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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2015
While historians are familiar with the destruction wrought on the nation's cathedrals during the Civil War, the rather different fate experienced by Westminster Abbey – an important symbolic building that tied together royal and religious authority – has been strangely neglected. This article argues that the Abbey played an important and distinctive role in the religious and cultural politics of the nation during the 1640s and 1650s. It uncovers the Abbey's role in helping to legitimise successive non-monarchical regimes and ultimately explains how efforts to ‘reclaim’ the Abbey at the Restoration formed part of broader efforts to renegotiate and reinterpret the nation's past.
1 E. Carpenter (ed.), A house of kings: the official history of Westminster Abbey, London 1966, 168–75.
2 J. Woodward, The theatre of death: the ritual management of royal funerals in Renaissance England, 1570–1625, Woodbridge 1997, 87, 115, 129, 130–40, 163, 190, 202, 205; A. Harvey and R. Mortimer, The funeral effigies of Westminster Abbey, Woodbridge 1994.
3 John Weever, Ancient funerall monuments, London 1631, 41 (cf. pp. 450–98); Acts of the dean and chapter of Westminster, 1543–1609, ed. C. S. Knighton (Westminster Abbey record series i–ii, 1997–9), no. 541; Durham Cathedral Archives, ms Hunder 44, p. 217v.
4 WAM, chapter act bk ii, fo. 64v. WAM 25109 is the memorandum of the appointment of a royal commission to hold a visitation of Westminster College. See also TNA, PC 2/50, p. 232 (3 Apr. 1639), where the council's commission for the visitation of the Abbey took it upon itself to allocate a prebendal house.
5 Merritt, J. F., ‘The cradle of Laudianism? Westminster Abbey, 1558–1630’, this Journal lii (2001), 623–46Google Scholar.
6 See the accounts in CSPD, 1641–3, 217; D. Cressy, England on edge, Oxford 2006, 390; and Diurnall Occurrences (27 Dec.–2 Jan. 1641/2), 3–4. This assault seems to have been prompted by reports that apprentices arrested after an affray in Westminster Hall the previous day (27 Dec. 1641) were being interrogated by Dean Williams in the Abbey.
7 CJ, 29 Apr. 1643; 22 Apr. 1644. See the subsequent report in WAM 43160.
8 CJ, 13 Jan. 1644.
9 For example, WAM 42488A, 42488B; CJ, 28 Feb. 1644; 25 Mar. 1648; LJ, 15 Mar, 26 Dec. 1644; 25 Apr. 1645; 7 Dec. 1646; 7 Feb. 1648.
10 WAM 33422. These accounts for 1654–6 indicate an income of over £5,800 (including £642 arrears), i.e c. £2,900 per annum).
11 WAM 3922 (and see WAM 43166); Farquhar, H., ‘New light on Thomas Simon’, Numismatic Chronicle 5th ser xvi (1936), 229–30Google Scholar; cf. S. Kelsey, Inventing a republic: the political culture of the English commonwealth, 1649–1653, Manchester 1997, 96. Kelsey partly misses the point in suggesting that this was to foster ‘the closeness of the ties between the Rump and the school’ (my italics). For the link with parliament, note also how one of the houses in the Abbey complex was now directed to be preserved for the Serjeant at Arms: CJ, 30 Apr. 1649.
12 After a parliamentary order of 31 Oct. 1656 (CJ) to remove parliament's records from the room over the parliament house and to place them in ‘the late King's Fish House’, the clerks of council were instead instructed to view rooms in the chapter house adjoining Westminster Abbey with a view to receiving the records: CSPD, 1656–7, 147.
13 See Acts and ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, ed. C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, London 1911, ii. 256–77. For the members of the earlier Westminster College see the ordinance of November 1645 (ibid. i. 803–5). Ten of the governors had featured among the original thirty-three members of the Westminster College committee, viz the earl of Pembroke, Sir William Masham, Sir John Trevor, Francis Rous, John Gourdon, Humphrey Salaway, Bulstrode Whitelocke, Lord Commissioner Lisle, Sir William Strickland and Sir Henry Vane the younger.
14 Sir John Danvers, Edmund Ludlow, Augustine Garland, John Carew, Henry Smith, William Cawley, John Downs, John Venn, John Bradshaw, Daniel Blagrave, Humphrey Edwards, Henry Marten, Gilbert Millington, John Moor and Thomas Challoner.
15 WAM 42750–64. See also WAM 43014 for work being done for Bradshaw as late as 1654.
16 WAM 24851.
17 D. J. Crankshaw, ‘Community, city and nation, 1540–1714’, in D. Keene, A. Burns and A. Saint (eds), St Paul's: the cathedral church of London, 604–2004, London 2004, 63–4; John Evelyn, A character of England, 3rd edn, London 1659, 11–12.
