Whitehall

White-Hall. See Courts of our Kings and Queens.

Courts of our Kings and Queens. They were heretofore many in London and Westminster; as the Tower of London, where some believed Julius Cæsar lodged and William the Conquerour; in the Old Jewry, where Hen. 6. Baynard's Castle, where Hen. 7. Bridewell, where King John and Hen. 8. Tower Royal, where Richard the 2d. and King Stephen; Warbdrobe in Great Carter Lane, where Richard the 3d; also at Somerset House, kept by Q. Elizabeth; and at Westminster near the Hall, where Edward the Confessor and several other Kings kept their Courts. But of later times the place for the Court when in Town was mostly White-Hall, a very pleasant and commodious Situation, looking into St. James's Park, the Cannal &c. W. and the noble River of Thames E. Privy Garden with Fountain, statues, &c. S. and an open prospect to the Statue at Charing Cross N. This House was about the Year 1240 given by Hubert, Earl of Kent, to the Black Fryers (then in Holbourn) of whom Walter Gray, Archbishop of York purchased it very generously for himself and Successours of that See when in London, whence it was called York Place; but about the Year 1529, Cardinal Wolsey, then Bp of York, falling under the disfavour of Hen. 8. the better to ingratiate himself again, gave the King White-Hall, (and likewise Hampton Court, which he had built) ever since which time this House has been the chief Residence of our Kings and Queens, and in the Reign of King James I. the stately Building we call the Banqueting-House, designed by Jingo Jones, Esq; Surveyor General was added (for which see White-Hall Chapel, Sect. 2.)

This Palace being in the beginning of January, 1697, demolished by Fire except the said Banquenting-House, there has since been no Reception for the Court in Town but St. James's Palace, which is pleasantly situated by the Park, and tho' little can be said of its regular Design in appearance, yet it contains many noble, magnificent and beautiful Rooms, and Appartments; and White-Hall will doubtless be rebuilt in a short time, being designed one of the most famous Palaces in Christendom.

Then is Whitehall, the Royal Palace, and Residence of the Kings and Queens of England, no less pleasantly than commodiously seated on the Banks of the Thames on the South, and having on the North the delectable Park of St. James's.

King Henry the Eighth, who was the first Royal Possessor of it, built a sumptuous Gallery, with a beautiful Gatehouse thwart the Street into St. James's Park.

Since the Days of King Henry the Eighth it hath been much enlarged and beautified in its Buildings by the succeeding Kings and Queens; and especially by King Charles the First and Second, King James the Second, and King William the Third, who added a noble Terrace Walk by the Thames, under the King and Queen's Lodgings, which have not been long built, and were very stately and convenient: But the stateliest Room is the Banqueting House facing the Street, for the Reception of Embassadors, of the Members of Parliament, and other publick Uses; which for its Spaciousness, exact Proportion, and beautiful Painting, done by the Hand of the famous Peter-Paul Reuben, hath not its Parallel in all Europe. This Palace is extream large; and although it is not in all Respects so stately to behold as Versailles in France; yet that is made Amends by the Commodiousness thereof, for the Reception of Courtiers, and Offices there kept belonging to his Majesty and his Houshold. Amongst which are, the Council Chambers, the Treasury Office, the Secretary of State's Office, the Lord Privy Seal's and Signet Office, the Lord Chamberlain's Office, the Green Cloth, Jewel Office, Wardrobe, &c. To this Palace there is a curious Garden called the Privy Garden, adorned with Stone Statues, and hath the Prospect of the Thames. This Garden is parted from the Street on the North with an ancient high Stone Wall. At the End of which is another Gatehouse over the Street of curious Work, with Buildings over it, which lead into others, now (or late) the Lodgings of the Earl of Rochester: And between these two Gates, on the North Side, is a Tenis Court, for the Entertainment of the Nobility and Gentry in that Exercise; adjoining to which is a large Apartment, generally taken up by some Great Court Officer. And behind that, where the Cockpit was, are large buildings, formerly the Lodgings of her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, Daughter to King James the Second, late our Sovereign Lady and Queen. In this Palace of Whitehall, there were four large Courts, one within another: In the innermost or principal Court is a curious Statue, in Brass, of King James the Second, placed on a Pedestal, in a Roman Habit. Besides these Courts, there is adjoining to it Scotland Yard.

