Westminster Abbey

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Westminster abbey has been the setting for the coronation of English monarchs since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned in the new church of Edward the Confessor, perhaps to underline continuity; from Henry III to George II sixteen monarchs were buried there. There was a monastery on the isle of Thorney by the Thames before Edward began his great building c.1050 but there is no certain evidence when it had been founded. Harold Harefoot was buried there in 1040 at the end of his short reign. Nor is there anything above ground surviving of Edward's church, dedicated on 28 December 1065, with the king absent on his death-bed. It was however on a grand scale. The present abbey was begun by Henry III in 1245 and was much influenced by contemporary French styles: it is the highest of great English medieval churches and therefore seems narrow. The body of Edward the Confessor was moved there in 1269. The chapter house where, until the Reformation, Parliament met was one of the earliest parts to be completed. Building on such a scale was inordinately expensive and progress in finishing the abbey was very slow. The nave was not completed until the reign of Henry VII, who began his own addition—the fan-vaulted chapel. Work had already started on the foundations for the two western towers.

The abbey's close connection with the monarchy saved it from the fate of most other abbeys at the Reformation, which were turned into parish churches or plundered for their stone. The abbot's house was taken over by Lord Wentworth and the bishopric established in 1540 suppressed (leaving Westminster's claim to be a city). Mary began the restoration of the monastery but at the end of her brief reign it was closed again and the buildings made over to Westminster School. Though the abbey suffered from the iconoclasts of the 1640s, its prestige helped it during the Commonwealth: Cromwell had the stone of Scone taken to Westminster hall for his inauguration as lord protector and was given an elaborate funeral in the abbey, only to be disinterred in January 1661. Wren began the work of restoring the fabric of the abbey after years of neglect but not until 1745 were the western towers completed, to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor. By that time the tradition of affording the great and mighty burial in the abbey was well established, as a British pantheon. Spenser was buried in what became known as Poets' Corner in 1599, Newton in 1727, Pitt in 1778, Samuel Johnson in 1784. At length the abbey became too crowded to permit of further burials. But among the host of memorials, the most moving is that which commemorates the dead of the Great War, a brass to a ‘British warrior, unknown by name or rank’.

J. A. Cannon

Westminster abbey has been the setting for the coronation of English monarchs since 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned in the new church of Edward the Confessor, perhaps to underline continuity; from Henry III to George II sixteen monarchs were buried there. The present abbey was begun by Henry III in 1245 and was much influenced by contemporary French styles: it is the highest of great English medieval churches and therefore seems narrow. The body of Edward the Confessor was moved there in 1269.

The abbey's close connection with the monarchy saved it from the fate of most other abbeys at the Reformation. Though it suffered from the iconoclasts of the 1640s, its prestige helped it during the Commonwealth: Cromwell was given an elaborate funeral in the abbey, only to be disinterred in January 1661. Wren began the work of restoring the fabric of the abbey after years of neglect but not until 1745 were the western towers completed, to the design of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Among the host of memorials, the most moving is that which commemorates the dead of the Great War, a brass to a ‘British warrior, unknown by name or rank’.