CHAPTER II THE HALLOWING OF THE ABBEY

King Edward had no sooner resolved on the site for his new Abbey Church, than he commenced the task of building it, pressing on the work with zealous eagerness, making it indeed the object of his life. In his character he lacked all those qualities which go to the making of a great king. His prayers and his visions so absorbed him, that in heart and mind he lived in the company of saints and angels, and the duties of government were altogether irksome to him. By birth partly Norman, by education and tastes entirely so, he knew but little of the people over whom he was called to rule, and wherever it was possible he willingly handed over all duties of government to others. Fortunately for himself and for England, there were two men ever at his side, who served both him and his people loyally and well, these being Earl Godwine and his second son, Harold, Earl of the East Saxons. Both were related to him, for Godwine was the father and Harold the brother of Lady Eadgytha, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the king, and both showed themselves to be rulers wise, just, and merciful.

Of the two, Harold was the more beloved by king and country alike; indeed, one chronicler of that time boldly says that Edward's greatest claim to glory lies in the fact that he called Harold to the government of his realm. Tall of stature, beautiful in form and face, he excelled in all things, whether in the battle-field or at the council, and to his many gifts was added a noble and upright character, strong when the need for strength arose, but ever inclined to show mercy and compassion. This was the man on whose shoulders Edward virtually laid all the responsibilities of his realm, while he spent most of his time in his palace at Westminster, so that he might be on the spot to superintend the progress of the building, which went on apace, and to consult with Abbot Edwy as to the form it should take. It was on the church itself, rather than on the buildings of the monastery, that the king lavished his especial care. He meant it to be in the "new style," which he had learnt to love during his exile in Normandy, that land from which came forth those master-builders, many of them priests and scholars, whose handiwork is still to be found alike in Norman and in English minsters, beautiful as ever in its strength, its simplicity, and its dignity. Many were the Norman customs and ideas which Edward brought over with his Norman friends, and some of them were vigorously opposed by Harold, who was passionately English.

But as we go through the country and find one after another of those majestic buildings in grey stone, made so perfect as to defy the centuries, we must gratefully remember that it was King Edward who first of all set up this "new style" as a model in our midst.

One characteristic was, that every great church should be built in the form of a cross; in the centre the nave, at the east end the High Altar, and where the nave merged into the choir cross arms on the right and on the left, and so it was that Westminster was the first cruciform church in England.

This is a description of Edward's building, given to us in a French Life of the king, written very shortly after his death:—

    "Now he laid the foundations of the church
    With large square blocks of grey stone.
    Its foundations are deep,
    The front, towards the east he makes round,
    The stones are very strong and hard.
    In the centre rises a tower
    And two at the western front,
    And fine and large bells he hangs there.
    The pillars and mouldings
    Are rich without and within.
    At the basis and the capitals
    The work rises grand and royal.
    Sculptured are the stones
    And storied the windows.
    All are made with the skill
    Of good and loyal workmanship.
    And when he finished the work,
    He covers the church with lead.
    He makes then a Cloister, and Chapter-House in front,
    Towards the east, vaulted and round,
    Where his ordained ministers
    May hold their secret Chapter,
    Prater and dorter,
    And the officers round about."
    

Considering the size of Edward's building, for it was very little if any smaller than the Abbey as we know it to-day, it is unlikely that all the parts described by the French chronicler were finished during the lifetime of the king. Indeed, the royal builder seems to have known that his eyes would never rest on his work, perfected as he dreamt of it. His longing therefore was that church and choir might be completed and dedicated, and for the rest he made such munificent gifts in land and money, plate and jewels to the Abbot, that he had no fear but that the building of the monastery with its cloisters and dormitories, infirmary and refectory, would be easily accomplished, even if he did not live to see it.

Signs were not wanting to warn him that the hour of his death was near at hand. He had ever firmly believed in dreams and visions, and of late these had been full of solemn meaning to him. He had seen the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus turning from their right sides to their left, and this he judged to be an omen which told of a great upheaval, of wars, pestilence, and famine, which should last for seventy years. Then, too, the Christ Child had appeared to him as he stood near the High Altar in the newly finished choir, and had told him how soon he was to be called hence. And, most wonderful of all, two pilgrims, just returned from the Holy Land, came to the king with a strange story.

