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
King James II, who died in France in the year 1701, was first buried in
the Chapel of the English Benedictines in Paris. It was hoped that his
body would at last be brought to Westminster to be buried near the
graves of the other Kings of England. But this never happened, and James
II was finally buried in the Church of St. Germains, near Paris. His
first wife, Anne Hyde, daughter of Lord Clarendon, and mother of the two
Stuart Queens, Mary and Anne, died in 1671, and is buried in the Abbey,
in the vault where Mary, Queen of Scots, rests. Many children of James
II are buried there also. But the son of his second wife, Mary of
Modena, the Prince James whom many people thought the rightful successor
to the throne, is buried in another great St. Peter’s—St. Peter’s at
Rome. Not only is James—the Chevalier de St. George, as he was
called—buried in St. Peter’s, but also his wife and his two sons,
Charles Edward (Prince Charlie) and Henry Benedict, Cardinal of York.
With the Cardinal of York the male line of James II ended, and we go
back to his two daughters, Mary and Anne.
William III and Mary II are both buried in the Abbey, near the other
Stuarts. Queen Mary’s funeral was a very solemn and mournful one, and
she was much lamented by her subjects.
Queen Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, are buried close
by, and Queen Anne’s eighteen infant children are buried in the great
Stuart vault under the monument of Mary, Queen of Scots. Only one of
Queen Anne’s children lived for any time, and that was William, Duke of
Gloucester, who died in 1700, aged eleven, “of a fever occasioned by
excessive dancing on his birthday.”
There are a few other relations of the Stuart family buried in the
Abbey, but with Queen Anne the Stuart history really ends so far as the
Abbey is concerned. None of the Stuart Kings have any monuments.
We must now call to mind some of the chief men of the Stuart times whose
graves are at Westminster. The greatest contemporaries of James I, Lord
Bacon and Shakspeare, are not buried in the Abbey. Lord Bacon is buried
at Verulam; and although Shakspeare has a monument in the Abbey, he is
not buried there, but, by his own desire, at his own native Stratford.
When we think of the reigns of James I and Charles I, we often recall
the name of a man who was a great friend and favourite of both these
Kings. This man is George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whom James I
used to call by the silly name of “Steenie.” While we speak of
Buckingham, we remember that he had a great deal to do with preventing
Charles I’s marriage to a Spanish Infanta, and with bringing about his
marriage with Henrietta Maria of France. We also think of Buckingham’s
unsuccessful attempts to relieve La Rochelle, where the Huguenots were
besieged by Cardinal Richelieu, and in this way the French history of
that time seems to be brought very close to the Abbey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account