Chapter XVII: Introduction (2)

The accession of Charles I. to the throne in 1625 marks a convenient date in the development of architectural design to consider briefly its condition and tendencies. The king and his court still exercised an enormous influence over the life and habits of the people in directions other than political. In mediæval times the king was the centre of public affairs, the pivot upon which the State turned. His own will, even his whims and fancies, counted for much. But for the last three-quarters of a century this influence had been gradually lessening, and the king’s personal power had been curtailed. It was in opposing this tendency, in endeavouring to reassert his personal ascendancy, in re-establishing his prerogatives, that Charles came into conflict with his subjects and ultimately succumbed. But bearing this state of things in mind, it will be more readily understood that the influence of the king in relation to architecture, for instance, would be very considerable; vastly more so than the influence of any individual in the present day. Charles was a man of culture, and without crediting him with an intimate knowledge of architectural design, we may well believe that he would foster the growth of a refined and scholarly version of the style at which English designers had been aiming for many years. That is to say, since the tendency was to adopt Italian ideas he would like to see them adopted thoroughly and with full knowledge. The man to do this for him was there in the person of Inigo Jones, who had already been employed by his father, and who was the only man in England possessing really competent knowledge of Italian detail. Here then was another powerful influence at work tending to divert English design from the old traditional channels.

No doubt had Charles been blessed with leisure to gratify his refined tastes, and to devote himself to the encouragement of the arts, had he been in possession of funds commensurate with his artistic ambitions, the Italianising of English architecture would have been more rapid than it actually was. But his time was occupied with sterner matters, and the huge palace at Whitehall which he is said to have contemplated (and his father before him, according to many writers), but of which the true history will be presently outlined, never went further than to be committed to paper. What he did do, however, was to foster the seed which had been sown by his father, and which bore fruit later in the century.

The love of Charles for the fine arts was shared by many of his court. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, caused not only the marbles which still bear his name, but many other fine relics of antiquity, to be brought to England. Inigo Jones was frequently employed by the nobility to purchase pictures and other treasures, and to see them suitably displayed in the houses they were to adorn. John Webb made it one of his claims to consideration that he had been commissioned by the “great nobility and eminent gentry” to acquire for them medals, statues, and other works of art.

Meanwhile, in the country generally, and outside the circle influenced by Inigo Jones, the old habits still prevailed, and many houses were built, including such important buildings as Aston Hall, in Warwickshire, already mentioned, in which the old arrangements of plan were retained, and all the old devices for obtaining architectural effect were used--mullioned windows, steep or curved gables, large and lofty chimney-stacks, turrets and bay-windows, with a strong infusion of Italian detail in the form of cornices and pilasters; just such devices indeed as had been employed by John Smithson and his contemporaries.

When this is borne in mind, when it is remembered what Smithson stands for, and that he lived until 1634; that Aston Hall, where Jacobean methods were still paramount, was not completed until 1635; it will be easier to grasp the significance of Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House at Whitehall (Fig. 22), designed in 1619 and finished in 1622, in which there is no trace of traditional English design, which in fact approaches nearer to Italian models than any building of the seventeenth century. No wonder, considering the goal at which all designers were more or less aiming, that it was quoted as a masterpiece, as the finest flower of modern architecture in England. This position it held all through the century, and indeed still holds in the opinion of many competent judges. At the time it was built it was unique, and for thirty years afterwards travellers might have searched England in vain for anything so thoroughly Italian in treatment, unless they happened to see the Queen’s House at Greenwich, or one or two other buildings by the same architect, such as Sherborne, in Gloucestershire, between Northleach and Burford, which was described in 1634 as a “stately, rich, compacted Building all of Free-stone, flat, and couer’d with Lead, with Strong Battlements about, not much unlike to that goodly, and magnificent Building the Banquetting House at Whitehall.”[6]

The Banqueting House must not be regarded as a step in the normal development of English design; it was something outside, the work of a specially trained and exceptionally gifted man, who achieved in 1619 what less learned and less skilful men were striving after, consciously or unconsciously, for nearly half a century afterwards.

The ultimate influence of Inigo Jones on English architecture was so important that it is desirable to know something of his training and of his history. He was born in 1573, the parish of St Bartholomew, Smithfield.[7] The church register records his baptism: “Enego Jones the sonne of Enego Jones was christened the xixth day of July 1573.” His father was a cloth-worker in good circumstances at that time, but when the lad was sixteen years old, the father was obliged to compound with his creditors. There were other children, but it would seem that only Inigo and three sisters survived their father, who died in the early months of 1597; as he left his property to be divided among his four children, he must, to a certain extent, have recovered from his financial embarrassments. In any event it would appear that Inigo the younger was left to make his own career. It is not known where he received his education, nor how thorough, or otherwise, it was: but it was apparently up to the average bestowed upon youths of his condition, and probably of much the same character, _mutatis mutandis_, as would be acquired by boys of the upper middle class to-day.[8] That he was a man of culture is indicated by a copy of rhymes in Latin written by Thomas Cariat (Coryat) of Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1611, and preserved among the State Papers.[9] They describe a philosophical feast, among the guests at which was Inigo Jones. There is a tradition, but without evidence to support it, that he was apprenticed to a joiner in St Paul’s Churchyard. If this were so, it would at least give him an amount of practical knowledge which would be of material assistance in his later career. But his early training is really a matter for conjecture. He says in the preface to “Stone-Heng Restored”: “Being naturally inclined in my younger years to study the arts of design, I passed into foreign parts to converse with the great masters thereof in Italy; where I applied myself to search out the Ruins of those ancient Buildings, which, in despite of Time itself, and violence of Barbarians, are yet remaining. Having satisfied myself in these, and returning to my native country, I applied my mind more particularly to the study of Architecture.”

