Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Janet,
Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, Waxworks in the Abbey. I confess some reverence
Speaker 1: for the waxworks at Westminster Abbey that too often is
Speaker 1: withheld from them, paying to them the respect due to
Speaker 1: the burial customs of our ancestors. Their homeliness too, has
Speaker 1: pleased me. It is part of the topsy turviness of
Speaker 1: things that a show of wax figures of historical personages
Speaker 1: nowadays has no interest for the young, but makes its
Speaker 1: appeal solely to the aged. It is always a pleasure
Speaker 1: to revive the memories of youth, and that we gray
Speaker 1: heads may enjoy in their company. For in our time
Speaker 1: these and their like were the simple joys of our
Speaker 1: growing years. The Blaise Lad of to day, oh horror
Speaker 1: to his grandfather dissimilate He never so well, who is
Speaker 1: familiar with stage heroes and reared to association with Sock
Speaker 1: and Buskin. At a time of life when his sedate
Speaker 1: elders considered an annual visit to the pantomime the limit
Speaker 1: of permissible enjoyment. He affects scorn for mere wax figures.
Speaker 1: Were I the guardian and showman of the abbey waxworks,
Speaker 1: I would exclude the impudent young. Such powers of stimulating
Speaker 1: interest as I might possess, I would give to those
Speaker 1: whom time has sobered. They should see Queen Elizabeth and
Speaker 1: all her panopoly of monstrous fashion. For them alone should
Speaker 1: King Charles the Second stare out of his glass pane,
Speaker 1: and Nelson, with his one good eye gaze into futurity.
Speaker 1: The Duchess of Richmond should stand with her parrot only
Speaker 1: before them. Monk Duke of Albemarle, I say, with regret,
Speaker 1: is to day too dilapidated even to be shown. But
Speaker 1: there are those mentioned, and various others still fit companionship
Speaker 1: for the appreciative audiences of the middle aged and elders,
Speaker 1: whom I would invite to tour with me the abbey waxworks.
Speaker 1: The young scoffer outside the portals would not trouble me.
Speaker 1: The ignorant alone finding credulity in the association of wax
Speaker 1: figures and our glorious abbey, and they are the majority.
Speaker 1: For the average stroller among the tombs would be puzzled
Speaker 1: to give a reason why the effigies are here. They
Speaker 1: are survivals of accustom centuries old. The cherished rite of
Speaker 1: a Roman noble was that of having figures with waxen
Speaker 1: masks representing his ancestors, carried it at his obsequies and
Speaker 1: placed in his hall. And from the Romans the observance
Speaker 1: was handed down. Effigies of English kings were born before
Speaker 1: the body at royal funerals, with pikes reversed, carried at
Speaker 1: the shoulder, and hatchments displayed, and the measured tread of
Speaker 1: armed men, and all the pomp and blaze of heraldry
Speaker 1: as can be traced in records far back to the
Speaker 1: fourteenth century, and where kings led. The practice was followed
Speaker 1: by our great nobles. At the interment of effigies were
Speaker 1: raised high upon a hearse. This was a platform heavily
Speaker 1: draped with black hangings and often decorated with arms and
Speaker 1: sculptor devices, which remained for varying periods in place over
Speaker 1: the grave, or sometimes by the high altar. Ben Johnson
Speaker 1: refers to it in his famous epitaph on the Countess
Speaker 1: of Pembroke. Underneath this sable hearse lies the subject of
Speaker 1: all verse Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother death. Eret thou hast
Speaker 1: slain another, fair and wise and good as she time
Speaker 1: shall throw his dart at thee. The wax effigies now
Speaker 1: sent aloft to an upper chamber of Abbot John Islap's chapel,
Speaker 1: as if in disgrace and out of joint with the times,
Speaker 1: once stood about among the tombs on the abbey floor.
Speaker 1: Odd they must have looked in such surroundings, with bright
Speaker 1: costumes and flashing mock jewels, when all around was brown
Speaker 1: and gray, lacking reverence as to day we understand it.
Speaker 1: But they meant no irreverence. Monk's standing figure above his
Speaker 1: own grave was most fitting, for in this posture he died,
Speaker 1: his spirit was unconquerable, like a Roman general and soldier,
Speaker 1: wrote an eye witness of the memorable scene at his passing.
Speaker 1: He died standing almost up in his chair, his chamber
Speaker 1: like a tent, open, and all his officers about him.
Speaker 1: Ben Jonson, it is poet and Roystering Liver who in
Speaker 1: the abbey is buried upstanding. The story runs that Johnson
Speaker 1: begged of King Charles the First a favor. What is
Speaker 1: it said the King give me eighteen inches of square ground?
