Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
[Illustration]
WHITEHALL
_HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL NOTES_
_By_
W. J. LOFTIE B.A.; F.S.A.
[Illustration]
LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED,
ESSEX STREET, STRAND
NEW YORK: MACMILLAN AND CO.
1895
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_PLATES_
PAGE
Inigo Jones. _From the Engraving by_ Van Voerst,
_after_ Van Dyck Frontispiece_
Apotheosis of James I. _From the Engraving by_
S. Gribelin, _after_ Rubens to face_ 32
Whitehall in 1724. _From the Engraving by_ J. Kip ” 68
Scotland Yard. _From an Engraving by_ E. Rooker,
_after_ Paul Sandby, R.A. ” 72
_ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_
PAGE
Banqueting Hall, Holbein’s Gate, and Treasury.
_From the Engraving by_ J. Silvestre, 1640 11
Holbein’s Gate. _From the Engraving by_ G. Vertue, 1725 14
Whitehall, from King Street. _From a Drawing by_
T. Sandby, R.A. _Engraved by_ R. Godfrey, 1775 17
Whitehall. _From an Engraving after a Drawing by_
Hollar _in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge_ 19
The King Street Gate. _From the Engraving by_ G. Vertue, 1725 23
Detail of Banqueting House. _From_ Kent’s “Inigo Jones” 28
Detail of Banqueting House. _From_ Kent’s “Inigo Jones” 29
Section of the Banqueting House. _From_ Kent’s “Inigo Jones” 31
Plan of Whitehall. _Engraved by_ G. Vertue,
_from a Survey made in 1680_ 33
First Design by Inigo Jones for the rebuilding of Whitehall.
Waterside Front. _From_ Müller 35
First Design by Inigo Jones for the rebuilding of Whitehall.
Bird’s-eye View. _From_ Müller 37
Part of the First Design by Inigo Jones for the rebuilding
of Whitehall. _From_ Kent’s “Inigo Jones” 40
Part of the Second Design by Inigo Jones for the rebuilding
of Whitehall. _From_ Campbell’s “Vitruvius Britannicus” 40
The Guardroom, Scotland Yard.
_From an Etching by_ J. T. Smith, 1805 46
Lambeth and Whitehall. _From the Engraving by_ W. Hollar 52
Whitehall, from the River. _From_ Ogilvy’s _Map_, 1677 54
The Execution of Charles I. _From a Print of 1649_ 59
Pyramidal Dial in Privy Garden, set up in 1669.
_From an Engraving by_ H. Steel, 1673 67
Funeral of Queen Mary, 1694. _From an Engraving by_ P. Persoy 71
Part of the Old Palace of Whitehall.
_From an Etching by_ J. T. Smith, 1805 73
View in Privy Garden. _From an Engraving by_ J. Malcolm, 1807 74
Privy Garden. _From an Engraving by_ T. Malton, 1795 76
Bird’s-eye View of Whitehall and St. James’s Park.
_From_ Smith’s “Views of Westminster” 77
WHITEHALL
CHAPTER I
_Site of Whitehall in the Twelfth Century—Part
of Westminster—Hubert de Burgh—York House—
Wolsey—Hentzner—Henry VIII.—His Honour of
Westminster—Holbein’s Gate—Anne of Cleves—
Funeral of Henry VIII._
When Abbot Laurence, of Westminster, looked out to the northward or
north-eastward, he could see no land—as far as the wall of London—which
did not belong to him and his house. This was the Abbot who first had
leave to assume the mitre, and in 1163 he obtained from Pope Alexander
II. the canonisation of Edward the Confessor. When worshippers wished
to kneel at the new saint’s shrine they had to reach Westminster as
best they could. Some, especially those who lived at Charing, or
further up the hill, in what was afterwards Hedge Lane, would make
their way to the Thames, the best highway in those days. In some
seasons, perhaps, the water-courses, which had their origin in the
Tyburn, might be dry enough to let them pass, but there were as yet
no regular roads and no bridges. One of these water-courses supplied
the Abbey, and one ran out where Richmond Terrace is now. We have two
documents from which to draw a picture of the ground which was not yet
Whitehall. First, we have the evidence afforded by the geographical
features of the locality; and, secondly, we have the report of a trial
which took place some sixty years ago, when, no doubt, all possible
charters and grants and leases and demises were cited. The trial was
between the people of Westminster and the people who lived in Richmond
Terrace. Westminster claimed that the Terrace was within the boundaries
of St. Margaret. The Terrace claimed that it was extra-parochial, as
being on part of the site of the palace of Whitehall. The counsel for
Westminster was able to show that Whitehall had been private property
before the reign of Henry VIII., and that neither he nor any one else
had made it extra-parochial. The verdict, therefore, was in favour of
the parishioners of St. Margaret.
