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The great schoolroom beyond, known as Up-School, is a splendid room, with mighty beams in its fine timber roof, and panels with the arms of Westminster boys now dead on the walls. The bar over which the pancake is tossed on Shrove Tuesday is pointed out, and a very great height it is. At the upper end of the room, which, by the way, is now used only for prayers, concerts, etc., is the birching-table, black and worn with age and use. Dryden's name, carved on a bench, is shown, and a chair presented by King Charles to Dr. Busby. The walls date originally from the twelfth century or earlier, but were practically rebuilt in the end of the eighteenth century. The only part of the college buildings which formed part of the original school is the college hall, built by Abbot Litlington in 1380 as the monks' refectory. But by far the oldest part of the buildings at present incorporated in the school is the Norman crypt, approached from the dark cloister, and forming part of the gymnasium made by the Chapter in 1860, by roofing in the walls beyond it, between it and the Chapter-house. A stranger gymnasium, surely, no school can boast.
The name of Dr. Busby, Headmaster from 1638 to 1695, will be for ever held in honour at Westminster. He himself had been a Westminster boy, and all his great ability and strong character were bent to furthering the interests of the school.
The roll of names of those educated at Westminster includes Dryden, Bishop Atterbury, Cowley, Warren Hastings, Gibbon, Thomas Cowper, Charles Wesley, Lord John Russell, and many others well known wherever the English tongue is spoken.
In 1706 there were nearly 400 boys, but after this the school began to decline; in 1841 it was at a very low ebb—there were less than seventy boys. The reasons for this decline were manifold. Building had been going on apace round the quiet precincts, and parents fancied their sons would be better in the country; also, though the charges were high, the system of living was extremely rough, and no money was spent on repairing the buildings. In 1845, when Wilberforce was appointed Dean, he set to work to inspire fresh life into the institution, but he had hardly time to do anything before he was appointed to the See of Oxford; however, the current set flowing by him gathered strength, and in 1846, when Liddell (afterwards Dean of Christchurch) was made Headmaster, the school was recovering its prosperity.
Ashburnham House was taken over by the school in 1882, and it is well worth a visit. In the hall where the day boys have their lockers there is a very old buttery hatch, probably part of the monks' original building; at the back the little green garden is the site of the refectory, and traces of Norman windows are seen against the exterior cloister wall. The staircase in Ashburnham House is very fine; it is of the "well" variety, and is surmounted by a cupola with a little gallery. The walls are all panelled; unfortunately, paint has been laid on everything alike, and though the balusters have been recently uncovered, the process is difficult and laborious, and apt to injure the carving. The carving round the doorways is very fine, of the laurel-wreath pattern associated with the period of Wren. The house belonged to Lord Ashburnham, and was later used by the Prebendaries of the cathedral. The school is no longer in any sense dependent on the Abbey, and except that the boys attend the services there as "chapel," the old ties are severed. A great feature of the school are the King's (or Queen's) Scholars, founded by Elizabeth; of these there are now forty resident and twenty non-resident. There are three scholarships and three exhibitions yearly at Christ Church, Oxford, for Westminster boys, and three exhibitions at Trinity College, Oxford. There are at present (1902) about two hundred and thirty boys in the school. The Latin play, which is well known in connection with the school, is acted by the King's Scholars annually in the middle of December, and dates back to 1704.
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
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.
The crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel (not shown to visitors) is one of the few parts remaining which dates from before the fire. The chapel is said to have been first built by the King whose name it bore, but was rebuilt by Edward I. and greatly altered by his two immediate successors. It was used for the sittings of the House of Commons after Edward VI.'s reign. At the end of the seventeenth century it was much altered by Wren, but it perished in 1834. A small chapel on the south side was called Our Lady of the Pew. The oldest part of the ancient palace remaining is Westminster Hall, built by William Rufus as a part of a projected new palace. He held his Court here in 1099, and, on hearing a remark on the vastness of his hall, he declared that it would be only a bedroom to the palace when finished. However, he himself had to occupy much narrower quarters before he could carry out his scheme. Richard II. raised the hall and gave it the splendid hammer-beam roof, one of the finest feats in carpentry extant. George IV. refaced the exterior of the hall with stone.
