The next day when bishop and king came with a great train to consecrate the church, Edric told them his story, presented a salmon "from St. Peter in a gentle manner to the bishop," and showed them that their pious work was already done.
So runs the legend. And on the site of that little church dedicated to St. Peter upon the thorn-grown island in the marshes, grew up centuries later the glorious Abbey that all English and American boys and girls should love. For that Abbey is the record of the growth of our two great nations. Within its walls we are on common ground. We are "in goodly company;" among those who by their words and deeds and examples have made England and America what they are. America is represented just as much as England "by every monument in the Abbey earlier than the Civil Wars."[3] And within the last few years England has been proud to enshrine in her Pantheon the memories of two great and good Americans--George Peabody, the philanthropist, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet.
Come with me, in spirit, my American friends, and let us wander down to Westminster on some warm June morning.
We will go down Parliament street from Trafalgar Square, along the road that English kings took in old days from the Tower of London to their coronations at the Abbey. Whitehall is on our left; and we remember with a shudder that King Charles stepped out of that great middle window and laid his unhappy head on the block prepared outside upon the scaffold. On our right "The Horse Guards"--the headquarters of the English army, with a couple of gorgeous lifeguardsmen in scarlet and white, and shining cuirasses, sitting like statues on their great black horses. Through the archway we catch a glimpse of the thorns in St. James' Park, all white with blossom; and we wonder whether their remote ancestors were the thorns of Edric's time. Next comes the mass of the Foreign Office and all the government buildings, with footguards in scarlet tunics and huge bearskin caps standing sentry at each door. Parliament street narrows; and at the end of it we see the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament high up in the air, and the still larger square Victoria Tower. Then it opens out into a wide space of gardens and roadways; and, across the bright flower beds, there stands Westminster Abbey.