| Palace of Whitehall | |
|---|---|
 The Old Palace of Whitehall byHendrick Danckerts,c. 1675.[1] The view is from the west, inSt. James's Park. TheHorse Guards barracks are on the extreme left, with the tallerBanqueting House behind it. The four-towered building left of centre is the palace gatehouse, the "Holbein Gate".[2] | |
| Location | City of Westminster,Middlesex,Kingdom of England |
| Coordinates | 51°30′16″N00°07′32″W / 51.50444°N 0.12556°W /51.50444; -0.12556 |
| Built | c. 1240, 15–17th century |
| Demolished | 1698 (due to fire) |
  Location of the Palace of Whitehall in central London | |
ThePalace of Whitehall – also spelledWhite Hall – atWestminster was the main residence of theEnglishmonarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, with the notable exception ofInigo Jones'sBanqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire.Henry VIII moved the royal residence to Whitehall after the old royal apartments at the nearbyPalace of Westminster were themselves destroyed by fire. Although the Whitehall palace has not survived, the area where it was located is still calledWhitehall and has remained a centre of theBritish government.
Whitehall was at one time the largest palace in Europe, with more than 1,500 rooms, before itself being overtaken by the expandingPalace of Versailles, which was to reach 2,400 rooms.[3] At its most expansive, the palace extended over much of the area bordered byNorthumberland Avenue in the north; toDowning Street and nearly to Derby Gate in the south; and from roughly the elevations of the current buildings facingHorse Guards Road in the west, to the then banks of the RiverThames in the east (the construction ofVictoria Embankment has since reclaimed more land from the Thames)—a total of about 23 acres (9.3 ha). It was about 710 yards (650 m) fromWestminster Abbey.
By the 13th century, thePalace of Westminster had become the centre of government in England, and had been the main metropolitan residence of the king since 1049. The surrounding area became a popular and expensive location.Walter de Grey,Archbishop of York, bought a nearby property as his Westminster residence soon after 1240, calling it York Place.[4]
KingEdward I stayed at York Place on several occasions while work was carried out at Westminster, and enlarged it to accommodate his entourage. York Place was rebuilt during the 15th century and was expanded so much byCardinal Wolsey that it was rivalled by onlyLambeth Palace as the greatest house in the capital city, the King's palaces included. Consequently, when KingHenry VIII removed thecardinal from power in 1530, he acquired York Place to replace Westminster (the royal residential, or 'privy', area of which had been gutted by fire in 1512) as his main residence, inspecting its possessions in the company ofAnne Boleyn. The name 'Whitehall' was first recorded in 1532; it had its origins in the white stone used for the buildings.[5]
King Henry VIII hired the Flemish artistAnton van den Wyngaerde to redesign York Place, and he extended it during his lifetime. Inspired byRichmond Palace, he included sporting facilities, with abowling green,indoor real tennis court, a pit forcock fighting (on the site ofthe Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall) and atiltyard forjousting (now the site ofHorse Guards Parade). It is estimated that more than£30,000 (several million at present-day value)[6] were spent during the 1540s, half as much again as the construction of the entireBridewell Palace. Henry VIII decorated his gardens withcarved heraldic beasts, including unicorns, set on wooden posts. The posts were painted by theSerjeant Painters Nicholas Lafore andAnthony Toto.[7]
Henry VIII married two of his wives at the palace—Anne Boleyn in 1533 andJane Seymour in 1536, and died there in January 1547.[8] The body ofElizabeth I was brought by barge fromRichmond Palace in March 1603 to lie in state at Whitehall Palace.[9]
Anne of Denmark's secretary,William Fowler wrote Latin verses and anagrams for a sundial in the garden, restored by the orders ofJames VI and I.[10] In 1611, the palace hosted the first known performance ofWilliam Shakespeare's playThe Tempest.[11] In February 1613 it was the venue for thewedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V of the Palatinate.[12] Anne of Denmark's apartments were painted in "antique work" byJohn de Critz and the fireplaces carved byMaximilian Colt. A withdrawing chamber forJames VI and I featured a wind dial or compass connected to aweather vane on the roof, and the room was painted by John de Critz with a scheme of the four winds, the four corners of the earth, and the four elements.[13]
The forty rooms of the lodgings provided for King James's favouriteRobert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset included a picture gallery in a converted bowling alley.[14] James VI and I made significant changes to the buildings, notably the construction in 1622 of a newBanqueting House built to a design byInigo Jones to replace a series of previous banqueting houses dating from the time ofElizabeth I. Its decoration was finished in 1634 with the completion of a ceiling byPeter Paul Rubens, commissioned byCharles I (who was to beexecuted in front of the building in 1649).[15]