In the eighteenth century the Courts of Justice (Chancery and King's Bench) were held here, and as the hall was also lined with shops, and the babble and walking to and fro were incessant, it is not wonderful that justice was sometimes left undone. It would be difficult—nay, impossible—to tell in detail all the strange historic scenes enacted in Westminster Hall in the limited space at disposal, and as they are all concerned rather with the nation than with Westminster, mere mention of the principal ones will be enough. Henry II. caused his eldest son to be crowned in the hall in his own lifetime, at which ceremony the young Prince disdainfully asserted he was higher in rank than his father, having a King for father and a Queen for mother, whereas his father could only claim blood royal on the mother's side.
Edward III. here received King John of France, brought captive by the Black Prince. In 1535 Sir Thomas More was tried here; later there were many trials, the greatest of which was that of King Charles I., followed by that of the regicides, brought to justice and the fruit of their crimes in a way they had not expected when they took prominent parts in the first great drama. Cromwell's head was stuck upon the southern gable of the hall, where it remained for twenty years. The trial of the Seven Bishops caused great excitement, that of Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater hardly less. Lord Byron was tried in Westminster Hall, and every child has heard of the arraignment of Warren Hastings. Surely, if ever a building had memories of historic dramas, played upon its floor as on a stage, it is Rufus's great hall at Westminster.
Parliament was first called to Westminster in Edward I.'s reign. The Commons sat for 300 years in the Abbey Chapter-house, then for 300 years more in St. Stephen's Chapel. In 1790 a report on the buildings declared them to be defective and in great danger of fire, a prophecy fulfilled in 1834. On the evening of October 16 in that year the wife of a doorkeeper saw a light under one of the doors, and gave an alarm. The place was made for a bonfire; a strong wind blowing from the south, and afterwards south-west, drove the flames along the dried woodwork and through the draughty passages. As the flames got a stronger and stronger hold, the scene from the further bank of the river was magnificent. Until three o'clock the next day the fire raged, and Westminster Hall and the crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel alone survived the wreck. The cause of the fire is said to have been the heating of the flues by some workmen burning a quantity of tallies or ancient notched sticks.
The present Houses of Parliament, built after the fire from Sir Charles Barry's designs, have been the cause of much of that criticism which is applied to the work of some people by others who certainly could not do so well themselves. The material used is magnesian limestone, which, unfortunately, has not worn well; and the erection took seventeen years (1840-57). On Saturday afternoons the door under the Victoria Tower, south end, is open, and anyone may walk through the principal rooms. This is well worth doing, though what is to be seen is mostly modern. What will chiefly astonish strangers is the smallness of the House of Commons.
The Clock Tower, 316 feet high, containing Big Ben, and standing at the north end of the present Houses of Parliament, is a notable object, and a landmark for miles around. Ben was called after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was First Commissioner of Works at the time he was brought into being.
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Bridge Street was formed at the building of the bridge, and is almost on the site of the Long Woolstaple.
In the reign of King Edward III., in the year 1353, Westminster was made one of the ten towns in England where the staple or market for wool might be held. This had formerly been held in Flanders, and the removal of the market to England brought a great increase to the Royal revenue, for on every sack exported the King received a certain sum. Pennant says: "The concourse of people which this removal of the Woolstaple to Westminster occasioned caused this Royal village to grow into a considerable town."
Henry VI. held six wool-houses in the Staple, which he granted to the Dean and Canons of St. Stephen's.
Walcott says: "On the north side of the Long Staple was a turning in a westerly direction leading into the Round Staple, at the south-east end of the present King Street." This must have been on the site of the present Great George Street. An attempt was made to establish a fish-market here in competition with Billingsgate, but the pre-established interest was too strong and the fish-market was abandoned.
There was a gateway at the end of the Staple. This was still in existence in 1741, when it was pulled down in view of the new bridge.
There has been much dispute as to the origin of the name of Cannon Row. Some hold that it was derived from the prebendal houses of the Canons of St. Stephen's Chapel, and others that it was a corruption of Channel Row, from the arm of the river which entered near the spot. There were many noble houses here at one time. The Earl of Derby in 1552 had two houses, with gardens stretching to the river, granted to him by Edward VI.
