Rose Georgina Kingsley

“ As we enter the north aisle we tread on a stone that bears the name of Addison. Famous men, poets, generals, statesmen, are all about us. But the great monument that stands in the centre of the chapel claims all our attention. Under a magnificent marble canopy, still and stern in death, lies the last of the Tudors—that splendid personage who, for more than fifty years, ruled over England and kept all Europe at bay; and who by word and deed encouraged those who laid the foundation of the great transatlantic England. Yes! there sleeps Queen Elizabeth—the old lioness. ”

“ We mount the wide steps at the extreme east end of the ambulatory, that form a sort of vestibule of deepest shadow under the massive archway which joins the Abbey to Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The black and white marble floor gleams cold, and the sun streams in through the southern windows upon the brass of Henry the Seventh's tomb as we look through the great bronze gates. But we will not enter them. We will turn to the left, where an open doorway leads us out of the dark entry at the head of the steps into the quiet light of the north aisle. ”

“ We make our way round, above the Confessor's Chapel, and see his coffin lying in his shrine. We pass great rooms where all sorts of débris from the building are kept—old oaken chairs, bits of stone carving, paraphernalia for the coronation or for any great ceremony. We walk under the painted glass windows that we have watched, shining like jewels at the end of the apse, when we are at service in the choir. Then comes another door, another narrow stair, and we find ourselves in the strangest place of all. We are on the roof of Henry the Seventh's chapel. ”

“ The Virginian creeper climbs over the house, and veils the stone mullions of the deep embayed windows in a delicate tangled tracery of stems and leaves. Groups of tall red brick chimneys rise above the gables of the roof. And crowning the splendid western front—above the great entrance through a triple arched porch, above the exquisite oriel window that hangs out from the walls of the chapel-room—the Prince of Wales's three feathers, the badge that Edward the Black Prince won at Cressy, are carved in stone. ”

“ WESTMINSTER ABBEY.—NORTH ENTRANCE.
At first sight Westminster Abbey is a little dwarfed by the enormous pile of the Houses of Parliament and their great towers. And St. Margaret's Church, nestling close to it on the north, mars the full view of its length. But when we draw near to it, all other buildings are forgotten. Crossing St. Margaret's churchyard where Raleigh sleeps, we seem to come into the shadow of a [Pg 13] great gray cliff. Arch and buttress and pinnacle and exquisite pointed windows tier upon tier, are piled up to the parapet more than a hundred feet over our heads. ”

“ Morning service is just over. The choir boys have slipped off their white surplices, and are setting the music books in order. The crowd of sight-seers is beginning to wander about the Abbey. The monotonous voices of the vergers are beginning their explanations of tomb and chapel to the eager strangers. Let us get my good friends Mr. Berrington or Mr. Deer who show the tombs, to come quietly with us in their black gowns. Let us stand within the Sacrarium—the wide space inside the altar rails. ”

“ The praise of every British hero, the glory of every fight, was sung throughout the land; and the sound of the harp heard in every house. These singers of freedom chanted of joy in battle, of their country's liberty, of hatred of the Saxon oppressor. And they sang of their great prince, Llewellyn, "towering above the rest of men with his long red lance, his red helmet of battle crested with a fierce wolf; tender-hearted, wise, witty, ingenious." ”

“ No monument is raised to his memory. But above his grave, Mary, Queen of Scots, with her proud beautiful face in scornful repose, lies under her splendid canopy, a fierce little Scotch lion crowned at her feet. And in the dim mysterious light that comes through the tiny diamond panes of the windows, we read words on her tomb that are indeed true of her great-grandson, Henry, Duke of Gloucester ”

“ Below the screen, which is wrought with exquisite carving into niches and canopies, stands a curious old chair. This is the Coronation Chair, in which all English sovereigns have sat at their coronations since it was made in Edward the First's reign. But more curious than the chair is the rough block of stone which it incases. That block is the mysterious stone of Fate which Edward the First captured at Scone in Scotland—the stone on which every Scotch king had been crowned from the days of Fergus the First—the stone on which every English king or queen has been crowned since. ”

“ First come the boys of Westminster School with their masters, and take their places right and left. Then the little chorister boys, walking two and two, the smallest in front—little mites who look as if they would hardly know their letters, but who march gravely to their seats, and sing the long service like sweet-voiced little birds. Then the "singing gentlemen of Westminster Abbey," as the men in the choir are called—many of them well-known professionals, whose names are seen during the week at the best concerts in England. ”

“ Over Mary's grave King James erected a monument even more magnificent than Queen Elizabeth's in the north aisle. Yet not a thought did the selfish father give to the grave of his son.
But Prince Henry's memorial is a less perishable one than "brass or stony monument." He has left behind him a memory fragrant with all [Pg 221] that makes youth lovely and manhood noble—the record of a pure and good life, which will last, as the memory of every good life must last, when stone and marble has crumbled to dust. ”

“ For that Abbey is the record of the growth of our two great nations. Within its walls we are on common ground. We are "in goodly company;" among those who by their words and deeds and examples have made England and America what they are. America is represented just as much as England "by every monument in the Abbey earlier than the Civil Wars." [3] And within the last few years England has been proud to enshrine in her Pantheon the memories of two great and good Americans—George Peabody, the philanthropist, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet. ”

“ But now upon the old foundations rose the Abbey we all know and love. In every smallest detail the new church was to be incomparable in beauty. Foreign painters and sculptors expended on it all their cunning. Peter of Rome set to work on the Confessor's Shrine, where you may still read his name, and made it glow with gold, mosaics and enamels, the like of which could not be found in England. ”

