THE VANISHED PALACE.
Westminster is the City of Kings’ Houses. It contains, or has contained,
five of them. Of these we have already considered one--the earliest and
the most interesting. Of the four others, Buckingham Palace belongs to
the present; it is, in a way, part of ourselves, since it is the House
of the Sovereign. Therefore we need not dwell upon it. There remain the
Houses of Whitehall, of St. James’s, and of Kensington. Of these three
the two latter Palaces have apparently failed to impress the popular
imagination with any sense of royal splendor or mystery. This sense
belongs both to Westminster and to Whitehall; but not to St. James’s or
to Kensington. It is hard to say why this is so. As regards St. James’s,
the buildings are certainly not externally majestic; nor does one who
walks within its courts become immediately conscious of ancient
associations and the atmosphere of Court Functions. Yet nearly all the
Court Functions were held there for a hundred and fifty years. Again,
there are personal associations, if one looks for them, clinging to St.
James’s, as there were at Whitehall; but either we do not look for them,
or they do not awaken any enthusiasm. Pilgrims do not journey to the
Palace to visit its haunted chambers, as they do to Holyrood or to
Windsor. Queen Mary, for instance, died in the Palace--Froude has told
us in what mournful manner and in which room. Does anyone ever ask or
care for the room in which the most unhappy of all English Queens or
Princesses breathed her last? King Charles spent his last night in this
Palace. The Royal martyr has still admirers, but they do not flock to
St. James’s to weep over the unspeakable sadness of that night. The
elder Pretender was born here, but we have almost forgotten his life, to
say nothing of his birth, in spite of the romantic warming-pan. There
are stories of love and intrigue, of jealousy, of ambition and
disappointment, connected with St. James’s; yet, with all this wealth of
material, it is not a place of romance: at Whitehall, when we think of
that vanished House, the face, the eyes, the voice of Louise de
Querouaille light up the courts; the Count de Grammont fills the rooms
for us with lovely ladies and gallant courtiers; outside, from her
windows looking into the Park, fair Nelly greets the King with mirthful
eyes and saucy tongue as he crosses from Whitehall. Well, Miss Brett was
perhaps quite as beautiful as Nelly or Louise, but we do not in the
least desire to read about her. The book of the French courtier treats
entirely of the world, the flesh, and the devil--we read it with
rapture; the Chronicles of St. James’s might be written so as to treat
of exactly the same subjects--yet we turn from them. Why? Because it is
impossible to throw over the Georges the luminous halo of romance.
George the First, the Second, and the son of the Second, were perhaps as
immoral as Charles and James; yet between them all they could not
produce a single romance. The first romantic episode in the history of
the house of Hanover is that simple little legend of Hannah Lightfoot.
Perhaps another reason why St. James’s has never become to the
imagination a successor to Whitehall and Westminster is that from the
year 1714 to the year 1837 the old kind of loyalty to the sovereign no
longer existed. Compare the personal loyalty displayed to Henry V., to
Henry VIII., to Elizabeth, with that felt for William III., who saved
the country from Catholic rule, and for George I., who carried on the
Protestant succession. The country accepted these kings, not because
they had any personal love for them, but because they enabled the nation
to have what it wanted. The new kings did not try to become personally
popular; but they were ready to lead the people in war for religious
freedom, and they represented a principle. But as for personal loyalty
of the ancient kind, that no longer existed.
For exactly a similar reason Kensington has never been a palace in which
the world is interested. William III. chose the house for his residence;
he died here. An excellent king, a most useful king, but hardly
possessed of the nation’s love. George II. died here; the Duke of Sussex
died here; yet there is no curiosity or enthusiasm about the place.
With Whitehall the case is quite different. It was the Palace of Henry
VIII., of Elizabeth, of the Tudors and the Stuarts; the Palace of
sovereigns who ruled as well as reigned, who were English and not
Germans, who lived in the open light and air for all to behold; if they
did not hide their vices, they openly displayed their virtues: there is
more interest attaching to the Whitehall of Charles II. alone than there
is to the St. James’s of all those who came after him. Since, then, we
can here consider one palace only out of the remaining four, let us turn
to the Palace of Whitehall.
We have seen that, of all the buildings which once clustered round the
Painted Chamber and formed the
[Illustration: _Inigo Jones 1614._]
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. And of the Stuart Whitehall which succeeded there remains but
one chamber, the Banqueting Hall of Inigo Jones. Perhaps no royal palace
of recent times, in any country, has been so lost and forgotten as that
of the Tudor Whitehall. Even the Ivory House of Ahab, or the Golden
House of Nero, has not been more completely swept away. I wonder how
many living men--even of the few who have seriously studied the
Westminster of the past--could draw from memory a plan of Whitehall
Palace, or describe in general terms its courts and buildings. Yet it
was a very great house; certainly not venerable or picturesque, such as
that which stood beside the Abbey: there were no sculptured fronts, no
tall gables, no tourelles, no gray walls, no narrow windows, no carved
cloisters; there was hardly any suggestion of a fortress; it was a
modern house from the first, the house of an ecclesiastic, built, like
all the older houses, in a succession of courts. One who wishes to
understand Whitehall must visit Hampton, and walk about the courts of
St. James’s.
