The annals of New Palace Yard are long and interesting. It looks so new and modern, with its Houses of Parliament, and its iron railings, that one forgets how ancient a place it is. What stood on the site of Westminster Hall before William Rufus built it we know not, but certainly some buildings belonging to the Old Palace of Cnut and Edward the Confessor. It was called, however, New Palace Yard on account of the buildings erected by William and his successors. It was enclosed by a wall which had three gates. The water-gate was on the site of the present bridge, while the Star Chamber occupied very nearly the site of the present Clock Tower. The yard was further beautified by a fountain, which on great days flowed with wine; this fountain, which was taken down in the reign of Charles II., stood on the north side. On the same side behind the fountain was the "Clochard," or Clock Tower. This fine building was erected by Sir Ralph Hingham, Lord Chief Justice under Edward I., in payment of a fine of 800 marks imposed upon him by the King for having altered a court roll. It was done in mercy, in order to change a poor man's fine of 12s. 4d. to 6s. 8d., but a court roll must not be altered. The care of the clock was granted to the Dean of St. Stephen's, with an allowance of sixpence a day. The bell, very famous in its day, was large and sonorous; it could be heard all over London when the wind was south-west. It was first called Edward, and bore this legend:
"Tercius aptavit me Rex Edward que vocavit
Sancti decore Edwardi signerentur ut hore."
When the Clock Tower, the "Clochard," was taken down in 1698, the bell called "Tom" was found to weigh 82 cwt. 2 qrs. 211 lb. It was bought by the Dean of St. Paul's. As it was being carried to the City, it fell from the cart in crossing the very boundary of Westminster, viz., under Temple Bar. In 1716 it was recast, and presently placed in the western tower of St. Paul's.
In Palace Yard Perkin Warbeck sat in the stocks before the gate of Westminster Hall for a whole day, enduring innumerable reproaches, mockings and scornings.
Here John Stubbs, the Puritan, an attorney of Lincoln's Inn, and Robert Page, his servant (December 3, 1580), had their hands struck off for a libel on the Queen, called "The Gaping Gulph, in which England will be swallowed by the French Marriage." What part the unfortunate servant played that he, too, should deserve a punishment so terrible is difficult to say. On March 2, 1585, William Parry was drawn from the Tower and hanged and quartered here. And in January, 1587, one Thomas Lovelace, sentenced by the Star Chamber for false accusations, was carried on horseback about Westminster Hall, his face to the tail; he was then pilloried, and had one of his ears cut off. The execution, in 1612, of Lord Sanquire for the murder of a fencing-master, and of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland and Lord Capel, on March 9, 1649, for so-called treason, took place in New Palace Yard. Here in 1630 Alexander Leighton was whipped, pilloried and branded for a libel on the Queen and the Bishops. In May, 1685, Titus Oates was stripped of his ecclesiastical robes and led round Westminster Hall; afterwards he was put in the pillory. The printer of the famous "No. 45" of the North Briton also stood in the pillory in New Palace Yard in 1765.
In the Old Palace Yard, now covered by buildings, were fought out certain ordeals of battle. Here was held at least one famous tournament, that in which the two Scottish prisoners, the Earl Douglas and Sir William Douglas, bore themselves so gallantly that the King restored them to liberty on their promise not to fight against the English.
One memory of Old Palace Yard must not be forgotten. Geoffrey Chaucer lived during his last year at a house adjoining the White Rose Tavern abutting on the Lady Chapel of the Abbey. The house was swept away to make room for Henry VII.'s chapel. Nor must we forget that Ben Jonson lived and died in a house over the gate or passage from the churchyard to the old palace. In the south-east corner of Old Palace Yard stood the house hired by the Gunpowder Plot conspirators for the conveyance of the barrels into the vault. And it was in Old Palace Yard that four of them suffered death.
The whole of the ground now occupied by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Hall and New Palace Yard was formerly covered with the walls, gates, tower, state chambers, private chambers, offices, stables, gardens, and outhouses, of the King's House, Westminster. Until sixty years ago, when fire finally destroyed them, still stood on this spot many of the buildings, altered and reroofed, repaired, and with changed windows and new decorations, of Edward the Confessor, and perhaps of Knut. Still under these modern houses the ground is covered with the old cellars, vaults and crypts, which it was found safer and cheaper to fill with cement than to break up and carry away.
It is at present impossible to present a plan of the King's House such as it was when Edward the Confessor occupied it; we can, however, draw an incomplete plan of the place later on, say in the fourteenth century.
The palace was walled, but not moated; it had two principal gates, one opening to the north, and another on the river. The circuit of the wall only included twelve acres and a half, and into this compass had to be crowded in Plantagenet times the King's and Queen's state and private apartments, and accommodation for an immense army of followers, and also for all the craftsmen and artificers required by the Court. The total number of persons thus housed in the fourteenth century is reckoned at 20,000. The part of the King's House thus occupied, the narrow streets of gabled houses, with tourelles at the corners, and much gilded and carved work, has vanished completely, even to the memory. When King Henry VIII. removed to the palace at Whitehall a new Westminster arose about his old Court; this in its turn almost vanished with the fire of 1834. Up to this time some of the old buildings remained, but have now completely gone. Among them were the Painted Chamber, the Star Chamber, the old House of Lords, and Princes' Chamber, all part of Edward the Confessor's palace. In the Painted Chamber the Confessor himself died, but it is manifestly impossible to give here any minute account of the chambers in the ancient building.