Some time before, Edward was on his way to the dedication of a church he had built to St. John the Evangelist, when he passed a beggar who pleaded with him for his charity in the name of the Apostle of Love. The king carried no money with him, and his much-loved Chamberlain, Hugolin, was not at hand. Yet so tender-hearted was Edward that he could not pass the beggar by, and he took from his hand a ring, "large, royal, and beautiful." The beggar took it and vanished. But these two pilgrims told how while they were in Syria and in great straits, having wandered from their path, an old man with a long, white beard, carrying two lighted tapers, stood in their pathway and questioned them. When they spoke of their country and their king, he became very joyous, and declared how great a love he bore to Edward. Furthermore he led them to a hostel hard by, told them that lie was none other than St. John the Evangelist, and gave them the ring, bidding them to take it back to the king with the assurance that in half a year he should stand at his side in Paradise.

Edward accepted the story with childlike simplicity. He fasted more rigorously, he prayed more earnestly, and he decided to hasten on the hallowing of his church.

The Feast of Christmas was at hand, and the king summoned the Witan for the first time to Westminster, that they might take part in the great ceremony. Little did he dream how through the centuries to come Abbey and Parliament would be welded together.

On Christmas Day, though ill, he, wearing his crown, took part in the services, and was present at the Christmas banquet in the palace. He conversed with the bishops and the nobles, and appointed the feast of the Holy Innocents as the day on which the great event for which he had so longed should take place.

But his strength began to rapidly ebb away, and all who saw him knew him to be a dying man. Too weak to do more than set his signature to the charter of the foundation, he still insisted that the hallowing should take place. Death held no terrors for him; it was but the gate through which he must pass ere he could join that white-robed host of saints and martyrs whose presence he had felt so near to him through life. Only, like Simeon of old, there was one thing he desired before he could say, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." Not till his church was consecrated would the desire of his heart be satisfied.

By his bedside stood his wife, the Lady Eadgytha, herself the founder of a convent church at Wilton. In life he had never loved her overmuch; like his kingdom, she occupied a very secondary place in his thoughts. But womanlike she forgot all that in this moment, and thought only how best she could help and comfort him. Calmly she carried out his every wish, and, acting as his representative, went, accompanied by her two brothers Harold and Garth, to the consecration of the Abbey Church by Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury.

"Magnificently finished was the church," says an old writer, and it is not difficult for us to picture what took place there on this joyous festival. The walls, massive and stately in their simplicity, gleamed in their freshness, and formed a vivid contrast to the colours to be found in the vestments of the bishops and the priests, the robes of the acolytes and singing boys, the distinctive dress of the monks, and the varied costumes of nobles, both Norman and Saxon, who were assembled there. The lights shone on the High Altar, clouds of incense floated around it, and for the first time those walls resounded with chant and hymn and solemn antiphon.

"The work stands finished," murmured the king as the echoes of the music floated across to him.

When the queen returned to his bedside, he lay unconscious, and she, kneeling on the ground, tried to restore to him warmth and life. But for many days he made no sign. Then suddenly, on the last day of the old year, came the final flicker. In a voice clear and strong, he spoke of two holy monks, and all that they had prophesied to him concerning the disaster which would shortly overthrow the land. So earnest were his words that they struck terror into the hearts of all present; only Stigand, the Archbishop, dared declare that the king babbled in delirium. Yet other things did Edward bequeath in those last days. To his friend the Abbot Eadwine he gave his body with the command that it should be laid in the Abbey Church, and to Harold, his brother-in-law, he commended the Lady Eadgytha, who had never failed in her duty towards him, and to whom he desired all honour should be accorded. Neither did he forget his Norman favourites, who had, he declared, left their native land for love of him.

Still there was one all-important bequest to be made, and in that moment Edward seemed to have understood, as he had never understood before, the hopes and longings of his people.

"To thee, Harold, my brother, I commit my kingdom," he said solemnly.

Then once more he became silent till near the end, when he turned to the weeping queen.

"Mourn not, my daughter," he said. "I shall not die, but live. For passing from the country of the dead, I verily hope to behold the good things of the Lord in the land of the living."

So he fell asleep; and to him St. Peter opened the gate of Paradise, and St. John, his own dear one, led him before the Divine Majesty.

The grief of the people was intense, and to it was added a wild terror as to what might now befall the land. Hurriedly, as if in a panic, the royal funeral took place on the Feast of the Epiphany, but one day after the king had breathed his last, and the Abbey became the scene of the deepest mourning. Dirges and penitential psalms filled its walls instead of joyful hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Edward, wrapped around in beautiful robes embroidered by Eadgytha and her maidens, and wearing the pilgrim's ring, was laid in royal state on a bier, and carried by eight men to the Abbey, there to be placed before the high altar.

