Westminster Part 2

His house was called Reed (Red) Pale, and was situated on the north side of the Almonry. A house traditionally called Caxton's was pointed out up to fifty years ago. It is described as being of red brick. In the library of Brasenose College, Oxford, there is a placard in Caxton's largest type inviting people to "come to Westminster in the Almonystrye at the Reed Pale."

Caxton died in 1491, and, with his wife, is buried in St. Margaret's Church. He left one daughter.

A copy of "The Royal Book," or "Book for a King," compiled for Philip of France in 1279, and translated and printed by Caxton at Westminster in 1487, was sold this year in England for 2,225. There are only five copies in existence, one of which was sold in 1901 for 1,550. The other three are in public libraries. Could Caxton have looked onward for 400 years, his astonishment and gratification at these prodigious prices would doubtless have been extreme.

The Almonry, or "Eleemosynary," as Stow calls it, was in two parts, of which the larger was again subdivided in two portions, parallel to the two Tothill Streets. The distribution of the Royal maundy which takes place in Westminster Abbey yearly, with much ceremony, is a reminder of the ancient almsgiving. The address of the present Royal Almonry is 6, Craigs Court.

Henry VII.'s almshouses were in the Little Almonry, and St. Ann's Chapel (p. 23) was at the southern end. King Henry's mother, Margaret, erected an almshouse near the chapel for poor women, which "was afterwards turned into lodgings for the singing men of the College."

A great gatehouse formerly stood at the east end of Victoria Street, close by Dean's Yard. It was built by Richard II., and was very ma.s.sive, resembling a square tower of stone, and it altogether lacked the architectural decoration of the other gateways near King Street to be spoken of presently. Well might it seem gloomy, for it fulfilled the functions of a prison. On one side was the Bishop of London's prison for "Clerks, convict," and in the other were confined prisoners from the City or Liberties of Westminster. Many distinguished prisoners were confined here. Sir Walter Raleigh pa.s.sed the night before his execution within the solid walls, and wrote his farewell to life:

"Even such is Time! that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have; And pays us but with age and dust; Who in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days."

Perhaps the most ill.u.s.trious victim of all those who have perished on English scaffolds is Sir Walter Raleigh. He was brought out to die in Old Palace Yard at eight in the morning of October 29, 1618. The day chosen was Lord Mayor's Day, in the hope that the pageants of the day would draw away the people from witnessing the death of this great man.

The story of his execution is well known. His last words have not been allowed to perish. "Now," he said, as he mounted the scaffold, "I am going to G.o.d." Then, touching the axe, he said: "This is a sharp medicine, but it will cure all diseases." Lady Raleigh herself waited near the scaffold in a coach. The head was placed in a leather bag, wrapped about with Sir Walter's gown, and so she carried it away. She preserved it in a case during the rest of her life, and her son Carew kept it afterwards. It is believed to have been buried at last at West Horsley, in Surrey. The body was buried in St. Margaret's, near the altar.

Here also was imprisoned Colonel Lovelace, who wrote within the gloomy walls the well-known lines:

"When, linnet-like, confined I With shriller note shall sing The mercye, sweetness, majesty, And glories of my King; When I shall voyce aloud how good He is, how great should be, Th' enlarged winds that curl the flood Know no such liberty.

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage: Minds, innocent and quiet, take That for an hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone, that soare above, Enjoy such liberty."

Here were confined, also, Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester; and Sir Jeffrey Hudson, the little dwarf, who was first in the service of the d.u.c.h.ess of Buckingham, and afterwards in that of Queen Henrietta Maria, and was twice painted by Vandyck. Hudson died in the prison. Hampden, Sir John Eliot, and Lilly, the astrologer, were imprisoned at various times, and t.i.tus Oates died in the gatehouse in his sixty-third year. Richard Savage, the poet, adds another name to the list. In 1776 the Dean and Chapter of Westminster ordered that the gatehouse should be pulled down, but one wall, adjoining the house once inhabited by Edmund Burke, was still standing in 1836.

Close by was Thieving Lane, through which thieves were taken to the prison without pa.s.sing by the sanctuary and claiming its immunity.

Within the High Gate was the Abbey Precinct, and with this we pa.s.s into by far the most interesting part of Westminster--that part that may be called the nucleus, round which cl.u.s.ter so many historical memories that the mere task of recording them is very great.

