Readers of this little volume must not expect to find in it a full description of the Abbey buildings, or a complete list of all the tombs, monuments, and other beautiful and interesting things in the Abbey Church. That is not the aim of this book. Its chief object is to point out to British children how they may follow the great outlines of their country’s history in Westminster Abbey, from the earliest ages down to our own time,—from the days of the far-off, legendary King Lucius to those of K

The writer of this little book was once showing Westminster Abbey to a party of foreigners—they were Germans,—and after hearing something about the Abbey and the people who are either buried or commemorated there, one of them turned and said: “I can understand the pride of English people when I see a place like this.” Now, it must be remembered that this German visitor was not thinking of our wealth, or of our Empire, or of our commercial prosperity. He was thinking of the “great cloud of witnes

“ Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king; and all the people rejoiced and said: God save the king, Long live the king, May the king live for ever. ”—1 Kings i. 39, 40. The greatest and most important ceremonies which have taken place in Westminster Abbey are, of course, the Coronations of our Kings and Queens, and so we will speak first of this most interesting part of the Abbey history. Such a wonderful succession of coronations has never been seen in any other building i

King Edward the Confessor is such an important person in the history of the Abbey that his Chapel and Shrine must be described in a chapter by themselves. As has already been told, the Confessor died on January 5th, 1066, and was buried the next day, January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany. He was laid in front of the high altar of his newly built church, and the Conqueror afterwards presented splendid hangings to cover the simple tomb which was erected over the grave. There is an interesting old

A little more than two hundred years passed between the burial of the Confessor in the Abbey and the burial of the next English King who rests there, namely, Henry III . William the Conqueror is buried in the church which he founded at Caen, in Normandy, and William Rufus, the “Red King,” lies at Winchester, close to the New Forest, where he was shot by Walter Tyrrell. Henry I was buried at Reading, and King Stephen at Faversham. Henry II , the first King of the Plantagenet line, was buried in t

The name of Henry of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, reminds us that Richard II had been made to resign his crown, and that his cousin had been proclaimed King as King Henry IV . We think, too, of that sad death, or murder, of the unhappy Richard at Pontefract Castle. All these things, in one way or another, are connected with the history of the Abbey. Henry IV is not buried in the Abbey, but in Canterbury Cathedral, opposite the Black Prince, and, like him, near the shrine

The famous House of Tudor, in which the Plantagenet lines of York and Lancaster were united, is in many ways very closely connected with the Abbey. All the Tudor sovereigns, except one, are buried in the Abbey. But this is not all, for the Abbey and the School owe their present establishment to Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth, as we shall find later on. It was in the Tudor times that modern England really began, and most of the great changes that took place in the Church and the nation at that ti

The first of the Stuart family to be laid to rest in the Abbey was Margaret, Countess of Lennox, the mother of Lord Darnley. Margaret was the daughter of the Earl of Angus and of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII . Her epitaph tells us that she “had to her great-grandfather, King Edward IV ; to her grandfather, King Henry VII ; to her uncle, King Henry VIII ; to her cousin-german, King Edward VI ; to her brother, King James V of Scotland; to her son (Darnley), King Henry I of Scotland; to he

We must now turn to think of a very different state of things and of very different people, namely, the Parliamentarian Government and the great men of the Commonwealth. Between the years 1653 and 1660 the Parliamentarian Party made great changes in the government and services of the Abbey, and the Presbyterian form of worship was established. Again, as at the time of Henry VIII , various ornaments and other possessions of the church were removed and sold. Archbishop Laud, one of the chief advis

We now come to the time of the Restoration, and must think of the rest of the Stuart family who are buried at Westminster. King Charles I had been buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and although there had been much talk of moving his body into a splendid tomb in Henry VII ’s Chapel, this was never done, and Charles I , like Henry VI , still rests at Windsor. The first Stuart to be buried in the Abbey after the Restoration was Henry of Oatlands, Duke of Gloucester, son of Charles I . It was

At the death of Queen Anne a great change took place in the reigning family. The people would not have Queen Anne’s brother, Prince James, for their King, because he was a Roman Catholic, but there were many plans and plots in his favour, as we have heard. And even here again the Abbey plays a part in it all, for the famous Dean of Westminster, Francis Atterbury, was concerned in these Jacobite plots. It is said, indeed, that on Queen Anne’s death he had been ready to go to Charing Cross to proc

It is very difficult properly to divide the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, because, of course, history does not cut itself up into lengths of a hundred years. But in telling the story of a place like the Abbey it is better to have some division, and as the French Revolution took place nearly at the end of the eighteenth century, a kind of natural division comes at that time, for we know that the French Revolution made a great and lasting change all over Europe. [ D. Weller . STATUE OF WILL

Before speaking of the other parts of the Abbey buildings we must not forget the little Islip Chantry, or upper part of Abbot Islip’s beautiful chapel in the North Ambulatory. In this Chantry are the presses which contain the celebrated wax effigies of which we so often hear. In olden times it used to be the custom to carry effigies in the funeral processions of sovereigns and of other important personages, and to leave these effigies standing beside the grave for a month or more after the funer

With the help of the Abbey we have taken a long, and perhaps rather hurried, journey through many centuries of our country’s history, and have tried to think of the many links by which the Abbey is bound to all English hearts. We must now turn back again across those centuries, and try to remember something of the old monastery, of its buildings, of the Abbots who governed it, and of the sort of lives the monks lived. The Abbey, as we already know, was dedicated to St. Peter from the earliest da

“ It is no small thing to dwell in monasteries, or in a congregation, and to live there without complaint, and to persevere faithfully even unto death. ” The name of Abbot Edwyn, who was the first Abbot to rule over the Confessor’s newly founded monastery, leads us on to think of some few others among the Abbots who played a part in English history. We may begin by mentioning the name of Abbot Gilbert Crispin, a Norman, who was Abbot during the time of the Norman Kings, from 1085 to 1117. He had

“ Enflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages. ” Before we say farewell to the Abbey and its story altogether we must speak of one very important part of it, and one that ought to be specially interesting to all English children, namely, the ancient and famous Westminster School. The history of the School takes us back really to Saxon times, as we know that there w