Westminster Abbey

the venerable pile around which the city itself (now included in London) originally sprang. (The following account is taken from the Globe Encyclopaedia, s.v.) The foundation of the first Abbey on a spot formerly surrounded by the waters of the Thames and called Thorney Island is involved in mystery, but here was certainly one of the earliest Christian churches in England Sebert, king of the East Saxons, who died in 616, is believed to have completed a sacred edifice dedicated to Peter, which was destroyed by the Danes. Edward the Confessor in its place built a structure of great splendor for his time, and endowed it with a charter of ample powers and privileges. Henry III pulled down a portion and enlarged the plan of this ancient Abbey, adding a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, and the incomparable Chapter house. Henry VII built the magnificent chapel to the east of the Abbey, which bears his name. After his reign the building fell into decay until renovated by Sir Christopher Wren, who designed the upper part of the two western towers. The restoration of the Chapter house was undertaken by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1863. The Abbey is in the form of a Latin, cross, its exterior length being 416 feet, or, including Henry VII's Chapel, 530 feet. Its interior length is 375 feet, and its greatest, interior breadth 200 feet. The breadth of the nave and aisles is 75 feet, and their interior height, to which the Abbey owes much of its stately appearance, is 101 feet. The best view of the Abbey is from the west door between the towers. In the interior is a, noble range of pillars terminating towards the east by a sort of semicircle enclosing the Chapel of Edward the Confessor. The fabric is lighted by a range of windows supported by galleries of double columns on the arches of the pillars, by an upper and under range of windows, and four capital windows, the whole of the lights being admirably arranged. Twenty-two windows are enriched with stained glass. The new choir, 155 feet by 35 feet, was executed in 1848. 'The fifty- two stalls exhibit a great variety of carving and tracery. The reredos, completed under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott, is an elaborate and splendid work. The names of the, various chapels, beginning from the south cross and passing round to the north cross, are in order as follows: (1) St. Benedict's; (2) St. Edmund's; (3) St. Nicholas's; (4) Henry VII's; (5) St. Paul's; (6) St. Edward the Confessor's; (7) St. John's; (8) Islip's Chapel, dedicated to John the Baptist; (9) St. John, St. Michael, and St. Andrew's; The Chapel of Henry VI is adorned without with sixteen Gothic towers, beautifully ornamented and jutting from the Abbey at different angles. Here is the magnificent tomb of that monarch and his queen. In the south transept is the well-known Poet's Corner. Every English sovereign since the Conquest has been crowned in Westminster Abbey, and the coronation-chairs and the coronation-stone of Scotland are in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor. Thirteen kings (George II being the last) and fourteen queens are buried in its precincts. Here also are the remains of Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Cowley, Addison; Congreve, Prior, Gay, Dr. Johnson, Garrick, Sheridan, Campbell, and Macaulae; of Handel, Blow, and Purcell; of Pitt, Fox, Wilberforce, Grattan, Canning, and Peel — a multitude of the illustrious departed. Palmerston, Charles Dickens, Lytton, and Livingstone are among the latest of the glorious company. There are also memorials to Shakespeare, Milton, Goldsmith, Thackeray, John and Charles Wesley, and many others whose remains lie elsewhere. Some of the monuments, such as that to John, Duke of Argyll, are very imposing. The Abbey fills a great place in the political and religious history of England. The Chapter-house was used for three centuries as the meeting-place of the House of Commons, and was thus the Cradle of representative government, and the scene of the chief acts which laid the foundation, of the civil and religious liberty of England. The Westminster Assembly, of Divines sanctioned in the Abbey, the Confession of Faith, which is the recognized creed of the Presbyterian Church (1643- 52), and the final alterations in the Book of Common Prayer were made by the bishops in the Jerusalem Chamber in 1662. Roman, Anglican, and Puritan theologians have in turn preached in these walls. In recent times, under the enlightened rule of Dean Stanley, the national character of the Abbey has been well maintained. Officially called the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, it is governed by the dean, a chapter and eight prebendaries, and other officers. See Neale and Brayley, History and Antiquities of Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster (Lond. 1818, 2 vols.); Stanley, Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (ibid. 1876, 4to); Historical Description of Westminster Abbey (1878), printed for the Vergers.