Westminster and the Royal Family relationship status: it’s complicated.
Westminster is the part of London from which we run the country through our elected representatives in Parliament. Our monarch is a constitutional monarch, acting as head of state within the parameters of elected representation – and has been such ever since King Charles I got himself into such hot water with all that ‘Divine Right of Kings’ malarkey in the 1640s.
Surely the whole idea is to keep the monarchy at arm’s length when it comes to the business of governance. Well, yes… and no.
Like I said, it’s complicated.
The current Palace of Westminster dates in the main from 1837 to 1860, the old one having been consumed by fire in 1834. But there has been a palace here at Westminster for nigh on a millennium. Some sources have it that King Cnut (or Canute, the king fabled for commanding the tide to turn back) resided here from 1016. But it was King Edward the Confessor – builder of the Abbey (more of which anon) who established it as the principal royal residence of medieval times. In 1530, King Henry VIII acquired York Palace from Cardinal Wolsey and moved into the building that became…
Whitehall Palace no longer stands, having burned down in 1698 (dearie me, we have been careless with fire over the years). At its height it was the largest palace in Europe, eclipsing both the Vatican and Versailles.
All that remains of the palace today is the Banqueting House. Built to Inigo Jones’s design and costing some £15,000 when it was completed in 1622, it is a pivotal royal building. As we have seen, King Charles I was executed here in 1649, beginning the nation’s progress towards constitutional rather than absolute monarchy. And it is also the first completed structure in the neoclassical style, which remains for many the benchmark of tasteful and dignified architectural design.
The name Whitehall is appended to the street that links Trafalgar Square with Parliament Square and has become a byword for the machinations of government.
On the other side of the site of the old palace, towards the river on Victoria Embankment, a tiny flake of what once was can still be seen. At the eastern end of what is now the Ministry of Defence (the building with the green roof) we can see a number of steps. These are Queen Mary’s Steps and mark the spot where the River Thames once met the environs of the palace (the river was famously pushed back, or embanked, from 1862). Beneath this section of the building lies the wine cellar of the Palace of Whitehall with its Tudor brick-vaulted roof.
‘What’s it made of?’ is a common walking tour question when approaching many a great London building. And it’s an easy one to answer when looking at the Abbey.
What’s it made of? Well it’s, made of Purbeck marble and Portland stone, to name but two of the building materials.
But it’s held together by whopping great dollops of English history.
Founded in 1042 by pious monarch Edward the Confessor; Ted the C hoped that his building would please God and he’d thus be guaranteed a place in heaven. No mere dropping an extra coin in the plate and helping old ladies across the road for him.
He had the Abbey built in the Norman style with sturdy, squat columns and rounded arches – there’s a depiction of the original in the Bayeux Tapestry, a very different building to the one we see today.
When Edward died he was canonised and his shrine was placed in the centre of the church – the only English king to be sainted. And so the tradition of royal burials began at the Abbey. And within two years, following the victory of William, Duke of Normandy in 1066, the great tradition of coronations began, with King William I elbowing his way to centre stage on Christmas Day.
In 1245 (just in time for lunch? no, I mean the year), King Henry III – dubbed the Builder King, thanks to his appetite for construction – decided to start again. This is more or less the early English Gothic Abbey as we see it today. Influenced by some of the French cathedrals he had seen, King Hank wanted a more opulent church for coronations and royal burials.
The two ‘bookends’ of the Abbey were added later: at the far eastern end (the Parliament end) the King Henry VII chapel was added on his request between 1503 and 1511; and at the western end the two towers were added by Christopher Wren’s successor as the Abbey’s surveyor, Nicholas Hawksmoor to give the Abbey a more impressive silhouette on approach. This is the twin-towered, picture-postcard view that is conjured up at the very mention of England’s foremost church.
Westminster Abbey is a royal peculiar– that is to say, a place of worship that comes under the personal jurisdiction of the monarch. It is the only royal peculiar outside the walls of a royal residence, all others are within the grounds of a palace. The other London royal peculiars are: the Chapel Royal and the Queen’s Chapel at St James’s Palace; the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court; and the Chapel of St John’s and the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London.