The first mention of the House is in the year 1221, when it was
bequeathed by Hubert de Burgh, Henry III.’s Justiciary, to the
Dominicans of his foundation. The original home of the Black Friars in
London was in Holborn, exactly north of Lincoln’s Inn; whence, fifty
years later, they removed to the corner where the Fleet runs into the
Thames, just outside the ancient City wall. Here their name still
survives. The monks kept Hubert’s house till 1276, when they sold it to
the Archbishop of York. For two hundred and fifty years it was the town
house of the Archbishop. Wolsey, the last Archbishop who held it,
greatly enlarged and beautified the house. Concerning the magnificence
with which he lived here--such magnificence as surpassed that of the
King his master, such splendor as no king of England, not even Richard
the Second, had ever shown at his court--we are informed by his
biographer, Cavendish. Wolsey’s following of eight hundred men,
including ten peers of the realm and fifteen knights who were not too
proud to enter the service of the Cardinal, was greater even than that
of Warwick, the King-maker of the preceding century.
When one reads of the entertainments, the banquetings, the mumming, the
music, the gold and silver plate, the cloth of gold, the blaze of color
everywhere,--in the hangings, in the coats of arms, in the costumes, in
the trappings of the horses,--we must remember that this magnificence
was not in those days regarded as ostentation. So to speak of it betrays
nineteenth-century prejudice. It is only in this present century that
the rich man has been expected to live, to travel, to dress, to
entertain, very much like the men who are not so rich. Dives now drives
in a carriage little better than that of the physician who attends him.
He gives dinners little better than those of the lawyer who conducts his
affairs. If he lives in a great house, it is in the country, unseen. To
parade and flaunt and exhibit your wealth is, as we now understand
[Illustration: HOLBEIN’S GATE AND THE BANQUETING HALL.
_From the original Picture by Samuel Scott, in possession of Mr. Andrew
Chatto._]
things, bad form. In the time of Cardinal Wolsey it was not bad form: it
was the right and proper use of wealth to entertain royally; it was the
part of a rich man to dress splendidly, to have a troop of gentlemen and
valets in his service, to exhibit tables covered with gold and silver
plate, to hang the walls with beautiful and costly arras. All this was
right and proper. In this way the successful man showed his success to
the world; he invited the world to judge how successful he was--how
rich, how powerful. A great deal of Wolsey’s authority and power
depended upon this outward and visible show. Perhaps he overdid the
splendor and created jealousies. Yet kings delighted in seeing the
splendor of their subjects. Had the divorce business gone on smoothly,
the King might have continued to rejoice in possessing a subject so
great and powerful. We have ceased so long from open splendor that we
find it difficult to understand it. Imagination refuses to restore the
glory of York House, when its walls were hung with tapestry of many
colors; when, here and there, in place of tapestry, the walls were hung
with cloth of gold, cloth of silver, and cloth of tissue. Where, let me
ask, can we find now a single piece of this fine cloth of gold? There
were long tables spread with rich stuffs--satin, silk, velvet, damask:
where can we find a table now spread with these lovely things? There
were sideboards set with the most splendid gold and silver plate: where
now can we see gold and silver plate--save at a Lord Mayor’s Dinner? A
following of eight hundred people rode with the Cardinal: what noble in
the land has such a following now? Alas! the richest and greatest lord
that we can produce has nothing but a couple of varlets behind his
carriage, and two or three more in his hall, with never a knight or
squire or armiger among them. As for the Cardinal himself, when he went
abroad he was all scarlet and red and gold and silver gilt. His saddle
was of crimson velvet, his shoes were set with gleaming diamonds, his
stirrups were silver gilt; before him rode two monks carrying silver
crosses. Every day he entertained a multitude with a noble feast and
fine wines, with the singing of men and children, and with the music of
all kinds of instruments. And afterward there were masques and
mummeries, and dances with noble dames and gentle damsels.
What have we to show in comparison with this magnificence? Nothing. The
richest man, the most noble and the most powerful, is no more splendid
than a simple gentleman. The King-maker, if he existed in the present
day, would walk to his club in Pall Mall; and you would not distinguish
him from the briefless barrister taking his dinner--the same dinner,
mind--at the next table. The decay of magnificence accompanies the decay
of rank, the decay of individual authority, and the decay of territorial
power.
Wolsey fell. Great and powerful must have been that dread sovereign,
that Occidental Star, that King who could overthrow by a single word so
mighty a Lord as the Cardinal. And the king took over for his own use
the town house of the Archbishops of York.
At this time the old Palace of Westminster was in a melancholy
condition. A fire in 1512 destroyed a great part of it, including the
principal offices and many of the chambers. The central part--the King’s
House--however, escaped, and here the King remained. Rooms for visitors
were found at Baynard’s Castle, Bridewell, and St. James’s (which was
built by Henry on the site of St. James’s Hospital). Norden, who wrote
in the year 1592, says that the old Palace at that time lay in ruins,
but that the vaults, cellars, and walls still remaining showed how
extensive had been the buildings in former times.