Anne, Duchess of Somerset, built a house here. The Marquis of Dorset's house gave its name to a court subsequently built on its site. In 1556-57 the Earl of Sussex lived here, and in 1618 a later Earl of Derby built a house, afterwards used as the Admiralty Office. The name is preserved in Derby Street. The Earl of Essex, Lord Halifax, and the Bishop of Peterborough were all residents in this row. In the middle of the seventeenth century the Duke of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal, resided here also. At present the row is very dreary. The building in which the Civil Service examinations are held stands on the east side. This was erected in 1784 for the Ordnance Board, then given to the Board of Control, and finally to the Civil Service Commissioners.
The Victoria Embankment was begun in 1864, and completed about six years later. The wall is of brick, faced with granite and founded in Portland cement; it looks solid enough to withstand the tides of many a hundred years. The parapet is of granite, decorated by cast-iron standard lamps. St Stephen's Club is on the Embankment, close by Westminster Bridge Station. Further on is the huge building of the Police Commissioners, known as New Scotland Yard, built in 1890 from designs of Norman Shaw, R.A. It is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Force, and the architecture is singularly well in keeping with its object. The building is of red brick, with the tower floors cased in granite. It is in the form of a square, built round an inner courtyard, and has an immense bastion at each exterior angle. Besides the offices of the police force, the Lost Property Office, the Public Carriage Office, and the Criminal Investigation Department are here. The building communicates directly by telephone with the Horse Guards, Houses of Parliament, British Museum, and other public places, and has telegraphic communication with the twenty-two head-offices of the Metropolitan Police district. The Criminal Museum is open to the public under certain conditions.
Parliament Street and King Street have now been merged in one, and together have become a part of Whitehall, so that the very names will soon be forgotten. Yet King Street was once the direct land route to the Abbey and Palace from the north, and its narrow span was perforce wide enough for all the pageantry of funerals, coronations, and other State shows that passed through it. It must be remembered that King Street formerly ran right up to the Abbey precincts, from which it was separated by a gate-house, called Highgate, built by Richard II.; but the street was subsequently shorn of a third of its length, over which now grows green grass in smooth lawns. The street was very picturesque: "The houses rose up three and four stories high; gabled all, with projecting fronts, story above story, the timbers of the fronts painted and gilt, some of them with escutcheons hung in front, the richly blazoned arms brightening the narrow way." But it was also dirty: "The roadway was rough and full of holes; a filthy stream ran down the middle, all kinds of refuse were lying about." But what mattered that? No one went on foot who could possibly go by boat, and there lay the great highway of the river close at hand. We have said processions went down this street; among them we may number all the coronation processions up to the time when Parliament Street was cut through numerous small courts and by-streets in the reign of George II. Lord Howard of Effingham set out from King Street to fight the Spanish Armada. Charles I. came this way from Whitehall Palace to his trial at Westminster; he went back by the same route condemned to death; and later Cromwell's funeral procession followed the same route. Cromwell himself narrowly escaped assassination in this very street, where he had a house north of Boar's Head Yard. The story is told that he was in his state carriage, but owing to the crowd and narrow street he was separated from his guard. Suddenly Lord Broghill, who was with him, saw the door of a cobbler's stall open and shut, while something glittered behind it. He therefore got out of the carriage and hammered at the door with his scabbard, when a tall man, armed with a sword, rushed out and made his escape.
Anne Oldfield was apprenticed to a seamstress in King Street. Sir Henry Wootton also lived here; and Ben Jonson says that Spenser died here for "lack of bread," and that the Earl of Essex sent him "20 pieces" on hearing of his poverty, but the poet refused them, saying they came too late. Fletcher wrote of him: "Poorly, poor man, he lived; poorly, poor man, he died." But it seems hardly credible he was so badly off as to be destitute, for he was at the time a pensioner of the Crown. Thomas Carew the poet lived in King Street. Most of the taverns in Westminster seem to have clustered about this street; we have the names of the Bell, the Boar's Head, and the Rhenish Wine House still handed down as places of importance. There were innumerable courts and alleys opening out of King Street. On the west, south of Downing Street, were Axe Yard, Sea Alley, Bell Yard, Antelope Alley. Gardener's Lane ran parallel with Charles Street; here Hollar the engraver died in extreme poverty in 1677.