At whose expense he passed into foreign parts, or in what year he first did so, there is no record. But it is agreed that he paid two visits to Italy, the first somewhere about the year 1600; the second in 1613–14. Of the first visit little or nothing is known;[10] but of the second there are definite records in the shape of his sketch-book preserved at Chatsworth, and of his marginal notes on a copy of Palladio which he carried with him from place to place, and which is now in Worcester College, Oxford.

During his first visit he seems to have achieved such a reputation that Christian IV., King of Denmark and brother of the queen of James I., invited him to enter his service. Here, again, there is no reliable information as to his achievements; the only evidence indeed is of a negative character and consists of the remark of a Danish gentleman to the effect that “your great architect left nothing to my country but the fame of his presence.”

On his return to England he seems to have been occupied chiefly in the devising of masques and plays, among the earliest of which were some given at Christ Church, Oxford, to entertain James I. Oddly enough the comment of the chronicler in this case is that he “undertook to further them much and furnish them with rare devices, but performed very little of that which was expected.”[11] That this failure must have been an exceptional case is sufficiently proved by the numerous drawings of scenery by him preserved at Chatsworth.

Soon after his return to England he was appointed surveyor to the queen (Anne of Denmark), and in the year 1610 surveyor of the works to Henry, Prince of Wales, but there is no record of these appointments having resulted in any architectural work. Prince Henry died in 1612, and in 1613 Jones secured the reversion, after Simon Basil, of the office of surveyor of works to the king.[12] In the same year he went to Italy for the second time, where he studied the work of celebrated painters and architects, as well as the splendid remains of ancient architecture which were even more abundant in those days than in these. His intercourse with living architects and painters shaped his own methods of study and design, and there can be no doubt that he returned not only fully equipped to undertake any work that might fall to his lot, but deeply imbued with the spirit of Italian art and the prevalent Italian methods of design.

He walked on a high plane, his outlook was wider than that of any of his contemporaries at home. He had acquired conceptions of architecture nobler than those engendered by its application to the ordinary needs of daily life. He has left us very little record of his own opinions on any subject; it is all the more interesting, therefore, to find in his sketch-book, under the date, “Friday y^e 20 January 1614” (1615 new style), a page of reflections of which the following is the gist. “In all designing of ornament one must first design the ground plain as it is for use, and then adorn and compose it with decorum according to its use. To say true, all this composed ornament resulting from abundance of design, such as was brought in by Michael Angelo and his followers, does not in my opinion suit solid architecture but is more appropriate to gardens, the ornaments of chimneys, friezes and the inside of houses, where such things must of necessity be used. For as outwardly every wise man carries himself gravely in public places, yet inwardly has imagination and fire which sometimes flies out unrestrained, just as Nature sometimes flies out to delight or amuse us, to move us to laughter, contemplation, or even horror; so in architecture the outward ornament is to be solid, proportionable according to rule, masculine and unaffected.”

No epithets more suitable than the two last--masculine and unaffected--could be applied to Jones’s own work.

From an Engraving by Thomas Sandby.]

From an Engraving by Thomas Sandby.]

The amount of Jones’s own work in architecture is scarcely so large as has hitherto been supposed. In regard to the various buildings with which he has been credited, some of the attributions are supported by contemporary evidence in the shape of drawings or of references in letters and documents; others by the direct enumeration of his staunch admirer, John Webb, who was his pupil and assistant, who married a kinswoman of his, and was the executor of his will. Others rest upon tradition or upon the opinions of critics. Tradition is not altogether reliable, owing partly to a natural tendency to attribute any outstanding piece of work to the most celebrated artist of the time, and partly to the natural desire of owners to attach a well-known name to their possessions. The value of a critic’s opinion obviously depends upon that uncertain factor--the ability and equipment of the critic for his task, and although the opinion of a competent critic will always count for much, it cannot count for so much as direct evidence. The evidence in this case consists of allusions in contemporary letters, not very numerous or helpful; of architectural drawings by Jones, which are helpful but not numerous; and of the testimony of Webb, who was in the best position to know what his master actually designed. Webb has occasion in his “Vindication of Stone-Heng Restored,” to mention Jones’s principal works, which he thus enumerates: The west portico of St Paul’s Cathedral, and the reducing-of the body of it “from the steeple to the west end, into that order and uniformity we now behold”;[13] St Paul’s, Covent Garden (Fig. 23), “built likewise with the porticoes about the Piazza there by Mr. Jones” (Fig. 24)[14]; the royal chapels at Denmark House and St James’s;[15] the Banqueting House at Whitehall; the royal house at Newmarket;[15] and the queen mother’s new building at Greenwich.[16] The inscription on Jones’s monument which was put up by Webb, designated him as “architectus celeberrimus,” and recorded merely that he built the Royal White Hall (Aul. Alb. Reg.) and restored the Cathedral of St Paul.[17]