In converting York House into a Palace Henry added a tennis court, a
cockpit, a bowling alley, and a tilt yard. He built a gateway after
Holbein’s designs across the main street; and besides these, according
to the Act of Parliament which annexed Whitehall to the Palace of
Westminster, he “most sumptuously and curiously builded and edified many
beautiful, costly, and pleasant lodgings.” He laid out the Park, and he
began a collection of pictures, which Charles I. afterward enlarged.
James I. designed to erect a new and very costly Palace on the spot. He
intrusted the work to Inigo Jones, but the design never got beyond the
Banqueting Hall. Had the Palace been completed it would have shown a
front of 1152 feet in length from north to south, and 874 feet from east
to west.
The plan of the Palace, as it was in the reign of Charles II., exists.
It is here reproduced from the Crace collection in the British Museum.
It will be seen that the place was much less in area and contained fewer
buildings than the Westminster Palace. The chief reason for these
diminished proportions was the separation for the first time in English
history of the High Courts of Justice from the King’s Court, and the
change from the army,--King Cnut’s huscarles,--which the kings had
always led about with them, to a small bodyguard. The place is rambling,
as we should expect from the manner in which it grew.
On the south side the Palace began with the Bowling Green; next to this
was the Privy Garden, a large
[Illustration: THE WATERSIDE ELEVATION OF INIGO JONES’ PALACE.]
piece of ground laid out formally. The front of the Palace consisted of
the Banqueting Hall, the present Whitehall, the Gate and Gate Tower,
neither stately nor in any way remarkable, and a row of low gabled
houses almost mean in appearance. The Gate opened upon a series of three
courts or quadrangles. The first and most important, called “The Court,”
had on its west side the Banqueting House; on the south there was a row
of offices or chambers; on the north a low covered way connected the
Banqueting Hall with the other chambers; on the east side was the Great
Hall or Presence Chamber, the Chapel, and the private rooms of the King
and Queen. This part of the Palace contained what was left of the old
York House. The second court, that into which the principal gate opened,
was called the “Courtyard.” By this court was the way to the Audience
and Council Chambers, the Chapel, the offices of the Palace, and the
Water Gate. The Art Collections and Library were placed in the “Stone
Gallery,” which ran along the east side of the Privy Garden. A third
court was called Scotland Yard; in this court was the Guard House. The
old custom of having everything made in the Palace that could be made,
and everything stored under responsible officers, was continued at
Whitehall as it had been at Westminster. Thus we find cellars, pastry
house, pantry, cyder house, spicery, bakehouse, charcoal house, scalding
house, chandlery, poulterers’ house, master glazier’s,
confectionery--and the rest, each office with its responsible officer,
and each officer with his own quarters in the Palace. One long building
on the right hand of the picture was the “Small Beer Buttery.” The
length shows its importance; its situation among the offices indicates
for whom it was erected. Remember that the common sort of Englishman has
never at any time used water as a beverage unless there was nothing else
to be had; that as yet he had no tea; that his habitual beverage was
small beer; and that in all great houses small beer was to be had for
the asking in the intervals of work.
Beyond the Banqueting Hall and the Gate House there is a broad street,
now Parliament Street, then a portion of the Palace. On the other side,
where in King Henry’s reign were the Tilt Yard and the Cockpit, are the
old Horse Guards and Wallingford House, afterward the Admiralty. Beyond
these buildings is St. James’s Park, with fine broad roads, which remain
to the present day; on the left is Rosamond’s Pond in its setting of
trees, to which reference is constantly made in the literature of the
seventeenth century.
At the south end of the open space stood the beautiful gate erected by
Holbein. It was removed in 1759.
The appearance of the Palace from the river has been preserved in
several views, in none of which do the details all agree. The one
produced here is taken from Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata,” and shows
the Palace in the time of James II. The general aspect of
[Illustration: ST. JAMES’S PALACE.]
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;
it has now become the house for the collections of the United Service
Institute. One could wish that some of the Palace had been preserved:
from the marriage of Anne Boleyn to the deposition of James II. is a
period which contains a great many events of interest and importance,
all of which are associated with this Palace. The destruction of the
ancient Faith, the dissolution of the Religious Houses, the re-birth of
Classical learning, the vast development of trade, the widening of the
world, the beginning of the Empire _outre mer_, the humbling of Spain,
the successful resistance of the nation against the king, the growth of
a most glorious literature, the revival of the national spirit--all
these things belong to Whitehall Palace. Other memories it had, not so
pleasing: the self-will of Henry, the misery of his elder daughter, the
execution of Charles I., the licentious Court of Charles II.--one wishes
that the place had been spared.
We have copied the plan of the Palace. It is, however, impossible to
fill in the plan with the innumerable offices, private rooms, galleries,
and chambers mentioned by one writer and another. We must be content to
know that it was a vast nest of chambers and offices; there were
hundreds of them; the courts were crowded with people; there was a
common thoroughfare through the middle of the Palace from Charing Cross
to Westminster; so many funerals, for instance, were conducted along
this road to St. Margaret’s, that Henry VIII. constructed a new burial
ground at St. Martin’s. The Palace was accessible to all; the Guard
stood at the gate, but everybody was admitted as to a town; the King
moved freely about the Courts, in the Mall, in the Park, sometimes
unattended. The people drove their pack horses or their wagons up and
down the road, and hardly noticed the swarthy-faced man who stood under
the shade of a tree watching the players along the Mall. This easy and
fearless familiarity vanished with the Stuarts.