PART III

THE HEART OF WESTMINSTER.

As we, in imagination, pa.s.s through the ancient prison gate, at the east end of Victoria Street, we find on the left Prince's Street, formerly called Long Ditch. His Majesty's Stationery Office stands on the east, a large dull brick building, stuccoed in front, built round a courtyard.

Lewisham Street and Parker Street are long narrow foot-pa.s.sages, running east and west, the latter a cul-de-sac. The tablet on the wall is much worn, but seems to have borne the date "Parker Street, 1621." This is in accordance with the lines of old flat-cas.e.m.e.nted, two-story houses which line each side of the street.

Westminster Hospital originated in 1715 at a small house in Birdcage Walk from which outdoor relief was administered. Five years later the hospital began to receive in-patients, and in 1724 began a new lease of usefulness in a building in Chapel Street with accommodation for sixty in-patients. Nine years after the removal to Chapel Street the hospital was transferred to James Street. This change of position was objected to by part of the governing body, who seceded, and eventually established St. George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner. In 1834 the present building was erected. It was the first to be established by voluntary contributions in London. It is unique in possessing an incurable ward, and in the system of nursing, which is carried out by contract. The leads are utilized as an airing-ground for the patients.

The Guildhall or Sessions House of Middles.e.x is an ancient inst.i.tution.

Previous to 1752 the sessions were held at the Town Court House near Westminster Hall. In 1805 the Guildhall was erected from designs by S.

P. c.o.c.kerell at the spot where the present Gothic fountain is. The present building is on the site of the Sanctuary. A little building of heavy stonework, about sixty feet high, once stood here; it had one door only, of solid oak, covered with iron plates, and this led into a sombre chapel. This was St. Peter's Sanctuary, dedicated to the Holy Innocents, and to it any hunted criminal had the right of entry. Apparently, his pursuers might besiege him without danger of sacrilege, but at any rate he could defy them in tolerable security within those ma.s.sive walls.

There do not seem to be many records of the occasions on which it was used; we do not hear of the quick step and panting breath of the fugitive as he neared that doorway, nor read of the sense of relief with which he shot the bolts into place before he crept up to the roof to peep over the low parapet and see if his enemies were hard upon his heels. Yet these things must have happened again and again. The most touching occasion recorded in history is when the Queen-mother Elizabeth sought refuge here with her younger son Richard and her daughters. It was not a new thing to her to have to seek protection thus. She had been here before, and her elder boy, destined for so short a reign and so cruel a death, had been born within the confines of the prison-like walls. On the second occasion, when the ferocious Richard, Duke of Gloucester, sought to obtain possession of his younger nephew, he respected the limits of sanctuary, but with his plausible tongue he persuaded the Archbishop who accompanied him to consent to his schemes, and he silenced, if he did not a.s.suage, the mother's fears. So the little Richard was taken to die in the Tower with his brother, and small use had sanctuary been to him.

The work of the demolition of this ma.s.sive keep was going on in 1775, but it does not seem to have proceeded regularly; people came and tore away fragments from the walls as they listed, and the gloomy building vanished piecemeal.

By Acts pa.s.sed in the early part of the nineteenth century, part of Long Ditch, Bridge Street, Little George Street, and King Street were cleared away, also Broad and Little Sanctuary, Thieving Lane, and many small courts, and on the s.p.a.ce thus obtained public seats were placed, flower-beds planted, and statues erected.

The statues on the quadrangular piece of ground in the centre are of Peel and Beaconsfield, north and south; Palmerston and Derby on the east. The statue of George Canning is in the western enclosure. Union Street ran due eastward to New Palace Yard, and must have cut very near the place where the statue of Palmerston now stands. The drinking fountain at the corner of Great George Street was put up by Charles Buxton in 1865 in memory of the abolition of the slave trade.

Westminster Abbey, Palace, and City stood formerly upon a small island called Thorney, the Isle of Bramble, a low-lying islet covered with brambles, nowhere more than three or four feet above the level of high-tide formed by the fall of the little river, the Tye, into the Thames. Part of this stream ran down Gardener's Lane; part of it diverged and ran south, forming a narrow moat or ditch called Long Lane, turned eastward at College Street, and so fell into the Thames. The island is mentioned in a charter of 785 by Offa, King of Mercia, as "Tornica, Locus terribilis"--_i.e._, sacred. It was about 1,410 feet long and 1,100 feet broad. It was almost entirely, save for a narrow piece of land on the north, occupied by the King's House and the Abbey.

