WAestminster Abbey and tts Monuments. 
By R. Moxon. 
Read before the Society March 18th, and December 16th, 1892. 
[CONDENSED. ] 
town, Burton, are exactly parallel. Just as the town- 
ship of Burton was formerly nothing but a village 
or hamlet occupied by persons attracted by and 
wholly dependent on the Abbey of Burton, so the township of 
Westminster only grew up as a consequence of the foundation of 
the Abbey of Westminster. The reason why Westminster became 
so much more famous and important than Burton was that 
amongst the inhabitants of the former was usually numbered the 
King of England. It was the Abbey that attracted the kings to 
the neighbourhood, there to be crowned and anointed, there to 
fix the seat of government, there to summon their great councils 
and parliaments, and there to be buried. Thus Westminster, in 
this respect unlike Burton, owes not only its origin, but its subse- 
quent growth and present importance directly to the Abbey. 
It is of course doubtful when first a religious establishment 
arose on this spot. The legends on the subject are many and 
various. Most of them may be found related in Dugdale’s 
‘“Monasticon.” Some writers attribute the foundation to Sebert, 
King of the East Saxons, nephew of Ethelbert, King of Kent, 
whose Queen, Bertha, was the patroness of St. Augustine. Others 
give the credit to Mellitus, Bishop of London, one of Augustine's 
