Whitehall Palace

“ Whitehall Palace, originally built in 1240, was for three centuries called York House, or York Place, taking its name from the fact that it was the London residence of the Archbishop of York. Under Cardinal Wolsey it was rebuilt and refurnished in a style of magnificence excelling anything ever before known in England and equal in splendour to the best in the palaces of the kings. With the fall of Wolsey in 1529 the mansion became the property of King Henry VIII, who changed the name to Whitehall, and proceeded to enlarge and improve both the palace and the grounds. ”

“ King James also employed that distinguished architect Inigo Jones to build the beautiful Banqueting House, which is all that now remains of Whitehall Palace, and is one of the finest architectural fragments in London. The proportions are most elegant, and the style perfect. ”

“ Here the eye is attracted by a confused mass of roofs, some flat, turreted and embattled, some pointed, with fantastical gables and stacks of tall chimneys—others with cupolas and tall clock-towers—others with crocketed pinnacles, and almost all with large gilt vanes. A large palace is a city in miniature; and so is it with Whitehall. It has two other courts besides the one we are surveying; equally crowded round with buildings, equally wanting in uniformity, but equally picturesque. On the east it extends to Scotland Yard, and on the west to the open space in front of Westminster Hall. ”

“ But the project was never carried out, and the duke probably forgot all about it, or found something more worth begging for than a lot of old building materials. So exit Whitehall palace: buttery, bakehouse, wood and coal yards, spicery, charcoal-house, king’s privy cellar, council chamber, hearth-money office, and other fripperies in stone. It must have been a grand place, even as the heterogeneous pile that existed in William Dutchman’s time ”

“ ST. JAMES’S PALACE.
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the Palace is that of a great collection of chambers and offices built as they were required, for convenience and comfort, rather than for beauty or picturesqueness. There are no towers, cloisters, gables, or carved work. It is essentially—like St. James’s, like Hampton—a palace of brick.
The greater part of Whitehall Palace was destroyed by fire in 1691 and 1697. After the deposition of James II. it ceased to be a royal residence. Then the site of the Palace was gradually built over by private persons. The Banqueting Hall was for a long time a Chapel Royal ”

“ The court of the merry monarch and that of the queen mother being now settled in town, a period of vast brilliancy ensued, during which great festivity and much scandal obtained, by reason of intrigues in which the king and his friends indulged. Whitehall, the scene of so much gaiety and gallantry, was a palace by no means befitting the luxurious Charles. ”

“ Queen Elizabeth going to Whitehall by the Thames
"But, noble Thames, whilst I can hold a pen,
I will divulge thy glory unto men."
John Taylor, the "Water Poet."
It is Christmas night. Lords, ladies, and ambassadors have been summoned to Whitehall Palace to witness the play for which author, actors, and artists of many kinds have been working so industriously during the past few weeks. The Banqueting Hall, with a temporary stage at one end, has been converted into a fine auditorium. ”

“ King’s House of Westminster, there now remain nothing more than a single hall much changed, a crypt much restored, a cloister, and a tower. But this is autumnal opulence compared with the Palace of Whitehall. Of that broad, rambling place, as taken over and enlarged by Henry VIII., there now remains nothing at all—not a single chamber, not a tower, not a gateway, not a fragment; everything is gone: even the disposition of its courts and lanes, generally the last thing to be lost, can no longer be traced. ”

“ The hall, a fine specimen of Palladian architecture, 111 feet in length and 551⁄2 feet in breadth and height, has ceiling paintings by Rubens representing the apotheosis of James I. and scenes from the career of Charles I. Whitehall was the scene of Wolsey's disgrace, Henry VIII.'s death, the execution of Charles I., who was led to the scaffold from the banqueting hall, and the deaths of Cromwell and Charles II. The hall was converted by George I. into a royal chapel. The street leading from Trafalgar Square to Westminster, in which the palace stood, is known as Whitehall. ”

