1 except Anne of Cleves, and hers but half a one.' Here hangs the famous Portrait of Richard II., 'the oldest contemporary representation of an English sovereign' (beautifully restored by Richmond), which long hung in the Jerusalem Chamber, but had been removed thither from its present position. That beautiful picture of a king sighing,' says Weever (1631), 'crowned in a chaire of estate, at the upper end of the quire in this church, is said to be of Richard II., which witnesseth how goodly a creature he was in outward lineaments.' The portrait represents a pale delicate face, with a long, thin, weak, drooping mouth and curling hair. 'Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face Richard II., Act iv. sc. 1. A piece of tapestry now hangs here which was brought from Westminster School; the tapestries which adorned the choir in the seventeenth century represented the story of Hugolin and the robber.2 In 1378 this choir was the scene of a crime which recalls the murder of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Two knights, Schakell and Hawle, who fought with the Black Prince in Spain, had taken prisoner a Spanish Count, whom they compelled to the duties of a valet. The delivery of this prisoner was demanded by John of Gaunt, who claimed the crown of Castile in right of his wife. The knights refused, and fled into the sanctuary. Thither Sir Alan Buxhall, Constable of the Tower, and Sir Ralph Ferrars, with fifty armed men, pursued them. For greater safety the knights fled into the very choir itself, where high mass was being celebrated; but as the deacon reached the words in the Gospel of the day, ‘If the goodman of the house had known what time the thief would appear,' their assailants burst in. Schakell escaped, but Hawle fled round and round the choir, pursued by his enemies, and at length fell covered with wounds at the foot of the Prior's stall: his servant and one of the monks were slain with him. This flagrant violation of sanctuary occasioned unspeakable horror. The culprits were excommunicated and heavily fined, the desecrated Abbey was closed for four months, and Parliament was not permitted to sit within the polluted precincts. Windows have recently been erected in the Abbey to Chaucer; to Robert Stephenson, in 1862; Joseph Locke, 1863; J. K. Brunel, 1865; Sir J. W. Siemens, 1884; Richard Trevethick, 1888-engineers; to the poets Herbert and Cowper, 1876; and the musicians, V. Novello, 1863; and J. Turle, 1882. 1 Katherine Parr, buried at Sudeley Castle, has a modern monument of the greatest beauty. 2 See Weever, Funeral Monuments. F A door at the eastern angle of Poet's Corner is the approach to the noble Crypt under the Chapter House. There is a short massive round pillar in the centre, from which eight simple groins radiate over the roof. The pillar has two cavities, supposed to have been used as hiding-places for treasures of the church. Six small windows give light to the crypt. On the east is a recess for an altar, with an ambry on one side and a piscina on the other. This vault was once used as the Treasury of the Royal Wardrobe. The southern bay of the South Transept was formerly partitioned off as the Chapel of St. Blaise. Dart mentions that its entrance was 'enclosed with three doors, the inner cancellated; the middle, which is very thick, lined with skins like parchment, and driven full of nails. These skins, they, by tradition, tell us, were some skins of the Danes, tanned and given here as a memorial of our delivery from them.' Only one of the doors remains now, but the others existed within the memory of man, and traces of them are still visible. Owen Tudor, uncle of Henry VII. and son of Queen Katherine de Valois, who became a monk in the Abbey, was buried in the Chapel of St. Blaise, with Abbot Litlington, 1386, and Benson, who was first abbot and then dean, 1549. Beneath the monument of Oliver Goldsmith is the entrance to the Old Revestry, or Chapel of St. Faith, which is a very lofty and picturesque chamber, half passage, half chapel. An enormous buttress following the line of the pillars in the transept cuts off the tracery of the arches on the south. At the western end is a kind of bridge, by which the monks descended from the dormitory, entering the church by a winding staircase, which was probably removed to make way for the Duke of Argyll's monument.1 Over the altar is a figure shown by Abbot Ware's 'Customs of the Abbey' to have been intended to represent St. Faith; below is a small representation of the Crucifixion, and on one side a kneeling monk, with the lines 'Me, quem culpa gravis premit, erige, Virgo suavis, which has led to the belief that the painting was the penitential offering of a monk, Hence (if the door is open 2) we can enter the beautiful portico leading from the Cloisters to the Chapter House, finished in 1253; the original paving remains; it is deeply worn by the feet of the monks. Here is buried Abbot Byrcheston (1349), who died of the plague called the Black Death, with twenty-six of his monks. Here also a group of persons connected with the earliest history of the Abbey were buried-King Sebert and Queen Ethelgoda (or Actelgod), who lay here before they were moved to the choir, with Ricula, the king's sister; Hugolin, the treasurer of Edward the Confessor; Edwin, the first abbot; and Sulcardus, the monk who 1 Sir G. Scott's Gleanings. 