Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter LVIII: The Royal Palace of Westminster.Plan of Palace
Chapter LVIII: The Royal Palace of Westminster.Plan of Palace
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The ancient Royal Palace of was a magnificent and extensive pile, in part covering the ground now occupied by the large areas or courts known as Old and New , and it consisted of a great number of buildings destined to various purposes. The courts were bounded on the east by the river Thames, and on the west by the Abbey of St. Peter, , the Great and Little Sanctuaries, &c., and were entered on the north and south by gates, which we shall presently describe more in detail. The original palace in which King Canute the Dane had lived is said to have been burnt down to the ground some years before the Conquest. It was rebuilt by Edward the Confessor, and, as we learn from Fitz-Stephen, was a structure of great strength. Here, as Ingulphus tells us, Edward the Confessor held his court, and entertained the high and mighty Duke of Normandy-his own destined successor-when on a visit to England; and here, doubtless, was enacted the incident depicted in the compartment of the historical frieze in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, in . so runs the legend,
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p.492 | |
The particulars of the death of Edward the Confessor, which occurred here, are thus touchingly told in Mr. Walcott's on the authority of Ailred, Abbot of Rievaulx :-- [extra_illustrations.3.492.1] [extra_illustrations.3.492.2] | |
William the Conqueror, who was crowned at with his queen, Matilda, says Stow, Here the Norman kings occasionally resided when they could be enticed away from Winchester and the pleasures of the chase in the New Forest. | |
As far back as the reign of [extra_illustrations.3.493.1] , if we may trust the somewhat poetical statements of Fitz-Stephen, the buildings of the metropolis were grand in the extreme; at all events, he describes the king's palace as an incomparable edifice, connected with the City by suburbs miles in length, and adds that the bishops, abbots, and noblemen of the kingdom resorted thither in large numbers, living in beautiful houses and maintaining magnificent establishments. The citizens too, no doubt, were initiated in the luxury of good | |
living; for in the neighbourhood of the palace and of the Thames they had a large cooking establishment, at which dainties of every kind could be obtained. They had also in the same neighbourhood public and private schools of philosophy and polite literature; the drama, too, was cultivated; and Fitz-Stephen, who was himself a monk, writes in high terms of praise concerning the frequent exhibitions here of the miracles and martyrdoms of the saints. | |
Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris tell us that soon after he had built the great hall, William Rufus, keeping the festival of Whitsuntide here with royal splendour, and hearing his guests admiring its grandeur, boastfully exclaimed, Notwithstanding this boast of William, it would appear that the palace soon afterwards was allowed to fall into decay; for early in the reign of Henry II., as Fitz-Stephen tells us, the Chancellor, Thomas a Becket, found it almost a ruin, and repaired it in an incredibly short space of time, namely, between Easter and Whitsuntide. With an amusing detail, which may serve to remind us that carpenters and masons are the same in all ages, he tells us that the workmen employed upon it made such a clatter that the good people who were near could scarcely hear each other speak. King Stephen had a few years earlier added to the royal palace a magnificent chapel, which was dedicated to the proto-martyr whose name he bore. This chapel, though now no longer in existence, has retained its memory; the name, by a sort of fiction and figure of speech, being used as synonymous for the Houses of Parliament themselves. It was rebuilt by Edward I., but having been burnt down in was restored, or rather built again , under Edward II. and III., in the best and most perfect style of the Decorated Gothic; and it certainly must have formed of the most elegant additions to the architecture of . Its walls were exquisitely painted in fresco work with a variety of subjects. When the chapel was fitted up for the use of the in the reign of Edward VI., these mural paintings were covered over with wainscoting. They were, however, brought to light in the course of some repairs and alterations in the year , when it was necessary to enlarge the apartment in order to accommodate the Irish members, nearly a in number, who were added to the by the Act of Union. At this time the paintings were in such a perfect state as to admit of their being copied and engraven, Chapel was reduced to a ruin by the great fire in . | |
In , King John granted to Baldwin de London, clerk of his exchequer, the chapelship of , at . At that time, therefore-or before it had been already dedicated to St. Stephen--it was probably intended to serve as a chapel for the palace, instead of a small used by Edward the Confessor, which stood near the west side of Hall, and occupied a part of the spot where Cotton House afterwards stood; but which might have been thought or found too small or inelegant to suit with a royal residence, of which the present Hall was intended but as room. That there was a chapel in use here before the erection of this, is clear, as it is on record that Hugo Flory was confirmed abbot of Canterbury in the king's chapel at in the time of William Rufus. As a chapel of the palace, and therefore to be maintained at the king's expense from time to time, it does not appear to have originally had any endowment; neither does there seem to have been any kind of property belonging to it until the time of its re-foundation-or, more properly speaking, its foundation-and endowment by Edward III. | |