This list need not necessarily be considered as complete, but Webb evidently regarded the buildings he mentions as the most noteworthy of Jones’s productions, inasmuch as he advances them as proofs of his skill in architecture, upon which his fame would rest much more securely than upon his literary and antiquarian effort in “Stone-Heng Restored.”[18]

The authority for the attribution to Jones of other buildings, such as the enlargement of Somerset House, the chirurgeon’s theatre, and King Charles’s block at Greenwich, rests upon the Worcester College and Burlington-Devonshire drawings, but these buildings should more properly be credited to Webb, by whose hand they were drawn.

FIG. 29.--ELEVATION OF COLESHILL.]

The largest design by far which has hitherto been ascribed to Jones is that for the great palace at Whitehall, but it will be presently shown that the ascription is wrong, and that here also the chief credit ought to be given to John Webb.

But although in the interests of historical accuracy it is necessary to throw doubt upon much of the work with which Inigo Jones has been credited, what remains is sufficient to establish his fame, and it is beyond controversy that he was regarded as the “Vitruvius of his age.” What he undoubtedly did was to introduce into England a refined and scholarly rendering of that Italian manner at which all designers had been aiming for half a century. As Webb says in addressing Dr Charleton, “I must tell you that what was truly meant by the Art of Design was scarcely known in this kingdom, until he, under the protection of his late Sacred Majesty, and that famous Mœcenas of Arts, the Right Honourable Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey, brought it in use and esteem among us here.” We can also agree with him when he says that “Mr. Jones was generally learned, eminent for Architecture, a great geometrician, and in designing with his pen (as Sir Anthony Vandike used to say) not to be equalled by whatever great masters in his time, for boldness, softness, sweetness, and sureness of his touches.”[19] Of the buildings ascribed by Webb to Inigo Jones there remain but three--the Banqueting House, St Paul’s, Covent Garden, which has been much altered, and the Queen’s House at Greenwich, which was begun in 1619 and finished in 1635. It is quite as far removed as the Banqueting House from the traditional type of English design. It is essentially Italian both in plan and elevation (Figs. 25–27), and it indicates how completely Inigo Jones had departed from the old ways. The original drawings for the house itself have not been preserved, but there exist several sketches by Jones’s hand of chimney-pieces and other details connected with it.[20]

Another house attributed to Jones on fairly good evidence is Coleshill, in Berkshire, which stands on a steep hillside facing westwards across the valley to Highworth. It is a striking embodiment of that cultivated manner in architecture which was begun by Jones, continued by Webb, and was destined gradually to supersede the traditional methods of the countryside. Although thoroughly English in feeling it could never have been devised without an intimate knowledge of Italian detail. It is simple, dignified, and regular, depending for its effect upon nice proportion and skilful detail, not at all upon picturesque variety or broken grouping. It is a plain oblong in plan, without wings or projections (Fig. 28); it is lofty in elevation, without gables or even a pediment (Fig. 29); the corners are emphasised with bold quoins, the roof springs from a widely projecting cornice, and is crowned with a stout balustrade surrounding a spacious lead-covered flat, out of which rises a large central cupola. The slopes of the roof are diversified with dormers; the massive chimney-stacks are accurately and symmetrically placed, each answering to each. There is nothing about it haphazard or unexpected, nothing quaint or piquant; everything is correct, regular, and stately. It cannot, however, be deemed, like Tennyson’s Maud,

“Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,”

for its effect is both striking and attractive; it is noble without being oppressively grand.

The simplicity of the exterior arises from the simplicity of the plan. The ground floor, which is mainly occupied by the reception rooms and the great staircase, is raised high above the ground, thus leaving space for the windows of the basement, which is devoted to the kitchens and servants’ quarters. The upper floor contains the grand saloon and bedrooms; in the roof are commodious attics; a staircase in the cupola leads on to the flat roof, whence fine views are obtained of the distant Marlborough Downs.

Although the house is of considerable size, the accommodation is not ample in proportion; the bedrooms are large and lofty, but few in number. Homeliness is somewhat sacrificed to stateliness. It is inevitable that these fine, regular houses should have the defects of their qualities.

The plan is as different from the traditional plan of English houses as are those in Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” a collection which will be dealt with more particularly later on. There is no great hall connecting the parlours with the kitchens, and serving itself as one of the chief living-rooms. The servants are relegated to the basement, the whole of the ground floor is given up to the family, the hall is more of a vestibule than a living-room. In former times the staircase, although often handsomely treated, consisted of a single series of flights occupying a compact space. At Coleshill a vast hall is devoted to the staircase, or rather to two staircases, each equally eligible, starting from the same place and terminating at either end of the same landing (Fig. 30).

Although the servants were sent half underground, some of the stateliness followed them, and the approach to the back door is flanked by two massive pillars, each of which contains a coved niche.