Speaker 1: Where asked the King in Westminster Abbey, And there he
Speaker 1: stands awaiting the resurrection in the north aisle of the nave,
Speaker 1: in the path of square stones, beneath one marked by
Speaker 1: a small triangular lozenge in which has been recut the
Speaker 1: old inscription or rare Ben Johnson loose sand of Johnson's
Speaker 1: grave when in eighteen forty nine Sir Robert Wilson was
Speaker 1: buried close by, rippled in like a quicksand, and the
Speaker 1: clerk of Works who superintended the operation, saw the two
Speaker 1: leg bones of Johnson fixed the bolt upright in the sand,
Speaker 1: as though the body had been buried in the upright position,
Speaker 1: and the skull came rolling down among the sand from
Speaker 1: a position above the leg bones to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the newly made grave. There was still hair upon it,
Speaker 1: and it was of a red color. Once again, this
Speaker 1: skull from which so much living verse had sprung, was
Speaker 1: seen on the digging of john Hunter's grave, and it
Speaker 1: still had traces of red hair upon it. These wax
Speaker 1: effigies of Westminster Abbey should be accepted not as mere showpieces,
Speaker 1: but as part of our burial ritual that for centuries
Speaker 1: was honored in England. They have seized my errant fancy.
Speaker 1: Left alone with them in this upper chamber, I have
Speaker 1: felt on intimate terms with kings and heroes, a man
Speaker 1: as good as they ay. My sense of living tells
Speaker 1: me better than they. There is not the separation as
Speaker 1: from those who lie below, by all the majesty of
Speaker 1: death and the funeral trappings, carving piled upon carving, richness
Speaker 1: upon richness, about those whom men term illustrious, by which
Speaker 1: vain mortals strive in a pitiful effort to conceal that
Speaker 1: death is the common leveler. The glories of our blood
Speaker 1: and state are shadows, not substantial things. There is no
Speaker 1: armor against fate. Death lays his icy hand on kings,
Speaker 1: scepter and crown must tumble down, and in the dust
Speaker 1: be equal made with the poor, crooked scythe and spade.
Speaker 1: This is the message which every demarcade and chapel in
Speaker 1: our glorious abbey gives. These wax figures are men and women,
Speaker 1: not heroes, really, as like the living presentment as their
Speaker 1: framers could make them. As they lived, walked and talked
Speaker 1: a little stiff, No doubt, but not with the stiffness
Speaker 1: of those recumbent effigies in colder marble and bronze that
Speaker 1: lie upon the tombs. Was ever there a more kindly
Speaker 1: figure of King Charles the Second than this, and Wax
Speaker 1: in the islip chap little bibolous. Perhaps the nose has
Speaker 1: appeared to me not quite kind, or is it merely
Speaker 1: the effects of time darkening the soft substance of which
Speaker 1: it is composed. He holds his arms in disjointed fingers,
Speaker 1: as if suffering internal pain to which the full eyes
Speaker 1: seek to give expression, that homely pain which monarchs who
Speaker 1: have dined not wisely but too well share with lesser folk.
Speaker 1: No formal sovereignty is limed here the lined face the
Speaker 1: somewhat ridiculous wig give only the man I would take
Speaker 1: Charles the Second, given the choice in preference over all
Speaker 1: the other company of Wax. Queen Elizabeth I do not
Speaker 1: covet She lies gloriously in marble, a sovereign and a tutor,
Speaker 1: recumbent in that great canoped cenotaph which James the First
Speaker 1: placed in King Henry the Seventh Chapel to her memory,
Speaker 1: A panion tomb to that in the opposite ambulatory to
Speaker 1: marry Queen of Scots. The one woman his mother, the
Speaker 1: other her executioner. Both memorials raised by the same hand.
Speaker 1: Was ever before a son so placed to fulfill such
Speaker 1: a task. Elizabeth and Wax as posed as the Queen,
Speaker 1: a stout, matronly figure, over dressed in arraignment of gorgeous
Speaker 1: needlework and lace, overloaded with mock jewels. Wax does not
Speaker 1: lend itself to the similitude of majesty, and she could
Speaker 1: be masterful. Listen to her talking to the stout yeoman
Speaker 1: gathering in harness at Tilbury. I know I have but
Speaker 1: the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I
Speaker 1: have the heart of a king, and a king of
Speaker 1: England too. There is the tudor ring. This effigy is preposterous,
Speaker 1: not human. The orb held in one hand and the
Speaker 1: scepter in the other are merely the showman's additions to
Speaker 1: an unsatisfying figure. Better than this is Nelson, so gaunt
Speaker 1: and frail, for at least it is unpretentious. The Admiral
Speaker 1: is dressed in blue coat with a massive gold lace
Speaker 1: and curious flat buttons, white chersimeir breeches, and silk stockings,
Speaker 1: and huge cocked hat overshadowing the pale face, all save
Speaker 1: the coat being closed that he actually wore a little
Speaker 1: dapper gentleman. Has it struck you, how strangely untrue is
Speaker 1: Nelson the exemplar of them all, to the type of
Speaker 1: the British sailor, so hardy, bluff and weathered. The image
Speaker 1: of Elizabeth, oldest of this company, was contemporary, for it
Speaker 1: has mentioned in King James the First's reign. When on
Speaker 1: King Christianis of Denmark's coming to the abbey, it was beautified, amended,
Speaker 1: and adorned with royal vestments. Little of the original remains
Speaker 1: in the present figure, save perhaps the face, which may
Speaker 1: be from the authentic death mask, being worn out in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, with the remnants of an old, dirty
Speaker 1: rough and nothing else to cover her five and for
Speaker 1: such a queen. The figure was remade in seventeen sixty
Speaker 1: by order of the Chapter to commemorate the bicentenary of
Speaker 1: the foundation by Elizabeth of the Collegiate Church of Westminster.
