HISTORICAL SKETCH AND DESCRIPTION

OF THE

Abbey Church of St. Peter,

WESTMINSTER.

UPON the origin of Westminster Abbey much has been written, and yet but little that can be styled probable, is known. The monks traced its history far back into the ages of antiquity, and confused their accounts, as well with the fables of Paganism, as the miracles of Christianity: even the chronicles of more recent authors are replete with particulars which are now rejected by common consent as false and impossible. From the many legends that have involved the subject in obscurity, all that can be collected with any pretensions to sense and reality, is briefly this:-Sebert, a King of the Eastern Saxons, who, with his uncle Ethelbert, was converted to Christianity by St. Austin, and died in the year 616, threw down a Temple in honour of Apollo, which stood west of the city of London, on Thorney Island, and there built a church in memory of St. Peter. To one part of this version, Sir Christopher Wren objects, that if the present structure had ever been raised upon the foundations of a Roman edifice, some fragments of the architecture, common to such works, must almost of necessity remain about the walls. These he examined with the most diligent research, when he was commissioned to repair the Abbey, in the reign of William and Mary, but not a stone or relic of the description alluded to could he discover even in the oldest parts of the masonry.

Nor are the stories which have been handed down to us respecting the consecration of the Abbey less conflicting or more natural. King Sebert is said to have ordered the solemnity to be performed by one Mellitus, then Bishop of London; but the ceremony, according to others, was eminently miraculous. For it has been reported, that,

on the night preceding the day appointed for the consecration, St. Peter descended from heaven, in disguise, and, alighting at Lambeth, was rowed over to the island, then deeply flooded round with heavy rain, by the waterman of the ferry, who was also a fisherman. Upon his landing, he was joined by an embassy of winged angels, and amidst the refulgence of extraordinary lights from the heavens, and a loud chorus of sweet music, in person baptised the new building holy! To the fisherman he then revealed his name, and the nature of his being, commissioning him at the same time to let Bishop Mellitus know all he had seen and heard. Farther to convince the astonished man of the divinity of the event, St. Peter is recorded to have blessed his net, and given him a miraculous draught of salmon, a species of fish in catching which he also promised that no Thames fisherman should ever fail, so long as the fraternity approved the piety of their intentions, by presenting every tenth fish that came to net for the use and benefit of the new church.

Romantic as this tale appears, there are two royal charters still upon record that amply establish the implicit credence which it continued to receive for a long period of time. The first of these was one given by King Edgar, which recites that the Abbey Church was consecrated by no less a personage than St. Peter, the Prince of Apostles, who also named it to his own honour.-It may, perhaps, be as well to remark here, that according to history the Saint had been dead at least five hundred years before the event took place. The other is a charter from King Edward the Confessor, which declares, with minute care, that the Abbey Church of Westminster was dedicated by St. Peter himself, with the attendance of angels, by the impression of the holy cross, and the anointment of the holy chrism. As to the custom of offering salmon to the monks of Westminster Abbey, it was observed by watermen of the Thames to a date as recent as the 14th century.

From varied traditions, such as these, the foundation of the first Abbey in Thorney-Isle, or the Island of Thorns, has been generally fixed in the 6th century, and in the reign of Sebert. After his death, the edifice fell into ruin, in consequence of the relapse of his sons into Paganism; and was soon after totally overthrown by the Danes. It was next repaired, and much augmented, by Offa, King of Mercia, who added the first monastery. The Charter of Edgar already mentioned, was granted upon the occasion of fresh endowments conferred by him, after some farther and violent ravages perpetrated during an incursion of the Danes, about the year 969. The Charter of Edward the Confessor also took its rise from a similar occurrence. During

his reign, the violated remains of the old building were levelled, and a new structure, planned upon a much larger scale, in the form of a cross, was completed about the year 1066. Of this church it is particularly related that it constituted the model for all similar erections throughout the kingdom. The presents made to it were rich in the extreme; its relics were many and peculiarly strange, including, amongst other varieties, some of the milk with which the Virgin suckled our Saviour. The king encreased its wealth, and extended its immunities, by granting to it fresh lands and new privileges. It was upon the report of all this splendour that Pope Nicholas the I. issued a bull, by which the Abbey Church of Westminster was appointed the sole place for the coronation of the kings of England. Of them, William the Conqueror was the first who received the crown within its walls. Upon that occasion the politic conqueror showed his regard for the memory of his late friend, King Edward, by offering a sumptuous pall to cover his tomb; and proved his sense of the dignity of the monks, by presenting them with a rich cloth for the high altar, with fifty marks of silver, and two caskets of gold.

Henry the III. is the next monarch whom pride or devotion led to make additions to this magnificent establishment. On the Saturday preceding his coronation, in the year 1220, he laid the first stone of a chapel to be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; and after the lapse of some score years, pulled down all the old structure, upon a represen. tation of the dangerous state into which the towers had decayed. The memorable task of rebuilding this great monument upon an enlarged design, was commenced in the year 1245. The work proceeded but slowly; for at the death of Henry only four arches west of the middle tower had been finished. After this date, the periods at which, and the princes under whom, the principal sections were raised, have never been ascertained. It is only known, that at the Reformation the whole was still imperfect, for neither the great tower, nor the fine turrets to the west, were then in being.