We may return to this interesting and instructive report, with its
wealth of ancient evidence, and interrogate that much more ancient
document, the face of the country. Strange to say, a great deal of
that country remains as it was in, say, the reign of Henry III. The
green fields and the water-courses are there, though the Abbot in 1250
could no longer look across his own land all the way from Westminster.
The divided Tyburn wandered over the green expanse, untroubled with
bridges. Two or three small brooks formed here a kind of delta. On
the south, one of them ran through Westminster Abbey and divided
Thorney Island from Tot Hill. Another ran through the district we call
Whitehall. The land between was low and marshy, and even at the present
day, when there has been so much levelling up, the statue of Charles I.
is upon ground ten feet higher than Parliament Street. If, standing on
the future site of Whitehall we looked to the westward, we saw nothing
but a vast tract of low green meadow-land. If we looked to the south,
we might have seen the new buildings of Westminster Abbey, unless when
the Danes had been on the warpath. If we looked to the eastward, we
found that the Thames washed up close to our feet.
At this early period, and down to the reign of King Edward I., there
were no houses in sight, except those which clustered about the
Abbey, those which constituted the village of Charing, and in the far
distance the grim walls, the red-tiled roofs, and the church towers
of the City. London was more plainly visible than it is now, and on
account of a curious bend in the course of the Thames, was nearly as
visible from Westminster. By the thirteenth century a great change had
come over all the district. The Thames was better confined within its
proper limits; some measure of embanking had been carried out, and a
great many alterations in City life, in Church arrangements, and in
the King’s policy have been detailed in the histories of London. We
need not go far into them here. Before 1200, all the land between the
Abbot and London belonged to him. By 1222 all was changed, or about
to be changed, and the Abbot owned nothing except the advowson of the
far-off St. Bride’s. St. Bride’s belongs to Westminster even now. The
King laid claim to certain foreshores on the banks of the Thames.
Undoubtedly, they belonged by an ancient grant to the Abbot, but we
must take into consideration that what had been only occasionally dry
land in the eleventh century was permanently dry in the thirteenth;
and the King had conferred, and was conferring, too many benefits on
the Abbot and his monks and their church to permit them to dispute
his royal, if illegal, pleasure. The Bishop of Exeter formed a little
estate of the Outer Temple. From his precincts westward the constant
embanking, and especially the formation of the roadway of the Strand,
left a wide strip now permanently dry. This strip the King erected
into a manor, and bestowed upon his wife’s uncle, Count Peter. Peter
became Count of Savoy in 1263, and the manor has ever since been called
after him. The next of these reclamations was Whitehall. In the lawsuit
already mentioned, a document was produced which threw great light on
the early history of the district. It relates to the sale by Roger de
Ware and Maud, his mother, to Hubert de Burgh, of their land here.
Another document was a similar sale by Odo, the King’s goldsmith, of an
adjoining plot, identified as stretching from the highway to the Thames.
Hubert’s choice of a residence was determined, no doubt, because it
placed him within easy reach of the city on one side, and of the King’s
palace on the other. He probably seldom used the road through the
newly-constructed King Street, or the other road through the Strand—a
road famous for ruts and mud. He went either to Westminster or to
London by water, as did his great neighbours in the Savoy, and the
bishops who had palaces outside the Bar of the Temple. We often wonder
why our ancestors preferred these low-lying places for their houses.
The answer is the difficulty they experienced in locomotion by land.
The “silent highway” of the Thames was such a convenience that all who
could possibly afford it preferred to be within easy reach of water.
Hubert had no easy part to play. From 1227 he had to do daily battle
with the young King, who already, though still a boy, showed signs
of the combined obstinacy and incompetence which characterised him
through life. Hubert saw the impolicy of yielding to the papal claims.
He followed, as Bishop Stubbs remarks, in the footsteps of William
Marshall, taking a middle path between the feudal designs of the great
nobles and the despotic theories of the late King. In both these
particulars he was in opposition to Henry, who was bound to the Pope by
his education, and to the retrograde party by his personal prejudices.