Whitehall, a palace originally built by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, who in the year 1243, bequeathed to the Black Friars in Chancery lane, Holbourn, in whose church he was interred. But in 1248, these friars having disposed of it to Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, he left it to his successors, the Archbishops of that see, for their city mansion, and hence it obtained the name of York place. However, the royal palace at Westminster suffering greatly by fire in the reign of Henry VIII. and that Prince having a great inclination for York place, purchased it of Cardinal Wolsey, in the year 1530.

Henry had no sooner obtained the possession of this palace than he enclosed the park for the accommodation of both palaces, and built the beautiful gate opposite the banqueting house (which has been lately pulled down) to which he added a magnificent gallery, for the accommodation of the Royal Family, the nobility and great officers of state; for there they sat to see the tournaments performed in the tiltyard; and soon after the King, who had a greater taste for pleasure, than for elegance of building, ordered a tennis court, a cockpit, and bowling greens to be formed, with other places for different kinds of diversion.

From this time Whitehal continued the royal residence of the Sovereigns of England; and Hentzner in his Itinerarium says it was a structure truly royal: and it was furnished in a peculiar manner.

Near this palace, says he, are seen an immense number of swans, who wander up and down the river for some miles, in great security; no body daring to molest, much less to kill any of them, under the penalty of a considerable fine.

In the palace is a library, well stored with Greek, Latin, Italian and French books; and among the rest, a small one in French, upon parchment, in the hand writing of the present Queen Elizabeth thus inscribed:

A tres haut & tres puissant & redoubtè Prince Henry VIII. de ce nom, Roy d'Angleterre, de France, & d'Irelande, defenseur de la foy:

Elisabeth sa tres humble fille rend
salut & obedience.

In English thus:

To the most high, puissant, and redoubted Prince, Henry VIII. of the name, King of England, France and Ireland, defender of the faith:

Elizabeth, his most humble daughter,
health and obedience.

all these books are bound in velvet of different colours, though chiefly red, with clasps of gold and silver; some have pearls, and precious stones, set in their bindings.

II. Two little silver cabinets of exquisite work, in which the Queen keeps her paper, and which she uses for writing boxes.

III. The Queen's bed; ingeniously composed of woods of different colours, with quilts of silk, velvet, gold, silver, and embroidery.

IV. A little chest ornamented all over with pearls, in which the Queen keeps her bracelets, ear-rings, and other things of extraordinary value.

V. Christ's passion in painted glass.

VI. Portraits: among which are Queen Elizabeth at sixteen years of age. Henry, Richard, Edward, Kings of England; Rosamond, Lucrece, a Grecian bride, in her nuptial habit; the genealogy of the Kings of England; a picture of King Edward VI. representing at first sight something quite deformed, till by looking through a small hole in the cover, which is put over it, you see it in its true proportions; the Emperor Charles V. Charles Emanuel Duke of Savoy, and Catharine of Spain, his wife; Ferdinand Duke of Florence, with his daughters; one of Philip King of Spain, when he came into England, and married Mary; Henry VII. Henry VIII. and his mother; besides many more of illustrious men and women; and a picture of the siege of Malta.

VII. A small hermitage, half hid in a rock, finely carved in wood.

VIII. Variety of emblems, on paper, cut in the shape of shields, with mottoes used by the nobility at tilts and tournaments, hung up here for a memorial.

IX. Different instruments of music, upon one of which two persons my perform at the same time.

X. A piece of clock-work, an Æthiop riding upon a rhinoceros, with four attendants, who all make their obeisance, when it strikes the hour; these are all put into motion by winding up the machine.

In short, at the entrance into the park, from Whitehall, was this romantic inscription, which the honourable Horatio Walpole supposes might allude to Philip II. who wooed the Queen after her sister's death, and to the destruction of his armada.

    Ictus piscator tandem sapit,
Sed infelix Actæon semper præceps.
     Casta virgo facile miseretur;
Sed potens Dea scelus ulciscitur.
Præda canibus, exemplum juvenibus,
     Suis dedecus, pereat Actæon.
Cura cœlitibus, chara mortatibus, suis securitas,
Vivat Diana.

