Francis Palgrave, died 1861. of the papers and parchments that were doled out to him, formed the solid folios of Rymer's Fœdera.'1 Sir Francis Palgrave-who can forget the delight of exploring under his guidance the treasures of which he was the honoured guardian? So dearly did he value the connexion which, through his Keepership of the Records, he had established with this venerable edifice, that, lest he should seem to have severed the last link, he insisted, even after the removal of the Records, on the replacement of the direction outside the door, which there remained long after his death- All letters and parcels addressed to Sir F. Palgrave are to be sent to Rolls Court, Chancery Lane.' On the night of the fire which consumed the Houses of Parliament in 18342-when thousands were gathered below, watching the progress of the flames-when the waning affection for our ancient national monuments seemed to be revived in that crisis of their fate-when, as the conflagration was driven by the wind towards Westminster Hall, the innumerable faces of that vast multitude, lighted up in the broad glare with more than the light of day, were visibly swayed by the agitation of the devouring breeze, and one voice, one prayer seemed to go up from every upturned countenance, 'O save 'the Hall!'-on that night two small figures might have been seen standing on the roof of the Chapter House overlooking the terrific blaze, parted from them only by the narrow space of Old Palace Yard. One was the Keeper of the Records, Sir F. Palgrave; the other was Dean Ireland. They had climbed up through the hole in the roof to witness the awful scene. Suddenly a gust of wind swept the flames in that direction. Palgrave, with all the enthusiasm of the antiquarian and of his own eager temperament, turned to 1 Mr. Burtt, in the Gentleman's Magazine, October 1859, pp. 336-343. 2 I owe this story partly to Lord Hatherley, who witnessed it from below; and partly to Sir Francis Palgrave himself. the Dean, and suggested that they should descend into the Chapter House, and carry off its most valued treasures into the Abbey for safety. Dean Ireland, with the caution belonging at once to his office and his character, answered that he could not think of doing so without applying to Lord Melbourne, the First Lord of the Treasury. It was a true, though grotesque, expression of the actual The Refacts of the case. The Government were the masters of the storation of the House, Chapter House. On them thus devolved the duty of its Chapter preservation, when, after its various vicissitudes, it once more 1865. became vacant by the removal of the Records to the Rolls House. Then, in 1865, in the eight hundredth anniversary of its own foundation, in the six hundredth anniversary of the House of Commons, which it had so long sheltered, a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries was held within its disfigured and deserted walls, to urge the duty of restoring it to its pristine beauty. Under the auspices of Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Cowper, First Commissioner of Works, the adequate sum was granted by Parliament, and the venerable building will become one of the most splendid trophies of the archæological and architectural triumphs of the Nineteenth Century. House. Not far from the Chapter House and Treasury, and The Jewel curiously following their fortunes, is an ancient square 'Tower,' which, it has been conjectured, may once have served the purpose of a monastic prison, but which was sold by the Abbey to the Crown in the last year of Edward III.1 It bears in its architecture the marks of the great builder of that time-Abbot Littlington. It was first devoted to the purposes, and for many years bore the name, of the King's 1 Widmore, 174, 231. 2 For the architectural description of it, see Gleanings, p. 226. It is now used as the depositary of the standards of weights and measures, both old and The Parliament Office. The Anchorite. Jewel House. It then became the Parliament Office,'-that is, the depository of the Acts of Parliament, which had been passed either in the adjacent Chapter House or in the Chapel of St. Stephen. In 1864' they were transferred to the far grander Tower, bearing the name of Queen Victoria, and exhibiting the same enlarged proportions to the humble Tower of the Plantagenets, that the Empire of our gracious Sovereign bears to their diminutive kingdom. But the grey fortress still remains, and, with the Treasury and the Chapter House forms the triple link of the English State and Church with the venerable past. Comparing the concentration of English historical edifices at Westminster with those at Rome under the Capitol, as the Temple of Saturn finds its likeness in the Treasury, and the Temple of Concord (where the Senate assembled) in the Chapter House and Refectory, so the massive walls of the Tabularium, where the decrees of the Senate were carefully guarded, correspond to the Square Tower of the Parliament Office, overlooking the garden of the Precincts from which it has long been parted. From the Jewel House, across the end of the Garden, was a pathway to the stream which flowed into the Thames-used chiefly for processions on Rogation days and other like holidays-over a piece of ground which belonged to the Prior, but which was left as a kind of waste plot, from its exposure to the floods both of stream and river. This corner of the precincts was the scene of a curious story, which was, no doubt, often told in the Cloister and Refectory. Not far from the Jewel House lived the hermit who,2 as we have seen, formed an adjunct of the monastic community-an advanced guard of peculiar sanctity. By this removal was recovered the long-lost Prayerbook of 1662, which had been detached from the Act of Uniformity, and had lain hid in some obscure corner of the Parliament The anchorite who occupied Office. It was in 1864 deposited in the Chief Clerk's Office in the House of Lords, where it was found in 1867. 2 See p. 421. |