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Westminster Abbey: Five points about the place where Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will take place

September 19, 2022
Bharat Times

The British national flag is flown at half-mast in Westminster Abbey.

For nearly 1,000 years, the coronations, marriages and funerals of English and later British monarchs have taken place at Westminster Abbey in the center of London.

Here are five points about the traditional church for royals:

  1. On the site of a Benedictine monastery founded around 960, King Edward the Confessor greatly expanded it by building a stone church in the 1040s. King Henry III issued instructions for the initial construction of the vast Gothic monastery in 1245. It was built to serve as a place for the coronation and burial of kings.

  2. In 1066, William I became the first emperor to be crowned at the abbey, starting a custom that has continued ever since. Elizabeth II was also crowned the Coronation Chair in 1953, as was her eldest son, Charles. The throne was built between 1300 and 1301. It contained the Scone Stone, which was used for centuries to enthrone Scottish kings. In a daring raid by Scottish students in 1950, the stone was briefly taken and accidentally split in half.

  3. It was symbolically restored in Scotland in 1996 as nationalist sentiment grew, but it would return from Edinburgh Castle to Westminster for the coronation. The coronations of 38 reigning kings have taken place in the abbey.

  4. Since World War I, most royal weddings have also taken place in churches. The first occurred on November 11, 1100, when King Henry I married Matilda, Princess of Scotland. Prince Albert, later King George VI, and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon were married in a church in 1923, becoming Queen Elizabeth’s parents. In 1947 Queen Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten at the abbey.

  5. Starting with Edward the Confessor, 30 kings and queens are buried in the abbey. The last was King George II in 1760. The abbey is home to 3,330 tombs, some of which contain some of the most notable figures in British history. Eight of them are prime ministers, as well as Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Purcell, William Wilberforce, Laurence Olivier and Thomas Hardy.