Bisbee daily review., 1908-05-23
WESTMINSTER
 ABBEY HISTORY

But the prophecy, like many others,
 was a long time in fulfillment. Mary,
 Queen of Scots, tried to get the crown
 Of England but the shrewd Tudor Queen Elizabeth, kept her in the dis
 tance, but she dying without any sue eessor, left the English throne to a man from Scotland, James the First,
 and he 1t was who said the prophecy
 was fulfilled in himself. But the stone of scone" was all that poor
 King James ever got out of England,
 for he was hated so much in life and lso long after death that he got just
 simple grave ir the Abbey, but no monument. In the earlier history of Scotland the story had been invented
 that this 'stone of scone" came from
 ancient Bethel near Jerusalem and that it was the stone on which Jacob
 rested his head in the dream where
 he saw the angels and the ladder
 reaching up to heaven; but as mat
 ter of fact the stone is simple piece
 of Scotland's sand rock and every
 body knows it did not. even come from
 Bethel.
 Strange as 1t may now appear, the
 persons who were deadly enemies in life now sleep side by side in death in
 the Abbey. Queen Elizabeth is bur led here and almost by Ter side are the graves of Mary, queen of Scots,
 and Sir Walter Raleigh, both Of whom
 she had beheaded, at least was respon- sible for it. Perhaps little did Eliza beth, the shrewdest of all English queens, think that in death she would
 sleep beside those whose lives she had shortened in this world This, part of English history we all regret, and
 we all alike rejoice that such is the past never to return: also we can ItruthfuIly say that the world has be
 come better since that time.
 Oliver Cromwell, who for ten years
 was England's great protector, as well
 as ruler, coming in after the behead- ling of Charles the First, found at his death in 1858, burial in the Abbey. 1 Beside him was buried two of his best generals but on the restoration of the royal rule under the second I King Charles their bodies were ex- lhumed, the bones were scattered, and their skulls were hung over the door way to the house of Parliament, and and there remained for nearly twenty five years. At last people came to their senses, they saw how gruesome and wicked it was to have these skulls hanging exposed to public view, finally the order was given to take them down and no one today knows where they are. At last in recent years the people of London repented so much of such wicked history that large eques- trian statue of Cromwell stands in !. the Parliament grounds near the place where his skull hung so long ] Perhaps one of the greatest kings lin spirit, and by far the largest in , body. was Edward the First He was : almost a giant in statue and history , states that he was called "Lone Shanks," and that he was six feet , nine inches high, which surely was . a tall man. About three hundred l years after his death and burial in the
 Abbey the coffin was opened, the body being embalmed was found in vel preserved state, but was only six feet five inches long. The people who had : the matter in charge decided that } either the body had shrunk in deatf l for that the real Edward had beer
 stolen and another tall man put in tht : lcofin, but which of these is true nt l one knows unto this day. Anothe s strange grave In the Abbey attracted f my attention and the mention of i l may be of interest It is of a man wht - died in 1865, living to the remarkable ;, age of 152 years. The name on tht n slab is cold Parr" and it seems tha { living so long caused the mans frs ' name to be forgotten, this perhaps ao
 counting for the singular inscription y on the tomb. Nearly all the grea | men of literature and statesmanshil T of modern times are buried in tn s Abbey or, if not buried, have som s kind of monument here. David Liy e ingstone, scientist and preacher, die e in Africa on his knees in prayer ant e according to his wish the natives bul t !ried his heart under tree in the fol It est but in 1873 his body was brough ]: ito England for final burial in tn e Abbey
 Browning, Tennyson, Ben Johnson t Milton, Gray, and Spencer all hay
 graves in Poets Corner" while tn
 great, good Gladstone sleeps in al other part of the church. Shake:
 peare, though buried at Stratford-oI Avon, has a monument in the Abbey !! lalso there Is memorial slab to our ow immortal Longfellow. Aside froI : Iaueens and other women of royal an It famous families, there are only tw d women (of strictly modern times) bu,
 fed in the Abbey and both of them (
 more recent years. One of them !. Mrs. Siddons, the cleanest of all th J actresses England ever had and fc v whom the painter, Gainsborougl painted a remarkably fine portrait. . was from this portrait that the fasl nt Ion makers secured the model of th
 famous "Gainsborough hat" so we = known in the fashion books. I sa
 the original portrait in the Nations \ Art gallery in London and it Is anon \ the best I have seen in all Europ \ The last woman entered in the Abbe X and perhaps the greatest of ali, wa K Mrs Gladstone, the wife of the gre; E Prime Minister of England. A simp tomb it is which marks her final res E ing place but her life, with that s her distinguished husband is a sf E cient monument. And so this lett --oao of ,rraaf IppS1h in ?