Westminster Part 3

The south transept has only been called Poets' Corner since the burial of Spenser, who was the darling of his generation. But the grave of Chaucer, "the father of English poetry," had consecrated the aisle to poetry long before. Chaucer was not given honourable sepulture here because he was a poet, but only from the accidental fact that he happened to be Clerk of the Works at Westminster Palace, and lived near the old Lady Chapel. For 250 years the great poet's only memorial was a leaden plate hanging on a column close by, but in 1551 a devoted admirer, himself a versifier, Nicholas Brigham, placed an ancient tomb here in memory of the master, with a fancy painting of Chaucer at the back. Before this monument are the graves of the two most famous poets of our generation, the Laureate Tennyson and Robert Browning, side by side. Above them is the beautiful bust of another Poet Laureate, Dryden, and the less artistic portrait bust of the American poet Longfellow.

The walls of the Poets' Corner are literally covered with memorials of men of letters. Many of these are but names to us at the present day, but some are familiar; others, such as "Rare Ben Jonson," Butler, the author of "Hudibras," Thomas Gray, Spenser, and Goldsmith, are household words throughout the Empire. Beneath our feet lie Sheridan and old Dr.

Johnson.

The tardy memorials to Milton and Shakespeare eclipse the fame of all the rest. Quite recently busts of the Scotch bard Robert Burns, the poet-novelist Walter Scott, and a medallion head of the artistic prose writer and critic John Ruskin, have been placed here. Music is not unrepresented, for above us is the unwieldy figure of Handel, and beneath his feet a memorial to the Swedish nightingale, Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, whose perfect rendering of the master's airs will ever remain in the memory of those who were privileged to hear her. Further on is the historical side, where the chief prose writers are to be found; the venerable Camden is close to Grote and Bishop Thirlwall, historians whose bodies rest in one grave. The busts of Lord Macaulay and of Thackeray are on each side of Addison's statue, and beneath the pavement in front of them is the tombstone of the ever-popular Charles d.i.c.kens. David Garrick stands in close proximity to the grave of the dramatist Davenant, while scattered in various parts of the Abbey and cloisters will be found the names of other actors and actresses, notably Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John Kemble.

It is impossible in a few paragraphs to do more than allude to the history of the Abbey, and of the dead whose names are commemorated, or whose bodies rest within this great "Temple of Silence and Reconciliation." Let us conclude this brief sketch with the pregnant and pathetic words of the young playwriter John Beaumont, whose bones are mouldering beside those of Chaucer:

"Mortality, behold and fear!

What a change of flesh is here!

Think how many royal bones Sleep within these heaps of stones.

Here they lie had realms and lands Who now want strength to stir their hands.

... Here are sands, ign.o.ble things Dropt from the ruined sides of kings; Here's a world of pomp and state, Buried in dust once dead by fate."

ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.

St. Margaret's Church is traditionally said to have been founded by Edward the Confessor, and that there was certainly a church here before 1140 is proved by its being mentioned in a grant of Abbot Herebert, who died in that year. It was originally a chapel in the south aisle of the church of the Benedictine monks, and was rebuilt to a great extent in Edward I.'s reign. Further alterations were made in the time of Edward IV. In 1735 the tower was raised and faced with stone, and in 1758 the east end was rebuilt and the present stained gla.s.s inserted. A famous case between Sir Thomas Grosvenor and the family of Scrope concerning the rights of a heraldic device which either claimed was heard in St.

Margaret's, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, gave evidence. In 1549 Latimer preached in the church. The Protector Somerset, at the time he was building his great mansion in the Strand, had used a good deal of the ruins of religious houses, and still wanted more material. He therefore cast his unholy eyes upon St. Margaret's in order that he might use its time-worn stones for his own purposes, but he was resisted by the people of Westminster, who arose in their wrath and smote his workmen hip and thigh.

