Vastly solemn indeed was the ceremony, calling to mind as it did the long procession of kings and queens who, without exception in that place, almost in those identical words, had accepted the great trust to which they had been called. Some had been faithful; some, through weakness or through wilful wrong-doing, had violated the vow. The strongest men had sometimes wavered, the bravest men had faltered before their task. But Queen Victoria never failed her people. Through weal and woe, through storm and sunshine, through good and evil days, she watched over them and guarded their interests. She ruled over their hearts at home and throughout those vaster dominions beyond the seas, she bound them to her with bonds of loyal devotion, so that when, in the dim light of a winter's day in February 1901, the Abbey was filled with a vast crowd of those who were there to pay their last tribute to her memory, their universal sorrow was no mere formality, but was in harmony with the sense of personal loss which was felt by all who had owned her as their Sovereign Lady.
By a strange irony of fate, the royal chapel of the Tudors was destined to be, at least for awhile, the burying-place of many Parliamentary leaders, and perhaps stranger still it is to realise how Roundhead and Cavalier, disgraced minister and triumphant reformer, came at last to the old Abbey, which opened its arms to receive them, condemning no man, but committing all unto the care of Him who judgeth with righteous judgment. The Duke of Buckingham and Pym, Cromwell and Prince Rupert, Admiral Blake, Clarendon the historian of the great rebellion, Essex and General Monk, all were buried within a few feet of each other, and their names are still engraved on Abbey stones, though some of them sleep there no more.
These men, in their different ways, stood in the forefront of that hard-fought Revolution, and as I want Westminster to be something more to you than a place of names and monuments, I will try to tell you enough of each one for you to be able to fit them into their proper places in the history of those stormy days.
We will begin with Buckingham, who, as young George Villiers, was brought up to be a courtier, and taught only such accomplishments as would fit him for that part. He was an apt pupil, graceful, witty, versatile, full of charm, and from the moment he entered the service of James I. as cupbearer, his upward career began. He leapt from step to step with dazzling rapidity, and the king became a mere puppet in his hands. "I love the Earl of Buckingham more than anything else," he declared. "Whatsoever he desireth must be done." For awhile Buckingham did not seriously interfere with politics; his ambition was satisfied with personal power and court influence, while his own position concerned him much more closely than the affairs of the country. But eventually he was drawn into the vortex, to his own undoing, for his brilliancy was only superficial, his wild schemes collapsed one after the other, while his reckless extravagance, coupled with his disastrous undertakings, staggered the Parliament, which had for a brief moment believed in him. However, Charles, who was now king, implicitly believed in him through all his failures, and supported his exorbitant demands for money to carry on his unpopular and unsuccessful foreign policy. At last the gathering indignation burst.