Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

made a manor by Henry VIII., and was previously an hospital dedicated to St. James, and founded for fourteen sisters, "maidens that were leprous." When Henry altered or rebuilt it, (it is uncertain which,) he annexed the present Park, closed it about with a wall of brick, and thus connected the manor of St. James's with the manor or Palace of Whitehall. Little remains of the old Palace; nothing, it is thought, but the old, dingy, patched-up brick gateway towards St. James'sstreet, contiguous to which is the Chapel Royal, bearing, in the chimney-piece of the old Presence-chamber, the initials H. A. (Henry and Anne Boleyn). The Queen still holds her Drawing-rooms in this Palace, for the purposes of which it has been quite inadequate, and will probably be enlarged shortly. It not unfrequently happens that the carriages attending the Drawing-room extend from the Palace up Bondstreet to Oxford-street. In the "Colour-court," (to the E., and so called because the standard of the household regiment on duty is planted within it), the Guards muster every day at 11, and the band of the regiment plays for about a quarter of an hour. The visitor should see this once. In the Great Council-chamber the odes of the Poets Laureate were formerly performed and sung, before the King and Queen. Queen Mary I. and Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I., died here. Charles II. was born here. Here Charles I. took leave of his children the day before his execution; and here he passed his last night, walking the next morning "from St. James's through the Park, guarded with a regiment of foot and partisans," to the scaffold before Whitehall. Monk took up his quarters in "St. James's House," while his plans for the Restoration were as yet undecided. James II.'s son, by Mary of Modena, the old Pretender, was born here. A contemporary plan of the Palace is dotted with lines, to show the way in which the child was said to have been conveyed in the warming-pan to her Majesty's bed in the Great Bed-chamber. Queen Anne (then the Princess Anne) describes St. James's Palace "as much the properest place to act such a cheat in."* Here died Caroline, Queen of George II.; and here George IV. was born. In the dingy brick house on the west side of the Ambassadors' Court, or west quadrangle, Marshal Blucher was lodged in 1814. He was so popular that he had to show himself every day many times to the mob, who were content to wait until the court was filled, when he was vociferously called forward to the window to be cheered.

*The room in which the old Pretender was born was pulled down previous to the repairs in 1822.

Every information respecting the mode of presentation at Court may be obtained at the offices of the Lord Steward at Buckingham Palace, and of the Lord Chamberlain, in St. James's Palace. Levees are for the presentation of gentlemen only; Drawing-rooms are for introducing ladies (principally) and gentlemen. The days on which they take place are advertised in the morning and evening papers, with the necessary directions about carriages, &c., some days before. The greatest occasion in every year is, of course, on Her Majesty's birthday (which is made a kind of movable feast), but presentations do not take place on that day. Any subject of Great Britain, who has been presented at St. James's, can claim to be presented, through the English ambassador, at any foreign court. On the presentation of Addresses to Her Majesty, no comments are suffered to be made. A deputation to present an Address must not exceed four persons. Tickets to the corridor, affording the best sight to the mere spectator, are issued by the Lord Chamberlain to persons properly introduced. For gentlemen to be presented, it is absolutely necessary that their names, with the name of the nobleman or gentleman who is to present them, should be sent to the Lord Chamberlain's office several days previous to presentation, in order that they may be submitted for the Queen's approbation, it being Her Majesty's command that no presentation shall be made at any Levees but in conformity with the above regulations. Noblemen and gentlemen are also requested to bring with them two cards, with their names clearly written thereon, one to be left with the Queen's Page in attendance in the Presence-chamber, and the other to be delivered to the Lord Chamberlain, who will announce the name to Her Majesty. In the Chapel Royal, attached to the Palace, are seats appropriated to the nobility. Service is performed at 8 a.m. and 12 noon. Admittance, 2s. ! The service is chaunted by the boys of the Chapel Royal.

3. WHITEHALL. The Palace of the Kings of England from Henry VIII. to William III., of which nothing remains but Inigo Jones's Banqueting-house, James II.'s statue, and the memory of what was once the Privy Garden, in a row of houses, so styled, looking upon the Thames. It was originally called York House; was delivered and demised to Henry VIII., on the disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, and then first called Whitehall. Henry VIII.'s Whitehall was a building in the Tudor or Hampton Court style of architecture, with a succession of galleries and courts, a large Hall, a Chapel, Tennis-court, Cockpit, Orchard, and Banqueting

house. James I. intended to have rebuilt the whole Palace, and Inigo Jones designed a new Whitehall for that King worthy of our nation and his own great name. But nothing was built beyond the present Banqueting-house, deservedly looked upon as a model of Palladian architecture, and one of the finest buildings in the whole of London. Charles I. contemplated a similar reconstruction, but poverty at first prevented him, and the Civil War soon after was a more effectual prohibition. Charles II. preserved what money he could spare from his pleasures to build a palace at Winchester. James II. was too busy about religion to attend to architecture, and in William III.'s reign the whole of Whitehall, except the Banqueting-house, was destroyed by fire. William talked of rebuilding it after Inigo's designs, but nothing was done. Anne, his successor, took up her abode in St. James's Palace, and Vanbrugh built a house at Whitehall out of the ruins-the house ridiculed by Swift with such inimitable drollery.