The building is attributed to Inigo Jones on the testimony of a tablet in the house, and its date, according to the same authority, is 1650. In the absence of any other evidence this assertion, although not contemporaneous with the building, may be accepted;[21] but it should be remembered that Jones died in 1652, and that the last years of his life, or almost the last, were spent in the turmoil of the Civil War. So much did the unrest disturb his life that he appointed John Webb to be his deputy in the office of surveyor of the works.[22] In any case it must have been either Jones or Webb who designed Coleshill, for there was nobody else who had at that time received the training necessary to produce it.

There are several fine ceilings (Fig. 31) wrought in Jones’s bold fashion, which was as different from that which produced the busy and slender patterns of Elizabethan work, as was the general treatment of plan and elevation from that of an Elizabethan mansion. It is interesting to find one of the smaller rooms panelled in an earlier style, Jacobean in character, with panelling designed for its position, not imported from elsewhere; and as it is difficult to suppose that Jones would have departed from his usual manner in this particular case, it is probable that the room was left to the unaided skill of some local craftsman, who relied on his own traditions.

Of Jones’s connection with Raynham Park, in Norfolk (Figs. 32, 33), there is no evidence beyond tradition and the style of the work itself; but much of this has touches about it which are quite in his manner. There are indications that the house was built at two periods, and these make it difficult to attribute the whole work to one designer. But the treatment of the front, with its two wings of decided though slight projection, and its rather heavily-curved gables, serves to make it a connecting link between the old and the new styles. The date of this house is generally stated to be 1636, but further investigation is required in order to arrive at its true history, and to account for the two periods of building.

At Wilton, in Wiltshire, is some of the finest of Jones’s internal work, and his connection with this house is established by a series of designs for the ceilings preserved among the Worcester College drawings. The south front, of which there is a sketch in the R.I.B.A. collection, would hardly have served to make his reputation, but the splendid suite of state rooms is unrivalled in any English house. One of these is a double cube, being 60 ft. by 30 ft. by 30 ft. high, and another is a single cube of 30 ft. The double cube, with its stately panelling filled with Vandyke’s portraits of the family, deserves its reputation as the finest room in the country (Fig. 34). A plain, double cube of these dimensions would be unpleasantly lofty (as may be realised by visiting one at St James’s Palace), but here at Wilton the great height is lessened to the eye by the introduction of a large cove which springs from a bold cornice some 9 ft. below the ceiling, thus reducing the height of the walls to 21 ft.

The double cube and such precise proportions were quite new in English architecture; so also were the careful proportions of the windows and their relation to the wall space, the pervading refinement of the mouldings, and the simplicity (almost amounting to baldness in some cases) of the general treatment. These factors inevitably influenced the plan of the house, which became much less elastic than of old, and less adaptable to the wants of English life. They tended towards the glorification of the house at the expense of its inhabitants and to subordinate household comfort to architecture.

A small but admirable piece of work which may safely be assigned to Jones is the water-gate of York House (Fig. 35). Its present rather forlorn situation at the bottom of Buckingham Street, Strand, gives no indication that it was an adjunct of the town house of the princely Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the “Steenie” of Charles I. York House, for so the place was called, had belonged to the Archbishops of York, but when it came into the hands of Buckingham, he pulled it down and built a large and temporary structure, apparently for the purpose of using it for state occasions. Within its walls he housed a magnificent collection of pictures and other works of art, purchased from Rubens.[23] Gerbier (who will be mentioned again later) was employed by the duke to design some of the new work at York House, and hence the water-gate has been attributed to him. But the fact that a drawing of it by Webb is included among the “Inigo Jones” drawings precludes this idea, for it is hard to imagine either Jones or Webb condescending to delineate any work of Gerbier’s. Apart from this it is improbable that Gerbier could have designed anything so good. That excellent mason and sculptor, Nicholas Stone, was employed upon its execution, and he put in a claim to the design, but Webb’s drawing is a sufficient answer to this pretension also.

York House was sold in 1672 by the second duke, the “chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon” of Dryden, to a syndicate who pulled down the house, and covered the site with new buildings, leaving the water-gate as practically the sole relic of the old palace. Its appearance, backed by its newer neighbours, is well indicated in a drawing by Thomas Sandby, made about 1760 (reproduced as the frontispiece).

Inigo Jones died in June 1652.[24] His will is dated the 22nd July 1650, when he was “aged seaventy-seaven yeares.” He left in specified sums the amount of £4,150, and he bequeathed the debt owing to him from the late king and queen, of which the amount is not stated, in equal shares to his executor, John Webb, and one Richard Gammon, a carpenter, after deducting £50 for the paymaster of the works payable within a month after the discharge of the debt. He disposes of one half of his wearing apparel, but does not mention the other half, nor does he dispose of the residue of his estate. He mentions no collection of drawings (as did John Webb) nor any books. On the face of it he can hardly be considered a wealthy man at his death. A really exhaustive account of his life has yet to be written; one which shall be free from the undemonstrable attribution of work to him; free from baseless eulogy on the one hand and detraction on the other; one which shall fairly balance tradition and evidence; which shall take account of him as an artist and scene-painter, as a surveyor dealing from day to day with prosaic details, and as an architectural designer. It has been no part of the present purpose to enter minutely into these particulars; it was outside the scope of this work to marshal all the evidence for or against his authorship of every building with which he has been credited. The aim has been to indicate the general influence he had upon English architecture, particularly in respect of house design.

