London in 1731 [39]
Queen Elizabeth, anno 1588.
The house or chamber where the commons assemble is to the northward of the House of Lords, and stands east and west, as the other does north and south. The room is pretty near square, and towards the upper end is the Speaker's armed chair, to which he ascends by a step or two; before it is a table where the clerks sit, on which the mace lies when the Speaker is in the chair, and at other times the mace is laid under the table. On the north and south sides, and at the west end, are seats gradually ascending as in a theatre, and between the seats at the west end is the entrance by a pair of folding-doors. There are galleries also on the north, south, and west, where strangers are frequently admitted to hear the debates.
This room was anciently a chapel, founded by King Stephen about the year 1141, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; however, it obtained the name of St. Stephen's Chapel. It was rebuilt by King Edward III., anno 1347, who placed in it a dean, twelve secular canons, thirteen vicars, four clerks, five choristers, a verger, and a keeper of the chapel, and built them a convent, which extended along the Thames, endowing it with large revenues, which at the dissolution of monasteries in the reign of Edward VI. amounted to near eleven thousand pounds per annum. Almost ever since the dissolution, this chapel has been converted to the use we find it at present, viz., for the session of the Lower House of Parliament, who, before that time, usually assembled in the chapter-house belonging to the Abbey, when the Parliament met at Westminster. The Painted Chamber lies between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and here the committees of both houses usually meet at a conference; but neither this nor the other remaining apartments of this Palace of Westminster have anything in them that merit a particular description.
The open place usually called Charing Cross, from a fine cross which stood there before the grand rebellion, is of a triangular form, having the Pall Mall and the Haymarket on the north-west, the Strand on the east, and the street before Whitehall on the south. In the middle of this space is erected a brazen equestrian statue of King Charles I., looking towards the place where that prince was murdered by the rebels, who had erected a scaffold for that purpose before the gates of his own palace. This statue is erected on a stone pedestal seventeen feet high, enriched with his Majesty's arms, trophy-work, palm-branches, &c., enclosed with an iron palisade, and was erected by King Charles II. after his restoration. The brick buildings south-east of Charing Cross are mostly beautiful and uniform, and the King's stables in the Mews, which lie north of it, and are now magnificently rebuilding of hewn stone, will probably make Charing Cross as fine a place as any we have in town; especially as it stands upon an eminence overlooking Whitehall.
The Banqueting-house stands on the east side of the street adjoining to the great gate of Whitehall on the south. This edifice is built of hewn stone, and consists of one stately room, of an oblong form, upwards of forty feet in height, the length and breadth proportionable, having galleries round it on the inside, the ceiling beautifully painted by that celebrated history-painter, Sir Peter Paul Rubens: it is adorned on the outside with a lower and upper range of columns of the Ionic and Composite orders, their capitals enriched with fruit, foliage, &c., the intercolumns of the upper and lower range being handsome sashed windows. It is surrounded on the top with stone rails or banisters, and covered with lead.
St. James's Palace, where the Royal Family now resides in the winter season, stands pleasantly upon the north side of the Park, and has several noble rooms in it, but is an irregular building, by no means suitable to the grandeur of the British monarch its master. In the front next St. James's Street there appears little more than an old gate-house, by which we enter a little square court, with a piazza on
The house or chamber where the commons assemble is to the northward of the House of Lords, and stands east and west, as the other does north and south. The room is pretty near square, and towards the upper end is the Speaker's armed chair, to which he ascends by a step or two; before it is a table where the clerks sit, on which the mace lies when the Speaker is in the chair, and at other times the mace is laid under the table. On the north and south sides, and at the west end, are seats gradually ascending as in a theatre, and between the seats at the west end is the entrance by a pair of folding-doors. There are galleries also on the north, south, and west, where strangers are frequently admitted to hear the debates.
This room was anciently a chapel, founded by King Stephen about the year 1141, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin; however, it obtained the name of St. Stephen's Chapel. It was rebuilt by King Edward III., anno 1347, who placed in it a dean, twelve secular canons, thirteen vicars, four clerks, five choristers, a verger, and a keeper of the chapel, and built them a convent, which extended along the Thames, endowing it with large revenues, which at the dissolution of monasteries in the reign of Edward VI. amounted to near eleven thousand pounds per annum. Almost ever since the dissolution, this chapel has been converted to the use we find it at present, viz., for the session of the Lower House of Parliament, who, before that time, usually assembled in the chapter-house belonging to the Abbey, when the Parliament met at Westminster. The Painted Chamber lies between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and here the committees of both houses usually meet at a conference; but neither this nor the other remaining apartments of this Palace of Westminster have anything in them that merit a particular description.
The open place usually called Charing Cross, from a fine cross which stood there before the grand rebellion, is of a triangular form, having the Pall Mall and the Haymarket on the north-west, the Strand on the east, and the street before Whitehall on the south. In the middle of this space is erected a brazen equestrian statue of King Charles I., looking towards the place where that prince was murdered by the rebels, who had erected a scaffold for that purpose before the gates of his own palace. This statue is erected on a stone pedestal seventeen feet high, enriched with his Majesty's arms, trophy-work, palm-branches, &c., enclosed with an iron palisade, and was erected by King Charles II. after his restoration. The brick buildings south-east of Charing Cross are mostly beautiful and uniform, and the King's stables in the Mews, which lie north of it, and are now magnificently rebuilding of hewn stone, will probably make Charing Cross as fine a place as any we have in town; especially as it stands upon an eminence overlooking Whitehall.
The Banqueting-house stands on the east side of the street adjoining to the great gate of Whitehall on the south. This edifice is built of hewn stone, and consists of one stately room, of an oblong form, upwards of forty feet in height, the length and breadth proportionable, having galleries round it on the inside, the ceiling beautifully painted by that celebrated history-painter, Sir Peter Paul Rubens: it is adorned on the outside with a lower and upper range of columns of the Ionic and Composite orders, their capitals enriched with fruit, foliage, &c., the intercolumns of the upper and lower range being handsome sashed windows. It is surrounded on the top with stone rails or banisters, and covered with lead.
St. James's Palace, where the Royal Family now resides in the winter season, stands pleasantly upon the north side of the Park, and has several noble rooms in it, but is an irregular building, by no means suitable to the grandeur of the British monarch its master. In the front next St. James's Street there appears little more than an old gate-house, by which we enter a little square court, with a piazza on