Westminster Abbey in the early Stuart period

The reign of King James I, the first king of the Stuart dynasty, did not start well. He arrived in London from Scotland, where he had already reigned as James VI for 36 years, during a plague. His coronation at Westminster Abbey, which united the crowns of Scotland and England, was a muted affair and crowds were forbidden to gather. It was the first coronation to be held entirely in English throughout, without Latin.

After being held prisoner for over 18 years, King James’s mother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been executed at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire in 1587, according to a warrant signed by Queen Elizabeth. She had been buried at Peterborough Castle. James created a magnificent tomb in Westminster Abbey to rival that of Elizabeth and in 1612 had her body brought from Peterborough. At the foot of her tomb is a carving of the red lion of Scotland. Elizabeth and Mary never met in life but now their monuments lay together in Henry VII’s chapel. Just two months later James’s son Henry, Prince of Wales, was buried in Mary’s tomb after he died at the age of eighteen.

In January 1604 James met with representatives of Protestant religious groups at Hampton Court Palace to discuss concerns regarding the translation of the Bible. There had previously been two translations into English, the first in the reign of Henry VIII and the second in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was decided that a new translation was required. The work was divided between six committees. Lancelot Andrewes, Dean of Westminster, and nine other men were to cover the first section of the Old Testament, from Genesis to the Second Book of Kings. The committee met in the Jerusalem Chamber of the Abbot’s House. The ‘Authorised Version’ Bible (later more commonly known as the ‘King James Bible’) was first printed in London in 1611. It became the standard version in the English-speaking world and is still in wide use today.

James had Sir Walter Raleigh arrested at Plymouth upon his return from a voyage in search of Eldorado, at the request of the Spanish ambassador. Raleigh was already under a death sentence on a previous charge of plotting against James but had nevertheless been allowed to undertake the expedition. He spent his last hours in the Gatehouse Prison above the Tothill Street gate at Westminster, where he wrote poetry for Dean Robert Tounson of the abbey. Tounson prayed for him and accompanied him to the scaffold. Raleigh was beheaded in Old Palace Yard of the Palace of Westminster in October 1618. His body was buried in St. Margaret’s church in the abbey precinct. Initially his head was kept by his wife but reunited with his body in his grave after her death.

Dr. John Williams, previously Dean of Salisbury, was installed as Dean of Westminster in July 1620. He was a strong supporter of King James and the following year was additionally appointed as the King’s Keeper of the Great Seal, becoming one of the most powerful men in the country. Dean Williams became a great benefactor to the abbey and the abbey’s school.

The abbey’s Jerusalem Chamber was used in 1624 to entertain the French ambassador during the protracted negotiations for the betrothal of the Prince of Wales (later Charles I) to Princess Henrietta Maria. The Dean commemorated the event by adding the mantle over the fireplace that is still in place today. The following year he preached at the funeral of King James in the abbey, who was laid to rest in the vault beneath Henry VII’s monument.

Music for the visit of the French ambassador was provided by Orlando Gibbons, perhaps the greatest English musician of his time. The ambassador was impressed that “the organ was touched by the best finger of that age”. Gibbons had been appointed by King James as a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1603 at the age of twenty. He graduated to King’s College, Cambridge and by 1610 was a composer of high regard. In 1623 he was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey and was in situ for James’s funeral in May 1625. Less than a month later Gibbons was dead at the age of just forty-one.

The funeral of King James was a lavish affair, with a hearse designed by Inigo Jones, the architect of Covent Garden and Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace. It was so expensive that James’s son and successor, Charles, wrote to the House of Commons that “the ordinary revenue is clogged with debts, and exhausted with the late king’s funeral…”.

The coronation of Charles I in February 1626 did not go well. He decided to arrive at the abbey by barge for fear of the plague. He should have disembarked at the grand house of Sir Robert Cotton adjacent to Westminster Hall but instead ordered to be put ashore at Parliament Stairs. The vessel ran aground leaving Charles to scramble over other boats to reach the jetty. When the acclamation was called during the coronation ceremony the congregation stayed silent. His Catholic wife, Henrietta Maria, could not be part of the ceremony because she refused to be crowned by an Anglican bishop. She watched the proceedings from an upstairs window. The coronation was the last to use the 11^th century crown jewels of Edward the Confessor, which were melted down in the aftermath of the Civil War.

In the first decades of the 17^th century many Members of Parliament were religious non-conformists. As early as 1614 the House of Commons decided, on religious grounds, to receive Communion in St. Margaret’s church instead of the abbey, to avoid old, more Catholic, rituals. St. Margaret’s continues to be the church favoured by the House of Commons.

Dean Williams had very different views regarding forms of worship than Charles and was excluded from the coronation service in his own church. Williams also had a long history of conflict with William Laud, who in the 1620s had served under him as a prebendary at Westminster. Laud had since become one of Charles’s closest allies and appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury. He had Williams charged with treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1636. Williams’s correspondence with Lambert Osbaldston, headmaster of Westminster School, incriminated both of them. Osbaldston was sentenced to have his ears nailed to the pillory in front of his pupils but he escaped and hid at Covent Garden until 1640.

There was then a turn of events. The Long Parliament that began in 1640 was dominated by Puritan MPs with an intense dislike of the King’s leading advisors, Laud and the Earl of Strafford. Williams was released from the Tower and went back to Westminster and it was Laud who was then imprisoned in the Tower. Williams found himself acting as a mediator between King and Parliament and counselled Charles to sign the death warrant of the Earl of Strafford. The Earl’s execution took place on Tower Hill in May 1641 in front of a crowd of 200,000. Laud remained in the Tower but was executed in 1645 on the orders of Parliament.

