Westminster Abbey & Les Mis

As you can tell by my title, today we went to Westminster Abbey! All but four monarchs have been crowned there, and most of them have been married there, including Will and Kate! Besides this, the Abbey is still used as a church, and there are lots of monuments to soldiers, monarchs, poets, and authors. Outside the main entrance above the door are a bunch of statues commemorating important people from the 1900s, and our guide pointed out Martin Luther King Jr. for us, which I thought was pretty cool! The ceiling in the part of the church called the nave is 101 feet high, and 3,300 graves are found in the Abbey. When you first walk in is a grave marking the “unknown soldier,” which not even the Queen is allowed to walk on. It’s a tradition at royal weddings for the bride to lay her bouquet on the grave. This grave is honoring all the unnamed soldiers who died in WWI. WWI to England is like what WWII for us—it’s a much bigger deal here than in the States. Also towards the front is a monument to FDR, as well as the oldest piece of furniture in Britain still used for its original purpose—the coronation chair. The chair was built in the 1300s, and is still used in the coronation ceremony today. I have no idea how it hasn’t fallen apart! 

There are so many famous people buried at Westminster Abbey, and that was my favorite part about it. Some of the famous scientists buried there are Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and Clark Maxwell. They also have monuments to past prime ministers, and I found out that some people in Britain call policemen “bobbies,” because Robert Peel was the prime minister who started the police force. Interesting to finally know where that comes from! One of my favorite parts was seeing the grave of Mary I and Elizabeth I. I wish I could have taken pictures inside! Mary and Elizabeth were half-sisters born to King Henry VIII, (Hampton court guy, king who beheaded all his wives) and they didn’t get along. Mary (known as Bloody Mary for killing so many Protestants) tried to have her half-sister Elizabeth killed, because she was afraid Elizabeth would try to take over the throne.  When Mary died, Elizabeth became the queen. Elizabeth was afraid that Mary, Queen of Scots (different from Mary I) would try to overthrow her, so she had Mary put on trial and killed. After Elizabeth died, James VI from Scotland (son of Mary, Queen of Scots) took the English throne and became James I. James had Elizabeth and Bloody Mary buried next to each other, which I think is hilarious! I’m sorry for all the history, and I know it’s confusing, but I had to explain it so that it makes sense why it’s such a big deal that the sisters are buried right next to each other. “Divided in life, but together in death.” I think James did it just to spite Elizabeth, who killed his mom! Anyways… my favorite part in the Abbey is a place called Poets’ Corner. Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English Literature, was the first poet buried there, and ever since, famous poets and writers are represented there: John Milton, William Shakespeare, John Dryden, Edward Spenser, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Oscar Wilde, D. H. Lawrence, Longfellow, Keats, Shelley, Robert Southey, T.S. Eliot, Jane Austen, Wordsworth, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Coleridge, the Bronte sisters, Robert Burns, Charles Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling, just to name a few J It was so awesome! All the other English majors and I were freaking out, because those are all major writers that we’ve studied! Oh, and as a side note, the oldest door in England, made in 1050, is in a part of the Abbey called the Chapter House :)

Tonight, after a delicious meal of ribs in the centre, we went as a group to Les Miserables! I’d never seen it performed before, so I was so excited to see it! It was amazing! The songs were beautiful, and they all had good voices, especially the actor who played Jean Val-Jean. I had seen a spoof of it done at the Desert Star with my grandma and cousins, so the whole time I kept thinking of “Jean Levi Jean!” It was really good, but I think I’m still more excited to see Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. I don’t know if anyone can beat Gerard Butler, though, but we’ll see :)