At the north end of King Street stood a second gate, called the King's Gate, and sometimes the Cockpit Gate. It stood at the corner of what is now Downing Street. It had four domed towers; on the south side were pilasters and an entablature enriched with the double rose, the portcullis, and the royal arms. The gate was removed in 1723.
In the year 1605 a solemn function took place in which the gate played a part:
"On January 4, 1605, when Prince Charles, Duke of Albany, then only four years old, was to be created Knight of the Bath, his esquires, the Earls of Oxford and Essex, with eleven noblemen who were to share in the honour, tooke their lodgings in the first Gate-house going to King's-streete, where they were all after supper, at which they sat by degrees, a row on the one side, with the armes of every of them over the seate where he was placed; and lodged upon severall pallets in one chamber, with their armes likewise over them, having their bathes provided for them in the chamber underneath. The next morning they went about through the gallory downe into the Parke in their hermits' weedes, the musitions playing, and the heralds going before them into The Court, and so into the Chapell, and there after solemn courtesies, like to the Knights of the Garter, first to the Altar, and then to the Cloath of Estate, every one took his place in the stalles of the Quier" (Walcott, p. 58).
Great George Street, made 1750—at the same time as the Bridge, Bridge Street, etc.—contains the Institution of Civil Engineers, a fine building, and at the west end is Delahay Street, once Duke Street, a very fashionable locality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The poet Matthew Prior lived here, and Bishop Stillingfleet died here in 1699. Duke Street Chapel, recently pulled down, was a very well-known place; it was originally part of a house, overlooking the park built by Judge Jeffreys, and the steps into the park at Chapel Place were made for Jeffreys' special convenience. In this wing of his house he sometimes heard cases, and it was later made into a chapel for private subscribers. Jeffreys' house was also used for a time as the Admiralty Office. In Delahay Street may be noted the west end of the Boar's Head Court, marking the spot where Cromwell's house stood. The space between Great George Street and Charles Street will soon be covered by Government offices, now in course of erection. When Parliament Street was made it effaced Clinker's Court, White Horse Yard, Lady's Alley, Stephen's Alley, Rhenish Wine Yard, Brewers' Yard, and Pensioners' Alley—some of the slums which had sprung up outside the Abbey precincts. Now Parliament Street in its turn is effaced, swallowed up in an extended Whitehall. King Street has been completely swept away, as one sweeps a row of crumbs from a cloth, but the part it played in the ancient history of Westminster is not yet forgotten. Undoubtedly the change could be justified: the thoroughfare is an important one, the view as now seen from the direction of Charing Cross one of the finest in the world; yet to gain it we have had to give, and one wonders sometimes whether the gain counterbalances the loss.
Beyond the now vacant space on the north are the great group of Government offices, the Home and Colonial Offices facing Parliament Street, and behind them the India and the Foreign Offices. Above Downing Street there are others, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury.
Downing Street is called after George Downing, an American Ambassador to the Hague under Cromwell and in Charles II.'s reign. John Boyle, Earl of Cork and Ossory and the last Earl of Oxford, lived here. Boswell occupied a house in Downing Street in 1763. But the street is chiefly associated with the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury. Sir Robert Walpole accepted this house from George II. on condition it should belong to his successors in office for ever.
On the east side, nearly opposite Downing Street, Richmond Terrace stands on the site of the Duke of Richmond's house, burnt down in 1790. Beyond Richmond Terrace is Montagu House, the town residence of the Duke of Buccleuch; the present building, which is of stone, in the Italian style, dates from the middle of the nineteenth century.
Beyond, again, are Whitehall Gardens, on part of the site of the Privy Gardens, belonging to Whitehall Palace. There is now a row of fine houses overlooking the Embankment and the Gardens. One of these was the residence of Sir Robert Peel. A great gallery of sculpture formerly extended along this part of the Embankment. It was partly destroyed in 1778, and wholly burnt down some years later. Gwydyr House, a sombre brick building with heavy stone facings over the central window and doorway is now occupied by the Charity Commission; it was built by Adam. Adjoining it is a new building with an angle tower and cupola; this belongs to the Royal United Service Institute, and next door to it is the banqueting-hall, now used as the United Service Museum. This is the only fragment left of Whitehall Palace, and is described in detail on p. 88.
