Dan Snow Uncovers The Secrets Of Westminster Abbey

so just outside the walls of the

abbey

, here in the cupboard on the way to the chapter house, lies one of my favorite bits of history in a building steeped in history. Although it is very special, it is believed that correct me if I was wrong in thinking it was the oldest gate in Britain, it was that the wood was recovered from the original Anglo-Saxon

abbey

and made into a gate here, that means think about it, it means that This door is about a thousand years old, which means this wood was a mature oak in 1000 AD, which means it could have been a sapling 5,600 years earlier when the Romans left Britain, so this wood could have seen the Romans return David, thank you very much, you're taking me.

I have been brought to Westminster Abbey, the central religious church and well, what is the importance of the abbey and British life? This is the most important and most significant church in Britain and that is true for many reasons, but one of them is that it is this. curious paradox of being a very sacred place, it is a church dedicated to the daily round of worship of the almighty god, but it is also a very secular place with an incomparable variety of monuments ranging from large royal tombs to the tomb of the unknown warrior and it is What an extraordinary combination of the sacred and the secular and, of course, the fact that it is a spectacular building that makes it one of the largest churches in the world and certainly the largest church in this country.

Well, let's start at the eastern end. The sun is rising, let's go see Henry VII's chapel. Great, let's get on with it, so this is, in many ways, my favorite part of the abbey. That's why we started here. Well, here we are in the Lady's chapel, built in the early days. 16th century, the last major piece of construction before the Reformation and, in a sense, it is a very European piece of architecture. Remember that the abbey, the Catholic abbey, was part of European Catholic Christianity, but, of course, as we can also see here later. As the abbey evolves into something very different, a national church, it then becomes the headquarters of the order of the bath in the 18th century and now we see here the banners of the leading knights of the order of the bath and it is used As of course, as in its chapel we see the coats of arms of the previous knights of the bath, so what begins as a kind of monument to European Christianity and perhaps to the values ​​of the late Renaissance later becomes the embodiment of national identity and because it is the order of the bathroom, eh, military. people and public officials, that is very interesting, I never thought that in this space it was also, but I have always considered Westminster Abbey a national church, but in reality that is more after the reformation, yes, it is a later development I mean, it was never like that.

It was the original history of the abbey and the history of its first centuries sees it as part of Catholic Christianity. It was an abbey. Of course, it was also becoming a national church in which monarchs since William the Conqueror were crowned. Here, but it was primarily an abbey part of Catholic Christendom and only in the Tudor period does it become this Protestant bastion of national identity and, in that sense, secular religion and sacred religion. How did it survive the reform? Why not? everything destroyed well the history of course of the 16th century is very extraordinary um henry viii decides that it is going to be a cathedral before it had been an abbey precisely because of an abbot henry turns it into a protestant cathedral with a bishop and for a very brief period In that period there was a Bishop of Westminster who was subordinate to the Bishop of London and then, of course, shortly after Edward Vi Mary arrived and turned it into a Catholic abbey again, and if Mary had married and had children, so would it be how would it be.

Still to this day Mary of course has no children and as a consequence of that Elizabeth is successful and in 1560 Elizabeth gives the abbey its royal charter and since then of course it is Protestant and also bears this strange title. a royal peculiarity, there is no bishop forever and the abbey only recognizes the authority of the monarch, not of the archbishop of canterbury but of the monarch under henry viii and then edward vi uh it was a protestant cathedral but then under mary it becomes a catholic abbey again and If Mary had sired a succession of children and, so to speak, established her royal dynasty, then it is entirely possible that the abbey would have remained a Catholic monastery and not evolved into the icon of Protestant national identity that since the time from Elizabeth onwards, since then it has become this way to speak of Mary and her sister Elizabeth.

I think they are buried right next door, let's go see them. They're still here, as I remember. James Vi pushed these two aside. It's not because, in a way, yes, he wanted to start all over again and established that the stewards were a new dynasty and therefore these previous relics, as if they were from a previous royal era, were not what he felt that people should focus on. once it arrived, here we have in a sense the juxtaposition of these two very different monarchs with very different beliefs and it is a reminder that religious fighting is not a pretty spectacle, there is a tradition, it certainly was a medieval period in which everyone monarchs were buried here, so it must have had a primacy from their establishments onwards, well most monarchs were buried here from Henry III to George II, not all, but most, and that was the period in which it became a royal mausoleum. generations but of course the initial establishment of a significant royal connection with the abbey was really had with the confessor, it was Edward who rebuilt the abbey, um, which was the second building on this site and then, of course, under Henry III, it is Edward, it is Edward the the confessor's tomb, which was elaborately rebuilt, um and Henry III rebuild the abbey and he is the great defender of culture with the confessor Paul Henry the third is an important man, they exclude him, they overshadow him his terrible father and his famous son yes, it is a It is really a terrible injustice because much of the abbey as we see it today was his creation.

