The pageant of Parliament, vol. 1 of 2

by Michael MacDonagh

CHAPTER VII
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER

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The Palace of Westminster, in which Lords and Commons meet—the largest and most imposing Gothic building in the world—may be regarded, rising so nobly on the left bank of the Thames, as an expression in architecture of the dignity and stability of Parliament, and the honour in which it is held by the Nation. Most visitors to the Palace reach it by Whitehall or Victoria Street. On that side are the entrances to both Houses. It is more picturesque, but less imposing, than the river front. The inclusion of Westminster Hall—the only overground portion of the old Palace saved from the fire of 1834—enforced the breaking up of the western or land front of the new Palace into a variety of façades. The light and shade produced by the massive grey masonry of the ancient Hall, mingling with the Gothic gracefulness of the new Palace, is very beautiful, and also pregnant with historic meaning. It reminds one of the survival of tradition in the forms and ceremonies of Parliament. The effect of this blending of the past and present is heightened by the close contiguity of the venerable Abbey, and the open grassy space, known as Parliament Square, with its effigies of great Victorian statesmen—Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, the Earl of Derby, and Lord Beaconsfield—which front the forecourt of the Palace; and the striking figure of Oliver Cromwell, with sword and Bible, on the sunken grass plot by the side of Westminster Hall. To the contemplative mind the long history of government and administration is presented—its struggles, its controversies, its failures, its successes.

But the most impressive view of the Palace to the eye is obtained from the opposite bank of the Thames. Standing beneath the aged and hoary Lambeth Palace on the Surrey side—town house of the Archbishop of Canterbury—and looking across the river, especially when the mighty waterway is at its full tide, one realizes more completely the Gothic stateliness of this temple of legislation, the outcome of the constructive genius of Sir Charles Barry, and the graceful fancy of Augustus Welby Pugin. The long façade above the river wall and terrace, its uniform symmetry, the lightness and grace of its stone carving, the many steeples and pinnacles—beginning with the delicate tracery of the lofty Clock Tower, close to Westminster Bridge, and terminating with the solid massiveness of the colossal Victoria Tower—form altogether a most imposing masterpiece in architecture, worthy of the ancient and august National Assembly which deliberates within its walls, that mother of representative institutions which perhaps is the greatest gift of the English race to mankind. So it is that something of the secret of the high place which Parliament holds in popular esteem and pride may be found in the grandeur of its home. At any rate, the spectacle presented by the Palace of Westminster does impress the mind with the glory of the purpose of Parliament and its might. Here we see the apotheosis of politics, the science of the progress and well-being of humanity, and the temple in which it is fittingly served.

Thus at Westminster we have not only the flower or the fruit of the national life in the guidance of the State aright, but its roots and fibres going deep down to the very bedrock of the past. For more than six centuries the grand inquest of the Nation has sat at Westminster. At first it was a council of the great and wise summoned by the King personally. When Edward I, “the great law-giver,” sent to the sheriffs writs for the election of two knights for each shire, two citizens for each city, two burgesses for each borough, in addition to himself calling together the prelates and the nobles, the principle of popular election came into operation. The Parliament thus elected and known as the “Model Parliament” was really representative of the Nation at large. It met in the Palace of Westminster so long ago as November, 1295. For over a century the three estates of the realm—the Prelates, the Nobles, and the Commons—deliberated together. The division of Parliament into two Houses—one for the Peers, spiritual and temporal, and the other for the Commons—took place in 1377, the last year of the reign of Edward III. The Lords have always met in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons for the best part of two centuries assembled in the Chapter House, or the Refectory, of Westminster Abbey. They held their last sitting there on the day that Henry VIII died.

Henry’s son and successor, Edward VI, gave St. Stephen’s Chapel—within the Palace of Westminster—to the Commons for their meeting place in 1547, the first year of his reign, and there the representatives of the people regularly met and deliberated until the place was destroyed by fire in 1834. This Chapel, built by Edward III in 1327, the first year of his reign, on the ruins of the original St. Stephen’s Chapel (which was provided by King Stephen in 1147 for the use of the inhabitants of the Palace, and dedicated by him to the first Christian martyr) was in the beautiful Gothic of the period, and Italian artists were brought to London to adorn its walls with religious frescoes. After the Reformation, when the Chapel was transferred from the Crown to the House of Commons, these mural paintings were covered over with a plain, decorous wainscot, which in the gay times of Charles II was in turn hidden behind rich tapestry hangings. These tapestries disappeared in the alterations made by Sir Christopher Wren in 1707, after the Union of England and Scotland, so as to provide accommodation for the forty-five Members from Scotland. The Chamber underwent a final transformation in 1800, when, as a result of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, seats for 100 additional Members had to be found. The old wainscot was then taken down; and although the paintings of the Italian artists of the fourteenth century were found to be in a perfect state of preservation, they were demolished likewise to make room for the required two extra lines of benches on each side. There were now five rows of benches on either side, divided, as in the present Chamber, by a gangway. The Speaker’s Chair was at the top of the Chamber, where the altar originally stood. It was a carved oak armchair, surmounted with the Royal Arms of England. Below it, as now, was the Clerk’s table.

The old House of Lords, like the old House of Commons, was an oblong chamber with rows of benches on each side running up from the floor to the walls. On the walls hung tapestries, divided into compartments by oak frames, illustrating scenes from the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and with medallion portraits of the principal English naval captains woven in the borders. They were the gifts of the States of Holland to Queen Elizabeth in commemoration of England’s great deliverance and the ruined dream of Spain. The Throne on which all the Sovereigns of England from 1550 to 1834—from Edward VI to William IV—sat on the assembling of Parliament was at the top of the Chamber. It was a carved gilt armchair standing on a dais. The seat was lined with crimson velvet. Two gilt Corinthian pillars supported a canopy, also of crimson velvet, and the whole was surmounted by a crown.

Between the two Houses lay the Painted Chamber, a survival of the original Palace, erected by Edward the Confessor, who indeed used this particular room as a sleeping apartment and died in it. Its walls were painted with battle scenes by direction of Henry III in the middle of the thirteenth century, and hence its name. Here the Court, before which Charles I was arraigned, sat for the concluding days of the trial. Here Oliver Cromwell and Henry Martin blacked each other’s faces in fun, like giddy young schoolboys, as they signed the warrant which condemned the King to the headsman’s axe. The Chamber was also used for conferences between representatives of both Houses when they differed in regard to a Bill. At these meetings the Peers were seated and wore their hats, while the Commons had humbly to stand uncovered.