both of England and of
India.  Though he was acquitted, he was practically
a ruined man.  The trial had cost him more than
£70,000, and he was not rich, neither could he hope
for any employment under Fox or Pitt.  The East
India Company voted him a pension for twenty-eight
years, but refused him when he asked that it might be
continued during the lifetime of his wife, "the dearest
object of all his concerns."  And so he died a bitterly
disappointed man.

.. _`RT. HON. WARREN HASTINGS`:

.. figure:: images/img-310.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: RT. HON. WARREN HASTINGS.

   RT. HON. WARREN HASTINGS.

John Lawrence was the son of a soldier, and from
boyhood he had chosen the army for his profession, as a
matter of course.  Three of his brothers had already
gone to India, two into the cavalry, and one into the
artillery, and John was hoping to enter the service of
the East India Company in the same way, when to his
disgust he was offered an appointment, not in their
army, but in the Civil Service.  There could be no
question as to which of the two branches offered the
better opening to any hard-working, ambitious young
man, but John would hear none of this.  "A soldier I
was born, a soldier I will be," he said firmly.  And he
was only moved in his resolution by the simple, sensible
arguments of his invalid sister Letitia, to whom he was
entirely devoted.  So to the East India College at
Haileybury he went, and sailed for India at the age of
eighteen, considered by his elders to be a reliable,
intelligent lad, but nothing more.  The old longing for a
soldier's life came back to him on landing, and for the
first few weeks he was so entirely miserable, that, as
he said afterwards, "the offer of £100 a year would
have taken me straight home again."  Then he firmly
pulled himself together and resolved that there should
be no turning back now; he would go forward, and do
the work which came to him with all his might.
Delhi was his first destination, and soon he found himself
in charge of a district, so good a reputation had he
made for being both self-reliant and cautious.  It was a
turbulent, unsettled piece of country that he was given
to bring into order, but his firmness, justice, and
conscientious hard work accomplished wonders, and prepared
him for greater things.  Without a single soldier he
kept perfect order among his people through the great
drought, which filled his district with starving men and
with bands of robbers, but at last his health gave way
under the strain of eleven years' work, and he came
home to England on sick leave.  Two years later he
returned to his post, now a married man, and was soon
brought into close contact with that sturdy soldier, Sir
Henry Hardinge, who was in command of the fierce
campaign then being waged against the Sikhs.  Hardinge
entirely depended on being able to get sufficient
supplies, guns, and ammunition from the base at Delhi,
and it was to the civilian magistrate there, John
Lawrence, that he appealed for help.  Splendidly that
help was given.  Lawrence organised a system of carts,
each to be driven by his owner; and in an incredibly
short time a long train of guns, ammunition, and food
of all sorts, reached the camp, as much to the delight
as to the astonishment of the General.  A few days
after the arrival of these welcome supplies, the battle
which ended the campaign was fought and won.  Hardinge
did not forget the man who had made this victory
possible, and gave him for reward a most responsible
piece of work, the charge of the newly won Sikh
province of Jalandhar.

A second Sikh war, which ended in the complete
submission of the Sikh army, gave the whole province of
the Punjab into the hands of the Viceroy.

"What shall we do with it?" he asked of Lawrence.

"Annex it at once," was the answer; and when Lord
Dalhousie pointed out the difficulties, Lawrence, who had
known and realised them all, met every objection with
the words: "Action, action, action!"

So the Punjab was annexed, and it was decided to
govern it by a Board, which included Henry Lawrence
and John Lawrence.  Frankly, let us admit at
once that the arrangement was not a happy one.  Both
brothers were men of strong character and great ability,
but they saw things from very different points of view.
Henry was enthusiastic, imaginative, and easily moved;
John was entirely practical and clear-headed.  Each
loved and respected the other, but neither would give
way on what seemed to each vital questions of
importance.  Finally, both sent in their resignations, and
Lord Dalhousie, wisely recognising that John
Lawrence was specially fitted for the special work
required at the moment in the Punjab, made him
the Chief Commissioner, and moved Henry to another
field.  It was a great province to reduce to law
and order, even when it was divided into seven
districts, ruled over by picked men.  But Lawrence was
a born organiser.  Not only could he work himself
indefatigably, but he knew how to choose other men for
the posts that had to be filled, and having chosen them,
he trusted them and supported them loyally.  He had
only to recognise "grit," or "metal," in a subordinate,
and there was nothing he would not do to help him on.
"Human nature is human nature," he would say, and
"A strong horse if held with a tight hand will do more
than a weak horse to whom you may give his head."  So
he managed to keep his brilliant colleagues all in one
team; he smoothed over their disagreements, he dealt
with them all quite frankly, criticising where he held
it needful, praising generously whenever it was possible,
and thus he gathered around him that band of men,
including Nicholson, Chamberlain, and Edwardes, who came
to the fore so vigorously a little later in the hour of
the crisis.  But Lawrence was to do still greater things
in the near future.

A year later saw the outbreak of the Mutiny, which
came as a thunderbolt to the British Government in
India.  The first rising, terrible in its suddenness, was
at Meerut, where a maddened crowd of sepoys, thirsting
for the blood of all Europeans, seized the arms
and ammunition, released their prisoners, murdered
whoever resisted them, and then made for Delhi, at
which place all the rebels from the country round were
assembling.  Within Delhi, the native regiments joined
the mutineers; Europeans were ruthlessly massacred, and
though the tiny garrison made a magnificent defence,
expecting every hour to be relieved by a strong British force,
they at last had to realise that resistance was useless and
that each one must escape for his life as best he could.

To Lawrence, just starting for his holiday, came the
well-known message from Delhi, "The sepoys have
come in from Meerut, and are burning everything.  We
must shut up," followed by a second telegram which
told that Delhi was in the hands of the rebels.
Strange to say nothing was being done from Meerut,
where there was a fairly large force of British troops, to
avenge the murderous outbreak.

John Lawrence, however, was a man of action, and his
younger colleagues were not a whit less determined.  At
all costs Delhi must be regained—that was the first move
unanimously agreed on; but every hour's delay meant
danger, for each day brought recruits to the rebels, and
the disarming of the doubtful native troops must be
carried out at once if it were not to be too late.  Lawrence
had a twofold task.  He must make safe and hold secure
for England the Punjab, that vast inflammable province
containing more than thirty thousand sepoys, for which
work he knew he could rely on Chamberlain, Nicholson,
and Edwardes; but more than this, he must put forth
every power to assist in the retaking of Delhi.  When
at last an army of about three thousand men took up
their stand on a ridge outside Delhi, they knew that
within the walls of the city at least a hundred thousand
foes awaited them, with numbers of guns and an
unlimited supply of ammunition.  Overwhelming indeed
were the odds against them.  But one fact gave them
confidence.  Behind them lay the road leading to the
Punjab and to the man whom they knew would send
along it, to their help, his best officers, his best troops,
ample supplies and ammunition, who would never cease
watching, working, and urging until once more the
British flag waved over Delhi.

