By S. Scott (about 1710-1772). Lent by Mr. E. C. Grenfell.
96 [WHITEHALL FROM ST. JAMES’S PARK.] Plate XLIII.
Oil picture. 60½ by 37 in.
This picture represents much the same subject as [No. 89], though it takes in less ground to the north or left, but from variations in buildings is evidently some years earlier. The Banqueting House appears, and near it on right the Holbein Gate is partly visible. Figures are emerging from a great staircase which communicated with a passage over this gate. In an article by the late Sir Reginald Palgrave, K.C.B., we are told (on the authority of the Sydney papers) that Philip, 4th Earl of Pembroke, on the day of Charles I’s execution, “out of his chamber” (in the Cockpit part of Whitehall) “looked upon the King as he went up those stairs from the Park to the gallery on the way to the place of his death.” Hard by, to left of staircase, is a doorway to passage through the Tiltyard. To right of staircase is a long gallery dating from Henry VIII’s time. Farther to right is a two-storied building which appears in Fisher’s plan as part of the Duke of Albemarle’s lodgings. Vertue’s copy of this plan is dated 1680, but Mr. Spiers gave good reasons for believing that it was drawn before 1670.
The battlemented structure behind, with buttresses, mullioned windows, and turrets at the angles (mentioned in [note on No. 89]), was to north of passage from Whitehall to the Cockpit, now known as Treasury Passage. In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for 1816 it is described as part of the palace built by Cardinal Wolsey, and other writers have called it “Wolsey’s Treasury.” Contemporary evidence, however, is lacking to prove that any part of Wolsey’s “York Place” stood west of the thoroughfare that led from Charing Cross, the land on the Park side having apparently been conveyed to Henry VIII by the Abbot of Westminster in 1532. The material of this important building was brick and stone. Its external character and the ground plan suggest a hall, but whatever its origin it was undoubtedly used as a tennis court by Henry VIII. Being perhaps of inconvenient shape for the later developments of the game, and Charles II having built himself a tennis court farther south, floors were inserted in 1664, and it became the Duke of Monmouth’s lodging. What remained of it in the early nineteenth century was finally swept away to make room for Soane’s Council Office as completed by Barry.
The next building in front is the Tudor Cockpit, with its octagonal roof still intact. For years it had not served its original purpose, but gave the name to a group of lodgings in which it was evidently included. The Earl of Pembroke, as we have pointed out, was living there at the time of the execution of Charles I, after which Oliver Cromwell took possession of these lodgings, and it was probably in the veritable Cockpit that music was performed during his protectorate. There also plays were acted both in the time of Charles I and after the Restoration. Just before that event the lodgings were assigned to George Monck, who became Duke of Albemarle, and in Fisher’s plan it is marked as part of his lodgings. As mentioned in describing [No. 89], between the dates of the two pictures this architectural relic was obliterated by a brick building, which in turn gave way to Kent’s Treasury. Until about 1806, the word Cockpit was applied to a famous but elusive political centre included in the Treasury and more or less on the site of Henry VIII’s building. Lord Welby thought that the style “Treasury Chambers Cockpit” was known much later. The passage from Whitehall to the Treasury is partly lighted on the north side by a large window with mullions and transom, and on the south there is a two-light window of similar date. Both are involved externally in Tudor brickwork. On the ground floor a Tudor doorway survives, and all these must have been in the casing of the original passage that led to the Cockpit. As mistakes are frequent on the subject we will add that “Cockpit Steps” leading from Birdcage Walk into Dartmouth Street have no historical connection with Whitehall. They adjoined a later Cockpit surmounted by a cupola, which is marked in a map belonging to Strype’s Stow 1720, and was taken down in 1816. There was also a “Royal Cockpit” in Tufton Street, Westminster, described in the “London Magazine,” November 1822, and in the “Every Night Book” as late as 1827, which was probably the last in London.
To right of the Tudor Cockpit is a house with tiled roof and dormer windows, apparently that portion of the Prime Minister’s official residence adjoining the Treasury and facing the garden, for although much altered, the points of resemblance are strong. In vol. ii of the Lond. Top. Soc. “Record,” Mr. Spiers attributed the design of this building to Wren on account of a ground plan doubtless representing it, signed by him with the addition of the letters “Sr Gll” and date 1677; but the present writer is of opinion that it already existed at the time, and, being on Crown land, that Wren merely signed the plan as Surveyor General. In the “Record” a plan by Sir John Soane is also given, showing his additions and alterations made in 1825. That part of No. 10 containing the entrance from the roadway does not belong to the original structure, although they are linked together by passages. It forms one block with No. 11, and from the style of the pair they cannot have been built much before the middle of the eighteenth century, when they appear in views by J. Maurer, partly occupying the site of the building with gable and low tower, shown in our picture to the extreme right. On this subject the late Mr. C. Eyre Pascoe in his volume entitled “No. 10 Downing Street” was misinformed.
In studying these old pictures it must always be borne in mind that artists attached small importance to rigid accuracy; while fairly correct as regards the main buildings they omitted and arranged with the object of making an agreeable pattern. The trees in [Nos. 89] and 96 differ completely, and in the latter the head of the ornamental canal, formed soon after the Restoration, has been introduced out of its place, quite near to the Cockpit. By it are deer, and it is covered with waterfowl. On the bank is a copy in bronze of the Borghese statue of a gladiator, executed at Rome by Hubert Le Sœur, removed by Queen Anne to Hampton Court, and by George IV to Windsor. On the left King Charles II is taking a walk accompanied by various dogs and a crowd of courtiers. Near the buildings a detachment of soldiers in scarlet uniforms marches to the right. The colour carried at their head agrees with that mentioned by F. Sandwith, Lancaster Herald 1676-89, as the ensign of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Coldstream Guards “from 1670 or thereabout to 1683.” According to his description the ensign was of “blue taffeta with a plain white cross, surmounted by a cross of crimson or a cross of St. George.” Unfortunately on the scale of our engraving neither the monarch nor this ensign are distinctly visible. There is an illustration of the scene in Pennant’s “London” from No. 96 or a replica, and a larger one by S. Mazell. Examples of them are in the Crace Collection, British Museum.
Hendrik Danckerts, or Dankerts, the artist, was born at the Hague about 1630, studied in Italy, and after his return was invited to England by Charles II, who employed him to paint pictures of royal palaces and sea-ports. Walpole speaks of his working in connection with Hollar. James II had various landscapes by him, and Samuel Pepys, who calls him “the great landscape painter,” mentions seeing him in 1668-69 and arranging for views of Whitehall, Hampton Court, Greenwich, and Windsor, to adorn his dining-room panels. Danckerts, who was a Roman Catholic, is said to have left England during the Popish Plot and to have died at Amsterdam soon afterwards. From what precedes we may be sure that the picture was painted between 1670 and about 1677, perhaps not much after the earlier date.
By Hendrick Danckerts (c. 1630-1678). Lent by the Earl of Berkeley.