"But," remarks an old writer severely, "as he was enabled to do all this
with the money left by his predecessor Langham, he should have put some
memorial of the Cardinal upon the buildings. Instead, he has his own
arms and the initial letters of his name on the keystone of the cloister
arches."
The Abbot’s house built by Litlington is the present Deanery; but the
College Hall, once the Abbot’s refectory, now the dining-hall of the
Westminster scholars, and the Jerusalem Chamber, the room into which the
Abbot’s guests used to pass when they had dined, are open to the public
at certain hours, and you must not forget them when you are walking
through the cloisters. The Jerusalem Chamber has been restored since the
days of Litlington, though the fine roof and the actual building stand
now as then. The glass in one of the windows, however, is very old, as
is the wonderful stone reredos, which once must have been part of the
high altar. In the dining-hall you must notice the gallery at the one
end in which the minstrels used to perform, and the fine pointed
windows; for as the Norman architecture had given way to the Early
English, and the Early English had developed into the beautiful
Decorated style, so now another change was taking place, of which
Litlington’s building is an early example, and the Perpendicular style,
which was entirely English, was creeping in.
While Litlington was abbot, another royal funeral took place in the
Confessor’s Chapel, for in 1369, "that moost gentyll, moost lyberall,
and moost courtesse fayre lady, Phillipp of Heynault, died."
This is how a writer living at the time quaintly describes the sad
event: "There fell in England a heavy case and a comon, righte pyteouse
for the King, his children and all his realme. For the good Queen of
England fell sicke, the which sickenesse contynewed on her so longe,
that there was no remedye but deathe. And the good lady whenne she this
knewe and perceyved, desyred to speke with the Kynge, her husbande. And
she sayde, ’Sir, we have in peace, ioye, and great prosperyte, used all
our time toguyer. Sir, nowe I pray you at our departyng, that ye will
grant me my desyres.... I requyre you, that it may please you to take
none other sepulture whensoever it shall please God to call you out of
this transytorie lyfe, but besyde me in Westmynster.’
"The Kynge all weepynge sayde, ’Madam, I graunt all your desyre.’ Then
the good ladye made on her the sign of the Cross, and anone after she
yielded up her spiryte, the which I beleeve surely the Holy Angels
receyved with great ioy up to Heven, for, in all her lyfe, she dyd
neyther in thought nor dede, thynge whereby to lose her soule, so farr
as any creature coulde knowe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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