Westminster Abbey

In the interest of giving equal time to that "other" famous church in England, here are some interesting facts about Westminster Abbey:

• A Benedictine abbey was consecrated on December 28, 1065, just one week before King Edward the Confessor died, precipitating the Norman invasion.
• The Abbey has been the coronation site for every monarch since 1066.  King Edward's Chair, where sovereigns are seated at coronation, has been used since 1308.  (In 1950 it was temporarily stolen by Scottish nationalists.)
• The Scottish coronation stone, known as the Stone of Scone, was moved to Westminster Abbey in 1296, and returned to Edinburgh Castle seven hundred years later, in 1996.
• Henry III decided to rebuild the abbey in 1245; work continued until 1517. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536, Westminster Cathedral became a 'Royal Peculiar' -- a church under the jurisdiction of the British monarch, rather than a diocese.
• Mary I returned the Abbey to the Benedectine Monks, but Elizabeth I seized it back, dedicating it the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster.
• After Oxford and Cambridge, it  was the third seat of learning in England. Large portions of the King James Bible were translated here, and the New English Bible was also put together here.
• Oliver Cromwell, after overthrowing the monarchy, was given an elaborate funeral there in 1658.  When the monarchy was re-established, his body was disinterred and posthumously hanged from a nearby gallows.
•  In addition to monarchs, other famous people buried here include Geoffrey Chaucer, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, George Frideric Handel, Thomas Hardy, and Isaac Newton
• David Livingstone (of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?") is buried in the Abbey, but his heart is buried in Zambia.  When he died (from malaria), England demanded his body returned, the African tribes resisted.  Finally they returned it with the note: "You can have his body, but his heart belongs in Africa."
• The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is also in the Abbey, of an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War.  It was dedicated on November 11, 1920, the same day France dedicated a similar monument in the Arc de Triomphe.
• The last person buried in the Abbey was Laurence Olivier.  Only ashes can be interred; there is no more room for bodies.  The Queen will have her funeral at the Abbey, but will likely be buried in St Georges Chapel in Windsor.
• The expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" is purported to come from the 16th century, when funds meant for the Abbey (Saint Peter) were diverted to St Paul's Cathedral.  However, the phrase appears in John Wycliffe's 'Select English Works,' written in 1382.

Westminster Abbey by Canaletto, 1749.
The two western towers were added between 1722 and 1745