Now, you will be wondering how much of the Abbey Church as Edward built it, stands to-day. And alas! there is but little of it left. For when Henry III., who had a special love for the Confessor, resolved to set up some worthy memorial of this "glorious king," he pulled down the greater part of the simple, stately building Edward had so loved, and set up in its place a much more ornate and magnificent piece of work. Edward built to the honour of St. Peter; Henry, to the memory of St. Edward. But generous as was his motive in pulling down that solid Norman building, which otherwise would have been standing firm as ever to-day, we cannot help regretting those vanished Norman arches and massive pillars.
When you stand by the altar rails, you can remember that the bases of the pillars on either side of the altar are those belonging to Edward's church; or if you go from the cloisters, where the south and the east walks join, into the little cloisters, you will pass under an old archway over the entrance, always known as the Confessor's door. Underneath, too, what used to be the ancient dormitory, but is now the great schoolroom of Westminster School, some very massive and solid buildings remain which evidently date from Edward, and there is also again the Chapel of the Pyx, or Chapel of the Chest, where treasures belonging to the sovereign and the monastery were kept. Neither of these latter places are shown to the general public, but when you go to see the Chapter-House, the entrance to which is in the east cloister, you will see to the right of it the doorway of the Pyx Chapel, which is wonderfully strong, and is said to be lined with the skins of Danes. The interior of this, with its stone altar and its solid stone arches, can have undergone very little alteration since Edward's day. You will get, too, what is probably a correct general idea of the whole building as it looked from the outside in those early days if, when you are in the Chapter-House, you look carefully at the pictures which are copied from the Bayeux tapestries. This wonderful piece of work, which was prepared for the rebuilt Cathedral at Bayeux in Normandy, was certainly embroidered during the lifetime of William the Conqueror, and may even have been the work of his wife, Queen Matilda. Most probably it was made in England, and is in itself a valuable addition to the very fragmentary history of those times. All its details seem to be very accurate, copied from what the workers actually saw and knew about, so there is no reason why the picture of the Abbey in that part of the tapestry which shows the funeral of the Confessor should not as accurately represent the building exactly as it stood.