Westminster Abbey's story begins not with the building you see today, but with a swamp. Around 960 AD, Benedictine monks established a monastery on Thorney Island—literally "island of thorns"—a marshy patch of land by the Thames where London's west end would eventually grow. For a hundred years, these monks worshipped in simple stone structures, their daily prayers echoing across wetland. Then came King Edward, later canonized as St Edward the Confessor. In the 1040s, Edward didn't just patronize the monastery—he rebuilt it on a grand scale, constructing a magnificent new church and establishing his royal palace nearby. When Edward died in 1065, his shrine became a pilgrimage destination. But there's a darker twist: Edward's death left no clear heir, and his brother-in-law, William the Conqueror, seized this moment to invade England. On Christmas Day 1066, William was crowned in Westminster Abbey, establishing a tradition unbroken for nearly a thousand years. Every English and British monarch since has been crowned here—40 in total. Kings and queens didn't just come to be crowned; they came to be buried. Edward the Confessor's shrine became the most prestigious resting place in Christendom. Monarchs jostled for position near him, and 17 of them found their final rest within these walls before the practice moved elsewhere in 1760. Walk past their tombs and you're walking past the spines of English history: Elizabeth I, Mary I, Henry III, Edward I. The Abbey itself transformed across centuries. What started as a Romanesque monastery became, in the 13th century, a soaring Gothic masterpiece—Henry III rebuilt it almost entirely, and the work continued through the 16th century. During the English Civil War, the Abbey suffered terribly.