Thus englished:

The fisherman who has been wounded, learns,
   though late, to beware;
But the unfortunate Actæon always presses on.
   The chaste virgin naturally pitied;
But the powerful goddess revenged the wrong.
   Let Actæon fall a prety to his dogs,
          An example to youth,
A disgrace to those that belong to him!
May Diana live the care of heaven;
          The delight of mortals;
The security of those that belong to her!
Hentzner's journey into England.

But to proceed, in the reign of King James I. the old banquetting house, which was then used for public entertainments, being much decayed, that Prince formed the design of pulling down the whole palace of Whitehall, and erecting in its room an edifice worthy the Kings of England: a most noble plan was actually drawn for that purpose, by the celebrated Inigo Jones, and this plan being finished, the old banguetting house was demolished, and the present elegant structure erected in its room. This was to have been but a small part of the intended work; but it was all that was performed; and the old palace continued still the residence of our Kings, till it was destroyed by fire in 1697: and has never yet been rebuilt. See the article Bantquetting House.

As this was esteemed the principal palace, and that of St. James's only an additional, though there have been long no remains of it left, and there are several houses of the nobility and other buildings scattered about the place where it stood, it is still considered in the same light; the great offices are kept in some of these detached edifices, and all public business is still dated from Whitehall.

Whitehall.—[See Banquetting-House.

Whitehall, Westminster, the Palace of the Kings of England from Henry VIII. to William III. Nothing remains of it but Inigo Jones's Banqueting House, James II.'s statue, and the name, in the broad thoroughfare called Whitehall, and Whitehall Gardens, Place, and Yard. It was originally called York House; was delivered and demised to the King by charter, February 7 (21st of Henry VIII.), on the disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York,¹ and was then first called Whitehall. "There is another place of this name," says Minshen, "where the Court of Requests is kept in the palace at Westminster."

Whitehall occupied a large space of ground, having one front towards the Thames, and another of a humbler character towards St. James's Park; Scotland Yard was the boundary one way, and Canon Row, Westminster, the boundary on the other. There was a public thoroughfare through the Palace from Charing Cross to Westminster, crossed by two gates, one known as Whitehall Gate, the other as the King Street Gate. This arrangement was long an eyesore, and Henry VIII., offended with the number of funerals which passed before his Palace on their way from Charing Cross to the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster, erected a new cemetery on the other side of Whitehall, in the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

Henry VIII.'s Whitehall was a building in the Tudor or Hampton Court style of architecture, with a succession of galleries and courts, a large hall, a chapel, tennis-court, cockpit, orchard, and banqueting house. Hentzner, who saw Whitehall in the reign of Elizabeth (1598), says:—

This Palace is truly royal; inclosed on one side by the Thames, on the other by a Park, which connects it with St. James's, another royal palace.... Near the Palace are seen an immense number of swans, who wander up and down the river for some miles in great security.... In the Park is great plenty of deer.... In a garden adjoining to this Palace is a jet d'eau, which while strangers are looking at it, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which the gardener turns at a distance, through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles those that are standing round.

James I. intended to have rebuilt the whole Palace, and Inigo Jones designed a new Whitehall for that king, worthy of the nation and his own great name. But nothing was built beyond the Banqueting House. Charles I. contemplated a similar reconstruction, but poverty at first prevented him, and the Civil War soon after was a more effectual prohibition. Charles II. preserved what money he could spare from his pleasures to build a palace at Winchester. James II. was too busy about religion to attend to architecture, and in William III.'s reign the whole of Whitehall, Inigo Jones's Banqueting House excepted, was destroyed by fire. William talked of rebuilding it after Inigo's designs, and a model by Mr. Weedon was laid before him.² Nothing, however, was done. Anne, his successor, took up her abode in St. James's Palace, and Sir John Vanbrugh built a house at Whitehall—the house ridiculed by Swift with such inimitable drollery. The first fire was in 1619 (when the Banqueting House was burnt); the second in 1686; and the third in 1708 was owing to the negligence of a maid-servant, who, about eight at night, to save the labour of cutting a candle from a pound, burnt it off and carelessly threw the rest aside before the flame was out.

April 10, 1691.—This [last] night a sudden and terrible fire burnt down all the buildings over the stone gallery at Whitehall to the water side, beginning at the apartment of the late Duchess of Portsmouth (which had been pulled down and rebuilt no less than three times to please her), and consuming other lodgings of such lewd creatures who debauched K. Charles 2 and others, and were his destruction.—Evelyn; see also Bramston, p. 365.