He was the most notable figure that had hitherto appeared upon the stage of English architecture, the most refined and scholarly, with an exquisite sense of proportion. He was at heart an artist, just as Wren was at heart a man of science.

From the Chatsworth Collection, by kind permission of the Duke of
Devonshire.]

IV

THE DRAWINGS OF INIGO JONES AND JOHN WEBB

WEBB’S OWN WORK

Reference has been made more than once to the design for an immense palace at Whitehall. The drawings for this, which are, most of them, preserved at Worcester College, Oxford, were first introduced to the public by William Kent, the architect, in the year 1727, under the title of “Designs of Inigo Jones.” There are two volumes of this book, the first occupied chiefly with the great palace; the second with miscellaneous designs, principally houses. The drawings used by Kent were in the possession of Lord Burlington, the well-known dilettante; at any rate, some of them were, while others seem to have belonged to Dr. Clarke of All Souls College, Oxford, who subsequently left them to Worcester College.

The history of the drawings is not altogether free from obscurity, but it appears to be as follows. John Webb had in his possession a large number of drawings, mostly done by himself, but including some by his old master, Inigo Jones. At his death in 1672 Webb left all his “library and books, and all his prints and cuts and drawings of architecture” to his son William, with strict injunctions that they were to be kept together.[25] This injunction was not respected, and it is said that the widow of William Webb disposed of the collection. John Aubrey, writing between 1669 and 1696, says that “Mr. Oliver, the City Surveyor, hath all his [Jones’s] papers and designs, not only of St Paul’s Cathedral, etc., and the Banqueting House, but his designs of all Whitehall suitable to the Banqueting House; a rare thing, which see.”[26] It is almost certain that the drawings mentioned by Aubrey were those left to William Webb by his father, for it is extremely unlikely that there would have been two collections of the kind. There is no record of how Mr. Oliver obtained them, nor of how he disposed of them; the next thing that is known is that Lord Burlington had acquired the larger half and Dr. Clarke the smaller, but in some respects the more important. Lord Burlington’s portion descended to the Dukes of Devonshire, and the seventh duke made a gift of a great part to the Royal Institute of British Architects, in whose library they are preserved. Some, however, he retained at Chatsworth, including a series entitled “Designs for Whitehall,” which are, as a matter of fact, mostly preliminary sketches by Webb for the various versions of the great palace; and a large number of designs by Jones for the scenery, setting, and costumes of masques, as well as some by Webb. Dr. Clarke bequeathed his portion to Worcester College, Oxford, on his death in 1736. It is practically certain that the Burlington collection and that at Worcester College were originally one collection, inasmuch as each contains drawings which supplement some of those in the other. At Worcester College are the “designs for all Whitehall suitable to the Banqueting House,” together with a large number of miscellaneous drawings. At Chatsworth are designs of the Banqueting House itself, together with many preliminary drawings for the palace at Whitehall. At the Royal Institute of British Architects is a drawing of the west front of St Paul’s, together with many others, notably those of the King Charles block at Greenwich, and almost the whole series which Kent used for his second volume of “Designs of Inigo Jones.”

Besides these drawings there are yet others attributed to Jones at the British Museum. Some of these are the originals of the design for Whitehall Palace published by Campbell in his “Vitruvius Britannicus,” which is quite different from that published by Kent. Others are sketches of figures and drapery undoubtedly drawn by Jones. The drawings used by Campbell were in 1717 in the possession of William Emmett, of Bromley, an architect, but it is not known how he became possessed of them, nor whether they once formed part of Webb’s collection, but their style links them up with the rest of the drawings of the palace.[27]

The whole of these drawings have until quite recently been regarded as the work of Jones himself. Aubrey mentions them as his; Kent published many of them as his; Campbell attributed to him those which he used, presumably on the authority of Emmett. All subsequent writers have taken the authorship for granted, although some have agreed that Jones’s hand is not visible in the finished designs of the palace, preserved at Worcester College. This acquiescence in established opinion is not surprising. The drawings had not been thoroughly examined and catalogued, and in particular those at one library had not been collated with those at the others. But when recently the various collections came to be catalogued and definitely arranged, when, by the aid of photographs, they were brought together and compared one with another, very interesting results were obtained. It soon became easy to differentiate between Jones’s draughtsmanship and Webb’s. The result was that it became apparent that nearly the whole of the drawings should be assigned to Webb and very few to Jones. Nor would logic allow a halt to be called there, and suffer us to say that Webb may have been the draughtsman, but Jones was still the designer. For many of the drawings are sketches with notes in Webb’s writing, which go to show how he developed his ideas as he went along. It would be impossible in the space at command to indicate fully which drawings are by Jones, which are by Webb inspired by Jones, and which are of Webb’s own design. But in the latter category the evidence constrains us to place the designs for the palace at Whitehall, the designs in the second volume of Kent, and those for King Charles’s block at Greenwich.[28]

Although the pursuit of truth compels us to credit Webb rather than Jones with the bulk of the designs in both of Kent’s volumes, admirers of the great master will probably not only survive the shock, but will eventually be grateful to find that the indifferent pieces of design which mar many of those excellent conceptions need not be attributed to him.

