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
“_Let him that is a true-born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this briar pluck a white rose with me._”
Somerset:
“_Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me._”
SHAKSPEARE (_King Henry VI_, part 1, ii, 4).
The name of Henry of Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster, reminds us that Richard II had been made to resign his crown,
and that his cousin had been proclaimed King as King Henry IV. We think,
too, of that sad death, or murder, of the unhappy Richard at Pontefract
Castle. All these things, in one way or another, are connected with the
history of the Abbey. Henry IV is not buried in the Abbey, but in
Canterbury Cathedral, opposite the Black Prince, and, like him, near the
shrine of St. Thomas. But although Westminster is not his last
resting-place, Henry IV is connected with the Abbey in a very special
way.
The story is familiar to us in the pages of Shakspeare. The King had
intended to set out for Palestine on a pilgrimage or crusade, and he had
heard a prophecy that he should die at Jerusalem. Just before he was
going to start he came to the Abbey to pray at the Confessor’s shrine.
While he was in the Chapel he was seized with mortal illness, and was
carried into the famous “Jerusalem Chamber,” which was part of the
Abbot’s house. The Jerusalem Chamber had been built not long before, and
was probably the only room near with a proper fireplace in it. It was
cold March weather, and Henry was laid in front of the fire. When he
came to himself a little he asked what that room was, and being told its
name, he said: “Praise be to the Father of Heaven! for now I know that I
shall die in this chamber, according to the prophecy made of me
beforesaid, that I should die in Jerusalem.”
Every one will remember how an old historian tells us that afterwards,
when the young Prince Harry was watching by his father, he took the
crown and put it on his own head, thinking that his father was dead. The
King, however, was not dead, and, turning round, he reproached the
prince for his heartless and undutiful hurry in taking the crown. Prince
Harry was very much grieved, and explained why he had done such a thing.
After Henry IV’s death, Prince Harry, now King Henry V, spent all that
day at Westminster, in sorrow and penitence for his wild life in the
past. At night he went and confessed his sins to a holy hermit who lived
close to the Abbey, and the hermit assured him that he would be
forgiven. As we all know, Henry V became a religious and determined man,
and a great soldier,—“Conqueror of his enemies and of himself.” Henry V
was crowned in the Abbey on Passion Sunday, 1413, a cold, snowy day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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