In , this palace was the birthplace of the warrior king, Edward I. In , the building suffered greatly by fire; and years later, during the rupture between the king (Henry III.) and the Earl of Gloucester,
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In the reign of Edward I. () another fire destroyed or very much injured this ancient palace, and many houses adjoining; indeed, it received so much damage that the Parliament--which was at that time holding its sittings there--was held in the ensuing year at the house of the Archbishop of York in . | |
Somewhere near the palace there were extensive stew-ponds in the reign of Henry III.; for, towards the end of that king's life, we find an order for the purchase of luces or pikes, a of which were to be put into the king's ponds at . | |
Matthew Paris informs us that during the reign of Henry III. The king happening then to be holding his court at , insults which, we may be sure, the Londoners were not slow to resent. In fact, if the truth must be told, the Londoners gave the king's domestics a sound drubbing. says Matthew Paris,
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The quintain, according to Strutt's was originally a military exercise. It is of great antiquity, and was formerly much practised by the youths of London and . The | |
p.495 | sport is said to have been named after its inventor, Quintus, possibly of the Roman legions quartered in London years ago; though who he was or when he lived is uncertain. Long anterior in date to the jousts and tournaments of the Middle Ages, the would appear to have been originally nothing more than the trunk of a tree or a post, set up for the practice of tyros in chivalry with their spears. Subsequently, it became a more complicated sport, and which required much skill and nerve.
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In , [extra_illustrations.3.495.1] , an infant of months at his accession to the throne, was carried in his mother's lap in an open carriage from the City to , to be presented to the Lords of the Parliament, which was then holding its sitting; and we read that after his coronation, at years old, he was presented at with , by the Lord Mayor and citizens of London. | |
At his palace here, on the , died King Edward IV. He was succeeded by his son Edward V., whose uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acted as his guardian and Protector of the realm; and it was to the precincts of the Abbey that the young king's mother fled for refuge | |
p.496 | on hearing that Richard had ordered the Lords Rivers and Grey, and the other friends of her son, to be imprisoned in Pomfret Castle. [extra_illustrations.3.496.1] [extra_illustrations.3.496.2] [extra_illustrations.3.496.4] |
To the Abbey and Palace of went in solemn procession the young, and at that time promising king, Henry VIII., accompanied by his wife, Catharine of Arragon, on his accession to the throne, the streets and public buildings on that occasion being enlivened with the gayest of decorations in honour of the royal visitors. Here the same monarch, in the days of his youth and popularity, reviewed the largest muster of the citizens of London that had ever been seen. They consisted of divisions, each of men, exclusive of pioneers and other attendants; and the king much approved of their appearance. | |
had long been the seat of the Royal Palace, of the High Court of Parliament, and of our legal tribunals; most of our sovereigns, since the Conquest at least, had been crowned and buried in the Abbey; and it was not until the ancient palace had been almost wholly destroyed by fire that Henry VIII., in , bought from Cardinal Wolsey--a purchase which put an end to most of the royal glories of proper. | |
This palace, indeed, was partially deserted by royalty in , when part of it was burnt; but the grounds belonging to it seem to have been occasionally used for State purposes in later years ; for in honour of the marriage of Henry VIII. with Anne of Cleves, we read that on May Day, , unusually splendid were opened at the palace, the challengers being headed by Sir John Dudley, and the defenders by the gallant and accomplished Earl of Surrey. says Miss Lucy Aikin,
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All that now remains of the ancient palace is the Great Hall (of which we shall speak in a subsequent chapter) and the crypt under the Chapel of St. Stephen. So much of the rest of the structure as remained to our days-namely, the Star Chamber, the Painted Chamber, and the chapel itself with its cloisters, and the tapestry representing the Spanish Armada--were all destroyed in the fire which burnt down the Houses of Parliament on the . | |
Previous to this fire, the Parliament had been in the habit of assembling here for nearly centuries. Macaulay reminds us in his that since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses of Parliament had regularly sat at , except when the plague was raging in the capital. He must have forgotten, however, the assembling of a Parliament at Oxford in the reign of Charles I. | |
