Of the twenty Parliaments of Edward II. one met at Ripon, one at Northampton, and three at York and Lincoln. In Stuart days Oxford was the place chosen on two occasions, in 1625 and in 1665, when London was being ravaged by the Plague. Since the Revolution of 1668, however, Parliament has ceased to be nomadic in its habits; in its old age it has definitely settled down at Westminster, and there it is likely to remain. The palace in which Canute first resided, within a stone's throw of the Thames, was burnt to the ground somewhere about the year 1040. Edward the Confessor rebuilt it ten years later, and in the days of William Rufus the addition of the Great Hall further enhanced the dignity of the palace. Here William held his first court, on his return from Normandy, and since his day a succession of kings have made it the centre of innumerable scenes of royal pomp and pageantry. William Rufus was a man of large ideas. Even the magnificence of the Great Hall did not entirely satisfy his taste for grandeur. In his imagination he had conceived a still more splendid scheme of architecture, and was disappointed with the size of the new building. On first entering to inspect it, accompanied by a large military retinue, he overheard some tactless persons remark that, in their opinion, the Hall was far too large. With a scornful look the King reduced these critics to silence, explaining that, so far from this being the case, the Hall was not half large enough, being, in fact, but a bed-chamber in comparison with the building of which he intended it to form part.[95] [95] Knight's "London," vol. vi. p. 135. By the end of the fourteenth century Westminster Hall had fallen into disrepair, and during the reign of Richard II., when the poet Chaucer was clerk of the works, it was rebuilt, the expense being met by a tax levied upon all foreigners in the kingdom. Richard celebrated the event by keeping Christmas there in a suitably seasonable fashion, "with daily justings and runnings at tilt; whereunto resorted such a number of people that there was every day spent twenty-eight or twenty-six oxen, and three hundred sheep, besides fowl without number."[96] [96] Stow's "A Survey of London," p. 173.