Hubert served the King too well to please the people, and spared the
people too much to satisfy Henry. In 1232 he was dismissed, and his
ungrateful master, not content with his dismissal, trumped up a series
of charges against him, just as Henry’s descendant, Henry VIII., did
with regard to Cardinal Wolsey. Hubert had been made Earl of Kent in
1227, and Constable of the Tower of London just before his disgrace—in
fact, only a few days before—and during the same month was himself
lodged in the Tower as a prisoner. Eventually his lands were restored,
but he was not allowed to leave his castle at Devizes; he survived
till 1243, when he died, as Matthew Paris relates, “full of days.” He
had been five times married, and reckoned among his wives the widow of
King John, and the sister of Alexander III., king of Scotland; but he
left only two children, John, his son, and Margaret, his daughter. The
subsequent history of the land now called Whitehall, so far as Hubert
was interested in it, may be briefly detailed. Hubert had made a vow
to go to the Holy Land and fight the infidel, being himself, as Roger
of Wendover says, _Miles strenuus_; but not being able to fulfil his
vow, he gave his land at Whitehall, which he describes as being in the
parish of St. Margaret’s, into the hands of trustees to be sold in aid
of an expedition to the Holy Land. The trustees promptly sold it to
Walter Grey, archbishop of York, who annexed it to his See. Walter died
in 1255, and was succeeded by Sewall Bovill, who had been Dean of York.
Thirty archbishops in all held this house, beginning with Walter Grey
and ending with Thomas Wolsey. It is curious to remark that no trace
now exists of their occasional residence. It was uniformly called York
House, and we may be sure that Wolsey improved it, and built a hall
and a chapel similar to those at Hampton Court. One or two old views
show us stately and lofty buildings in the half-Gothic, half-Italian
style, which is so familiar at Christ Church at Oxford, and at King’s
College at Cambridge. A large hall was in King Street; that is, outside
Holbein’s Gate. We see it beyond the gate in Silvestre’s view; and
it stands up dark and heavy, with its strong buttresses on the left
hand, in T. Sandby’s view. In the last century, when it had been part
of the Treasury buildings for generations, it was newly fronted in
stone, and the buttresses turned into pilasters. Since then it has been
refronted twice—by Soane in 1824, and by Barry in 1846. Barry greatly
increased the length. It would be interesting, but almost impossible,
to ascertain if any of the masonry of Wolsey’s building still remains
within the new walls.
This is, of course, a digression. No part of the Treasury is in
Whitehall; but the reason for mentioning it is that its inclusion in
the two engravings I have named shows us what, in all probability,
Wolsey’s other buildings were like. Paul Hentzner, writing in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, says that they were “truly royal.” Very
little building of any importance went on under Henry VIII. or his
three immediate successors, so that Hentzner’s allusion must be to
what Wolsey left. It is true, as we shall see, that Henry proposed to
improve and extend it; but we may rest certain that he added nothing
to its magnificence, if we except the gates; as the anonymous author
of _Dodsley_ remarks, he had a greater taste for pleasure than for
elegance of building, and immediately on entering upon possession he
ordered a tennis court, a cockpit, and a series of bowling-greens.
But we are going too fast. In the beginning of 1530 Cardinal Wolsey
was still in possession, and there are various accounts of how he
transferred the palace of his predecessors to the King. Henry was not
very scrupulous in matters of this kind. He was much given to breaking
the tenth commandment, and especially to coveting his neighbour’s
house. He had already helped himself to Hampton Court, and a curious
anecdote will be found in Thorne’s _Environs_. Lord Windsor was much
attached to his place at Stanwell, which had descended to him from
a long line of ancestors. The house, no doubt, was in what agents
nowadays call ornamental repair. He entertained the King royally, and
Henry, with the kind of gratitude peculiar to him, promptly commanded
him to hand it over. He gave in exchange the Manor of Bordesley and
the Abbey, which Henry had taken from the monks. Windsor had just laid
in a stock of provisions for his Christmas festivities, but he refused
to remove them, saying that the King should not find it bare Stanwell
when he came to take possession. The curious part of the story is
that Henry does not seem ever to have visited it again, and we know
that he soon afterwards leased it away. At the time of Wolsey’s fall,
Henry had been for several years almost without a home in London;
his apartments at Westminster were burnt in 1512, and after twenty
years, in 1532, he bought the hospital of St. James’s-in-the-Fields.
