The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

There is also a splendidly bound book of Henry VII’s time, concerning certain arrangements between the King and the Abbey of Westminster, and the Liber Regalis, or Coronation book of Richard II.

In another case will be found an interesting collection of old seals.

The Westminster Chapter-House has had a very varied and rather exciting history. In the old days the Chapter-House was the meeting-place of the convent. There the affairs of the monastery used to be discussed; there complaints might be made; there the monks might confess their faults; and there, usually, they were punished. The Consistory Court of the convent used to be held in the South-West Tower. The seats for the judge and his assessors are still to be seen against the south wall, below the monument to Henry Fawcett. A Consistory Court was the place where trials which had to do with church matters were held.

[G. A. Dunn.
THE CHAPTER-HOUSE.

About thirty years after the Chapter-House was first built it began to be used as the meeting-place of the House of Commons, at the time when the Commons were separated from the Lords. The last time that the Commons sate in the Westminster Chapter-House was on the last day of Henry VIII’s reign, and the last act passed there was the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk (1546). In 1547 the House of Commons moved to the Chapel of St. Stephen in the Palace of Westminster, and the Chapter-House began to be used as the Record Office. It is curious, when we look at the Chapter-House as it is now, to think that it was once all lined round with galleries and cupboards, and that the Records of the kingdom were kept here until 1864. Soon afterwards the Chapter-House was restored to its present state, and is no doubt very like what it was in Henry III’s time. While it was the Record Office, Domesday Book and many other most precious books and documents had their home at Westminster.

Under the Chapter-House is a crypt, of which the walls are eighteen feet thick, and which, long centuries ago, was used as the Royal Treasury. The Regalia and stores of money were kept there. In 1303 a terrible thing happened. There was a great robbery of the Royal Treasure; the money which Edward I had collected for the Scottish wars was stolen, as well as part of the Regalia. It is sad to think that some of the Westminster monks had to do with this disgraceful robbery, but they were found out and punished.

Below the pavement of the entrance to the Chapter-House are buried (1) Abbot Edwyn, the friend and adviser of Edward the Confessor, and the first Abbot of his new monastery; (2) Hugolin, who was Chamberlain and Treasurer to the Confessor; and (3) Sulcard, a monk, who wrote the first history of the Abbey. In the vestibule, close to the Chapter-House, are the modern window and tablet in memory of James Russell Lowell, the well-known American poet and prose writer. Lowell was for many years the United States Minister in London, and was much beloved, both in this country and his own.

The Chapel of the Pyx, close by the Chapter-House, was formerly the monastic Treasury. At one time the Regalia were kept there. The Chapel is so called from the “pyx,” or box, which contained the standard coins of the realm, used for testing our current coinage. The pyx has now been moved to the Mint, but the Chapel still keeps its ancient name. The Chapel of the Pyx, and the buildings next to it, belong to the Norman time, and over them the monks’ Dormitory was built. Part of the old Dormitory is now used as the Chapter Library, and part as the Great School.

Most of the treasures in the old monastic library were destroyed in the time of Edward VI; and unfortunately, many of the books collected by the earlier Deans were destroyed in a fire in 1694.