"Bishops, and a multitude of abbots, priests, and ecclesiastics, with dukes and earls assembled together. A crowd of monks went thither, and innumerable bodies of people. Here psalms resound, the sighs and tears burst out, and in that temple of chastity, that dwelling of virtue, the king is honourably interred in the place appointed by himself."
THE CONFESSOR'S FUNERAL. FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.
THE CONFESSOR'S FUNERAL. FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.

So, in a halo of sanctity, ended the life and reign of Edward; and remembering all his piety, his humility, the nights of contrition he spent on the cold stones in spite of his wearing sickness, his deep reverence for all things holy, and the noble gifts he made to the Church, men spoke of him rather as a saint than as a king. And indeed as a ruler he left but little mark on his times. Yet the Abbey Church of Westminster is no small memorial for this last king of the Saxons to have bequeathed to the English nation, and for that alone we owe him a debt of gratitude which lends an unfading glory to his name.

Now, you will be wondering how much of the Abbey Church as Edward built it, stands to-day. And alas! there is but little of it left. For when Henry III., who had a special love for the Confessor, resolved to set up some worthy memorial of this "glorious king," he pulled down the greater part of the simple, stately building Edward had so loved, and set up in its place a much more ornate and magnificent piece of work. Edward built to the honour of St. Peter; Henry, to the memory of St. Edward. But generous as was his motive in pulling down that solid Norman building, which otherwise would have been standing firm as ever to-day, we cannot help regretting those vanished Norman arches and massive pillars.

When you stand by the altar rails, you can remember that the bases of the pillars on either side of the altar are those belonging to Edward's church; or if you go from the cloisters, where the south and the east walks join, into the little cloisters, you will pass under an old archway over the entrance, always known as the Confessor's door. Underneath, too, what used to be the ancient dormitory, but is now the great schoolroom of Westminster School, some very massive and solid buildings remain which evidently date from Edward, and there is also again the Chapel of the Pyx, or Chapel of the Chest, where treasures belonging to the sovereign and the monastery were kept. Neither of these latter places are shown to the general public, but when you go to see the Chapter-House, the entrance to which is in the east cloister, you will see to the right of it the doorway of the Pyx Chapel, which is wonderfully strong, and is said to be lined with the skins of Danes. The interior of this, with its stone altar and its solid stone arches, can have undergone very little alteration since Edward's day. You will get, too, what is probably a correct general idea of the whole building as it looked from the outside in those early days if, when you are in the Chapter-House, you look carefully at the pictures which are copied from the Bayeux tapestries. This wonderful piece of work, which was prepared for the rebuilt Cathedral at Bayeux in Normandy, was certainly embroidered during the lifetime of William the Conqueror, and may even have been the work of his wife, Queen Matilda. Most probably it was made in England, and is in itself a valuable addition to the very fragmentary history of those times. All its details seem to be very accurate, copied from what the workers actually saw and knew about, so there is no reason why the picture of the Abbey in that part of the tapestry which shows the funeral of the Confessor should not as accurately represent the building exactly as it stood.

You must notice the part towards the east made round, and the stones which are "very strong and hard," with the main tower and the two smaller towers at the side. And notice too the figure of a man, who is standing on the roof of the Palace, and holding with one hand the weathercock on the east end of the Abbey.

May be the worker only sought to show the buildings of the Abbey and the Palace standing side by side, but all unconsciously that unknown hand prophesied what should be throughout the centuries to come, and told how Church and State should stand firmly linked together.

The members of the Witan had not departed to their homes on the conclusion of the festivities connected with Christmastide and the consecration of the Abbey. They knew the king was dying fast, and that before many days a great duty would rest on them. Rumours may have reached their ears that William of Normandy, cousin to Edward, meant to lay claim to the throne on his death, declaring that the king had promised to make him his heir, and that Harold himself had vowed to support him. But the sturdy Englishmen who formed that council were resolved that never with their consent should a Norman rule over them, and Edward knew full well the man of their choice when he pointed to Harold as their future king. There was an heir to the throne by right of birth, Edgar the Atheling. Still he lived far away unknown to them all, and the days had not yet come when men succeeded to the throne by right of birth alone. On the spot was Harold, the man they loved and trusted, "the shield of the kingdom, the shelter of the oppressed, the judge of the fatherless and the widow."

Edward had done his part. "Death snatched him from the earth, angels bore his white soul to heaven, and in his death he had been glorious, for he had made fast his realm to the noble earl."