Both Palace and Abbey were surrounded by walls, one wall being common to both.

The Palace Precinct had three gates: one on the north, one on the east--leading to the Bridge, _i.e._, the jetty where the state barges and the boats lay--and a postern leading into the Abbey. Westminster was at first a large rural manor belonging to the Abbey before the erection of the Palace.

A large part of Thorney Island is still only slightly above the level of high-tide. King Street was 5 feet 6 inches only above high-water mark.

This was the foundation of Westminster. It was a busy place long before London Bridge was built--a place of throng and moil as far back as the centuries before the coming of the Romans. A church was built in the most crowded part of it; monks in leathern jerkins lived beside the church, which lay in ruins for two hundred years, while the pagan Saxon pa.s.sed every day beside it across the double ford. During the two hundred years of war and conquest by the Saxons, Westminster, quite forgotten and deserted, lay with its brambles growing over the Roman ruins, and the weather and ivy pulling down the old walls of villa and stationary camp piecemeal. Perhaps--rather probably--there had been a church upon the island in the third or fourth century. Soon after the conversion of the Saxons another church was erected here with a monastic house. Then there was another destruction and another rebuilding, for this place was deserted by the monks; perhaps they were murdered during the Danish troubles. It was King Edgar who restored the Abbey, to which Dunstan brought twelve monks from Glas...o...b..ry.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

(MRS. A. MURRAY SMITH.)

On the sacred island the last great Prince of the Saxon race, Edward, son of Ethelred the Unready, found Dunstan's little brotherhood of Benedictine monks, who were living in mud huts round a small stone chapel. Out of this insignificant beginning grew a mighty monastery, the West Minster, dowered with royal gifts and ruled over by mitred Abbots, who owned no ecclesiastical authority save that of the Pope, bowed to no secular arm save that of the Sovereign himself. The full t.i.tle of the Abbey, which is seldom used nowadays, is the Collegiate Church of St.

Peter's.

King Edward had vowed, during his long exile in Normandy, that if he ever sat on the throne of his fathers he would go on a pilgrimage to St.

Peter's shrine at Rome. But after his accession the unsettled state of the kingdom made it impossible to keep this vow, and he was absolved from it by the Pope on the condition that he should found or re-endow a monastic church dedicated to St. Peter. This, therefore, was the origin of the great West Minster, and in afterdays the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor within its walls attracted pilgrims here, and made the building a peculiarly sacred one. Here the Sovereigns of England were always crowned, often married, and until the time of George III. usually buried.

The earliest coronation of which there is historic certainty was that of Edward's friend and former protector, the Conqueror, William I. As the last Saxon King of the race of Ethelred was the first Sovereign who was buried at Westminster, so the head of the Norman line of English Kings was the first who was hallowed to the service of G.o.d and of his people on this historic spot. No trace is left of Edward's Norman monastery, save the foundations of some of the pillars and a round arch in the cloisters; but we know that his church was nearly on the same place as the present Abbey, and that the old Norman nave stood for many hundred years joined on to the choir and transepts of the new Early English building, and was pulled down bit by bit as the later church grew. For the beautiful Abbey which we see before us now, in the heart of a busy thoroughfare, is the work, not of one generation, but of five hundred years. The central part was built in the thirteenth century. The Confessor had been canonized by the Pope in 1163, and a century later Henry III., who was a fervent admirer of the saint, caused a splendid shrine to be made by Italian workmen, which was to replace the old one of Henry II.'s time. The new style of pointed architecture was just coming in, and the Abbot of Westminster, Humez, had added a Lady Chapel to the old Norman church when Henry III. was a boy. As the King grew to manhood he saw the contrast between the two styles of architecture, and while the Italian shrine was still only half finished he caused the central part of the Confessor's Norman church to be demolished, and in its place an Early English choir and transepts were gradually constructed during the last twenty-seven years of Henry's reign, with a series of little chapels round the princ.i.p.al one where the shrine was to be placed. In 1269 the new church was ready for service, and the chapel was prepared for the shrine.

