The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

But dare maintain the party of the truth,

Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.”

Shakspeare (King Henry VI, part 1, ii, 4).

The name of Henry of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, reminds us that Richard II had been made to resign his crown, and that his cousin had been proclaimed King as King Henry IV. We think, too, of that sad death, or murder, of the unhappy Richard at Pontefract Castle. All these things, in one way or another, are connected with the history of the Abbey. Henry IV is not buried in the Abbey, but in Canterbury Cathedral, opposite the Black Prince, and, like him, near the shrine of St. Thomas. But although Westminster is not his last resting-place, Henry IV is connected with the Abbey in a very special way.

The story is familiar to us in the pages of Shakspeare. The King had intended to set out for Palestine on a pilgrimage or crusade, and he had heard a prophecy that he should die at Jerusalem. Just before he was going to start he came to the Abbey to pray at the Confessor’s shrine. While he was in the Chapel he was seized with mortal illness, and was carried into the famous “Jerusalem Chamber,” which was part of the Abbot’s house. The Jerusalem Chamber had been built not long before, and was probably the only room near with a proper fireplace in it. It was cold March weather, and Henry was laid in front of the fire. When he came to himself a little he asked what that room was, and being told its name, he said: “Praise be to the Father of Heaven! for now I know that I shall die in this chamber, according to the prophecy made of me beforesaid, that I should die in Jerusalem.”

Every one will remember how an old historian tells us that afterwards, when the young Prince Harry was watching by his father, he took the crown and put it on his own head, thinking that his father was dead. The King, however, was not dead, and, turning round, he reproached the prince for his heartless and undutiful hurry in taking the crown. Prince Harry was very much grieved, and explained why he had done such a thing.

After Henry IV’s death, Prince Harry, now King Henry V, spent all that day at Westminster, in sorrow and penitence for his wild life in the past. At night he went and confessed his sins to a holy hermit who lived close to the Abbey, and the hermit assured him that he would be forgiven. As we all know, Henry V became a religious and determined man, and a great soldier,—“Conqueror of his enemies and of himself.” Henry V was crowned in the Abbey on Passion Sunday, 1413, a cold, snowy day.

The wars in France soon began, and in 1415 a “Te Deum” was sung in the Abbey for Henry’s great victory at Agincourt, and the King attended this service in person.

Like his father, Henry V had a great wish to go to Holy Land and conquer the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, but while he was hoping for this crusade, he was stricken with illness at Vincennes, and died in 1422, when he was only thirty-four.

It is said that the people of both Rouen and Paris were most anxious that Henry should be buried in their town, but the King had said clearly in his will that he wished to be buried at Westminster, and he had described most carefully what he wanted his Chantry Chapel to be like.