He establishes the tradition that monarchs are usually buried here from his time until the first Hanoverians. He was the creator in many ways of the culture, but the confessor of the abbey. even today it is more his church than any other monarch's and yet, as you say, it is a kind of invisible presence, which is why we have sisters mary and elizabeth, not great friends in life buried together, not great friends in life at all because they had embraced these different belief systems catholicism and protestantism uh the 16th century was the height of the religious wars people died for their faith they were burned at the stake it wasn't a happy time but here they are united in death as they never were in life well and like james the sixth or james dixon the first they would have it in a way united, almost as if left aside because the real line, the real line that in george would flow through james first and the stewards are exactly like that, here they are, if not exactly marginal. then they are certainly not as centrally located in the abbey as perhaps, especially in the case of Elizabeth, their historical fame might lead you to expect, so here we are in front of the elaborate tomb of the monument to Edward the Confessor and one of the ways in which we must think about the abbey in medieval times thanks again to Henry III, who is responsible for the construction of this extraordinary funerary monument, is that it became a shrine to Edward the Confessor, King Edward the Confessor, later of course St.

Edward the Confessor. and that's one of the identities that was created very strongly in medieval times for the abbey and it's quite ironic that it became a place of pilgrimage, this shrine to edward the confessor, but today, of course, there are so many pilgrims also known as visitors and tourists that they cannot be allowed entry at all, yes that is ironic, so why did Henry III want to celebrate the confessor? Is it because the Norman and Plantagenet kings of England wanted to put down roots in that Anglo-Saxon period or is it? It's less cynical, well, I think one of the things that often happens here at the abbey is that when one royal dynasty succeeds another, they want to proclaim discontinuity with the previous royal dynasty or, for different purposes, at different times, they proclaim some degree of connection and continuity and both options are in some senses displayed in different parts of the abbey in relation to different tombs.

What a nice thought, so this is Edward the Confessor in here, of course, we should say Edward the Confessor, he built an original abbey here. an Anglo-Saxon abbey here uh and he was buried in it and aren't we the ones who think that maybe King Hal was crowned on the same day that the confessor was buried? Well, we think King Harold was crowned here. It's not absolutely certain, but it seems that although he was the confessor, of course he wasn't crowned here, he was crowned in Winchester, um, if Harold was crowned here, he was the first English monarch to be crowned here and of course we definitely know that William the Conqueror, who was French, was not really English at all. he was certainly crowned here, but before that in Anglo-Saxon times, English monarchs were not crowned here, they were crowned at Kingston on Thames, appropriately named, so the connection between the monarchs and the abbey coronations is in largely something that begins with William the Conqueror. but william the conqueror of course was french, not english, and then we have other monarchs buried around the confessor, that's henry vi, i think he bought from his dysentery, death from dysentery and a siege in france, so this is really the heart of the abbey as a royal mausoleum, the centerpiece is of course this extraordinary tomb and monument to Edward the confessor, but then with these other royal tombs around and it is worth repeating or remembering that beginning with Edward the confessor but only systematically from the time of From Henry III to George II, who died in 1760, this was the place where the English and then British monarchs were buried, so it became the royal mausoleum and that gave it prestige and appeal incomparables that no other church, no other great church in this country ever could. compete with it is incredible that we are within reach of several tombs of Norman and Plantagenet Anglo-Saxon monarchs yes it is an extraordinary gathering of royal tombs and there is certainly no equivalent of this anywhere else in England and I am not entirely sure there is There is something that can be compared or competed with this anywhere else in the world.

I always get very naughty. I always feel naughty. I would like to open these tombs and do scientific research on the bones, but I shouldn't say that too loud. I think you really shouldn't say that too loudly, a recumbent effigy, where you are bound to be disappointed, is at the west end of the abbey there is a recumbent effigy of Lord Salisbury, the prime minister of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. and there it is very similar to these monarchs that we are seeing here who are also recumbent, but in the case of Salisbury there is nothing inside because he was buried in Hatfield and that is the last recumbent effigy that was put into the air, another statement, make let them chisel you. in Westminster Abbey and a recumbent pose alongside the kings of medieval England, isn't it? and then being buried somewhere else, that's very elegant, I think it's very elegant in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and obviously we associate that with royalty. burials, but there are all kinds of memorials and burials for great supporters of Great Britain, which means that in the centuries that follow their bill is being built, that is correct and interesting, since it stops being the place where they are British monarchs buried because they are leaving. to windsor after george the second increasingly becomes the place where great non-royal british figures are buried and here we have the century here we have james wolfe so who was murdered this was in 1759 in quebec and this is an astonishingly grand monument of the 18th century and this became quite fashionable there is a monument no less grandiose to william pitt earl of chatham ligonier here is another another commander in the seven years war in North America all the geeks of the 18th century this is our little area here but then, what is this wonderful spotting? glass window I think I've seen this it's not the 18th century at all this is David Hockney this was recently installed as a modern commission and it's partly to celebrate the queen so the motif there is mainly the countryside it's a celebration of the queen as someone who often prefers to live in the countryside uh than to live in the city green load there we have questions up there oh look, we have prime ministers you have taken me to the prime minister we have many prime ministers here and here in particular we have to gladstonewhich is the last life-size statue that was installed in the abbey and here is the Israeli one, its great rival and you will notice that they do not look at each other and that is not accidental but because of At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century there was the problem that the The abbey was becoming so filled with statues, tombs and effigies that it was overcrowded and one plan was to build an extraordinary extension to the abbey, a sort of imperial valhalla where it was thought that all the future heroes of the empire would be buried, but that never got off the ground. , although from the late 19th and 20th centuries there were many ideas to do so, and as a result of that, what happened in the 20th century was underway.