18 M. Morrissey, Politics and the Paul's Cross sermons, 1558–1642, Oxford 2011, 223–7. The church of Christ Church, Newgate, was the venue for some significant public celebrations of the alliance between parliament and the City in the 1640s, but these were only rare events – notably on 18 Jan. 1644, 19 June 1645 and 2 Apr. 1646. See also A. Hughes, ‘Religious diversity in revolutionary England’, in N. Tyacke (ed.), The English Revolution, c. 1590–1720, Manchester 2007, 111–28 at pp. 117, 119.
19 On the relationship between St Margaret's and the Abbey see J. F. Merritt, The social world of early modern Westminster: abbey, court and community, 1525–1640, Manchester 2005, 11–13, 324–7. On the painting of the state's arms see WAC, E30.
20 BL, ms Add. 70005 (unfoliated); J. Spraggon, Puritan iconoclasm during the English Civil War, Woodbridge 2003, 88–93.
21 T. Cocke, 900 years: the restorations of Westminster Abbey, London 1995, 33–4.
22 But note the calculation in 1646 that ‘A thousand pound is not sufficient for the repair of the Church at this present time’: WAM 6355.
23 For details of work on new pews and glass and the construction of a new gallery in 1645–6 see WAM 24850, 24852, 24855, 42268, 42506–7, and BL, ms Add. 70005.
24 Carpenter, House, 172.
25 Thomas Hill, The strength of the saints, London 1648 (Wing H2030), sig. A2v.
26 J. F. Wilson, Pulpit in parliament: Puritanism during the English civil wars, 1640–1648, Princeton 1969; T. Webster, ‘Preaching and parliament, 1640–1659’, in P. McCullough, H. Adlington and E. Rhatigan (eds), The Oxford handbook of the early modern sermon, Oxford 2011, 404–20 at pp. 405–9.
27 Thomas Case may have been referring to an additional development when, in a formal sermon on 9 Apr. 1644, he alluded to the lecture at Westminster ‘every morning at six of the Clock’: The root of apostacy, London 1644 (Wing C839), 3, cited in Wilson, Pulpit, 16. However, this may simply reflect when the lecturers were choosing to begin their services in order to finish by the specified time of 8 a.m.
28 CJ, 28 Feb. 1644; The private journals of the Long Parliament, ed. W. H. Coates, A. S. Young and V. F. Snow, New Haven 1982–92, ii. 86–7. Marshall continues to be wrongly identified as lecturer at St Margaret's in all the relevant scholarship: see, most recently, Tom Webster's account in ODNB.
29 W. A. Shaw, History of the English Church during the civil wars and under the Commonwealth, 1640–1660, London 1900, ii. 590–1.
30 Stephen Marshall, A sermon of the baptizing of infants, London 1644 (Wing M774), sig. A2r. For the £10 quarterly payments for the ‘catechizing lectures’ see, for example, WAM 9371, 9384 (and for Nye's resignation from the post see WAM 9397).
31 LJ, 25 Apr. 1645. We can trace this continuing usage for these days in the amounts listed as collected at the Abbey and sent to St Margaret's in the poor rate returns: WAC, E157–66. For details of payments for sermons given in the Abbey in 1643 see WAM 42417–21.
32 Merritt, Social world, 55. Under the protectorate, however, while these were days of public thanksgiving, Cromwell generally observed them with his council and senior army officers at Hampton Court or Whitehall, with sermons and a feast, rather than attending a public event. See, for example, Mercurius Politicus, no. 380, 3–10 Sept. 1657, 1606.
33 Mercurius Politicus, no. 221, 31 Aug.–7 Sept. 1654, 3743. For the 1656 parliament see the account in Mercurius Politicus, no. 327, 11–16 Sept. 1656, 7254, and John Owen, God's work in founding Zion, London 1656 (Wing 0758).
34 See especially Kelsey, Inventing, and R. Sherwood, The court of Oliver Cromwell, London 1977.
35 The Abbey does not even have an index entry in either Sean Kelsey's Inventing a republic or Kevin Sharpe's Image wars: promoting kings and commonwealths in England, 1603–1660, New Haven 2010.
36 HMC, Salisbury, xii. 142–3.
37 CSPVen., 1643–47, 58. See also Robert Baillie, Letters and journals, 1637–62, ed. D. Laing, Edinburgh 1841–2, ii. 118.
38 CSPVen., 1653–54, 96; Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 6, 22–30 June 1653, 48; The Moderate Intelligencer, no. 8, 20–27 June 1653, 64; The Moderate Publisher, no. 139, 24 June–1 July 1653; A Perfect Account, no.129, 22–29 June 1653, 1027.
39 CSPVen., 1657–59, 106–13; CSPD, 1657–8, 60, 87, 179.
40 The Kingdoms Weekly Intelligencer, 1397; CSPD, 1649–50, 135, 164, 165, 183; CJ, 11 June 1649.
41 D. Norbrook, Writing the English republic: poetry, rhetoric and politics, 1627–1660, Cambridge 1999, 235. Norbrook describes Henry Marten and Thomas Chaloner as being behind this initiative – both were Abbey governors.