For twelve weary weeks the struggle waged, and
Lawrence strained every nerve.  The position in the
Punjab was highly critical; only the ceaseless vigour
of its Chief Commissioner, and his strong, fearless policy,
held in check the rebellion all ready to break out.  Had
the Punjab failed, nothing but disaster could have
overtaken the Delhi Field Force.  But John Lawrence never
doubted, never despaired, even when there reached him
the appalling news of the Cawnpore massacre, followed
by the tidings from beleaguered Lucknow, where Henry
Lawrence had fallen at his post with the dying request
that on his tomb might be recorded the words: "He tried
to do his duty."

At last the tide turned.  Delhi was saved, and though
all was not yet won, Lawrence knew that the crisis
was over.  But that moment was clouded, for the man
who, above all others, had brought about the capture of
Delhi, was no more.  John Nicholson had fallen in the
proudest hour of his life, and when the news came to
Lawrence he completely broke down.

"He was a glorious soldier," he said.  "He seems to
have been specially raised up for this juncture, and so
long as British rule shall endure in India his fame
shall never perish; without him, Delhi could not have
fallen."

It was a generous tribute and a just one.  But we
must never forget that behind John Nicholson was John
Lawrence.

"Not a bayonet or a rupee has reached Delhi from
Calcutta or England," wrote Edwardes.  "It has been
recovered by Lawrence and his resources.  Honour,
all honour to Coachman John, and honour, too, to
the team that pulled the coach.  He alone was at
the helm, and bore all the responsibility on his own
shoulders"!

The district of which Delhi was the capital was at
once handed over to the Punjab Government, and
Lawrence hurried thither in a mail-cart, that law and
order might be restored without delay.  His policy
was just what might have been expected of him—a
generous combination of strength, mercy, and justice;
and within six months he was able to report that
"perfect order reigned throughout the Delhi territory."

It was just at this juncture that Colin Campbell
arrived in India as Commander-in-Chief.

"When will you be ready to start?" Lord Palmerston
had asked him in offering the command.

"To-morrow!" said the soldier promptly.  And on
the morrow he started.

He had distinguished himself in the Crimea.  There
he had held the command of the Highland Brigade, a
post of all others for which he was fitted.  A Highlander
himself, he perfectly understood how to handle the men
of his own race, and the advance on the Alma was
splendidly made by his troops, who exhibited such
rare courage combined with perfect coolness that when
Lord Raglan rode up to compliment their commander,
"his eyes filled with tears and his countenance quivered."

"The army is watching you, make me proud of the
Highland Brigade," Campbell said to his men on the
day of Balaclava.  "Remember," he added, "there is
no retreat from here!  You die where you stand."

"Aye, aye, Sir Colin; we'll do that!" was the answer.

Rarely has a more touching farewell order been issued
than that from Campbell to his men, when at the end of
the campaign he was about to return to England.  Part
of it ran thus:—

"A long farewell!  I am now old, and shall not be
called to serve any more; and nothing will remain to me
but the memory of my campaigns, and the memory too
of the enduring, hardy, generous soldiers with whom I
have been associated....  When you go home you will
tell the story of your immortal advance up the heights
of Alma, and you may speak of the old brigadier who
led you and who loved you so well....  And the
bagpipes will never sound near me without carrying me
back to those bright days when I was at your head and
wore the bonnet you gained for me, and the honourable
decorations on my breast, many of which I owe to your
conduct.  Brave soldiers, kind comrades, farewell!"

But the old soldier had not done yet, and he promptly
left England for India, where he arrived at the darkest
hour, before the fall of Delhi, and when Havelock
had been foiled in his brave attempt to relieve Lucknow.

Sir Colin and John Lawrence were old friends, and
the Commander-in-Chief at once wrote: "It will be a
matter of real gratification to me if we exchange our
plans and ideas from time to time....  I am thankful
you were in the Punjab to face the storm."

The chief concentrated all his energy on bringing order
and organisation out of chaos at Calcutta, so that efficient
reinforcements, properly equipped, might be speedily got
together, and meanwhile Outram went to the assistance of
Havelock.  "Outram is a fine soldier and a fine man,"
Lawrence had written of him affectionately, and this
"Bayard of India, who had served that country for forty
years in war and council," as it is recorded in the Abbey,
showed himself full worthy of the highest praises that
could be bestowed on him.  When he reached Cawnpore
with reinforcements which would make possible the relief
of Lucknow, he refused, though the senior officer, to take
the command.  Havelock had borne the heat and burden
of the day, Havelock must be the hero when the hour
of victory was at hand.  "I cheerfully waive my rank
and accompany the force to Lucknow, tendering my
services to Brigadier-General Havelock as a volunteer,"
he said, with a fine chivalry which was characteristic
of one "who ever esteemed others better than
himself, who was valiant, self-denying, and magnanimous—in
all the true knight!"  The column forced its way
into Lucknow, but even so, it was impossible to fully
relieve the garrison.  Once inside the walls Outram took
over the command, and made the best of the position
directly he realised that for the present he could only
reinforce, not relieve.  But Colin Campbell was on his
way with the army of about five thousand men which he
had collected after great efforts.  A miscellaneous force
indeed it was: Lancers, Sikhs, Punjab infantry, the
Queen's, and the 93rd Highlanders, which the
Commander-in-Chief had formed up, so that he might address
them, and the Highlanders burst into cheers at the sight
of their beloved General.

"You are my own lads," he said to them; "I rely on
you to do yourselves and me credit."

"Aye, aye!  Sir Colin," answered a voice from the
ranks; "ye ken us, and we ken you.  We'll bring the
women and bairnies out of Lucknow, or we'll leave our
ain banes there!"

Magnificently they kept their word.  When it came
to the last assault, Sikhs and Highlanders positively
raced with each other to be first through the breach,
and seemed impervious alike to the heavy fire poured
on them, or the desperate hand-to-hand struggle.  Over
five hundred killed and wounded made up their casualty
list; but the women and the bairnies were saved.  And
though Sir Colin longed to make a second decisive attack
on the enemy, he held back with great self-control,
deeming it his first duty to withdraw all the sick with
the women and children in safety to Alumbagh, a feat
difficult enough under any circumstances, and requiring
all his available troops.  Hardly had he accomplished
this than news came that Cawnpore, with its tiny garrison,
was once more surrounded by the enemy, and was,
so the message said, "at its last gasp."

"How dare you say of her Majesty's troops that they
are at their last gasp," thundered the chief.  And
forthwith made for the entrenchments, where his very
presence saved the situation.

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All this while John Lawrence had not relaxed his
efforts, and just at this moment he sent the welcome
intelligence to Sir Colin that he had three thousand
cavalry and twelve guns waiting for him.  With those
and other welcome reinforcements the chief was able to
make his final attack on Lucknow, which continued fiercely
during nineteen days, but which ended in complete victory
for the British troops, though they were but a force of
30,000 against 120,000 of the rebels.  With the fall
of Lucknow the burning flames of the Mutiny may be
said to have been extinguished; what remained was the
smouldering of the fire.  To Sir Colin the Queen wrote
an autograph letter which thrilled him with pride, part
of which ran thus:—

"The Queen has had many proofs already of Sir Colin
Campbell's devotion to his Sovereign and his country, and
he has now greatly added to the debt of gratitude which
both owe him.  But Sir Colin must bear one reproof
from his Queen, and this is, that he exposes himself too
much.  His life is most precious, and she entreats that
he will neither put himself where his noble spirit would
urge him to be—foremost in danger—nor fatigue himself
so as to injure his health."

