The first of our kings who was crowned on the “Stone of Scone” was Edward I.’s son, Edward II. He was crowned in the Abbey, but was not buried there. The next king who was buried there was Edward III.,[34] whose sword and shield we saw just now.
Richard II.,[35] the grandson of Edward III., is sometimes called the “Westminster King,” because he was crowned and married and buried in the Abbey.
He was only eleven years old when he became King of England. For a week before his coronation he had lived in the Tower of London, which was the custom in those days for all kings and queens before they were crowned. The procession from the Tower to the Abbey was one of the most splendid that had ever been seen. But the service was very long, and the sermon was longer, and before it was over the king was carried out fainting. After this there was a great banquet, at which he had to appear again, and then at last the long day was over.
Five years later he was married in the Abbey to Queen Anne. After reigning for twenty-five years, he was deposed by Henry of Lancaster, and murdered at Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire by his enemies—for he had made many during his life. He was buried in Hertfordshire. When Henry V. came to the throne, he ordered that Richard’s body should be brought to Westminster, and then at last it was laid in the same tomb in which, many years before, his wife, Queen Anne, had been buried. Henry V.[36] when he was a boy was so wild that he was called “Madcap Harry.” But he was particularly fond of the Abbey, and although most of his reign was spent in fighting with France, he did a great deal to improve and decorate his great church, and when the English won the battle of Agincourt (of which you may have heard or read), his first thought was to order a Thanksgiving Service to be held at Westminster. He had always said he wished to be buried in the Abbey; so, when he died in France his body was brought to England. “The long procession from Paris to Calais, and from Dover to London, was headed by the King of Scots, James I.... As it approached London it was met by all the clergy. The services were held first at St. Paul’s, and then at the Abbey. No English king’s funeral had ever been so grand. His three chargers were led up to the altar, behind the effigy (a wax model of the king carried outside his coffin), which lay on a splendid car, accompanied by torches and white-robed priests innumerable, ... and at the extreme eastern end of the Confessor’s Chapel was deposited the body of the most splendid king that England had to that time produced.”
Above his tomb, on a bar which stretches across the steps leading out of the chapel, are hung his helmet and saddle. The helmet is probably the very one which he wore at the battle of Agincourt, and which twice saved his life on that day; it is much dinted, and shows the marks of many sword-cuts.
Henry VI. was crowned king when he was only nine years old, and on the day of his coronation it is said that he “sat on the platform in the Abbey beholding all the people about sadly and wisely.” But as he was so young the service was shortened and he had much less to endure than the last boy-king, Richard II.
There is a story told of how, toward the end of his reign, King Henry VI. used to come and wander about in the Abbey between seven and eight o’clock in the evening, when it was growing dusk. He generally came quite alone, and only the abbot who carried a torch went with him round the dark and silent church. One night he went into the Confessor’s Chapel, where he spent more than an hour, wondering if room could be, by-and-by, made for his own tomb. “It was suggested to him that the tomb of Henry V. should be pushed a little on one side, and his own placed beside it; but he replied, ‘Nay, let him alone; he lieth like a noble prince; I would not trouble him.’ But close beside the shrine of the Confessor there seemed to be room for another tomb. ‘Lend me your staff,’ he said to Lord Cromwell, who was with him that evening; ‘is it not fitting I should have a place here, where my father and my ancestors lie, near St. Edward?’ And then, pointing with a white staff to the place indicated, he said, ‘Here, methinks, is a convenient place;’ adding, ‘Forsooth, forsooth, here will we lie; here is a good place for us.’” Three days afterwards the tomb was ordered to be made; but it was never even begun, for Henry was deposed by Edward IV. and died in the Tower, and from there his body was taken and buried in the Abbey of Chertsey.
Close by all these great kings and queens are several tombs of children. Among them is a monument to a little deaf and dumb girl of five years old, the Princess Catherine, daughter of Henry III. “Close to her, as if to keep her company, are buried her two little brothers, and four little nephews.”
So far I have told you principally of kings who are buried in Westminster Abbey, but now we come to the tombs of some of the Queens of England.
You remember that Henry VII. had built a great and magnificent chapel which was called after him. The first queen buried there was his wife, Queen Elizabeth, who was the mother of Henry VIII.