The Story of Westminster Abbey

by Violet Brooke-Hunt

But the king had not yet finished with the Pope; urged thereto by Cromwell, who earned for himself the name "The Hammer of the Monks," he proceeded to attack all the monasteries and religious houses in England, and there were many hundreds of them, which were under the immediate jurisdiction of Rome. To these religious houses England owed no small debt of gratitude: the monks had been teachers, scholars, chroniclers, architects, carvers, painters, translators, and illuminators; they had nursed the sick, they had relieved the needy; they had been the great employers of labour, the tillers of the soil, and, untouched by the ebb and flow of the tide outside, they had gone quietly on with their daily round of work and prayer, keeping their lights ever burning before the altar to signify that their house was "always watchynge to God." But, as they became rich and powerful, they fell away from their high ideals; the threefold vow of poverty, obedience, and purity ceased to sanctify their lives; luxury took the place of plain, frugal living; the monks no longer laboured with their own hands, but kept great retinues of servants, and the money that should have been spent for the glory of God and the church was squandered in extravagant living. The abbots were under no control save that of Rome, and Rome was far away, so that there was no power from outside to correct, to reform, and to purify. Gradually, too, the monasteries had lost their hold over the people; resting on their past, they made no effort to keep pace with the present; they bitterly opposed any education save that which they held in their own hands; they resented progress and enlightenment; they were no longer centres of light and learning; their fire had burnt out, quenched by covetousness, by wrong-doing and by luxurious living.

Cromwell saw in them an opportunity which Henry was all too ready to grasp. A Commission was formed to visit and report on the universities and all religious houses; and when the visitors had finished their work, which they had done carefully and thoroughly, they laid their verdict before the House of Commons in the famous Black Book, which was destroyed some years later by order of Queen Mary. Much of what it contained is therefore lost to us, but as the Commons, who sat, remember, in the Chapter-Room at Westminster, heard clause after clause read out, which told, with a few honourable exceptions, a terrible story against the monasteries, they could not restrain themselves, and over and over again shouts of "Down with the monks" rang through the vaulted building. Generally speaking, the largest of the monasteries had come well out of the inquiry, and Parliament therefore began by only dissolving the smaller houses, at the same time ordering that the lands and incomes of these latter should be handed over to the king, as head of the Church, to be spent in the "high and true interests of religion." Certainly the Commons had none but high motives in passing this Act, and never dreamt of a general dissolution, or the appropriation of all that immense wealth for anything but religious or educational purposes. They had not realised Henry's greed, "which no religion could moderate, or the force of his will, against which nothing, however sacred, seemed able to stand."

The monks at Westminster naturally heard very quickly all the particulars of the deliberations which had taken place inside the Chapter-Room. How they must have lingered about the cloisters that day; how eagerly and excitedly must they have talked during those hours when talking was allowed, wondering in what way all these things would end; how they must have speculated as to their own future, and that of the few other large monasteries in which the Commissioners had declared that "thanks be to God, religion had been right well kept and observed." They had not long to wait.

A general order issued shortly afterwards, ordering the removal of all shrines, images, and relics, made it clear that Henry and his ministers had other ideas beyond the reformation of religious houses; and the monks, who gauged the character of the king, hastily moved the body of St. Edward to some sacred spot, that, at least, this holy possession of the Abbey might not be lost to it. They managed, too, to hide some of the treasures which beautified Edward's shrine, but much of the gold and many of the jewels became the property of the king. Altogether nearly 800 monasteries fell into the hands of Henry, and without any compunction he appropriated their lands and their wealth, giving away to his favourites of the moment what he did not desire to keep for himself. Inside the religious houses the greatest excitement prevailed, and much diversity of opinion; for some there were among the abbots and monks who were prepared to lose their lives rather than willingly surrender themselves to the king's will, while others, more the children of this world than the children of light, deemed that by submission could they best hope to save something in this overwhelming deluge.

At Westminster, under Abbot Benson, the monks chose a prudent course, the abbot being one, as an old writer severely remarks, "whose conscience was not likely to stand in his way on any occasion," and in the January of 1540 the Abbey with all its wealth was voluntarily handed over to the king.

Partly perhaps on account of this absolute submission, but much more because even Henry had still reverence for a place which was peculiarly royal in all its associations, Westminster was in some degree saved. The old order indeed was destined to pass away; its wealth was to be a thing of the past, save for the wealth of beauty in sculptured stone which could not easily be taken from it, and which still remained unrivalled even when all the gold and jewels and plate excepting a silver pot, two gilt cups, three hearse clothes, twelve cushions and some other clothes, had been carried away to satisfy greedy courtiers, "leaving the place very bare."

But Henry converted the building into a cathedral, giving it a bishop, a dean, prebendaries, minor canons, all these offices with the exception of the Bishopric being filled by the monks belonging to the establishment. The Bishop, Thirleby, was ordered to make the abbot's house his palace; Abbot Benson, now Dean, took up his residence in humble quarters, and all the old glory of the monastery departed for ever, while Henry was quite £60,000 a year richer in our money. Those of the monks for whom no place could be found under the new system were pensioned off, and many of the buildings, such as the refectory and the smaller dormitory, no longer needed for the cowled figures who for so many generations had used them, were pulled down or put to fresh uses.

Nor was the monastery the only part of Westminster which fell from its greatness. Earlier in the reign of Henry a fire had destroyed much of the old Palace, and the king, who cared but little for it, set his heart on York House close by, at Whitehall, once the London house of the Bishops of York, afterwards the residence of Wolsey.

The Cardinal lived in state; indeed Westminster was but a humble dwelling compared to this magnificent palace, and on his disgrace, Henry took possession of it. For more than a hundred and fifty years it was the royal palace, with fine courts, halls and chambers, its own chapel and offices, its bowling-green, tent yard, cock-pit, and tennis courts, and meanwhile the gabled, sculptured Westminster Palace, the home of Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet kings, fell to pieces. For us, both are now but phantom palaces, with hardly a trace of either remaining to recall the glories of the past.

But in the story of the Abbey, this change from Westminster to Whitehall had more than a passing effect; from henceforth the old intimate association between the Palace and Abbey ceased to exist, and Henry thus broke one more link with the traditions of his ancestors. Not even the chapel of his father, now no longer called the Lady Chapel, but instead St. Saviour's Chapel, had any attractions for one in whose nature reverent affection for old associations was entirely absent, and at his own desire, Henry was buried at Windsor, by his "true and loving wife, Jane Seymour," who had kept in his good graces by giving him a son, and then dying before he had time to grow weary of her. Of all his wives, only the plain and placid Anne of Cleves was buried in the Abbey, on the south side of the Altar, and "she had but half a monument," says Fuller, though her funeral was an elaborate one, by order of Mary, who was then queen.