The gatehouse known as the Holbein Gate stood across Whitehall a little south of the banqueting-hall. It was the third, and the most magnificent of those which previously stood in Westminster, and was built by Henry VIII. after the design of Holbein. It is said that one of the chambers was Holbein's studio. Later it was used as a State Paper Office, and was removed in 1750 to widen the street. It was intended to rebuild it in Windsor Park, but this design was never carried out; though various fragments of it were afterwards worked into other buildings.
It is a pity that it vanished, for it would have been a fine relic of the Tudor times, with its high angular towers and its elaborate decoration. It had a large central entrance and two smaller doorways beneath the towers. The brickwork was in diaper pattern, and the front ornamented with busts in niches—altogether a very elaborate piece of work.
WHITEHALL PALACE.
Hubert de Burgh bequeathed a house on this site to the Dominican Friars in the thirteenth century, and they sold it to the Archbishop of York. For 250 years it was the town-house of the Archbishops of that see, and when Wolsey became Archbishop he entered into his official residence with the intention of beautifying and enlarging it greatly; he had a passion for display, a quality which perhaps cost him more than he was ever aware of. It was a dangerous thing to build or rebuild great mansions close to the palace of so jealous a King as Henry VIII. It was especially dangerous to do so at Whitehall, because, as has been already shown, the King lived at Westminster in a congeries of old buildings more or less dilapidated and inconvenient. Wolsey's fall was doubtless hastened by his master's covetousness, and after it, by agreement with the Chapter of York, the King had the house conveyed to himself. Up to this time it had been known as York Place, but was henceforth Whitehall. At Anne Boleyn's coronation in the Abbey, the Royal party came to and from Whitehall.
"You must no more call it York Place—that is past For, since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost; 'Tis now the King's and call'd Whitehall."
'King Henry VIII.,' Act IV.
It must be remembered that there was then no Parliament Street, and the palace buildings occupied all the ground from Old Scotland Yard to Downing Street, from St. James's Park to the river. King Henry added very much to the land belonging to the palace, also to the buildings. He was fond of sport, and his additions show his tastes in this direction; he built a tennis-court, a tilt-yard,—on the site of the Horse Guards—a bowling-green, and a cockpit. The exact site of the cockpit has long been a matter of uncertainty, but it is now very generally believed that the entrance was just where the present Treasury entrance is.
The palace does not seem to have been very homogeneous; it contained three courts, including Old Scotland Yard, in which was the Guard House. The King and Queen occupied the first court, where was what remained of old York House; here also was the great Hall, the Presence Chamber, and the Banqueting House. In the second court was the way to the Audience and Council Chambers, the Chapel, the offices of the Palace, and the Watergate.
Henry VIII. died in this palace, and all the noble names of his and the succeeding reigns seem to haunt the site of the now vanished building. Here came Sir Thomas More, Erasmus and Thomas Cromwell; Holbein occupied a set of apartments, and received a salary of 200 florins for painting and decorating the rooms. Here are the ghosts of Cranmer, Katharine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Latimer and Ridley; later we see a courtlier gathering—Cecil, Essex, Leicester, Raleigh, Drake, Walsingham, Philip Sydney. So true it is, the King doth make the Court. Some time later, in the reign of Charles II., we have a different class of men altogether—Monk, Clarendon, Sedley, Rochester, Wycherley, Dryden, Butler, Suckling, Carew. Here came crowds to be touched for the King's evil. Here the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth implored pardon at his uncle's feet in vain. Whitehall was also the home of the short-lived masque, a form of entertainment extremely costly.
In 1691 a fire broke out, and all the buildings between the stone gallery and the river were burned down, and six years later another fire finished nearly all that the first had left.
Inigo Jones prepared plans for a new palace that should eclipse the old, and his designs lacked not anything on the side of magnificence; if the palace had been built as he designed, it would have exceeded in splendour any building now in London, but he did not finish it. Like William Rufus with Westminster Palace, like many another architect, his plans demanded more than his allotted span of years, and before he could do more than put his imagination upon paper, and realize but a fragment of it in stone, he was called away from a world dependent on the "work of men's hands."