Starting with the most recent… did you watch The Wedding? What do you mean which wedding? The Wedding: 29 April 2011, the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, of course.
Great, wasn’t it. Horse-drawn carriages, red-uniformed soldiers, crowds of well-wishers, TV crews, statesmen, celebs and the entire British Establishment on display.*3
Well, get this: that was not a state occasion. That was a private wedding. Albeit a very big one.
The Abbey has been the venue for 16 ‘royal weddings’ to date – a figure that includes two of Queen Elizabeth’s four children – Princess Anne (to Captain Mark Phillips, 1973) and Prince Andrew (to Sarah Ferguson, 1986) – as well as the Queen herself (to Prince Philip in 1947).
Prince Albert, Duke of York, was married to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923 at the Abbey. And it was at this ceremony that a great tradition was born. A delay in the proceedings was caused when Winston Churchill arrived late. In the ensuing hiatus, the bride laid her bouquet on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.
From the wedding of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia in 1382, to that of minor Hanoverian Princess Patricia of Connaught to the Honourable Alexander Ramsay in 1919, not a single flake of confetti fell on the hallowed stones of the Abbey. That the most famous church in England went without a royal wedding for half a millennium seems odd to the modern observer.
But from 1923, when Prince Albert (later King George VI) married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the old place seems to have hardly had a rest between nuptials.
TEN WILLIAM AND CATHERINE WEDDING BITS
■ A global audience of 2.5 billion watched the wedding.
■ 1,000,0000 well-wishers lined the route for Wills and Kate (as we are no longer allowed to call ‘em, of course. It just wouldn’t do to have a Queen Kate. It would be like having a King Darren. Just not on).
■ That dress (#1)… The Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace had no idea they were embroidering the wedding gown. They were thrilled when they recognised their handiwork on the famous dress designed by Sarah Burton at Alexander McQueen.
■ That dress (#2)… The seamstresses had to wash their hands every 30 minutes and the needles were renewed every three hours to keep the lace clean and delicate.
■ That dress (#3)… The lace motifs included a rose, a thistle, a daffodil and a shamrock to represent England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
■ William’s uniform was cut by Gieves & Hawkes of Savile Row.
■ Full-grown trees were used as wedding flora at the Abbey for the first time – field maples and hornbeams wheeled into the Abbey with great difficulty. Cost was high –in the region of £50,000 – but they were very environmentally friendly as they have been replanted.
■ The American bank Merrill Lynch donated £1 million to help spruce up the Abbey – a process which included a restoration of the 14th-century coronation portrait of King Richard II, who had also been married at the Abbey.
■ If you type any of the following phrases into Google – ‘cartwheeling vicar’, ‘cartwheeling priest’, ‘cartwheeling verger’ – you will find a number of sites with footage of a Westminster Abbey official cartwheeling for joy down the aisle of England’s most famous church. Before he does so, he looks around to see if anyone is looking. When he ascertains that he is not being watched, he spins into action, forgetting all about the still-rolling TV cameras.
■ The surge in demand for electricity at the end of the wedding, caused by an estimated 1 million kettles being switched on, was a third higher than that recorded after Charles and Di’s wedding in 1981 – but Charles and Di did have a million more well-wishers than their son lining the route. So we’ll call it a draw.
As with weddings, we’ll begin with the most recent first, that of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother in 2002. By her own request, her funeral wreath was placed upon the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in an echo of her now famous wedding day gesture 79 years earlier. Her final resting place is St George’s Chapel, Windsor, by her late husband and her younger daughter Princess Margaret.
As a tour guide with London Walks, I have spent much of the early 21st Century answering visitors’ questions about the events of 6 September 1997 – the public funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Were there really that many people? Yes, plus 2 billion worldwide on TV.
Were there as many flowers as they say? Yes, a metre-and-a-half deep at Kensington Palace, many of them transferred to Parliament Square.
Did the whole nation go into mourning? Yes, I believe it truly did, one way or another. Even for the most staunch republican, the outpouring of grief was difficult to avoid.
