The Houses of Parliament [antikvár]

The History ofTHE PALACE OF WESTMINSTERTHE name 'Westminster' means the minster (or monastery) established to the west of the city of London. This monastery was the ancestor of the present Westminster Abbey. It remained small and somewhat isolated until, in the years between 1050 and 1065, Kíng Edward the Confessor enríched and re-founded it. Then, between the new monastery and the bank of the River Thames he constructed a home for himself; this residence was the first Palace of Westminster. Both the Confessor's monastery and his palace were sufficiently near completion in 1066 to enable his Norman successor, William the Conqueror, to be crowned in the abbey church, and subsequently to hold Court in the palace.Soon after the Norman Conquest the palace received a notable addition: a Great Hall was built by King William II at its northern end. This hall (unlike Edward the Confessor's palace ítself) still stands today after 900 years' contin-uous use. When it was built, Westminster Hall, some 240 feet long and 67 feet wide, was perhaps the largest hall in Europe. It was, indeed, sufficiently im-pressive to make Westminster the ceremonial centre of the kingdom as well as one of the principal homes of the Eng-lish monarchs, and in due course to attract to its neighbourhood much of the governmental system of the country.On its completion in 1099 the hall had a simple wooden roof, supported on two lines of posts down eíther síde. Three centuríes later, between 1394 andabo ve, ríght: The Jetoel Tower ís one of the oldest surviving parts of the Palace of Westminster. It was built in 1365-6 to house the jewels and other personal treasures of the king.Pacing page: The Royal Staircase leads up to the principal floor of the palace. At the State Opening it is lined by Household Cavalry as The Queen ascends escort ed by the Great Officers of Stau.1399, King Richard II removed these posts and substituted for the original roof the present süperb hammer-beam roof, one of the finest pieces of wood-carving in the country. The hall was further adorned by a seríes of full-sízed statues of kings. Eleven of these are still to be seen in niches at the south end and in window embrasures along the east wall.Although royal Councils had some-tímes been held in Westminster Hall, Parliament never met regularly there. The hall served principally as the meeting place of the King's Courts of Law. From the 14th to the 19th centuríes the Court of Chancery sat in the south-west corner, King's Bench in the south-east corner, Common Pleas near the middle of the west wall (though until 1740 only), and the Court of Exdiequer in an adjacent room to die north-west. Theremaining space within the hall along the walls was occupied by shops and stalls, and die whole interior was open to the public. Westminster Hall thus be-came one of the chief centres of London life, both a spectacle and a meeting place.The domestic part .of the medieval palace lay to the east and south of Westminster Hall. The kings worship-ped in St. Stephen'* Cha pel, their courtiers in the crypt chapel beneath; die canons who served the two chapéis worked in die adjacent cloísters. The royal family dined ín the lesser hall (roughly on the site now occupied by Richard I's statue), and after dinner the king would withdraw to his main prívate apartment, the Painted Chamber, and the queen to her own royal Chamber. Standing remote across Old Palace Yard, and defended by a moat, can still be seen