London attractions
2012-07-26 @ 12:41:35
The Houses Of Parliament and Big Ben seen across the river Thames. The official name for the Houses of Parliament is the Palace of Westminster. In its present shape it is not a very old building. There was a palace of the England kings at that place for many centuries in the past, and in the sixteenth century it became also the seat of Parliament. In 1834 most of the building wasa destroy by fire. The present palace was a built soon after that.
When the king or queen opens the new session of the British Parliament in November a very unusual ceremony takes place. The Yeomen yf the Guard go through the vaults of the Houses of Parliament and search them one by one. The ceremony has its origin in the seventeenth century. In the year 1604 during the reign of King James I a group of Catholic conspirators prepared a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill their Protestant king and all the Members of Parliament with him. They rented a house close to the House of Lords and began digging a tunnel. After nine months of digging they reached the vault under the House of Lords and put in it 36 barrels of gunpowder.
The authorities learned about the plot through an anonymous letter. The vaults were searched. The guards discoverd the gunpowder and found one of the conspirators, a man called Guy Fawkes. He was imprisoned and executed.
When the king or queen opens the new session of the British Parliament in November a very unusual ceremony takes place. The Yeomen yf the Guard go through the vaults of the Houses of Parliament and search them one by one. The ceremony has its origin in the seventeenth century. In the year 1604 during the reign of King James I a group of Catholic conspirators prepared a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill their Protestant king and all the Members of Parliament with him. They rented a house close to the House of Lords and began digging a tunnel. After nine months of digging they reached the vault under the House of Lords and put in it 36 barrels of gunpowder.
The authorities learned about the plot through an anonymous letter. The vaults were searched. The guards discoverd the gunpowder and found one of the conspirators, a man called Guy Fawkes. He was imprisoned and executed.