Between these dates he would have been without a London palace, except
the Tower or Bridewell, but on the fall of Cardinal Wolsey certain
illegal formalities were complied with, and Henry became possessed
of Whitehall. The gates north and south of the royal precincts were
needful on account of the old right of way between Charing—now become
Charing Cross—and Westminster; and in 1535 Henry built the church of
St. Martin, near to where the royal mews had been from time immemorial,
with a view to prevent the constant passage of funerals from the
northern to the southern part of St. Margaret’s.
In addition, Henry acquired all the land between Charing Cross and
an outlying suburb of Westminster known as Little Cales, or Calais.
More than this, he annexed all the green to the westward, which I have
already mentioned. Abbot Islip had, in fact, nothing left of the great
manor which after the Conquest had belonged to Westminster Abbey. The
City of London had acquired the great ward of Farringdon Without. The
lawyers had the Inner and Middle Temples. The King had inherited from
the wife of John of Gaunt all the manor of the Savoy. And now Henry
VIII. helped himself to the remainder.
[Illustration: _Banqueting Hall, Holbein’s Gate, and Treasury_.
_From the Engraving by_ J. SILVESTRE, 1640.]
It will be interesting to see the document by which the Abbot conveyed
the inheritance of his house to the King. I am tempted to quote it
nearly whole, but recommend the reader who is not interested in such
things to skip on. No more quotations of the kind occur in this little
book, but some readers may find the numerous landmarks enumerated worth
making a note of, as most of them have long been obliterated:—
“To all Christ’s faithful people to whom this present writing
indented shall come: John Aslyp, abbot of the monastery of St. Peter,
Westminster, and the Prior and Convent of the same monastery, Greeting
in the Lord everlasting: Know ye that we, the aforesaid Abbot, Prior,
and Convent, with the unanimous assent, consent, and will of our whole
Chapter, in our full Chapter assembled, have given, granted, and by
this our present charter indented, confirmed to Sir Robert Norwich,
Knight, our Lord the King’s Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir
Richard Lyster, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Sir William
Pawlett, Knight, Thomas Audeley, serjeant-at-law of the Lord the
King, and Baldwin Malet, solicitor of the Lord the King: a certain
great messuage or tenement commonly called Pety Caley’s, and all
messuages, houses, barns, stables, dove-houses, orchards, gardens,
ponds, fisheries, waters, ditches, lands, meadows, and pastures, with
all and singular their appurtenances in any manner belonging to the
said great messuage or tenement called Pety Calais, or to the same
messuage adjoining, or with the same messuage heretofore to farm,
let, or occupied; situate, lying, and being within the said town of
Westminster, in the county of Middlesex. And also all those messuages,
cottages, tenements, and gardens situate, lying, and being on the east
side of the street, commonly called the Kynge’s Strete, within the said
town of Westminster, in the aforesaid county of Middlesex, extending
from a certain alley or lane, there called Lamb Alley, otherwise called
Lamb Lane, unto the bars situate in the aforesaid Kings Street, near
the manor of the Lord the King there, called York Place. And also all
other messuages, cottages, tenements, gardens, lands, and water, late
in the tenure of John Henburye, situate, lying, and being on the said
east side of the highway aforesaid, leading from a certain croft or
piece of land commonly called Scotlande, to the Chapel of St. Mary
de Rouncedevall, near the cross called Charyng Crosse. And also all
those messuages, cottages, tenements, gardens, lands, and wastes,
lying and being on the west side of the aforesaid street, called the
Kynges Strete, extending from a certain great messuage or brewhouse,
commonly called the Axe, along the aforesaid west, side, unto and
beyond the said cross called Charyng Crosse. And also all other lands,
tenements, and wastes, lying on the south side of the highway leading
from the aforesaid cross called Charyng Crosse, unto the hospital of
St. James in the Field. And also all those other lands and meadows
lying near and between lands lately belonging to the aforesaid hospital
of St. James on the south side of the said hospital, and so from the
aforesaid hospital on the south side of the highway extending towards
the west unto the cross called Cycrosse, and turning from the same
cross extending towards the south by the highway leading towards the
town of Westminster, unto the stone bridge called Eybridge, and from
thence along the aforesaid highway leading towards and to the aforesaid
town of Westminster, unto the south side of the land there called
Rosamundis, and so from thence along the aforesaid south part of the
aforesaid land called Rosamundis, towards the east, directly unto the
land, late parcel of the aforesaid great messuage or tenement called
Pety Calais, and to the same great messuage or tenement belonging,
containing in the whole by estimation, eighty acres of land more or
less, and one close late in the tenure of John Pomfrett, now deceased,
containing by estimation twenty-two acres of land, lying in the parish
of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, in the aforesaid county of Middlesex,
except always and so as the aforesaid Abbot, Prior, and Convent, our
successors and assigns, wholly reserved as well as the aqueduct coming
and running to our aforesaid monastery.”