The old house and the lobby belonging to it formed a building at right angles to the Hall, to which it joined on at the south-eastern corner. The building extended towards the river, being divided from it at the east end by a part of the Speaker's Garden. The length and breadth of the old house, with its lobby, were about half of those of the Hall, occupying about a part of its area. | |
It is often said that the assembling of the originated from the battle of Evesham. It is true that the earliest instance on record of the representatives of the people assembling in Parliament occurred in the same year with the battle of Evesham; but it had no connection whatever with the event of that engagement, since the Parliament (to which for the time citizens and burgesses were summoned) was assembled through the influence of the Earl of Leicester, who then held the king under his control; and the meeting took place in the beginning of the year , the writs of summons having been issued in ; while the battle of Evesham, in which the Earl of Leicester was killed, did not happen till , or between and months after the conclusion of the Parliament. From that period to the death of Henry III., in , it does not appear that any election of citizens or burgesses, to attend Parliament, occurred. The next instance of such elections seems to have happened in the of Edward I.; and the returns to such writs of summons extant are dated the of the same reign, since which, with a few intermissions, they have been regularly continued. The correctness of these statements will appear from a reference to the and chapters of Sir W. Betham's work on or to Sir James Mackintosh's History of England. | |
The assembly met on the , according to writs still extant directing the sheriffs to elect and return knights for each county, citizens for each city, and burgesses for every borough or burgh in the country. | |
Sir William Blackstone says that we find the record of any writ for summoning knights, citizens, and burgesses to Parliament towards the reign of Henry III. ; but in another place he is more particular, and affirms that this constitution has subsisted, in fact, at least from the year , | |
p.497 | the of Henry III. Sir Edward Coke has remarked that anciently the houses sat together; and this appears to have been the case at least so late as the year of Edward III. The surest mark of the division of the Parliament into houses dates, as he says, from the time when the elected a permanent Speaker, as at the present day. After this division, he adds, the Commons assembled in the chapter-house of the abbot of , citing as his authority the parliament roll of the Edward III., No. , which, consequently, proves the division to have taken place before this date. |
Blackstone likewise says that the Parliament is supposed most probably to have assumed its present form during the reign of Edward III., by a separation of the Commons from the Lords; and that the statute for defining and ascertaining treasons was of the productions of this new-modelled assembly, and the translation of the law proceedings from French into Latin another. The statute of treasons was passed in the year of Edward III., and that for the translation of law proceedings into Latin in the year of the same king. | |
Inconvenience in the dispatch of public business must, no doubt, have been found to arise from the distance between the houses, so long as the Commons continued to sit in the chapter-house of the Abbey; no wonder, therefore, that some more conveniently-situated building should have been thought of for that purpose; and that, on the surrender of Chapel to the Crown, that edifice was assigned to the Commons as a place of meeting. | |
The old , as it stood prior to the fire in , was an oblong chamber, formed out of an ancient building long known as the Court of Requests. It was decorated with pinnacles on the side next to , but had little in the way of architectural beauty to recommend it to particular notice. The interior was ornamented with tapestry hangings, consisting of historical figures, representing [extra_illustrations.3.497.3] . They were the gift of the States of Holland to Queen Elizabeth. The tapestry was divided into compartments by a framework of stained wood, and each design was surrounded by a border containing portraits of the several gallant officers who commanded in the English fleet at that important period. The throne was an arm-chair, elegantly carved and gilt, ornamented with crimson velvet. Above it was a canopy of crimson velvet, supported by gilt Corinthian columns, and surmounted by the imperial crown. | |
The did not occupy the whole of the old Court of Requests, part of the north end being formed into a lobby, by which the Commons passed to the Upper House. The royal approach to the old was at the south-east corner of Old ; it consisted of an enclosed Gothic corridor, with a porch of the same character, leading to a noble flight of stairs. It previously led to the Prince's Chamber and other apartments of the ancient palace, which had been taken down in , when the foundations were laid for the royal gallery. Part of the ancient site was appropriated for a library and committee-rooms for the and the [extra_illustrations.3.497.1] . Adjoining the ancient building known as the Prince's Chamber was the room which had long served as the , in the, [extra_illustrations.3.497.5] of which the celebrated was intended to have taken effect. All this was destroyed towards the close of the last century, and some mean brick edifices were erected in their stead. The royal staircase of the late was in flights; on the top were recesses; to the right and left were arched openings to a decorated vestibule, which was adorned by scagliola columns, supporting galleries; to the left, between columns, was a large opening to the royal gallery. This chamber was divided into comnpartments,each of which had a lantern dome filled with stained glass, and the whole surface of the ceiling and parts of the wall were extravagantly adorned with carvings of flowers and scrolls, whilst the lantern lights were vaulted, highly enriched, supported by columns, and additionally decorated by candelabra. | |