Did it reach hysterical proportions? No, I don’t believe so: the shock, the suddenness of it all served as some kind of anaesthetic, with the most extreme feeling of the period being a kind of surreality.
But these are merely my impressions of the time. Others would have different memories: confusion, perhaps, at the perceived emotional distance of the Queen from the national mood; rage on the radio phone-ins.
The esteem in which Diana was held is, of course, central to the national reaction, summed up so succinctly in Tony Blair’s speech at the time (see Chapter 8).
That Prince Charles remained a bachelor for so long is also a factor. Thirty-three years old is no great age to surrender to nuptial bliss these days, but when one is the heir to the throne, it is inevitable that speculation on such matters becomes almost a national sport. The perceived length of time that Charles held onto his single status created a great wave of royalist euphoria – or even relief – in 1981 for a people starved of royal spectacle for a generation. (The Prince’s investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969 was nice and all that, but archaic ceremonies are not what made Disney rich.)
We Britons who have lived through the past 175 or so years have lived through a period of comparative royal calm: two long-reigning monarchs, Victoria and Elizabeth, have accounted for around 120 years of this period. Okay, we’ve had abdication and three divorces to keep us amused in recent decades. But it’s a mere bagatelle compared with even just the reign of King Henry VIII, or of any of the other royal legends on which we Brits are fed with our mother’s milk.
Thus entire generations had come and gone without witnessing the machinery of state swing majestically into action on big royal days. Such a day was the wedding of Diana and Charles.
And such a day was 6 September 1997.
Eight Welsh Guards accompanied the coffin. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry and the Earl Spencer joined at St James’s Palace.
King Juan Carlos of Spain, Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Constantine II of Greece were in attendance at the Abbey. Nelson Mandela was there. Prime Minister Tony Blair read from the First Letter to the Corinthians: ‘And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ Figures from the world of show business included Elton John, who sang his ‘Candle in the Wind’ (with lyrics rewritten by Bernie Taupin). Earl Spencer’s eulogy had strong words for both the Royal Family (the Earl stated clearly that he respected ‘the tradition’ into which Diana’s sons had been born) and the press, claiming that she was ‘the most hunted person of the modern age’.
Following the funeral of King George II in 1760 there was not another funeral of a monarch or consort in the Abbey until 1925, when Queen Alexandra left the stage.
The Abbey is also known as the resting place of the famous: poets, painters, politicians, musicians, scientists and statesmen – the cluster burials as they are sometimes known. But the original intention was that the Abbey would be a royal mausoleum – and it is.
There are 17 monarchs (not including spouses) buried in the Abbey. When we include wives and consorts, the body count rises to two dozen. We’ll look at the most interesting internments below.
The tradition of royal burials changed because of King George III’s preference for Windsor (you have to be mad to prefer anywhere over London – and, lo and behold, he was, thus proving my point). He – and George and William IV, Victoria, Ted Seven and Georges V & VI – are all interred at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Good Queen Bess is buried alongside her half-sister Bloody Mary. Do you think someone is trying to tell us what to think of them: Good and Bloody?
Although both are buried in the same tomb, it is only Elizabeth’s effigy that can be seen carved in white marble. Both queens struggled with religious unrest and dealt with their own beliefs in very different ways, but in reference to this there is a memorial stone laid in 1977 remembering those divided or martyred in the name of Catholicism or Protestantism. Even in death, our royals get themselves into a bit of a narrative tangle. Families, eh?
Directly opposite on the south side of the Abbey, a similar chapel contains the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Whoa there. What’s she doing here?
Again: it’s complicated.
There she is, lying under the same roof as her cousin Elizabeth, who signed the death warrant for her execution.
And Mary’s tomb is much more lavish than Elizabeth’s. Her fine effigy lies beneath an elaborate canopy covered in thistles and at her feet sits the red lion of Scotland, wearing a crown and almost roaring in victory.
How did such a thing come to pass?