42 Mackworth, a member of the Council of State, was interred in the Henry vii chapel, attended by the council, the Speaker, most MPs ‘and many other persons of honor, with a great train of coaches and attendants’: Mercurius Politicus, no. 237, 21–28 Dec. 1654, 5018. For Worsley's burial in the same chapel see Mercurius Politicus, no. 314, 12–19 June 1656, 7038. For Constable's funeral see Mercurius Politicus, no. 262, 14–21 June 1655, 5418, 5420; no. 263, 21–28 June 1655, 5435. For Bradshaw see The diurnal of Thomas Rugg, 1659–1661, ed. W. L. Sachse (Camden 3rd ser. xci, 1961), 17.
43 John Phillips, Sportive wit, London 1656 (Wing P2113), 96; A perfect relation of the memorable funerall of the … earl of Essex, London 1646 (Wing P1512), sig. A2v; LJ, 8 Jan. 1647.
44 The Man in the Moone, no. 16, 13–20 June 1649, 83–5; Lodewijk Huygens: The English Journal, 1651–1652, ed. A. G. H. Bachrach and R. G. Collmer, Leiden 1982, 45–6; cf. The last will and testament of Richard Brandon, London 1649 (Wing B4254), 3.
45 L. L. Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell, Cambridge 2000, 139–46; Sharpe, Image wars, 522; Sherwood, Court, 126–32, 164–5.
46 Mercurius Politicus' account (no. 428, 5–12 Aug. 1658, 752) of the night burial of Cromwell's daughter Lady Elizabeth on 10 August 1658 stresses the many barges filled with persons of honour and quality which accompanied the corpse from Hampton Court, but notes that ‘the whole Ceremony … [was] managed without Funeral pomp’.
47 E. Kurpershoek and J. Vrieze, The Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1999; H. Scholvinck, Graven in de Nieuwe Kerk Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1999.
48 For example, H. F. Westlake, St Margaret's Westminster: the church of the House of Commons, London 1914. See also the home-page of the St Margaret's website.
49 It is true that St Margaret's had served as the Commons venue for parliamentary fasts and communions in the early Stuart period, most notably in the 1620s, but it was its close links of interdependence with the Abbey (which exercised sole right of visitation over the parish) that were of overwhelming significance in shaping the character of St Margaret's in the pre-war period, not least in encouraging a notably conservative approach to religious worship. The only arm of government that enjoyed significant links with the parish would appear to have been the Exchequer: Merritt, Social world, 125, 340–1.
50 I will document these points in more detail elsewhere.
51 For descriptions of this event see, for example, The diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. Latham and W. Matthews, London 1970–83, ii. 83–4.
52 Burials included Henry duke of Gloucester (21 Sept. 1660), the Princess Royal (29 Dec. 1660), Charles duke of Cambridge, the eldest son of the duke of York (4 May 1661) and Elizabeth of Bohemia (17 Feb. 1662): J. L. Chester, The marriage, baptismal and burial registers of the Collegiate Church and Abbey of St Peter, Westminster (Harleian Society x, 1878), 152–6.
53 Pepys, Diary, i. 283, 324.
54 See W. Stubbs, Registrum sacrum Anglicanum, Oxford 1858, 100–21. Discounting two consecrations in the 1540s (one of whom was Thomas Thirlby, the first and only bishop of Westminster), and that of Francis Godwin in 1601, the only three episcopal consecrations in the post-Reformation Abbey prior to 1660 all reflect John Williams's position as dean of Westminster, being Williams's own consecration in 1621, and the role that he played as senior prelate (archbishop of York, in the absence of Laud who was in the Tower) at the consecrations of John Prideaux (1641) and Ralph Brownrigg (1642).
55 Stubbs, Registrum, 114, 121–3.
56 S. Taylor and K. Fincham, ‘The restoration of the Church of England, 1660–62: ordination, re-ordination and conformity’, in S. Taylor and G. Tapsell (eds), The nature of the English revolution revisited, Woodbridge 2013, 197–232.
57 Chester, Registers, 521–3; J. Dart, Westmonasterium, London 1723, ii, 143–6. The royal warrant for the later disinterment (dated 9 September 1661) requires the ejection of all those ‘unwarrantably interred’ since 1641 (i.e. from Charles i's departure from London), and lists twenty-one names. Essex's effigy was removed at a later point in 1661 to make space for another monument, but the body remained unmolested: HMC, Fourth report, appendix, 180. Major-General Worsley's body also remained in the Abbey, presumably only by oversight.
58 The purging also encapsulated the tensions between continuity and change that are readily observable as the Abbey struggled to rebuild its position in the locality. The restoration of the Abbey's role in the area was far from straightforward. For example, while the restored dean and chapter soon issued an order seeking to track down locally ‘any money goods or utensills … which have beene any way deteyned or imbeazeled’ from the Abbey (WAM, chapter act bk iii, 11 Oct. 1660), they notably failed to renew the traditional payment of the college alms (despite the fact that the alms, which dated back to the pre–Reformation period, had remarkably been sustained throughout the Interregnum by the Abbey Governors, and specifically described as the benevolence of the late dean and chapter): WAC, E159–E176.
