When the Commons separated from the Lords, they met within the walls of Westminster Abbey, while the Lords took the Painted Chamber of the Palace. For two hundred years the Commons assembled in the Cloister Court, or in the Refectory, or in the Chapter House. They changed the Chapter House for the no less beautiful church of St. Stephen in 1547, not long after the Dissolution of the Religious Houses. But the History of the Houses of Parliament belongs to the History of the Country.
We have now gone through the Abbey without attempting any description of it. That has been done over and over again; now well, now ill. It is a treasury of architectural interest; it is crammed full of historical associations; one may linger among its ruins, among its monuments, under its noble roof, book in hand for days and weeks and years. I have shown you the monastic life and what it meant; I have told over again some of the stories that happened in the Abbey; I have shown you of what kind were the pageants and processions outside, witnessed by the people, belonging to the Coronations. Those who want the story of the Royal Tombs and Monuments, the Functions and Ceremonies, the Funerals and Weddings, that have been celebrated within these walls, may consult the courtly page of Stanley, the learned page of Loftie, and the laborious page of Dart.
CHAPTER VI.
SANCTUARY.
On the northwest corner of the Abbey precinct—that is to say, on the right hand as one entered by the High Gate from King Street, where now stands the Westminster “Guildhall”—the earth formerly groaned beneath the weight of a ponderous structure resembling a square keep, not unlike that of Colchester, but very much smaller. It was a building of stone; each side was seventy-five feet in length, and it was sixty feet in height. On the east side was a door—the only door, a heavy oaken door covered with plates of iron—which gave entrance to a curiously gloomy and narrow chapel, shaped as a double cross, the equal arms of which were only ten feet in width. Three of the four corners of this lower square consisted of solid stone sixteen feet square; the third corner contained a circular staircase winding up to another chapel above. This, somewhat lighter and loftier than that below, was a plain single cross in form; three of the angles contained rooms; in the fourth the stairs continued to the roof. King Edward III. built—or rebuilt, perhaps—on this corner a belfry, containing three great bells, which were only rung at the coronation and the death of kings. The roof was paved with stone; there was a parapet, but not embattled. On the outside—its construction dated perhaps after King Edward built the belfry—there stood a small circular tower containing stairs to the upper story. The strong walls of this gloomy fortress contained only one door and one window on the lower floor; but in the upper story the walls were only three feet thick. This place was St. Peter’s Sanctuary—the Westminster City of Refuge. It was made so strong that it would resist any sudden attack, and give time for the attacking party to bethink them of the sin of sacrilege. In these two chapels the refugees heard mass; within these walls the nobler sort of those who came here were placed for greater safety; round these walls gathered the common sort, in tenements forming a little colony or village. The building, of which there is very little mention anywhere, was suffered to remain long after its original purpose was abolished. It was pulled down piecemeal, by any who chose to take the trouble, as stone was wanted for other buildings; it is quite possible that some of it was used for the White Hall; but the remaining portions of it were not finally taken away until the middle of the last century; and perhaps the foundations still remain. It is strange that neither Stow nor, after him, Strype, makes any mention of this building, which the former could not fail to see, frowning and gloomy, as yet untouched, whenever he visited Westminster; and it is still more remarkable that neither of these writers seems to attach much importance to the ancient Sanctuary at Westminster. That of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, the remains of which were also visible to Stow, he describes at length.
Like every other ecclesiastical foundation, the right of Sanctuary was originally a beneficent and wise institution, designed by the Church for the protection of the weak, and the prevention of revenge, wild justice, violence, and oppression. If a man, in those days of
THE KING STREET GATE, WESTMINSTER, DEMOLISHED 1723.
swift wrath and ready hand, should kill another in the madness of a moment; if by accident he should wound or maim another; if by the breaking of any law he should incur the penalties of justice; if by any action he should incur the hostility of a stronger man; if by some of the many changes and chances of fortune he should lose his worldly goods and fall into debt or bankruptcy, and so become liable to imprisonment; if he had cause to dread the displeasure of king, baron, or bishop—the right of Sanctuary was open to him. Once on the frith-stool, once clinging to the horns of the altar, he was as safe as an Israelite within the walls of a city refuge: the mighty hand of the Church was over him; his enemies could not touch him, on pain of excommunication.
In theory every church was a sanctuary; but it was easy to blockade a church so that the refugee could be starved into submission. The only real safety for a fugitive from justice or revenge was in those abbeys and places which possessed special charters and immunities. Foremost among these were the Sanctuaries of Westminster and St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Outside London, the principal Sanctuaries appear to have been Beverley, Hexham, Durham, and Beaulieu. But perhaps every great abbey possessed its sanctuary as a part of its reason for existence. That of Westminster was, if not founded, defined and regulated by Edward the Confessor; that of St. Martin’s, the existence of which was always a scandal and an offense to the City of London, was regulated by half a dozen charters of as many kings. Its refugees were principally bankrupts, debtors, and common thieves—offenders against property, therefore specially hated by a trading community.