[Illustration: KENSINGTON PALACE.]
Between this palace and that of Westminster there were certain important
points of difference. One, the absence of the law courts, has already
been noticed. At Whitehall there was a Guard House; it stood, as has
been said, in Scotland Yard; no doubt the Gate was guarded; in 1641 the
old “Horse Guards” was built for the Gentlemen Pensioners who formed the
Guard; but there was no wall round the Palace, there was no suggestion
of a fortress, there was no suggestion of a camp. Next, the Palace of
Westminster was always, as had been intended by Edward the Confessor,
connected with the Abbey. It had, to be sure, its own chapel--that of
St. Stephen’s; but it was connected by historical associations of every
kind with the Abbey. The ringing of the Abbey bells, the rolling of the
organ, the chanting of the monks could be heard by day and by night
above the music and the minstrelsy, the blare of trumpet and the clash
of arms. At Whitehall there was a chapel, but the Abbey was out of
hearing. When Henry removed his Palace from Thorney Island to York
House, it was a warning or a sign that he would shortly remove himself
from the domination of the Church.
[Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
As for the Court in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, we have full
details. The Yeomen of the Guard, who were the bodyguard, wore red cloth
roses on back and breast. When the Court moved from
[Illustration: THE HORSE GUARDS.]
Whitehall to Greenwich or to Theobalds, a vast quantity of baggage went
with it. Three hundred carts were required to carry all that was wanted.
What did these carts contain? Not furniture, certainly. Table-linen,
gold and silver plate, wine, and stores of all kinds, tapestry, dresses,
and bedding, kitchen vessels. As for furniture, there were as yet no
tables such as we now use, but boards on trestles, which were put up for
every meal; there were chairs and stools; there was tapestry on the
walls; there were beds; there were cabinets and sideboards; except in
the Presence Chamber or the Banqueting Hall there were no carpets. All
who write of England at this time speak with admiration of the chambers
strewn with sweet herbs, the crushing of which by their feet brought
out their fragrance; the nosegays of flowers placed in the bedrooms,
and the parlors trimmed with vine leaves, green boughs, and fresh herbs.
It is a pleasant picture.
Of treasures such as exist at the present day in Buckingham Palace,
Windsor, and other royal residences, there were few. Hentzner, a
traveler, in the year 1598, found a library in Whitehall well stored
with Greek, Latin, Italian, and French books; he says nothing of English
books. They were all bound in red velvet, with clasps of gold and
silver; some had pearls and precious stones in the bindings. He also
found some pictures, including portraits of “Henry, Richard, and
Edward.” There were a few other curious things: a cabinet of silver,
daintily worked, in which the Queen kept letter-paper; a jewel-box set
with pearls; toys and curiosities in clockwork. A few years later, in
1613, the pictures in Whitehall are enumerated. There were then
portraits of Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Mary
Queen of Scots. There were also portraits of French and Spanish kings
and queens, and of the great ladies of Court. It is curious to remark
that no portrait then existed in Whitehall either of Mary or of Philip.
The list includes the portraits in the other palaces. There is not one
of Mary.
Let us assist at a royal banquet. It is an entertainment offered to Juan
Fernandez de Velasco, Duke de Frias, Constable of Castile, on Sunday,
August 10, 1604, in which the King opened his mind without reserve as to
peace with Spain. The Audience Chamber was furnished with a buffet of
several stages, filled with gold and silver plate. People were freely
admitted to look on, but a railing was put up on either side of the
room to keep them from crowding or pressing. The table was fifteen feet
long and three feet broad. The dishes were brought in by the King’s
gentlemen and servants, accompanied by the Lord Chamberlain. The Earls
of Pembroke and Southampton were gentlemen-ushers. The King and Queen,
with Prince Henry, entered after the arrival of the Constable and his
suite. After washing of hands,--the Lord Treasurer handing the bowl to
the King and the Lord High Admiral to the Queen,--grace was said, and
they took their seats. The King and Queen occupied thrones at the head
of the table under a canopy of state on chairs of brocade, with
cushions. On the Queen’s side sat the Constable on a tabouret of
brocade, and on the King’s side sat the Prince. The other guests were
four gentlemen forming part of the Ambassador’s suite. There was also at
the table, says a historian, a large company of the principal noblemen
in the realm. He enumerates twenty-one, and says there were others. How
they were all placed at a table fifteen feet long and three feet broad,
he does not explain. Perhaps there was a second table. A band of
instruments discoursed music during the banquet. The speeches and toasts
went on during the course of the dinner. First the King rose, and,
taking off his crown, he drank to the health of their Spanish Majesties.
Next the Constable drank to the Health of the Queen “out of the lid of a
cup of agate of extraordinary beauty.” He then passed the cup to the
King, asking him to drink out of it; and then to the Prince. He then
directed that the cup should remain on his Majesty’s buffet. At this
point the people present shouted out: “Peace! peace! peace! God save the
King! God save the King!”
[Illustration: OLD SCOTLAND YARD.]
