The Houses of Parliament--their history, their buildings, their constitution--belong to the history of the Empire. They happen to stand in the City of Westminster; but their history does not form part of the City history. The House of Commons has been called to Westminster almost without interruption for six hundred years. It sat for three hundred years in the Chapter House of the Abbey; then for three hundred years more in the Chapel of St. Stephen; when that was burned down the site was preserved and set apart for the New House, which arose when the ashes of the old had been cleared away. That site must not be considered a part of Westminster; it is part of the Island--part of the Empire. [Illustration] In a certain special sense, however, the House of Commons did belong to the City of Westminster for a long time. A great many of the country members lodged in the narrow streets round the Abbey. The reason is plain: there were no streets or houses in the meadows lying north and west of the Houses of Parliament; either the members must lodge in the City of London and take boat for St. Stephen’s, or they must lodge in Westminster itself. It is stated by a writer of the last century that the principal means of support for the people of Westminster were the lodging and entertainment of the members. The monks were gone; Sanctuary was gone; the Court was gone; but the members remained, and so the taverns remained, too, and the ancient reputation of Westminster as a thirsty city was happily uninjured. In another way Westminster created for itself a new distinction. As a borough it became notorious for the turbulence and the violence of the elections. Its central position, the King’s House always lying within its boundaries, the City of London its near neighbor, naturally caused an election at Westminster to attract more attention than an election at Oxford, say, or Winchester. Again, the electors of Westminster were not, probably, fiercer partisans than those of any other place, nor were their candidates always of greater importance; yet it is certain that for downright bludgeon rowdiness and riot, the rabble at Westminster, when it turned out at election time, was equaled by few towns, and surpassed by none.