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
There is another effigy of Queen Elizabeth in the Abbey; and a very
curious one it is. From the thirteenth century until the beginning of
the eighteenth, it was the custom at royal funerals to carry a
life-size, waxen image before the coffin, representing the dead in the
clothes they wore. These effigies were left on the grave for about a
month, and some of the Abbey officials gained their living by showing
them to visitors. Most of the waxen figures have crumbled to dust. The
writer believes that she was the last person to look at that of hapless
Anne Boleyn. It had so fallen to pieces as to be a very hideous object,
and it has since been locked up and shown to no one. But in an upper
chamber over the Islip chapel, reached by a little dark stairway, eleven
of these strange figures are still to be seen in wainscot cupboards with
glass doors. Among them is Queen Elizabeth; not the original
effigy--that was worn out in 1708, when a certain Tom Brown who wrote _A
Walk through London and Westminster_, says that he saw the remains of
it. This is a copy made in 1760; and we see the poor old queen, dressed
in the long-waisted bodice and hooped skirt we know so well in pictures.
It is a piteous sight, however; for the effigy, battered and sorely the
worse for wear, is leaning up against the side of the glass cupboard in
a most undignified attitude. One would rather think of her as she lies
still and stately in the beautiful north aisle.
But we must linger no longer about Elizabeth's effigy or her tomb. We
must pass on to the east end of the chapel, and there we shall find the
monuments of her two little cousins.
On what used to be the altar step of the north aisle stands a baby's
cradle--a cradle on real rockers. A gorgeous coverlet, all trimmed with
rich guipure lace, falls from the corners of the cradle in splendid,
rich folds. The arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland are carved on the
back. And when you look under the head of the cradle you see that a baby
lies sleeping in it. A darling tiny baby it is--its little wee face set
in a close lace cap and lace ruff, under a kind of lace-trimmed hood
that forms part of the pillow. You can almost fancy that if the cradle
were set rocking the babe might open her eyes. But "baby and cradle, and
all," are marble--marble, yellow with the dust and wear of nearly three
hundred years.
"The Cradle Tomb" of Westminster, as it is called, has been far better
described than by any words of mine. A card hangs close beside it,
placed there by desire of Lady Augusta Stanley, on which is a poem "by
an American lady." That lady is a well-known favorite of American
readers; for she is none other than "Susan Coolidge." And the lovely
verses--some of which I venture to transcribe--appeared in _Scribner's
Monthly_ for 1875:
A little rudely sculptured bed,
With shadowing folds of marble lace,
And quilt of marble, primly spread,
And folded round a baby face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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