A little later her Majesty signified her intention of
conferring on him a peerage.

"We dinna ken hoo tae address ye, Sir Colin, now
that the Queen has made ye a lord!" said one of the
Highlanders sadly.

"Just call me Sir Colin, John, the same as in the old
times: I like the old name best," was the answer.

Although Lucknow was taken in the March of 1858,
it was more than two years before Sir Colin Campbell
was able to return to England, having finished his work;
and then after three years spent at home, surrounded by
"honour, love, and troops of friends," the old warrior
passed away from the battle-field of life.

Lawrence, now a baronet, and greatly worn out by
the heavy strain he had been through, had reached
England in 1859, where he found the British public
eager to shower honours on one whom they held to be
the saviour of India.  His great modesty led him to
shrink from it all.

"If I was placed in a position of extreme danger and
difficulty," he declared, "I was also fortunate in having
around me some of the ablest civil and military officers
in India.  And I hope that some rewards will be extended
to those who so nobly shared with me the perils
of the struggle, and by whose aid my efforts were crowned
with success."

He settled down to work as a member of the Council
of India, and Lord Derby, then at the India Office, was
deeply impressed not only by his great ability but by his
"heroic simplicity."  "Even if his opportunity had never
come," he declared, "you would always have felt that you
were in the presence of a man capable of accomplishing
great things, and capable also of leaving the credit of
them to any one who chose to take it."

The death of Outram was a great sorrow to Lawrence,
and he it was who went to the Dean to beg that his old
friend should be buried in the Abbey, as the one place
worthy of him.  He too made all the arrangements for
the funeral, and it was at his suggestion that the sergeants
of Outram's old regiment carried their beloved leader to
his grave.

Quite unexpectedly the Government called on him to
return to India as Viceroy, and though he would far
rather have remained in England, he felt that he ought
to go.  To him the call of duty was ever the one call
to which the heart of every true man must unfailingly
respond.  His appointment was for five years, and
during this time he remained at his post, carrying out
the policy of his life, by which he desired "to avoid
complications, to consolidate our power in India, to give
to its people the best government we can, to organise
our administration in every department on a system
which will combine economy with efficiency, and so to
make our Government strong and respected."

"I do not wish to shorten my term of office, nor do I
wish to prolong it," he said in answer to the question
as to what his feelings were now that he was about to
deliver over the government of the country.

"It was a proud moment for me," he added, "when I
walked up the steps of this house, feeling that without
political interest or influence I had been chosen to fill
the highest office under the Crown, the Viceroy of the
Queen.  But it will be a happier moment for me when
I walk down the steps with the feeling that I have tried
to do my duty."

On his return home he was made a peer, and for
some years he devoted himself untiringly to public and
philanthropic work, acting as Chairman to the London
School Board until his failing eyesight and his broken
health put an end to his public life.  "It is overpowering
to see him thus laid low and worn out," wrote one
who saw him daily.  "But to us he seems grander than
ever in his affliction, and we realise the truth that 'he
who ruleth his spirit is greater than he who taketh a
city.'"

Ten years after he had left India the end came, and
Honest John, as he was affectionately called, was carried
to the Abbey, to be buried there with all the honour
that was his due.





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   CHAPTER XXI


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   DICKENS, BROWNING, AND TENNYSON

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It is impossible to wander round the Poets' Corner
without a longing that the Abbey could claim as her
own all the great singers and seers who have made the
literature of our country.  Chaucer and Spenser indeed
we have, with other writers of the Elizabethan and
Stuart periods; but many familiar names are missing
altogether, or marked only by a bust or slab.  John
Philips, Matthew Prior, John Gay, and Thomas
Campbell—these were the last poets buried in Westminster
for many a long day.  Shakespeare, Milton, Goldsmith,
Coleridge, Burns, Keble, Wordsworth, Thackeray,
Matthew Arnold, Kingsley, Ruskin, have monuments,
and so we have their names; but how many a one is
there for whom we look in vain in this national temple
of honour.  Langland, Herrick, Herbert, Sidney, Pope,
Byron, Shelley, Keats, Bunyan, Sir Thomas More,
Defoe, and Swift are unknown English writers so far
as the Abbey is concerned.

Towards the latter end of the nineteenth century,
however, there came a change.  Macaulay and Grote,
historians, were both buried within its walls, and when
Charles Dickens died in 1870, Dean Stanley at once
suggested Westminster to his family, who declined the
offer.  Then there appeared an article in the *Times*
declaring that the Abbey was the one place worthy to receive
so distinguished a writer.  Still his family hesitated,
and at last only consented on the condition that the
ceremony should be entirely private.  So it came to pass
that, one evening after dark, when the Abbey was closed,
a grave was dug in the Poets' Corner close to Thackeray's
bust, and in the early summer morning the funeral took
place in solitary simplicity.  But in a few hours the
news had spread, and before the day was over thousands
of persons had been to take a last look at the grave of
the writer they loved, many of them the very poorest
people, who yet brought with them a few flowers or
some other humble token of remembrance.

There was no aspect of their life he had not understood
and sympathised with, for his boyhood's days had
been spent in their midst.  His father, unable to pay
his debts, had been cast into prison at Marshalsea, so
the Dickens family had settled in the neighbourhood,
little Charles supporting himself by pasting labels on
to blacking-pots, and making the acquaintance of all
those queer people and odd characters with whom his
writings have taught us to be familiar.  "David Copperfield"
is to a great extent an autobiography of Charles
Dickens himself, who started life "a prey to the cruel
chances of the London streets, and who, for all the care
that was taken of him, might easily have become a little
robber or vagabond, but for the mercy of God," to use
his own words.  However, brighter days were in store
for him, for the elder Dickens managed to get clear
of his debts and became Parliamentary reporter to the
*Morning Herald*; and Charles, after a few years at
school, during which he had managed to learn as much
as was possible, decided to take up newspaper work,
though in many ways stage life was what attracted him
most.  "I was always an actor and a writer from a
mere baby," he said.

Fortunately regular work was offered him on
the staff of the *Morning Chronicle*, and before long
he had made his name as the "best Parliamentary
reporter in the Peers' Gallery."  From henceforward
he determined that writing should be his career, and
under the name of Boz he launched a book of Sketches,
"illustrating everyday life and everyday people," into the
world.  The sketches were just what they claimed to be,
but it was a master-hand that had drawn them, and these
everyday people were described with such a perfect touch
that the general public, delighted and greatly entertained,
at once set the young author on a pedestal of
popularity.