It was in the year 1502 that Henry the VII. set to work at the construction of that admirable piece of workmanship, the chapel, which is yet distinguished by his name. The purpose for which it was raised was to constitute a burial-place for himself and his heirs ; and the better to preserve it from less noble occupancy, he introduced a clause into his will, by the terms of which the bodies of those only who were of royal blood, could be interred within its precincts. For an endowment suitable to the majesty of this trust, he procured a bull from the Pope, by which he was empowered to attach to the foundation

a chauntry of three monks and two laymen. He also obtained permission to appropriate the collegiate church in St. Martin's-le-Grand --since subverted to make room for the New Post Office--and the manor of Tykill, in Yorkshire, for the maintenance of these new members of the establishment. It was from this circumstance that the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey over St. Martin's-leGrand took its rise; and, by an equitable reciprocity, the inhabitants of the latter street obtained the privilege of a vote at the election of the members in Parliament for Westminster.

The

Henry the VII.'s Chapel is generally esteemed the most exquisite specimen of ornamental Gothic architecture, not only throughout all Great Britain, but also throughout the world. The ascent to it is at the eastern extremity of the Abbey, of which, though at a hasty view it may seem attached, it forms no part whatever. It stands upon the site of the chapel already said to have been built by Henry the III.; and consists, like a cathedral, of a nave and aisles, all built of solid stone, and cut with matchless ingenuity and richness. In length it runs to 100, in breadth to 66, and rises in height to 54 feet. No description can convey a picture, and no praise exceed the merits which are to be traced over every inch of a performance so exquisite. Whether the eye regards the varied delicacy with which the turreted buttresses on the outside are cut, the fine carving on all the interior wainscoting, the deep figuring of the lofty ceiling, or the curious.framework of the brazen gates, and oaken screens, the same beauty is every where discovered, and the same admiration consistently excited. nave is hung with the banners of the knights of the most honourable Order of the Bath, for whose installation this chapel has generally been used since the revival of the order by George the I. in the year 1725. The stalls of the knights are ranged along either side of the nave, and may be distinguished by brass-plates, engraved with the arms of the knight to whom the pew belongs, and hung with his sword and helmet. Beneath each stall are also seats for the esquires, of whom each knight is allowed three. The style of deep and forcible expression into which the brown wainscoting of these stalls and seats is carved, has been intensely extolled for happiness and dexterity. It has even been asserted that there exists no artificer to equal these singular productions, or to rival the curious variety of saints and angels which ornament the walls. Pompous and finished as the execution of every stone of this chapel undoubtedly is, and exclusively as the high order of its merit would seem to represent it as a royal work, yet there remains a part of it to be mentioned, which a private individual had the honour

of superadding to its manifold beauties. This is the pavement, laid in black and white marble, by a Dr. Killigrew, who is described by an inscription on the floor as having been a Prebendary of the Abbey.

Reverting to the history of the Abbey itself, it appears that nothing more was done for it during the reign of Henry the VII. By his successor, still less can be supposed to have been effected-the capacity of Henry the VIII. lay in other propensities of cleverness. For when, in the furtherance of that reformation in religion to which the spirit of his lust had first excited him, this king determined to subvert every religious house in his dominions, Westminster Abbey, with all its wealth and all its honours, was among the first plunder that fell into his ungodly grasp. A formal surrender of the place-its revenues and patronage -was made into his hands in the year 1539, by William Benson, abbot, and thirteen monks. The income delivered in amounted to 39771. 6s. 4d. a year; and this sum, by a comparison of values, has been estimated at nearly equal to 20,000l. of the currency of the present time. This calculation does not extend to its positive or intrinsic wealth, such as reliquaries, statuary, fixed ornaments in tombs, and altar furniture, &c. of which probably no account was ever taken, for no particulars have been recorded. Yet the value of this property must have been immense: the more certain wealth was drawn from 216 manors, 17 hamlets, and 97 towns and villages: As to the rank of the Abbey, though only the second in the kingdom, yet in point of state and influence it was decidedly without a parallel. The Abbot of Westminster had a seat and a voice in the House of Lords.

The first use made by the arrogant Harry of Westminster Abbey was to establish it as a College of secular canons, under the government of a dean. Ever prone to change, he created it a bishopric in less than two years after, which was again dissolved by his son, Edward the VI. who reduced the government to the hands of a dean. In 1557, Queen Mary, among her other Catholic changes, restored the full dignity of the ancient monastery; and in 1560, Queen Elizabeth made the final alteration in its state, by erecting it into a College, under the control of a dean and twelve secular prebendaries. Attached to it, upon an endowment given by her, was a school for forty scholars, still in reputed resort, in which the classics and liberal sciences are taught. The students on the foundation are provided with all the necessaries of life, clothes only excepted, of which however they are presented with a cloak or gown once a year.

With Elizabeth ceased all royal benefactions to this ancient pile. It was now abandoned to the casualties of accidental plunder, and the