Random Recollections of the House of Lords, from the Year 1830 to 1836; Including Personal Sketches of the Leading Members (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RANDOM RECOLLECTIONS, andc. andc. CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE. In accordance with the plan I adopted in my work on the other House of Parliament, I begin this volume with some account of the interior of the building in which the Lords assembled for their legislative deliberations prior to its partial destruction by the great fire of October, 1834. That edifice, as is generally known, has been repaired for the accommodation of the Commons at an expense of upwards of 30,000/. It is generally supposed that it was originally the Banquet Hall attached to the royal residence; but that on the erection of Westminster Hall, it was converted into the Court of Requests, in which the King received the petitions of his subjects. It was afterwards, but at what precise period is not known, appropriated to the use of the Lords. At the union of Great. Britain and Ireland, in 1800, it was enlarged and repaired, and put into that condition in which it was found at the time of the late destructive fire. The interior of the late House of Lords formed a large and spacious chamber. Its length from south to north was eighty feet, and its breadth from east to west, forty feet. The height from the floor to the ceiling was about thirty feet. The place was well lighted by three semi-circular windows on each side. The windows were about six feet in height, and their tops-were only about one foot below the ceiling. The walls beneath were all hung with tapestry of the richest kind, M Random Recollections of the House of Commons." divided into compartments: the last of the tapestries which had been made to decorate the walls of the House 'were the most superb. They consisted of representations of the dispersion of the Spanish Armada ip the year 1588, and were presented by the States of Holland ...