The present Banqueting-house was designed by Inigo Jones, between 1619 and 1622. The master-mason was Nicholas Stone, the sculptor of the fine monument to Sir Francis Vere in Westminster Abbey. The Hall is exactly a double cube, being 111 feet long, 55 feet 6 inches high, and 55 feet 6 inches wide. King Charles I. was executed on a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting-house, towards the Park. The warrant directs that he should be executed "in the open street before Whitehall." Lord Leicester tells us in his Journal, that he was "beheaded at Whitehall-gate;" Dugdale, in his Diary, that he was "beheaded at the gate of Whitehall;" and a single sheet of the time, preserved in the British Museum, that "the King was beheaded at Whitehall-gate." There cannot, therefore, be a doubt that the scaffold was erected in front of the building facing the present Horse Guards. We now come to the next point which has excited some discussion. It appears from Herbert's minute account of the King's last moments, that "the King was led all along the galleries and Banqueting-house, and there was a passage broken through the wall, by which the King passed unto the scaffold." This seems particular enough, and leads, it is said, to a conclusion that the scaffold was erected on the north side. Wherever the passage was broken through, one thing is certain, the scaffold was erected on the west side, or, in other words, "in the open street," now called Whitehall; and that the King, as Ludlow relates in his Memoirs, "was conducted to the scaffold out of the window of the Banqueting-house." Ludlow, who tells us this, was one of the

regicides, and what he states, simply and straightforwardly, is confirmed by an engraving of the execution, published at Amsterdam in the same year, and by the following memorandum made by Vertue, on the copy of Terasson's large engraving of the Banqueting-house, preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries:-"It is, according to the truest reports said, that out of this window K. Charles went upon the scaffold to be beheaded, the window-frame being taken out purposely to make the passage on to the scaffold, whichis equal to the landing-place of the Hall within side." The window marked by Vertue belonged to a small building abutting from the north side of the present Banquetinghouse. From this window, then, the King stept upon the scaffold.

The ceiling of the Banqueting-house is lined with pictures on canvas, representing the apotheosis of James I., painted abroad by Rubens, in 1635. Kneller had heard that Rubens was assisted by Jordaens in the execution. The sum he received was 3000l. "What," says Walpole, "had the Banqueting-house been if completed! Van Dyck was to have painted the sides with the history and procession of the Order of the Garter." To be seen at all, they must be viewed from the south end of the apartment. Within, and over the principal entrance, is a bust, in bronze, of James I., by, it is said, Le Sour. The Banqueting-house was converted into a chapel in the reign of George I., and realtered as we now see it, between 1829 and 1837, by Sir Robert Smirke. It has never been consecrated. Here, on every Maunday Thursday, (the day before Good Friday,) the Queen's eleemosynary bounty (a very old custom) is distributed to poor and aged men and women.

The statue of James II., behind the Banqueting-house, was the work of Grinling Gibbons, and was set up while the King was reigning, at the charge of an old servant of the crown called Tobias Rustat. The King, it is said, is pointing to the spot where his father was executed; and this vulgar error, though exposed long ago, is still repeated. Nothing can illustrate better the mild character of the Revolution of 1688, than the fact that the statue of the abdicated and exiled King was allowed to stand, and still stands, in the innermost court-yard of what was once his own Palace.

4. KENSINGTON PALACE is a large and irregular edifice, originally the seat of Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham and Lord Chancellor of England; whose son, the second earl, sold it to King William III., soon after his accession to

the throne. The lower portion of the building was part of Lord Nottingham's house; the higher story was added by William III., from the designs of Wren, and the N.W. angle by George II., as a Nursery for his children. William III. and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, her husband Prince George of Denmark, and King George II., all died in this Palace. Her present Majesty was born in it, (1819,) and here (1837) she held her first Council. The Duke of Sussex, son of George III., lived, died, and had his fine library in this Palace. The Orangery, a very fine detached room, was built by Wren. The last memorable interview between Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough took place in this palace. The collection of pictures (long famous and still known as the Kensington Collection to the readers of Walpole), has been removed to other palaces; and the kitchen-garden has recently been built over with two rows of detached mansions, called "Palace-gardens." The chief attraction inside is a collection of early German art, formed, with taste and knowledge, by his Royal Highness Prince Albert, to which admission may be obtained by writing to one of the secretaries of Prince Albert.

III. HOUSES OF THE PRINCIPAL NOBILITY AND GENTRY.

LAMBETH PALACE, or LAMBETH HOUSE, on the S. side of the Thames over-against the Palace at Westminster, has been the palace of the Archbishops of Canterbury from at least the 13th century, and contains various gradations in its architecture, from Early English to late Perpendicular. The Chapel, the oldest part, was built by Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, (1244-70). It is Early English, with lancet windows and a crypt. The roof is new. There is an oak screen with the arms of Archbishop Laud, by whom it was erected. Before the altar is the grave of Archbishop Parker, (d. 1575). In this chapel all the archbishops have been consecrated since the time of Boniface. The stained glass windows were destroyed in the Civil Wars, and are feelingly lamented by Laud in the History of his Troubles. The glass now in the windows was placed at the expense of Archbp. Howley. The Lollards' Tower at the W. end of the chapel, the oldest brickwork in England since Roman times, was built by Archp. Chicheley, in the years 1434-45, and so called from the Lollards, who are said (incorrectly) to have been imprisoned in it. In the front facing the river is a niche, in

« НазадПродовжити »