The Story of Westminster Abbey

by Violet Brooke-Hunt

William did not immediately march on London. Tidings came that the citizens of London were eager to fight again. So he first subdued the country around, and forced Dover, Winchester, and Canterbury into submission. Then harrying and burning wherever he was opposed, he made his way through Surrey, Hampshire, and Berkshire, purposing to lay waste the north and east of London, as he had done the south and west. He did his work all too well; even the stout hearts of the Londoners quailed, and at Berkhamstead a deputation came to him owning him as conqueror, laying the crown at his feet. It was a bitter moment for the men who undertook this shameful errand, but no other way was open to them in that dark hour, and immediately arrangements were made for the coronation ceremony. William, who consistently professed the deepest respect for the memory of King Edward, his "predecessor," declared that he would only be crowned in Westminster, "which peculiar respect," says Dart, "seems not only to arise from the pretence of his title from him, but the better to ingratiate himself with the people, with whom he stood but indifferent, by expressing extraordinary reverence for their buried favourite."

On Christmas Day, in the year 1066, the Abbey once again saw a great gathering. A guard of Norman soldiers waited without; inside mingled together wise men of two races, Saxon and Norman. Before the high altar, on the gravestone of the Confessor, stood the Conqueror, on one side a Norman Bishop, on the other, Eldred, Archbishop of York. Once again the monks chanted the Te Deum, and then followed an innovation. For half that multitude assembled there knew not the English language, and the question as to whether they would have this man to be their king had to be twice asked, once in English, once in Norman.

"Yea, yea, King William," was the answer, given with a shout which so startled the Norman soldiers outside, that at once they imagined some disturbance was being made, or some insult was intended to their king. In their wild anger, they began to set fire to the buildings near at hand, and as the flames dashed upwards, the astonished people rushed out of the Abbey to see what all this might portend. So the body of the great church was empty, and in dramatic solitude the Archbishop went on with the service, surrounded only by the monks. William was greatly overcome as he stood thus alone before the altar; there was something terrible in the loneliness and the stillness of the deserted church. He trembled exceedingly, and could scarce command his voice. It seems as if he had shrunk from wearing the crown of Edward, or still older crown of Alfred, "made of gould wyer works, sett with slight stones and two little bells," for he had caused to be brought a new crown, very heavy with gems, and this was the diadem set on his head by Eldred, after he had made the usual vows, with one specially added, in which he solemnly undertook to rule his people as well as the best of the kings who had gone before him.

Still from without came the sounds of tumult and excitement, still within the gleaming choir the solemn service was continued to the end, and thus was William the Norman crowned and anointed, made king indeed of England, but never king of the English people.

Westminster did not fare ill under the new king. Abbot Eadwine was discreet and wise, with much of the courtier in him, and he managed to preserve himself and his house in the good graces of the Conqueror. The building went steadily on, for money was not wanting, it was no part of William's policy to hinder any of the work undertaken by the Confessor. On the contrary, he confirmed all the charters, and when Abbot Eadwine gracefully yielded to him the lands of Windsor, which the king desired to enjoy, it being very convenient; for his retirement to hunting, he gave in exchange many other lands, besides making rich offerings. Moreover William set a rich pall over Edward's grave, presented a cloth of great splendour with two caskets of gold for the altar, and attended Mass in the Abbey Church most diligently.

Eadwine, the last Saxon Abbot, died in 1071, and was buried in the cloisters; he lay near to the very centre of all the life in the monastery which had so developed under his wise rule. Here in the cloisters the monks walked and talked, studied and transcribed; here the novices and the boy scholars sought their recreation; here was the great refectory, and close by the infirmary and St. Catherine's Chapel; overhead was the long bare dormitory. Surely it was fitting that the Abbots of Westminster should be laid in the cloisters, and so they continued to be till the year 1222. You will find the names of many of them recut on the stone benches in the south cloister, if you look for them, only unfortunately this was very carelessly done, and in many cases the names are put over the wrong graves. It seems, too, that Eadwine's body was moved from the south cloister and laid in the passage leading to the Chapter-House, close to the faithful Hugolin, who was the Chamberlain and close friend of the Confessor.

William appointed in Eadwine's place Geoffrey, a Norman, but so evil were his ways that at the end of four years, "having been first admonished by the king and Archbishop Lanfranc, but not amending upon the admonition," he was deprived and sent back to Normandy in disgrace, where he died. He was followed by Vitelus, Abbot of Bernay, held by William to be wise and a man of business, as indeed it was necessary the ruler of a large monastery should be, and among other things "being a stirring man, he let the monk Sulcardus, the best pen they had belonging to the Abbey, draw up the history of the place to give it a figure in the world."

During the rule of Geoffrey, the Lady Eadgytha, widow of Harold, died at Winchester, and was buried with great honour in the tomb of her husband, a tomb which each year became more and more of a holy place to the people of England. Under the hard rule of William, who, in the words of that honest chronicler Master Richard Wuce, "was eke so stark a man and wroth that no man durst do anything against his will, beyond all metes stark to those who withstood his will," the hearts of the people turned to that tomb of an English king, as the source from which they might hope for deliverance, as the spot of comfort from whence came signs from heaven that the saintly king still watched over his sorely tried people.

On one day, a council of Norman clergy was assembled in St. Catherine's Chapel at Westminster, their object being to deprive the holy Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, of his see, on the ground that "he was a very idiot, being unacquainted with the French language." Lanfranc ordered him to deliver up his staff and ring. But Wulstan was before all else an Englishman.

"Truly, my Lord Bishop," said he, "you claim from me the pastoral staff which it was not you who crave me. In deference to your judgment I resign it, though not to you, but to Saint Edward, by whose authority I received it."