Westminster Flame

I have a thing for old graves.

Weird, I know, and likely not a phrase you hear every day. Or at least, hopefully not, or you need to start hanging out with a different group of people. But it’s true. I really do like old grave sites, cemeteries, tombs, whatever. As a kid we’d go up to this place called Norway Valley in Wisconsin, where a lot of my family came from. There we’d traipse along the old cemetery, reading about Gilbertsons, Olsons, and Emersons gone by (unsurprisingly, nearly all the names were Norwegian, as that was the population). A lifelong history buff, I’d call out about someone born in Oslo and died in the early 1900’s of typhoid or other near-eradicated diseases, imagining their lives before they ended up in that grave.

I’ve had the distinction of visiting Buffalo Bill’s grave in Colorado twice, checking out the museum beforehand, posing for pictures with the cowboy props, buying Annie Oakley stuff in the gift shop (loved her, until I found out her real name was Phoebe Ann Moses, not Anne like I had hoped). Then we’d walk to the grave itself, surrounded by a metal fence for protection and for some reason covered in pennies, as if throwing coins on the grave slab of some dead guy will bring luck.

In DC I visited Arlington Cemetery, staring into the eternal flame of Kennedy’s grave, located next to Jackie O’s. We drove to Mount Vernon, exploring the estate and then ogling at the Washingtons, enclosed protectively in a brick building. In New York I tried to see Alexander Hamilton’s grave, but the cemetery’s closed, as it’s pretty much crumbling apart. I even looked into going to Grant’s Tomb, passing it often in the Ram Van, but found there wasn’t much to see there but, well, the Grants.

Most creepily, over the summer when I was driving in Brookfield, Wisconsin, to pick up my sister from a friend’s house, I nearly braked in the middle of the road when I saw a sign advertising a Revolutionary War veteran’s grave. Immediately I parked in the nearby church and walked over, reading the plaque- apparently he was from Massachusetts, fought for the US in the Revolutionary War, moved out to Wisconsin, and died there, buried among his grandchildren who died in the Civil War. I even texted a friend and fellow history buff, amazed at being that close to history.

Westminster Abbey was therefore super exciting for me.

For the uninformed, it’s basically a HUGE church that’s been around for over a millennium, and nearly every inch of the floor is right above dead people. Like, seriously, Haley Joel Osment would be going crazy in there. It’s impossible to get through the Abbey WITHOUT stepping on some dead guy, and it’s pretty likely that dead guy’s famous. There are monuments everywhere, intricate statues that must have cost loads of money, shoved off to the side because there’s simply no space, rooms overflowing with tombs, giant stone slabs on the ground indicating who’s underneath it.

It’s probably my favorite place in the world so far.

When I first entered, I was hit in the face with a massive sense of history. Even if you know little about Westminster Abbey, you can’t help but appreciate the feel that this is an Important Place. I grabbed one of the audio tour thingies, since I came with the price of admission (it may be free to worship there, but if you came to gape at the illustrious corpses, you need to pay) and started listening as Jeremy Irons filled me in on all the details. I’m not going to go into it here, since it’s easily wikipdiable, but basically everyone who’s anyone in English history has either a memorial built to them or is present personally.

I checked out some of the big names off the bat- Edward the Confessor’s there, though slightly out of reach, as are multiple other kings and queens. Entering one of the chapels, I cursed myself for taking Spanish in high school instead of Latin, since some presumably interesting stuff was inscribed above the visages of clearly Medieval men and women, some sculpted in knightly armor. I kept pausing the tour, because while the bigwigs of history are of course interesting, I couldn’t help but be drawn away by less “important” people buried there. Who were these people? How did they get the prime real estate of Westminster Abbey? What were they like? This husband and wife are entombed together, forever stuck with each other- did they love each other? Hell, with arranged marriages, did they even LIKE each other? I was that obnoxious person shoving through, trying to inspect every corner. I was appalled at some statues, with fingers broken off or otherwise vandalized. I was saddened by some floor slabs, the names unreadable due to centuries of people walking all over them.

Some people got great treatment. I liked the statues that showed the entombed being personally carried to the beyond by angels, or the guy bravely attempting to save his wife from a pretty terrifying-looking Death. Henry VII, the guy who started the Tudor dynasty (my favorite period of history) built his own chapel. Other people weren’t quite as lucky- Oliver Cromwell’s stone is still there, but he himself is not, his body having been dug up centuries ago and degraded. Anne of Cleves may have been the least interesting of Henry VIII’s wives, but she deserved better than a little brick with her name on it that I only discovered by accident. She did survive him, after all, with only a divorce to contend with instead of head loss.

Chaucer’s there too, and I nearly wanted to kick at his tomb for all the work I had to do in my class that shared his name last semester. Darwin’s underground, as is Dr. Livingstone (I presume... get it? No? Ok...) and Rudyard Kipling. I wished we were allowed to take picture, because it was like the Oscars, if the red carpet was really a massive indoor cemetery and the celebrities were all dead. I’d totally support some Thriller action if that meant seeing some of these people in the flesh, no matter how decaying that flesh may be.

