INTRODUCTION 60 CHANGES IN l6TH AND 1?TH CENT. Besides the private dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, there were a study for the lord and a boudoir for the lady, a private chapel, and numerous bedrooms. These were frequently arranged in a tower adjoin- ing the hall. The dormitory was often in the roof, and sometimes over the hall. The apartments thus gradually increased in number and importance, till, in the time of Elizabeth, they became as numerous and varied as they are now. The decoration of the interior also progressed rapidly. The arras was replaced, in the time of Henry VIH., with wainscot panelling, frequently carved with the linen pattern. This covered th lower part of the walls, while above it was pargeted with plaster, ornamented with the heads of the Caesars and similar figures, while Italian details and ornaments gradually crept in. Inscriptions, texts of Scripture, mottoes, etc., were of frequent use in the fifteenth century. At this date glass for windows was still rare in houses. Henry vm. had his casements carried about with him, from one manor to another, and the windows of the different houses were made of the same size, so as to suit the glass casements. Ceilings had usually moulded wooden beams and ribs, in square panels, in the fifteenth century, but plaster was gradually introduced in Henry vni.'s time, and its use was greatly extended under Elizabeth. Staircases were enlarged, and adorned with curiously carved ban- nisters and pedestals. The passages were still generally in the thickness of the wall, with doors entering from the window recesses; but there were sometimes galleries formed outside, like cloisters, to give access to the different apartments. These galleries form a fine and characteristic feature of the Elizabethan period. The bow window was introduced about the end of the fourteenth century, and soon became a very favourite and characteristic feature of English Architecture. Fireplaces were usual in all the apartments, but in the hall the reredos or brazier in the centre was still common, and in many halls continued in use till the present century. Gradually the castellated features gave way, as they had done in France, to the encroachments of the Italian details, until, in the splendid mansions of Elizabeth's time, the Renaissance style completely prevailed in all the ornamental features of the design. But many of the charac- teristic portions of the old plans still held their own. There are many specimens still in existence of noble halls with open timber roofs, and fine galleries with the distinctive bow windows of English Architecture. These and similar features of the old style lingered through the reigns of the Stewarts, and it was not till the end of the seventeenth century that they were entirely swamped by the cold symmetry of the Classic style.
