The Story of Westminster Abbey

by Violet Brooke-Hunt

CHAPTER IV

THROUGH SEVEN REIGNS

I am going to take you along very quickly through the reigns of the Norman kings—William Rufus, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II., Richard Coeur de Lion, and John, and not make a long pause till we come to the year 1216, when Henry III., the royal builder of the Abbey as we know it, came to the throne. The Church of Westminster, from the days of the Norman Conquest onwards, became, as if by right, the coronation church, "the head, crown, and diadem of the kingdom;" and Oxford, Winchester, and St. Paul's, which had witnessed so many coronations in the time of the Saxon kings, were no more thought of for this purpose. But rather curiously none of the Norman kings were buried here. Of a foreign race they were, and some among them rested in foreign tombs—the Conqueror at Caen, Henry II. and Coeur de Lion at Fontrevault, while Rufus, killed in the New Forest, was carried to Winchester, Henry I. to Reading, Stephen to Faversham, and John to Worcester, this last-named king having left instructions that he should be dressed like a monk and laid next good Bishop Wulstan, hoping by this subterfuge to take in the devil!

The fact, however, of the Abbey being the recognised place of coronation gave the Abbot a somewhat unique position, for he it was who had to prepare the king for the great ceremonial, though the actual crowning became the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury. All the regalia, too, such as the crown of Alfred, the sceptre, the ring of Edward the Confessor, were kept at Westminster till the seventeenth century, when all that remained of them after the destructive days of the Commonwealth found a safer resting-place in the Tower of London. Yet still are they carried to the Abbey the night before a coronation and placed for the night in the Jerusalem Chamber, while the Dean and Canons of Westminster still have the proud privilege of standing within the altar rails by the Archbishop.

William Rufus had all the worst qualities of his father without his sense of justice, and he was a cruel, selfish king, but he left his mark on Westminster, though not on the Abbey. The Palace was not large enough for his requirements, and he intended to rebuild it on a great scale. However he accomplished little beyond the Great Hall, which to-day is known as Westminster Hall, and leads to the Houses of Parliament.

PICTURE AND TAPESTRY IN THE SANCTUARY.

This hall, repaired and strengthened by Richard II. and George IV., is in its way as full of interest as the Abbey, for here always took place the banquet, a part of the coronation ceremony, here were councils held, and here was the scene of many a great state trial. Thanks to the affection felt by Rufus for Gilbert the Abbot, the monastery was not taxed in the heavy way which had once seemed likely during a reign under which the whole nation groaned, and indeed the king granted some new charters to it, for the belief steadily grew that the burying-place of King Edward was the burial-place of a saint, and this general feeling of veneration could not be without its influence on Rufus. A new dignity, if that were needed, became attached to the royal tomb at this time, for on its being opened by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, in company with many other bishops, the king was found to be sleeping there as peacefully as if he had been buried but a few hours, with no sign of change on his fair white face.

On the news that Rufus had been found dead in the new royal forest he had himself appropriated, his younger brother Henry arrived in hot haste at Westminster, to urge that he should be chosen and crowned king before his eldest brother, Robert, could get over from Normandy. He was better known, and therefore better liked, than Robert, so it came about as he wished; but as delay was thought to be dangerous, the ceremony was quite simple, "good swords being more thought of than costly robes." The fact, however, that Henry came to the council, asking for their support, gave them a power over him which they were ready to seize, and before the deed was finally done they obtained several important pledges from him as they met him in Westminster Hall. This partly explains, too, the reason why Henry sought to win the goodwill of the English nobles and the English people, for if Robert had come over from Normandy to fight for the crown, the Norman nobles could not all have been counted on. And so, to please the English, he determined to marry a princess of their race, the Princess Matilda, daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, and great-grand-daughter of King Edmund Ironside. Only one obstacle stood in the way, Matilda was a nun in the Abbey of Ramsey, but a nun against her will, forced to take the veil by her aunt Christina. "In her presence I wore the veil with grief and indignation," she said, "but as soon as I could get out of her sight I did snatch it from my head, fling it on the ground, and trample it under foot. That was the way, and none other, in which I was veiled."

Anselm, the large-hearted Archbishop of Canterbury, declared that a vow so taken was not binding, and to the great joy of the nation it was decided that she should be married and crowned on the same day in the Abbey. It was an English crowd which gathered to Westminster on that great Sunday of November 11, and the shouts of Englishmen resounded the heartfelt "Yea, yea," when Anselm from the pulpit asked them if they would that this marriage should take place.