The banquet, thus cheered by compliments, toasts, and the shouts of the
onlookers, lasted three hours. At its conclusion, which would be three
o’clock in the afternoon, a singular ceremony took place. “The table was
placed upon the ground, and their Majesties, standing upon it, proceeded
to wash their hands.” The King and Queen then retired to their own
apartments, while the Spanish guests were taken to the picture gallery.
In an hour’s time they returned to the Audience Chamber, where dancing
had begun.
Fifty ladies of honor were present, “richly dressed and extremely
beautiful.” Prince Henry danced a _galliard;_ the Queen, with the Earl
of Southampton, danced a _brando;_ the Prince danced another
_galliard_--“con algunas cabriolas,” with certain capers; then another
_brando_ was performed; the Queen with the Earl of Southampton, and
Prince Henry with another lady of the Court, danced a _correnta_. This
ended the ball. They then all took their places at the windows, which
looked out upon a court of the Palace. There they had the pleasure of
seeing the King’s bears fight with greyhounds, and there was very fine
baiting of the bull. Then followed tumblers and rope-dancers. With these
performances ended the entertainment and the day. The Lord Chamberlain
accompanied the Constable to the farthest room; the Earl of Devonshire
and other gentlemen went with them to their coaches, and fifty
halberdiers escorted them on their way home with torches. On the morrow,
one is pained to read, the Constable had an attack of lumbago.
There are other notes on the Court which one finds in the descriptions
of foreign travelers. Thus, the King was served on one knee; while he
drank his cupbearer remained on one knee; he habitually drank
Frontignac, a sweet, rich French wine; when Queen Elizabeth passed
through the street men fell on their knees (this practice seems to have
been discontinued at her death); servants carried their masters’ arms on
the left sleeve; the people, within or without the Court, were noisy and
overbearing (all travelers agree on this point); they hated foreigners
and laughed at them; they were magnificent in dress; they allowed their
wives the greatest liberty, and spent all they could afford upon their
dresses; the greatest pleasure the wives of the citizens had was to sit
in their doorways dressed in their best for the passers-by to admire;
they were accustomed to eat a great quantity of meat; they loved sweet
things, pouring honey over mutton and mixing sugar with their wine; they
ardently pursued bull and bear baiting, hunting, fishing, and sport of
all kinds; they ate saffron cakes to bring out the flavor of beer; they
spent great sums of money in tobacco, which was 18s. a pound, equal to
more than £6 of our money; their great highway was the river, which was
covered with boats of all kinds plying up and down the stream, and was
also covered with thousands of swans. The river, indeed, maintained as
watermen, fishermen, lightermen, stevedores, etc., as many as forty
thousand men. When we read of James kissing his favorites--a practice
nauseous to the modern Englishman--we must remember that it was then not
an uncommon thing, but quite the contrary, for friends to kiss each
other. In France and Germany men have always greeted each other with a
kiss. On entering a room a visitor kissed all the ladies present. Thus
it was reckoned unusual when the Duchess of Richmond (1625) admitted the
Duke of Brunswick to Ely House on the proviso that he must not kiss her.
He did not, but he kissed all her ladies
[Illustration: ROSAMOND’S POND, ST. JAMES’S PARK.]
twice over in a quarter of an hour. And the Constable of Castile, the
day before the great banquet, kissed all the Queen’s ladies of honor.
Erasmus remarks that the English have a custom “never to be sufficiently
commended. Wherever you go, you are received with a kiss from all; when
you take your leave, you are dismissed with kisses; you return--kisses
are repeated; they come to visit you--kisses again.”
Those who read--and trust--the gossiping and scandalous memoirs of the
day acquire a very imperfect idea of King James’s Court. The physical
defects and weaknesses of the King are exaggerated: we are told that his
legs were weak, and that he rolled in his gait; the foreign ambassadors,
however, speak of him as a man of great strength and strong
constitution: we are told that he spoke thickly; there is nothing said
of this defect in the letters written by these visitors. That he lived
privately, and went not abroad, as Queen Elizabeth had done, is
acknowledged; that his Court was in any way ridiculous does not appear,
except in such a writer as Anthony Welldon. In this place, happily, we
have not to consider his foreign or domestic policy, or his lofty ideas
on Divine Right; but only his Court. In the fierce light which beats
upon a throne every weakness is made visible and appears out of
proportion. We must remember, however, that the blemishes are not
visible to him who only occasionally visits the Court, or witnesses a
Court function. We, for instance, are only outsiders: we know nothing of
the whispers which run round the inner circle. Those who are about the
person of the sovereign must experience, one would think, something of
degradation when they make the inevitable discovery that the King’s most
excellent Majesty, whom they have been wont to serve on bended
[Illustration: THE WATER GATE, NEW PALACE YARD.]
knee, is afflicted, like the meanest of his servants, with human
infirmities, and with weaknesses physical and mental. There are,
however, two kings; the one as he appears to the outer world, which only
sees him at Court functions; the other as he appears to his servants and
those about his person. If one of these servants reveals to the world
that the sovereign in hours of privacy was wont to relax from the cares
of state in the company of persons little better than buffoons, we may
acknowledge that the dignity maintained by the King in public and before
the eyes of the world was greater than James could always sustain. He
relaxed, therefore, too much in the opposite direction. Why parade the
fact? When one of his servants describes a drunken orgy at the Palace,
we remark that James was king for more than twenty years, that there is
no mention of any other drunken orgy, and that this deplorable evening
was in honor of the Queen’s brother, King of Denmark, who probably
thought that general excess of wine was part of the honor paid to him.