The Witan did not hesitate so soon as the throne was theirs to fill, but of their number sent two, who sought out Harold where he stayed, comforting his widowed sister, and offered to him the throne as the man of their choice. Here again the copy of the Bayeux tapestry in the Chapter-House will help you to picture the scene. You will see the two nobles, one bearing the axe of office, the other holding a crown and pointing to the room in which lay Edward, from whence the crown had been borne. And you will see Harold—to quote the vivid words of Mr. Freeman, "at once wistfully and anxiously half drawing back the hand which was stretched forth to grasp the glittering gift. A path of danger lay open before him, and duty, no less than ambition, bade him enter upon the thorny road. And yet the risk had to be run. If he declined the crown, to whom should England offer it? Under him alone could there be the faintest hope that England would offer a united front to either of the invaders who were sure to attack her. The call of patriotism distinctly bade him not to shirk at the last moment from the post to which he had so long looked forward, and which had at last become his own. The first man in England, first in every gift of war and peace, first in the love of his countrymen, first in renown in other lands, was bound to be first alike in honour and in danger."

So Harold was virtually king of England, appointed by Edward, chosen by the Witan. Yet "full king" he was not until before the altar he and his people had given each other their solemn pledges, until "the blessing of the Church and the unction of her highest ministers had made the chosen of the people also the anointed of the Lord."

There was no time to lose. Already the members of the Witan had lingered for a much longer period than was their wont, and they were anxious to return to their homes. But to delay the coronation until their next meeting was too dangerous to be dreamed of. England could not be left without a king. The burial of Edward and the coronation of Harold must take place at once.

So it came to pass that amid unusual sorrow Edward was buried, as I have already described to you, in the dim light of the Epiphany morning, and a few hours later all was in readiness for the solemn coronation rite.

There can be but little doubt that it was in Westminster Abbey that the ceremony took place. Harold, led by two bishops, walked to the high altar followed by a long procession, the singers chanting the prayer that justice and judgment might be the foundations of his throne, that mercy and truth might go before his face. Then the king elect fell on his knees, and the grand strain of the Te Deum rose to the skies.

And now Eldred, Archbishop of Northumberland, turned to the crowd and demanded of the prelates, the Theyns, and the people of England whether it was their will that Harold should be crowned king?

Their answer was a mighty shout of assent, which came from their very hearts. Then Harold, on his oath, swore to protect the Church of God and all Christian people, to forbid wrong and robbery to men of every rank, to strive after justice and mercy in all his judgments; and first the Bishop and afterwards Eldred prayed that the God who had wrought such mighty works, would pour down His best gifts on him chosen to be king of the Angles and Saxons, that he might be faithful as Abraham, gentle as Moses, brave as Joshua, humble as David, wise as Solomon, so that he might protect both the Church and his nation from all visible and invisible foes.

So the oath was taken and the prayers were ended. But there was yet to follow that sacred rite of mystic meaning, which was enacted as Eldred poured the holy oil on the head of the king, beseeching God, that as of old, kings, priests, and prophets were anointed, so now the oil poured on the head of His servant might be a true sign of the sanctifying of his heart, a means of grace for His glory and the welcome of His people. The crown was placed on his head; the sword was handed to him; sceptre and rod were given one after the other into his hands; while with each act the solemn voice of the Archbishop rose in prayer that a yet brighter crown in the heavenly country might be his, that he might ever with the sword defend the Church and the people against all adversaries, that his sceptre might be a sceptre of righteousness, and that he who had been anointed with the holy oil might stand fast in the strength of God.

Thus was Harold set upon the royal throne; on his head was the crown, in his hand the sceptre, his sword was borne by two chiefs, "while all the people saw him with wonder and delight."

Directly the coronation ceremony was over, the Mass was celebrated. Then all adjourned to the Palace hard by, and a great banquet was held on this Twelfth Night, the last day of the Christmas festival, into which so many and varied scenes had been crowded.

Little had those members of the Witan dreamt when they set out from their homes, of all that would have have happened ere they returned—Christmas festivities and meetings of the Council; the consecration of the new church; the death of King Edward; the choosing of King Harold; the burying of the old king and the crowning of the new, all had followed one after the other in those short wintry days.

And the Abbey itself had been the centre round which all these events had taken place.

It could never sink back into being a mere Benedictine monastery of seventy monks, attached to the Church King Edward had built. A greater future lay before it, and I doubt not that the Abbot Eadwine, shrewd man that he was, conscious of the charter which gave him and his successors a peculiar independence, rested well satisfied on that old Christmas night.