The "Pickwick Papers," which followed shortly
afterwards, increased his reputation and established his
position.  Here was a writer bubbling over with a
fresh, keen sense of humour, and in every page of his
book the humour came out, never strained or forced,
always natural, kindly, and infectious.  From "Pickwick"
he turned to quite a different style, for in "Oliver
Twist" he gave to the world a brilliant picture of the
"dregs of life."  The subject was sad enough, and
Dickens, before all things a truthful writer, did not seek
to conceal anything, and yet so wonderful was his
sympathy with all humanity, even the most degraded,
that he never failed to recognise goodness and
nobleness however deep down they might be hidden away.
He saw below the surface, and in all that he wrote he
forced his readers to think the better of mankind.
Dickens went on from one success to another; he
thoroughly understood his public and his own line, and
his great heart was so full, so responsive, so in tune
with the tender emotions which belong to all men and
women in common, that he never grew stale or dull.
Master alike of pathos and of humour, he appealed direct
to the hearts of his readers.  "Nicholas Nickleby,"
"The Old Curiosity Shop," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The
Christmas Books," "Dombey & Son," "David Copperfield,"
"Bleak House," and "The Tale of Two Cities," in
their turn won for him countless friends and admirers
from every class of life in England and in America, for
all his characters were living people, and though he never
moralised or lectured, he always purified and uplifted.

"Do not harden your hearts," was his message to
the world.  "Sympathise, pity, help, understand, love.
Laugh if you will, so long as you laugh not in scorn;
but love always, love everywhere."

A gravestone in Westminster is his only monument
there, but that was by his own desire.  To a great
crowd assembled in the Abbey on the Sunday after his
funeral, Dean Stanley read aloud these words from his
will, "sacred words," he said, "which come with a new
meaning and a deeper force, because they come from the
lips of a lost friend, because they are the most solemn
utterance of lips now for ever closed in the grave":—

"'I direct that my name be inscribed in plain English
letters on my tomb....  I conjure my friends on no
account to make me the subject of any monument,
memorial, or testimonial whatever.  I rest my claims to
be remembered of my country upon my published works,
and to be remembered of my friends upon their
experience of me in addition thereto....  And I exhort my
dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the
teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and
to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its
letter here or there.'"

It was in this "broad spirit" of Christ's Teaching
that Dickens lived and wrote.  He tore down the veil
that hid the lives of the poor and suffering from the
lives of the rich and prosperous.  The remembrance of
those dark sights and scenes of his boyhood never passed
away from him.  "They pierce through my happiness,
they haunt me day and night," he said.  He could never
rest till he had lifted up his voice in the cause of those
"little ones" whom he loved and in whom he could
recognise so much that was beautiful and true.  Kindness,
tenderness, sympathy, generosity, and divine pity,
these were the stones with which he built up his
monument, and they are stones which shall endure
through the ages to come, a glorious memorial of him
"who loved, with a rare and touching love, his friends,
his country, and his fellow-men."

Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, the greatest
poets of our generation, lie side by side, underneath
Chaucer's monument, and to both of them was given
a stately public funeral, which showed how honoured
a place they held in the hearts of their countrymen.
For more than fifty years Browning had been writing,
and only very slowly, very gradually had he made his
way in the public favour.  He was not, except on occasions,
a sweet singer; his rhymes did not flow gracefully
and easily; his thoughts were great, but his words
were clumsy; to himself what he taught was as clear
as the day, but to his readers it was often sadly confused
and hard to understand.  Nor did he ever aim at winning
popularity or success.  He wrote more for the future
than for the present, and he was quite content to wait.

"Were you never discouraged," a friend asked him
once, "at the indifference of the public, and the enmity
of the critics?"

"*Never*," was his emphatic answer.

And his reward came while he was still there to
appreciate and rejoice, not after death as is so often
the guerdon of him who sees what is hidden from his
fellows.  He set up a standard of thought and feeling,
and slowly but steadily he saw the public coming up
to that standard, and marching onward more hopefully,
more bravely, more confidently.  His life story is simply
told.  He was born in Camberwell, and most of his
education was obtained at the London University.
His father was a bank clerk, who hated the routine
of office work, and had a perfect passion for books.
He read in season and out of season, he was a familiar
figure at all the old book-stalls, he knew many
languages, and had a mind literally stored with
treasures of culture and learning.  Robert soon
showed he had inherited the same love of books, and
when he was fourteen coaxed his mother till, after
some difficulty, she got him copies of the poems written
by Keats and Shelley.  "Those two poets came to
me as two nightingales," he has told us, and from
henceforward his mind was practically made up.  He,
too, would be a poet, and as if to begin a suitable
course of training, he set himself to read and master
the whole of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary.  His father
put no hindrances in his way, on the contrary he
promised him every assistance, and an aunt came
forward with offers of money, so firmly did she believe
in the talents of her nephew.  It was at her expense
that his first book, "Pauline," was published
anonymously, and though a very small public appreciated
the work, here and there a friendly critic was found
brave enough to say that the author, whoever he was,
though he must not look for popularity or expect to
make a sensation, was certainly a poet.  "Paracelsus"
followed, the story of a man who desired knowledge
above all else, and who in the search for knowledge
forgot to seek for love, hope, fear, and faith, those
nobler qualities that give to life its true note and
character; but at the time this shared the same fate
as "Pauline," and was little appreciated.  Then he
tried his hand at dramatic writing, producing first
"Stafford" and afterwards "The Blot in the Scutcheon,"
and though Dickens wrote enthusiastically concerning
the latter, "This play has thrown me into a perfect
passion of sorrow....  It is full of genius, natural
and great thoughts, profound yet simple, and beautiful
in its vigour," Browning contented himself with
saying, "A pitfull of good-natured people applauded
it."  Then, with the buoyant hopefulness which was part of
him, he added, "Failure will not discourage me from
another effort: experience is yet to come, and earnest
endeavour may yet remove many disadvantages."

And he continued to write.  In 1844, being then
thirty-two, he met Elizabeth Barrett, the invalid poetess
with whose work he was already familiar, and from
the first his heart went out to her.  For some time
she steadily refused to listen when he talked of
marriage, on account of her ill health.  But his
persistence wore down her half-hearted resistance, especially
as her happiness in the knowledge of his love proved
a good doctor, and she showed signs of growing stronger.
Her father, who seems to have objected to any of his
daughters marrying, had made up his mind that
Elizabeth would never leave home, and it was certain he
would never have given his consent.  So with some
misgivings Miss Barrett consented to her lover's
entreaties.  They were married privately; he took her
abroad, and in her newly found joy she rallied
surprisingly.  To the end of her life she was fragile, and
it was never possible for her to stand side by side
with him through all the daily ups and downs, but
the sympathy between them was as complete as their
love for each other was beautiful, and in spite of the
many new responsibilities it laid upon him, his marriage
with this rare mind brought a daily increasing happiness
to the poet.  From this time forward much of
his time was spent in Italy, for the sake of his wife;
but when in 1861, with her death, "the light of his
life went out," he returned to London and lived here
till the end, always working, always genial, drawn more
and more into an ever-widening circle of friends, as the
greatness of his mind and genius became known and
appreciated.  Active to the last, he died in 1889, while
on a visit to Venice.  But England claimed him as
her own, and so strong was the feeling as to the Poets'
Corner being the only place where he could be buried,
that his son consented, in spite of the fact that
Mrs. Browning slept under the blue skies of Italy.

