The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

Another name we ought to remember is that of Sir Palmes Fairborne, Governor of Tangier, who was killed when defending Tangier against the Moors in 1680. His monument is in the Nave, and reminds us that Tangier once belonged to England, having been part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. Sir Palmes Fairborne was buried at Tangier.

The Battle of the Boyne in the reign of William III is brought to our minds when we look at the monument of General Philipps in the North Transept. General Philipps fought on William III’s side in that battle. He lived to a great age, and was Governor of Nova Scotia from 1720 to 1740.

In the Nave there is a monument to Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, who distinguished himself in the naval war of Queen Anne’s reign, and fought under Admiral Rooke at Cadiz in 1702. Sir Thomas Hardy did not die until 1732, but he really belongs to these later Stuart times. The taking of Gibraltar in 1704 is recalled to our minds later on by the memorials to Richard Kane and Coote Manningham. Kane held Gibraltar for eight months against the Spaniards in George I’s reign.

We must now turn to some of the graves and monuments connected with the great French war of Queen Anne’s reign—the War of the Spanish Succession, as it was called.

The body of the great Duke of Marlborough, the victorious General at the Battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, was buried in the Abbey in 1722, and removed to the Chapel at Blenheim Palace twenty-four years afterwards. The Duke’s first grave was in Henry VII’s Chapel, in the vault where Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, and others had lain.

In the Nave are monuments to General Killigrew, who was killed at the Battle of Almanza in 1707, to Colonel Bringfield, who was killed at Ramillies in 1706, and to Major Creed, who was killed at Blenheim in 1704.

In the North Ambulatory is a monument to Earl Ligonier, one of Queen Anne’s Generals, who fought under Marlborough, and was at the Battle of Blenheim. Lord Ligonier belonged to an old Huguenot family from the south of France, and he, with some other distinguished Huguenots who are buried in the Abbey, came over to England about the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, when the Protestant worship was forbidden in France, and many Huguenots took refuge in England. Earl Ligonier died in 1770.

Another hero of the Dutch and French wars rests in the Abbey, and that is Sir Cloudesley Shovel, one of the greatest naval commanders of the time. His monument is rather curious, and represents him wearing Roman armour and a wig such as was in fashion in his own day. The story of his death is a very dreadful one. The Admiral had helped in the almost entire destruction of the French Mediterranean squadron in 1707, and was sailing for home when a violent gale drove his ship on to the rocks off the Scilly Isles. The ship was wrecked, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel was washed ashore, bruised and unconscious, but not quite dead. Thirty years afterwards a fisherman’s wife confessed that she had found the body, and that for the sake of a valuable emerald ring the Admiral wore she had actually killed him.

In the Nave is a curious tablet in memory of Admiral Baker, who was second in command to Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and brought the rest of the ships home after Sir Cloudesley’s flagship was lost. Admiral Baker was afterwards Governor of the Island of Minorca, which at that time belonged to England. He died in Minorca in 1716, and is buried there. Minorca had been added to our possessions by the first Earl Stanhope, who did distinguished service in the War of the Spanish Succession. He and three other of the Earls Stanhope have a monument on the Choir Screen, opposite to that of Sir Isaac Newton.

We must now look back through all the Stuart and Commonwealth time, and say a few words about the poets and other writers who belong to those days, and who are buried in the Abbey.