On Palm Sunday in 1713 the great Dr. Sacheverell preached in the church after the term of his suspension, and no less than 40,000 copies of his sermon were sold. The church was for long peculiarly a.s.sociated with the House of Commons, as when the members began to sit in St. Stephen's Chapel they attended Divine service in St. Margaret's, while the Lords went to the Abbey. Edmund Waller, the poet, was married in St.

Margaret's to Anne Banks on July 5, 1631, and John Milton to Katherine Woodc.o.c.k in November, 1656. A son of Sir Walter Raleigh's is buried in the church, and also Colonel Blood. Children of Judge Jeffreys: Bishop Burnet, t.i.tus Oates and Jeremy Bentham were christened here. Besides Latimer and Sacheverell the list of great preachers in St. Margaret's is long, including many Archbishops and Bishops, and the roll of Rectors contains many distinguished names. A man who occupies the pulpit must feel he has high tradition to uphold.

The interior of St. Margaret's is far superior to the exterior, a reversal of what is usual in church architecture. The splendid arcades of aisle arches, early Perpendicular, or transition from Decorated to the Perpendicular style, are uninterrupted by any chancel arch, and with the clerestory windows sweep from end to end of the building. The east window is filled with stained gla.s.s of the richest tints, the blues and greens being particularly striking. This gla.s.s has a history. It was made at Gouda in Holland, and was a present from the magistrates of Dort to Henry VIII. for the chapel of Whitehall Palace. The King, however, gave it to Waltham Abbey (doubtless in exchange for something else). The gla.s.s suffered many removals and vicissitudes, being at one time buried to escape Puritan zeal, but it was eventually bought by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's for 400 guineas. The aisle windows, with one exception, to be noted presently, are the work of Sir Gilbert Scott at the last restoration, just before 1882. He designed the tracery in accordance with what he conceived to have been the date of the church; but when his work was finished a single window, that furthest east in the south aisle, was discovered walled up, and the style of this showed that his surmise had not been far wrong, though the period he had chosen was a little later. The gla.s.s in several of the windows is of interest. That at the east end of the south aisle is the Caxton window, put up 1820 by the Roxburghe Club, as was also the tablet below. That in the window in the centre, west end, is in memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, near at hand. It was put in by Americans about twenty years ago. Raleigh's tablet, with an inscription copied from the old wooden one which dated from the time of his death, is near the east entrance. The Milton window, also due to the generosity of an American, is on the north side of the Raleigh one. One of especial interest to Americans is that to Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Ma.s.sachusetts, near the vestry door. There are many others deserving of notice.

The general tint of all the gla.s.s is rich and subdued, with a predominance of yellow and sepia strangely effective. Of monuments there are many--they may be examined in detail on the spot; the oldest is that to Cornelius Van Dun, a dark stone medallion with a man's head in bas-relief on the north wall. Van Dun was Yeoman of the Guard and Usher to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. A quaint one near it is to "Egioke," died 1622. The most elaborate monument in the church is that to Mary, Lady Dudley, sister to the famous Lord Howard of Effingham. This is the life-sized figure of a woman in alabaster, highly coloured; it stands near the vestry door. Above it is a relic that many might pa.s.s unnoticed; it is the figure of a woman about two-thirds life-size standing in an ancient rood door. The statue was found built up in the wall by a workman who struck his pick into the coloured stuff, and called attention to the fact. The figure is either that of the Virgin or St. Margaret. It has been carefully put together, but the head is lacking. Puritan zeal had evidently to do with its concealment.

Puritan zeal, too, was answerable for the destruction of a magnificent tomb to Dame Billing, a benefactress who rebuilt the south aisle of the church about 1499.

The churchwardens of St. Margaret's hold a valuable old loving-cup, presented 1764, and a tobacco-box purchased at Horn Fair for fourpence, and presented to the overseers by a Mr. Monck in 1713. Each succeeding set of overseers has added to the decoration of the box or given it a new case, and many of these are beautifully engraved; on the inside of the original lid Hogarth engraved on a silver plate the bust of the Duke of c.u.mberland of Culloden celebrity, and the whole set is now of great value and is quite unique. The door of the church opposite the Houses of Parliament is open daily from eleven till two.