“ On what used to be the altar step of the north aisle stands a baby's cradle—a cradle on real rockers. A gorgeous coverlet, all trimmed with rich guipure lace, falls from the corners of the cradle in splendid, rich folds. The arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland are carved on the back. And when you look under the head of the cradle you see that a baby lies sleeping in it. A darling tiny baby it is—its little wee face set in a close lace cap and lace ruff, under a kind of lace-trimmed hood that forms part of the pillow. ”

“ The double arches and slender pillars which look so beautiful from the ground, are just as interesting when seen close. Hardly two of them are alike; the builders of those days did their work in no grudging spirit: but lavished fresh designs upon every yard.
It is a strange sensation up aloft in this wide gallery, looking down a sheer sixty feet into the Abbey, peeping at the stalls of the choir [Pg 111] peering down the pipes of the organ, watching the people wandering like flies over the pavement below us. But the strangest experience of all is an excursion such as I am describing at night. ”

“ The tiny baby, wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet, was carried with royal pomp into the Abbey. Some of the most splendid and famous personages of the day attended to do honor to the child, and the queen's majesty was godmother.
Who was this baby? Why was all this display and ceremony expended on an infant only five days old?
The little girl was of noble birth. She was daughter of John, Baron Russell, second son of the Earl of Bedford, one of that famous family which has given England some of her best statesmen for hundreds of years. ”

“ Wales, stirred by their trumpet calls, had soon burst aflame to drive the Saxon from the land.
With a succession of victories for the Welsh prince, Llewellyn—the Lord of Snowdon—the hopes of his people had risen high. The dissensions of Henry the Third's reign had strengthened their hands. Llewellyn the younger, no longer calling himself Lord of Snowdon, but "Prince of Wales," had made himself sovereign of all the Welsh chieftains, and had also allied himself with Simon de Montfort during the great earl's revolt against the king. ”

“ The little lad who was twelve years old, came with these treasures to Westminster; and he offered up Llewellyn's crown and the jewels in the Confessor's Chapel, where "they were all applied to adorn the tomb of the blessed King Edward." [18] We can fancy the boy, dressed after the fashion of those days in chain armour from head to foot with a long flowing cloak, accompanied by a great train of knights and nobles, wending his way up the solemn Abbey with his offerings, and gravely hanging up the crown in the Sanctuary of the English Kings. ”

“ And King Edward's journal is still one of the most valuable records of the time. Although it does not exhibit any very original views, this diary shows a strangely impartial spirit. It shows too a good deal of the coldness of the Tudor nature; for one is unpleasantly impressed at finding the young king recording the executions of his two uncles—Somerset and Seymour—with the most stoical indifference; and setting aside the right of his sisters Mary and Elizabeth to the crown, with a hard cold remark that they are "unto us but of the half-blood." ”

“ And in spite of vanities and weaknesses that we are apt nowadays to dwell on all too hardly, she was perhaps the greatest woman that England has ever seen. Her tomb, built by James the First, "of white marble and touchstone from the royal store at Whitehall," is not only a worthy memorial of her, but a token of the peace and goodwill that the great Abbey speaks of to all [Pg 160] who will hear. For by her own desire, Elizabeth was buried in the same grave with her sister Mary, that sister whose very name seems only to bring to mind hatred and persecution, the stake and the fagot. ”

“ In 1660 Cromwell was dead. England was weary of war and revolution—weary of army rule—and when Charles the Second signed the Declaration of Breda on April 4, the English nation was rejoiced to return to its natural government by King and Parliament. The Duke of Gloucester was at Breda when that famous Declaration was signed. He accompanied his brothers to England, and rode on the king's left hand in his triumphal entry into London on May 29.
Henry now proved that in prosperity, as in adversity, his love of work, almost the best gift that any young lad can possess, was as strong as ever. ”

“ The fair ladies, and the gallant cavaliers in their curly wigs and deep Vandyke collars, driving down on the hot summer day to visit their friends, and laugh and talk over the great victory that without doubt they would win—the victory that would restore the king to his throne, and drive the Parliamentarians into the sea. ”

“ And then—but I am speaking of "the days that are no more"—a small figure—unutterably dignified, with a pale, refined, determined face—in his white robes, his scarlet Doctor of Divinity's hood, and the crimson ribbon of the Order of the Bath with its golden jewel round his neck—followed the black-robed verger who carried a silver mace, up from the stalls, through the two walls of human beings, to the marble pulpit just outside the altar rails. ”

“ How has the cunning of man been able to counteract the force of gravity? What keeps them from falling on us as we stand gazing up at the stone miracle, and grinding us to powder? Not only we, but many wise architects have marvelled at that "prodigy of art,"—at the "daring hardihood" which keyed that roof together, every block depending on the next, and the whole structure cohering by the perfection of each minutest part. The very richness of the work, the seemingly lavish tracery, the perforated ornaments behind the spring of the main arches, all help to weld it into one abiding whole. ”

“ It is a piteous sight, however; for the effigy, battered and sorely the worse for wear, is leaning up against the side of the glass cupboard in a most undignified attitude. One would rather think of her as she lies still and stately in the beautiful north aisle.
But we must linger no longer about Elizabeth's effigy or her tomb. We must pass on to the east end of the chapel, and there we shall find the monuments of her two little cousins. ”

“ Poet, philosopher, chivalrous knight errant, grave councillor, what wonder that he was the idol of the whole country? And the story of his death, which we all know, but of which I, for one, never tire, was a fitting close to the thirty-two years of this Bayard without fear and without reproach. He threw away his life to save the army of his queen in Flanders. As he lay dying he called for water. ”

“ Nothing could outwardly have been more happy and successful than the life of Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of a poor Scotch king, raised suddenly to the position of heir to the most prosperous kingdom in Europe. Henry, Duke of Gloucester, on the contrary, was destined to take his share from his earliest childhood in the disasters of his family. ”