Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
The Coronation Chair
As you leave Henry VII's Chapel, look out for Edward I's
Coronation Chair
, a
decrepit oak throne dating from around 1300. The gra
ti-covered chair, used in
every coronation since 1308, was custom-built to incorporate the
Stone of Scone
,
a
great slab of red sandstone which acted as the Scottish coronation stone for centuries
before Edward pilfered it in 1296. The stone remained in the abbey for the next
seven hundred years, apart from a brief interlude in 1950, when some Scottish
nationalists managed to steal it back and hide it in Arbroath. In a futile attempt to
curry favour with the Scots before the 1997 election, the Conservatives returned the
stone to Edinburgh Castle, where it now resides until the next coronation.
The Shrine of Edward the Confessor
Behind the chair lies the tomb of
Henry V
, who died of dysentery in France in 1422 at
the age of just 35, and was regarded as a saint in his day. Above him rises the highly
decorative, H-shaped Chantry Chapel, where the body of Henry's wife, Catherine of
Valois, was openly displayed for several centuries - Pepys records kissing her corpse
on his 36th-birthday visit to the abbey. The chapel acts as a sort of gatehouse for the
Shrine of Edward the Confessor
, the sacred heart of the building, and site of some of the
abbey's finest tombs, now only accessible on a guided tour (see p.54). With some
di
culty, you can just about make out the battered marble casket of the Confessor's
tomb and the niches in which pilgrims would kneel.
Poets' Corner
In the south transept, you'll find the increasingly popular
Poets' Corner
. The first
occupant,
Geoffrey Chaucer
, was buried here in 1400, not because he was a poet,
but because he lived nearby, and his battered tomb, on the east wall, wasn't built for
another 150-odd years. When
Edmund Spenser
chose to be buried close to Chaucer in
1599, his fellow poets - Shakespeare among them (possibly) - threw their own works
and quills into the grave. Nevertheless, it wasn't until the eighteenth century that this
zone became an artistic pantheon, since when the transept has been filled with tributes
to all shades of talent.
Among those who are actually buried here, you'll find - after much searching -
grave slabs or memorials for everyone from John Dryden and Samuel Johnson to
Charles Dickens
and Thomas Hardy (though his heart was buried in Dorset). Among
the merely commemorated is
William Shakespeare
, whose dandyish statue is on the
east wall. Even mavericks like Oscar Wilde, commemorated in the Hubbard window,
are acknowledged here, though William Blake was honoured by a Jacob Epstein
sculpture only in 1957, and Byron was refused burial for his “open profligacy”, and
had to wait until 1969.
Among the non-poets buried here are the great eighteenth-century actor
David
Garrick
, depicted parting the curtains for a final bow, and the German composer
Georg Friedrich Handel
, who spent most of his life at the English court, and wrote
the coronation anthem
Zadok the Priest
, first performed at George II's coronation,
and performed at every subsequent one. There's even one illiterate, Thomas Parr, a
Shropshire man who arrived in London as a celebrity in 1635 at the alleged age of 152,
but died shortly afterwards, and whose remains were brought here by Charles II.
South choir aisle
Before you enter the cloisters, it's worth seeking out several wonderful memorials to
undeserving types in the
south choir aisle
, though you may have to ask a verger to
allow you to see them properly. The first is to
Thomas Thynne
, a Restoration rake,
whose tomb incorporates a relief showing his assassination in his coach on Pall Mall
by three thugs, hired to kill him by his Swedish rival in love. Further along lies
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