WESTMINSTER SCHOOL.

Outside the archway leading to Dean's Yard there is a granite column to the memory of the Westminster boys who fell in the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny. It was designed by Gilbert Scott, R.A. Scott was also the architect of the houses over the archway close at hand. The school has been long and intimately a.s.sociated with the Abbey; there was probably a scholastic establishment carried on by the monks from the very earliest days, and recent discoveries by Mr. Edward Scott in the Abbey muniments prove that there was a grammar school--and not only a choir school--in existence before the Reformation. On the dissolution of the Abbey in Henry VIII.'s reign, it was formed into a college of Secular Canons, and the school was in existence then in dependence on the Canons. Queen Elizabeth remodelled her father's scheme and refounded the school, calling it St. Peter's College, Westminster, which is still its correct designation; so that, though the present establishment owes its origin to Queen Elizabeth, it may be said to have inherited the antiquity of its predecessor, and to hold its own in that matter with Winchester and Eton.

If we pa.s.s under the archway into Dean's Yard, we find a backwater indeed, where the roar of traffic scarcely penetrates, where sleek pigeons coo in the elm-trees round a gra.s.s plot, as if they were in the close of one of the sleepiest of provincial towns instead of in the midst of one of the greatest cities in the world. On the east side there is a long building of smoke-blackened, old stone. The door at the north end leads into the cloisters, from whence we can pa.s.s into the school courtyard, otherwise the school entry is by a pointed doorway a little further down, beneath the Headmaster's house. Entering this, we have on the left Ashburnham House, on the right the houses of masters who take boarders, and opposite, a fine gateway with the arms of Queen Elizabeth over it; this is said to have been designed by Inigo Jones. The greater part of the buildings was designed by Wren, who died before the project was carried out, but there seems to be little doubt that the Earl of Burlington, who followed him in the appointment, used Wren's plans. The great square building, the scholars' dormitory (now cubicles), which faces us, standing a little way to the right of the ornamental gateway, is of this period; also much of the main building into which we enter by the gateway above mentioned, and a flight of steps. The seventh form room on the right has a fine ceiling of Italian plaster and bookcases with carved panels. This is known as Dr. Busby's Library, because built by him. It looks out over the college garden.

The great schoolroom beyond, known as Up-School, is a splendid room, with mighty beams in its fine timber roof, and panels with the arms of Westminster boys now dead on the walls. The bar over which the pancake is tossed on Shrove Tuesday is pointed out, and a very great height it is. At the upper end of the room, which, by the way, is now used only for prayers, concerts, etc., is the birching-table, black and worn with age and use. Dryden's name, carved on a bench, is shown, and a chair presented by King Charles to Dr. Busby. The walls date originally from the twelfth century or earlier, but were practically rebuilt in the end of the eighteenth century. The only part of the college buildings which formed part of the original school is the college hall, built by Abbot Litlington in 1380 as the monks' refectory. But by far the oldest part of the buildings at present incorporated in the school is the Norman crypt, approached from the dark cloister, and forming part of the gymnasium made by the Chapter in 1860, by roofing in the walls beyond it, between it and the Chapter-house. A stranger gymnasium, surely, no school can boast.

The name of Dr. Busby, Headmaster from 1638 to 1695, will be for ever held in honour at Westminster. He himself had been a Westminster boy, and all his great ability and strong character were bent to furthering the interests of the school.

The roll of names of those educated at Westminster includes Dryden, Bishop Atterbury, Cowley, Warren Hastings, Gibbon, Thomas Cowper, Charles Wesley, Lord John Russell, and many others well known wherever the English tongue is spoken.

