England -- Description and travel; London (England) -- Description and travel; Thames River (England)
In this spot lie, in addition to the remains of Henry himself, those of
most of our later Kings and Queens. Here side by side the sisters Mary
and Elizabeth “are at one; the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and the
daughter of Anne Boleyn repose in peace at last.” Here, too, rests that
tragic figure of history, Mary Queen of Scots; and James I., Charles
I., William III., Queen Anne, and George II.
For numbers of us one of the most interesting parts of the Abbey will
always be “Poets’ Corner,” in the south transept. Here rest all that
remains of many of our mightiest wielders of the pen, from Chaucer, the
father of English poetry, down to Tennyson and Browning. Many of the
names on the monuments which cluster so closely together are forgotten
now, just as their works are never read; but the tablets to the memory
of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Dickens, Tennyson, and Browning,
will always serve to remind us of the mighty dead. The north transept
is devoted largely to the monuments to our great statesmen and our
great warriors.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
In the Choir we come upon the Coronation Chairs. The Confessor in
building his church had in mind that the Abbey should be the place of
coronation of England’s Sovereigns; and down through the centuries
this custom has been observed. Indeed, certain parts of the regalia
worn by the King or Queen on Coronation Day are actually the identical
articles presented to the Abbey by Edward himself. The old and battered
chair is that of Edward I., the “hammer of the Scots,” who lies buried
with his fellow Plantagenets in the Confessor’s Chapel. Just under
the seat of the chair is the famous “stone of destiny,” brought from
Scone by Edward, to mark the completeness of the defeat. Its removal to
Westminster sorely troubled our northern neighbours, for they believed
that the Supreme Power travelled with that stone. Since those days
every English Sovereign has been crowned in this chair. Its companion
was made for Mary, wife of William III.
In the Nave lies one of the most frequently visited of all the
tombs—the last resting-place of the Unknown Warrior, who, brought over
from France and buried with all the grandeur and solemnity of a Royal
funeral, typifies for us the thousands of brave lads who made the great
sacrifice—who died that we might live.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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