It would be impossible to pursue the subject fully here, but the branch of it which refers to the palace of Whitehall is sufficiently curious to justify a brief account.

The generally received opinion was that two designs were prepared for the palace, one of which was published by Campbell in 1722, and the other by Kent in 1727. Authorities have differed as to which was the earlier to be devised, but both are attributed to Jones. Both designs include the well-known Banqueting House, and it has been taken for granted that they must have been designed before that building was erected. The date of its erection is on record. It was begun on 1st June 1619, and completed in March 1622. The assumption, therefore, was that James I. contemplated either the vast palace illustrated by Kent, or the smaller version of Campbell, but that the only portion actually built was the Banqueting House.

As a matter of fact, James can have had nothing to do with either of these designs. Campbell states that the design which he published was submitted to Charles I. by Inigo Jones in 1639. The accuracy of this statement has been questioned, but it was evidently made on the authority of a formal inscription written by Emmett on one of the drawings. If true, it disposes of the idea that this design was made prior to the building of the Banqueting House. But that idea is in any case not tenable, for the Banqueting House was built to replace an older building which was burnt down in January 1619; it was built immediately after that catastrophe, and built on the same site. As only some three months elapsed between the destruction of the old building and the completion of the design for the new one, any idea of the conception of so vast a scheme as the new palace in that space of time must be abandoned. Moreover, there are preserved at Chatsworth Jones’s own drawings for the new Banqueting House, which is there shown as an isolated structure (Figs. 36, 37). Further, although the accounts for the new Banqueting House are preserved, together with a detailed description of it, and a record of a payment to Inigo Jones for the “model” of it, there is no mention of any other buildings in connection with it, contemplated or otherwise. Nor is there any contemporary reference to the projected palace of any kind until the one presently to be mentioned.

In the Smithson collection there is an interesting drawing which shows a plan of the old Banqueting House previous to its destruction, and an elevation of the ground story of the new Banqueting House (Fig. 38). They are obviously not drawn to the same scale, inasmuch as the new building was 100 ft. long as against 120 ft. for the old. The fact that Smithson thought it worth while to draw the ground story, so far as then built, suggests that he was struck by its novel treatment. The rusticated stonework, the flat arched openings, and the unmoulded plinth and stringcourse were unfamiliar features.

From the Chatsworth Collection.]

FIG. 38.--Plan of the Old Banqueting House which was
burnt down. Below is an Elevation of “The First Storye of the
Newe Banketinge house.”

From the Smithson Collection.]

There is so far nothing to connect Jones with the designs for the palace, as distinguished from the Banqueting House, except the assumption of Kent and Campbell. An examination of the various drawings serves further to dissociate him from them. At Worcester College are the finished drawings for the scheme published by Kent: but in addition to those which he used are others which have not hitherto been elucidated; some of them are, in fact, the elevations and sections of a different scheme, while one is the isolated plan of a third. The key to this part of the puzzle lies at Chatsworth in the shape of the collection of drawings and sketches, bound together and entitled “Designs for Whitehall.” These turn out to be almost entirely the work of Webb, among them being, however, the drawings of the Banqueting House by Jones himself. The drawings by Webb are the preliminary sketches for the finished set at Worcester College, as well as some for yet other schemes, and among them are the elevations, as well as a plan, corresponding to the isolated plan at Worcester College. The writing and the drawing, the thumb-nail sketches, the alterations, variations, and corrections all go to show that here we have the inception of several schemes, all by Webb, the ultimate outcome of which was the well-known design published some eighty years afterwards by Kent.

There are, in fact, not two, but at least seven different schemes for the palace, more or less worked out. Of these two are by Webb, and are preliminary to the third, which was published by Kent; a fourth is a variant of the third; the fifth and sixth are undoubtedly by Webb; the seventh is the British Museum design published by Campbell.

The conclusion forced upon the inquirer by a prolonged examination of the drawings--that Webb was the real author of the designs for the palace--is curiously confirmed by a document preserved in the “State Papers,” an important passage in which has hitherto escaped the attention it deserves. This is a petition, signed by Webb, presented soon after the restoration of Charles II., wherein he seeks the office of surveyor of the king’s works, which was about to be bestowed upon Mr. Denham, afterwards Sir John.[29] The whole document is interesting, but is too long to quote in its entirety. In the petition itself, Webb says that he was by the especial command of “your Majesty’s Royal Father of ever blessed memory brought up by Inigo Jones, Esq., your Majesty’s late surveyor of the works, in the study of architecture, for enabling him to do your Royal Father and your Majesty service in the said office. In order whereunto he was by Mr. Jones, upon leaving his house at the beginning of the late unhappy war, appointed his Deputy to execute the said place in his absence, which your petitioner did, until by a Committee of Parliament in the year 1643 he was thrust out.” He then goes on to say that in preparing the royal houses for His Majesty’s reception he has engaged his own credit to the amount of £8,140. 5s. 4d., of which he has only received £500, and prays the king to “settle upon him the surveyor’s office of your majesty’s work, whereunto your Royal Father assigned him, and to that end only ordered his education.” In the “Brief of Mr. Webb’s Case,” attached to the petition, occurs the remarkable piece of testimony alluded to: “That he was Mr. Jones’s Deputy and in actual possession of the office upon his leaving London, and attended his Majesty in that capacity at Hampton Court and at the Isle of Wight, where he received his majesty’s command to design a palace for Whitehall, which he did until his majesty’s unfortunate calamity caused him to desist.”

