LONDON 



285 



in Downing street, alongside a rather 

 dingy dwelling — No. 10 — is his ''official 

 residence," since 1731. No. 11 apper- 

 tains to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 



WHERE WOLSEY EIVED 



It was at Whitehall that Wolsey gave 

 his sumptuous entertainments ; here that 

 he was publicly disgraced ; here that 

 Henry VIII first saw and coveted Anne 

 Boleyn ; here that he died. From White- 

 hall Elizabeth was borne by barge to the 

 Traitor's Gate that she scorned to enter ; 

 here she returned out of captivity a tri- 

 umphant queen; here Oliver Cromwell 

 dwelt with his secretary, John Milton, 

 and here he died ; here Charles II lived 

 recklessly and died nonchalantly. To it, 

 from St. James Palace and his last night 

 on earth, came Charles I, walking briskly 

 across St. James Park, which was then 

 the palace: garden, and passed out through 

 a window, marked today, to the scaffold 

 where he would give his own signal to 

 the executioner, "When I stretch my 

 hands so — then — " Yes — Whitehall has 

 long and heavy memories. 



It was a huge place once. With its 

 gardens it reached from Charing Cross 

 to Westminster, from the Thames over 

 St. James Park ; but civil war and fire 

 did their work ; there is nothing of all its 

 splendor but this hall of 1620. Let us 

 pass on, then, to Westminster, which 

 beckons in the mist ; not the black fog of 

 November that shuts out all things as 

 with a curtain, but the soft, white, silky 

 mist that smoothes rough edges, blends 

 rude colors, makes prosaic things poetic 

 and lovely ones sublime. And having 

 come there, what shall one say? There 

 is too much of beauty, of memory, of 

 life and love and pain, too much of sug- 

 gestion for one calmly to bear. 



THE WESTMINSTER GROUP 



Let us go across the river and look 

 upon it all safely. The great Abbey 

 Church is hidden now, so we can look the 

 more critically: for the Houses of Par- 

 liament (the Palace of Westminster) are 

 new — very new — for England, and do not 

 oppress us with our own youthfulness. 

 No one will question that they are beau- 

 tiful. They spring from the river bank 

 like delicate grasses, with here and there 

 a stately, overtopping flower. It may be 



quite true that they are too elegant, too 

 ethereal in their perpendicular gothic for 

 appropriateness ; that lawmakers of em- 

 pire should have a sturdier, graver hous- 

 ing ; it may be that if the Victoria Tower 

 is correct, St. Stephen's is too slender; 

 it may be that the river fagade is over- 

 adorned ; the statues of England's kings 

 and queens wasted there. It may be all 

 these things and more ; I have no fault 

 to find. The early morning light bathes 

 the great whole in softest radiance ; every 

 pinnacle and tower gleams and laughs in 

 sky and river : against the evening's glow 

 they lie dusky violet, and the water rip- 

 ples silvery past their feet. 



Within they are as rich as without, but 

 interest for us centers in that great Nor- 

 man Hall, which we think the finest in 

 the world. As early as the days of 

 Canute there was a palace here, but it 

 was William Rufus who, in 1097, began 

 this hall, and a palace that was the resi- 

 dence of kings to the time of Henry 

 VIII. The hall has served as House 

 of Parliament, as a banqueting hall, as a 

 court of justice; it has seen the making 

 of much of England's history and the 

 undoing of her kings. Coronation ban- 

 quets were held here ; captive kings were 

 entertained here ; knights bearing the 

 King's challenge rode full armored into 

 the hall ; Charles I was here condemned 

 to death, as were also William Wallace, 

 champion of Scotch liberty, Sir Thomas 

 More, Guy Fawkes, and many another; 

 here Warren Hastings suffered his long 

 and famous trial of seven years. Today 

 the hall serves merely as a great vestibule 

 to the House of Commons. 



A SUPERB HALE 



It is a superb place, 290 feet long, 68 

 feet wide, 92 feet to the oaken roof, 

 which is quite unsupported by columns, 

 a great clear, free space, mounting by 

 some fine steps at the south end to the 

 great window of St. Stephen's porch. 



Outside this great hall one day we 

 heard — or thought we did — the British 

 Lion's growl. There is a dear jolly 

 laughing lion by St. Stephen's porch, but 

 it was not he ; he is an old friend ; we 

 exchange grins whenever we go to salute 

 Richard Cceur de Lion on his charger. 

 We were sauntering along Old Palace 

 Yard, looking back at Richard and for- 