The shrine, and within it the Confessor's coffin, still stands in the centre of this royal chapel of St. Edward--a battered wreck, yet bearing traces of its former beauty--and round it is a circle of royal tombs, drawn as by a magnet to the proximity of the royal saint. Henry III., the second founder, is here himself. At his head is his warlike son Edward I., the Hammer of the Scots, with his faithful wife, Eleanor of Castile, at his feet. On the other side are the tombs of another Plantagenet, Edward III., the "mighty victor, mighty lord," and his good Queen, the Flemish Philippa. In a line with them is their handsome, unfortunate grandson Richard II., whose picture hangs beside the altar.

Here also is the Coronation Chair, which encloses the Stone of Scone, and upon this "Seat of Majesty," ever since the time of Edward I., who reft the ancient stone from the Scots, all our Sovereigns have been seated at the moment of their coronation. On the west of the royal chapel a screen depicts the legends of the Confessor's life; on the east is the mutilated tomb of Henry V., the victor of Agincourt; above it the Chantry Chapel, where, after centuries of neglect, rest the remains of his wife, the French Catherine, ancestress of the great Tudor line.

While the different dynasties succeeded one another, the building of the monastery and church went on slowly but surely under different Abbots, the monastic funds helped by gifts of money from the Kings and Queens and from the pilgrims who visited the shrine. Edward I., for instance, continued his father's work from the crossing of the transepts to one bay west of the present organ-screen, while after him Richard II. and Henry V. were the princ.i.p.al benefactors to the fabric. The west end was not reached till early in the sixteenth century, in the reign of Henry VII., when Abbot Islip superintended the completion of the west front and placed in the niches statues of those Kings who had been benefactors. The towers were not built till 1740, after the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, who died before they were finished. The great northern entrance has been called "Solomon's Porch" since the reign of Richard II., who erected a beautiful wooden porch outside the north door. This was destroyed in the thirteenth century, and the end of the north transept was changed into the cla.s.sical style under Dean Atterbury, to whom, it is fair to add, we owe the fine gla.s.s of the rose-window. Within recent years the north front has again been restored on the lines of the original thirteenth-century architecture, and the present sculpture on the porch is from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott; the work was carried out by Mr. John Pearson, who was the Abbey architect at that time.

At the extreme east end, in the place of the Lady Chapel built by Abbot Humez, is the famous chapel called the "Wonder of the World," which was founded and endowed by the first Tudor King, and intended as a place of sepulture for himself and his family. The foundation-stone was laid in the presence of Henry VII. himself and of the great builder, Abbot Islip. The style is Perpendicular, much later than the main portion of the Abbey, and the whole of the exterior and interior is elaborately carved and decorated with stone panelling, the badge of the Royal founder, the Tudor rose, recurring all over the walls. Inside the great feature is the "fan tracery" of the stone roof, which resembles that of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. The windows were once filled with coloured gla.s.s, only a fragment of which remains; and the niches with statues of saints and Kings, many of which were destroyed in early Puritan times, in the reign of Edward VI. In 1725 this chapel was appointed as the place for the installation of the Knights of the Bath, an Order revived by George I., and, although the Knights are now installed at Windsor, the Dean of Westminster remains the official chaplain of the Order.

In the centre of the chapel is the tomb of the founder, Henry VII., and his wife, Elizabeth of York, and on the grille and the gates are the family badges. The tomb of Henry's mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, is in the south aisle; and the effigies of herself, her son and his wife, are fine specimens of the skill of the famous Italian sculptor Torrigiano. Henry's grand-daughters, the Queens Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, lie in the opposite aisle, sisters parted in life but united in death. Many other descendants of the founder lie side by side within the vaults, while the tombs of two of them, Margaret Stuart, Countess of Lennox, and Mary, Queen of Scots, are close to their common ancestress, Lady Margaret, in the south aisle. All the Stuart Sovereigns with the exception of James II. are here, but their only memorials are the wax figures of Charles II., William and Mary, and Anne, in the Islip chantry chapel.