It would be quite impossible now to talk of Robert
Browning's poems by name; they are too many in
number and too deep in thought to be lightly dealt
with.  But we can try to understand what it is that
has made him so great a figure in English literature,
why it is that he has left so powerful an influence on
his age.

First of all he was a great teacher, he was a seer,
as every true poet must be if his work is to live.

   |  "To know the heart of all things was his duty;
   |    All things did speak to him to make him wise,
   |  And with a sorrowful and conquering beauty,
   |    The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes.

   |  He gazed on all within him and without him,
   |    He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide,
   |  And shapes of glory floated all about him,
   |    And whispered to him, and he prophesied."
   |

He looked on life as a great whole, part to be lived
here, part to be lived beyond the grave, but each part
belonging to the other.  He believed that over all,
guiding all and through all, was the Divine Power.

   |  "God's in His Heaven:
   |  All's well in the world."
   |

He knew that human nature must work its way
upwards by struggling bravely on through the darkness,
certain of victory at last, because good and not evil was
the all-conquering force.  And so, while he was full of
hope and full of confidence, his understanding and his
sympathies were boundless.

Courage! unfailing, confident courage! is the refrain
of which he never wearies.  Aspire towards the highest;
be your best; love for love's sake and not for reward;
work your hardest; fight valiantly to the end; never listen
to despair; never lessen your efforts.  It is the struggle
and the striving that makes life worth living, for—

   |  "Life is probation, and this earth no goal
   |  But starting-point of men."

Nor is there such a thing as failure to those who aspire
rightly.

   |  "A man's reach should exceed his grasp,
   |  Or what's a Heaven for?"

And again—

   |  "Then welcome each rebuff
   |  That turns earth's smoothness rough,
   |  Each sting that bids nor sit, nor stand, but go!
   |  Be our joys three parts pain,
   |  Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
   |  Learn, nor account the pang: dare, never grudge the throe."
   |

The power and the love of God, the possibilities within
the reach of every man, and the unalterable certainty
of the life beyond, these beliefs made it impossible for
Browning to sing in any but a hopeful strain, and it is
for this that we owe him our deepest debt of gratitude.
For he always encourages us, he always inspires us, he
always sends us on our way cheered by his own strong
faith.

Sometimes, it is true, his verse is rough and rugged,
often he is so absorbed in the sense of what he says that
he cares very little how he says it, but every poem he
wrote holds so many precious things that it is worth while
wading through difficult places to get at them.  And as
he himself once said, "With care for a man or a book,
most obstacles can be overcome."

Many a poem could I give to show you that
Browning could pour out sweet music when he wrote of
certain subjects.  Here is one of his most charming
songs—"Home Thoughts from Abroad":—

   |  "Oh to be in England now that April's there,
   |  And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning unaware,
   |  That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
   |  Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
   |  While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
   |  In England—now!

   |  And after April, when May follows,
   |  And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
   |  Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
   |  Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
   |  Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge,—
   |  That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
   |  Lest you think he never could recapture
   |  The first, fine, careless rapture!"
   |

On the day of his death there was published the last
volume of his poems, and it had been a great pleasure to
him to hear with how much interest they were expected.
For more than fifty years he had waited, and at last
his message to his generation was being understood.
He had been "ever a fighter," and now, as he stood
facing that "one fight more, the best and the last,"
which was at hand, he had still one fine marching song
to send back to his fellow-men.

"Never say of me that I am *dead*," he had asked of
a friend not long before.

   |  "No work begun shall ever pause for death!
   |  Love will be helpful to me more and more
   |  In the coming course, the new path I must tread."

So when those who loved him read the words that told
how Robert Browning had died at Venice, having lived
more than his threescore years and ten, they turned for
their comfort to his last stirring message, and remembered
him as he had wished to be remembered—

   |  "At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep time,
   |  When you set your fancies free,
   |  Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—
   |  Low he lies, who once so loved you, whom you loved so.
   |          Pity me?

   |  Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
   |  What had I on earth to do
   |  With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
   |  Like the aimless, hopeless, did I drivel
   |          Being who?

   |  One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
   |  Never doubted clouds would break,
   |  Never dreamed though right were worsted wrong could triumph.
   |  Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
   |          Sleep to wake!

   |  No, at noonday, in the bustle of men's work time,
   |  Greet the unseen with a cheer.
   |  Bid him forward, breast and back, as either should be.
   |  'Strive and strive!' cry Speed—fight on, fare ever
   |          There as here."
   |

Three years after Browning's death a crowd of over
eleven thousand persons filled Westminster to every corner,
on the day when our other great poet, Alfred Tennyson,
was borne here, to remain for ever "a citizen of the
Abbey."  His coffin, fitly draped with the Union Jack,
because some of his finest lines had been called out by
the thought of Empire, Flag, and Queen, was surrounded
by all the most noteworthy men of the day as it was
carried slowly through the aisles, "down the avenue
of those men, princes and peers by right of
intellect divine."  Tennyson, like Browning, had written a
last message to the world, but his was not a marching
song.  Instead it breathes of perfect peace, of the
joy which came to him, "who throughout the night
had trusted all to Him that held the helm, and then
saw face to face, full flushed and glorious with the
new morning's glow, the Pilot whom he had trusted."

   |  "Twilight and evening bell,
   |  And after that the dark!
   |  And may there be no sadness of farewell
   |  When I embark;
   |  For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
   |  The flood may bear me far,
   |  I hope to see my Pilot face to face
   |  When I have crost the bar."


These thoughts of his filled the Abbey with a sense
of their restfulness; then there thundered out from
thousands of voices the familiar hymn—

   |  "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!"

and the words recalled to many a mind that Vision of
which the clear-souled poet had sung, the Gleam he had so
faithfully followed, until now it had surely led him right
up to the presence of God.

.. _`LORD TENNYSON`:

.. figure:: images/img-337.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: LORD TENNYSON.

   LORD TENNYSON.

Alfred Tennyson had been born at a country vicarage
in Lincolnshire in the year 1809, and had begun to
scribble verse almost as soon as he could write.  When
he was eight he produced such lines as—

   |  "With slaughterous sons of thunder rolled the flood,"

which he thought "very grand" at the time; at twelve
he wrote a poem of six thousand lines, and at fourteen
a drama.  He was not the sort of boy likely to be very
happy at school, and he had, as he described it, "to
shout his verses to the skies."  But to his brother he
was wont to say many a time, "Well, Arthur, I mean
to be famous."  He went to Cambridge, and when
Thompson, that shrewd observer, afterwards Master of
Trinity, saw him walk into the hall, "six feet high,
broad-chested, strong-limbed, his face Shakespearean
and with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned with
dark wavy hair, his head firmly poised," he remarked,
"That man must be a poet!"

In 1829 he won the University Prize Poem on the
not very inspiring subject of Timbuctoo, and soon
afterwards published a volume of short poems, which was
warmly welcomed and admired by his friends, one of
whom, Arthur Hallam, remarked, "Tennyson will be the
greatest poet of our generation."  But the general public
cared little for poetry, and preferred novels, so that
Tennyson was thought to have scored quite a success
when three hundred copies of his book had been sold.