By 1650 Whitehall Palace was the largest complex of secular buildings in England, with more than 1,500 rooms. Its layout was irregular, and its constituent parts were of many different sizes and in several different architectural styles, making it look more like a small town than a single building.[16] The irregularity of the buildings was increased by the penchant of courtiers to build onto their assigned lodgings, either at their own expense or that of the king's.Stephen Fox, Charles II'sClerk of the Green Cloth, obtained permission from theOffice of Works in the 1660s to build additions to the three rooms he was assigned. By the time he was finished he had constructed a grand mansion with coach house, stables, and a view over the Thames, all within the palace network.[17]
Charles II commissioned minor works, but made extensive renovations.[18] Like his father, he died at the palace, but from a stroke.[19]James II ordered various changes byChristopher Wren, including a chapel finished in 1687, rebuilding of the queen's apartments (c. 1688), and the queen's private lodgings (1689).[20] The Roman Catholic chapel of James II, constructed during a period of fierce anti-Catholicism in England, attracted much criticism and also awe when it was completed in December 1686.[21] The ceiling was adorned with 8,132 pieces of gold leaf, and at the east end of the nave an enormous marblealtarpiece (40 ft (12 m) high by 25 ft (7.6 m) wide) designed by Wren and carved byGrinling Gibbons dominated the room.[22]
By 1691 the palace had become the largest and most complex inEurope. On 10 April a fire broke out in the much-renovated apartment previously used by theDuchess of Portsmouth, damaging the older palace structures, though apparently not thestate apartments.[23] This actually gave a greater cohesiveness to the remaining complex. At the end of 1694Mary II died inKensington Palace ofsmallpox, and on the following 24 January lay in state at Whitehall;William and Mary had avoided Whitehall in favour of their palace at Kensington.[24]
A second fire on 4 January 1698 destroyed most of the remaining residential and government buildings.[25] It was started inadvertently by a servant in an upper room who had hung wet linen around a burning charcoalbrazier to dry.[26] The linen caught fire and the flames quickly spread throughout the palace complex, raging for 15 hours before firefighters could extinguish them. The following day, the wind picked up and re-ignited the fire farther north. Christopher Wren, then the King's Surveyor of Works, was ordered expressly by William III to focus manpower on saving the architectural jewel of the complex, the Banqueting House.[26] Wren ordered bricklayers to block up the main window on the building's south side to block the flames from entering. Around 20 buildings were destroyed to create afirebreak, but this did little to inhibit the westward spread of the flames.[27]
John Evelyn noted succinctly on 5 January: "Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left."[28] Besides theBanqueting House, some buildings survived inScotland Yard and some facing the park, along with the so-calledHolbein Gate, eventually demolished in 1769.[29]
During the fire many works of art were destroyed, probably includingMichelangelo'sCupid, a famous sculpture bought as part of theGonzaga collections in the seventeenth century. Also lost wereHans Holbein the Younger's iconicWhitehall Mural, including hisPortrait of Henry VIII[30] andGian Lorenzo Bernini's marbleportrait bust of King Charles I.[31]
TheBanqueting House is the only integral building of the complex now standing, although it has been somewhat modified. Various other parts of the old palace still exist, often incorporated into new buildings in theWhitehall government complex. These include a tower and other parts of the former covered tennis courts from the time of Henry VIII, built into the Old Treasury andCabinet Office at 70 Whitehall.[32]
Beginning in 1938, the east side of the site was redeveloped with the building now housing theMinistry of Defence (MOD), now known as theMinistry of Defence Main Building. Anundercroft fromWolsey's Great Chamber, now known as Henry VIII's Wine Cellar, a fine example of a Tudor brick-vaulted roof some 70 feet (21 m) long and 30 feet (9 m) wide, was found to interfere not just with the plan for the new building but also with the proposed route forHorse Guards Avenue. Following a request from QueenMary in 1938 and a promise in Parliament, provision was made for the preservation of the cellar. Accordingly, it was encased in steel and concrete and relocated 9 feet (3 m) to the west and nearly 19 feet (6 m) deeper in 1949, when construction resumed on the site after the Second World War. This was carried out without any significant damage to the structure and it now rests within the basement of the building.[33]
A number of marble carvings from the former chapel at Whitehall (which was built for James II) are present inSt Andrew's Church, Burnham-on-Sea, in Somerset, to where they were moved in 1820 after having originally been removed toWestminster Abbey in 1706.[34]
