Behind the straightforward subtitle of this book is a story as long, complex and absorbing as any history has to offer. St Stephen’s Chapel was officially opened in the 1360s, having been seventy years in the building, years constantly interrupted by wars and quarrels in England and across the sea. When finally completed, the chapel rose high above the Palace of Westminster – then the monarch’s home – its interior covered in wall paintings and gold leaf. It was one of the most impressive ecclesiastical buildings in England, and it had an attendant monastery with its own cloister and population of monks. 

Of all this, today just a very few vestiges remain. The monks and their cloister disappeared during the Reformation. The chapel, though partly demolished, survived: other buildings accrued around it and it eventually became the debating chamber of the House of Commons – an odd destiny, you may feel, for the one-time inviolate praying place of Plantagenet kings whose power was theoretically absolute. 

Through the period of the Civil War, the Commonwealth and the Restoration, suggestions for rebuilding the Commons chamber to a different shape and size were not lacking. Sir Christopher Wren was eager to have a go at it, but, for lack of governmental funding, nothing came of that. And