NOTE ON PAGE 253. There is a touching allusion in Sir Charles Harbord's will 'to the 'death of his dear son Sir Charles Harbord, which happened the '28th of May, 1672, being Whitson Tuesday, to his great grief and ( sorrow, never to be laid aside;' and he directed forty shillings to be given to the poor (and himself, if he died in or near Westminster, to be buried) near to the monument, as long as it shall continue 'whole and undefaced, in Westminster Abbey Church, on the 28th day of May, for ever, by the advice and direction of the Dean then for the time being.' (Communicated by Colonel Chester.) NOTE ON THE MONUMENTS ERECTED BY NICHOLAS STONE. For the figure of most antique simplicity and beauty,' as Walpole calls it, of Francis Holles, Stone received 501., and for that of Sir George Holles, 100l., from the Earl of Clare (1620.) For the tomb of the Countess of Buckingham, 5607. (1631); of Dudley Carleton, 2007. (1649). (Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ii. 59–62.) CHAPTER V. THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. The The approach to the Abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The Cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. grey walls are discoloured by damp, and crumbling with age: a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the several monuments, and obscured the death's-heads and other funereal emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches. The roses which adorned the keystones have lost their leafy beauty everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidation of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very decay. The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the Cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky splendour. From between the arches the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the Abbey towering into the azure heaven. Washington Irving's Sketch Book, i. 399. SPECIAL AUTHORITIES. The special authorities for this Chapter are: I. Flete's History of the Monastery, from its Foundation to A.D. 1386. MS. in the Chapter Library, of which a modern transcript exists in the Lambeth Library. II. The fourth part of the Consuetudines of Abbot Ware [1258-1283], amongst the MSS. in the Cotton Library. It has evidently been much used by Dart in his Antiquities of Westminster. But since that time it was much injured in the fire of 1731, which damaged the Library in the Westminster Cloisters (see Chapter VI.), and was long thought to be illegible. Within the last two years, however, it has in great part been decyphered, by an ingenious chemical process, at the expense of the Dean and Chapter, and a transcript deposited in the Chapter Library. In the use made of it I have derived much assistance from the classification of its contents by Mr. Gilbert Scott, Jun., and the comments upon it by Mr. Ashpitel. III. Cartulary of the Abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, of which an abstract was printed for private circulation by Mr. Samuel Bentley, 1836, and of which the original is in the possession of Sir Charles Young, to whose kindness I owe the use made of it. IV. Walcott's Memorials of Westminster (1849). V. Westminster Improvements: a brief Account of Ancient and Modern Westminster by One of the Architects of the Westminster Improvement Company. (William Bardwell.) 1839. [For the general arrangements of an English Benedictine Monastery, I am glad to be able to refer my readers to the long-expected account of the best preserved and best explained of the whole class,—the description of the Monastery of Canterbury Cathedral by Professor Willis in the Archæologia Cantiana, vol. vii. pp. 1-206.] [For the rivalry of the Abbot of Westminster with the Abbot of St. Alban's, and the Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, for the first place in Parliament, see Mr. Riley's Preface to Walsingham's Chronicles of the Abbots of St. Alban's, p. lxxii-lxxvi.] 383 CHAPTER V. THE ABBEY BEFORE THE REFORMATION. nastery. We have hitherto considered the Abbey ip reference to the general history of the country. It now remains to track its The Moconnexion with the ecclesiastical establishment of which it formed a part, and which, in its turn, has peculiar points of contact with the outer world. This enquiry naturally divides itself into the periods before and after the Reformation, though it will be impossible to keep the two entirely distinct. There is, however, one peculiarity which belongs almost equally to both, and which constitutes the main distinction. both of the 'Monastery' of the West' from other Benedictine establishments, and of the 'Collegiate Church' of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster from cathedrals in general. 2 nexion The Monastery and Church of Westminster were, as we have Its conseen, enclosed within the precincts of the Palace of West- with the minster, as completely as the Abbey of Holyrood3 and Con- Palace. vent of the Escurial were united with those palaces of the Scottish and Spanish sovereigns. The Abbey was, in fact, a Royal Chapel' on a gigantic scale. The King had a private entrance to it through the South Transept, almost The independence of the monastery from Episcopal jurisdiction is of course common to all other great monastic bodies, and forms a part of the vast Presbyterian' government, which, before the Reformation, flourished side by side with Episcopacy. What I have here had to trace is its peculiar form in Westminster. ? See Chapter I. pp. 36, 37. This was true even when Holyrood was on the site of the Castle rock, of which a trace remains in the fact that the Castle is still a part of the parish of Canongate. (Joseph Robertson.) Quæ est capella nostra,' ' capella 'palatii nostri principalis,' is Edward III.'s description of the Abbey. (Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 312.) Its independence. direct from the Confessor's Hall,' as well as a cloister communicating with the great entrance for State processions2 in the North Transept. Even to this day, in official language, the coronations are said to take place in Our Palace at 'Westminster,' though the Sovereign never sets foot in the Palace strictly so called, and the whole ceremony is confined to the Abbey, which for the time passes entirely into the possession of the Crown and its officers. 5 From this peculiar connexion of the Abbey with the Palace -of which many traces will appear as we proceed-arose the independence of its ecclesiastical constitution and its dignitaries from all other authority within the kingdom. Even in secular matters, it was made the centre of a separate jurisdiction in the adjacent neighbourhood. Very early in its history, Henry III. pitted the forces of Westminster against the powerful citizens of London. Some of its privileges at the instance of the Londoners were removed by Edward I. But whatever show of independence the City of Westminster still possesses, it owes to a reminiscence of the ancient grandeur of its Abbey. So completely was the monastery held to stand apart from the adjacent metropolis, that a journey of the monastic officers to London, and even to the manor of Paddington, is described as an excursion which is not to be allowed without express permission. The Dean is still the shadowy head of a shadowy corporation; and on the rare occasions of pageants which traverse the whole metropolis, the Dean, with his High Steward and High Bailiff, succeeds to the Lord Mayor at Temple Bar. In former times, Ridgway, pp. 52, 207; Rishanger, See Chapter III. Gent. Mag. 2 Westminster Improvements, 14. A. D. 1277. • Ware, 170. 6 'As in the reception of the Princess Alexandra in 1862. It was usual, down to the seventeenth century, for the Lord Mayors of London, after they had been sworn into office in Westminster Hall, to come to the Abbey, |