[Illustration: _Holbein’s Gate_.
_From the Engraving by_ G. VERTUE, 1725.]
Had Henry foreseen the course which his policy of confiscation would
lead him into, he might have waited till 1539, when all the monastic
estates became his. However, there is much to interest us is this
strange document. We see that when Henry had annexed Whitehall to
Westminster in such a way as to call the two by the same name—that
is, “our palace of Westminster;” and when he had annexed the whole
expanse of St. James’s Park, to both, and had made of St. James’s a
kind of lodge to Whitehall—when from St. James’s he could look up
the green hills towards Hyde Park, which he had also taken from the
Abbot of Westminster, and beyond that again towards Hampstead Hill—the
intervening country being all open and void—he took special leave from
a subservient Parliament to make the whole into “an honour.” “Forasmuch
as the King’s most royal Majesty is most desirous to have the games
of hare, partridge, pheasant, and heron preserved in and about his
honour at his palace of Westminster, for his own disport and pastime
to St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields, to our Lady of the Oak, to Highgate; to
Hornsey Park; to Hampstead Heath; and from thence to his said palace of
Westminster, to be preserved and kept for his own disport, pleasure and
recreation; his highness therefore straightly chargeth and commandeth
all and singular his subjects, of what estate, degree or condition
soever they be, that they, nor any of them, do presume or attempt to
hunt, or to hawk, or in any means to take, or kill, any of the said
games, within the precincts aforesaid, as they tender his favour and
will eschew the imprisonment of their bodies, and further punishment,
at his Majesties will and pleasure.”
Henry spent considerable sums of money in making an orchard, probably
where the so-called Whitehall Gardens are now. Two thousand five
hundred loads of stone were used in this work and in enclosing St.
James’s Park. But the only additions to Wolsey’s building seem to have
been a long gallery which ran northward towards Charing Cross; there
was also a passage, but of what kind we do not know, “through a certain
ground named Scotland.”
There are numerous engravings extant of the northern gateway. It was
in the most florid taste of the day. Perhaps we can best realise its
appearance by a visit to Hampton Court. The great gate there is made of
ornamental brickwork and decorated with terra-cotta statues or busts.
Thomas Sandby’s drawing shows the view from King Street very well.
On our left are the buildings of the Treasury. To the right beyond
the gate is the Banqueting House. Apparently when this view was taken
the gate had become wholly detached from what remained of the palace
after the fire of 1697. Wilkinson’s view (I. 143), from a drawing by
Hollar, taken in the early part of the reign of Charles I., shows a
line of four gables connecting the gate and the Banqueting House, and
we know that a gallery or passage led from the park, through the first
floor of the gate to the palace. By this circuitous route it was that
Charles reached the place of his death. In Hollar’s view the arch of
the gate contains a flat ceiling and a window, which greatly spoils
its appearance. At the park end of the passage there was a staircase.
Adjoining this end of the passage, and very near where Downing Street
stands now, was a tilt-yard, and close to it a small barrack for the
Foot Guards. Beyond it, further to the north, was the yard of the Horse
Guards, very much as it is still. Behind the spot where James I. built
the Banqueting House, to the eastward, was the court, a very irregular
space, divided by a passage passing over an archway. This passage led
to the great hall and the chapel, which last was close to the river’s
bank. The King’s lodgings also looked on the Thames, but between them
and the chapel there was a labyrinth of small chambers and sets of
chambers. 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. There was not, if we except the so-called Great
Hall, a very small building compared with that of Hampton Court, a
single large or handsome chamber in the whole place. Room was, however,
found for a library, and Paul Hentzner mentions it with praise. In it
he saw a book in French written by the Princess, afterwards Queen,
Elizabeth, with her own hand, and inscribed to her father: _Elizabeth
sa très humble fille rend salut et obédience_. “All these books,”
continues Hentzner, “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.” There are probably a few
representatives of this library among the books which belonged to Henry
VIII., and have his name or arms, in the British Museum. Hentzner also
notices the furniture of inlaid woods, some stained glass representing
the Passion, and a gallery of portraits and other pictures. He visited
Whitehall in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the place must have
been very much as it was left by Henry VIII. He mentions, among other
things, the Queen’s bed, “ingeniously composed of woods of different
colours, with quilts of silk, velvet, gold, silver, and embroidery.”
