Estimated to be built sometime around 960, Westminster Abbey was first used by King Edward the Confessor as his palace and later became a coronation site for Norman kings in the 1200s before becoming a “
Royal Peculiar” in 1579, or a church responsible directly to the sovereign. In its day, it was used for royal weddings, but no weddings were held there for some 500 years—until Princess Victoria’s granddaughter Patricia of Connnaught married a commoner there in 1919. William’s parents were married at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Abbey was the site of one of the sad milestones of William’s life—his mother’s funeral was held there in 1997.