Canterbury put the hat on the new
cardinal's head. "Te Deum" was sung, and then the assembled nobles and
prelates rode back in state to a grand banquet at Wolsey's palace.

In 1539 the monastery was dissolved, and as the Reformation advanced,
various changes took place in the Abbey services. Instead of an abbot, a
dean now bore sway. Much of the property of the Abbey was transferred to
the great city cathedral, which gave rise to the proverb of "robbing
Peter to pay Paul." The hallowed relics disappeared, as well as
Llewellyn's crown and other historic mementoes; monuments were damaged,
and Edward's bones ejected from their ancient shrine. For a time the
Abbey was in real danger, and some of the outlying property was given up
to Protector Somerset to induce him to spare the sacred edifice. We read
in the convent books of twenty tons of Caen stone being given him from
some of the ruined buildings. A few years afterwards it seemed as if the
old order of things were going to be restored, and the Spanish husband
of Queen Mary attended a grand mass of reconciliation in the Abbey, to
signalise the return of England to her ancient faith. Six hundred
Spanish courtiers, in robes of white velvet striped with red, attended
the king from Whitehall, and the Knights of the Garter joined the
procession. The queen was absent, from indisposition. After the long
mass, which lasted till two in the afternoon, the king and courtiers
adjourned to Westminster Hall, where Cardinal Pole presided over a
solemn reconciliation of the English Church with Rome. Soon afterwards
King Edward's Shrine was restored and his body replaced therein, several
altars were re-erected, and masses and processions went on as of old.
But Abbot Feckenham--the last mitred abbot in England--had only ruled
for a year when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, sent Feckenham to
prison, threw down the stone altars and transformed the Abbey into the
"Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster," which is still the lawful
name of the edifice.

Henceforth the Abbey was academic as well as ecclesiastical, and
Elizabeth was very proud of her Westminster College.

The old Abbey witnessed some strange scenes in the times of the
Puritans. The ecclesiastical vestments had been already sold, the
tapestries removed to the Houses of Parliament, the college plate melted
down, and Henry VII.'s Chapel despoiled of its brass and iron, when, in
1643, the Abbey was subjected to actual des