Introduction
Like other correspondents for London’s newspaper ‘The Star,’ Alfred Gardiner took a nom-de-plume from astronomy, choosing ‘Alpha of the Plough.’ In this extract, written on November 11th, 1920, he reflected on the burial of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey that same day, and wondered if the people of Britain really understood what had happened.
WE shall not know his name. It will never be known, and we should not seek to know it. For in that nameless figure that is borne over land and sea to mingle its dust with the most sacred dust of England, we salute the invisible hosts of the fallen. We do not ask his name or whence he comes. His name is legion* and he comes from a hundred fields, stricken with a million deaths. [...]
Now one comes back, the symbol of all who have died and who will never return. He comes, unknown and unnamed, to take his place among the illustrious dead. And it is no extravagant fancy to conceive the spirits of that great company, the Chathams* and Drydens* and Johnsons,* poets, statesmen and warriors,* receiving him into their midst in the solemn Abbey as something greater and more significant than they.
* See Mark 5:9.
* Chatham is William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778), 1st Earl of Chatham, who was Prime Minister in 1757-61 and 1766-68. See posts tagged William Pitt the Elder (4). He is buried in the North Transept of Westminster Abbey.
* John Dryden (1631-1700), a government clerk who found fame as a poet, and was made Poet Laureate in 1670 but was deprived of his position after the Glorious Revolution in 1688-89 because he had become a Roman Catholic in 1686. He is buried in the Abbey’s ‘Poets Corner.’
* Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), poet, essayist, literary critic and lexicographer. He is buried in ‘Poets Corner’ in the South Transept.
* Gardiner does not name any of the warriors buried in the Abbey, who include Edward III and Henry V of England, and the daring but eccentric Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. Two of the country’s most notable warriors, Horatio, Lord Nelson and Arthur, Duke of Wellington, lie in St Paul’s Cathedral. See Nelson’s thoughts on war and sacrifice in Call of Duty.