There are many fewer burials, not more statues, but memorial tablets and burials of cremated ashes, but this world, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, of grandiose and extravagant monuments really came to an end with the statue of Gladstone and the definition of lord recumbent because You got, you got tinned shell. I remember Nelson once boarded an enemy ship and shouted something like glorious victory or Westminster Abbey. You know that meant to his men that we are either in death or in victory. Yes, I think he reflects on that too. on the eve of the battle of trafalgar which tomorrow will be the victory or it will be Westminster Abbey although, of course, it was in fact important, but they are not what you would call discreet these monuments, I mean, they really are extraordinary. the ones I like the most and the very great ones are people you've never heard of.

Yeah, well, I think there's kind of an inverse relationship in some cases, the less you've heard about them, the grander the monument, but here. It's Gladstone and his wife, they're buried, so Gladstone is buried here and he has a big statue too. Now one of the reasons Queen Victoria didn't like him was because he was almost as much the emblem of 19th century Britain as she was. and she was quite upset that yes, so she survived him, although fortunately she did and one of the pallbearers at Gladstone's funeral, of course, the funeral took place here and he was later buried.

One of the pallbearers was her eldest son, Edward, later Edward VII, and she was enraged because he had undertaken to appear to mourn the man whom she hated so much as to say gladstone, she wrote him a letter saying who he had consulted and what the precedents were and he responded with great grandiloquence that he had not consulted anyone and that there were no presidents that we had. wilberforce there, yes, canned, yes, my God, yes, this is very much, uh, 19th century Valhalla, well, do you know us? 18th century, if you like to call the long 18, more time, yes, it takes, it took over the 90s, yes, exactly, we cut the first part, so 'Now we are standing under the junction.

This is Henry III. Alright? Most of this is Henry III. Although it is fair to say that the roof fell in in the Second World War, so everything had to be restored. Which is also Henry III. this extraordinary installation here this is the cosmetic pavement that is one of the greatest architectural or artistic treasures of the abbey um and this again is a monument in a way to cosmopolitan Catholic Europe and that is very recent and it has been cleaned and restored and it is a very, very extraordinary feature of the abbey, let's go and look at the poets, so here they are all really, um, it's very good company to be in that aaron donald thomas tennyson elliot, they're all fine, they're not. all here but many of them are here robert browning ted hughes goodness philip larkin first of all poets yes poets of the first world war trollope is not here he is not a poet but he is a kind of literary agglomeration henry james and now we don't no longer We put people in here in general, we don't put people in, occasionally we put ashes in um, but no one goes into the hole anymore, it is believed to be quite full and that was the decision that was made.

In the early 20th century, generally after Gladstone, you wouldn't get a corporal burial here, generally you would get a memorial slab or maybe your ashes, your cremated ashes, might be buried, but not more, not many. more bodies is um, it's funny what the commemoration process means because you think of this as kind of the greatest generation, I mean, obviously they're all from different periods, but one thing is that being commemorated here how does that affect our memory of them, I think it is correct, it is seen perhaps rightly, perhaps incorrectly, but without a doubt, as the final award that is commemorated here and the decision as to who should be commemorated here is the deans and no one else He's nice now, yeah, well.

