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WESTMINSTER

oven aftor (lir Reformation it lingerofl on in a modifiod form until finally abolished by King James I. The greater part of the old monastie buildings are now used as a public school. As was usual in all the larger monasteries, there had always been a school in the monastic cloister, the minute regulations for which may be found carefully detailed in Abbot Ware's "Customary". To replace this, at the Ref- ormation, Henry VIII founded a new school, which was afterwards given collegiate rank by Elizabeth and it now ranks as one of the leading English public schools. The scholars of Westminster still have cer- tain rights and privileges within the abbey itself, such as greeting the sovereign with acclamation, on behalf of the English people, at the moment of his coronation. From its earliest days Westminster has witnessed the coronations of almost all the English sovereigns and their consorts, commencing with Harold, the sue-

though many of them good work in themselves, are completely out of harmony with their surroundings. The extreme length of the abbev, including Henrv VII's Chapel, is .511 ft.; the width of the nave and aisles 79 ft.; and the height to the vaulting 102 ft., which is unusually lofty for an English church. Ex- teriorly, the want of a central tower detracts some- what from the general effect, and the eighteenth cen- tury western towers are poor compared with the rest of the building, but the grace and beauty of the interior, in spite of the incongruous tombs and monuments, are surpassed by few other Gothic churches in the world. Much judicious restoration of the fabric has been suc- cessfully carried out in recent years. Apart from the immediate monastic precincts, the abbey domains were very extensive, comprising numerous manors and other endowments, but most of these have now passed into other hands. Tlie revenues of the abbey

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D Abbey from an Old Print

cesaor of Edward the Confessor, and William the Conqueror, in 1066. There are two coronation chairs. The first, which stands in St. Edward's Chapel against the back of the high altar screen, con- tains the stone on which the Scottish kings had for- merly been crowned. This stone, according to legend, is supposed to have been the identical one on which Jacob rested his head at Bethel, and to have been taken thence to Eg^pt and then through Spain to Ire- land, about 700 B. c, where it stood upon the sacred Hill of Tara, and it is said to have been removed thence to Scone in Scotland, in .3.30 B. c, by Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy. But whatever its origin may have been, Edward I in 1297 brought it to Westminster and on it every sovereign of Eng- land since Edward II ha-s been crowned, excepting only Edward V. The other chair, the queen's, which now stands in Henry VII's Chapel, was made for Marj-, the wife of William III, who was crowned with him in 16S9. Besides being the scene of their corona- tions, Westminster is also the burial-place of many English sovereigns and their consorts, e. g. Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry V, and six queens, whose tombs are in St. Edward's Chapel, and Henry VII, Marj' Oueen of Scots, Elizabeth, and Mary Tudor, and Margaret, the widow of Henrj' V, who lie buried in Henrj- VII's Chapel. Numerous other celebrities, poets, statesmen, w.arriors, etc., illustrious in English hi.story, have likewise been buried within the abbey, so that it has become a na- tional honour to be given a resting place there, though unfortunately it cannot be .said that their tombs do anything but mar the beauty of the building. The pre-Reformation tombs accord with the medieval architecture of the abbey, but those of later date,

at the time of the dis.solution amounted to £3471 (equivalent to about £3r),000 or $154,000 at the pres- ent day), but though shorn of so many of its ancient possessions, the Chapter of Westminster is still a very wealthy collegiate body.

DuGDALE. Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1817-30): Leslie, Catholic Guide to Weslminsler Abbey (London, 1902); Henry Bradshaw Society, Missale Westmonasteriensis, ed. Lego (3 vol.f.. Ixindon, 1891-96); Idem, Cuslomari/ of SI. Peter's West- minster, cd. Thompson (London, 1904); Lethabt, Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen (London, 1906); Bond, West- minster Abbey {London, 1909); Flete, Hist, of Westminster Abbey, ed. Robinson (Cambridge, 1909) ; Stanley, Historical Memorials of WestmiTister Abbey (London, 1868).

G. Cyprian Auston.

Westminster Cathedral. — As a national expres- sion of religious faith given by Roman Catholics to England since the Reformation, Westminster C.ithe- dral, London, stands pre-eminent. This distinction is due to vaslness of proportion, and original iiualities of design. The project of erecting a cat h(>dral for the metropolitan see originated in 1S6."), with the first archbi.shop of the restored hierarchy, but it was not until thirty years later that the building was com- menced by Cardinal Vaughan from the design of the late John Francis Bentley. On the death of thearchi- tect, in 1902, the structure was practically complete, but the internal decoration had scarcely been at- tempted. The whole building covers .an .area of about 54,000 square feet ; the dominating factor of the scheme, apart from the campanile, being a spacious and uninterrupted nave, 60 feet wide, covered with domical vaulting.

In planning the n;ive, a system of supports was adopted not unlike th.at to be .seen in most Gothic cathednals, where huge, yet narrow, buttresses are