Peeps at Royal Palaces of Great Britain

by Beatrice Home

Of all the beautiful buildings that once formed the extensive palace only the great hall remains, now known as Westminster Hall. William Rufus built it in 1097, declaring that, large though it might appear, it was "but a bedchamber" in comparison to what he intended to make. But practically nothing is left of the work of Rufus, for we learn that three hundred years later, in 1397, Richard II. ordered the "walls, windows, and roof to be taken down and new made." The following year Richard, the most magnificent of the English Kings, kept his royal Christmas in the newly finished hall. Dressed in cloth of gold, adorned with pearls and precious stones, Richard entertained ten thousand people, necessitating the purchase of twenty-eight oxen, three hundred sheep, and numberless fowls every day for the feeding of his guests. He little thought that a few months hence the Parliament meeting in that very hall would depose him.

This famous hall has witnessed some of the most spectacular, splendid, and tragic events in the history of the nation, from the Coronation banquets held within its walls, a-glitter with gorgeous raiment and all the pageantry of the past, to the sombre procedure of State trials. Perhaps the best remembered scene is that of the trial of Charles I., who had been brought hurriedly from Windsor, and was lodged during his trial in part of the old palace, then used as the residence of Sir Ralph Cotton. Standing, a monarch tried by his subjects, Charles Stuart remains for all time a dignified figure, not deigning to plead before such a self-constituted Court.

For many centuries justice was administered from the hall, judges sitting in different parts determining Chancery cases or those of Common Pleas.

The most-to-be-regretted loss caused by the fire of 1834 is that of the chapel royal of the palace, the chapel of St. Stephen. From an account of its architectural detail, which has fortunately been preserved, one gathers that it was a most beautiful and exquisite piece of work, as rich and stately as any in the country. King Stephen is supposed to have founded it, but Edward I. rebuilt it, only to have his building burnt down a few years later. His grandson, Edward III., restored it in such splendour that, as Camden says, "he seems rather to have been the founder than only the repairer." He made it a collegiate church, endowing it with so much wealth after his victories in France that it almost rivalled its wealthy neighbour, the Abbey of Westminster. Indeed, this royal munificence brought about considerable quarrelling with the Abbey, whose inmates grudged the Masses being said at St. Stephen's, when they might have been said in the Abbey and so enriched their coffers. In this new chapel Richard II. married his first wife, Anne of Bohemia.

Westminster Hall.

From an engraving by Hollar.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the King granted to the Commons of England, who had hitherto met in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, the use of St. Stephen's Chapel, and there they have met ever since, except once during the reign of Charles I. For the reception of the members the beautiful chapel was ruthlessly altered, but enough of the original work remained to make the fire of 1834 a disaster to all lovers of graceful architecture. The present House of Commons is built upon the site of the old collegiate buildings, and only the crypt of the church remains to remind us of the royal chapel of our Plantagenet Kings.

All the other historic rooms have vanished. Nothing is left of the Painted Chamber, where Edward the Confessor died, the long room whose painted walls depicted the story of the Confessor's life upon one side, while the other was devoted to the Wars of the Maccabees. These paintings were unknown until 1800, when the tapestry that covered them was removed, and thus revealed the meaning of the room's designation. Gone, too, is the old House of Lords, used by the peers until the Commonwealth, where the famous tapestry representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada was hung. In the vaults underneath, originally the Confessor's kitchen, Guy Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators stored the barrels of gunpowder with which to blow up the Parliament. After the Restoration the Lords removed to the White Hall of the palace, taking the Armada tapestry with them, which, together with so much of fascination and historic interest, perished in the all-embracing fire of 1834.