The fragment he has left us still stands; it was to be the banqueting-hall, but no Royal banquets were held there; it was used as a Chapel Royal for many years, and is now the home of the United Service Museum. For the magnificent ceiling painted by Rubens we are indebted to Charles I., who also designed to have the walls painted by Vandyck, a still more costly operation, which was never carried out. The weathercock on the north end was put up by order of James II., so that he might see whether the wind was for or against the dreaded Dutch fleet. The building has one association never to be forgotten. On that black day when England shamed herself before the nations by spilling the blood of her King, the scaffold was erected before this building, though the exact site is unknown. It is believed that the window second from the north end is that in front of which it stood, and that the King stepped forth from a window in a small outbuilding on the north side; he came forth to die, the only innocent man in all that great crowd, who watched him suffer without raising a finger to save him. At that time the present windows were not glazed, but walled in. William III. talked of rebuilding the palace, but he died too soon. Queen Anne went to St. James's, and Whitehall was never rebuilt.
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The Horse Guards is almost directly opposite the Banqueting House, and stands on the site of an old house for the Gentlemen Pensioners who formed the guard when there was not a standing army in England. This itself superseded the tilt-yard built by King Henry VIII., though the actual yard was the wide space at the back of the building, which still witnesses the trooping of the colours and other ceremonies on state occasions. It is interesting to notice that the words "Tilt-yard Guards" still occur in the regulations hung up inside the sentry-boxes where the magnificent sentries keep guard, to the wonder and admiration of every small boy who passes.
The whole of St. James's Park is now included in the City of Westminster, but only the south-east part is in the parish of St. Margaret's, which we are now considering. The remainder will be found described in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, which is included in the electoral district of the Strand in the same series. In "The Strand District" there are also full accounts of St. James's Palace, and of Buckingham Palace.
The spot now known as St. James's Park was once a dismal marshy field. In 1531 Henry VIII. obtained some of the land from the Abbey of Westminster, and in the following year he proceeded to erect what is now St. James's Palace, on the site of a former leper hospital. The park, however, seems to have remained in a desolate condition until the reign of James I., who took a great interest in it, and established a menagerie here which he often visited. The popularity of the park continued throughout the Stuart period. Charles II. after the Restoration employed a Frenchman, Le Notre, to lay out the grounds, and under his advice the canal was formed from the chain of pools that spread across the low-lying ground, and also a decoy, where ducks and wildfowl resorted. Rosamund's Pond, an oblong pool, lay at the south-west end of the canal. Of the origin of this name there is no record, though Rosamund's land is mentioned as early as 1531. A new Mall was laid out soon after the Restoration, and preserved with great care. Powdered cockleshells were sprinkled over the earth to keep it firm. As the game of pall-mall went out of fashion the Mall became a promenade, and was the resort of the Court. A pheasant-walk was also formed where Marlborough House now stands. There are two ancient views of the park extant, in one of which the heads of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw stuck upon poles at the end of Westminster Hall are visible, and in the other, a figure walking in the foreground is supposed to be Charles II. himself. The park was not opened to the public at this time, but those whose houses bordered it appear to have been allowed free entrance. Milton, the poet, certainly strolled here from his house in Petty France.
Charles II. himself frequently used it, and kept his pet animals here, and the lords and ladies of his time made it their fashionable rendezvous. The park is mentioned constantly by Pepys and Evelyn. A couple of oaks planted by Charles from acorns brought from Boscobel survived until 1833, when they were blown down.
The origin of the name of Birdcage Walk has been disputed. It has been derived from "boccage," meaning avenue; another account says it was from the bird-cages of the King's aviary, which were hung in the trees. This seems more probable.
For many reigns St. James's Park continued to be a fashionable place of resort. In 1770 Rosamund's Pond was filled up, and the moat round Duck Island was filled in. In 1779 a gentleman was killed in a duel in the park.
In 1827-29 the park was finally laid out and the canal converted into a piece of ornamental water under the superintendence of Nash. In 1857 the lake was cleared out to a uniform depth of four feet and the present bridge erected, and the park became something like what we see at the present time. The vicinity of Marlborough House and Buckingham Palace still give it a certain distinction, but it cannot be called in any sense fashionable, as it was in the later Stuart times. And in the midst of the park we must take leave of our present district, having rambled within its borders east and west, north and south, and having met in the process the ghosts of kings and queens, of statesmen and authors, of men of the Court and men of the Church, those who have made history in the past and laid the foundations for the glory of the future.
