Westminster Hall, which fortunately survived the disastrous fire of 1834, is on the side farthest from the River: it runs parallel with the House of Commons, and projects from the main building just opposite the end of the Henry VII. Chapel in the Abbey. If we enter the Parliament buildings we shall very possibly do so by the famous hall known as St. Stephen’s Hall—built on the site of the ancient House of Commons. Westminster Hall then lies to our left, as we enter, down a flight of steps. Let us descend for a few moments, for the Hall is perhaps the finest of its kind in all our land. Its vast emptiness silences the words which rise to our lips: we feel instinctively that this is a place of wonderful memories. Our eyes travel along the mighty, carved-oak roof which spans the great width of the building, and we can scarcely believe that this roof was built so long ago as the time of Richard II., or even earlier, and that it is still the actual timbers we see in places. What stories could these ancient stones beneath our feet tell us, had they but the power! What tales of joy and what tales of terrible tragedy! Here were held many of the festivities which followed the coronation ceremonies in the Abbey. Henry III. here showed to the citizens his bride, Eleanor of Provence, when “there 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.... Whatever the world pours forth of pleasure and glory was there specially displayed.” And yet a few years later saw that same Henry taking part in a vastly different spectacle—when, in the presence of a gathering equally distinguished, he was compelled to watch the Archbishop of Canterbury as he threw to the stone floor of the Hall a lighted torch, with these words: “Thus be extinguished and stink and smoke in hell all those who dare to violate the charters of the Kingdom.” A plate let into the floor tells us that on that spot stood Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, strong Minister of a weak King, when he was tried for his life; while upon the stairs which we have descended is another tablet to mark the spot whence that weak King himself, Charles I., heard his death sentence. Here, too, were tried William Wallace, Thomas More, and Warren Hastings, while just outside in Old Palace Yard the half-demented Guido Fawkes and the proud, scholarly Sir Walter Raleigh met their deaths.