The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English HistoryKingsley, Rose Georgina
History
The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English History
Kingsley, Rose Georgina
Children -- England -- London; Westminster Abbey -- Biography
While the king was still engaged in quieting down his new principality,
his eldest son Prince Alfonzo, named after his grandfather Alfonzo of
Castile, came journeying back to London. He brought with him Llewellyn's
golden crown, said by tradition to have belonged to King Arthur, also
jewels and ornaments, and possibly the precious Crocis Gneyth (or Cross
of St. Neot) which certainly was brought to the Abbey from Wales during
Edward the First's reign.
The little lad who was twelve years old, came with these treasures to
Westminster; and he offered up Llewellyn's crown and the jewels in the
Confessor's Chapel, where "they were all applied to adorn the tomb of
the blessed King Edward."[18] We can fancy the boy, dressed after the
fashion of those days in chain armour from head to foot with a long
flowing cloak, accompanied by a great train of knights and nobles,
wending his way up the solemn Abbey with his offerings, and gravely
hanging up the crown in the Sanctuary of the English Kings.
There is indeed something to touch one's imagination in this act--the
hand of the innocent boy putting the finishing stroke to the great
struggle between the British and Anglo-Saxon races. Henceforth they were
to be one. The proudest title of the heir to the English throne was to
be "Prince of Wales." The Plantagenets were to reign over Arthur's
mysterious realm, till two hundred years later Arthur and Llewellyn's
descendants, the Tudors, should sit on the throne of England.
But Alfonzo's short life was nearly at an end. Matthew of Westminster
goes on to say: "This Alfonzo died this year, being about twelve years
of age--dying on the nineteenth of August, on the day of St. Magnus the
king, and his body was honorably buried in the Church of Westminster,
near the tomb of St. Edward, where it is placed between his brothers
and sisters, who were buried before him in the same place."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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