sunshine-sometimes causing the King to curse him and declare, 'It repenteth me that I have made the man;' and send criers up and down the streets of London warning every one against him; sometimes, by undue concessions to him, enraging the other convents, almost always at war with his own. He was buried first in a small Chapel of St. Edmund near the North Porch, and afterwards removed to St. Nicholas's Chapel, and finally, in Henry VI.'s time, to some other place not mentioned.2

Lewisham, 1258.

Ware, 1258-84.

The exemption from the jurisdiction of the See of London led to one awkward result. It placed the Abbey in immediate dependence on the Papal See, and the Abbots accordingly (till a commutation and compensation was made in the time of Edward IV.) were obliged to travel to Rome for their confirmation, and even to visit it once every two years. The inconvenience was instantly felt, for Crokesley's successor, Peter of Lewisham, was too fat to move, and before the matter could be settled he died. The journey, however, was carried out by the next Abbot, Richard de Ware, and with material results, which are visible to this day. On his second journey, in 1267, he brought back with him the mosaic pavement such as he must have seen freshly laid down in the Church of San Lorenzo-to adorn the Choir of the Church, then just completed by the King. It remains in front of the Altar, with an inscription, in part still decipherable, recording the date of its arrival, the name of the workman who put it together (Oderic), the City' from whence it came, and the name of himself the donor. He was buried underneath it,3 on the north side. As in the history of England at large, the reign of Henry III. was an epoch fruitful of change, so also was it in the internal regulations of the Abbey. To us the thirteenth century seems sufficiently remote. But, at the time, everything seemed

Mosaic brought

from Rome in 1207.

Matt. Paris, 706, 726.

2 Flete. On July 12, 1866, in making preparations for a new Reredos, the workmen came upon a marble coffin under the High Altar. Fragments of a crosier in wood and ivory, and of a leaden paten and chalice, prove the body to be that of an Abbot; whilst the absence of any record of an interment on that spot, and the fact that the coffin was without a lid, and that the bones had been turned over, show that this was not the original grave. These indications point to Crokesley.

of modern use,' so startling were

From a careful examination of the bones, he appears to have been a personage of tall stature, slightly halting on one leg, with a strong projecting brow; and the knotted protuberances in the spine imply that he had suffered much from chronic rheumatism. See a complete account of the whole, by Mr. Scharf, in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 2nd series, vol. iii., No. 5, pp. 354-357.

1866.

His stone coffin was seen there in

6

Kydyngton,

Curtlington,

the 'innovations' begun by Abbot Berking, when compared with the ancient practices of the first Norman Abbots, 'Gislebert,' and his brethren of venerable memory.' To Abbot Ware, accordingly, was due the compilation of the new Code of the Monastery, known as his Consuetudines or Customs.' Opposite to Ware, on the south side, lies Abbot Wenlock, who Wenlock, lived to see the completion of the work of Henry III., 1284-1308. and who shared in the disgrace (shortly to be told) of the robbery of the Royal Treasury. The profligate manners of the reign of Edward II. were reflected in the scandalous election of Kydyngton,2 ultimately secured by the in- 1308-1315. fluence of Piers Gaveston with the King. He was 1315-1334. succeeded by Curtlington, who was a rare instance of the unanimous election of an Abbot by Pope, King, and Convent. His grave began the interments in the Chapel of the patron saint of their order-St. Benedict. But his successor, Henley, Henley, lies under the lower pavement of the Sacra- 1334-44. rium, opposite Kydyngton. Then occurs the one exception of a return to the Cloister. The Black Death fell heavily on Westminster. The jewels of the convent had to be sold apparently to defray the expenses. Abbot Byrcheston Byrcheston, and twenty-six monks were its victims. He was The Black buried in the Eastern Cloister, which he had built; 1848. and they probably lie beneath the huge slab in the Southern Cloister, which has for many years borne the false name of 'Gervase,' or more popularly 'Long Meg.' If this be so, that vast stone is the footmark left in the Abbey by the greatest plague that ever visited Europe.

