Many and diverse are the purposes for which the Abbot's withdrawing-room has been utilised since the dissolution of the monastery. More than one coffin has rested here before the interment; the most notable was that of Sir Isaac Newton, when the Chamber was thronged with distinguished men from all parts of Europe. The least reputable was the famous occasion when the painted, bedizened body of a notorious actress, whose charms were extolled by Horace Walpole and sneered at by Alexander Pope, was brought into these monastic precincts, and afterwards buried inside the church itself. Wedding as well as funeral parties assemble in this room from time to time, and the Chamber is occasionally lent by the Dean for special meetings. Thus the revisers of the Old Testament carried out their onerous task, the work of several years, seated round this table. Long before, in the seventeenth century, a very different body of men had met here, when the Westminster Assembly, driven from Henry VII.'s Chapel by the freezing cold, moved into the warmer atmosphere of the Dean's house, and held many a stormy debate in this peaceful old-world place.
From Jerusalem we pass into the Jericho parlour; this room, and the bedrooms above it, were built in the sixteenth century, probably by Abbot Islip, who was like Litlington a great builder; the fine linen scroll panelling round the walls dates from an earlier period, and in the window hang more remains of ancient glass. A door leads from the Deanery into the lobby outside, and at the end of a dark passage is the Dean's private entrance to the Abbey, which opens into the nave beneath the "Abbot's Pew." We have referred once or twice to the Commonwealth era, when Presbyterian ministers preached in the church, and the Deanery was leased for a while to the Lord President of the Council, John Bradshaw. We seem even now, after the lapse of over two hundred years, to see the striking figure of the regicide, his stern features concealed by his favourite broad-brimmed hat, stride across the darkness to the little door in the wall, whence he ascended to the secluded study in the triforium, where he loved to meditate amongst his books. But enough of these fascinating memories. Our own pilgrimage is drawing to a close; we retrace our steps through the Abbot's courtyard and emerge from the twilight of the cloisters into the sunshine of Dean's Yard, turning for a moment before we part to look up at the window of the "long room," which, with his private chapel behind it, was built by our friend Litlington. On each side of the gateway below it are the heads of the Abbot himself and of his sovereign, Richard II. Part of the ancient refectory wall is concealed behind bookcases in the Abbot's long room, and there are other remains of monastic times in the Deanery, which is a rambling old house, added to by successive Deans, with many a picturesque corner and secret chamber. Let us take leave of one another standing under the old elm-trees, some of which were planted in Elizabeth's reign by Feckenham, the last Abbot, and here complete our morning's walk round the church and precincts of St. Peter's, Westminster.
Index
Abbot, [6], [12], [26], [27], [122], [125], [135]
Abbot's courtyard, [135], [140]
long room, [140]
Pew, [22], [40], [139]
Abbots' Chapel, [107]
tombs, [135]
Abbotsford, [48]