Saturday, September 17, 2005

Day 14 - More "More"?

Three years ago I studied St. (King) Edward the Confessor for history class. There is a story that at one point in his life something happened that put him in fear of his life (I can’t remember what it was) and he prayed to St. Peter for deliverance. I believe the situation had something to do with his horse falling into a deep gully. Thankfully, he was snatched from the throes of death and fell to his knees, promising St. Peter that he would build him a church such that the world had never seen.

Soon construction began on Westminster Abbey in London. The church took a long time to build, and at the end plans were made to consecrate it. But apparently St. Peter had other plans. The night before the consecration, a vision appeared in the abbey of St. Peter and attending angels. They were consecrating the church. Next morning, St. Edward cancelled the formal earthly ceremony and to this day Westminster Abbey has not been consecrated by mortal hands.

I was incredibly excited to see Westminster Abbey during this trip, and everyone put themselves out to get there. Unfortunately, the place was a huge disappointment. An overglorified graveyard, the Abbey is choked with monuments and memorials. Not a scrap of its Catholic history remains. Although St. Edward’s tomb still rests there (they have not been able to remove it because of legal issues), there is a tall fence around it blocking any view, as well as any pilgrims. One could not even appreciate the beauty of the stained glass or the size of the church for fear of tripped over a memorial stone or running headlong into a stone angel or death-mask.

Among the few things that were impressive about the site was the ceiling of the Henry VII Chapel. With its gorgeous fan vaulting and milky-white designs that dip down towards the floor, the ceiling made me catch my breath every time I dared to look. Other fun highlights included a lovely memorial of a man defending his wife from a skeleton, representing death, and the coronation chair which holds the Stone of Scone during every Coronation Ceremony. (The Stone of Scone was the stone on which all Scottish kings were crowned, and was captured when England first ruled its proud neighbor. Though the stone has since been returned, Scotland lends it back to England for every Coronation.)

Other things that the Abbey is famous for were disappointing as well. The famous marble floor before the altar was covered for cleaning, and the Poet’s Corner was mostly – again – monuments. Very few of the poet’s commemorated there are actually interred in Westminster Abbey. For example, one stone reads: “Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, interred in Oxford, etc.” Never again will I set foot in Westminster Abbey! By the end of the audio tour I didn’t even have the heart to buy postcards or the pen-and-ink drawings of the Abbey I wanted to buy for Monsignor Hughes.

From the Abbey we walked across the street and used the famous bathrooms across the street. It is a silly thing, but two years ago when we went there they had automatic hand dryers that blew really hard. And I mean really hard – your skin rippled in a disgusting fashion over your bones. Everyone wanted to see them again, so we had it on our list unofficially to use those bathrooms.

Once again on our way, we ate our lunch as we walked down the Thames to the Tate Britain Art Gallery. It was scheduled to close in twenty minutes, so we took a very quick run around the pre-Raphaelite exhibitions. Quickly I memorized the titles of my favorites so that I could look them up later: “Mariana”, “April Love”, and “Order of Release”.

Shuffled rudely out of the gallery by museum employees, we headed towards the tube to meet a tour at Tower Hill Station. I am going to have to give in a minute and relate (rather immaturely) what has been dubbed by Kenny my “Rather Romantic Tube Ride.” On the way through the tunnels to the train I noticed that a young, tall, blond fellow in front of me kept turning around to “check me out.” My interest was peaked, and when he turned back around I tried to get a decent look myself. Prone to remarkable clumsiness at incredibly inopportune times, I stepped on his foot. As I – red in the face, most likely - jumped back safely to Kenny’s side, the boy turned around and told me it was okay.

The train pulled up, and was fairly crowded. Looking around when I boarded, I noted that there were two seats free next to (who else?) the young man I tripped over. Normally I would have taken the seat further away, but seized with a sudden daring that fails me at home, I sat down in the seat next to him. Out of my eye I saw him smile, and I smiled back. Two stops later he went to get off the train, but at the door he paused and looked slowly back at me. For a moment we exchanged meaning glances, and he left. That was all. I must admit that I am continually shocked at my own audacity over here.

At 7PM sharp the “St. Thomas More Ramble” through London started from Tower Hill. Monsignor Stark, an elderly but very energetic British priest, led the walking tour. Little did we know when we began that we were joining a six-and-a-half mile jaunt around London! We saw practically every spot touched by the life of St. Thomas: Tower Hill (the site of his execution), his parish church when a young man (the smallest church in London), St. Anthony’s (his primary school), Milk Street (where he was born), the sit of St. Mary Magdalene (where he was baptized), St. Lawrence Jewry (where St. Thomas delivered a series of lectures which formed the basis of his Utopia), the building where he worked, Lincoln’s Inn, and several other sites. How surreal to walk in the footsteps of a saint; it wasn't too difficult to imagine the bustling narrow streets of the early 1500's. An interesting and sad fact we learned on the tour was that there were originally 126 parishes within the square mile of London, but most were destroyed in the Great Fire.

It was very hard to keep up with the Monsignor and even harder to hear what he was saying. We were told by one of the ninety-six other "ramblers" that the little priest had been giving the same tour for thirty-six years. Afterwards we got a chance to talk to him ourselves. A very genial man, with perhaps the one failing of being a little too proud of his title, he told us of his visits to the United States and what pleased him (and displeased him) about our country.

The time being nearly 10:30PM, we climbed on the nearest tube and rode it back to Cockfosters, and from there drove home. No eventful or disastrous tube rides this time!

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