1344-1349.

Death of

Langham,

died 1376;

Ely, 1362

bishop of

1366-69;

Langham lies by the side of Curtlington. The only Simon Abbot of Westminster who rose to the rank of Cardi- 1349-62. nal, and to the See of Canterbury, and whose de- Bishop of parture from each successive office (from Westminster 66; Archto Ely, and from Ely to Canterbury) was hailed with Canterbury, joy by those whom he left, and with dread by those Cardinal, whom he joined is also the first in whom, as far as Lord High we know, a strong local affection for Westminster 136163. had an opportunity of showing itself. His stern Chancellor, and frugal administration in Westminster, if it provoked some enmity from the older monks, won for him the

1 Ware, pp. 257, 258, 261, 264, 291, 319, 344, 359, 495, 500.

2 He was buried before the altar, under the southern part of the lower

1368;

Treasurer,

Lord

1363-67.

pavement where the Easter candle stood, with a figure in brass. (Flete.) Cartulary, 1349.

Fuller's Worthies, ii. 114.

honour of being a second founder of the monastery. To the Abbey, where he had been both Prior and Abbot, his heart always turned. The Nave, where his father was buried, had a special

Continuation of the Nave.

hold upon him, and through his means it first advanced towards completion. In the Chapel of St. Nicholas he was confirmed in the Archiepiscopal See; and to the Chapel of St. Benedict, at the close of his many changes, he begged to be brought back from the distant Avignon, where he died, and was there laid under the first and grandest ecclesiastical tomb that the Abbey contains. Originally a statue of Mary Magdalene guarded his feet. He had died on the eve of her feast. It was from the enormous bequest which he left, amounting in our reckoning to £200,000, that his successor,

Littlington, 1362; died Nov. 29, 1386.

His buildings.

5

Nicholas Littlington, rebuilt or built the Abbot's house (the present Deanery, where his head appears over the entrance), part of the Northern and the whole of the Southern and Western Cloisters (where his initials are still 3 visible), and many other parts of the conventual buildings since perished. In Littlington's mode of making his bargains for these works he was somewhat unscrupulous. But he was long remembered by his bequests. In the Refectory, to which he left silver vessels, a prayer for his soul was always repeated immediately after grace. Of his legacies to the Chapter Library, one magnificent remnant exists in the Littlington Missal, still preserved. He died on St. Andrew's 7 Eve, at dinner time,' at his manor of Neate, and was buried before the altar of St. Blaize's Chapel.

Colchester,

1386-1420.

Hawerden, 1420-40. Kyrton,

We trace the history of the next Abbots in the Northern Chapels. In that of St. John the Baptist was laid the grand conspirator,'s William of Colchester, who was sent by Henry IV., with sixty horsemen, to the Council of Constance, and died twenty years after Shakspeare reports him to have been hanged for his treason; Kyrton lies in the Chapel of St. Andrew, which he

1440-66. Norwich, 1466-69.

Gleanings, 53.

2 Cartulary.

Gleanings, 210.

The stone came from the quarries of Reigate. (Archives.)

5 Cartulary.

• Ibid.

Esteney's Niger Quaternar. p. 86. 8 Widmore, p. 102; Shakspeare's Richard II. Act v. sc. 6. The Prior of Westminster had already had a vision

of the fall of Richard II. (French Chronicle of Richard II. 139-224.)

Widmore, p. 111; Rymer, v. 95. William of Colchester succeeded for the time in establishing his precedence over the Abbot of St. Albans: and it has been conjectured that this was the occasion of the portrait of Richard II. (Riley's Preface to Walsingham's Abbots of St. Albans, iii. p. lxxv.)

1

Esteney,

1474-98.

Islip. 1520–

32, died

May 12.