When Elizabeth died childless in 1603, the next in line to the throne was Mary’s son, James VI of Scotland. When ‘Jamie the Saxt of Scotland’ then added the title King James I of England to his CV, he had his dear old mum’s body moved to the royal church and buried in a tomb fit for a queen.
Two miniature tombs contain King James I’s baby daughters, who died in infancy, and on the wall is a stone casket that holds the bones of the two little princes, 15th-century Edward V and his brother Richard (see Chapter 9).
In Poets’ Corner (see the section on poets laureate, here) a memorial to Laurence Olivier can be found. Ennobled to the level of the Right Honourable the Lord Olivier as Baron Olivier of Brighton in 1970, and wearer of a number of Shakespearean crowns, Olivier’s great contribution to our royal tale is his voice-over for the film of the coronation in 1953, A Queen is Crowned. (Olivier himself was no stranger to coronations and blue blood, having played Kings Richard III and Henry V on screen, as well as the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet.)
The business of crowning our monarchs is central to the story of Westminster Abbey and has been since that French fellow William of Normandy came a-conquering in 1066.
The coronation itself remains a lavish and highly theatrical ceremony. Given our love of pomp and circumstance was it ever going to be anything else? Did you think it was just a small matter of lobbing a bling-encrusted hat on someone’s head and then all off to the after-party? No no no.
During the proceedings the new monarch undergoes six stages of symbolic ritual to elevate them into the tradition.
CORONATION: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
Does it all seem a bit theatrical, this coronation business?
To be fair, it’s an aspect of the day that we are not unaware of.
When King Henry III had the Abbey rebuilt, he had the coronation specifically in mind. A raised dais can be found at the heart of the building in an area known as – what else? – the theatre.
Stage by stage (no pun intended), here’s how we go about crowning a monarch (this is your cut-out-and-keep guide for that most paradoxical of things: a great day that we hope is a long, long way off. Like I said, it’s complicated)…
Stage one: recognition
The new monarch enters the Abbey and there is a procession (ooh, we love a procession) down the nave to the theatre. There are peers (folks from the House of Lords) in red robes and there is much saluting and shouting of ‘Vivat!’ (the Latin for ‘Long live!’)
(When you think of the whole thing as being not unlike the last reel of Star Wars, then it doesn’t seem so weird or frightening.)
Stage two: oath
There’s always serious stuff wrapped up in our pageantry. The monarch must now swear to govern the populace by the laws of the land and act as Defender of the Faith.
Stage three: consecration
The monarch is then escorted to the coronation chair – a gold-painted wooden chair installed by King Edward I. After his seizure of the Stone of Scone in 1296, Edward I had a special shelf made to hold it – symbolic of his suppression of the Scots (the Stone of Scone was the ancient Stone of Destiny on which every Scottish king had been crowned since time immemorial).
At this point we must pause to borrow, appropriately, from Sir Walter Scott… It is now, gentle reader, that we take to a seemingly leafy literary glade away from the beaten path of our narrative to deal with the Stone of Scone.
Brought to the Abbey as above, the King issued the instruction to bring ‘that turd’ as a trophy. Although some say that the monks at Scone Abbey had already cast the real one to the bottom of the River Tay upon hearing Edward’s army approach. Some others say that, when the Stone was stolen/liberated on Christmas Day 1950 by four Scottish students, then the thieves/liberators returned a copy and not the original to Westminster. I once met a man in Oban who said his Uncle Jimmy had the real one in his back garden. But then I met another chap in Fife who said he had it in the cupboard under his stairs.
Once the monarch is seated, the consecration is performed where the sovereign is anointed and baptised using holy oil administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the backs of the hands, the breast and the forehead.
Stage four: investiture
The dressing up bit. The monarch is dressed in the coronation robes and ornaments – the outward symbols of inward and spiritual grace.
This fabulous costume change, transforming someone who is just really, really, really posh into an actual ruler, begins with the aptly named supertunica (originally modeled on a Roman consul’s dress uniform), followed by the imperial mantle, which is heavily embroidered with shamrocks, fleurs de lys, roses and thistles. Both garments are made out of woven gold thread and combined weigh 23 pounds (10kg).