This striking statement supplies an explanation of the whole intricate series of drawings, including those at the British Museum. It is the culminating proof that they were the work of Webb and not of Jones. It accounts for the absence of any reference in earlier documents to a project which would have been vast enough to attract much attention in court circles had it been in contemplation; and indeed it goes to show that the project never had any real vitality, but was merely an exercise on paper. Incidentally, it illustrates the inability of Charles I. to perceive the real trend of events, for he gave instructions for this huge palace when already the shadow of death had almost enveloped him.

Webb’s petition did not serve to divert the gift of the coveted office from Denham to himself, but it may have suggested to Charles II. the idea of resuscitating the project of a palace at Whitehall; for there is a block plan by Webb of a scheme differing from all the others, dated 17th October 1661, and there are notes in Webb’s hand on some of the drawings which show that he submitted to the second Charles some of the designs which he had prepared for the first, and that they were “taken,” or accepted. It is certain that Charles II. did entertain for a time the idea of rebuilding the palace, for Evelyn relates, under the date 27th October 1664, that being at Whitehall, the king took him aside into a window recess, and having borrowed from him a pencil and paper, proceeded to draw, using the window-sill as a table, a plan for the projected palace, with the rooms of state and other particulars. But in Webb’s case, as in so many others, the bright hopes inspired by the Restoration were overclouded; the projected palace went no further than to be a design on paper; the surveyorship was given to Denham, and on his death, in spite of a promise of its reversion, Webb suffered the mortification of seeing the young and wholly inexperienced Wren, who was at that time not even an architect, passed over his head.

With regard to the design of the palace much has been written in praise, something in dispraise. Nearly all that has been said has been founded upon Kent’s version. The vastness of the scheme and the belief that Jones devised it have acted and reacted upon each other in stimulating admiration. Had the project been of ordinary dimensions, or had not Jones been credited with it, it is conceivable that less eulogistic language might have been employed.

From the Worcester College Collection.

This is the plan utilised by Kent, but reversed by him in the
printing of it. The Charing Cross front is at the top, the
Westminster front at the bottom, the River front on the right,
the Park front on the left. The Banqueting House, then already
built, was to have been incorporated in the scheme. It lies
between the large court and the small court in the right-hand
bottom corner.]

From the Chatsworth Collection, by kind permission of the Duke of
Devonshire.]

The scheme, however, is truly remarkable.[30] It is of vast size; the buildings and courts would have covered an area of some 23 acres (Fig. 39). They would have extended from the Charity Commission’s offices, south of the Banqueting House, to within a hundred feet of Craig’s Court on the north; and from Whitehall Court on the east, right across the Horse Guards parade and up to the enclosure of the park on the west. They are skilfully disposed, with great architectural magnificence. The noble Banqueting House was to be incorporated, but it was to be one of the minor features. There were to be seven courts; the largest, in the middle of the building, was 732 ft. long by 370 ft. wide; the four corner courts, each 280 ft. by 180 ft.; one of the courts was to be circular, 220 ft. in diameter, and its columns were to be fashioned in the likeness of venerable men in flowing draperies, called Persians, as distinguished from the female figures which, fulfilling a similar purpose, were called Caryatides.

All these particulars can be gathered from Kent’s published version. He gives plans, elevations, and sections, but he gives no internal features save the insignificant matters inherent in the sections. Webb’s drawings, on the other hand, include not only sketches for the general plan and for detailed portions of it, not only sketches for external features, and among them several alternatives for the Persians, but also the working out of lobbies, staircases, chapels and the like (Figs. 40, 41). It is true that these details are part of one of the preliminary schemes, but they show how seriously he took his work, and how thoroughly he had mastered the details of classic design. These sketches are unmistakably Webb’s; there are none by Jones relating to the designing of the palace. It is interesting to compare Webb’s large plan for Whitehall with Philibert de l’Orme’s plan for the Tuileries, which has two oval courts set within larger ones. Webb may have got his idea of the circular Persian court from this source, and indeed the whole plan may have been a help to him, possibly; but his scheme is far larger and more elaborate than De l’Orme’s and is treated in a different style.

The appearance which the building would have presented from the river is well shown in Thomas Sandby’s drawing (Fig. 1), hitherto unknown. The view is supposed to have been taken from the gardens of old Somerset House previous, of course, to the erection of Waterloo Bridge. It is the most poetic rendering of the great scheme which has been attempted. It is founded on the version published by Kent, so far as the river front is concerned, and on one of the other seven designs in respect of the front facing to the right of the spectator. On the original drawings this front is considerably longer than Sandby makes it, the lower portion being more than half as long again; a good idea may thus be obtained of the magnitude of the conception.