When we are told that James was afraid of a drawn sword, and turned his
eyes away when he knighted a certain person, we remark that this outward
and visible sign of fear is only recorded of him once and by one writer,
that no one else speaks of it, and that there is no proof whatever that
on this occasion he turned his head in sign of fear. That he loved
hunting excessively is only saying that he joined in the sports of his
time, and that he was always pleased to escape the cares and fatigues of
his place. That saint whom English Catholics still revere, Edward the
Confessor, was also excessively fond of hunting. When all this is said
we may add that this King, who loved buffoonery so much, was a good
scholar and a diligent student, a lover of literature and of scholars, a
writer of considerable power, a disputant of no mean order. King James
wrote the _Doron Basilikon_; he wrote a book on Dæmonology (who can
expect a king to be in advance of his age?); he wrote against the use of
tobacco; he translated many of the Psalms; he was constantly saying
things witty, unexpected, shrewd, and
[Illustration:
A Reduced Copy of Fisher’s Ground Plan of the Royal Palace of
Whitehall, Taken in the Reign of Charles II., 1680.
1. Lodgings belonging to his Majesty.
2. To his Royal Highness.
3. His Highness Prince Rupert.
4. The Duke of Richmond.
5. The Duke of Monmouth.
6. The Duke of Ormond.
7. The Duke of Albemarle.
8. The Earl of Bath.
9. The Earl of Lauderdale.
10. The Lord Peterborough.
11. The Lord Gerard.
12. The Lord Crofts.
13. The Lord Belassis.
14. The Lord Chamberlain.
15. The Lord Keeper.
16. The Council Officer.
17. Sir Edward Walker.
18. The Treasury Chambers.
19. The King’s Laboratory and Bath.
20. The Lord Arlington’s Office.
21. Sir Robert Murrey.
22. The Wardrobe.
23. Her Majesty’s Apartments.
24. The Maids of Honor.
25. The Countess of Suffolk.
26. The Queen’s Wardrobe.
27. Madam Charlotte Killegrew.
28. The Lady Arlington.
29. The Lady Silvis.
30. The Countess of Falmouth.
31. Mrs. Kirks.
32. Countess of Castlemaine’s Kitchen.
33. Colonel Darcy’s.
34. Sir Philip Killegrew.
35. Captain Cook.
36. Mrs. Kirke.
37. Mr. Hyde.
38. Mr. Povey.
39. Mr. Chiffinch.
40. Sir William Killegrew.
41. Sir Francis Clinton.
42. Dr. Frazier.
43. Father Patricks.
44. To Mr. Bryan.
45. Sir Henry Wood.
46. Sir George Carteret.
47. The Officers of ye Jewel Office.
48. The Quarter Waiters.
49. Sir John Trevors.
50. To Mr. Lightfoot.
51. To Mr. Vasse.
52. To Mr. Lisle.
53. Sir Paul Neale.
54. The King’s Musick House.
55. To Mr. Early.
56. To Sir Stephen Fox.
57. To Mrs. Churchill.
58. To Mr. Dupper.
* On this spot King Charles I. was beheaded.
epigrammatic; he was as tolerant as could be expected in matters of
religion.]
Lastly, James made the Court of Whitehall magnificent during the whole
of his reign, by the splendor of the Masques.
When we think of this vanished Palace our thoughts turn to the Masques,
which belong especially to Whitehall--there were none at Westminster and
none at St. James’s. The Masque is of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. It was a play performed on one night only; not by
professional actors, but by lords and ladies of the Court. The jewels
worn were real jewels; the dresses were of velvet and silk, embroidered
with gold and pearls; the scenery was costly and elaborate; the music
was new and composed for the occasion; the dances were newly invented
for that night only; the scene-painter and stage manager was the
greatest architect of the day; the words were written by the poet who,
in his lifetime, was esteemed by many the first of living poets. The
Masque was a costly, splendid thing,--a thing of courtly pomp,--a fit
plaything for queen and princess; a form of drama perfected by Ben
Jonson, not disdained by Milton, put upon the stage by Inigo Jones. As
for the play itself, the _motif_ was always simple, sometimes
allegorical, generally grave; the treatment was classical. The Masques
of Ben Jonson would be wearisome for the length of the speeches and the
slowness of the movement, did we not keep before our eyes the scenery
and the grouping of the figures. Their tedium in the reading is also
retrieved by the lovely verses and songs scattered freely over the
piece; the acting, the music, the scenes, the singing, the dancing kept
up the life and action and interest of the piece. There was an immense
amount of stage management, stage machinery, and decorations.
Shakespeare and his actors at the Globe and Fortune could neither afford
these splendors nor did they attempt even a distant imitation of them.
