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WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND ITS MONUMENTS. 23 
only one that was destroyed by the Puritans during the Great 
Rebellion. 
In the time of Richard II. was built the Jerusalem chamber, 
which has been the scene of many famous historical events. 
Originally, it was the Abbot’s withdrawing room, and was con- 
nected with his house through a smaller apartment known as the 
Jericho parlour. Here it was that Caxton is said to have set up 
his printing press, which was both the figure and the instrument 
of that great revival of learning which led the way to so many 
changes, and amongst others to that Reformation of religion 
which we must allow one another to call ** blessed ” or “‘ accursed,” 
according to our individual notions. The incident of that Refor- 
mation which concerns us chiefly now was the suppression of the 
monasteries. The last abbot of Westminster was one Boston or 
Benson, who, according to Dugdale, had previously been abbot 
of Burton-on-Trent. He made no resistance to the Act of 
Suppression in 1540, but quietly became dean under the new 
régime. 
Henry VIII. made Westminster the seat of a bishopric, the 
Abbey Church being, of course, the Cathedral ; but after ten years 
the diocese was again merged in the see of London, and from 
the second year of Queen Elizabeth the legal designation of what 
is commonly called ‘‘ Westminster Abbey” has been ‘the Colle- 
giate Church of St. Peter at Westminster.” After the Dissolution, 
most of the monastic buildings were destroyed, and others given 
over for the use of a school, still known as ‘‘ Westminster School.” 
It is not improbable that the church might have shared the fate 
of so many other Benedictine Abbeys, and fallen into ruins like 
St. Mary’s at York, or wholly disappeared like Burton Abbey, but 
the existence there of the tombs of so many kings saved it. 
With the exception of the Western Towers, no addition has 
been made to the structure of the Abbey since the time of 
Henry VII. This is decidedly matter for congratulation, for no 
doubt if anything in that line had been done the style of archi- 
tecture chosen would have been utterly incongruous with the 
ancient building. Considering the total disrepute into which 
