Facing east we look directly towards the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary, where, raised high on a mound of sacred earth, brought from Palestine, is the shrine of Edward the Confessor, girdled by a half circle of royal tombs. Between us and the saint's feretory is a fifteenth-century screen, which is faced on this side by a modern reredos, designed by Sir G. Scott. In front of this is the high altar. Some way below the level of the floor, on either side of the altar, are the bases of two pillars, which formed part of the original Norman church, and have helped the experts to fix the exact proportions of the Confessor's building.
Edward the Confessor was not canonised for nearly a hundred years after his death, in spite of the repeated appeals made to Rome by the Westminster abbots. In the meantime his coffin lay before this altar in a plain stone tomb, which was adorned by a rich pall, the gift of William the Conqueror. When at last our founder's name was added to the roll of saints, the body was transferred (October 13, 1163) to an elaborate shrine, in the presence of Henry II. and his then friend the Archbishop, Thomas à Becket. When this part of the old church was destroyed to make way for Henry the Third's new building, the old shrine was removed to a temporary chapel, while a new and more magnificent one, which we shall examine more closely presently, was prepared by the same Italian workmen who were employed on the pavement, and afterwards to decorate the tombs of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor of Castile. The materials—the mosaic, the coloured marbles, and the porphyry—used for this beautiful pavement, which was put down in 1268, as well as for the royal tombs, were, like the designers and craftsmen themselves, brought from Rome by Abbot Ware, who, with his successor, Abbot Wenlock, lies beneath the mosaic work which Ware had supervised. The whole design, now partly covered by an ancient Persian carpet, represents the probable duration of the world according to the Ptolemaic system. To our left are three artistic tombs, which belong to a later date, the early fourteenth century, and are no doubt by the same unknown artist. In shape they resemble the hearses which used to stand in the church before and for a time after the burial of all distinguished persons. The recumbent figures take the place of the effigies of the deceased, which were usually made of wood, in the likeness of the dead person. These were first carried at the funeral, and afterwards laid upon the hearse. The little statuettes all round the sides are intended for the mourners, and above are represented the lighted torches and wax tapers, which covered the hearse. In the small tomb nearest to us lies Aveline, wife of Edmund Crouchback, Henry the Third's second son, whose own far more elaborate sepulchre is nearest the altar. Edmund and Aveline were the first couple ever married in the present church. Their wedding, in fact, took place only a few months—in the spring of 1270—after the choir and transepts had been opened for service. But the north aisle of the choir was certainly completed before this marriage took place, for upon the wall are the arms of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and King of the Barons, in close juxtaposition with the fleurs-de-lis of France. In 1263 a grand temporary reconciliation was patched up between Henry III. and the proud Earl, which was ratified at Boulogne in the presence of the French King, St. Louis the peacemaker. These shields must therefore have been carved here at about that time—in any case before Simon's fall; he was killed in 1265 at the battle of Evesham. The arms of Aveline's rich and powerful father, William de Fortibus, are in this same aisle. The heiress herself died young, leaving no children, and her husband inherited her vast wealth, with which he endowed the powerful house of Lancaster. Edmund took a foreign bride after Aveline's death, and resided much with her in Provins, whence he brought the red roses which became the Lancastrian badge. His eldest son, Thomas, the second Earl of Lancaster, met his death on the scaffold through the machinations of Aymer de Valence—a tragic sequel to the friendship between their fathers, Edmund Crouchback and his uncle William de Valence, who were brothers at arms, and had often fought side by side in the Holy Land.
A defaced painting on the ambulatory side of Edmund's tomb once showed the figures of ten Crusaders; amongst them may have been portraits of the uncle and his nephew; they died (1296) within a week of one another, on an ill-fated expedition to Gascony, which ended in defeat and disaster to the English force. All these three monuments—Aymer's is between those of the Earl and Countess of Lancaster—repay a close study, but we can only glance at them now. Notice the noble and dignified recumbent effigy on Aveline's tomb, which is dressed in the simple costume of a grand dame of the thirteenth century; it was formerly painted and gilt; some traces of the red and white paint, also the green vine leaves, still remain beneath the canopy. At the feet two dogs are snapping at one another in play. The two warriors are depicted in life and in death: above each is an armed equestrian figure with visor up, while below lie their quiet images in the sleep of death. The royal prince has a finer monument with a triple canopy, otherwise there is little difference between the two. The picture of Richard II. in his brilliant youth hangs opposite his relatives. The King, whose destiny seemed so fair, but whose tragic fate must move our pity, is here represented in the coronation robes holding the orb and sceptre, and seated in St. Edward's chair upon the ancient stone of Scone, which his ancestor, Edward I., wrested from the Scots. Behind the portrait a piece of tapestry, which used to be in the great schoolroom, recalls the fact that the whole sanctuary was hung with arras and also wainscoted in Queen Anne's time. The remains of the sedilia south of the altar date from Edward the First's time, and were for long believed to form the canopy of an ancient Saxon tomb, which the monks moved here from the Norman Chapter House and called by the name of King Sebert, their traditional founder. We can see this better from the ambulatory, also the curious skull and cross-bone ornament which is all that is left of the tomb of Anne of Cleves, Henry the Eighth's repudiated wife, the only one of all his wives who was buried in the Abbey. She was interred here with a pompous funeral service by order of her friend and step-daughter Queen Mary.
Let us return now to the iron gate which divides the south ambulatory from the transept. Just inside is a small chapel, called after St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictines, to which order the Westminster monks belonged, and where his head was long kept. The chapel is not open, but easily seen from outside. Within is the fine altar tomb of Simon Langham, first Abbot of Westminster, then Archbishop of Canterbury, through whose munificent bequest his energetic successor, Litlington, was able to add to the monastic buildings and cloisters. Other burials of interest took place in this chapel. The tomb which usurps the place of the altar is that of Frances, Countess of Hertford, daughter-in-law to the Protector Somerset, by whose orders these altars were destroyed, and sister to that famous Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham, whose fleet drove the Spanish Armada from our shores. A well-preserved seventeenth-century brass, raised a few inches above the floor, gives us the portrait of Dr. Bill, the first Dean after Elizabeth reconstituted the collegiate body, which had been originally founded by her father, Henry VIII., but was suppressed by her sister Mary. Bill lived only a year at the Deanery, but during that short period he drafted the statutes, the nucleus of which remains unaltered to the present day, although the details have been considerably changed. His successor, Gabriel Goodman, whose kneeling statue is against the south wall, was in office throughout nearly the whole long reign of Queen Elizabeth, dying only two years before his friend and patroness. We must not linger in this little chapel, for voices from the past are calling us to hasten onwards toward the burial-place of kings.
