While the different dynasties succeeded one another, the building of the monastery and church went on slowly but surely under different Abbots, the monastic funds helped by gifts of money from the Kings and Queens and from the pilgrims who visited the shrine. Edward I., for instance, continued his father's work from the crossing of the transepts to one bay west of the present organ-screen, while after him Richard II. and Henry V. were the principal benefactors to the fabric. The west end was not reached till early in the sixteenth century, in the reign of Henry VII., when Abbot Islip superintended the completion of the west front and placed in the niches statues of those Kings who had been benefactors. The towers were not built till 1740, after the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, who died before they were finished. The great northern entrance has been called "Solomon's Porch" since the reign of Richard II., who erected a beautiful wooden porch outside the north door. This was destroyed in the thirteenth century, and the end of the north transept was changed into the classical style under Dean Atterbury, to whom, it is fair to add, we owe the fine glass of the rose-window. Within recent years the north front has again been restored on the lines of the original thirteenth-century architecture, and the present sculpture on the porch is from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott; the work was carried out by Mr. John Pearson, who was the Abbey architect at that time.
At the extreme east end, in the place of the Lady Chapel built by Abbot Humez, is the famous chapel called the "Wonder of the World," which was founded and endowed by the first Tudor King, and intended as a place of sepulture for himself and his family. The foundation-stone was laid in the presence of Henry VII. himself and of the great builder, Abbot Islip. The style is Perpendicular, much later than the main portion of the Abbey, and the whole of the exterior and interior is elaborately carved and decorated with stone panelling, the badge of the Royal founder, the Tudor rose, recurring all over the walls. Inside the great feature is the "fan tracery" of the stone roof, which resembles that of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. The windows were once filled with coloured glass, only a fragment of which remains; and the niches with statues of saints and Kings, many of which were destroyed in early Puritan times, in the reign of Edward VI. In 1725 this chapel was appointed as the place for the installation of the Knights of the Bath, an Order revived by George I., and, although the Knights are now installed at Windsor, the Dean of Westminster remains the official chaplain of the Order.
In the centre of the chapel is the tomb of the founder, Henry VII., and his wife, Elizabeth of York, and on the grille and the gates are the family badges. The tomb of Henry's mother, Margaret, Countess of Richmond, is in the south aisle; and the effigies of herself, her son and his wife, are fine specimens of the skill of the famous Italian sculptor Torrigiano. Henry's grand-daughters, the Queens Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, lie in the opposite aisle, sisters parted in life but united in death. Many other descendants of the founder lie side by side within the vaults, while the tombs of two of them, Margaret Stuart, Countess of Lennox, and Mary, Queen of Scots, are close to their common ancestress, Lady Margaret, in the south aisle. All the Stuart Sovereigns with the exception of James II. are here, but their only memorials are the wax figures of Charles II., William and Mary, and Anne, in the Islip chantry chapel.
In a small chapel to the east of Henry VII.'s tomb once lay the bodies of the great Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and many of his mighty men, but their bones were dug up after the Restoration, and not allowed to rest in the Royal church. The Hanoverian Sovereigns are represented only by George II. and his Queen, Caroline the Illustrious, who rest here, their dust mingled according to the King's desire. Close by lie members of their numerous family and the mother, brothers and sisters of the next King, their grandson, George III. Amongst his relations is that brave General, the Duke of Cumberland, whose memory is maligned in the sobriquet "Billy the Butcher."
In the ring of smaller chapels all around the shrine are the tombs of Princes and Princesses, courtiers and Court ladies, warriors and statesmen. Most conspicuous of all, towering over the beautiful Crusaders' monuments, is the vast cenotaph which insults the memory of Wolfe, and not far off is the colossal statue of James Watt.
Outside, the cloisters recall the days of the monastery, when the Abbot sat in state in the east cloister or washed the feet of beggars, and the brethren taught the novices and little schoolboys from the neighbourhood. The architecture there begins in the eleventh century and ends in the fourteenth, when Abbot Litlington finished the building of the monastic offices and cloisters with his predecessor Langham's bequest.
The incomparable chapter-house was built in Henry III.'s time, and restored to some of its original beauty by Sir Gilbert Scott. The modern glass windows remind us of Dean Stanley and his love for the Abbey-church. The chapter-house belongs, as does the Chapel of the Pyx, to the Government, and is not under the Dean's jurisdiction. There the early Parliaments used to meet. In the south cloister is the door of the old refectory where the monks dined, and a little further on we come to the Abbot's house (now the Deanery), which contained in old days within its limits the "College Hall," where the Westminster schoolboys now have their meals. The Jerusalem Chamber and Jericho Parlour, which were formerly the Abbot's withdrawing-room and guest-chambers, date from the abbacy of Litlington at the end of the fourteenth century. To all lovers of Shakespeare the Jerusalem Chamber is familiar as the place where Henry IV. was carried when he fell stricken with a mortal illness before the shrine, and where Henry V. fitted on his father's crown. In this room in our own days the Revisers of the Bible used to meet.
If we pass back into the nave by the west door, we shall see the names of statesmen, of naval and military heroes, on every side. Huge monstrosities of monuments surround us and grow in bulk as we pass up the musicians' aisle and reach the north transept, called the Statesmen's Corner. If we pause and glance around, striving to forget the outer shell, and to think only of the noble men commemorated, we shall remember much to make us proud of England's heroes and worthies. Above the west door stands young William Pitt pointing with outstretched arm towards the north transept, where we shall find his venerable father, Lord Chatham. Almost beneath his feet is the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury, and near to him is a white slave kneeling before the statue of Charles James Fox, whose huge monument hides the humbler tablet to another zealous opponent of the slave trade, Zachary Macaulay. We must pause here an instant to gaze upon the bronze medallion head of General Gordon, the martyr of the Soudan, an enthusiast also in the suppression of slavery; and as we walk up the nave we must look for the slab of Livingstone, whose remains were brought to their final resting-place over deserts and trackless wildernesses by his faithful black servants.
On the right, in Little Poets' Corner, is to be found the chief of the Lake poets, William Wordsworth. Here also is Dr. Arnold, the noted Headmaster of Rugby, his son Matthew, poet and critic, and beside them Keble, Kingsley and Maurice.
The makers of our Indian Empire are about us now. Outram, the "Bayard of India," lies between Lord Lawrence and Lord Clyde; while in the north transept are earlier pioneers, the faithful naval, military, and civil servants of the great East India Company. On each side of the screen are two ponderous monuments which cannot escape the notice of the most casual sightseer; these commemorate Lord Stanhope, a General whose early reputation ranked next to that of Marlborough in Spain, and the immortal philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton. Purcell, chief among English musicians, claims our notice in the choir aisle, and we pass on surrounded by other musicians, by sailors and soldiers, until we stand in the very midst of the statesmen. It may be we have come to the Abbey in the spring, when we shall see the statue of Lord Beaconsfield literally covered with primroses. The Cannings, Sir Robert Peel in his Roman toga, Lord Palmerston, and many other statesmen, are here, and our feet tread on the grave of Gladstone as we pass towards the other transept, hastening to the company of the poets and men of letters.