Next the sceptres. The sceptre with the cross symbolises temporal power under the cross; the sceptre with the dove, equity and mercy.
Once all the regalia has been presented, the actual crowning can take place. Did you think I’d forgotten about the crown?
St Edward’s Crown (named after Edward the Confessor, founder of the Abbey) is placed on the sovereign’s head and then all present shout ‘God Save the queen/king’ – deleting, of course, as appropriate.
Stage five: enthronement
The penultimate stage in which the monarch is physically lifted from the coronation chair to the throne. When one becomes king/queen, one no longer has to worry about walking short distances between the furniture.
Once enthroned the homage can begin…
Stage six: homage
The peers and peeresses in attendance now don their coronets and caps and process to bow and pay homage to the new monarch.
Finally, holy communion is then taken and the new sovereign withdraws to St Edward’s Chapel for the last costume change into purple velvet robes and the more familiar Imperial State Crown (the one the Queen wears on the stamps) for the procession out.
Phew. How to follow that? Only Samuel Pepys could even try.
After Charles II’s coronation in 1661, Pepys, impressed and overawed, wrote: ‘I may now shut my eyes against any other objects… being sure never to see the like again in this world.’
Quite so, Sam.
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at the Abbey on 2 June 1953. It took Abbey staff six months to prepare for the occasion and 3,000 guests crammed into the Abbey on the day.
The BBC set up their (at that point) biggest ever outside broadcast to provide live coverage of the event on radio and television (the broadcast was made in 44 languages). Sales of television sets boomed – the embryonic medium was given a great fillip on the day we acquired our Prince Philip.
An estimated 3 million people lined the streets of London to watch the royal procession.
In that post-war age of shortages and rationing, there was an insufficient number of professional coachmen to transport dignitaries to the Abbey and so businessmen and country squires offered their services on the day, dressed up as Buckingham Palace servants.
The great Trinidadian calypso singer Young Tiger (born plain ol’ George Browne) recorded the events of the day on his 78rpm record ‘(I Was There) At the Coronation’. In the lyrics of the song, he described the royal couple thus:
Her Majesty looked really divine
In her crimson robe furred with ermine
The Duke of Edinburgh, dignified and neat
Sat beside her as Admiral of the Fleet.
(You can hear Young Tiger and all the other great calypsonians of the Windrush generation on the wonderful album London is the Place for Me on Honest Jon’s Records.)
TEN CORONATION TREATS
William I
When William I was crowned on Christmas Day, the language barrier posed a few problems. When the subjugated English guests shouted their consent during the recognition of the new king, the French Norman soldiers though they were protesting and in retaliation began burning local houses, thus causing chaos and confusion and a general exodus from the Abbey.
Richard II
Richard II was only 11 years old when he was crowned and fell asleep half way through the ceremony. To be fair, it is a long day for a kid. His recently restored coronation picture hangs on one of the left-hand columns of the nave.
George I
Again, language was the problem – this time the German–English divide. When George I was crowned, he understood nothing as he did not speak a word of English so his coronation was exceptionally long-winded with translators on board. He remained resolutely oblivious to the language of his peoples throughout his reign.
George IV
Money. Marital strife. An embarrassing scene. Big hair. Is it a scene from Dynasty? If not, it can only be King George IV. Never one to go in for understatement, he had the most expensive coronation ever, spending £24,000 on his robes alone – the cost did include a gigantic wig which proved a little too warm during the ceremony as his thick makeup began to melt and drip.
George IV (#2)
His estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick could be heard outside the Abbey hammering on the West Door and shouting to be admitted… but to no avail. George had ordered that his detested spouse should be locked out and she eventually gave up and went home.
George IV (#3)
George related after his coronation that both the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the Bishop of Durham were so nervous that neither could find the oath. And so the King had to read it from the Archbishop’s book (the order of service) and then, to top it all, when St Edward’s Crown was placed on the King’s head, it was back to front.