Speaker 1: The wax effigy of Charles the Second used to stand
Speaker 1: over his now unadorned grave in Henry the Seventh's Magnificent chapel.
Speaker 1: Others of royal lineage are William the Third and Mary,
Speaker 1: a couple much admired in less critical days than these,
Speaker 1: and buxhom homely Queen Anne Catherine, Duchess of Buckinghamshire, proud
Speaker 1: of her royal descent as a natural daughter of James
Speaker 1: the second, makes a noble wax figure, and one must
Speaker 1: believe that it was the subject of her personal care.
Speaker 1: The dying Duchess, a poor, desolate soul who had outlived
Speaker 1: her husband and all her children, displayed quite remarkable interest
Speaker 1: in her own funeral preparations. She sent for Garter King
Speaker 1: at Arms to come to the death bed, and feared
Speaker 1: dying before the pomp should come home. Why, she asked peevishly,
Speaker 1: don't they send the canopy for me to see? Let
Speaker 1: them send it though all the tassels are not finished.
Speaker 1: She made her ladies vow to her that if she
Speaker 1: should lie senseless, they would not sit down in her
Speaker 1: presence before she was dead. What great to do over
Speaker 1: so commonplace a thing as a passing. Artistically, the prettiest
Speaker 1: of the waxworks is that of her son, the young Duke,
Speaker 1: who has shown recumbent as the body was brought from Rome.
Speaker 1: The Duchess of rich Sischmann died seventeen o two arranged
Speaker 1: for her waxwork in her will. It was to stand
Speaker 1: at the corner of the Great East Window, to be
Speaker 1: as well done in wax as could be dressed in
Speaker 1: the robes and coronet that you were at the coronation
Speaker 1: of Queen Anne, and to be under clear crowned glass,
Speaker 1: and none other. A mister Goldsmith of London was the artist.
Speaker 1: The imperious lady also directed in her testament that her
Speaker 1: favorite parrot should accompany the figure as it is shown
Speaker 1: these and Lord Chatham in scarlet robes, and the mere
Speaker 1: blocks of some other kings and queens, upon which no
Speaker 1: ornament remains complete, the company of the ragged Regiment, as
Speaker 1: it has been termed. These figures at Westminster are mostly
Speaker 1: the living effigies made for the funerals, but not the
Speaker 1: two of most recent date Chatham added in seven teen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, when the custom of bearing effigies has ceased
Speaker 1: to be observed. Owes's appearance among the wax group to
Speaker 1: the desire of the minor canons and lay vicars who
Speaker 1: act out their scanty incomes by the fees paid by
Speaker 1: visitors to make the show more attractive. The great Statesman
Speaker 1: proved such a draw that the charge for ignition was
Speaker 1: raised from threepence to sixpence. Dean Stanley, to whose memorials
Speaker 1: I am a debtor quotes the laudatory notice of a
Speaker 1: guide book of the year seventeen eighty three lately introduced.
Speaker 1: It says, at a considerable expense, the eagerness of connoisseurs
Speaker 1: and artists to see this figure, and the satisfaction it affords,
Speaker 1: justly places it among the first of the kind ever
Speaker 1: seen in this or any other country. Nelson's introduction is
Speaker 1: still more remarkable, for, unlike the first pit, he does
Speaker 1: not lie in the abbey, Saint Paul's holds the bones
Speaker 1: of that incomparable sailor. And to Ren's Cathedral. His coffin
Speaker 1: was borne through the streets of London on a great
Speaker 1: funeral car, which afterwards was deposited there. Sightseers flocked in
Speaker 1: thousands to see it, deserting Westminster to the monetary loss
Speaker 1: of the officials of the abbey. They met the competition
Speaker 1: by setting up this wax figure of the naval hero.
Speaker 1: It is said to have been the speculation of the vergers,
Speaker 1: whose enterprise was justified by results. For the crowds returned
Speaker 1: the show was not seemly, but after all, the Vergers
Speaker 1: might have retorted that they did only as their predecessors
Speaker 1: had done, For in medieval London there was competition, not
Speaker 1: less lively in the rival attractions of the sacred relics
Speaker 1: of Saint Paul's and Westminster. End of Chapter fourteen two