Today’s trip to Parliament began by entering through the Victoria Tower, which is the entrance used by all Sovereign’s. How cool was it to walk through the same doorway as kings and queens?!
Westminster was built in 1845 and is home to the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Queen Victoria was the first Sovereign and Queen Elizabeth II is the current one. However, due to issues with the monarchy in the past, the Sovereign is not allowed into the House of Commons where the real power lies. Instead, she/he has a messenger that runs interference for her/him from her throne.
Public tours are available by appointment, and there are guides and guards aplenty to ensure that you are well supervised and informed. Though Parliament wasn’t in session when we were there, we learned that the public can line up and take turns going into the balcony during debates – which I plan to do next week. I was a little disappointed in our tour guide because he didn’t seem to have his presentation put together and he didn’t talk very loud, but having been around for a while he had some interesting personal stories about seeing presidents like Reagan and Clinton, so that helped. There are three areas that stood out to me most.
First, I loved, loved, loved seeing paintings of present and former royals in the Royal Gallery and Prince’s Chamber. Seeing those made them seem more real than hearing about them in a textbook because now I can visualize their faces when I’m reading about history. In particular I enjoyed seeing all of Henry VIII’s wives. You can see where he married for beauty, pleasure, duty, and on accident. I love the movie “Anne of the Thousand Days,” which is about Anne Boleyn, so it was satisfying to get to see more of what she actually looked like.
Second, as we toured the building I kept dwelling on the position of women within the British government. There is the Victoria Tower, a large painting of Victoria in the front room, and a huge statue of her in the Prince’s Chamber. Yet, despite this appearance of acceptance of women, the whole building and current government are still male dominated. Wives of the Lords still cannot enter the rooms, the House of Lords and Commons are overwhelmingly male, and it wasn’t until 1928 that women were allowed into the House of Commons – thanks to Emily Pankhurst, who now has a statue in the gardens. Margaret Thatcher, a former Prime Minister, is another one who stands out with a large bronze statue situated among the other male statues of former Ministers. Even though her statue is the largest in the room, she is still the only woman in there.
Finally, something that stood out to me was in the House of Lords when the guide pointed out the red seat of power that a woman/baroness currently sits on. He explained that when a person assumes that seat they must become apolitical, not favouring their party more than the other. What a great idea; can we do that with American presidents? Imagine how much progress could be made if a politician in charge could become apolitical to best meet the needs of the country.
