known as Thorney Island,
and a church was commenced there by Sebert, king of Essex, but was not
completed until three centuries afterwards, in the reign of King Edgar,
when it was named the "minster west of St. Paul's," or Westminster. The
Danes destroyed it, and Edward the Confessor rebuilt it in the eleventh
century. Portions of this church remain, but the present abbey was begun
by Henry III. nearly seven hundred years ago, and it was not completed
until Edward III.'s time. Henry VII. removed the Lady Chapel, and built
the rich chapel at the east end which is named after him. Wren
ultimately made radical changes in it, and in 1714, after many changes,
the abbey finally assumed its present form and appearance. It has had a
great history, the coronations alone that it has witnessed being marked
events. They usually were followed by banquets in Westminster Hall, but
over $1,300,000 having been wasted on the display and banquet for George
IV., they were discontinued afterwards. At Queen Victoria's coronation
the crown was imposed in front of the altar before St. Edward's Chapel,
the entire nave, choir, and transepts being filled by spectators, and
the queen afterwards sitting upon a chair which, with the raised
platform bearing it, was covered with a cloth of gold. Here she received
the homage of her officers and the nobility. The ancient
coronation-chair, which is probably the greatest curiosity in the abbey,
is a most unpretentious and uncomfortable-looking old high-backed chair
with a hard wooden seat. Every sovereign of England has been crowned in
it since Edward I. There is a similar chair alongside it, the duplicate
having been made for the coronation of William and Mary, when two chairs
were necessary, as both king and queen were crowned and vested with
equal authority. Underneath the seat of the coronation-chair is fastened
the celebrated Stone of Scone, a dark-looking, old, rough, and
worn-edged rock about two feet square and six inches thick. All sorts of
legends are told of it, and it is said to have been a piece of Jacob's
Pillar. Edward I. brought it from Scotland, where many generations had
done it reverence, and the old chair was made to contain it in 1297.
These priceless accessories of the coronation ceremony, which will some
day do service for the Prince of Wales, are kept alongside the tomb of
Edward the Confessor, which for centuries has been the shrine of
pilgrims, and they are guarded by the graves of