The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

The bronze screen round the tomb is of English work and Gothic design, and is in quite a different style from the Italian Renaissance tomb within.

Three months afterwards, Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, died, and was buried in the South Aisle of her son’s Chapel. She died just at the time of the rejoicings for the Coronation of her grandson, Henry VIII, and of Catherine of Aragon. The “Lady Margaret” was greatly honoured and beloved. She was a patroness of learning, and founded two colleges at Cambridge, and Professorships of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge. She was also a good friend to William Caxton the printer, as we have already heard. Her tomb was made by the same Florentine artist, Torrigiano, and is most beautiful. The effigy represents the Lady Margaret in her widow’s dress, her hands uplifted in prayer. The epitaph round the edge of the monument was written by the great Erasmus, who was a friend of Lady Margaret’s, and who was one of the earliest Lady Margaret Professors of Divinity at Cambridge, Bishop John Fisher being the first.

Another of the family, Owen Tudor, uncle of Henry VII, took refuge in the Sanctuary at Westminster during the Civil Wars, and became a monk. He is buried in the South Transept. A little daughter of Henry VII, Elizabeth Tudor, is buried in a tiny tomb in the Confessor’s Chapel, close to Henry III. A little son, Edward, is also buried in the Abbey. Henry VIII had intended to be buried at Westminster with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, to whom he was married in the Abbey. Indeed, he had actually ordered Torrigiano to make the effigies for the tomb. But, as we know, everything changed, and Henry VIII is buried in St. George’s, Windsor, with his third wife, Jane Seymour, mother of King Edward VI.

Anne of Cleves is the only one of Henry’s six wives who is buried in the Abbey. Her grave is in the South Ambulatory, and she has a large and rather ugly monument in the Sacrarium, just opposite to the tomb of Aymer de Valence. Anne of Cleves died at Chelsea in 1557.

One great name of Tudor times, that of Cardinal Wolsey, is brought back to us when we remember that in 1515 his Cardinal’s hat arrived from Rome, and was received with great pomp at the Abbey. A stately service was held; the Archbishop of Canterbury set the hat on Wolsey’s head, and a “Te Deum” was sung. Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and Henry’s sister Mary, the French Queen, were present at the ceremony.

The boy King, Edward VI, is buried close to his grandfather, Henry VII. He was buried by Archbishop Cranmer, who was his godfather, and who had baptized and crowned him. Edward VI has no monument, but the altar of the chapel stands over his grave. The original altar was the work of Torrigiano, and must have been very beautiful. It was destroyed in the time of the Commonwealth, but parts of it have been found and are used in the present altar. The cross on this altar has a special interest for us all, because it was given to the Abbey by Ras Makonnen, the Abyssinian envoy, at the time of King Edward VII’s serious illness, when the Coronation had to be put off. The cross is of a very ancient pattern, and there is an Ethiopian inscription upon it.

Not far from the grave of Edward VI there stood for many years a pulpit—now in the Nave—from which it is believed Archbishop Cranmer preached at the Coronation and funeral of his royal godson, Edward VI, in 1553.

In the north aisle of Henry VII’s Chapel the two Tudor Queens, Mary and Elizabeth, are buried. Poor Queen Mary had taken much care for the Abbey. During the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI great changes had been made there; the monks had been sent away, and, unfortunately, many of the precious and beautiful things that belonged to the church and monastery had been removed or destroyed. It was even said that Protector Somerset wanted to pull down the Abbey itself. Queen Mary brought the monks back, with Abbot Feckenham to rule over them; she restored the Confessor’s shrine, and had the church and the services arranged again as they had been in the old days before the Reformation.

After her short, unhappy reign, Mary Tudor was laid to rest in her grandfather’s chapel. No monument was erected to her, and it is sad to think that very few of her subjects mourned for her. We are told that when the various altars in the chapel were taken down, the stones were piled up over her grave. Perhaps it was intended to make them into a monument later on. Another forty-five years passed, and then, in 1603, Queen Elizabeth died, to the great grief of all her people, whose lamentations followed her to her grave in the Abbey. She rests there, in the same vault as her sister Mary, the vault being so narrow that Queen Elizabeth’s coffin had to be placed on the top of Queen Mary’s. The monument, which is a fine one of its kind, is to Queen Elizabeth alone, and was erected to her memory by her cousin and successor, King James I. The epitaph on the western end of the monument mentions both the Tudor sister-queens, and runs as follows: “Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of the resurrection.”

It is now time to speak of some other famous people who belonged to the Tudor times, and who are buried in the Abbey. Among these are the following:—