Letters from England, 1846-1849Bancroft, Elizabeth Davis
History
Letters from England, 1846-1849
Bancroft, Elizabeth Davis
England -- Description and travel
On Tuesday morning we were invited by Dr. Buckland, the Dean of
Westminster, to go to his house, and from thence to the Abbey, to witness
the funeral of the Duke of Northumberland. The Dean, who has control of
everything in the Abbey, issued tickets to several hundred persons to go
and witness the funeral, but only Lord Northampton’s family, the Bunsens
(the Prussian Minister), and ourselves, went to his house, and into the
Dean’s little gallery.
After the ceremony there were a crowd of visitors at the Dean’s, and I
met many old acquaintances, and made many new ones, among whom were Lady
Chantrey, a nice person. After the crowd cleared off, we sat down to a
long table at lunch, always an important meal here, and afterward the
Dean took me on his arm and showed me everything within the Abbey
precincts. He took us first to the Percy Chapel to see the vault of the
Percys. . . . From thence the Dean took us to the Jerusalem chamber where
Henry IV died, then all over the Westminster school. We first went to
the hall where the young men were eating their dinner. . . . We then went
to the school-room, where every inch of the wall and benches is covered
with names, some of them most illustrious, as Dryden’s. There were two
bunches of rods, which the Dean assured me were not mere symbols of
power, but were daily used, as, indeed, the broken twigs scattered upon
the floor plainly showed. Our ferules are thought rather barbarous, but
a gentle touch from a slender twig not at all so. These young men looked
to me as old as our collegians. We then went to their study-rooms,
play-rooms, and sleeping-rooms. The whole forty sleep in one long and
well-ventilated room, the walls of which were also covered with names.
At the foot of each bed was a large chest covered with leather, as
mouldering and time-worn as the Abbey itself. Here are educated the sons
of some of the noblest families, and the Archbishop of York has had six
sons here, and all of them were in succession the Captain of the school. . . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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