The third room, perhaps the most beautiful, was the Painted Chamber. This hall, certainly that in which the Confessor breathed his last, was eighty feet long, twenty broad, and fifty high--a lofty and narrow room, perhaps too narrow for its length. The meaning of its name had long been forgotten, until the year 1800, when, on taking down the tapestry, which had hung there for centuries, the walls were found to be covered with paintings, representing on one side of the room the wars of the Maccabees, and on the other side scenes from the life of Edward the Confessor. It was then remembered, or discovered, that in an itinerary of two Franciscan pilgrims in the year 1322, preserved among the manuscripts of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, these paintings are mentioned. In the year 1477 the hall was called St. Edward’s Chamber; Sir Edward Coke calls it the Chamber Depeint or St. Edward’s Chamber. [Illustration: COLLEGIATE SEAL OF ST. STEPHEN’S.] The fourth of these groups of ancient buildings was the Council Room of King Edward, called afterward the White Hall, the Little Hall, the Court of Requests, and the House of Lords. In the midst of this stately group of noble buildings rose the most stately and most noble chapel of [Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CRYPT CALLED THE “POWDER PLOT CELLAR,” BENEATH THE OLD PALACE OF WESTMINSTER, LOOKING TOWARD CHARING CROSS. TAKEN DOWN IN JUNE, 1883.] St. Stephen. It was founded, according to tradition, by King Stephen, on the site, it has been sometimes said, of the Confessor’s oratory; but this seems not true, for the oratory was on the east of the Painted Chamber. The chapel was rebuilt, as a thank-offering for his victories, by Edward I., who then endowed it with large revenues. His foundation was large enough to maintain a college, consisting of dean, twelve secular canons, and twelve vicars; it was, in fact, a rich foundation planted in the middle of the Palace, over against the Abbey. Was there any desire on the part of the King to separate the Court from the Abbey? Perhaps not; but there arose perpetual quarrels between the College and the Abbey. The masses said in St. Stephen’s for the past and present kings might just as well have been said, one supposes, in the Abbey. So rich was the foundation that at the Dissolution its revenues were a third of those of St. Peter’s. By that time the College buildings contained residences or chambers for thirty-eight persons. These buildings consisted, first, of the exquisite Chapel, which afterward became the House of Commons; the Chapel of our Lady de la Pieu, standing somewhere to the south of St. Stephen’s (in this Chapel Richard heard mass before going out to meet Wat Tyler); the Crypt, which happily still remains; the exquisite cloisters, long since vanished; with the Chantry Chapel, and the said residences of the dean, canons, and vicars, and King Richard’s Belfry. The Chapel was smaller than some other royal