OF ACTON BURNELL 335
South end of the Parliament house, exterior.
has been usual to speak of this building as a barn, but it
presents many claims to be reputed a specimen of domestic
architecture. Tradition has called it the Parliament-house, or
the House of Commons, the castle being called the House of
Lords, but its legitimate title to that distinction also rests
on suppositious evidence. I
must, however, confess my-
self inclined to favour the
conjecture that it either was
so or at all events formed
part of a contiguous build-
ing. Meanwhile passing
over this point as one that
will probably never admit
of satisfactory settlement,
we come next to the transactions that have more imme-
diately associated Acton Burnell with the constitutional
history of England.
Much unmerited obloquy has been cast upon the name of Edward, for his supposed massacre of the Welsh bards, and this harsh and erroneous estimate of his character has become interwoven with history itself, and thus passed into current
Head of Window in The North end of the Parliament house