He will not continue to be dean when the time comes, it is a little premature, but that is because again there is no bishop, because the dean is the person who is in charge of the abbey and is responsible to the monarch for the care of the abbey. abbey. d is the dean who decides who should be commemorated in this way. We've been talking a lot about burials, but the other right that happens here traditionally has been the coronation of the monarch and we haven't seen one of those. for years, but I'm actually fascinated to see that because unlike royal weddings, which are much more recent developments really for the democratic era, the coronation is a ceremony that has a history, you know, a thousand years ago, yeah , coronations have been happening at the abbey since 1066 and that's quite a long tradition. uh I should have thought we could agree, of course the nature of the coronation service has changed over time, it's always been a work in progress, but I guess for many people, even to this day, the most The famous coronation is, of course, the coronation of the current queen, partly because it was the first televised coronation and that had an extraordinary effect at the time and, of course, Britain is almost the only country in Western Europe that still does so. does. coronations most of the monarchs uh in Spain in the Netherlands in Belgium and in Scandinavia they no longer receive coronations they actually just sneak them in they will sneak them in well they don't have anywhere as good as this of course for have a coronation. which could be one reason, but no, Britain is the only country that still does it.

He does coronations. I always thought we had Isaac Newton there. Who of course deserves to be. I always thought Stan Up did pretty well to get it because I mean it's a good space, it's a very good space, you know, tragically interrupted and all that, but I still think he's lucky, yeah, I think he did pretty well to getting so close to Newton, yes, there are quite a few other people quite close to Newton, but I think he did particularly well and then when we get to this end of the church, these two famous western towers are actually Georgia, they are actually very late , It is not like this?

Yes, we tend to think of the west front as being an integral part of an overall Gothic design for the abbey, but in reality, of course, they are really a Gothic revival in the sense that they were built in the early part of the 18th century, to complete the abbey that had remained incomplete, poor. Old Henry III never made it that far, so to speak, but for many people they are the most iconic image of the abbey and of course it got caught up in the famous Caneletto painting with the knights of the bath processing in front, painted very thinly after the order of the baths had been created and in fact very soon after the western towers were built now this is the other recent development like the royal weddings this is a recent development uh the tomb of the unknown warrior soldier uh what met and which has given the abbey a sort of great importance and centrality for the writer in the 20th century, as perhaps the traditional faith has been in decline, it is a very extraordinary thought that what began or what was seen as a royal mausoleum as the place where the most important people of the country were. buried now is more famous because someone was buried here who was a totally ordinary person whose name we don't know, i.e. the unknown warrior.

This was the idea of ​​Dean Ryle, who was then Dean of the abbey and in November 1920 the opening took place. of the permanent cenotaph on November 11 and then the coffin body of the unknown warrior was brought on a gun carriage from whitehall to here and buried here and it became a place of pilgrimage for millions of people who had lost their relatives during the first war world and it is interesting that to this day it is the only grave or place of burial or internment that the public cannot walk over, you cannot step on this, while there are many people that we have been stepping on while I have walked here from the east end to the west end and you almost have to step on the next one, which is good, here we have a very interesting set of juxtapositions nearby, the unknown warrior who cannot be trampled.

Is Winston Churchill the one who can really be trampled? This opened on the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in September 1965, just a few months after Churchill's death and, perhaps appropriately enough, within sight of the Churchill memorial is a memorial to Franklin Roosevelt, believe. I am right in saying that he is the only American president to be commemorated here and that monument was dedicated shortly after the Second World War, shortly after Roosevelt's death, and both Churchill and Atlee attended the occasion and Atlee is also commemorated nearby of Churchill. right hand something appropriate in that I think there is I think there is and then here we have the recumbent effigy of Lord Salisbury the last recumbent effigy put up in the abbey and here is Lord Salisbury here are allusions to his Tudor ancestors so would you I hope it's here, but it's actually not here at all.

It is in Hatfield, but this was the last recumbent effigy placed in the abbey, just as the life-size statue of Gladstone was the last major statue placed in the abbey. After that, the belief was that the abbey was full and that if you were going to commemorate other important figures in history you had to think about doing it in a much less ostentatious way that took up less space, so here we have this spectacular monument to Salisbury. although it is not here, compare that with the much more simplified Churchill memorial stone, and one sees the way in which modes of commemoration and celebration have changed from the early 20th century to the time we find ourselves now, if we go back to I think that at the beginning of the 20th century no one would have foreseen the grandeur of the imperial coronations of Edward VII and George V and George VI and, indeed, the current queen.

I think they would not have anticipated the growth of a much more secular society and a much more multiracial society, so the way the history of the abbey developed throughout the 20th century was, I think, very different from how it was envisioned. beginning of that century and here we are now, if not at the beginning of the 21st century, certainly closer to the beginning than the end and my guess, my bet, my prediction, although I am a historian, so I don't really make the future, but my bet , my guess, my prediction would be that the history of the abbey will continue to develop throughout the 21st century in ways that we cannot foresee at the moment, but your successor and I having this conversation 100 years from now will probably remember the 21st century as a time of extraordinary change and evolution for the abbey, a change in evolution that at this moment you and I can I don't know Hello friends, tonight I am going to watch a hit historical television adventure in Antarctica, you should subscribe because we have much more of this sort of thing to come, including excavations on the former battlefields of the Western Front, as subscribers.

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