But the great (or fourth) fire which finally destroyed Whitehall broke out on Tuesday, January 4, 1697–1698, about four in the afternoon, through the neglect of a Dutchwoman who had left some linen to dry before the fire in Colonel Stanley's lodgings. The fire lasted seventeen hours.

The tide at times rose so high at Whitehall that it flooded the kitchen. Pepys illustrates this by a curious story of the Countess of Castlemaine, when the King was to sup with her soon after the birth of her son, the Duke of Grafton. The cook came and told the imperious countess that the water had flooded the kitchen, and the chine of beef for the supper could not be roasted. "Zounds!" was her reply, "she must set the house on fire, but it should be roasted." So it was carried, adds Pepys, to Mrs. Sarah's husband's, and there roasted.³ A still more curious picture of the water rising at Whitehall is contained in a speech of Charles II.'s to the House of Commons, entitled, "His Majestie's Gracious Speech to the Honourable House of Commons in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, March 1, 1661[2]."... "The mention of my wife's arrival," says the King, "puts me in minde to desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it to be; and for that purpose, I pray you would quickly pass such laws as are before you, in order to the amending those ways, and that she may not find Whitehall surrounded with water." Lord Dorset alludes to these periodical inundations in his well-known song, "To all you ladies now at land":—

The King, with wonder and surprize,
   Will swear the seas grow bold;
Because the tides will higher rise
   Than e'er they did of old;
But let him know it is our tears
Bring floods of grief to Whitehall Stairs.
              With a fa la, la, la, la.

Three of the best of the several engravings of Whitehall are copied with great care in Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata. A good view of the water front (showing the Privy Stairs) is engraved at the top of Morden and Lea's large Map, published in the reign of William III.; and in Kip's Nouveau Theatre is an interesting view of the Banqueting House, inscribed "H. Terasson delin. et sculp. 1713," showing the curious entrance gate on the north side, and on the south a wall bristling with cannon. Another valuable view is preserved in the famous caricature of "The Motion," executed in 1742, and which Horace Walpole commends so highly in his letters. But the engraving which preserves Whitehall to us in all its parts is the ground-plan of the Palace, from a survey made in the reign of Charles II. by John Fisher, and engraved by Vertue (1747), who might have dated it with safety before 1670, not, as he has done, 1680, seeing that Sir John Denham and the Duke of Albemarle, whose apartments are marked, were both dead before 1670; and in 1680 Dr. Wren was Sir Christopher Wren, and the Countess of Castlemaine Duchess of Cleveland.⁴ In filling up the plan preserved by Vertue, Pepys comes to our aid with some of his minute allusions. He refers oftener than once to the following places: Henry VIII.'s Gallery, the Boarded Gallery, the Matted Gallery, the Shield Gallery, the Stone Gallery, and the Vane Room. Lilly, the astrologer, mentions the Guard Room. The Adam and Eve Gallery was so called from a picture by Mabuse, now at Hampton Court. In the Matted Gallery was a ceiling by Holbein;5 and on a wall in the Privy Chamber a painting of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., with their Queens, by the same artist, of which a copy in small is preserved at Hampton Court.⁵ On another wall was a Dance of Death, also by Holbein, of which Douce has given a description; and in the bed-chamber of Charles II. a representation by Wright of the King's birth, his right to his dominions, and his miraculous preservation, with this motto, Terras Astraea revisit.⁶ Manningham in his Diary gives thirty-six of "Certayne devises and empresses taken by the scucheons in the Gallery at Whitehall;" and Hentzner enumerates among the objects to be observed in Whitehall a "variety of emblems on paper, cut in the shape of shields, used by the nobility at tilts and tournaments, hung up there for a memorial." Considering that the age was that of Elizabeth, and that such men as Sidney and Raleigh and Devereux were among the knights who hung up these shields, it is worth while to give a specimen of what Manningham made note of on March 19, 1602.

The scucheon, twoe windmilles crosse sailed, and all the verge of the scucheon poudered with crosses crosselets, the word [motto] Vndique Cruciatus. Under written these verses—

When most I rest beholde howe I stand crost,
   When most I move I toyle for others' gayne,
The one declares my labour to be lost,
   The other showes my quiet is but payne.
Unhappy then whose destiny are crosses
When standing still and moveing breedes but losses.

Another specimen is much less romantic—"An empty bagpipe. The word Si impleveris."

