The Children's Story of Westminster AbbeyTroutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
History
The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey
Troutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
Westminster Abbey
We are told that in 1098 the Confessor’s tomb was opened, and that his
body was found to be still in perfect preservation. Bishop Gundulph, of
Rochester, alone ventured to uncover the face. The memory of Edward’s
pure life, and of his goodness and charity, together with the miracles
that were believed to be worked at his tomb, caused the people to honour
him more and more as a saint, and in the year 1161, Pope Alexander III
caused his name to be formally added to the names of the Saints of the
Christian Church. In our Prayer-Books his name appears on October 13th,
as King Edward the Confessor. A “confessor” means some one who has
suffered for the faith of Christ without actual shedding of blood. In
King Edward’s case it alludes to his exile in the time of the heathen
Danes. The “Translation” of which the Prayer-Book speaks means the
moving of the body into the shrine. This “Translation” took place on
October 13th, 1163, when the Confessor’s body was placed in the new and
splendid shrine made for it by King Henry II. This ceremony took place
at midnight, and both Henry II and Archbishop Becket were present.
While the Abbey was being rebuilt in the reign of Henry III, the
Confessor’s coffin was taken for the time to the Palace of Westminster
close by. On October 13th, 1269, it was brought back with great pomp,
and placed in another shrine, more gorgeous even than the former one.
The coffin was carried by the King himself, his brother, Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, his two sons, Edward and Edmund, together with many of the
nobles of the land. Dean Stanley says that this great ceremony must have
reminded Henry III of an equally splendid one which he saw at Canterbury
Cathedral when he was a boy. This was the “Translation” of the relics of
St. Thomas à Becket in 1220, when Henry III walked in the procession.
Pandulf, the Papal Legate (who had come to England in King John’s
reign), and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, were there also,
to see Becket’s body placed in the shrine prepared for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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