In 1833 there fell on him a stunning blow.  Arthur
Hallam, the friend whom he had loved with an intense
love, who was so full of exceptional promise that
every one with whom he came in contact believed the
greatest future was in store for him, died quite suddenly,
and to Tennyson it seemed as if from henceforth the
very light of his life had been snatched from him.
Dark were the years that followed, rendered more so
by the fact that the young poet was very poor and saw
no chance of being able to marry the woman he loved.
But gradually, as he "faced the need of going forward
and braving the struggle of life" (to use his own words),
a fuller understanding and a wider view opened out
before him.  Sorrow and work together led him out
of the valley.  He produced several volumes of short
poems, each one showing more certainly his great poetic
sense, his gift of using musical and beautiful language,
and each one, too, making it clear from the subjects
he chose, and his way of dealing with them, that he
himself, like the poet of whom he wrote—

   |  "Saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
   |    ... Thro' his own soul,
   |  The marvel of the Everlasting Will
   |    An open scroll,
   |  Before him lay."
   |

Then came "The Princess," a longer work and a most
delightful one, in which Tennyson, many years in
advance of public opinion, pleaded the cause of women's
education, and showed that "Woman's cause is man's;
they rise or sink together;" and though "distinct in
individualities," they must be "self-reverent each, and
reverencing each," if they would in all their powers
dispense the harvest, "sowing the To-be."

In 1850 he published his greatest work, "In Memoriam,"
the poem which came straight from his own
heart, and went as straight to the hearts of all who
ached under some crushing, desolating blow.  It told
of his love for his dead friend, and how this very
love led him onwards and upwards, away from his
own selfish sorrow, away from despair and darkness,
till with this larger hope there came faith in God and
faith in man; the certainty that good must be the
final goal of ill; the conviction that Love was the great
power working in all and through all, destined in the
end to conquer all.  "In Memoriam" has been rightly
called "the triumph of a great love."  The work
brought him fame if not fortune, and at last he was
able to marry her "who brought into his life," he said,
"the peace of God."  A year later he was made Poet
Laureate, and settled down to a quiet country life
at Farringford.  "Maud," and some of his war poems,
"The Ode to the Duke of Wellington," and "The
Charge of the Light Brigade," were included in his
work of the next few years, and then came what he
considered the most ambitious thing he had attempted,
"The Idylls of the King."  The old mysterious story
of King Arthur and his knights had fascinated many
a poet before him, and the romance of it all laid full
hold on his imagination.  Nay, more than this, for he
saw beyond the fragmentary story, and each one of the
characters, under his hand, stands out in a new light.
Arthur, Galahad, Percival, Bedivere, Lancelot, Guinevere,
Enid, and Elaine—how real they all become to us!  How
intensely vivid are the scenes unfolded before our eyes,
how great and noble are the ideals of the true chivalry
as distinguished from the false, towards which Tennyson
leads us, reverence for conscience, faithfulness to duty,
pure-heartedness, love of truth, fear of sin, courtesy,
gentleness, courage, pity, and forgiveness.

"A poet must teach, but not preach," Tennyson once
said, and I think it is in these legendary stories of "The
Idylls," told in the beautiful language of which he was
master, that the poet has given some of his greatest
lessons, and has held up his loftiest ideals to the age in
which he lived.  After "The Idylls" came some dramas,
and many short poems, "Enoch Arden," perhaps, being
the one best liked by the large public Tennyson could
now command.  But even to touch on the short poems is
impossible here, so many and so varied are they; some,
soul-stirring and patriotic, as "The Defence of
Lucknow" or "The Revenge;" some, poems of nature;
some, coloured with the quaint, north-country humour
he knew so well; some, exquisite little word-pictures.
His last volume of all was published in 1889, and
it included "Merlin and the Gleam," an allegory of
the ideals he had set before himself as a poet.  He, as
the old man, talks to the young mariners just about
to set out.  He tells of the Gleam which shines for
every one who will see it; which calls, which beckons
on through wilderness, desolate hollows, and wraiths of
the mountain; past warbles of water and cataract music
of falling torrents; by rolling of dragons and over the
level of pasture and ploughland.  Onwards, ever onwards,
it leads.  To follow it is to live, to die in the
search for it is happiness, for the Gleam can never fail.

   |  "Through the magic
   |  Of Him that is mighty,
   |  Who taught me in childhood,
   |  There on the border
   |  Of boundless Ocean
   |  And all but in Heaven
   |  Hovers the Gleam."

So to the young mariners, he, the old magician, gives his
parting word of counsel—

   |  "Down to the haven,
   |  Launch your vessel
   |  And crowd your canvas,
   |  And, ere it vanishes
   |  Over the margin,
   |  After it, follow it,
   |  Follow the Gleam."

"I want to go down to posterity," Tennyson once said,
"as a poet who uttered nothing base."  And the
criticism which he declared was "the best and tenderest
praise that came to cheer his old age," was the remark
of a girl who said, "When I read his poems, I always
rise determined to be better."

Much might be said about the perfect music of his
poetry; the richness of his imagination; the faultless
ear he had for words; the crystal clearness of his style;
his power to see beauty and, having seen it, to shape
it; his sympathy, his sensitive understanding, and his
lofty ideals.  His claim to greatness is based on all that
and still more.  Out of the depths of his pure soul he
gazed on all things lovely, just, true, pure, and of
good report; and translating these into language easy
to be understood, he led those who listened to him along
the Road Beautiful, till they too stood with him on

   |  "The heights of life, with a glimpse of a height that is higher."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A LAST WANDER AROUND`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A LAST WANDER AROUND

.. vspace:: 2

There are still many monuments and memorials in the
Abbey which do not come in under the broad headings
we have made, and to some few of these I must take
you in this our last wander round the aisles and
chapels.

As we come in by the great north entrance and pass
between the row of statesmen, we must stop for a
moment by the Canning group and notice the
monument to the "loyall Duke of Newcastle," who lost a
large fortune and became an exile from England on
account of his devoted faithfulness to Charles I.  The
Duchess, who came of a family in which "all the
brothers were valiant and all the sisters virtuous," was,
in the Duke's eyes at least, a very "wise, witty, and
learned lady," though every one did not deem her so.
Pepys, when he made her acquaintance, wrote: "She
is a good, comely woman, but her dress is so antick, and
her deportment so ordinary, that I did not like her at
all.  Nor did I hear her say anything that was worth
hearing."  It was curiosity, I suppose, that caused
Pepys to stay at home one day "to read the history of
my Lord of Newcastle, written by his wife."  Certainly
his criticisms were not favourable.  "It shows her to be
a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman," he said.  "And he
is an ass to suffer her to write what she writes to him
and of him."

Perhaps the "loyall Duke" found his learned lady not
always quite easy to restrain, for he is reported once to
have declared to a friend, "Sir, a very wise woman may
be a very foolish thing."

But she had better claims than her wit or wisdom to
his love, as the inscription on her monument tells, for
she proved herself to be "a louvinge carefull wife, who
was with her lord all the time of his banishment and
miseries, and when he came home, never parted from
him in all his solitary retirements."