INDEX
Abbey, The, 45
Almonry, 34, 36
Almshouses: Butler's, 8, 29 Henry VII.'s, 37 Hill's, 8 Palmer's, 8, 29 Vandon's, 29
Antelope Alley, 80
Aquarium, The, 34
Artillery Row, 6
Ashburnham House, 65
Atterbury, Bishop, 65
Axe Yard, 80
Banqueting-hall, 88
Barton Street, 20
Bell Yard, 80
Bentham, Jeremy, 14, 29, 30, 32
Betterton, Thomas, 34
Big Ben, 75
Birdcage Walk, 30, 91
Black Horse Yard, 33
Blood, Colonel, 18
Boar's Head Court, 82
Boswell, 83
Bowring, Sir John, 33
Brewers' Yard, 82
Bridewell, 5
Bridge Street, 42, 75
Broad and Little Sanctuary, 42
Broadway, The, 33
Burke, Edmund, 34, 39
Busby, Dr., 64
Cannon Row, 76
Capel, Lord, 69
Carew, Thomas, 80
Castle Lane, 26
Caxton, 35
Caxton Street, 27
Chapel Street, 27
Charles I., 73, 79, 88
Charles II., 90
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 69
Churches: St. Ann's Chapel, 37 Cathedral (Roman Catholic), 4 Chapel Royal, 88 Christ Church, 28 Duke Street Chapel, 81 Guards' Chapel, 31 St. John the Evangelist, 17 St. Margaret's, 57 St. Mary's, 9 St. Matthew's, 23 New Chapel, 28 St. Stephen's, 8 St. Stephen's Chapel, 70 Westminster Abbey, 45 Westminster Chapel, 26
Church House, 22
Church Street, 17
Clinker's Court, 82
"Clochard," 67
Clock Tower, 75
Cockpit, 86
Cock public-house, 34
Commons, The, 73
Cowley, 65
Cowper, Thomas, 65
Cromwell, 79
Dacre, Lady, 26
Delahay Street, 81
Derby, Earl of, 76
Derwentwater, Lord, 73
Dorset, Marquis of, 76
Douglas, Earl, 69
Douglas, Sir William, 69
Douglas Street, 9
Downing, George, 83
Downing Street, 83
Dryden, 64, 65
Duck Lane, 23, 27
Duke Street, 81
Edward V., 42
Eliot, Sir John, 39
Essex, Earl of, 76
Free Library, 21, 34
Gardener's Lane, 43, 80
Gatehouse, 37
Gibbon, 20, 65
Glover, 25
Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, 39
Great College Street, 20
Great George Street, 76, 81
Great Peter Street, 23
Great Queen Street, 33
Great St. Ann's Lane, 19, 23
Great Smith Street, 21
Greycoat Place, 6
Grosvenor Road, 12
Guildhall, 41
Gwydyr House, 84
Halifax, Lord, 76
Hamilton, Duke of, 69
Hampden, 39
Hastings, Warren, 65, 73
Hazlitt, 29
Herrick, 23
High Gate, 39, 78
Holbein Gate, 84
Holland, Earl of, 69
Hollar, the engraver, 80
Home and Colonial Offices, 83
Horseferry Road, 10, 16
Horse Guards, 89
Hospitals: Coldstream Guards, 9 Emanuel, 26 Grenadier Guards, 8 Grosvenor Hospital for Women & Children, 9 Scots Guards, 12 Westminster, 40
Houses of Parliament, 67
Howard, 14
Howard of Effingham, Lord, 78
Hudson, Sir Jeffrey, 39
India and Foreign Offices, 83
Institution of Civil Engineers, 81
Jeffreys, Judge, 81
John, King of France, 73
Jonson, Ben, 70
Keats, 20, 21
Kenmure, Lord, 73
Kennet, Dr. White, 25
King's Gate, 80
King's House, 70
King's slaughter-house, 20
King Street, 42, 78
Lady's Alley, 82
Leighton, Alexander, 69
Lewisham Street, 40
Liddell, 65
Lilly, the astrologer, 39
Litlington, Abbot, 16, 20, 64
Little Chapel Street, 29
Little College Street, 20
Little George Street, 42
Little Peter Street, 23
Little Queen Street, 33
