“Well,” continued Godmother, “part of what I’ve just told you is only a legend. Now we come to real history. That first church built by Sebert, stood here for about four hundred years. Then Edward the Confessor came to the throne. He, as his name tells you, was a very pious king, and he had made a vow to God to build a great church. So he pulled down the one already standing on Thorney Island (as it was still called by the people) and on its foundations built another huge one—quite as large as this present Abbey. It was finished just before he died, and the very next year, in 1066, William the Conqueror took possession not only of the palace in which Edward the Confessor and the kings before him, had lived (that old palace we have so lately seen, you know)—but of the great new church belonging to it. “It stood as Edward the Confessor left it, for two hundred years. Then King Henry the Third pulled nearly all of it down, so that very little is left of the first ancient building now. The Chapel of the Pyx, which we will see one day, is, however, a part of Edward the Confessor’s Abbey, and so are some of the walls of this very cloister we are in. “Edward the First, Henry’s son, went on with the re-building, and while Chaucer was alive, a great deal was added to it. The famous Jerusalem Chamber, for instance, was only just finished when you saw the Abbey by magic this morning, and so was the greater part of this cloister in which we are sitting.” “No wonder the Abbey looked all bright and new,” said Betty. “What is the _Jerusalem_ Chamber?” “We’ll go and see it, and I’ll tell you about it when we’re there.” They went through a little ancient court into a beautiful old room with a stained-glass window at one end. “Chaucer may have seen that glass,” said Godmother, “for it was painted long before he was born. This room was built during his lifetime, for the use of the Abbot’s guests when they came to stay with him. It was probably called the Jerusalem Chamber because there used to be tapestry on its walls showing the history of Jerusalem. And about that there is a curious story.” “Do tell me!” Betty urged. “I will, when we go home. Or rather, I’ll let Shakespeare tell you, because he has used the story in one of his plays. “Many things have happened in this Jerusalem Chamber from the days when Chaucer saw it, up to our own time. Not so very long ago, for instance, when the Bible was revised—(that is, translated again, and much of the wording altered) the learned men who worked at it sat here.... Now we’ve seen as much of the Abbey as was in existence when Richard the Second was king. But of course an enormous amount of its history comes after his time.” “Does the story of the Jerusalem Chamber come after?” Betty asked. “Yes, but so soon afterwards that we’ll read it in the play of _Henry the Fourth_.”