Among the portraits is one, the description of which puzzles me: “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.” Can this have been a
device of the same sort as the distorted skull in Holbein’s picture of
“The Ambassadors” in the National Gallery?
[Illustration: _Whitehall, from King Street_.
_From a Drawing by_ T. SANDBY, R.A.
_Engraved by_ R. GODFREY, 1775.]
Henry VIII. continued to date documents of all kinds at “Westminster,”
meaning Whitehall. It is possible that St. James’s was similarly
included in Westminster. In or about 1537 the King’s house there
was greatly improved and beautified, it is said by Cromwell, in
anticipation of Henry’s marriage with Anne of Cleves. The initials
“H. A.” on some of the fireplaces and ceilings were probably put up
in allusion to the same marriage, and have nothing to do with Anne
Boleyn. It was intended that Henry and Anne (of Cleves) should pass
their honeymoon at this remote corner of the park as it was then,
there being no buildings whatever visible from the gate. The result
we all know; and Henry, long before the honeymoon had waned, was back
at “Westminster.” Events travelled rapidly in those days. Anne Boleyn
was beheaded in May, 1536. In the same month Henry was married to Jane
Seymour. She died in October, 1537. In January, 1539, Henry married
Anne of Cleves, and divorced her in July. In April following Cromwell
became Earl of Essex, and was beheaded in July of the same year. No
doubt Whitehall was the principal scene of the long tragedy indicated
by this dry list of dates. At “Westminster” Henry conferred a peerage
on Cromwell’s son, Gregory; and there, too, he issued letters of
naturalisation to the Lady Anne of Cleves, and gave her several manors.
One more tragedy and we have done with Henry VIII. On a day unknown, in
January, 1547, the King lay dying at Whitehall. So weak had he become
that he was obliged to leave it to others to execute his cruel and
relentless orders. He died at Whitehall on the 28th, the last act of
his life having been to send the poet Surrey to the scaffold, and to
prepare a similar fate for Surrey’s father, the Duke of Norfolk. The
Duke being a peer, the process for obtaining an act of attainder was
slower. A commission had been issued by the tyrant to Wriothesley, St.
John, Russell, and Hertford to give the King’s consent to the Bill. But
death stepped in and the Duke’s life was saved.
[Illustration: _Whitehall. From an Engraving after a Drawing by_
HOLLAR _in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge_.]
Sandford gives a very circumstantial account of the funeral ceremonies
at the burial of Henry VIII. It is chiefly interesting because he names
several apartments of Whitehall Palace. At first the body lay in the
King’s private chamber, and there received some embalming treatment,
and was wrapped in lead. The chapel, the cloister, the hall, and the
King’s chamber were all hung with black. On the 2nd of February the
coffin was taken into the chapel. We read of cloth of gold and a pall
of tissue. The altar was covered with velvet, adorned with scutcheons
of the Royal arms. Twelve lords, mourners, sat or knelt within the
rail. Watchers likewise took turns of duty, and, as the people passed
by, a herald cried to them, saying, “You shall of your charity pray for
the soul of the most famous prince, King Henry VIII., our late most
gracious king and master.” The body was not to lie in the sumptuous
but despoiled chapel Henry had raised for his father and mother. On
the 14th of February the wax effigy was ready, and a procession, which
Sandford says was four miles long, started for Windsor. Henry had
desired to be buried beside Jane Seymour. Syon was reached the first
night, and the journey was ended at one o’clock the next day.
There is nothing to connect Edward VI. with Whitehall during his short
reign. But Mary, his successor, was constantly there. She is said to
have preferred St. James’s, and the first separate mention we have of
it in a State paper is in December, 1556. She died there in November,
1558.
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 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. The change
seems to have been made by Elizabeth shortly before her death, and
the name may have already been in popular use. After her death, at
Richmond, in March, 1603, her body lay in state at Whitehall, and was
buried in the Chapel of Henry VII.
With the Stuarts we have a new epoch in the history of Whitehall.