Whitehall, March 30, 1604.—Grant with survivorship to And: Bright and Samuel Doubleday, of the offices of distilling herbs and sweet waters at the Palace of Whitehall and of keeping the library there.—Cal. State Pap., 1603–1610, p. 89.

Whitehall, Oct. 27, 1604.—Grant to Sir Th: Knyvet of £20 per annum, for life, on consideration of his giving up his lodgings at Whitehall for the use of Prince Charles.—Ibid., vol. i. p. 161.

The old Banqueting House was burnt down on Tuesday, January 12, 1618–1619, and the present Banqueting House, designed by Inigo Jones, commenced June 1, 1619, and finished March 31, 1622. From the roll of the account of the Paymaster of the Works, of the "Charges in building a Banqueting House at Whitehall, and erecting a new Pier in the Isle of Portland, for conveyance of stone from thence to Whitehall," formerly preserved at the Audit Office among the Declared Accounts, it appears that the sum received by the paymaster "for the new building of the Banqueting House, and the erecting a Pier at Portland," was £15,648 : 3s. The expense of the pier was £712 : 19 : 2, and of the Banqueting House, £14,940 : 4 : 1; the expenditure exceeding the receipts by £5 : 0 : 3. The account, it deserves to be mentioned, was not declared (i.e. finally settled) till June 29, 1633, eleven years after the completion of the building, and eight after the death of King James I.: a delay confirmatory of the unwillingness of the father and son to bring the works at Whitehall to a final settlement. Inigo's great masterpiece is described in this account as "a new building, with a vault under the same, in length 110 feet, and in width 55 feet within; the wall of the foundation being in thickness 14 feet, and in depth 10 feet within ground, brought up with brick; the first storey to the height of 16 feet, wrought of Oxfordshire stone, cut into rustique on the outside, and brick on the inside; the walls 8 feet thick, with a vault turned over on great square pillars of brick, and paved in the bottom with Purbeck stone; the walls and vaulting laid with finishing mortar; the upper storey being the Banqueting House, 55 feet in height, to the laying on of the roof; the walls 5 feet thick, and wrought of Northamptonshire stone, cut in rustique, with two orders of columns and pilasters, Ionic and Composite, with their architrave, frieze, and cornice, and other ornaments; also rails and ballasters round about the top of the building, all of Portland stone, with fourteen windows on each side, and one great window at the upper end, and five doors of stone with frontispiece and cartoozes; the inside brought up with brick, finished over with two orders of columns and pilasters, part of stone and part of brick, with their architectural frieze and cornice, with a gallery upon the two sides, and the lower end borne upon great cartoozes of timber carved, with rails and ballasters of timber, and the floor laid with spruce deals; a strong timber roof covered with lead, and under it a ceiling divided into a fret made of great cornices enriched with carving; with painting, glazing, etc.; for performance thereof a great quantity of stone hath been digged at Portland quarry, in the county of Dorset, and Huddlestone quarry, in the county of York." As surveyor-general Inigo Jones had for salary 8s. 4d. per day, with an allowance of £46 a year for house rent, besides a clerk and incidental expenses. The master mason was Nicholas Stone. His pay was 4s. 10d. the day. The masons' wages were from 12d. to 2s. 6d. the man per diem; the carpenters were paid at the same rate; while the bricklayers received from 14d. to 2s. 2d. the day.⁷

The ceiling of the Banqueting House is lined with pictures on canvas, representing the apotheosis of James I., painted abroad by Rubens in 1635. Sir Godfrey Kneller had heard that Rubens was assisted by Jordaens in the execution. The sum he received was £3000. In 1785 G. B. Cipriani, R.A., received £2000 for cleaning and "restoring" these paintings. His repaintings were removed by Seguier, and the painting again cleaned and restored by Rigaud. The figures in these works are of colossal dimensions. Smith, who examined them closely when Seguier's scaffold was erected for cleaning them in 1832, says that "the children are more than 9 feet, and the full-grown figures from 20 to 25 feet in height." Within, and over the principal entrance, is a bust, in bronze, of James I., by Le Soeur, it is said. The Banqueting House was converted into a chapel in the reign of George I. (about 1724). It has never been consecrated. Here, on every Maundy-Thursday (the day before Good Friday), is the Royal Maundy distributed to as many poor and aged men and women as the Sovereign may be years of age. James Wyatt added the staircase on the north side in 1798. Sir John Soane restored the building in 1829–1830. The services at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, are Sunday morning at 11, afternoon at 3. The Boyle Lectures are given here in May and June in the afternoon. The old chapel of the palace was situated near the river.