Adjoining the [extra_illustrations.3.497.6] , and separating it from the , was the ancient building called the [extra_illustrations.3.497.7] . This was an apartment in the old Royal Palace, and was often used as a place of meeting for the Lords and Commons when they held a conference. The chamber was small. When, in consequence of increased accommodation being required in the , the tapestry and wainscoting were taken down, it was discovered that the interior had been originally painted with single figures and historical subjects, arranged round the chamber in a succession of subjects in bands, somewhat similar to the Bayeux tapestry. Careful drawings were made at the time by Mr. J. T. Smith for his book on , and they have since been engraved in the from drawings made in by Charles Stothard. | |
The subjects represented were chiefly battle Diurnal of Passages of Parliament[extra_illustrations.3.498.8] | |
p.498 | scenes. We learn from Walpole's that they It was from these mural paintings that the apartment came to be called the Painted Chamber. In this room the Parliaments were at time opened, and it is said to have been the bed-chamber of Edward the Confessor. Howel relates a tradition that that monarch died in it. That Edward the Confessor died at , and consequently in his palace there, is an historical fact; but whether this identical chamber was the scene of his decease is a point open to speculation. On the , , and days of the trial of Charles I., the examination of witnesses was carried on in the Painted Chamber, whither the court had adjourned from Hall. In this chamber, says Mr. Walcott, in his
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We may here add that in the library of the is the original warrant for the execution of Charles I., signed by Oliver Cromwell and the other Parliamentary leaders. It was found shortly after the Restoration in the possession of an old lady in Berkshire, and its damning autographs formed the ground of the prosecution of the regicides. It is framed and glazed, and preserved here as a most curious and valuable document. It was lost for a time in the confusion consequent on the burning of the in , but was again found and replaced. It seems as if the element of fire was averse to blotting out the memory of their names. | |
The old building used by the for their sittings occupied, as nearly as | |
p.499 | possible, the site of the present, and, as already stated, was originally the chapel of the ancient palace. Being a free chapel, it was included in the statute of Edward VI., and being transferred from the Church to the Crown, fell into the king's hands, by whom it was assigned for the sittings of the representatives of the people. |
The building was of an oblong shape, about feet in length by in width, and had externally at each corner an octagonal tower. It was lighted by windows on each side, and its walls were supported by substantial buttresses between each window on the outside. It consisted of storeys, the upper being used as the | |
. The lower storey, which was level with the pavement of the street, was formerly known as the Chapel of St. Mary in the Vaults; but part of it was latterly enclosed to contain a stove for warming the chamber above, and another portion served as the Speaker's state dining-room. The whole front, next to the street, was rebuilt in the Gothic style and cased with stucco at the beginning of the present century. The building is described by Mr. Allen in his as note resp="ECB" id="extra_illustrations.3.499.1">, in the time of George II. | |
In what manner the was at fitted up nothing definite is known. In the seal for the Court of King's Bench at (), that for the Common Pleas for the county palatine of Lancaster (), the Parliament seal (), and the Dunbar medal (), the walls are represented as having only a plain wainscoting. However, it appears about the year they were covered with tapestry hangings, probably to conceal this wainscoting, for they are so given in the perspective view of the , on the back of the Great Seal of the Commonwealth (), and in this manner they continued to be decorated down to the time of Queen Anne, in whose reign Sir Christopher Wren was employed to repair the building, and to fit the interior with galleries. | |
The house in itself had nothing very striking to recommend it; convenience, not ornament, appears to have been the principal object of those who enlarged this ancient chapel and applied it to the use of the Legislature. The galleries, which ran along the sides and west end, for the accommodation of members and strangers, were supported by slender iron pillars, crowned with gilt Corinthian capitals, and the walls were wainscoted to the ceiling. The Speaker's chair stood at some distance from the wall; it was highly ornamented with gilding, and bore the royal arms above. Before the chair was a table at which sat the Clerks of the Parliament. In the centre of the room, between the table and the bar, was a capacious area. The seats for the members occupied each side and both ends of the room, with the exception of the passages. There were rows of seats, rising in gradation above each other, with short backs, and green morocco cushions. The usual entrance for members of Parliament to the old , was, as at the present time, through Hall. | |