Little Smith Street, 18
Long Ditch, 40, 42
Long Lane, 43
Lovelace, Colonel, 38
Lovelace, Thomas, 69
Manchester, Duke of, 77
Marlborough House, 90
Marsham Street, 18
Marvell, Andrew, 29
Millbank Penitentiary, 14
Millbank Street, 16
Mill, James, 33
Milton, 29, 91
Montagu House, 83
Monuments. See Abbey
More, Sir Thomas, 73
New Palace Yard, 67
New Scotland Yard, 77
Oates, Titus, 39, 69
Oldfield, Anne, 79
Old Palace Yard, 69
Old Pye Street, 22
Old Rochester Row, 6
Orchard Street, 22
Page, Robert, 68
Palace Hotel, 34
Palmer's Passage, 29
Palmer's Village, 4
Parker Street, 40
Parliament Street, 78, 82
Peabody's Buildings, 22
Peel, Sir Robert, 83
Pensioners' Alley, 82
Pest-houses, 12
Peterborough, Bishop of, 76
Peterborough House, 15
Petty France, 29
Prince's Street, 40
Prior, Matthew, 81
Privy Council Office, 83
Privy Gardens, 83
Public Baths and Wash-houses, 22
Purcell, 19, 23
Pye, Sir Robert, 22
Pye Street, 22
Queen Anne's Bounty Office, 22
Queen Anne's Gate, 32
Queen Anne's Mansions, 30, 32
Queen Square, 32
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 37
Rhenish Wine Yard, 82
Richmond Terrace, 83
Rochester Row, 7
Romney Street, 18
Royal Architectural Museum, 19
Royal Maundy, 36
Royal United Service Institute, 84
Russell, Lord John, 65
Sanctuary, The, 41
Sanquire, Lord, 69
Savage, Richard, 39
Schools: Bluecoat, 27 Greencoat, 5 Greycoat, 6 Medical, 28 St. Andrew's, 25 United Westminster, 5, 24 Westminster, 62
Sea Alley, 80
Seven Bishops, 73
Smith Square, 18
Southerne, Thomas, 21
Spenser, 79
Stafford Place, 25
Stafford, Viscount, 25
Stanley, Dean, 21
St. Ann's Street, 23
Stationary Office, 40
Steele, Sir Richard, 21
Stephen's Alley, 82
St. Ermin's Mansions, 28
St. James's Park, 89
St. John's Burial-ground, 10
St. John's snuff-box, 18
St. Margaret's loving-cup, 61
St. Matthew's Street, 23
Stourton Street, 24
Strutton Ground, 23
St. Stephen's Club, 77
Stubbs, John, 68
Sussex, Earl of, 76
Tart Hall, 25
Tate Gallery, 13
Taverns, 80
Thieving Lane, 39, 42
Thorne, Mr., 20
Thorney, the Isle of Bramble, 43, 44
Tothill Fields, 9
Tothill Fields Prison, 5
Tothill Street, 19, 34
Town Hall, 28
Treasury, 83, 86
Tufton Street, 18
Turpin, Dick, 33
Union Street, 43
Vandon, Cornelius, 29
Vauxhall Bridge Road, 12
Victoria Embankment, 77
Victoria Public Garden, 21
Victoria Street, 4
Victoria Tower, 74
Vincent Square, 9
Walcott, 20
Waller, Sir William, 29
Walpole, Sir Robert, 83
Warbeck, Perkin, 68
Watney's Brewery, 24
Wellington Barracks, 30
Wesley, Charles, 65
Wesley, John, 22
Westminster Bridge Station, 77
Westminster Hall, 72
Westminster Review, 33
Westminster School, 62
Whitehall Gardens, 83
Whitehall Palace, 85
White Horse Yard, 82
Wilberforce, 65
Woffington, Peg, 33
Wolsey, 85
Woolstaple, 75
Wootton, Sir Henry, 79
York, Archbishop of, 85
York Street, 29
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BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
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