Westminster Abbey had suffered and undergone great change during the Reformation of the 1540s. A century later it again suffered great stress that was to inflict lasting damage, this time during a period of political upheaval. Located next to the royal palace and with so many royal connections, it was in the front line of the Civil War and interregnum. Much damage was done to the fabric and institution of the abbey and what remained after was a ghost of what had existed before.

By 1641 there was increasing sentiment in London against the established Church of England. An altar above the tomb of Edward VI in the abbey was smashed during that year. In December a crowd demonstrated against bishops on their way to Parliament and then attacked the abbey. Dean Williams ordered the doors to be locked. When the mob attempted to force an entry they were pelted from above by abbey staff and scholars. After an hour, those inside the building rushed out with swords drawn and drove the attackers away.

When in January 1642 MPs took steps to impeach his Catholic wife, Charles stormed the House of Commons in an attempt to arrest some of their number. It was unsuccessful and Charles and the royal household were forced to flee London. The country divided into those who backed Parliament, against those who supported the King. Both sides raised armies and the country erupted into civil war.

Dean Williams’s moderate style of Anglicanism had suited neither Laud nor the Puritans who by now controlled London. He was sent to the Tower of London for a second time, this time by Parliament on a charge of high treason. In May he was freed on bail and left London for York, where he was appointed Archbishop, never to return. His full-length portrait still hangs in the Abbey Library.

The abbey’s Chapter met for the last time that year before dispersing to save themselves. The abbey building was requisitioned and used to house soldiers of the parliamentary army. The removal of the abbey’s stained glass was ordered. The royal regalia that had been used in coronations since that of Edward the Confessor was taken to the Tower of London, broken up and sold for the weight of the precious metals. (The Balas ruby, worn by Henry V at Agincourt, survived and later set into the Imperial State Crown).

The ‘Committee for the College of Westminster’ was formed in November 1645 and the lawyer John Bradshaw took up residence in the Deanery to direct the abbey’s affairs. Soldiers were kept on duty to suppress any dissent. The altar, organ and religious symbols were discarded and some statues damaged. Sermons were preached by Dissenter ministers.

Bradshaw presided over the trial of the King in Westminster Hall and declared him a “tyrant, traitor, murderer, and a public enemy”. Charles was condemned to be executed, which took place at Whitehall in January 1649. Given the prevailing anti-royalist sentiment in London it was impossible for his body to be buried within the abbey. Dean Williams, by then Archbishop of York but hiding in North Wales, was heart-broken, despite his earlier snub at the King’s coronation, and died in sorrow shortly after. He was buried in a small church near Caernarvon. Bradshaw died in 1659 and was buried in the abbey.

Oliver Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector at a ceremony in Westminster Hall in June 1657. The Commonwealth and Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell came to an end in 1660 after Cromwell’s death. He was buried amongst the kings and queens in the Henry VII Chapel of the abbey in a private ceremony but given a grand formal state funeral two weeks later, ironically based on that of James I. His effigy was paraded from Somerset House to Westminster, a journey that took seven hours to travel a mile. By then, however, there was little enthusiasm amongst the people for the republican experiment. The former King’s son returned from exile in May 1660.

In January 1661, the 12^th anniversary of the execution of Charles I, the remains of Cromwell and Bradshaw were exhumed and hung in chains at the Tyburn gallows on the orders of Parliament. Their bodies were then thrown into a pit, with their heads displayed on spikes at Westminster Hall. The new king was crowned in the abbey as Charles II on St. George’s Day, 23^rd April 1661 and the Anglican Order returned.

Until the latter part of the 16^th century Westminster Abbey had remained exclusively a place of burial for royalty and those directly connected with Westminster. Geoffrey Chaucer was buried in the abbey in 1400, not for his work The Canterbury Tales but due to his achievements as a royal civil servant. Initially he had only a lead plaque but in 1568 an admirer commissioned a monument. Two centuries later, in 1599, the poet Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene for Queen Elizabeth, was buried close by, with a simple grave. Another twenty years and his monument was added. The playwright Francis Beaumont joined them in 1616, followed by the poet Michael Drayton and thus the tradition of monuments to notable writers accelerated. In 1631 William Shakespeare was buried in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. There was talk of moving his remains to Westminster Abbey but it never happened. Seven years after his death the actor and playwright Ben Jonson, a contemporary, wrote:

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room:
Thou art a monument without a tomb

Jonson had been a pupil at Westminster School. In his latter years he rented a house between St. Margaret’s church and Henry VII’s chapel, known as the Talbot, where he lived in poverty. Without the means to pay for a grave within the abbey he requested to be given just 18 inches of space. Therefore, when he died in 1637 he was buried upright in the north aisle of the nave, the only person to be interred in that way in the abbey. His funeral was attended by many celebrities of the time. A stone was later laid over the grave with the words “O rare Ben Johnson” (sic), which was more recently moved to preserve it. A monument for him was erected in 1723 by the Earl of Oxford. A memorial statue to Shakespeare followed in 1740, erected by the 3^rd Earl of Burlington. It was in the 18^th century that the south transept began to be referred to as ‘Poet’s Corner’. Over 100 poets and writers have now been buried there or elsewhere in the abbey, or had a monument erected.

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