Bisbee daily review., 1908-05-23
co. O. Young,

Lsonuoh, EnS1anu, May S, lSUo. My other letters from London win be the description of walks ;n the city and visits to historical places. The first will be of Westminster Abbey whose history and the tombs it con tains form great part of Englands crowned heads and great men for near ly fifteen hundred years. The first church built on the site was by Sebert. England's first Christian king. and tAis vas as early as the year 605. Three hundred years later there was a monastery on the site: later on Ed ward the confessor founded the real Westminster Abbey" of today; oth- CT additions having been added at different times and the real house of today is the work of Sir Christopher Wren in the sixteenth century. Ed ward the confessor was crowned in the Abbey and every king and queen of England down to the present one has followed the custom, there being one exception in the case of Edward the Fifth who died uncrowned. Be cause he had taken so much interest in founding the church which came to be called an Abbey, at his death, Ed ward the confessor was buried here and from that time until the death of George the Third Westminster has been the burial place of kings and queens. They are not buried in the yard but in the church and for three hundred years were buried above the ground in stone cofiins; but later on the bodies were let down into the floor which for the most part touches the ground, the bodies being laid in vaults Then the Abbey was turned into a temple of fame as we'll as a church and many people besides kings and queens have had burial here. In fact the whole of the great stone floor is dotted here and there with marble slabs let in the pavement on which is written the name of the person buried there. Walking over the build ing often looked down and would be standing on the grave of some greai man who had found by his greatness 6 burial place in the Abbey. The custom of burying in the Abbey was singular in origin and very reasonable
 For hundreds of years it was rule all over Europe that in two or three years the bodies were exhumed, the bones were thrown in a lime pit ol burned and the grave sold to some one else. Then there were war! sweeping in destruction over the coun try and in these the bodies of hngE might be desturbed or taken away, a; often happened. So naturally people who could afford 1t and who cared especially for their graves to be mark ed started the custom of burying theil dead in the Abbey or other secure places in London. Of all the familie: in England who have right of bur ial in the Abbey in ages past there fl but one left-tne Percy family. Theil right comes through an inheritance which reaches back hundreds of years Of course, there are many buried her' who had no original or purchased righ but whose greatness ir life accorded them 8 place.
 I saw the great coronation cnai which was made for Edward the First 1872. in which he sat when crowne' and likewise every monarch of Eng land to the present King Edward tn Seventh, except that King who die before his coronation.
 You might think this famous coror ation chair, nearly seven hundre years old, is made of gold, but it 1 not Perhaps if it had been made c gold, long since 1t would have bee stolen and melted into money or jew elry. Should you find this chail which is of the plainest oak style, i a second hand store it would nc attract your attention unless you kne' what its history was.
 On the chair are carved, So the say, all the names of the kings an queens who have sat in it during thei coronation, and that in most instance the names were carved by the person themselves, some of which I had tn opportunity to read. Underneath tn seat and fastened to the chair Is tn famous Stone of Scone," brougt from Scotland in 1293 and with
 came the following curious phophecy If fates go right, where 'er this ston
 is found,
 Tie Scots shall monarchs of tn;
 realm be crowned"