Queen Victoria
At Queen Victoria’s coronation the royal jewellers Garrard and Co. made the coronation ring too small and the Archbishop had to use considerable effort to force it onto her fourth finger. Victoria later recorded in her journal: ‘I had great difficulty to take it off again – which I at last did with great pain.’ At least they had 64 years to get the next one right.
King Henry VI
Longest wait for a coronation: seven years. King Henry VI was only months old when he became the king in 1422. He was crowned in 1429.
Edward V, Lady Jane Grey, King Edward VIII
Ted V and LJG were both deposed before they were crowned. Edward VIII abdicated after just 326 days. In the case of King Edward VIII, his coronation arrangements carried on regardless – all that changed was the head upon which the crown was placed, that of his brother George VI on the self-same day in May 1937.
Queen Elizabeth II
A minor hiccup, really, in the scheme of things. It rained. Typical.
Edward the Confessor was so pleased with the result of building a Benedictine monastery – or minster – west of the old city that he had a palace built next door. Building began in the late 1040s.
Shortly afterwards William the Conqueror chose it as his main home and so it became the main residence of the kings of England for the next 400 years, until the reign of King Henry VIII when Whitehall, Hampton Court and Greenwich became his favourites. But although it went out of fashion as a royal residence, it continued to be the centre for the administration and practical running of the country, functions that still take place on the site of the old palace today.
It was not the palace of fairytales with points and pinnacles and graceful symmetry but a bit of a medieval mishmash, a chaotic and ever-spreading collection of half-timbered buildings arranged around a series of courtyards. The majority of buildings were made of wood – stone was expensive and time-consuming to use – but there were two notable exceptions: Westminster Hall and the Jewel Tower.
Today, the Jewel Tower and Westminster Hall are all that is left of the former royal palace and residence; the old palace burned down in the fire of 1834 and today the new Palace of Westminster stands on its site, the seat of government in the UK.
At the western side of today’s Palace of Westminster, our bicameral Houses of Parliament, we find a statue of Oliver Cromwell. The spectre at the feast, the elephant in the room, we had to get around to him sooner or later.
Cromwell came first in the English Civil War, had the king beheaded, and took over the running of the country with no monarch as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. His statue serves as a reminder that we have a constitutional monarchy and not an absolute monarchy.
The statue caused controversy in the 1890s when the Irish Nationalist Party protested about the public funding of the statue, Cromwell providing rare common ground for Irish republicans and traditional British monarchists. (Cromwell’s army and their brutal treatment of the Irish people in the 1640s sees Cromwell invoked as a figure of hatred for many in Ireland to this day.)
The statue was privately funded by Lord Rosebery. Legend has it that the Irish MPs only agreed to the statue because it would be situated in ‘the well’ outside Westminster Hall and would therefore be almost hidden – the statue’s proponents had failed to reveal the size of the plinth that boosts ol’ laughing boy to impressive prominence. Such chicanery in the Mother of All Parliaments? Surely some mistake…
Upon the restoration of the monarchy, Cromwell’s severed head was displayed on a spike at Westminster Hall (the building before which he now stands) following his posthumous ‘execution’ in 1661.
(We’ve been rather over-fond of such gruesome punishments in our island story down through the centuries, and I’d just like to point out here that we do nice things in England, too: we drink tea, we play cricket, we grow roses.)
Westminster Hall is the oldest remaining part of the old Palace of Westminster still standing within the parameters of the new palace (we’ll deal with the adjacent Jewel Tower later).
The Palace of Westminster, our Houses of Parliament, remains a symbol of both London and Britishness the world over – particularly the clock tower, or Big Ben as it is popularly known. The palace takes centre stage in the royal story at…
The State Opening of Parliament is where the worlds of pageantry and the serious business of governing a modern country collide – in a fireworks display of ritual and ceremony.
As a major state occasion, security is naturally very high. Debate on our high surveillance society will have to wait for another book – you may have noticed, er, one or two CCTV cameras on your travels through our great capital. But security has long been an issue here at Parliament and the first ‘tradition’ that is observed on the day of the State Opening of Parliament is the Yeomen of the Guard making a precautionary sweep of the cellars. The spirit of ol’ Guido Fawkes and his Gunpowder Plot of 1605 still looms large over the whole affair.
