/year

Palace of Westminster

meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, located in London, England, UK

26 dated entries naming Palace of Westminster, drawn from 24 separate years between 1097 CE and 1976 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as British Houses of Parliament, Houses of Parliament, New Palace of Westminster, Westminster Palace in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

JSONWikipedia articleWikidata Q62408

11th century

  • 1097William II orders the construction of Westminster Hall near Westminster Abbey in London. The hall is designed to hold banquets, ceremonies and coronations that take place in the Abbey nearby.source

12th century

  • 1107August 11 – The Investiture Controversy is resolved, by the reconciliation of Henry I and Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury and the mass consecration of bishops by Anselm at the royal Palace of Westminster: William Giffard to Winchester, Roger to Salisbury, Reynelm to Hereford, William Warelwast to Exeter and Urban to Llandaff. Roger of Salisbury is also appointed Justiciar in this year.source
  • 1155Spring – King Henry II has the Palace of Westminster (which is badly damaged by Stephen's supporters during The Anarchy) repaired. Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, is given the task of repairing the buildings.source

13th century

  • 1239June 17 or June 18 – Edward I ("Longshanks"), first son of King Henry III of England and Queen Eleanor of Provence, is born at the Palace of Westminster. Henry names him after Edward the Confessor and chooses Simon de Montfort as his godfather.source
  • 1265January 20 – In Westminster, the first elected English parliament (called Montfort's Parliament) conducts its first meeting in the Palace of Westminster, later to be known as the Houses of Parliament.source
  • 1272November 16 – King Henry III of England dies at the Palace of Westminster after a 56-year reign. He is succeeded by his son Edward I, who slowly returns from the Holy Land via Gascony.source
  • 1297April 14 – King Edward I of England makes an appeal outside Westminster Hall for support for the war against France. He apologizes for the high tax demands he has previously levied. Edward asks the Barons (some 1,500 knights) to swear allegiance to his 12-year-old son, Prince Edward of Caernarfon. Aware of the dangers of the opposition to his power, Edward appears before a large crowd and receives total loyalty.source

14th century

  • 1305August 3 – William Wallace, Scottish rebel leader and knight, is captured near Glasgow at Robroyston, by English troops led by John de Menteith. He is transported to London and led, crowned mockingly with laurel, in procession to Westminster Hall.source

16th century

  • 1568October – Regent Moray shows Mary's "casket letters" at a conference in York headed by the Duke of Norfolk, and again at Westminster Palace on 7 Decembersource

17th century

  • 1605November 5 (O.S.) – The Gunpowder Plot, a scheme to bomb England's Palace of Westminster during the opening of Parliament, is foiled after Sir Thomas Knyvet is tipped off, and finds Catholic plotter Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building. Knyvet orders a search of the area and 36 barrels of gunpowder are found. Fawkes is arrested for trying to assassinate King James I and the members who had been scheduled to sit together in Parliament the next day.source
  • 1618October 29 – English adventurer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded at the Palace of Westminster, for allegedly conspiring treasonably against James I of England in 1603, following pressure from the Spanish government, over his attack on their settlement on the Orinoco, on his last (1617–18) voyage.source
  • 165726 June – Cromwell is installed as Lord Protector for the second time at a ceremony at Westminster.source
  • 165913 October – the Council of State is dismissed by the Rump Parliament and Lambert excludes the Rump Parliament from the Palace of Westminster.source
  • 166130 January – the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, John Bradshaw and Thomas Pride are exhumed and subjected to a posthumous execution. Oliver Cromwell's head (with the others') is placed on a spike above the Palace of Westminster.source

18th century

  • 1707February 15 – As part of the process of the unification of Scotland and England as Great Britain, Scotland selects 16 members to sit in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster.source

19th century

  • 181728 January - The Prince Regent addresses the House of Lords at the State Opening of Parliament. On leaving the Palace of Westminster, the Prince's carriage is attacked and a window broken.source
  • 1830February – first Roman Catholics take their seats in the House of Commons at Westminster, among them Daniel O'Connell (for County Clare) and Richard More O'Ferrall (Kildare).source
  • 1834October 16 – The Palace of Westminster in London is destroyed by fire, along with both the House of Commons and the House of Lords (which are not in session) of the British Parliament. An investigation later traces the disaster to an order from the Exchequer to the Board of Works to destroy the tally sticks that had been stored as part of record keeping, the use of the furnaces beneath the House of Lords to carry out the task, and the failure of authorities to stop the work or to fight the fire after smoke had first been detected, the conclusion being that the fire was "wholly attributable to carelessness and negligence."source
  • 183416 October – Burning of Parliament: Much of the Palace of Westminster is destroyed by fire resulting from the burning of tally sticks formerly used by the Exchequer.source
  • 1852November 11 – The new Palace of Westminster opens in London as the home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.source
  • 1859May 31 – Big Ben, the Great Clock at the Palace of Westminster, London, is started.source
  • 1878March 28 – Electric lights are first used at Westminster Palace.source

20th century

  • 1918December 28 – Sinn Féin enjoys a landslide victory of the Irish seats at the 1918 United Kingdom general election, winning 73 of the 105 seats in Ireland. In accordance with their manifesto, Sinn Féin members will not take their seats in the Palace of Westminster but will form the First Dáil in Dublin. Countess Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway Prison (London), becomes the first woman elected to (but does not take her seat in) the British House of Commons.source
  • 191828 December – 1918 general election: Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in the election, winning 73 of the 105 seats in Ireland. The Irish Parliamentary Party was nearly wiped out. In accordance with their 1918 manifesto, Sinn Féin members did not take their seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom but formed instead Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament). Constance Markievicz, while detained in Holloway Prison in London, became the first woman elected to the Palace of Westminster, but she did not take her seat. On 30 December, the Irish Independent newspaper criticised her strongly.source
  • 1974June 17 – A bomb explodes in Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the British Houses of Parliament. The hall's annex, housing offices, and a canteen are destroyed by the bombing, attributed by police to the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army.source
  • 1976August 5 – The clock of "Big Ben" at the Palace of Westminster in London suffers internal damage and requires frequent repairs. The clock is stopped at times on 26 of the next 275 days.source

Named in the same entries