When the King commanded a play, it was put on the stage with none of the
accessories which belonged to the Masque. At Whitehall, as at Bankside,
the back of the stage represented a wall, a palace, or a castle; the
hangings--black or blue--showed whether it was night or day. But the
Masque was not a show for the people; it is certain that the
“groundlings” of the Globe would not have understood the classical
allusions with which it was crammed. At the present day a masque would
only be endured as a spectacle for the picturesque grouping, the beauty
of the actresses, the splendor of the dresses, the perfection of the
dancing, the lovely songs, and the admirable skill and discipline of the
company. When the principal actress was no other than the Queen herself,
who led off a dance, followed by ladies representing mythological
characters perfectly well understood by a Court of scholars, when the
scenery, new and beautiful, was changed again and again, even though the
fable was no great thing, the entertainment was delightful.
The general care of these and other shows was intrusted to the Master of
Revels. This office is described in an official book compiled by Edmund
Tylney, a Master of Revels, 1579-1610. He says: “The office of yᵉ Revels
consisteth of a Wardropp and other several Roomes, for Artificers to
worke in--viz., Taylors, Imbrotherers, Property-makers, Paynters, Wyer
drawers and Carpenters, togeather with a convenient place for yᵉ
rehearsals and setting forthe of Playes and other Showes for those
Services.”
The first Master of Revels was Sir Thomas Cawerden, appointed in 1546.
He was followed by Sir Thomas Benger, Edmund Tylney, Sir George Busk,
Sir John Astley, and Sir Henry Herbert. With him the importance of the
post ceased; the office, however, was still continued. It survives--or
lingers--in the Licenser of Plays.
So few read Ben Jonson’s Masques that I ask no excuse for presenting
one. We will take the masque called “The Hue and Cry after Cupid.” It
was written as a wedding entertainment.
The scene represented a high, steep red cliff mounting to the sky, a red
cliff because the occasion was the wedding of one of the Radcliffs. The
cliff was also “a note of height, greatness, and antiquity.” Before the
cliff on the two sides were two pilasters charged with spoils and
trophies of Venus and Cupid: hearts transfixed, hearts burning, young
men and maidens buried with roses, garlands, arrows, and so forth--all
of burnished gold. Over the pillars hovered the figures of Triumph and
Victory, twice the size of life, completing the arch and holding a
garland of myrtle for the key.
Beyond the cliff, cloud and obscurity.
Then music began; the clouds vanished; two doves followed by two swans
drew forth a triumphant chariot, in which sat Venus crowned with her
star, and beneath her the three Graces, “all attired according to their
antique figures”--which is obscure and doubtful.
Venus descends from the chariot, and is followed by the Graces:
“It is no common cause, you will conceive,
My lovely Graces, makes your goddess leave
Her state in Heaven to-night, to visit earth.
Love late is fled away, my eldest birth,
Cupid, whom I did joy to call my son;
And whom long absent, Venus is undone.
Spy, if you can, his footsteps on the green;
For here, as I am told, he late hath been.
* * * * *
Find ye no track of his stray’d feet?”
_1st. G._ Not I.
_2d. G._ Not I.
_3d. G._ Not I.
_Venus._ Stay, nymphs; we then will try
A nearer way. Look at these ladies’ eyes,
And see if there he not concealèd lies.
Perchance he hath some simple heart to hide
His subtle shape in ...
* * * * *
Begin, soft Graces, and proclaim reward
To her that brings him in. Speak to be heard.
Then the Graces begin, and one after the other for nine verses sing the
“Hue and Cry for Cupid”:
_1st G._ Beauties, have ye seen this toy
Callèd Love, a little boy,
Almost naked, wanton, blind;
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say?
He is Venus’ runaway.
* * * * *
_2d G._ Trust him not; his words, though sweet,
Seldom with his heart do meet.
All his practice is deceit;
Any gift it is a bait;
Not a kiss but poison bears,
And most treason in his tears.
* * * * *
_1st G._ If by these ye please to know him,
Beauties, be not nice, but show him.
_2d G._ Though ye had a will to hide him,
Now, we hope, ye’ll not abide him.
_3d G._ Since you hear his falser play,
And that he’s Venus’ runaway.
After this Cupid himself comes running out from behind the trophies: he
is armed; he is followed by twelve boys “most antickly” attired,
representing the Sports and pretty Lightnesses that accompany Love under
the titles of Joci and Risus.
_Cupid._ Come, my little jocund sports,
Come away; the time now sorts
With your pastime; this same night
Is Cupid’s day. Advance your light,
With your revel fill the room,
That our triumphs be not dumb.
Then the boys “fall into a subtle, capricious” dance, bearing torches
with ridiculous gestures. Venus all the time stands on one side, the
Graces grouped around her. Can we realize what a pretty picture this
would make? When the dance is over, Venus and her maidens surround
Cupid and apprehend him. What has he been doing?
“Have you shot Minerva or the Thespian dames?
Heat agèd Ops again with youthful flames?
Or have you made the colder Moon to visit,
Once more, a sheepcote? Say what conquest is it
Can make you hope such a renown to win?
Is there a second Hercules brought to spin?
Or, for some new disguise, leaves Jove his thunder?”
