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Sign up todayThe Lost Chapel of Westminster
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Learn moreBloomsbury presents The Lost Chapel of Westminster: How a Royal Chapel Became the House of Commons by John Cooper, read by Jeremy Clyde.
The fascinating history of St Stephen's Chapel in the Palace of Westminster, a building at the heart of British life for over 700 years.
Begun in 1292, the royal chapel of St Stephen was the crowning glory of the old palace of Westminster – a place of worship for kings and a showcase of the finest architecture, ritual and music the Plantagenets could muster. But in 1548, as the Protestant Reformation reached its height, St Stephen's was given a new purpose as the House of Commons. Burned out in the great palace fire of 1834, the Commons chamber was then recreated on a remarkably similar medieval design, perpetuating a way of doing politics that is recognisable to this day.
St Stephen's has been part of many lives over the centuries, from the medieval masons who worked through the Black Death to complete the chapel, to the generations of MPs who locked horns in the Commons chamber. Threading together religion, politics, art, architecture and narrative history, John Cooper tells the story of the lost chapel, an iconic building that reflects the national transition from medieval divine-right monarchy to modern parliamentary democracy.
John Cooper is an author and historian of the Tudor period. He studied at Merton College Oxford for his BA and doctorate, and is now based at the University of York. The author of Propaganda and the Tudor State and The Queen's Agent, John has worked as a historical consultant for the BBC and Starz, and is a popular public lecturer on the history, art and architecture of Tudor England. Most recently, he has led a series of projects investigating the Palace of Westminster, the lost chapel of St Stephen and the House of Commons. John is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, joint editor of the journal Parliamentary History and became Director of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2021.
Reviews
John Cooper’s engrossing and delightful study recovers for us an extraordinary building hidden in plain sight within the footprint of the Houses of Parliament: medieval England’s answer to Paris’s spectacular Sainte Chapelle, transformed by the Tudors into the arena in which our modern Parliamentary state gradually took shape. Cooper brings to life its lost splendours, and guides us through what remains from its fiery destruction, with scholarship and wit. Superbly researched and flowing... The Lost Chapel of Westminster traces the long history of St Stephen’s Chapel and how, even after the great fire of 1834, Charles Barry and Giles Gilbert Scott ensured that features of it were incorporated in the rebuilt Chamber of the House of Commons. Cooper’s book is an important tribute to a national legacy which will appeal to the general reader as well as being an important source for scholars. PRAISE FOR THE QUEEN'S AGENT:'A superb new account... Brilliantly recreates Elizabethan England in all its cloak-and-dagger intrigue and glory' Sunday Telegraph.
Fascinating... John Cooper neither vilifies nor lionises his subject, preferring to set his actions in context' Literary Review.
'Walsingham emerges as a severe, complex and haunted character in this compelling biography' Sunday Telegraph.
'A book for the library of any Tudor enthusiast' Philippa Gregory.
'As thrilling and suspenseful as any modern spy novel' A captivating, scholarly and endlessly fascinating story that goes beyond the iconic building at its focus and charts the history of a nation. Expand reviews
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