2 If not, go round by the Cloisters. was the first historian of the Abbey.1 Flete gives the epitaph which hung over Edwin's grave 'Iste locellus habet bina cadavera claustro; Uxor Seberti, prima tamen minima; On the left of the steps is a Roman stone coffin bearing an inscription saying that it was made for Valerius Amandinus by his two sons. A cross on the lid and traces of a cope show that it was afterwards appropriated for an ecclesiastic. It was found on the north side of the Abbey, near St. Margaret's. On the pedestal between the doors of the portico stood a beautiful statuette of the Virgin, and on the central boss of the cloister there still remains the pulley for the rope by which the lamp which burnt before it was raised. The Chapter House of Westminster, which is the largest in England except that of Lincoln, was built by Henry III. in 1250, upon the ancient crypt of the Chapter House of Edward the Confessor. Matthew Paris (1250) says of Henry III., 'Dominus Rex aedificavit capitulum incomparabile,' and at the time it was built there was nothing to be compared to it. Hither his grand-daughter, Eleanor, Duchess of Bar, eldest daughter of Edward I., was brought from France for burial in 1298. Here the monks, at least once a week, assembled to hold their chapters, in which all the affairs of the monastery were discussed. The abbot and the four chief officers took their seats in the ornamented stalls opposite the entrance, the monks on the stone benches round. In front of the stalls criminals were tried, and, if found guilty, were publicly flogged against the central pillar of Purbeck marble (35 feet high), which was used as a whipping-post. 'It is the house of confession, the house of obedience, mercy, and forgiveness; the house of unity, peace, and tranquillity, where the brethren make satisfaction for their faults.'-Abbot Ware, 'Custumal.' But the monks had not sole possession of the Chapter House, for, after the Houses of Lords and Commons were separated, in the reign of Edward I., the House of Commons began to hold its sittings here, and continued to hold them, sometimes in the Refectory, but generally in the Chapter House, till 1547. This chamber has therefore witnessed the principal acts which have been the foundation of the civil and religious liberties of England. The Speaker probably occupied the abbot's stall, and the members the benches of the monks and the floor of the house. The placards of the business of the house were affixed to the central pillar, against which was laid the Black Book of the evidence against the monasteries, which led to their dissolution. Among the special assemblies convened here was that of Henry V., who in 1421 summoned sixty 1 His MS. is in the Cottonian Library. abbots and priors and three hundred monks to discuss the reform of the Benedictine Order, and that of Wolsey, who in 1523, as Cardinal Legate, summoned the Convocations of Canterbury and York to a spot where they might be beyond the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Here also the Protestant martyrs, Bilney and Barnes, were condemned to be burnt. The last Parliament which sat here was on the last day of the life of Henry VIII., when the Act of Attainder was passed on the Duke of Norfolk; and here, while it was sitting, must the news have been brought in that the terrible king was dead. 'Within the Chapter House must have been passed the first Clergy Discipline Act, the first Clergy Residence Act, and, chief of all, the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Submission. Here, to acquiesce in that Act, met the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. On the table in this Chapter House must have been placed the famous Black Book, which sealed the fate of all the monasteries of England, including the Abbey of Westminster close by, and which struck such a thrill of horror through the House of Commons when they heard its contents.'Dean Stanley. The Chapter House passed to the Crown at the dissolution of the monastery, and seven years afterwards the House of Commons removed to St. Stephen's Chapel in the palace of Westminster. From that time the Chapter House was used as a Record Office, and its walls were disfigured and its area blocked up by bookcases. In 1865, after