Westminster Abbey | Page 3

the shining golden top, which used to be
seen from end to end of the church, was melted down; the jewels,
which had been offered by royal worshipper and humble pilgrim alike,

even the precious images of sainted king and saintly evangelist, were
ruthlessly transferred to the palace treasury. None of these survive
to-day, but the mosaic pillars and the basement were concealed by the
brethren before they fled from the monastery, and the lower part of the
shrine was reconstructed by the daughter of the sovereign to whom the
devastation was due; to her also we owe the wooden top, which
replaced the glorious golden feretory. The monastic community, who
were restored to their home by the same {6} Queen, the "bloody" Mary
of Protestant history, survived a few years longer into the days of
Elizabeth, and the former intimate connection between the Crown and
the convent, severed with the final dismissal of the Abbot and monks,
found a pale reflection in the friendship which Elizabeth always
showed to the Dean of her new foundation. But the Maiden Queen was
in very deed the last royal person to whom Westminster Abbey owed
substantial benefits. She refounded the collegiate church, which finally
took the place of the monastery, and established Westminster School;
before her reign the only boys taught within the precincts were the few
scholars collected in the cloisters by the monks. She is, in fact, the
foundress of St. Peter's College, which thus owes its status as a royal
foundation to Queen Elizabeth.
Very rarely, however, in modern days has the church or the college
been honoured with a visit from the reigning sovereign in propriâ
personâ. At great functions, such as public funerals, the heir-apparent is
occasionally present, but the Crown is usually represented by a Court
official, and the Dean's stall, which is only vacated for the reigning
king or queen, has been occupied on very rare occasions in the last
hundred years. The Latin {7} play acted by the Westminster scholars
every winter term, was formerly a gala occasion on which royalty used
often to be present, but the old custom was gradually dropped. In the
year 1903, for the first time within the memory of this generation, a
royal person, H.R.H. the Duchess of Argyll, was present at the
performance.
With the last of the Tudors there is no doubt that the strong and living
bond between the palace and the Abbey was slackened, although it has
never been altogether snapped, nor will it be as long as the coronation

of our sovereigns continues to take place in Westminster Abbey. Then
and then only does the king resume all his ancient rights, the collegiate
body is practically deposed, and people realise that their national
church is really a royal peculiar. For while the kings came less and less
to St. Edward's shrine, their subjects in ever-increasing numbers, like
the pilgrims in olden times, were and are drawn hither as by a magnet,
till Westminster has become the sanctuary of a nation, and is no longer
the sepulchre of the seed royal. A plain English squire, one of that
"happy breed of men" to whom his native land--"this little world, this
precious stone set in a silver sea"--was dearer than the blood of kings,
was destined to inaugurate a new epoch in the {8} annals of the Abbey.
To this man, Oliver Cromwell, it is that we owe the first conception of
this church as a fitting burial-place for our national worthies. From the
State obsequies of Admiral Blake, which were held here by Cromwell's
command, has germinated the seed which has borne fruit in the public
funerals and in the monuments, ordered and paid for by Parliament, of
statesmen, soldiers and sailors. The nineteenth century has closed, and
there is little space available in the Abbey for the worthies of the
twentieth, but the national feeling still turns instinctively to
Westminster on the death of a great man. For a long time past memorial
services have been substituted for the grave or cenotaph, so lavishly
granted to practically the first comer only a hundred years ago. Yet
although the material fabric of this ancient foundation can no longer
receive her sons within her bosom, her spirit is perhaps more alive than
it has ever been since her altars were demolished and the images of her
saints torn from their high places. No longer do the smoke of
innumerable candles and the fumes of incense blacken and obscure her
arches, but the spiritual breath of supplication and of thanksgiving still
as of yore ascends to heaven from this ancient church, consecrated by
the prayers of so many {9} past generations. The old order has changed,
and a Protestant form of worship has long taken the place of