At this point Hymen entered, and the manner of his entry was thus: He
wore a saffron-colored robe, his under-vesture white, his socks yellow,
a yellow veil of silk on his left arm, his head crowned with roses and
marjoram, in his right hand a torch of pine tree. After him came a youth
in white, bearing another torch of white thorn; behind him two others in
white, the one bearing a distaff and the other a spindle. Then followed
the Auspices, those who “handfasted” the pair and wished them luck--_i.
e._, prayed for them. Then one who bore water and another who bore fire;
and lastly musicians.
Cupid at sight of Hymen breaks off:
“Hymen’s presence bids away;
’Tis already at his night:
He can give you further light.
You, my Sports, may here abide,
Till I call to light the bride.”
Hymen addresses Venus, paying the most charming compliments to King
James under the name of Æneas. He tells her that he is come to grace the
marriage of a noble virgin styled the Maid of the Redcliffe, and that
Vulcan with the Cyclopes are at that moment forging something strange
and curious to grace the nuptials; and indeed, at that moment Vulcan
himself, dressed like the blacksmith that he is, comes upon the stage.
He has completed the work:
“Cleave, solid rock, and bring the wonder forth!”
Then, with a burst of music, the cliff falls open and discloses “an
illustrious concave filled with an ample and glistering light in which
an artificial sphere was made of silver, eighteen feet in diameter, that
turned perpetually; the _coluri_ were heightened with gold; so were the
arctic and the antarctic circles, the tropics, the equinoctial, the
meridian, and horizon; only the zodiac was of pure gold, in which the
masquers under the characters of the twelve signs were placed, answering
them in number.”
This is the description. The system of the Zodiac seems a strange thing
to present as part of a wedding entertainment; but such a thing was not
then part of school work, and when Vulcan called out at the masquers,
Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, and the rest,
explaining how they apply to the conjugal condition, no doubt there was
much delight. This done, Venus, Vulcan, Hymen, and their trains sat or
stood while the masquers, assisted by the Cyclopes, alternately sang and
danced. There are seven verses to the song, and there were four dances.
The dances were invented by Master Thomas Giles and Master Hieronymus
Herne; the tunes were composed by Master Alphonso Ferrabosco; the scenes
by Master Inigo Jones; and the verse, with the invention of the whole,
by Ben Jonson himself. “The attire,” says the poet, “of the masquers
throughout was most graceful and noble; partaking of the best, both
ancient and later figure. The colours, carnation and silver, enriched
with embroidery and lace. The dressing of their heads, feathers and
jewels.” The names of the masquers were the Duke of Lenox, the Earls of
Arundell, Pembroke, and Montgomery, Lords D’Aubigny, Walden, Hay, and
Sankre, Sir Robert Rothe, Sir Joseph Kennethir, and Master Erskine. Here
are two of the verses:
“What joy or honours can compare
With holy nuptials when they are
Made out of equal parts
Of years, of states, of hands, of hearts!
When in the happy choice
The spouse and spousèd have the foremost voice!
Such, glad of Hymen’s war,
Live what they are
And long perfection see:
And such ours be--
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star!
“Love’s common wealth consists of toys:
His council are those antic boys.
Games, laughter, sports, delights,
That triumph with him on these nights,
To whom we must give way,
For now their reign begins and lasts till day.
They sweeten Hymen’s war,
And, in that jar,
Make all, that married be,
Perfection see.
Shine, Hesperus, shine forth, thou wishèd star!”
The Masque was short-lived. It was stately and dignified; it was
courtly; it was classical; it was serious; nobody laughed much, except
perhaps at the “antic” dances which were sometimes introduced. It
required fine, if not the finest, poetic work. It could not be
adequately presented without lavish expenditure. It demanded the
performance of amateurs. When the troubles of the next reign began
there was little desire for such entertainments, and no money to spare
for the production of a Masque on the old scale of splendor. When
Charles II. returned all the world wanted to laugh and to sing; the
Masque, slow and stately, was out of fashion. Charles made an attempt to
revive it, but without success. It was quite forgotten; the old
properties were stowed away and molded in the cellars till the fire came
and burned them all. And the stage effects, the sudden changes of scene,
the clouds and the rocks and streams were all forgotten, until they were
revived in the present century.
There are many memories of Whitehall on which we might enlarge; scenes
in the later life of Henry VIII.; scenes in the Court of Queen Mary;
tilts, feasts, and entertainments by Queen Elizabeth; the death of
Charles; the occupation by Cromwell; the mistresses of Charles the
Deplorable--with a great many more. These, however, belong to the things
already narrated. I have endeavored to recall certain associations which
have hitherto belonged to the Book of the Things Left Out; and among
them there are none so pleasing and so characteristic as the Masque in
the reign of James I.
Now there is nothing left of Elizabeth’s Palace at all; of Charles’s
Palace, only the latest and last construction, the Banqueting Hall. When
the fires of 1691 and 1697 swept all away except this building, there
perished a collection of courts and houses for the most part dingy,
without the picturesque appearance of the old Palace, which, if it was
crowded and huddled together, was full of lovely mediæval towers,
gables, and carved work. Whitehall as a building was without dignity and
without nobility. Yet one wishes that it had remained to the present
day. Hampton Court, as I have said above, remains to show the world what
Whitehall Palace was like.
William III. talked of rebuilding the place; but he died. Queen Anne
took up her residence in St. James’s. And Whitehall Palace vanished.