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
General Burgoyne, whose surrender at Saratoga lost America to England,
is buried in the North Cloister. Near him is buried Colonel Enoch
Markham, who served throughout the same war. In the Abbey itself is the
famous monument of Major André, who was hanged as a spy by the Americans
in 1780. André had gone on a secret mission to the American General,
Arnold, who betrayed a fortress on the Hudson River to the British. On
his way back from the meeting André was taken, and, in spite of every
effort to save him from a traitor’s death, he was hanged by order of
General Washington, and was buried under the gallows on the banks of the
Hudson. Forty years later his body was removed, at the request of the
Duke of York, and was finally buried in the Abbey. Some locks of his
beautiful hair still remained, and these were sent to his sisters. The
chest in which André’s bones were sent home is still in the Islip
Chantry. His monument is in the south aisle of the Nave, and the head of
his figure has more than once been broken off and taken away, either by
people with strong political feelings on one side or the other, or else
by some mischievous schoolboy. There is a famous story of Charles Lamb
half accusing Southey of having carried off André’s head. Southey did
not like this, and it was a long time before he quite forgot it.
The war with the American colonies is thought to have broken Lord
Chatham’s heart. Every one remembers the last scene in his public life—a
scene represented in a famous picture—when Lord Chatham came to the
House of Lords to make one last protest against a policy which meant the
loss of the American colonies. During his speech he fell to the ground
in a fit, and died a few weeks afterwards.
The French wars in the later part of the eighteenth century have a
memorial in the Abbey in the enormous monument to the three captains,
Bayne, Blair, and Lord Robert Manners, in the North Transept. These
three captains fell in 1782, at Admiral Rodney’s victorious fight with
the French off Guadaloupe in the West Indies. In St. Michael’s Chapel is
another memorial of the same wars in the monument which tells of the
death of Admiral Kempenfelt in the shipwreck of the _Royal George_ at
Spithead in 1782.
Again, Lord Howe’s famous victory over the French off Ushant, on June
1st, 1794, has left its mark on the Abbey in the monuments of Captains
Hardy and Hutt, and of Captain Montagu, which are both in the Nave.
In the reign of George I there was a terrible happening which caused
great misery throughout England, and which has never been forgotten.
This was what was called the South Sea Bubble,—that is, the failure of
the South Sea Company. We are reminded of this disgraceful business even
in the Abbey, because of the grave and monument of the poet Craggs, who
was mixed up with it. Craggs is buried in Henry VII’s Chapel, and his
monument is in the Baptistery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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