mencement of the next. The old Whitehall of Wolsey, Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, which had become thoroughly decayed and worn out by James's time, and the Whitehall of modern times-of Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II., of which the Banqueting-room remains to us-are essentially distinct buildings, and in connexion with the length of our subject point naturally to the division we have adopted. We have now concluded the history of the one; our next number will embrace the history of the other.

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JAMES had commenced the work of pulling down the old palace so early as 1606, when, as we learn from Howe's edition of Stow's Annals,' the "old, rotten, slight-builded Banqueting House," which Elizabeth had erected, was removed, and a new one built in the following year, "very strong and stately, being every way larger than the first: there were also many fair lodgings new builded and increased." Their strength and stateliness, however, could not defend them from a destruction as sudden as it was unexpected. About ten o'clock in the morning upon Tuesday, the 12th of January, 1619, the fair Banqueting House at Whitehall was upon the sudden all flaming a-fire, from end to end, and side to side, before it was discerned or descried by any persons or passengers, either by scent or smoke; at sight whereof the Court, being sore amazed, sent speedy. news to the great lords of the council, who were then but newly set in the Guildhall in London, about excessive and disorderly buildings, but they all arose and returned to Whitehall, and gave directions to the multitude of people to suppress

the flame, and by hook to pull down some other adjoining buildings, to prevent the furious fire; and so by their care and the people's labour the flame was quite extinct by twelve o'clock." We know not at what period the King first determined upon the plan of entirely rebuilding the palace of Whitehall, but it is not improbable that the accident referred to may have quickened his operations, if it did not altogether suggest them. The man too was at hand ready for the work. This was the famous Inigo Jones, who had been previously employed for some years about the court, with Ben Jonson, in the invention of masques to entertain it; the one having charge of the scenery, decorations, and machinery, and the other of the poetical composition. Of the excellence of the masques performed at Whitehall when under such management, it would be idle to speak; but we may notice two or three of the principal occasions when the services of these great men were in requisition. The earliest was probably the marriage of Philip Herbert, another of James's favourites, with Lady Susan Vere, in 1605, when the masque was played in the hall. On the twelfth day following, Charles was created Duke of York at Whitehall, and at night the Queen's masque of 'Blacknesse' was presented in the Banqueting House; the Queen, with eleven of the most beautiful ladies of her suite, performing the characters of the daughters of Niger; "because," as the poet tells us, "it was her Majesty's will to have them black-a-mores at first." This masque cost three thousand pounds. "A most glorious masque" was also given on the 12th of June, 1610, in honour of the creation of Prince Henry as Prince of Wales, which continued "till within half an hour of the sun's not setting but rising." Prince Henry was Jones's chief patron at this period, and on the death of the prince, in 1612, our artist went for the second time to Rome to study the principles of his beloved art. His absence appears to have been felt at the court at least; for at the marriage of Elizabeth, James's daughter, to the Elector Palatine (from whom the reigning family of England derives its descent)—a marriage attended by more than ordinary expense and splendour-we find no mention of any masque being performed at Whitehall. And on the return of Inigo Jones to England he found occupation more worthy of his high genius than the most splendid masques could afford, though the "unsubstantial pageants" might have still remained the most profitable. He was appointed Surveyor-general of the royal buildings, and commissioned to make designs for a new palace. These designs, imperfect as the shape confessedly is in which they have reached us (the best are supposed to have been compiled from the artist's drawings by a second hand), are alone sufficient to raise their author's reputation to the very highest rank; but fortunately the Banqueting House remains to us to this day, as a specimen of the style of the whole, of which it was the only portion erected. The very extent of the space to be covered would have alarmed, or at least bewildered, any ordinary architect. In Jones's plans the exterior buildings measured eight hundred and seventy-four feet on the east and west sides, and one thousand one hundred and fifty-two feet on the north and south. Within these were to be no less than seven courts. Two of the sides are here shown. The Banqueting House was commenced in 1619, and completed in about two years. Its entire cost was seventeen thousand pounds. It will surprise many of our readers to know what was the amount of the architect's remuneration for his labours whilst engaged upon what, if completed, would have been the grandest

production of modern architecture. He was allowed, it appears, eight shillings and fourpence a day as surveyor, and forty-six pounds per year for house-rent, a clerk, and other incidental expenses; Nicholas Stone, "master-mason," being paid "four shillings and tenpence the day." The King's extravagance prevented the prosecution of these designs beyond the erection of the Banqueting House, and his son Charles, with full appreciation both of the work and of the author, was too busily engaged in the impossible task of building up a despotism in England to find money or time to raise palaces. So there the matter rested, and Inigo Jones turned with a sigh from the contemplation of that glorious work, which would have given a new magnificence to the world, to invent new masques for a comparatively insignificant portion of it, Charles and his young consort.

James died at his favourite residence, Theobald's, on the 27th of March, 1625, and in the afternoon of the following day Charles came to Whitehall with the Duke of Buckingham, where he was proclaimed. Whitehall now experienced some change: "the fools and buffoons and other familiars of James were dismissed; the courtiers were required to be attentive to religion, and modest and quiet in their demeanour; and they generally became, if not more moral, far more decorous;"* but whether that change made it a more agreeable residence to the daughter of the great Henry IV. of France, whom Charles had married by proxy, and whom Buckingham was immediately commissioned to escort to England, may be questioned. The royal pair met at Dover, and on the 16th of June they passed in the state barge through London Bridge on their way to Whitehall. This marriage caused a great variety of surmises to be set on foot respecting its effect on the Protestant religion, Henrietta Maria being of course a Catholic. Much hope, however, was excited by trivial circumstances, and a general expectation raised that she would turn out a very good Protestant. But the facts proved as stubborn then as ever. It soon became known that she had nineand-twenty Roman Catholic priests in her train, and that on Sundays and saintdays mass was secretly celebrated in the Queen's closet at Whitehall. If the people were enraged and scandalized at the belief of these priestly attendants, the King was no less annoyed and irritated by their presumptuous, meddling conduct, which in a few months' time became perfectly unendurable: so one day he suddenly appeared at the Queen's side of the house," and, finding some Frenchmen, her servants, unreverently dancing and curvetting in her presence, took her by the hand and led her into his lodgings, locking the door after him, and shutting out all save only the Queen. Presently upon this my Lord Conway called forth the French Bishop and others of that clergy into St. James's Park, where he told them the King's pleasure was, all her Majesty's servants of that nation, men and women, young and old, should depart the kingdom; together with the reasons that enforced his Majesty so to do." The Bishop "stood much upon it," but was at last silenced by the remark" that England would find force enough to convey The women howled and lamented, as if they had been going to execution, but all in vain, for the yeomen of the guard, by that Lord's appointment, thrust them and all their country's folk out of the Queen's lodgings, and locked the doors after them. It is said also the Queen, when she understood the design, grew very impatient, and broke the glass windows with her fist; but

him hence

*Pictorial England, b. vii. p. 108.