A VIEW OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
However, this building is not the very same that King Siebert put up. That one stood several hundred years, when Edward, “the Confessor,” as he was called, rebuilt it. Two hundred years later King Henry the Third enlarged it, making it look about as it now is.
For years and years the English kings and queens have been crowned here, and buried, too, nearly all. Here the great ones of the nation are buried—Shakespeare, Milton, Ben Jonson, Wordsworth, and many more, the poets in the “Poets’ Corner.”
Under the coronation (crowning) chair is the “Stone of Scone,” which some actually say is the very one Jacob laid his head upon when he dreamed! However that be, many kings have sat upon it when they were crowned.
Of course you will search out the “Jerusalem Chamber” when you visit Westminster. The Presbyterian Church began in this chamber. Here, too, the Bible was revised (re-translated from the Hebrew and Greek).
“Why do they call it the ‘Jerusalem Chamber’?”
Probably because its windows came from that old city, and the Cedar of Lebanon forms the wainscoting.
So this wonderful building has served many purposes besides that of a church. For some hundred years the House of Commons (something like our House of Representatives) made laws here, especially laws to secure the liberties of the people.
So you see this building is something like Faneuil Hall of Boston and Independence Hall of Philadelphia.