[extra_illustrations.3.500.2] adjoined [extra_illustrations.3.500.3] , and there, in the days of Mr. Manners Sutton, Theodore Hook, as a clever and witty Tory writer, had often been agreeably entertained. Paying his last visit to the Speaker's House after the fire of , he was received, it seems, in an apartment which had escaped, but exhibited sad marks of the surrounding devastation. It was the break--up of many kind and grateful associations. In his diary-book, he says, His prophecy was true; for with the new year Mr. Manners Sutton was superseded by Mr. Abercromby as Speaker. | |
On the south side of Chapel were Cotton's Gardens, so called because they formed part of the residence of Sir Robert Cotton, the founder of the Cottonian Library, which forms such a valuable part of the . They are now partly covered over by the new and the Peers' Court. Strype thus mentions Cotton House: (that is, the present Hall), Sir Christopher Wren describes the house in his time as in Charles I. stayed at [extra_illustrations.3.500.4] during part of his trial in Hall. On the side of Cotton's Gardens there was formerly an ancient chapel dedicated to though the name is variously spelt, in all probability it is a corruption of ,
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Between the Houses of Lords and Commons and the river were These stairs were open for the accommodation of the Scholars for rowing. Such, at all events, was the case as lately as , when, as we learn from that matter-of-fact antiquary, Mr. J. T. Smith,
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Standing parallel with the river, on the eastern side of New , was the ancient council chamber of the royal palace, where the king sat in extraordinary causes. It was for some time used as the Lottery Office, and had been for centuries known as the The origin of the name of the Star Chamber has been much disputed; but says the author of
The occupation of the or by the king's council, in the Palace at , can be traced to the reign of Edward III.; but no specific mention of the Star Chamber as a court of justice is found earlier than the reign of Henry VII., about which time the old title-deeds of and says the author [extra_illustrations.3.500.6] Interior of | |
p.501 | above referred to seemed to have merged in this distinguishing appellation. After the sittings, the Lords dined in the inner Star Chamber at the public expense. The mode of the proceedings was twofold: , or by the mouth; the other, by bill and answer. The proceeding , usually adopted in political cases, originated in which Mr. John Bruce, writing in the volume of considers to mean private and probably secret information given to the council. The person accused or suspected was immediately apprehended, and privately examined. If he confessed any offence, or if the cunning of his examiners drew from him, or his own simplicity let fall, any expressions which suited their purposes he was at once brought to the bar, his confession or examination was read, he was convicted (out of his own mouth), and judgment was immediately pronounced against him. Imagination can scarcely picture a more terrible judicature. This tribunal was bound by no law, but created and defined the offences it punished; the judges were in point of fact the prosecutors; and every mixture of those characters is inconsistent with impartial justice. Crimes of the greatest magnitude were tried in this court, but solely punished as trespasses, the council not having dared to usurp the power of inflicting death. Among the many abuses of the process was that, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, The process might anciently be served in any place: in the pre-Reformation times it was usually served in the market or church. The largest number of the council who attended the court in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII. was nearly , of whom. or were prelates; in the reign of Elizabeth the number.was nearly , but it subsequently declined. The chancellor was the supreme judge, and alone sat with his head uncovered. Upon important occasions, persons who wished went there by o'clock in the morning. The counsel were confined to a the examinations of the witnesses were read, and the members of the court delivered their opinions in order from the inferior upwards, the archbishop preceding the chancellor. Every punishments except death, was assumed to be within the power of the Star Chamber Court. Pillory, fine and imprisonment, and whipping, wearing of papers through Hall, and letters were ordinary punishments inflicted by this court.[extra_illustrations.3.501.1] [extra_illustrations.3.501.2] |
Henry VII. had a fondness for sitting in the Star Chamber: the court was the great instrument for his and was a Star-Chamber phrase; and was a sure prelude to a heavy fine. Wolsey made a great display of his magnificence in the Star Chamber; he proceeded to the sittings of the court in great state, his mace and seal being carried before him; After his fall, with the exception of occasional interference in religious matters and matters of police we seldom hear of the Star Chamber. | |