The next tradition that is observed is the ceremonial hostage taking of an MP.
(Of all our ceremonies, this is the one where we go right over the top.)
Before the monarch leaves the palace to go to Westminster, a Member of Parliament is taken to the palace to act as a hostage in the event of Parliament turning ugly (or even uglier than usual) in the presence of HRH. (It’s that man again, King Charles I, who back in 1642 stormed into Parliament and demanded the arrest of five members for treason. He was given short shrift and, quite against the spirit of forgive and forget, no monarch has been allowed into the House of Commons since that time.)
Bear in mind that all this happens before the monarch has even set foot in the Roller. This is just the prelude.
Next up is the crown, travelling in its own state coach. Yes, HM’s hat travels in style even when on its own. At Victoria Tower*4 (the square tower at the opposite end of Parliament to Big Ben), the crown is passed by the Queen’s Bargemaster*5 to the Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s office. Along with the Great Sword of State and the Cap of Maintenance, the crown is carried to the Royal Gallery.
The monarch enters by the Monarch’s Gate (4) – a gilt-edged, wroughtiron gate at the base of Victoria Tower where he or she is received by the most senior members of the House of Lords. These Lords then accompany the monarch into the Robing Room – yup, they’ve got a special room set aside for this – where the Imperial State Crown (see Chapter 9) and robes are donned while other members of the House of Lords congregate in traditional ceremonial gowns. (In the modern era, many Lords are gowned in fake ermine, to show their opposition to hunting for fashion purposes.)
A fanfare of trumpets sounds – which is good news because that almost always means that we’re getting a procession. Sure enough, the monarch and attendants then process through the Lords to the throne where the monarch is seated. Enter Black Rod.
He has the best part.
Bearing in mind that the sovereign is not welcome in the House of Commons, he/she has to knock at the door. But he/she is the king/queen, and ain’t gonna knock on nobody’s door, no how, no way.
So the sovereign has a chap to do this on the royal behalf.
Black Rod – for ’tis surely he – is dispatched to tell the Commons to get their sorry behinds out of the chamber and into the royal presence.
The door of the Commons is duly slammed in Black Rod’s face to symbolise the Commons’ independence since the days of the Commonwealth.
Black Rod – a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (see Chapter 9) – then summons the members of the House of Commons by banging on the door with his big (black) stick (rod). Three times. Loudly.
It is a great and deeply theatrical moment.
The door of the Commons chamber then opens – reluctantly – and then the MPs follow him, talking loudly to symbolise their independent voice to the House of Lords.
The Lord Chancellor then presents the gracious speech to the monarch to read. HRH has no hand in the writing of the speech – it is composed by the government and outlines their policies and what they hope to achieve over the parliamentary session.
The ceremony usually takes place around November and, although we can’t attend unless we are taking part, it still affords a great opportunity to get a glimpse of the monarch on duty around Westminster on the day.
Westminster Hall was built between 1097 and 1099 and was originally used as a magnificent banqueting hall. It was the largest banqueting hall in Europe and was the marvel of all who visited. William II had great plans for augmenting the palace – all cut short when he was killed in the New Forest in 1100.
Later, Richard II beautified and improved the hall by employing architect Henry Yevele (who completed the Abbey’s nave around the same time) to design a new porch and roof, elevating the height of the hall by half a metre. The King’s motif – the white hart – was incorporated into the décor and, perhaps most impressively, an oak hammerbeam roof was installed – the work of Hugh Herland. It remains the widest unsupported span in the country.
The hall soon became used as an administrative centre. Grand Councils and early Parliaments were held here and from the 13th Century to the late 19th Century it was most famously used as a law court.
The hall has on occasion been used for royal lyings-in-state – Edward VII and the Queen Mother – as well as for that of Winston Churchill in 1965.
