WESTMINSTER HALL.

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WESTMINSTER HALL.

ITS ERECTOR.-THE HALL FOR THE CORONATION AND BANQUETINGS OF THE ENGLISH KINGS.-EXTRAORDINARY SCENES AND REMARKABLE TRIALS WHICH HAVE OCCURRED THERE FROM THE TIME OF WILLIAM RUFUS TILL THE PRESENT DAY.

WESTMINSTER HALL is perhaps the most interesting apartment in Europe: to an Englishman it is unquestionably so. Who is there, indeed, whose philosophy is so cold, or whose heart is so dead to every poetical or romantic feeling, as to be able to cross, without deep emotion, the threshold of the colossal banqueting-room of the Norman Kings, associated as it is in our minds with so many scenes of gorgeous splendour, so many events of tragical interest? Here our early monarchs sat personally in judgment on their subjects; here, on its vastest scale, was displayed the rude but magnificent hospitality of the Middle Ages; here a long line of sovereigns, the Norman, the Tudor, the Plantagenet, and the Stuart,-have sat at their gorgeous coronation banquets; here Edward the Third embraced his gallant son, when the "sable warrior" returned from the bloody field of Poictiers conducting a monarch as his captive; and here were the trial-scenes of the young and accomplished Essex,

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the stately Strafford, and the ill-fated Charles the First!

Westminster Hall, it is almost needless to remark, was originally erected by William Rufus, to serve as a banqueting-hall to the palace of the Confessor. It was completed in 1099, in which year we find him keeping his court beneath its roof. "In this year," writes Matthew Paris, “King William, on returning from Normandy into England, held, for the first time, his court in the new Hall at Westminster. Having entered to inspect it, with a large military retinue, some persons remarking that it was too large, and larger than it should have been, the King replied that it was not half so large as it should have been,' and that it was only a bed-chamber in comparison with the building which he intended to make." This same year, according to Stow, William Rufus kept his Whitsuntide in the Palace of Westminster, and feasted in his new banqueting-hall" very royally."

Henry the First, King Stephen, and Henry the Second were severally crowned in the Abbey of Westminster, and doubtless kept their coronation feasts in the old Hall. Here also Henry, the eldest son of Henry the Second, was crowned in the lifetime of his father, and the banquet in Westminster Hall, which followed, is rendered not a little remarkable from the following scene, as described by one of the old chroniclers. "The King," says Holinshed, "upon that day served his son at the table as sewer, bringing up the boar's head, with

trumpets before it, according to the usual manner. Whereupon the young man, conceiving a pride in his breast, beheld the standers-by with a more stately countenance than he had wont. The Archbishop of York, who sat by him, marking his behaviour, turned unto him, and said,- Be glad, my good son, there is not another prince in the world hath such a sewer at his table.' To this the new King answered, as it were disdainfully,

Why dost thou marvel at that? My father, in doing it, thinketh it not more than becometh him; he, being of princely blood only on the mother's side, serveth me that am a King born, having both a King to my father, and a Queen to my mother.' Thus the young man, of an evil and perverse nature, was puffed up with pride by his father's unseemly doing."

During the reigns of Richard the First and King John we find no particular notices of Westminster Hall, but, as both these monarchs were crowned and kept their courts at Westminster, they must often have banqueted beneath its roof.

On the occasion of his marriage, in January, 1236, with Eleanor, daughter of Raymond Earl of Provence, and her subsequent coronation, we find Henry the Third giving a magnificent banquet in Westminster Hall. "At the nuptial feast," says Matthew Paris, "were assembled such a multitude of the nobility of both sexes; such numbers of the religious, and such a variety of stage-players, that the city of London could scarcely contain

them. In the procession, the Earl of Chester bore before the King the sword of Edward the Confessor. The High Marshal of England (the Earl of Pembroke) carried a rod before the King, both in the church and in the hall, making way for the King, and arranging the guests at the royal table. The Barons of the Cinque Ports bare a canopy over the King, supported on five spears. The Earl of Leicester held water for the King to wash before dinner, and the Earl of Warenne officiated as the royal cup-bearer, in lieu of the Earl of Arundel, who was a youth not yet knighted. Master Michael Belet had the office of butler; the Earl of Hereford was Marshal of the King's household; William de Beauchamp was almoner. The justiciary of the forests removed the dishes from the King's table; the citizens of London poured the wine abundantly into precious cups; the citizens of Winchester had oversight of the kitchen and napery. The chancellor, the chamberlain, the marshal, and the constable, took their seats with reference to their offices; and all the barons in the order of their creation. The solemnity was resplendent with the clergy and knights, properly placed; but how shall I describe the dainties of the table, and the abundance of diverse liquors; the quantity of game, the variety of fish, the multitude of jesters, and the attention of the waiters? Whatever the world pours forth of pleasure and glory was there especially displayed."

Such was a royal banquet in the thirteenth

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century! The same year we find the King entertaining six thousand poor men, women, and children, in Westminster Hall and the adjoining apartments of the palace.

In 1241, Henry entertained the Pope's legate, Otho, with great magnificence in Westminster Hall, and on the 5th of January following (St. Edward's Day), he feasted a vast assemblage of guests, consisting chiefly of the citizens of London, who, it appears, were summoned to attend by a royal edict, subject to a penalty of one hundred shillings if they absented themselves. The last entertainment which we shall mention in this reign, was a magnificent one given by the King in Westminster Hall, in 1244, in honour of the marriage of his brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall, with Cincia of Provence, sister of the Queens of France and England. According to Matthew Paris, as many as thirty thousand dishes were prepared for the nuptial banquet.

A few years afterwards, Westminster Hall presented an extraordinary and almost awful scene. Henry the Third had so often broken faith with his barons and his people; so often, when he required their assistance, had he made solemn vows to regard the ancient charters of the realm, and so often had he disregarded them in the hour of his prosperity, that when, in 1253, he was reduced to the last extremity for want of money, it was only by agreeing to bind himself by an obligation far more awful and solemn than any of his preceding ones; and by consenting to submit to excommunication, and all