favour by earthquakes, storms, and other prodigies. But to proceed.
When the convent was erected, I make no doubt that there was a
church or chapel built as usual for the service of the monks; but it
is evident from history that the dimensions of the first or second
church that stood here were not comparable to those of the present
church.

We may rely upon it that about the year 850 there was a church and
convent in the island of Thorney, because about that time, London
being in the possession of the Danes, the convent was destroyed by
them (not in the year 659, as some writers have affirmed, because
the Danes did not invade England till nearly 200 years afterwards).
The abbey lay in ruins about a hundred years, when King Edgar, at
the instance of Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury (and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury), rebuilt this and several other
monasteries, about the year 960. Edward the Confessor, a devout
prince, enlarged this church and monastery, in which he placed the
Benedictine monks, ordered the regalia to be kept by the fathers of
the convent, and succeeding kings to be crowned here, as William the
Conqueror and several other English monarchs afterwards were, most
of them enriching this abbey with large revenues; but King Henry
III. ordered the church built by Edward the Confessor to be pulled
down, and erected the present magnificent fabric in the room of it,
of which he laid the first stone about the year 1245.

That admired piece of architecture at the east end, dedicated to the
Virgin Mary, was built by Henry VII., anno 1502, and from the
founder is usually called Henry the VII.'s Chapel. Here most of the
English monarchs since that time have been interred.