Built at the same time as Westminster Hall got a new roof, and again credited to Henry Yevele, the Jewel Tower was built between 1365 and 1366 of Kentish ragstone specifically to keep not only the Crown Jewels but also other valuable royal possessions safe: solid gold dinner services used for banquets, fur-trimmed robes and other fine pieces of schmutter, damask, gold cloth and heavily embroidered tabards.
Three storeys high and surrounded by a moat, it was a very successful treasure house and was used as such until Tudor times, when King Henry VII had the Crown Jewels moved to the Tower of London and the fine livery to the King’s Wardrobe in the city.
From 1621 to 1864, parliamentary records were kept here; then, from 1864 to 1938, it was used as a weights and measures office. Today it is a fascinating museum run by English Heritage detailing the architecture and development of the old Palace of Westminster.
A NICE SIT DOWN AND A CUP OF TEA
If one wanted to read this chapter inside an actual palace, the best thing to do would be to write to your MP and apply for a guided tour as one of his/her constituents. You’d have to keep your fingers crossed that the MP in question was amenable enough to end the tour with a nice cup of tea and a sit down in the Commons canteen. And if it all pans out, then at least you’d have something to read rather than having to listen to a politician droning on.
Not very practical, all told.
Luckily, local alternatives abound.
On the main drag
Methodist Central Hall
Westminster, SW1H 9NH. Tube: Westminster
Unwilling as I am to quote verbatim from publicity materials, the website of Methodist Central Hall has this little nugget with which it is very difficult to take umbrage. It describes ‘an excellent cafeteria in the basement where visitors can enjoy light refreshments, mid-day meals and teas’.
Quite so. As a busy place of worship, and as a conference centre, Methodist Central Hall has reduced access from time to time, but when open it provides a lovely little oasis in the heart of raging Westminster. Check opening times on their website at www.methodist-central-hall.org.uk.
Something a little stronger, perhaps?
Walkers of Whitehall
15 Craig’s Court, SW1A 2DD. Tube: Charing Cross
It’s not often that converted banks, churches and former municipal buildings make good pubs – they often make large pubs, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Walkers is the exception.
Formerly an Irish bank, it is tucked away behind the busier pubs of Whitehall and does a rather nice bite to eat, too – baguettes, sharing platters. And a drinks menu that caters to wine drinkers as seriously as it panders to beer aficionados.
Sssshhh. It’s a secret
Westminster Cathedral
42 Francis Street, SW1P 1QW. Tube: Victoria/St James’s Park
Seems odd to be talking of secrets in plain view of the heart of Europe’s biggest city, but the café in the crypt at Westminster Cathedral may just qualify for such an epithet. No mention is made of it on the cathedral’s main website, and there are no signs outside the building itself.
Perhaps a little odd, too, to suggest a Roman Catholic church for a book on the Defenders of the Faith – but, as we have seen, the Protestant faith is only some 500 years old in our tale. Almost half of our story is set against the backdrop of the Old Faith; the other half is told in spite of it. Where better to read it than England’s principal Catholic church.
(Tip: when you’ve had a read and a cup of tea, the gift shop provides access to a lift which will take you to the top of the tower to enjoy one of the best views in London. The ride costs £5 and the view is priceless.).
(*3Missing dignitaries included our most recent prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, while Sir John Major, Blair’s predecessor, was in attendance. ‘Sir’ here is the key and neither Blair nor Brown have yet been knighted. The wedding being a private affair, there was no protocol for either their inclusion or exclusion. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, was also missing. Popular speculation has suggested that she is persona non grata in royal circles given her involvement in a cash-for-access scandal in 2010, although such tales are seldom if ever confirmed officially by St James’s Palace. Rumours that the Duchess may have been smuggled into the wedding under her daughter’s voluminous fascinator remain unconfirmed.)
(*4Victoria Tower is the entrance to the House of Lords – remember that the monarch is barred from the House of Commons.)
(*5The Queen’s Bargemaster is a post that seldom crops up down the Jobcentre. Today it is a largely ceremonial post, with the Bargemaster being in charge of the 24 Royal Watermen, each of whom are salaried at £3.50 per annum.)