In a small chapel to the east of Henry VII.'s tomb once lay the bodies of the great Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and many of his mighty men, but their bones were dug up after the Restoration, and not allowed to rest in the Royal church. The Hanoverian Sovereigns are represented only by George II. and his Queen, Caroline the Ill.u.s.trious, who rest here, their dust mingled according to the King's desire. Close by lie members of their numerous family and the mother, brothers and sisters of the next King, their grandson, George III. Amongst his relations is that brave General, the Duke of c.u.mberland, whose memory is maligned in the sobriquet "Billy the Butcher."

In the ring of smaller chapels all around the shrine are the tombs of Princes and Princesses, courtiers and Court ladies, warriors and statesmen. Most conspicuous of all, towering over the beautiful Crusaders' monuments, is the vast cenotaph which insults the memory of Wolfe, and not far off is the colossal statue of James Watt.

Outside, the cloisters recall the days of the monastery, when the Abbot sat in state in the east cloister or washed the feet of beggars, and the brethren taught the novices and little schoolboys from the neighbourhood. The architecture there begins in the eleventh century and ends in the fourteenth, when Abbot Litlington finished the building of the monastic offices and cloisters with his predecessor Langham's bequest.

The incomparable chapter-house was built in Henry III.'s time, and restored to some of its original beauty by Sir Gilbert Scott. The modern gla.s.s windows remind us of Dean Stanley and his love for the Abbey-church. The chapter-house belongs, as does the Chapel of the Pyx, to the Government, and is not under the Dean's jurisdiction. There the early Parliaments used to meet. In the south cloister is the door of the old refectory where the monks dined, and a little further on we come to the Abbot's house (now the Deanery), which contained in old days within its limits the "College Hall," where the Westminster schoolboys now have their meals. The Jerusalem Chamber and Jericho Parlour, which were formerly the Abbot's withdrawing-room and guest-chambers, date from the abbacy of Litlington at the end of the fourteenth century. To all lovers of Shakespeare the Jerusalem Chamber is familiar as the place where Henry IV. was carried when he fell stricken with a mortal illness before the shrine, and where Henry V. fitted on his father's crown. In this room in our own days the Revisers of the Bible used to meet.

If we pa.s.s back into the nave by the west door, we shall see the names of statesmen, of naval and military heroes, on every side. Huge monstrosities of monuments surround us and grow in bulk as we pa.s.s up the musicians' aisle and reach the north transept, called the Statesmen's Corner. If we pause and glance around, striving to forget the outer sh.e.l.l, and to think only of the n.o.ble men commemorated, we shall remember much to make us proud of England's heroes and worthies.

Above the west door stands young William Pitt pointing with outstretched arm towards the north transept, where we shall find his venerable father, Lord Chatham. Almost beneath his feet is the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury, and near to him is a white slave kneeling before the statue of Charles James Fox, whose huge monument hides the humbler tablet to another zealous opponent of the slave trade, Zachary Macaulay. We must pause here an instant to gaze upon the bronze medallion head of General Gordon, the martyr of the Soudan, an enthusiast also in the suppression of slavery; and as we walk up the nave we must look for the slab of Livingstone, whose remains were brought to their final resting-place over deserts and trackless wildernesses by his faithful black servants.

On the right, in Little Poets' Corner, is to be found the chief of the Lake poets, William Wordsworth. Here also is Dr. Arnold, the noted Headmaster of Rugby, his son Matthew, poet and critic, and beside them Keble, Kingsley and Maurice.

The makers of our Indian Empire are about us now. Outram, the "Bayard of India," lies between Lord Lawrence and Lord Clyde; while in the north transept are earlier pioneers, the faithful naval, military, and civil servants of the great East India Company. On each side of the screen are two ponderous monuments which cannot escape the notice of the most casual sightseer; these commemorate Lord Stanhope, a General whose early reputation ranked next to that of Marlborough in Spain, and the immortal philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton. Purcell, chief among English musicians, claims our notice in the choir aisle, and we pa.s.s on surrounded by other musicians, by sailors and soldiers, until we stand in the very midst of the statesmen. It may be we have come to the Abbey in the spring, when we shall see the statue of Lord Beaconsfield literally covered with primroses. The Cannings, Sir Robert Peel in his Roman toga, Lord Palmerston, and many other statesmen, are here, and our feet tread on the grave of Gladstone as we pa.s.s towards the other transept, hastening to the company of the poets and men of letters.