“ Henry was delighted with his new residence, and proceeded to add new buildings, and to enclose nearly all St. James's Park up to the site of Buckingham Palace. Covering a vast extent of ground, the palace rambled from Scotland Yard along the riverside, to where Downing Street now stands, and spread across the roadway by means of a long gallery. Never so beautiful as Westminster, the Whitehall of the Tudors was a mass of brick buildings, erected without any particular scheme just as occasion required, resulting, as Besant declares, in a building "without dignity and without nobility." ”

“ Greenwich still retains a sea-faring aspect; on a bright [pg 31] day the river, full of laden barges and busy little tugs, still sparkles, while "the noblest of European hospitals" remains as "a memorial of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of William, and of the great victory of La Hogue."
CHAPTER VII WHITEHALL PALACE
Of all the many palaces of the English monarchs, none is more associated in men's minds with the splendour and pageantry of Court life than the palace of Whitehall. ”

“ Nor was there a more conspicuous figure observable in the palace of Whitehall than this same earl, who was ever foremost in pursuit of such pleasures as wine begets and love appeases. His mirth was the most buoyant, his conversation the most agreeable, his manner the most engaging in the world; whence he became "the delight and wonder of men, the love and dotage of women." A courtier possessed of so happy a disposition, and endowed with such brilliant talents, could not fail in pleasing the king ”

“ Very little of the history of the Great Rebellion concerns Whitehall, at least until Oliver Cromwell assumes possession, and apes royalty in the old halls; but in Rymer’s Fœdera we may observe that, from the beginning of the reign of James I., “Whitehall” gradually and more and more becomes the official designation of the palace. Charles naturally was not there during a long term of years. He was marching and counter-marching in the north, and so mismanaging all his affairs successively that, regarded as a game, the Civil War consisted of a series of alternate military and diplomatic defeats. ”

“ Plans were drawn up by Sir Christopher Wren for a new palace, but William III., who, suffering from habitual asthma, found the smoke of Whitehall almost intolerable, was not likely to be anxious to restore a palace in which he could not live. As he wrote to one of his friends, "the loss is less to me than it would be to another person, for I cannot live there." But though he made little effort to rebuild the palace, being already busy at altering Hampton Court, there is no truth in the statement of his enemies, that William had partly inspired the fire. ”

“ PALACE OF WESTMINSTER 1 The Palace of Westminster, in which Lords and Commons meet—the largest and most imposing Gothic building in the world—may be regarded, rising so nobly on the left bank of the Thames, as an expression in architecture of the dignity and stability of Parliament, and the honour in which it is held by the Nation. Most visitors to the Palace reach it by Whitehall or Victoria Street. ”

“ Elizabeth made much use of Whitehall, but her buildings and improvements at Windsor must have proved a powerful attraction. She went about a good deal, and her State papers are signed in a great variety of places. She left no mark on Whitehall, although, at the very [Pg 21] end of her reign, instead of Henry the Eighth’s “palace of Westminster,” we have “Whitehall,” pure and simple, one or twice. We have seen how York Place became the Palace of Westminster. How it again changed its name, and became Whitehall, we do not know. ”

“ A dead child is found in the palace, the offspring of some maid of honour by some courtier, or perhaps by Charles himself. The whole flight of pandars and buffoons pounce upon it, and carry it in triumph to the royal laboratory, where his Majesty, after a brutal jest, dissects it for the amusement of the assembly, and probably of its father among the rest. The favourite Duchess stamps about Whitehall, cursing and swearing. The ministers employ their time at the council-board in making mouths at each other and taking off each other’s gestures for the amusement of the King. ”

“ He passes on to Whitehall and takes possession of the palace from which his father stepped on to the scaffold. Courtiers and sycophants, and honest men with tears in their eyes, crowd the presence-chamber to kiss his hands and wish him a long and happy reign, while the citizens outside give themselves up to unrestrained joy. A special Lord Mayor’s show is paraded as part of the festivities, and several of the pageants represent scenes from the life of the king who has just come into his own again. ”

