The Vikings Attack

In St Stephen's Hall at Westminster - which was the House of Commons chamber from the mid 16th Century until the Great Fire of 1834 - there are a number of interesting paintings.

Sadly, while this was the House of Commons for centuries (the current site is barely 150 years old - at the time of great events such as the refusal of the Speaker to divulge the name of the MPs that Charles I had come to arrest, it was either on a reclaimed garden - or actually in the Thames!) - it is now treated by many visitors merely as a corridor or a waiting room. The pictures are worth a close look.

I hadn't noticed - despite regular visits - then years working at Westminster - the detail in the picture of Vikings raiding - until a friend told me the story of some 20th century 'graffiti'





On the shield of one to the Vikings a Nazi swastika had been added. Hitler and his aggressive Nazi party were seen as a modern equivalent to the destructive Vikings. (Historical research has progressed since that date - and the Vikings are rightly no longer seen as evil as many thought in the early part of the last century.