During several years of the reign of Henry VIII. Whitehall was the scene of many of those splendid jousts and revels in which he delighted till age and sickness had soured his temper. Here too passed before him those mighty musters of the citizens and train-bands which contemporary annalists describe with so much enjoyment. It was in Whitehall that at midnight, on January 25, 1533, the unfortunate Anne Boleyn was married to the wife-slaying monarch. Edward VI. held a Parliament here, and here listened to the preaching of Latimer. At the outset of the reign of Mary, Whitehall was attacked by a party of Wyatt's followers; and a few days after the Queen had the satisfaction of seeing the misguided rabble kneel in the mire in front of Whitehall, with halters round their necks, and crave her mercy, which she, looking over the gate, graciously accorded, whereat they set up a mighty shout of "God save Queen Mary." Mary spent many solitary days here, and here her ecclesiastical adviser, Bishop Gardiner, died, November 15, 1556. Elizabeth restored to Whitehall its former splendour and festivity. She built a new Banqueting House and gave magnificent feasts; held tourneys and jousts, where knights like Sir Harry Lee, Sir Christopher Hatton (afterwards Chancellor), Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Fulke Greville, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Robert Devereux kept the barriers against all comers; and saw grave tragedies and courtly masques, and sometimes baitings of bulls and bears and the performances of mimes and tumblers. Of the serious matters of state transacted here it is needless to speak.

These courtly amusements her successor continued. Several of Ben Jonson's masques were written for performance before their Majesties at Whitehall, Inigo Jones contriving the properties and machinery. Even the mighty intellect of Bacon bent itself to the preparation of a masque to be performed at Whitehall by the members of the Inns of Court. Sometimes the masques followed weddings, as after the marriage of Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, to the Lady Susan Vere, December 27, 1600; of the abandoned Countess of Essex to the King's worthless favourite, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, December 26, 1613; and, most splendid of all, that of the King's only daughter, Elizabeth, to Frederick Prince Palatine, afterwards the luckless King of Bohemia. For a few years Charles I. kept Whitehall brilliant with masques and plays, the King and Queen taking part, and lawyers as well as courtiers assisting.

February 27, 1634.—On Monday after Candlemas Day the Gentlemen of the Inns of Court performed their Masque at Court. They were sixteen in number, who rode through the streets in four chariots, and two others to carry their pages and musicians, attended by an hundred gentlemen on great horses, as well clad as ever I saw any. They far exceeded in bravery any masque that had formerly been presented by those Societies, and performed the dancing part with much applause. In their company there was one Mr. Read of Grays Inn, whom all the women, and some men, cried up for as handsome as the Duke of Buckingham. They were well used at Court by the King and Queen, no disgust given them, only this one Accident fell, Mr. May of Grays Inn, a fine poet, he who translated Lucan, came athwart my Lord Chamberlain in the Banqueting House, and he broke his staff over his shoulders, not knowing who he was, the King present, who knew him, for he calls him his Poet, and told the Chamberlain of it, who sent for him the next morning, and fairly excused himself to him, and gave him fifty pounds in pieces.—Garrard to Lord Deputy Wentworth (Strafford Letters), vol. i. p. 207.

November 9, 1637.—Here are to be two masques this winter; one at Christmas, which the King with the young nobless do make; the other at Shrovetide, which the Queen and her ladies do present to the King. A great room is now in building only for this use, betwixt the Guard Chamber and Banquetting House, of fir, only weather boarded and slightly covered. At the marriage of the Queen of Bohemia I saw one set up there, but not of that vastness that this is, which will cost too much money to be pulled down, and yet down it must when the masques are over.—Garrard to Wentworth (ibid.), vol. ii. p. 130.

