COLLEGIATE SEAL OF ST. STEPHEN’S.
The fourth of these groups of ancient buildings was the Council Room of King Edward, called afterward the White Hall, the Little Hall, the Court of Requests, and the House of Lords.
In the midst of this stately group of noble buildings rose the most stately and most noble chapel of
INTERIOR OF THE CRYPT CALLED THE “POWDER PLOT CELLAR,” BENEATH THE OLD PALACE OF WESTMINSTER, LOOKING TOWARD CHARING CROSS. TAKEN DOWN IN JUNE, 1883.
St. Stephen. It was founded, according to tradition, by King Stephen, on the site, it has been sometimes said, of the Confessor’s oratory; but this seems not true, for the oratory was on the east of the Painted Chamber. The chapel was rebuilt, as a thank-offering for his victories, by Edward I., who then endowed it with large revenues. His foundation was large enough to maintain a college, consisting of dean, twelve secular canons, and twelve vicars; it was, in fact, a rich foundation planted in the middle of the Palace, over against the Abbey. Was there any desire on the part of the King to separate the Court from the Abbey? Perhaps not; but there arose perpetual quarrels between the College and the Abbey. The masses said in St. Stephen’s for the past and present kings might just as well have been said, one supposes, in the Abbey. So rich was the foundation that at the Dissolution its revenues were a third of those of St. Peter’s. By that time the College buildings contained residences or chambers for thirty-eight persons. These buildings consisted, first, of the exquisite Chapel, which afterward became the House of Commons; the Chapel of our Lady de la Pieu, standing somewhere to the south of St. Stephen’s (in this Chapel Richard heard mass before going out to meet Wat Tyler); the Crypt, which happily still remains; the exquisite cloisters, long since vanished; with the Chantry Chapel, and the said residences of the dean, canons, and vicars, and King Richard’s Belfry. The Chapel was smaller than some other royal Chapels,—Windsor, for instance, and King’s, Cambridge,—but it was beautiful exceedingly, and in its carved work and decorations perhaps more finished than any other Church or Chapel in the country. Details of the Chapel have been preserved for us by J. T. Smith (“Antiquities of Westminster”), and by Brayley and Britton’s “Houses of Parliament.” The beauty of the cloisters of the Chantry Chapel, and of the Chapel itself, makes the fire of 1834, on this account alone, a great national disaster. Such work can never again be equaled. At the same time, the Chapel had been so much altered and cut about for the accommodation of the Commons that it was irretrievably spoiled.
The next of this group of ancient buildings was Westminster Hall. On this monument and its historical associations many have enlarged. Let it suffice in this place to remind ourselves that William Rufus built it, Richard II. enlarged it and strengthened it, and that George IV. repaired and new-fronted it.
On the east side of the Hall was the Court of Exchequer, built by Edward II. This hall was seventy-four feet long and forty-five broad. The traditions of the chamber are full of curious stories. It was the breakfast room, it was said (one knows not why), of Queen Elizabeth; a chamber adjoining was her bedchamber. She at least reformed the Court of Exchequer. There were two cellars under the Court of Exchequer, called “Hell” and “Purgatory.” As their names denote, they were prisons. The former name was also applied to a tavern in the Palace precinct.