Islip's

adorned for himself, as his family had adorned the adjoining altar of St. Michael; Milling-raised by Edward Thomas IV. to the See of Hereford, but returning to his old 1469-74: haunts to be buried 2-and Esteney,3 the successive led 1492. guardians of Elizabeth Woodville and her royal children, F Fascet in the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist. During 1498-1503. this time Flete, the Prior of the Monastery, wrote its meagre history. Fascet, the Abbot who saw the close of the fifteenth century, was interred in a solitary tomb in St. Paul's Chapel. Finally Islip, who had witnessed the buildings. completion of the east end of the Abbey by the building of Henry VII.'s Chapel, himself built the Western Towers as high as the roof, filled the vacant niches outside with the statues of the Sovereigns, and erected the apartments and the gallery against the south side of the Abbey by which the Abbot could enter and overlook the Nave. The larger part of the Deanery buildings subsequent to Abbot Littlington seem in fact to have been erected in his time. He had intended to attempt a Belfry Tower over the central lantern. In the elaborate representation which has been preserved of his obsequies,' we seem to be following to their end the funeral of the Middle Ages. We see him standing amidst the 'slips' or branches of The Islip the bower of moral virtues, which, according to the Roll. fashion of the fifteenth century, indicate his name; with the words, significant of his character, Seek peace and pursue it.' We see him, as he last appeared in state at the Coronation of Henry VIII., assisting Warham in the act, so fraught with consequences for all the future history of the English Church -amidst the works of the Abbey, which he is carrying on with all the energy of his individual character and with the strange

1 Cartulary. See Appendix.

2 Milling's coffin was moved from the centre of the Chapel to make room for the Earl of Essex's grave (see Chapter IV.), to its present place on the top of Fascet's tomb. In 1711 it was erroneously called Humphrey de Bohun's. (Crull, p. 148.)

Esteney lay at the entrance of the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, behind an elaborate screen. The body was twice displaced -in 1706 (when it was seen) and in 1778, when the tomb was demolished for the erection of Wolfe's monument. (Neale, ii. 195.) The fragments were reunited in 1866.

8

exorcisms of the age which was drawing to its close. We see him on his deathbed, in the old manor-house of Neate, surrounded by the priests and saints of the ancient Church; the Virgin standing at his feet, and imploring her Son's assistance to John Islip Islip, O Fili veniens, succurre Johanni!'-the Abbot of Bury administering the last sacraments. We see his splendid 'hearse,' amidst a forest of candles, before the High Altar, with its screen, for the last time filled with images, and surmounted by the crucifix with its attendant saints. We see him, as his effigy lay under the tomb in the little chapel which he had built,' like a king, for himself, recumbent in solitary state the only Abbot who achieved that honour. The last efflorescence of monastic architecture coincided with its inminent downfall; and as we thus watch the funeral of Islip, we feel the same unconsciousness of the coming changes as breathes through so many words and deeds and constructions on the eve of the Reformation.

The Monks.

Such were the Abbots of Westminster. It seems ungrateful to observe, what is yet the fact, that in all their line there is not one who can aspire to higher historical honour than that of a munificent builder and able administrator: Gislebert alone left theological treatises famous in their day. And if from the Abbots we descend to the Monks, their names are still more obscure. Here and there we catch a trace of their burials. Amundisham, in the fifteenth century, Thomas Brown, Humphrey Roberts," and John Selby 3 of Northumberland (known as a civilian), in the sixteenth century, are interred near St. Paul's Chapel; Vertue in the Western Cloister. Five of them-Sulcard, John of Reading, Flete the Prior, Richard of Cirencester," and (on a somewhat larger scale) the so-called Matthew of Westminster-have slightly contributed to our historical knowledge of the times. Some of them were skilled as painters. In Abbot Littlington's time, a gigantic brother, whose calves and thighs were the wonder of all England, of the name of John of Canterbury, emerges into view for a moment, having engaged to accompany the aged