In 1706 there were nearly 400 boys, but after this the school began to decline; in 1841 it was at a very low ebb--there were less than seventy boys. The reasons for this decline were manifold. Building had been going on apace round the quiet precincts, and parents fancied their sons would be better in the country; also, though the charges were high, the system of living was extremely rough, and no money was spent on repairing the buildings. In 1845, when Wilberforce was appointed Dean, he set to work to inspire fresh life into the inst.i.tution, but he had hardly time to do anything before he was appointed to the See of Oxford; however, the current set flowing by him gathered strength, and in 1846, when Liddell (afterwards Dean of Christchurch) was made Headmaster, the school was recovering its prosperity.

Ashburnham House was taken over by the school in 1882, and it is well worth a visit. In the hall where the day boys have their lockers there is a very old b.u.t.tery hatch, probably part of the monks' original building; at the back the little green garden is the site of the refectory, and traces of Norman windows are seen against the exterior cloister wall. The staircase in Ashburnham House is very fine; it is of the "well" variety, and is surmounted by a cupola with a little gallery.

The walls are all panelled; unfortunately, paint has been laid on everything alike, and though the bal.u.s.ters have been recently uncovered, the process is difficult and laborious, and apt to injure the carving.

The carving round the doorways is very fine, of the laurel-wreath pattern a.s.sociated with the period of Wren. The house belonged to Lord Ashburnham, and was later used by the Prebendaries of the cathedral. The school is no longer in any sense dependent on the Abbey, and except that the boys attend the services there as "chapel," the old ties are severed. A great feature of the school are the King's (or Queen's) Scholars, founded by Elizabeth; of these there are now forty resident and twenty non-resident. There are three scholars.h.i.+ps and three exhibitions yearly at Christ Church, Oxford, for Westminster boys, and three exhibitions at Trinity College, Oxford. There are at present (1902) about two hundred and thirty boys in the school. The Latin play, which is well known in connection with the school, is acted by the King's Scholars annually in the middle of December, and dates back to 1704.

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.

The annals of New Palace Yard are long and interesting. It looks so new and modern, with its Houses of Parliament, and its iron railings, that one forgets how ancient a place it is. What stood on the site of Westminster Hall before William Rufus built it we know not, but certainly some buildings belonging to the Old Palace of c.n.u.t and Edward the Confessor. It was called, however, New Palace Yard on account of the buildings erected by William and his successors. It was enclosed by a wall which had three gates. The water-gate was on the site of the present bridge, while the Star Chamber occupied very nearly the site of the present Clock Tower. The yard was further beautified by a fountain, which on great days flowed with wine; this fountain, which was taken down in the reign of Charles II., stood on the north side. On the same side behind the fountain was the "Clochard," or Clock Tower. This fine building was erected by Sir Ralph Hingham, Lord Chief Justice under Edward I., in payment of a fine of 800 marks imposed upon him by the King for having altered a court roll. It was done in mercy, in order to change a poor man's fine of 12s. 4d. to 6s. 8d., but a court roll must not be altered. The care of the clock was granted to the Dean of St.

Stephen's, with an allowance of sixpence a day. The bell, very famous in its day, was large and sonorous; it could be heard all over London when the wind was south-west. It was first called Edward, and bore this legend:

"Tercius aptavit me Rex Edward que vocavit Sancti decore Edwardi signerentur ut h.o.r.e."

When the Clock Tower, the "Clochard," was taken down in 1698, the bell called "Tom" was found to weigh 82 cwt. 2 qrs. 211 lb. It was bought by the Dean of St. Paul's. As it was being carried to the City, it fell from the cart in crossing the very boundary of Westminster, viz., under Temple Bar. In 1716 it was recast, and presently placed in the western tower of St. Paul's.

In Palace Yard Perkin Warbeck sat in the stocks before the gate of Westminster Hall for a whole day, enduring innumerable reproaches, mockings and scornings.

