The pavement inside the rails is made of the mosaics brought back from
Rome by Abbot Ware in 1267, where he went to be duly confirmed in his
office by the Pope; the pillars near the altar are on the very bases
which were put there when Edward the Confessor built his church. Here
are the tombs of Aymer de Valence, of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of
Lancaster, and of Aveline his young wife, who as a bride had stood in
front of the altar but a few months before her death in the year 1269.
Opposite, King Sebert is said to lie; under the pavement rests Abbot
Ware, with other of his successors, and Richard the Second’s sad
helpless face looks at us from his portrait with its fine background of
tapestry. The altar and the reredos which we see are both new, and just
as the old frieze through in the Confessor’s Chapel depicts scenes in
the life of Edward, so the modern reredos gives us glimpses of Him in
whose honour the Saxon king first raised these walls. From among the
gold, four white figures stand out, "the four living creatures which
have been thought worthy to stand round the central figure of our
departing Master," as Dean Stanley described them when they were
erected. On the right stands St. Peter, patron saint of the Abbey,
holding in one hand the keys, and in the other a book, on which is
written the great truth, "God is no respecter of persons," and next to
him is Moses, the first statesman and lawgiver, looking towards the
buried statesmen in the Abbey.
On the left stands St. Paul, grasping in his hand that Sword of the
Spirit which he had named as the weapon of the Christian warrior, and by
him is David, the sweet singer of Israel, whose face is turned towards
the Poets’ Corner as though he would claim those sleeping there for his
brethren.
Through the glass we catch a glimpse of the Chapel of the Kings, and all
around is a network of slender arches fashioned by master-hands into
forms of stately but perfect beauty. High above are the three Eastern
Windows, though in the course of the years these have been so constantly
repaired with any scraps of glass available, that the effect is rather
confusing. But the figure of a thorn-crowned Christ stands out, and
near to Him are Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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