THE FORTRESS, PALACES, AND MANSIONS.
Abbey of St. Peter—Westminster Palace—St. Stephen’s Chapel—Geoffrey Chaucer—Westminster Hall, its Feasts and other Solemnities—Baynard’s Castle and the Fitz-Walters—The City’s Banner-bearer—Whitehall—Strand Mansions of the Nobility: Essex House, Arundel House, the Savoy, Durham House—Crosby Place, Bishopsgate—The Tower of London.
The two most famous of London royal residences, the Tower of London and the Palace of Westminster, were situated respectively at the extreme west and east of the Middlesex bank of the River Thames, and there lay between them, mostly at the water-side, many another stately building honoured by royal residence.
Although there is no direct evidence, there seems every probability that the foundation of the Abbey preceded that of the Palace of Westminster. The earliest documentary evidence is a charter of Edgar, which details the boundaries of the ancient Parish of St. Margaret, the great manor with which that King endowed the Abbey. The date assigned to this document by Kemble is 971.
From Domesday Book we learn that Westminster comprised sixteen hides and a half, which apparently represent about eleven hundred acres, but this estimate is unreliable on account of the difficulty of determining exactly the modern value of a hide of land. The manor of the Abbot of Westminster in the eleventh and twelfth centuries extended eastwards almost to the River Fleet, and included a large part of the present Ward of Farringdon Without.
Edward the Confessor resided at Westminster during the greater part of his reign, and built a monastic church, on the spot where now stands Westminster Abbey. It is quite possible that he also laid the foundations of the royal palace of Westminster.
Of the Confessor’s church, an interesting relic remains in the Pyx Chapel and the adjoining structures against the east cloister and the south transept. The building was cruciform, with a high central tower. The good king lived until the date of its consecration, but was too ill to attend the ceremony, for which he had made elaborate preparations. Queen Editha presided in the place of her husband, who died almost immediately afterwards, and was buried in the church.
Henry III. rebuilt the church on a grander scale, removing the older structure from time to time during the progress of the new work. This great undertaking was begun in 1246, when the east end, the tower, and the transept were pulled down, to reappear in all the lightness, beauty, and variety of the pointed style, forming a striking contrast to the massive and simple impressiveness of the Anglo-Norman edifice. Twenty-five years earlier, in 1221, Henry, then a mere boy, had laid the first stone of the Lady Chapel, and was known as its founder. His devoted interest to the Abbey Church continued throughout his reign. Funds in profusion were provided by the king, or through his instrumentality, both for the building itself and for the costly ornaments to be employed in its services.
Relics were procured to be enshrined at the Abbey, and thus attract the veneration and gifts of the faithful. Many were the donations from Henry’s own royal purse, but most valuable of all was the privilege granted by the king in 1248, permitting the Abbot to hold a fair at Tothill, with privileges of an extraordinary character, all other fairs being ordered to be closed, as well as the shops of London itself, during the days of its continuance. Altogether, by various methods, a sum of nearly £30,000 was raised within the short period of fifteen years, and applied to the rebuilding of the Abbey. By the close of Henry the Third’s long reign the new building had made substantial progress, and consisted of the Confessor’s Chapel, the four chapels in the choir ambulatory, a large portion of the choir itself, the transepts, and probably the chapter-house. The work proceeded slowly, but steadily, for rather more than two centuries, and ended with the completion of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, the central tower never having risen upon its foundations.
The Palace of Westminster, like its sister building, the Abbey, was remodelled by Henry III. in accordance with the architecture of his time. It was this monarch most probably who converted the apartment known as St. Edward’s Chamber into the better-known Painted Chamber, by embellishing it with the masterly wall-paintings from which it took its name. In this room was signed the warrant for the execution of Charles I. Another portion of the ancient palace was the old House of Lords, so nearly destroyed by Fawkes and his fellow-conspirators. The later House of Lords also formed part of the old building, and had in the course of its history various names. First it was known, probably, as the Hall, before Rufus had erected the grand structure now known by that name, and in consequence of which erection it was designated the Little Hall. In Richard the Second’s time, Little Hall had changed to Whitehall; and, again, under Henry VII., to the Court of Requests, when it was also known, according to Stow, as “the Poor Man’s Court, because there he could have right without paying any money.”