Westminster
Palace
now the Houses of Parliament
More
views of old Westminster Palace can be seen here
The
Houses of Parliament in Westminster occupy the site (and once
the old buildings) of the main palace of the monarch of England.
From Anglo-Saxon times the monarchs preferred to build and
keep their main palace outside the city of London in order
to maintain their independence from the powerful city. Edward
the Confessor funded the construction of Westminster Abbey
on the site (as also much of the palace itself), and Westminster
(the name meaning 'the minster west of London') became so
powerful and so rich because of its close association with
the kings of England. Kings continued to live at Westminster
until the time of Henry VIII, who moved his residence to Whitehall.
By
the early nineteenth century the palace complex at Westminster
contained a hodgepodge of somewhat decaying buildings. Besides
all the kitchens and storerooms and tradesmen's workshops
and laundries etc., the main buildings of the palace complex
(aside from the Abbey) consisted of:
Westminster
Hall
The
Painted Chamber
St
Stephen's Chapel (used as the House of Commons)
The
House of Lords (the old Court of Requests)
Sundry
apartments belonging to the monarch.
Sundry
halls used for the legal and financial aspects of government.
Originally
the palace probably formed two sides of a square, all within
the Old Palace Yard, of which the palace occupied the east
and south sides. The east side consisted of the Court of Requests,
the Painted Chamber, the old House of Lords, the Prince's
Chamber, and several other 'nameless old rooms'.
All
of this, save the Abbey and the Hall, burned to the ground
in a completely disastrous fire of 1834 (the current Houses
of Parliament, as medieval-gothic as they look, only date
from the late nineteenth century). The loss to England's heritage
was enormous, particularly the loss of the Painted Chamber
- a superb hall once used as the monarch's living quarters
and painted out in splendidly colourful medieval frescoes
that were the wonder of Europe - and St Stephen's Chapel,
once one of the more beautiful chapels in England (until Commons
got their hands on it and 'remodelled ' it). Because this
was in the days before photography, all we have left are engravings
- follow the link above and you can see some drawn just before
the fire.
Westminster
Hall was constructed in the eleventh century during the time
of William II as a banqueting hall adjacent to the king's
palace (its hammer beam roof was put in much later, in 1397,
when the hall was also extensively re-modelled). The Hall
was completed in 1099, and was used not merely as a banqueting
hall, but also as one of the main places in which the kings
of england held court, and also as law courts and a record
office - the king's main legal courts were held here, too
(sometimes several different things could be going on in the
hall at the same time). When King Richard II held court in
the Hall (he was the king who oversaw the extensive modifications
of the Hall in 1397) the number of guests each day was estimated
at 10,000 , and thee 10,000 daily consumed twenty-eight oxen,
three hundred sheep, and many thousands of fowl.
St
Stephen's chapel was built between the late thirteenth century
and 1348, and in beauty and construction rivalled any in Europe.
The interior was said to be magnificent, with decorative arcades
and every surface covered in murals and gilding. The chapel
became the House of Commons during the reformation of the
mid-sixteenth century when Edward VI handed it over, and subsequent
'renovation' during the late eighteenth century destroyed
the medieval interior.
The
Painted Chamber was a long hall that was the main living chamber
of the kings while they resided at Westminster (and often
their bed chamber, as well, with the royal bed curtained off
at the far end of the hall). It was covered in murals depicting
scenes from the Bible, ancient kings of England, crowned figures
of virtues treading vices under their feet, and "explained
by a complete series of texts accurately written in French".
The colours were lovely - crimsons, greens and blues - and
contained much gilding on the raised lines of the crowns and
armour.
The
House of Lords was built in the old Court of Requests. It
was an oblong room, rather smaller than the House of Commons
chamber in St Stephen's chapel. It had undergone major restoration
and remodelling in the early part of the nineteenth century
(which added a royal entrance, a lovely staircase and a gallery
constructed of marble columns). It was in the vaults of this
building that Guy Fawkes stored his gunpowder in 1604, hoping
to effect a more complete dissolution of Parliament than was
normally accomplished. The House of Lords also contained one
of England's national treasures, a huge tapestry depicting
the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It is believed that parts
or even the entire tapestry may have survived the fire - a
week after palace was destroyed, an antique dealer got in
touch with the Privy Council offering to sell them a portion
of, or perhaps the whole, tapestry. He asked £100 for
it, which was an enormous sum at the time, and the Privy Council
refused to buy it, and no one to this day knows what has become
of the Spanish Armada tapestry.
A
rather charming story about the royal palace at Westminster
dates from the time of Henry VIII (although, surely, it can
hardly be believed). A parrot fell out of Henry's Westminster
living chamber and landed in the Thames. Very seasonably,
the parrot recalled words it had often heard spoken in the
king's chamber, and so called out, "A boat! A boat! A
boat for twenty pound!" A boatman happened to be passing
by and rescued the bird, taking it promptly to Henry VIII,
hoping for the reward the bird had promised. The king agreed
the boatman should have whatever reward the parrot said, and
so asked the bird what he should give the boatman.
The
parrot answered, "Give the knave a groat."
And
so Henry did.
Westminster
palace was lost in October of 1834. So far as anyone can tell,
the fire originated in a chimney used to burn thousands of
wooden Exchequer tally sticks. The resulting fire was cataclysmic
and completely unable to be controlled with the fire engines
of the time. It is said that Westminster was surrounded by
crowds of many tens of thousands, all of whom clapped and
cheered whenever a roof collapsed in a shower of molten lead
and sparks.
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© Sara Douglass Enterprises Pty Ltd 2006
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