the removal of the Records to the Rolls House, the restoration of the building was begun under Sir Gilbert Scott. The Chapter House is now almost in its pristine beauty. The roof is rebuilt. All the windows have been restored from the one specimen which remained intact, and are filled with stained glass, in accordance with a scheme drawn up by Dean Stanley, and as a memorial to him. They are remarkable for their early introduction of quatrefoils, and are shown by the bills to have been completed in 1253, before the completion of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, which is the same in style. Over the entrance is a throned figure of the Saviour, replacing one which is known to have existed there: the figures at the sides, representing the Annunciation, are ancient, and, though stiff, are admirable. Many of the ancient wall-paintings are preserved. Those at the east end, representing the seraphs around the Throne-on which our Lord is seated with hands held up and chest bared to show the sacred wounds-are of the fourteenth century. The niches on each side of the central one are occupied by six winged cherubim, the feathers of their wings having peacocks' eyes, to carry out the idea, 'They are full of eyes within.' On one of them the names of the Christian virtues are written on the feathers of the wings.1 The other paintings round the walls, representing scenes from the Revelation of St. John, are of the latter part of the fifteenth century, and are all traced to a monk of the convent-John of Northampton. The tiles of the floor, with their curious heraldic emblems, are ancient. A glass case is filled with ancient deeds belonging to the history of 1 See Sir G. Scott's Gleanings from Westminster Abbey. the Abbey, including a grant of Offa, king of the Mercians, 785; and of King Edgar, 951-962; and the Charter of Edward the Confessor dated on the day of Holy Innocents, 1065. Another case contains fragments of tombs and other relics found in the Abbey. The Cloisters are of different dates, from the time of the Confessor to that of Edward III. The central space was a burial-ground for the monks. The abbots were buried in the arcades, but these were also a centre of monastic life, and in the western cloister the Master of the Novices kept a school 'which was the first beginning of Westminster School.' In the southern cloister the operations of washing were carried on at the 'lavatory,' and here also, by the rules of the convent, the monks were compelled to have their heads shared by the monastic barber-once a fortnight in summer and once in three weeks in winter. "The approach to the Abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The grey walls are discoloured by damp, and crumbling with age: a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the several monuments, and obscured the death's heads and other funeral emblems. The roses which adorned the keystones have lost their leafy beauty: everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidation of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very decay.'-Washington Irving, 'The Sketch Book.' In the East Cloister (built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) the great feature is the beautiful double door of the Chapter House. The mouldings of the outer arch are decorated with ten small figures on each side, in niches formed by waving foliage, of which the stem springs from the lowest figure-probably Jesse. The tympanum is covered with exquisite scrollwork, terribly injured by time, and has a mutilated statue of the Virgin and Child, with angels on either side. In this wall, just to the south of the entrance of the Chapter House, is the iron-bound entrance to the Ancient Treasury of the Kings of England. It is a double door opened by seven keys, and till lately could only be unlocked by a special order from the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury: the permission of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Comptroller of the Exchequer is said still to be required. The Chamber thus mysteriously guarded, generally known now as the Chapel of the Pyx,1 is the most remarkable remnant we possess of the original Abbey. It occupies the second and third bays of the Confessor's work beneath the Dormitory. The early Norman pillar in the centre (Saxon in point of date) has a cylindrical shaft, 3 ft. 6 in. in diameter and 3 ft. 4 in. high. The capital has a great unmoulded abacus, 7 in. deep, supported by a primitive moulding, and carrying plain groining in the square transverse ribs. It is interesting to see how, during the Norman period, the massive simplicity of this, as of other capitals, seem to have tempted the monks to experiments of rude 1 The Pyx is the box in which the specimen pieces are kept at the Mint-pyxis, from pyxos, a box-tree. |