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Exterior of the Chapel of Henry the Seventh 113 Edward the Sixth.—From a Painting by Holbein 119 Queen Elizabeth.—From Painting in the English National Portrait Gallery 137 Monument to Miss Elizabeth Russell 147 The Monument to Queen Elizabeth in the North Aisle 157 The Cradle Tomb 165 The Monuments of Princess Sophia and Princess Mary 171 Entrance to Bramshill House 179 Bramshill House, from the North 189 Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales 203 Westminster Abbey, from the North 215 Tomb of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham 227 Lord Francis Villiers.—After Vandyck 235 The Effigies of the Lady Anna 245 Henry, Duke of Gloucester 253 Princess Elizabeth in Prison 261 Westminster Abbey, looking toward the Altar.—From Etching by H. Toussaint 273 The Old Dormitory at Westminster School 279 Dining Hall, Westminster School 285 A Westminster Boy 289

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THE CHILDREN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

CHAPTER I.

THE BUILDING OF THE ABBEY.

Twelve hundred years ago, in the reign of King Sebert the Saxon, a poor fisherman called Edric, was casting his nets one Sunday night into the Thames. He lived on the Isle of Thorns, a dry spot in the marshes, some three miles up the river from the Roman fortress of London. The silvery Thames washed against the island's gravelly shores. It was covered with tangled thickets of thorns. And not so long before, the red deer, and elk and fierce wild ox had strayed into its shades from the neighboring forests.[1]

Upon the island a little church had just been built, which was to be consecrated on the morrow. Suddenly Edric was hailed from the further bank by a venerable man in strange attire. He ferried the stranger across the river, who entered the church and consecrated it with all the usual rites—the dark night being bright with celestial splendor. When the ceremony was over, the stranger revealed to the awestruck fisherman that he was St. Peter, who had come to consecrate his own Church of Westminster. "For yourself," he said, "go out into the river; you will catch a plentiful supply of fish, whereof the larger part shall be salmon. This I have granted on two conditions—first, that you never again fish on Sundays; and secondly, that you pay a tithe of them to the Abbey of Westminster."[2]

The next day when bishop and king came with a great train to consecrate the church, Edric told them his story, presented a salmon "from St. Peter in a gentle manner to the bishop," and showed them that their pious work was already done.

So runs the legend. And on the site of that little church dedicated to St. Peter upon the thorn-grown island in the marshes, grew up centuries later the glorious Abbey that all English and American boys and girls should love. For that Abbey is the record of the growth of our two great nations. Within its walls we are on common ground. We are "in goodly company;" among those who by their words and deeds and examples have made England and America what they are. America is represented just as much as England "by every monument in the Abbey earlier than the Civil Wars."[3] And within the last few