Here John Stubbs, the Puritan, an attorney of Lincoln's Inn, and Robert Page, his servant (December 3, 1580), had their hands struck off for a libel on the Queen, called "The Gaping Gulph, in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage." What part the unfortunate servant played that he, too, should deserve a punishment so terrible is difficult to say. On March 2, 1585, William Parry was drawn from the Tower and hanged and quartered here. And in January, 1587, one Thomas Lovelace, sentenced by the Star Chamber for false accusations, was carried on horseback about Westminster Hall, his face to the tail; he was then pilloried, and had one of his ears cut off. The execution, in 1612, of Lord Sanquire for the murder of a fencing-master, and of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel, on March 9, 1649, for so-called treason, took place in New Palace Yard. Here in 1630 Alexander Leighton was whipped, pilloried and branded for a libel on the Queen and the Bishops. In May, 1685, t.i.tus Oates was stripped of his ecclesiastical robes and led round Westminster Hall; afterwards he was put in the pillory. The printer of the famous "No. 45" of the _North Briton_ also stood in the pillory in New Palace Yard in 1765.

In the Old Palace Yard, now covered by buildings, were fought out certain ordeals of battle. Here was held at least one famous tournament, that in which the two Scottish prisoners, the Earl Douglas and Sir William Douglas, bore themselves so gallantly that the King restored them to liberty on their promise not to fight against the English.

One memory of Old Palace Yard must not be forgotten. Geoffrey Chaucer lived during his last year at a house adjoining the White Rose Tavern ab.u.t.ting on the Lady Chapel of the Abbey. The house was swept away to make room for Henry VII.'s chapel. Nor must we forget that Ben Jonson lived and died in a house over the gate or pa.s.sage from the churchyard to the old palace. In the south-east corner of Old Palace Yard stood the house hired by the Gunpowder Plot conspirators for the conveyance of the barrels into the vault. And it was in Old Palace Yard that four of them suffered death.

The whole of the ground now occupied by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Hall and New Palace Yard was formerly covered with the walls, gates, tower, state chambers, private chambers, offices, stables, gardens, and outhouses, of the King's House, Westminster. Until sixty years ago, when fire finally destroyed them, still stood on this spot many of the buildings, altered and reroofed, repaired, and with changed windows and new decorations, of Edward the Confessor, and perhaps of Knut. Still under these modern houses the ground is covered with the old cellars, vaults and crypts, which it was found safer and cheaper to fill with cement than to break up and carry away.

It is at present impossible to present a plan of the King's House such as it was when Edward the Confessor occupied it; we can, however, draw an incomplete plan of the place later on, say in the fourteenth century.

The palace was walled, but not moated; it had two princ.i.p.al gates, one opening to the north, and another on the river. The circuit of the wall only included twelve acres and a half, and into this compa.s.s had to be crowded in Plantagenet times the King's and Queen's state and private apartments, and accommodation for an immense army of followers, and also for all the craftsmen and artificers required by the Court. The total number of persons thus housed in the fourteenth century is reckoned at 20,000. The part of the King's House thus occupied, the narrow streets of gabled houses, with tourelles at the corners, and much gilded and carved work, has vanished completely, even to the memory. When King Henry VIII. removed to the palace at Whitehall a new Westminster arose about his old Court; this in its turn almost vanished with the fire of 1834. Up to this time some of the old buildings remained, but have now completely gone. Among them were the Painted Chamber, the Star Chamber, the old House of Lords, and Princes' Chamber, all part of Edward the Confessor's palace. In the Painted Chamber the Confessor himself died, but it is manifestly impossible to give here any minute account of the chambers in the ancient building.

The crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel (not shown to visitors) is one of the few parts remaining which dates from before the fire. The chapel is said to have been first built by the King whose name it bore, but was rebuilt by Edward I. and greatly altered by his two immediate successors. It was used for the sittings of the House of Commons after Edward VI.'s reign. At the end of the seventeenth century it was much altered by Wren, but it perished in 1834. A small chapel on the south side was called Our Lady of the Pew. The oldest part of the ancient palace remaining is Westminster Hall, built by William Rufus as a part of a projected new palace. He held his Court here in 1099, and, on hearing a remark on the vastness of his hall, he declared that it would be only a bedroom to the palace when finished. However, he himself had to occupy much narrower quarters before he could carry out his scheme.