“ If, as seems probable, the Banqueting House stood at the north-east corner, and if we look at the plan of Whitehall which George Vertue engraved for the Society of Antiquaries, we find that Inigo’s building is nearly in the middle of the palace. If we measure 728 feet to the southward, it takes us all that distance towards Westminster, and overwhelms in building-stone the whole of the Privy Garden and part of the Bowling Green. ”

“ To the westward of these small and inconvenient apartments, some of which were appropriated for the Queen and her maids of honour, was the great Stone Gallery, which looked on the garden and the bowling green. How far these arrangements were due to Cardinal Wolsey and how far to Henry VIII. we cannot say. Undoubtedly, the whole palace was most inconvenient, even at that day, when men’s ideas of comfort were so different from ours. ”

“ It was a dangerous thing to build or rebuild great mansions close to the palace of so jealous a King as Henry VIII. It was especially dangerous to do so at Whitehall, because, as has been already shown, the King lived at Westminster in a congeries of old buildings more or less dilapidated and inconvenient. ”

“ There was a broad flight of stairs from the park, by which access was gained to the ancient palace of Whitehall. The king entered the palace that way; he ascended the stairs with a light step, passed through the long gallery, and gained his own bedroom, where he was left with Bishop Juxon, who administered the sacrament to him. Nye and Godwin, two Independent ministers, knocked at the door, and tendered their spiritual assistance. "Say to them frankly," said the king, "that they have so often prayed against me, that they shall not pray with me in mine agony. ”

“ James's is the most important of the royal palaces of London, and more closely connected than any other with the long history of English Royalty. From the days of Henry VIII. to the present time there has always been a close personal connection with the reigning Sovereign of the British Empire.
The Palace of Whitehall presents a long and strange history. Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, Chief Minister of King Henry III., became possessed of the land by purchase from the monks of Westminster for 140 marks of silver and the annual tribute of a wax taper. ”

“ Hampton Court and Windsor Castle had been granted to him as well as Whitehall. Poor Mrs. Cromwell, who seems to have been of a simple and [Pg 65] unostentatious character, can hardly have relished the change. She became “Her Highness the Protectress,” and had more servants and attendants than she can have known what to do with. The exact part of the palace in which the new state apartments were placed is unknown. It was probably not where the late King lived, nor, on the other hand, can it have been far from the Banqueting House and the picture gallery. ”

“ You are so engrossed by the relics of General Wolfe and Nelson and Wellington and other heroes, that you almost forget what you came to see—the Old Banqueting Hall where they are lodged, the beautiful Palladian structure that Inigo Jones built in 1622—all that is now left of the old palace of Whitehall.
The nine ceiling paintings that Rubens did at Charles I.’s request look as fresh as if they had been painted yesterday, having been restored too many times. ”

“ It is certain that Charles II. did entertain for a time the idea of rebuilding the palace, for Evelyn relates, under the date 27th October 1664, that being at Whitehall, the king took him aside into a window recess, and having borrowed from him a pencil and paper, proceeded to draw, using the window-sill as a table, a plan for the projected palace, with the rooms of state and other particulars. But in Webb’s case, as in so many others, the bright hopes inspired by the Restoration were overclouded; the projected palace went no further than to be a design on paper ”

“ James’s Park to his palace of Whitehall, before which a scaffold draped with black has been erected. All marvel at the calm dignity which he displays.
The scaffold is hedged round with soldiers, and the headsman stands beside the block. The king, with head erect, steps through an opening in the wall of the banqueting hall on to the scaffold. He addresses himself to the bystanders, and in the last words he utters he shows clearly that he has not abandoned his fatal theory of kingship. ”

“ They are characteristic of Wren’s manner as displayed at Hampton Court (see Fig. 6) , more so than the other examples illustrated, and they are certainly more pleasing in their proportions and in the simplicity of their handling. The design for part of a front for the new palace at Whitehall (Fig. 103) is interesting in two respects; it is a specimen of Wren’s treatment of domestic architecture on a grand scale; and it proves that Charles II. still harboured the idea of a great new palace at Whitehall, an idea which fructified as little under Wren’s direction as it had done under Webb’s. ”