But Henry converted the building into a cathedral, giving it a bishop, a dean, prebendaries, minor canons, all these offices with the exception of the Bishopric being filled by the monks belonging to the establishment. The Bishop, Thirleby, was ordered to make the abbot's house his palace; Abbot Benson, now Dean, took up his residence in humble quarters, and all the old glory of the monastery departed for ever, while Henry was quite £60,000 a year richer in our money. Those of the monks for whom no place could be found under the new system were pensioned off, and many of the buildings, such as the refectory and the smaller dormitory, no longer needed for the cowled figures who for so many generations had used them, were pulled down or put to fresh uses.
Nor was the monastery the only part of Westminster which fell from its greatness. Earlier in the reign of Henry a fire had destroyed much of the old Palace, and the king, who cared but little for it, set his heart on York House close by, at Whitehall, once the London house of the Bishops of York, afterwards the residence of Wolsey.
The Cardinal lived in state; indeed Westminster was but a humble dwelling compared to this magnificent palace, and on his disgrace, Henry took possession of it. For more than a hundred and fifty years it was the royal palace, with fine courts, halls and chambers, its own chapel and offices, its bowling-green, tent yard, cock-pit, and tennis courts, and meanwhile the gabled, sculptured Westminster Palace, the home of Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet kings, fell to pieces. For us, both are now but phantom palaces, with hardly a trace of either remaining to recall the glories of the past.
But in the story of the Abbey, this change from Westminster to Whitehall had more than a passing effect; from henceforth the old intimate association between the Palace and Abbey ceased to exist, and Henry thus broke one more link with the traditions of his ancestors. Not even the chapel of his father, now no longer called the Lady Chapel, but instead St. Saviour's Chapel, had any attractions for one in whose nature reverent affection for old associations was entirely absent, and at his own desire, Henry was buried at Windsor, by his "true and loving wife, Jane Seymour," who had kept in his good graces by giving him a son, and then dying before he had time to grow weary of her. Of all his wives, only the plain and placid Anne of Cleves was buried in the Abbey, on the south side of the Altar, and "she had but half a monument," says Fuller, though her funeral was an elaborate one, by order of Mary, who was then queen.