Admitting to the full the great skill and knowledge which the designs display and which prove that Webb was not unworthy of the august influence which placed him under the tuition of Inigo Jones, it is nevertheless no great matter for regret that the palace was never built. It can hardly be held that the complete design maintains the high standard of the Banqueting House. Much of it indeed verges on the commonplace. So vast a building would have been a burden on any monarch; it would inevitably have fallen from its high estate, and would probably have drifted to being put to such ignoble uses as was the much smaller palace of the Louvre in Paris. If fate had been less relentless it might eventually have been devoted to some public use for which it was ill-contrived--public offices or a museum. Architecture, although apparently the most permanent of all the arts, suffers most from change. Buildings may remain, but the uses for which they were designed either cease or are so modified that the buildings become unsuitable. Then follows degradation, decay, or even destruction: at the luckiest, a diversion from the original purpose. The Banqueting House itself is a case in point; for who among those who inspect the interesting collection it now contains have any notion of why it was built, or can picture, even faintly, the scenes enacted within its walls?

From the Chatsworth Collection.]

From the Burlington-Devonshire Collection at the Royal Institute
of British Architects.]

In addition to the direct evidence which goes to show that Jones was not the designer of the palace at Whitehall, there is the evidence of such architectural drawings as are either actually signed by him, or such as can almost certainly be attributed to him. All told, these amount to comparatively few, and they exhibit curious inconsistencies. Some are almost puerile, although drawn when he was mature in years. Others (and these are more numerous) are strong, simple, and noble, full of restraint, and depending chiefly upon proportion for their effect (Fig. 42). They are large in scale, and are mainly drawn with a free hand. Indeed it is characteristic of Jones to draw to a large scale and with little aid from instruments. He appears to have been impatient of petty details, and it is extremely doubtful whether he could have brought his wide-sweeping hand down to the working out of a complicated plan on the small scale actually employed in the Whitehall drawings.[31]

In the collections of earlier date, John Thorpe’s and Smithson’s, the bulk of the drawings may safely be attributed to Thorpe and Smithson respectively; which makes the absence of drawings by Jones all the more remarkable. And it must be remembered that although there are few architectural drawings by him there are many of other kinds, notably of the scenery for masques and of the human figure.[32] Indeed, to judge only by his drawings one would regard him as a painter rather than an architect. His surviving architectural drawings may be reckoned by dozens; those for masques, figure studies, and drapery by hundreds. His figure studies and drapery are executed with great vigour and a masterly touch. His sketches for the numerous masques, of which he designed the setting, are spontaneous and bold (Fig. 43). Many of them have an architectural character, and, needless to say, the architecture is always classic in style. There is one, however, which represents a scene near London; the wings are composed of old houses, the backcloth is a distant view of London itself with old St Paul’s as the principal feature.[33] It is interesting to see that the houses in the foreground are Jacobean in treatment, yet Jacobean with a larger infusion of classic detail than houses of the period actually exhibited. The artist’s hand instinctively sought a classic expression.

From the Burlington-Devonshire Collection at the R.I.B.A.]

Jones, indeed, designed most of the masques presented at court during the reigns of James I. and his son, and collaborated with several of the different poets who wrote the words of these fanciful plays; with Ben Jonson, Samuel Daniell, Thomas Campion, George Chapman, and Aurelian Townshend. One of his efforts was less successful than could have been wished, although it was for an occasion when expectation was particularly high--the masque on Twelfth Night 1618, when the prince was to take a part for the first time. Gossiping letters dubbed it poor, said that Inigo Jones had lost reputation, and that it was indeed so dull that the poet, Ben Jonson, ought to return to his old trade of brick making.[34]

But in spite of the gossips Jones was a skilful scene-painter, and owed much of his facility in the art to the months he had spent in Italy conversing, as he says, with the great masters in design. To him we owe the first introduction of movable scenery into English theatres. He was also a practical surveyor of some ability; already in 1613 he had been appointed surveyor of his majesty’s works, and although in those days it was not necessarily a practical man who was appointed to such a post, yet a clever man, even if ill-equipped at first, would soon acquire experience. The State Papers show that he was kept busy with the duties of his office, duties which included many matters of dull routine. It is perhaps worthy of note that in matters requiring detailed reports and estimates he was generally commissioned along with one or two others who may (or may not) have had more practical knowledge than himself. It is also interesting to find that in several cases where repairs or alterations were under consideration, special stress was laid in the reports upon the probable result on the beauty of the buildings they affected. This particular and uncommon touch may certainly be credited to Jones.

In order fully to understand the subject of the so-called Inigo Jones drawings and their influence on English architecture, it will be advisable to set out again what and where they are.

Firstly, there are those for the palace at Whitehall. Of these the finished designs, utilised by Kent, are at Worcester College, Oxford, and the preliminary drawings are at Chatsworth. These, as already shown, must be credited to Webb. There is also at the British Museum another and much scantier set, utilised by Campbell.

Secondly, there are at Worcester College a number of miscellaneous drawings, mostly by Webb, but including a few by Jones.