Round the west door, and underneath the statue of the
younger Pitt, are a number of memorial monuments to
men, many of whom lived and laboured in our own times.
There is Lord John Russell, the great statesman, who
throughout his life was true to the emblem and the
motto of his house, which you will see on the pedestal—a
mountain goat wending its way through dangerous
precipices, but never losing its footing.  And there is
General Gordon, true type of the happy warrior, who
lived for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed, and
who fell at his post in far Khartoum, faithful unto
death.  On the one side is a spot sometimes called the
Little Poets' Corner, and here, under a window given
by an American to the memory of George Herbert and
Cowper, "both Westminster scholars, and both religious
poets," we find statues or busts of Wordsworth; of the
two Arnolds, Dr. Arnold, the schoolmaster, and his son
Matthew Arnold, the poet, whose beautiful verses about
his father, telling of his radiant vigour, his buoyant
cheerfulness, his strong soul, have inspired many a one
struggling to be a leader, not a laggard, in the march
of life.  Here also is Keble, another religious poet,
some of whose hymns, "Sun of my Soul" and "New
every morning is the Love," are as well known to all
of us as any poems in our language; and close by we
find Maurice, the teacher and preacher who influenced
so many young men to become knights of their own
day; to war against all that was mean, or base, or false;
to fight in the foremost rank for the wronged or the
oppressed; to champion the unpopular cause, and defend
the truth well-nigh forgotten.  By those who loved him
he was called the Prophet, because he stood, as it were,
between God and man, because he looked beyond the
present and the things that are seen, right into the
hidden glories of the things eternal.  Kingsley, too, lies
here, the most famous of Maurice's disciples—the man
who was scholar, poet, novelist, thinker, teacher, enthusiast,
and leader all in one; who roused his listeners to
a sense of the duty that lay at their door; who taught
them to love the beautiful things in nature even as they
loved nature's God; who made them enthusiastic for all
that was chivalrous and soul-stirring; who himself so
loved all humanity that round his grave the highest in
the land, gipsies from the country lanes, and white-faced,
sweated toilers from the great cities, mourned side by
side, this their great-hearted friend.

Fittingly in this group comes Henry Fawcett, the most
knightly figure in modern politics.  For though he
became blind through an accident when he was twenty-five,
he refused to let that turn him aside from his purpose,
and threw himself all the more earnestly into public
life.  At first when he tried to go into Parliament he
was beaten, the electors actually being afraid of a blind
candidate, but gradually his speeches, which showed how
much he thought and cared, and how intensely alive he
was to the needs of the working classes, broke down
this foolish prejudice, and once in the House he was
loved as he was trusted by men of both parties.  His
monument is quite one of the most beautiful among the
modern monuments, and one great authority has declared
that "the exquisite little figures which adorn it are the
best of their kind since the little angels were placed on
the tomb of Queen Philippa."

In the south aisle of the choir is the monument
of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, which so annoyed Addison.
And indeed it is rather hard on this British sailor,
who worked his way up from the lowest rank till he
became Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, and was
drowned in a shipwreck off the Isle of Stilly, to be
handed down to posterity, dressed, not in the uniform
he loved and wore so honourably, but in the armour of a
Roman general!

Monuments to Doctor Isaac Watts the hymn writer
and to John and Charles Wesley are here, and very
appropriate is the Wesley inscription, "The whole world
is my Parish," breathing as it does the great-hearted
spirit of the Abbey.

Sir Godfrey Kneller, the only painter who has a
monument in the Abbey, refused to be buried here,
declaring he would not lie among fools, and he left money
for a memorial to himself which was to be put up in
Twickenham Church.  But the place he had chosen had
already been appropriated by Pope, who refused to give
way, so that after all the monument had to be put up in
Westminster, and Pope, by way of compensation, undertook
to write the inscription, in which he declared that
"Kneller was by Heaven, not by master taught."

Gilbert Thornburgh, a courtier, has a delightful Latin
epitaph which states that

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "He was always faithful
   To his God, his Prince, and his Friends.
   Formerly an earthly, now an Heavenly Courtier,
   It shall be no more said in the Age to come,
   Who must be good must leave the Court,
   When such shining Piety as his shall appear there."

.. vspace:: 2

Some epitaphs are humorous, as when we read of
one Francis Newman, a Fellow of All Souls College in
Oxford, who in 1649, "divested of Body was received
among the seats of the Blessed Souls, and became truly
a New-Man;" or of Sir John Fullerton, a courtier, who
died "Fuller of Faith than of Feare, Fuller of Resolution
than of Paines, Fuller of Honour than of Dayes."

Unconsciously humorous are the words on the tombstone
of James Fox, who at the age of twelve fell ill of
smallpox and took his flight to heaven.  "He was a
man even when a child, and a Hercules from his cradle;
favoured with Beauty, Wisdom, and all Endowments of
Mind and Body no less than were Adonis, Venus, and
Apollo; a child of singular dutifulness and great
sincerity."

   |  "Oh parents! pity his parents.
   |  Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"
   |

It was smallpox which caused the death both of
Richard Boothey—who was "of manly judgment even
in his youth, of so happy a memory as to be envied, a
flower, more beautiful than the rest, cut off in the spring
of life"—and of Mr. Thomas Smith, buried in the little
cloisters, "who through the spotted veil of smallpox
rendered a pure unspotted soul to God, expecting but never
fearing death."

More pathetic perhaps than any other is the little tablet
in the cloisters which marks the grave of "Jane Lister,
dear child," though almost as touching is the inscription
which tells us of "Mary, daughter of William Green,
more adorned with virtue than with high birth, who married
William Bulmer, Gentleman, to whom she was no occasion
of trouble except by leaving him at her death.  She
bore him one son, William, a youth of great genius, who
was snatched away by too hasty death.  His most
tender mother chose to be buried near him, that she,
though dead, might be united in death with him she
so entirely loved while living."  Right at the other
end of the Abbey, in the Chapel of St. Erasmus, is the
tomb of Mrs. Mary Kendall, which has these words
for inscription:—

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "She had great virtues, and as great a desire of concealing them.
   Was of a severe life, but of an easy conversation.
   Courteous to all, yet strictly sincere.
   Humble without meanness.  Beneficent without ostentation.
   Devout without superstition.
   Those admirable qualities,
   In which she was equalled by few of her sex, surpassed by none,
   Rendered her in every way worthy of that close union and friendship
   In which she lived with the Lady Katherine Jones."

.. vspace:: 1

And in the adjoining Chapel of St. Andrew is the
heart-broken tribute of the Earl of Kerry, "to his
affectionately beloved wife, Anastatia, the dearest, most
loved, most faithful companion that ever blessed man,
who for thirty-one years rendered him the happiest
of mankind."

The last of our epitaphs must be that of Archbishop
Boulter, who pulled a great many political strings
in Ireland, and lived a very eventful life.  But his
inscription reveals us none of these things, and only
describes a series of promotions, for it relates that "He was
born January the 4th, 1671: he was consecrated Bishop
of Bristol 1718: he was translated to the Archbishoprick
of Armagh in 1723, and from thence to Heaven, on
Sep. 27, 1742."