Richard II. raised the hall and gave it the splendid hammer-beam roof, one of the finest feats in carpentry extant. George IV. refaced the exterior of the hall with stone.

In the eighteenth century the Courts of Justice (Chancery and King's Bench) were held here, and as the hall was also lined with shops, and the babble and walking to and fro were incessant, it is not wonderful that justice was sometimes left undone. It would be difficult--nay, impossible--to tell in detail all the strange historic scenes enacted in Westminster Hall in the limited s.p.a.ce at disposal, and as they are all concerned rather with the nation than with Westminster, mere mention of the princ.i.p.al ones will be enough. Henry II. caused his eldest son to be crowned in the hall in his own lifetime, at which ceremony the young Prince disdainfully a.s.serted he was higher in rank than his father, having a King for father and a Queen for mother, whereas his father could only claim blood royal on the mother's side.

Edward III. here received King John of France, brought captive by the Black Prince. In 1535 Sir Thomas More was tried here; later there were many trials, the greatest of which was that of King Charles I., followed by that of the regicides, brought to justice and the fruit of their crimes in a way they had not expected when they took prominent parts in the first great drama. Cromwell's head was stuck upon the southern gable of the hall, where it remained for twenty years. The trial of the Seven Bishops caused great excitement, that of Lords Kenmure and Derwent.w.a.ter hardly less. Lord Byron was tried in Westminster Hall, and every child has heard of the arraignment of Warren Hastings. Surely, if ever a building had memories of historic dramas, played upon its floor as on a stage, it is Rufus's great hall at Westminster.

Parliament was first called to Westminster in Edward I.'s reign. The Commons sat for 300 years in the Abbey Chapter-house, then for 300 years more in St. Stephen's Chapel. In 1790 a report on the buildings declared them to be defective and in great danger of fire, a prophecy fulfilled in 1834. On the evening of October 16 in that year the wife of a doorkeeper saw a light under one of the doors, and gave an alarm. The place was made for a bonfire; a strong wind blowing from the south, and afterwards south-west, drove the flames along the dried woodwork and through the draughty pa.s.sages. As the flames got a stronger and stronger hold, the scene from the further bank of the river was magnificent.

Until three o'clock the next day the fire raged, and Westminster Hall and the crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel alone survived the wreck. The cause of the fire is said to have been the heating of the flues by some workmen burning a quant.i.ty of tallies or ancient notched sticks.

The present Houses of Parliament, built after the fire from Sir Charles Barry's designs, have been the cause of much of that criticism which is applied to the work of some people by others who certainly could not do so well themselves. The material used is magnesian limestone, which, unfortunately, has not worn well; and the erection took seventeen years (1840-57). On Sat.u.r.day afternoons the door under the Victoria Tower, south end, is open, and anyone may walk through the princ.i.p.al rooms.

This is well worth doing, though what is to be seen is mostly modern.

What will chiefly astonish strangers is the smallness of the House of Commons.

The Clock Tower, 316 feet high, containing Big Ben, and standing at the north end of the present Houses of Parliament, is a notable object, and a landmark for miles around. Ben was called after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was First Commissioner of Works at the time he was brought into being.

Bridge Street was formed at the building of the bridge, and is almost on the site of the Long Woolstaple.

In the reign of King Edward III., in the year 1353, Westminster was made one of the ten towns in England where the staple or market for wool might be held. This had formerly been held in Flanders, and the removal of the market to England brought a great increase to the Royal revenue, for on every sack exported the King received a certain sum. Pennant says: "The concourse of people which this removal of the Woolstaple to Westminster occasioned caused this Royal village to grow into a considerable town."

Henry VI. held six wool-houses in the Staple, which he granted to the Dean and Canons of St. Stephen's.

Walcott says: "On the north side of the Long Staple was a turning in a westerly direction leading into the Round Staple, at the south-east end of the present King Street." This must have been on the site of the present Great George Street. An attempt was made to establish a fish-market here in compet.i.tion with Billingsgate, but the pre-established interest was too strong and the fish-market was abandoned.