A few weeks later (November 16) Garrard tells Wentworth that the King is busy practising his part, and that "most of the young lords, who are good dancers, attend his Majesty in this business."⁸

The event which is most closely associated in the popular mind with Whitehall is the execution of King Charles I., which took place on January 30, 1649, on a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting House, towards the Park. The warrant directs that he should be executed "in the open street before Whitehall." Lord Leicester tells us in his Journal that he was "beheaded at Whitehall Gate." Dugdale, in his Diary, that he was "beheaded at the gate of Whitehall;" and a broadside of the time, preserved in the British Museum, that "the King was beheaded at Whitehall Gate."⁹ There cannot, therefore, be a doubt that the scaffold was erected in front of the building facing the present Horse Guards. Another point has excited some discussion. It appears from Herbert's account of the King's last moments, that "the King was led all along the galleries and Banqueting House, and there was a passage broken through the wall, by which the King passed unto the scaffold." On the other hand, Ludlow relates in his Memoirs that the King "was conducted to the scaffold out of the window of the Banqueting House."¹⁰ The following memorandum of Vertue's on the copy of Terasson's large engraving of the Banqueting House is preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries: "It is, according to the truest reports, said that out of this window K. Charles went upon the scaffold to be beheaded, the window-frame being taken out purposely to make the passage on to the scaffold, which is equal to the landing-place of the Hall within side." The window marked by Vertue belonged to a small building abutting from the north side of the present Banqueting House, and he was certainly in error. It is almost certain that Charles went out of an opening made in the centre blank window of the front, next the park. It must be remembered that all the windows were then blank. As late as 1761 the centre window only was glazed.

On Tuesday, March 31, 1657, the Speaker, at the head of the whole House of Parliament, "repaired to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, to present unto his Highness the Lord Protecter the humble Petition and Advice" of the House. "H.H. attended by the Lord President of the Council and other Officers of State came thither" to receive them; listened to the address of the Speaker, accepted the petition, and promised an early reply.¹¹ The humble petition and advice was a proffer of the crown; the reply came in writing on April 3, gratefully declining the proffered gift.

The residence of the second Charles at Whitehall is marked by gifts to harlots, advertisements of lost and stolen dogs, and a variety of unseemly scenes. Charles built a new playhouse at Whitehall, to which Pepys went, and saw there "the King and Queen, Duke and Duchess, and all the great ladies of the Court, which, indeed, was a fine sight," but, "above all, my Lady Castlemaine." It is a curious illustration of the extent of the panic caused by the Great Fire of London that Pepys notes (under September 6, 1666) that he went "to Sir W. Coventry at St. James's, who lay without curtains having removed all his goods; as the King at Whitehall and everybody had done, and was doing." Evelyn records a scene he witnessed at Whitehall when James II. was king, the sequel to which affords a remarkable exemplification of the punishment inflicted for striking in the King's Court.

July 9, 1685.—Just as I was coming into the lodgings at Whitehall, a little before dinner, my Lord of Devonshire, standing very near his Majesty's bedchamber door in the lobby, came Col. Culpepper and in a rude manner looking my lord in the face, asked whether this was a time and place for excluders to appear: my Lord at first took little notice of what he said, knowing him to be a hot-headed fellow, but he reiterating it, my Lord asked Culpepper whether he meant him; he said, yes, he meant his Lordship. My Lord told him he was no excluder (as indeed he was not); the other affirming it again, my Lord told him he lied, on which Culpepper struck him a box on the ear, which my Lord return'd and fell'd him. They were soon parted, Culpepper was seiz'd, and his Majesty, who was all the while in his bedchamber, order'd him to be carried to the Green Cloth Officer, who sent him to the Marshalsea, as he deserv'd. My Lord of Devonshire had nothing said to him.—Evelyn.

But the earl escaped only for the moment. Culpepper, it was intimated, should not be again admitted to the presence-chamber. But after a while he was there, as little abashed as ever. The two again met in the drawing-room at Whitehall. There had been disputes in the interval between their respective adherents, and threats had passed on both sides. They at once withdrew from the royal presence. At the door the old quarrel was renewed, and the earl struck Culpepper in the face with a cane. The earl was in disfavour at Court on account of his politics, and a criminal information was filed against him in the King's Bench. He pleaded privilege of peerage, but this was disallowed. He then pleaded guilty; and Jeffreys sentenced him to a fine of £30,000 and to imprisonment till payment should be made.¹² It was at Whitehall that Monmouth after his capture was brought, "his arms bound behind him with a silken cord," into the presence of his uncle, James II., in order that the mean-spirited monarch might enjoy the abject submission of the nephew whom he had already resolved no submission should save from the scaffold. A little later Whitehall witnessed his own craven terrors and final flight from his crown and country (December 18, 1668). "On the morning of Wednesday the 13th of February (1669), the court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets were filled with gazers." The Lords and Commons in Convention had agreed to offer the crown to William of Orange and the Princess Mary. The formal tender was that day made in the Banqueting House, which had been duly prepared for the great ceremony. With this solemnity the glory of Whitehall passed away. Thenceforth no monarch resided in it, and it was not again the scene of courtly ceremonials. A large part of the Palace, as we have seen, was destroyed by fire in January 1697, and not rebuilt. The ground was assigned to private uses, and in August 1759 the fine old gatehouse, known as Holbein's Gate, was demolished to make way for the present Parliament Street; and with it may be said to have disappeared the last vestige, except the Banqueting House, of Royal Whitehall.