The proceedings in the Star Chamber, being taken under ecclesiastical instead of royal authority, have always been regarded by Englishmen with extreme dislike and aversion. And it may be added that the severity of its sentences in proportion to the importance of the offences has given good reason for its unpopularity. Thus we read that Dr. Osbaldiston, too, a prebendary of , and formerly a master of School, and Dr. Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, were here found guilty of for defaming the great men of the day, by calling Archbishop Laud The bishop was sentenced to pay a fine of , and Osbaldiston to have his ears tacked to the pillory in , a punishment which he escaped by going beyond the sea. | |
In the Star Chamber, in the year , Philip Earl of Arundel was fined . In , John Lilburne, being here convicted of publishing seditious libels, was sentenced to pay , to stand in the pillory, and be whipped at a cart's tail from to the gate of Hall. About this time a more celebrated character figures in its annlism. William Prynne, a barrister of , was cited to appear in the Star Chamber for having published an attack upon the stage. in the shape of a quarto volume of more than a pages, entitled, he was also charged with having railed not only against all | |
p.502 | stage-plays and players, dancing, &c., but against all who thought fit to attend such performances, while he knew that the queen, the lords of council, &c., were oftentimes spectators of masques and dances. It was urged against him that he had thus cast aspersions upon the queen, spoken censoriously and uncharitably against all Christian people, and, in addition, had made use of infamous terms against the king. He was sentenced to stand twice in the pillory, to lose both his ears, to pay a heavy fine, and to be imprisoned for life. Mr. Gerard says, in of his letters to Lord Strafford,
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The Star Chamber held its sittings, from the end of Elizabeth's reign until the final abolition of the court by Parliament in , in apartments on the eastern side of New ; these buildings appear to have been restored by Queen Elizabeth, as they bore the date , and and an open rose on a star; they corresponded with the in Aggas' plan of London (). The last of the buildings were taken down in ; drawings were then made of the court, which had an enriched ceiling, but there were no remains of the ornamentations behind the Elizabethan panelling; the style of the chamber was Tudor- Gothic. A view of the building will be found on page . The remains were sold by auction and purchased by Sir Edward Cust, the walls of whose dining-room at Leasowe Castle, Cheshire, they now decorate. They consist chiefly of oakpanelling, and a handsome chimney-piece of the Renaissance style, together with a single length of an earlier date, which stood at the end furthest removed from the chimney-piece, and was thought to have formed a background for the king's chair of state, if ever he chose to be present in the Council. The rose, the fleur de lys, the portcullis, and the pomegranate, which adorned parts of these remains, show their date conclusively-namely, the period of the marriage of Henry VIII. The Star Chamber, it may be added, on the suppression of the Court which sat in it, became a depository for rubbish and when the fire in which the Houses of Parliament were destroyed was extinguished, it was found that side of it was full of the old which were used-though it is difficult to believe the fact-down to the end of the Georgian era, to keep the national accounts! | |
Adjoining the old was a coffee and chop house of great celebrity-indeed, it may be said of Parliamentary fame-known among the veterans of Chapel as Englishmen, as we all know, can do nothing without a dinner, or a luncheon, at the least; and so to day after day during the Parliamentary session, would repair the members of committees, witnesses, lawyers and their clients, and in the evening many of the leading M.P.'s lounged in during dull debates, making it serve the purpose of a club. observes a writer of the last generation, The published in the year , writes --of course in fun- But time-honoured chop-house has passed away, having been superseded by cooking done on the premises under the surveillance of a committee of itself: and so, | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.492.1] Windows from Palace of Westminster [extra_illustrations.3.492.2] Doorway from Westminster [extra_illustrations.3.493.1] William Rufus [extra_illustrations.3.495.1] Henry VI. [extra_illustrations.3.496.1] Remains of Westminster Palace--Ceiling [extra_illustrations.3.496.2] Entrance to House of Lords [extra_illustrations.3.496.4] House of Commons [] Parliment House from Old Palace Yard [] Plan of House of Lords and House of Commons [extra_illustrations.3.497.3] the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 [extra_illustrations.3.497.1] House of Commons [extra_illustrations.3.497.5] cellars [extra_illustrations.3.497.6] old House of Lords [extra_illustrations.3.497.7] Painted Chamber [extra_illustrations.3.498.8] King's Entrance to House of Lords [extra_illustrations.3.498.1] Parliament House etc., 1647 [] House of Commons [extra_illustrations.3.500.2] The Speaker's House [extra_illustrations.3.500.3] St. Stephen's Chapel [extra_illustrations.3.500.4] Cotton House [extra_illustrations.3.500.6] Interior of House of Lords [extra_illustrations.3.501.1] William IV. Proroguing Parliament, 1831 [extra_illustrations.3.501.2] House of Lords, 1774 |