It is therefore no mere flight of fancy, but a supposition founded on good evidence, that little Prince Richard may have beguiled some of the weary hours of his captivity by visits to the Almonry, watching the curious presses which struck off sheet after sheet of printing, and talking to the good-natured printer, who must, by all accounts, have been the cheeriest and busiest of men.
Bareheaded boys from Westminster School play foot-ball under the few remaining descendants of the old elms in Dean's Yard, and hurry in and out of the gateway with their school books under their arms. All that remains of the ancient Sanctuary is that blue plate with white letters. But within the great Abbey, the two little princes are in Sanctuary once more; never again to leave it while the fabric stands. And William Caxton sleeps in St. Margaret's Church close by, while his memory lives in every printed page of the English tongue.
[26] "Memorials of Westminster Abbey." p. 405. Dean Stanley.
[27] Speech of Duke of Buckingham in Sir T. More's "Life of Richard the Third."
[28] "Memorials of Westminster Abbey." p. 408. Dean Stanley.
[29] Holinshed's Chronicle. Vol. 3. p. 300.
[30] Sir Thomas More's History of Edward the Fifth, and Richard the Third.
[31] Equal to about £2500 in the present day.
[32] C. Knight's History of England. Vol. 2. p. 176.
[35] "Memorials of Westminster Abbey," Dean Stanley. p. 411.
[36] More's Life of Edward the Fifth. p. 40.
[38] "Memorials of Westminster Abbey." p. 412.
[41] "King Richard the Third." Act III., Scene IV.
Between the death of Edward the Fifth and the coronation of another boy-king, Edward the Sixth, Westminster Abbey saw momentous changes. Its fabric and its constitution were alike altered by the stupendous transformation through which England passed in those seventy years.
Henry the Seventh's reign marks a great break in English History. It is the close of the Middle Ages. And the Abbey tells the story of this break in a strangely vivid and emphatic fashion. As we walk up the wide flight of steps beyond the Confessor's Chapel at the extreme east end of the Abbey, we find ourselves in a new world. The grave, stately, mediæval church is left behind. And, entering Henry the Seventh's matchless chapel, a sense of fervor and richness in the architecture seizes on us. Our eyes feast on the bayed windows with their innumerable little diamond panes; the traceries and mouldings on the walls--not a foot left unwrought--the niches with figures of saint and martyr; the grand bronze gates with their Tudor arms--the rose and portcullis, the falcon and fetterlock--the rich dark wood carving of the stalls, with the banners of the Knights of the Bath hanging motionless above each; and then the roof, that marvelous stone cobweb, with its bosses, carvings and coats of arms, its vaultings springing from the slenderest pillars imaginable like graceful palm stems, and spreading out into the exquisite fan-tracery that covers the whole--a network of stone lace. As Washington Irving says in his unrivalled description of Westminster,