Of Holbein's Gate there is an interesting view, by Vertue, in the Vetusta Monumenta, a second in Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, a third in Smith's Westminster, and a fourth by Wale in Dodsley's London. William, Duke of Cumberland (the hero of Culloden), had every brick removed to Windsor Great Park, and talked of re-erecting it at the end of the Long Walk, with additions at the sides, from designs by Thomas Sandby. Nothing, however, was done. Sandby's design may be seen in Smith's work. There were eight medallions on this gate (four on each side) made of baked clay, and glazed like delft-ware. Three of these (then and still at Hatfield Priory, Hatfield Peverell, in Essex) are engraved in Smith's Westminster, and represent, it is said, Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Bishop Fisher. Two (worked into keepers' lodges at Windsor) are now, by Mr. Jesse's exertions, at Hampton Court, where they are made to do duty as two of the Roman Emperors. That they were of Italian workmanship, and like the medallions at Hampton Court, probably the work of John de Maiano, has been pretty well determined by Sir Henry Ellis.¹³ When Strype drew up his additions to Stow's London, "the uppermost room, in Holbein's Gateway, was used as the State Paper Office."¹⁴

The lead statue of James II., behind Whitehall, was the work of Grinling Gibbons, and was set up December 31, 1686, at the charge of Tobias Rustat.¹⁵ The King, it is said, is pointing to the spot where his father was executed; but this vulgar error has been exposed long ago, though it is still repeated. Nothing can illustrate better the mild character of the Revolution of 1688 than the fact that the statue of the abdicated and exiled King was allowed to stand in the innermost courtyard of what was once his own Palace.

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¹ Archbishop Warham acknowledges the receipt of Wolsey's "loving letters dated at your Grace's place beside Westminster."—Ellis's Letters, vol. ii. p. 43.
² Strype, B. vi. p. 6.
³ Pepys, October 13, 1663.
⁴ The original drawing (or a reduced copy) by Vertue is preserved in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries.
⁵ Pepys, August 28, 1668.
⁶ Sanderson's Graphice, p. 24.
⁷ Cat. of Ashm. MSS., coll. 475.
⁸ Walpole, by Dallaway, vol. ii. p. 58.
⁹ Strafford Letters, vol. ii. 140.
¹⁰ So also in his History of the Troubles in England, fol. 1681, p. 373, Dugdale says the scaffold was erected "before the Great Gate at Whitehall."
¹¹ Memoirs, Vevey ed., vol. i. p. 283.
¹² Journal of Parliament.
¹³ Macaulay, ch. vii.
¹⁴ Ellis's Letters, 3d S., vol. i. p. 249.

York Place, the old name for Whitehall.

1st Gent.                     Sir,
You must no more call it York Place, that is past:
For, since the cardinal fell, that title's lost;
'Tis now the king's, and call'd—Whitehall.
3rd. Gent.                      I know it;
But 'tis so lately alter'd, that the old name
Is fresh about me.—Shakespeare, Henry VIII., Act iv. Sc. I.

The bitter satirist of Wolsey wrote—

Why come ye nat to Court?
To whyche Court?
To the kinges Courte
Or to Hampton Court?
Nay, to the Kinges Court:
The kynges courte
Should have the excellence;
But Hampton Court Hath the preemynence,
And Yorkes Place,
With my lordes grace,
To whose magnifycence
Is all the conflewence, etc.
Skelton, Why Come ye Nat to Courte? (Skelton's Works, by Dyce, vol. ii. p. 39).