ays to
be kept burning, and prayers constantly offered to Heaven for the repose
of her soul. Edward's son and successor was strangely lacking in filial
obedience. With his dying breath the warrior King, who had hammered the
Scots and harassed the Turks, gave orders that his body was to remain
unburied till Scotland was subdued, the flesh boiled, and the bones borne
at the head of the victorious English army. His heart was to be taken
out and confided to a band of knights, who were to fight for the Holy
Sepulchre, carrying the casket in their {78} midst. These commands were
disobeyed, and the plain tomb, without effigy or monument, is a silent
witness to the second Edward's failure to "keep troth." The embalmed
corpse was buried here soon after the King's death, but the upper slab
remained loose, and for many a long year the cere-cloth was kept waxed,
perhaps with the idea of carrying out the dead sovereign's behests at
some future time. In any case the cover was left as it was till the
eighteenth century, when some antiquaries were allowed to raise it, and
looking in they beheld the body of Longshanks lying there in royal state,
wrapped in the coronation robes, with orb and sceptre in either hand, a
linen cloth concealing the features. We cannot forgive the wanton
destruction which ensued. Boiling pitch was poured in, and the lid
hermetically sealed after these vandals had satisfied their curiosity and
taken notes of every detail. Havoc also was wrought to the outside about
the same period, when the canopy was destroyed during a riot which broke
out at the patriot Pulteney's burial in the ambulatory below, and the
iron grille, upon which were two little heads of the King, disappeared at
the same time. The words "Scotorum Malleus" and "Pactum Serva" were
painted by Abbot Feckenham's orders, but may have formed {79} part of the
original inscription. The most important trophy which the English
conqueror brought from Scotland was the stone of Scone, a reminder now of
the union of the two kingdoms, but then a constant source of irritation
to the Scots, who tried in vain to get it back. The chair which encloses
the stone was made in Edward's time, and has ever since been used as the
seat of our sovereigns at their coronations. Once and once only a man
not of royal birth was privileged to receive the insignia of government
seated in the Coronation Chair, when Oliver Cromwell was installed Lord
Protector in Westminst