d was
finished. How eagerly the King looked forward to its consecration! It
was indeed consecrated three days after Christmas, on the Feast of the
Holy Innocents, but the King was not there; he was very ill, and within
a few days he died. The first great service held in the new Abbey was
his funeral; he was buried before the high Altar. After this there was
no peace or happiness in England for many a day. Edward left no son,
so the greatest of the English Earls, Earl Harold, was made King. But
William, Duke of Normandy, declared that Edward had promised him the
crown; and he came across the sea, and fought and killed Harold on the
Sussex Hills at the Battle of Hastings. Thus the Norman Duke became
William I., King of England, and he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on
Christmas Day, 1066. Inside the church with him were the Norman
nobles; outside crowded the poor English.

When he was proclaimed King at the Altar, the English shouted, as was
their custom, "God save the King!" The Normans within the Abbey heard
and wondered. What could the shouts mean? Were the English rising
against them? Full of fear and anger they rushed out to find
everything in confusion, the houses ablaze, and their men, who had been
left outside on guard, killing the poor English. In the Abbey William
and the Bishops and monks were left almost alone; and thus, in the
gloom and darkness of the winter's day, with the sound of tumult and
fighting ringing in their ears, the Conqueror was {22} crowned. This
was the first coronation in the Abbey; facing p. 9 is a picture of it.

Two hundred years later King Henry III. pulled down Edward the
Confessor's Abbey, and built in its place the Abbey we still have. In
it the Confessor's tomb is behind the altar; for Henry had his body
reverently moved from its first grave to a chapel which he had
especially prepared for it. When you go to the Abbey you will see that
this chapel is higher than any of the others; some people say the
reason is that, to do more honour to the Confessor, King Henry sent
ships to bring earth from the Holy Land, and this sacred earth was
piled up into a mound behind the high Altar, and on it the Confessor's
chapel was built. This is the part of the Abbey shown in picture 3;
turn back and look at it again. Do you see that the old tomb is
covered with purple velvet? Are not the pillars and arches about it
beautiful?

I have told you only the beginning of the Abbey's