Other important historical objects are there, too, not just dead people. Westminster Abbey is the place where Kings and Queens are made, quite literally, that’s where they hold the coronations. Out of reach and roped off is the Coronation Chair, which is quite possibly the ugliest piece of furniture I’ve ever seen. It’s hundreds of years old, and while I can appreciate its significance and definitely its age, I didn’t come to the Abbey specifically to see it, like a lot of people did. I think the monarchy is interesting, and love reading up on past kings and queens, especially British ones, as they tend to be totally and completely insane and therefore interesting. But as an annoying American, the institution itself does nothing for me. Nah, I didn’t go to the Abbey for a rotting, carved-up seat. I came for the next thing I went to see, what I’ve been waiting to glimpse at for years.

I came for the Queens.

As I’ve stated before, it’s no secret how much I love Tudor history. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because they’re an example of a blended family that got along even worse than mine. Maybe it’s because I admire the strength of women like Elizabeth I, my all-time idol.

But either way, I was totally geeking out when I saw them. Mary, Queen of Scots came first, since I screwed up the order on the audio tour and got momentarily disoriented. Though she was beheaded by Elizabeth (long story), her tomb’s almost cooler, since her son ended up being king of the whole realm and decided to give mummy a nice place to rest for eternity. For some odd reason, a ton of Queen Anne’s 17 stillborn children are buried in the tomb with her (Queen Anne was early 1700’s), something that even I find creepy.

Then came Elizabeth. If you know about Tudor history, you’ll know that Elizabeth and her sister Mary weren’t exactly best buds. But they’re in the same tomb, though Elizabeth’s the one carved on top. I was in awe the entire time I stood there, trying to get out of the way of other tourists in the enclosed space but still unable to bring myself to leave the room quite yet. Here I was, standing RIGHT NEXT TO ELIZABETH. Sure, she’s pretty much just dust now. She did die in 1603. But on the other side of that stone, entombed for eternity, was my hero. When no one was watching I reached through the bars and grazed the side of the tomb, since there was no sign that explicitly said not to touch. She was there. Maybe not spiritually, but still. Elizabeth was a strong woman who beat the odds to become queen, and reigned for almost 50 years. Under her rule, England became a world power, defeated the Spanish Armada, started moving in on this New World place, and saw an artistic growth that spawned the likes of Shakespeare and Marlowe, just to name a couple. In a heavily patriarchal society, she refused to tie herself to any man, instead wittily playing the game to make alliances. She thrived even though she had a tyrannical dad who killed her mom, and a sister who imprisoned her. Elizabeth’s known as one of the greatest monarchs of all time.

Yeah, she’s pretty much my favorite.

That’s why I like old graves so much. It’s the only opportunity in my lifetime to get close to history and the people who lived it, defined it, and were shaped by it. I wasn’t just looking at an artifact through glass, in a climate controlled room in a museum thousands of miles away from the history. I was actually standing in a building that had seen it all, separated from actual historical figures by only a few feet of dirt or a barrier of concrete.

Sure, I’m morbid. That’s not a secret. I practically advertise it. But it’s more than macabre curiosity in the weird and disgusting that makes me interested in old cemeteries.

After I took my tour, when I was just loitering around the exit to the Abbey but not quite ready to leave yet, I noticed a stand of candles off to the side. I approached it, noticing that few of the candles were lit, flickering in the dark of the massive church, undisturbed by the people walking around. There was a slip of paper underneath, that said, “By lighting this candle you join the many thousands of people who through the ages have made the Abbey a house of prayer. Light your candle and quietly offer your prayer to God.”

Instantly I was hit with history, and felt the sense of the universe pulling at me, the world working its natural order, the cycle of life and death and the things that matter to every individual that has passed through the hallowed halls. I envisioned people in all sorts of dress, from the Middle Ages to the Elizabethan Era to the Victorian Age to the present, holding a candle and whispering to God. The earth shifted, and I felt the presence of all who have come before me. My hopes and dreams seemed pale in comparison to the centuries of time this place has seen, but I thought of them anyways, concentrating on my own prayer. I though of the people I had left behind back home, my family and friends and how I hoped they would be ok. I thought of my time here in England, as limited as it may be, but still stretching out before me, filled with possibility. I worried about fitting in, as I am wont to worry about, and considered the questions raging through my mind- what if no one likes me? What if I’m left behind? What if I end up alone, spending my future alone, living my life alone? How will I come out of this six months, and will I like who I become? Then the history hit me again, and I realized that my questions and worries weren’t very different from those of people 100, 500, 1,000 years ago, standing in that very church, offering a silent prayer. My world had come full circle, and I was calm.

I lit my candle and moved on.