THE PALACE OE WESTMINSTER.

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to the time of Henry III. , as in the twenty-first year of his reign there is a mandate for paying Odothe goldsmith, clerk of the works at Westminster, £4. 11s. for pictures, ‘ to be done in the King’schamber’ there. This apartment had two floors, one of which was tesselated, and the other hoarded,supported on vast joists of chestnut timber, which were propped up by middle walls erected to sustainthem. Its length was eighty feet six inches, its width twenty-six feet, and its height from the upperfloor thirty-one feet. The ceiling, which was curiously designed, was of Henry III. ’s time, andembellished with gilded and painted tracery, including small wainscot paterse, variously ornamented.Am ong the paintings on the walls, and which had been entirely forgotten until the removal ofsome old tapestry in 1800, were representations of the battles of the Maccabees ; the Seven Brethren;St. John, habited as a pilgrim, presenting a ring to Edward the Confessor ; the Canonization of KingEdward, etc., interspersed with texts of scripture.

Eormerly the walls of this chamber, to above half their height, were hung with some very curiousold tapestry, chiefly representing the siege of Troy; hut this was taken down in 1800. Previously tothe conflagration of 1834, the Painted Chamber was used as the place of conference between the Lordsand the Commons; hut since that event it was conveniently fitted up by Sir Robert Smirke as thetemporary House of Lords . In former days the opening of New Parliaments took place in thisapartment; and here the warrant for the execution of Charles I. was signed by his judges.

The old House of Lords was originally the ancient Court of Requests, in which the Masters of theCourt received the petitions made to the king from his subjects; for in ‘ the good old time of our ancestors’the monarch was personally accessible to his subjects, and sat in person on the King’s Bench atWestminster.

We have already, in our reference to William the Norman, alluded to the fact of his holding solemncourts at his Palace thrice a year, at Easter , Whitsuntide, and Christmas ; and then all the greatnobility, civil and ecclesiastical, the chief persons of the kingdom, and all suitors, were in attendance.The Court of Common Pleas was especially within the King’s Palace , which may account for thespaciousness of royal residences, for while the business of the kingdom came under consideration,hospitality prevailed.

Stow informs us that in the year 1236 (21st Henry III .), on the day of the circumcision of ourLord, the king’s treasurer was commanded to cause six thousand poor people to be fed at Westminsterfor the state of the king, the queen, and the royal children. The weak and aged were to he placed inthe Great Hall , and in the Lesser those who were more strong and in reasonable plight: in the chambersof the king and queen, the children were fed; and when the king was made acquainted with the chargehe readily allowed it in the account.

King Henry I. is mentioned as the first sovereign of England who personally addressed his GeneralCouncil, or Parliamentary Assembly, in a set speech. Thinking it incumbent on him to explain theharshness of his behaviour towards his eldest brother, Robert Duke of Normandy, and to reconcile hissubjects to the heavy taxes he had laid on them, he called together a General Council of the Nation, and