Over Abbot Islip's Chapel is a chantry, now used for
keeping the few wax effigies which remain.  For, as you
remember, it used to be the custom at royal funerals, or
indeed at any important funerals, to carry the likeness
of the dead man or woman before the coffin; these
painted effigies being made of boiled leather, wood, or
wax, dressed up in the clothes of the person they
represented.  Only eleven of these remain, though
at one time there must have been quite a collection of
royal figures in the Abbey which were open to the
public, gaze, and evidently left to the mercy of the
public.  Queen Elizabeth can still be seen, gorgeously
dressed, but weary and sad-looking; Charles II. is there,
and the beautiful Duchess of Richmond of the Stuart
race, whose monument, with that of her husband, is in
Henry VII.'s Chapel.  Then there is the Duchess of
Buckinghamshire, proud and pomp-loving, who insisted
on seeing the canopy for her funeral hearse, that she
might be sure it was magnificent enough, and who made
her attendants promise that even when she became
unconscious they would still stand in her presence.  By
her is her little son, and near her, her eldest son, who
also died young.  Queen Anne beams on us; William
and Mary have the crown set between them, and he
stands on a stool so as not to appear smaller than his
wife.  General Monk's armour is there, much the worse
for wear; and Pitt, Earl of Chatham, is splendid in his
Parliamentary robes.  Nelson was put here from a very
worldly point of view, for when he was buried in
St. Paul's, such crowds went to see his grave, that
Westminster Abbey was neglected, and as the pence of the
sightseers were too valuable to be lost, it was decided
that some memorial of the great hero must be placed in
the Abbey to attract people back again.  All the clothes
except the coat, and certainly the hat, belonged to
Nelson, but a waxwork effigy hardly seems a worthy
monument to him in the place which he must have
loved and honoured, nay, must have dreamt of, when he
cried to his men as he led them to attack, "Westminster
Abbey, or glorious victory."

And now, leaving monuments, sleeping figures, epitaphs,
inscriptions, and effigies, come and stand for a
moment on the steps leading up to the High Altar, that
we may take our last look at the Abbey from what is
perhaps the most interesting spot in it.  For, as you will
remember, it is in this part of the Church that the
coronation service takes place, it is here that every sovereign
of England has been crowned from the days of Harold
onwards.

.. _`THE HIGH ALTAR`:

.. figure:: images/img-352.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)

   THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)

The pavement inside the rails is made of the mosaics
brought back from Rome by Abbot Ware in 1267, where
he went to be duly confirmed in his office by the Pope;
the pillars near the altar are on the very bases which
were put there when Edward the Confessor built his
church.  Here are the tombs of Aymer de Valence, of
Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, and of Aveline
his young wife, who as a bride had stood in front
of the altar but a few months before her death in
the year 1269.  Opposite, King Sebert is said to lie;
under the pavement rests Abbot Ware, with other of his
successors, and Richard the Second's sad helpless face
looks at us from his portrait with its fine background of
tapestry.  The altar and the reredos which we see are
both new, and just as the old frieze through in the
Confessor's Chapel depicts scenes in the life of Edward, so
the modern reredos gives us glimpses of Him in whose
honour the Saxon king first raised these walls.  From
among the gold, four white figures stand out, "the four
living creatures which have been thought worthy to
stand round the central figure of our departing Master,"
as Dean Stanley described them when they were erected.
On the right stands St. Peter, patron saint of the Abbey,
holding in one hand the keys, and in the other a book,
on which is written the great truth, "God is no respecter
of persons," and next to him is Moses, the first statesman
and lawgiver, looking towards the buried statesmen
in the Abbey.

On the left stands St. Paul, grasping in his hand that
Sword of the Spirit which he had named as the weapon
of the Christian warrior, and by him is David, the sweet
singer of Israel, whose face is turned towards the Poets'
Corner as though he would claim those sleeping there
for his brethren.

Through the glass we catch a glimpse of the Chapel of
the Kings, and all around is a network of slender arches
fashioned by master-hands into forms of stately but
perfect beauty.  High above are the three Eastern
Windows, though in the course of the years these have
been so constantly repaired with any scraps of glass
available, that the effect is rather confusing.  But the figure
of a thorn-crowned Christ stands out, and near to Him
are Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist.

Now turn to the west, look at the glade of arches
stretching down the nave, at the Statesmen's Corner on
the right, where under the Rose Window Chatham's fine
figure stands out almost with an air of proud
satisfaction, and then towards the left to the monument of
Oliver Goldsmith, and the more imposing memorial
to the great Duke of Argyll, "an honest man, a
constant friend, a general and an orator."  Two commanding
statues of Campbell and Addison loom out in the
half light, Campbell casting a shadow over the graves of
Abbot Litlington, Owen Tudor, and Dean Benson, and
hiding from our view the dignified, thoughtful figure of
William Shakespeare, who holds in his hands a scroll on
which are those lines of his from the "Tempest":—

   |  "The cloud-capt towers,
   |  The gorgeous palaces,
   |  The solemn temples,
   |  The great globe itself,
   |  Yea, all which it inherit
   |  Shall dissolve,
   |  And like the baseless fabric of a vision
   |  Leave not a wreck behind."

Burns and Sir Walter Scott greet us from their niches;
Grote and Thirlwall, the truth-loving writers of history;
Camden, the Westminster master and antiquarian; Garrick
the actor, Handel the musician, all cluster around us as
we look down the southern aisle; and we can just see at
the end the newest addition to the building, a bronze
memorial to John Ruskin, a great teacher and writer
of our own day.  Some words of his come to my mind
at this moment, as applying in a very special sense to
the Abbey: "The greatest glory of a building is not in
its stones, nor in its gold.  The glory is in its age,
and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern
watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval
or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have
long been washed by the passing waves of humanity....
It is in the golden stain of time that we are to
look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness
of architecture; and it is not until a building has
assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with
the fame and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its
walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars
rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more
lasting as it is than the natural objects of the world
around it, can be gifted with even so much as those
possess of language and of life.  Therefore, when we
build, let us think that we build for ever....  God has
lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail.  It
belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and
whose names are already written in the Book of Creation,
as to us."

And surely, too, the Abbey leads our thoughts
towards other temples, which it is ours to guard, to
honour, and to make honourable, temples not fashioned
by human hands.  Those old builders often worked
in the dark; some corner, some piece was allotted
to them, and into this they put all their skill,
all their genius, caring little for fame or reward,
knowing nothing of the whole plan which they would
never live to see accomplished.  Only this was their
task, to beautify the little part entrusted to them.
And because they were faithful to this ideal, we,
who gaze on their completed work, do grateful homage
to those nameless craftsmen, long since dead and
forgotten.  Nay more, we will make it our aim to labour
as they laboured; to live not basely and selfishly in
the Present, but nobly and truly, with the Future ever
before our eyes; so that in days to come Englishmen
shall still be able to say, "See!  This our fathers did
for us!" and generations, yet unborn, will deem that
we were faithful to ourselves and to them.

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   THE END

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   Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.
   Edinburgh & London

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