Читать книгу The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey онлайн

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While the Abbey was being rebuilt in the reign of Henry III, the Confessor’s coffin was taken for the time to the Palace of Westminster close by. On October 13th, 1269, it was brought back with great pomp, and placed in another shrine, more gorgeous even than the former one.

The coffin was carried by the King himself, his brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, his two sons, Edward and Edmund, together with many of the nobles of the land. Dean Stanley says that this great ceremony must have reminded Henry III of an equally splendid one which he saw at Canterbury Cathedral when he was a boy. This was the “Translation” of the relics of St. Thomas à Becket in 1220, when Henry III walked in the procession. Pandulf, the Papal Legate (who had come to England in King John’s reign), and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, were there also, to see Becket’s body placed in the shrine prepared for it.

The chapel in which the Confessor’s shrine stands, and in which so many of our Kings and Queens are buried, is raised above the rest of the church by a mound of earth brought from Holy Land. What we now see of the shrine is only the remains of its former splendour. It was adorned at first with mosaic-work, and with many gold and jewelled images. The materials for the decoration were brought from Rome, and the shrine was made by Italian workmen. In Henry VIII’s time the beautiful decorations of the shrine, and the various treasures kept near it, were taken away. The monks were afraid that even the Confessor’s body might be destroyed, so they buried it in another part of the church. When Queen Mary Tudor came to the throne the shrine was set up again, and King Edward’s body was restored to its place. The Queen presented images and jewels for the adornment of the shrine. Under the Commonwealth the ornaments of the shrine were again removed, but the Confessor’s body was not removed or disturbed.