Britain's palace for the people

By CHRIS and JAN DAVIDSON

"When you enter the chamber, on pain of death, do not sit down." Allowing for some rhetorical licence, our tour guide was making it clear that Britain's legislators did not want to share their seats with anyone.

No one dared to argue. After all, we were standing in the House of Commons, between the Speaker's Chair and the Government benches, on the spot where Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone and Churchill once guided the changing fortunes of the British Empire.

While the House was out of session, the ghosts of speakers past remained. For even the most lukewarm of Anglophiles, it was a privilege to stand - if not sit - where so much of such importance has been said.

We were on a tour of the Houses of Parliament in London, open to visitors during the summer parliamentary recess.

This self-styled "Mother of Parliaments", crouching lion-like on the banks of the Thames, is a symbol of the glories of the British Empire on which the sun never set.

In the history of that Empire, London's magnificent Houses of Parliament - or the new Palace of Westminster - rose from the ashes of the old at just the right time.

In October 1834, with Queen Victoria newly crowned and industrialised Britain picking up a head of steam, a large part of the old Palace of Westminster - the seat of English government since Norman times - was burned down.

Among the losses were the chamber of the House of Lords and St Stephen's Chapel where the House of Commons had met for 300 years.

For the politicians of the day, this was an opportunity to build a seat of government that would reflect the majesty, confidence and expanding wealth of Victorian England. Over the next quarter-century, as Britannia's rule on the waves and much else strengthened, a magnificent, neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster took shape. It was finally complete when Big Ben first chimed in 1859, giving voice to the spirit of Empire.

Today, much of the appeal of the Houses of Parliament lies in them being a time capsule from the period when God may possibly have been an Englishman, as far as the English were concerned, anyway.

Our tour began at the Victoria Tower, at the opposite end of the complex to Big Ben. With 20 others, we were gathered up by a Blue Badge guide - one of those courteous, confident and highly trained Brits who make visiting English heritage sites so rewarding - and led in through the Sovereign's Entrance.

She explained that this was where the Queen arrived each year in the Irish State Coach for the State Opening of Parliament. We followed the Queen's path, up the steps to the Robing Room where the Queen dons the Imperial State Crown and the Parliament Robe in ornate surroundings dominated by murals of Arthurian legends and other mythical and historic monarchs of early Britain.

This monarchical theme extends throughout the complex. In the Royal Gallery adjoining the Robing Room, the statues of kings in armour recall the royalty of medieval England. Beyond, in the Princes Chamber adjacent to the House of Lords, the theme is Tudor, and includes matching portraits of all six wives of Henry VIII.

As the guide explained, the House of Lords - for all the grandeur of the chamber - is not what it was.

After being the source of power for British aristocracy for almost 1000 years, the kingdom's upper house has been reformed in recent times to become a House of Review more typical of a modern democracy.

In particular, the number of hereditary peers has been cut from about 700 to 92, while the number of life peers has risen to about 500. These are usually distinguished former politicians, appointed lords or ladies for their lifetime only. However, they still sit in the gilded luxury deemed suitable for the House of Peers in the early-19th century.

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who was promoted to the House of Lords after his career in the Commons, said of the change in his political status: "I am dead; dead, but in the Elysian fields."

From the House of Lords, the tour follows the path taken by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod at the State Opening of Parliament - through the Peers' Lobby to the Commons' Lobby where, by tradition, the door to the Commons' chamber is slammed in his face. He then knocks to be admitted to summons the members of the House to the Lords for the Queen's speech.

At this door of the House of Commons is a brass statue of Winston Churchill, at his bellicose best. His right shoe appears to be gilded. The guide explained that its shine resulted from generations of MPs, particularly new ones, rubbing the statue for luck as they enter the chamber.

Maybe some would recall that this was the Churchill who, on May 13, 1940 as a new Prime Minister, rose in the Commons to warn: "I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined the Government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

He was speaking to the House of Commons but not in this same chamber. For, a year later, on May 10, 1941, the room was gutted by German incendiary bombs.

Government continued as the House of Commons moved to the House of Lords (and the House of Lords to the Robing Room) until the Commons was restored in its original form. It was reopened in 1951, the same except for some minor additions, including a new Speaker's Chair donated by Australia.

One of the surprising things about the House of Commons is its size. It is small: smaller than the House of Lords, much smaller than the legislative chambers of many other parliaments moulded on the Westminster tradition, and even too small to seat all its members.

There are 629 members of the House of Commons, but only 400 seats, so parliamentarians have a range of customs about acquiring and reserving a seat for the day in the chamber.

They are among many quaint traditions in the Commons. For example, during morning prayers, members turn to face the wall - a practice attributed to the difficulty parliamentarians who wore swords had kneeling to pray in the tiered seating.

The two red lines down the carpet in the centre of the chamber are also sword-related. Members must speak from behind these red lines because traditionally they are two sword lengths apart - therefore confining conflicts to the verbal.

The tour continues into St Stephen's Hall - on the site of St Stephen's Chapel where the Commons met for hundreds of years. The practice of bowing to the Speaker in the Commons recalls that there was once an altar where the Speaker now sits. The hall is lined with statues of great debaters who spoke there.

The tour ends in the ancient Westminster Hall, where the Queen Mother lay in state before her funeral this year. The hall dates back to 1097 when William II moved the government from the Tower of London to Westminster.

Its hammerbeam roof was added in 1399 and was the largest in Europe for hundreds of years. For centuries, Westminster Hall was England's major law court, and witnessed the trials of William Wallace, Sir Thomas More and Charles I, and of Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament in 1605.

The tour over, we stepped outside under Big Ben into New Palace Yard, so called because it was the forecourt of William II's new palace 900 years ago. London is full of such historical surprises.

UK Parliament

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* See next week's Travel section to find out who won the $10,000 holiday for two to London.