howing the Steps which lead
up to Henry VII.'s Chapel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

19. Interior of the North Transept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

20. The South Transept and Chapter House from Dean's
Yard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

21. The Abbot's Courtyard and the Entrance to the
Jerusalem Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

_The illustrations in this volume were engraved in England by The
Hentschel Colourtype Process_.

{3}

INTRODUCTION

"Kings are thy nursing fathers and their queens thy nursing mothers."
From the reign of Edward the Confessor, the last sovereign of the royal
Saxon race, till the death of Elizabeth, the last Tudor queen, these
words of the old Hebrew prophet were literally applicable to the great
West Minster. When Edward knelt within the Benedictine chapel on
Thorneye, which had so miraculously withstood the ravages of the Danes,
and vowed to dedicate a new church on the same spot to the glory of God
and in the name of St. Peter, even his prophetic soul cannot have
foretold the high destiny of his beloved foundation. As the building
slowly grew during the last years of his reign, he conceived the idea
of its use as a sepulchre for himself and his successors. In his
visions he may even have foreseen the coronations of the English
sovereigns within its walls, his own canonisation, and the long
connection {4} between the throne and the monastery. All that the
words above imply would have appealed to the pious founder, but what of
his feelings could he have looked on through the centuries? He would
have seen much to vex, yet we venture to think he would have found
consolation, even in these latter days when the monks are no longer
here and the Roman Church has ceased to be the Church of his country.
Three hundred years after Edward's death came the destruction of his
church in the name of piety, but for this there was ample compensation
in the beautiful and stately buildings which were raised upon the ruins
of the old, and in the devotion to the first founder's memory shown by
Henry III. and his descendants. During the ages of faith, when the
Pope held sway over England, king after king gave liberally to the
fabric, while their queens may also be counted amongst the benefactors
to the West Minster. St. Peter, the patron saint to whom the church
was dedicated, was practically lost sight