1. By not unfrequent interpositions of delay.
2. By an attempt (afterwards withdrawn) to construe the acceptance of a payment on account, due on any supposition, to be an acquiescence in the principle of their proposal.
3. By ordering all payments whatever to be withheld until the architect yielded to their terms, and by ignoring all claims for interest, on payments thus deferred and afterwards acknowledged to be due.
4. By refusing all arbitration, either on the general question or on that of the “special services.”
III. It is evident that the real ground of their action, and the reason why that action was allowed to pass almost unquestioned in Parliament,[89] was the great increase of expenditure on the building, the delay in its completion, and the unpopularity into which, from these and from other causes, it had been brought. But for these things, the whole responsibility for which they were inclined to throw upon the architect, they would not have ventured, and probably would not have wished, to deal with him on a principle, which, in no other case (not even in the completion of the New Palace itself) did they show any determination to enforce. How far their course can be justified by these grounds of proceeding, it must be left to others to decide.
Such is the general narrative of the erection of the building. It has been given at some length, as forming a curious and not unimportant chapter in the history of modern English architecture. Such critical notice of it, as is necessary here, must be reserved for the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NEW PALACE AT WESTMINSTER.
I. History of the Growth of the Design.—Influence of external circumstances on the design—Lowness and irregularity of site—Limitation of choice to Elizabethan and Gothic styles—Choice of Perpendicular style—Original conception of the plan—Question of restoration of St. Stephen’s Chapel—Use of Westminster Hall as the grand entrance to the building—Simplicity of plan—Principle of symmetry and regularity dominant—Enlargement of plan after its adoption—Conception of St. Stephen’s porch—The Central Hall—The Royal Entrance and Royal Gallery—The House of Lords, its construction and decoration—The House of Commons, and its alteration—Great difficulty of the acoustic problem—Enlargement of public requirements—Alterations of design in the River Front—The Land Fronts—The Victoria Tower—The Clock Tower—General inclination to increase the upward tendency of the design, and the amount of decoration. II. Brief description of the actual building.—Its dimensions—Its main lines of approach; the public approach—The royal approach—The private approaches of Peers and Commons—General character of the plan—The external fronts—The towers—Criticisms on the building by independent authorities.
I. In considering the growth of the design of the New Palace at Westminster, it is necessary to remember, that it was not left entirely free, to be determined by the taste of the architect or the requirements of the building, but was influenced by the site, by the existence of Westminster Hall, of the Courts of Law, and of a portion of the old St. Stephen’s Chapel, and by the limitation to either the Elizabethan or Gothic style dictated by the judges.
The disadvantages of the site were so obvious—so obvious, that proposals were made to rebuild the Palace on other sites, among which may be noticed the high ground in the Green Park and Trafalgar Square. But in the end the feeling for the old site prevailed, and architectural effect was not unnaturally sacrificed to historical associations.