The great monuments of English Gothic architecture are to be found in ecclesiastical buildings; those of the succeeding phase are domestic in character. The change of thought in religious matters, which was proceeding all through the sixteenth century, was not favourable to church building, and after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. no more churches were built. But the new nobility, rich with the spoils of the dissolved houses and the traffic of the Indies, had acquired a taste for grandeur and dignity in outward life that required great mansions for its display. It is therefore primarily in the Elizabethan mansion that we must watch the contest between the old style and the new—a contest rendered more piquant by the fact that the new style had no experience of this particular kind of building in the land of its origin. The English house had developed on lines widely different from the Italian; it had to meet other wants, it had to contend with a different climate, it was subject to other traditions. The new style when it came, had to harmonize these strange traditions as well as its own, derived from a far distant past, with the original and fertile spirit of the age. The result is one of abiding interest. Almost any of the great houses built in the reign of Elizabeth will show to the casual spectator examples of crudity in detail and imperfect classical proportion, mingled with reminiscences of Gothic notions; but a deeper scrutiny will disclose the fact that in spite of these shortcomings there is a national individuality and sense of genius in the handling of materials sufficient to raise the result to the dignity of a distinct style. Just as the "Faërie Queen" shows a jumble of heathen gods and cardinal virtues, Christian knights and Pagan nymphs, and yet withal is a consummate work of art, so the buildings of the period—
"With many towers, and terrace mounted high,
And all their tops bright glistering with gold,"
in spite of their inconsistencies, have a fertility of fancy, a wealth of ornament, and a simplicity of treatment which raise them to a similar high plane. And just as the literature of the period, as it became more in accordance with rule, lost half its originality and more than half its fascination, so Renaissance Architecture, as it passed from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean, and so to the succeeding phases, became more homogeneous, more scholarly, more true to its classical origin, and yet withal lost vitality in the process. The full meaning of that great century which stretched from the divorce of Henry VIII. to the accession of Charles I. cannot be grasped unless it is always borne in mind that not only was a new style supplanting an old one, but that it was doing so at a time when the originality and richness of men's minds were at their height.
But while in England the new style was winning its way, in Italy it was passing the zenith of its vigour. The continued study of ancient monuments enabled architects to reduce the old methods of design to a system which could be acquired with ease, and architectural design became less a matter of invention than a capacity for adapting new buildings to old rules. In course of time the same state of things established itself in England. The invention of printing brought to the eye of English craftsmen not only plans and pictures of buildings recently erected in foreign lands, but also the rules which celebrated Italian architects had laid down for the proportion of buildings generally—rules founded partly on the study of ancient fabrics and partly on the august authority of Vitruvius. The application of these rules to circumstances and needs which had never been contemplated by their authors was the problem which English designers set themselves to solve. During the earlier years of their attempt they were almost baffled. Then came Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren, and by their commanding genius they made the rules bend to their will; but in the eighteenth century the rules triumphed completely, and, as already said, Italian buildings were copied in England almost line for line. It is the work of the men who were baffled that we are now to examine: work which, judged from the standpoint of their better tutored successors, may almost be regarded as a failure, but work which exhibits a vitality, a fancy, and a sense of romance for which we look in vain in the more correct architecture of the eighteenth century.
It is not surprising that England, in common with the rest of Europe, should have felt the influence of Italy. It is, perhaps, rather a matter for wonder that she should not have felt it earlier; that the architectural Renaissance should have continued for more than a century, and have reached its prime in Italy before it landed on our shores and began to touch the more susceptible places of our English stonework. But Brunelleschi, who crowned the cathedral of Florence with its dome, and reared the Pitti Palace, had been dead seventy years; the delicate sculpture on the façade of the Certosa of Pavia was five-and-twenty years old; and Venice was busy lining her canals with palaces, when Torrigiano brought the first Italian forms to England and applied them to the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey.
But the way had been paved beforehand. For some fifty years it had been the custom of English scholars to repair to Italy to learn the humanities. They returned home familiar, if not in love, with Italian ideas and methods of expression, and if they themselves did nothing outwardly to hasten the impending change, it was their poverty and not their will which consented to inaction. Fine building requires money, and accordingly it is in the work of monarchs, noblemen, and great dignitaries of the Church that we find the first evidences of the Italian invasion. Henry VIII. was the outward and visible, although unconscious, agent who guided the new movement to our shores. His great Cardinal, Wolsey, was not less active in building, but Henry was the royal patron, vying with other monarchs in obtaining the services of distinguished artists to adorn his surroundings. Now most of the distinguished artists at that time were foreigners, hailing chiefly from Italy. There were plenty of excellent English workmen it is true, but it was the fashion to employ Italians. Henry's rival, Francis I. of France, had secured the services of several such men; why not he? So his efforts were frequent, although they met with comparatively small success. Italians were loth to leave their own sunny surroundings, where all men were in sympathy with them and their ways, for the chilly fogs and the barbarous manners of those "beasts of English," as Cellini called them. A few men complied with his requests; of these, Torrigiano was the most celebrated. To him Henry entrusted the making of his father's tomb, discarding the design approved by the dead monarch, and taking the work out of the English hands already engaged upon it. None of the other Italians whose names have been preserved have left any great or permanent mark in the country to which they came unwillingly, and which they left gladly. The other great foreign figure which stands out among those of minor importance is that of a German, Holbein. But though Holbein did much work in England in different branches of art, he left no school, nor can the influence of his manner be traced far, if at all, beyond his death. Names of Italians appear occasionally as being employed by the King, and among them John of Padua occurs most frequently; but no one knows who he was, nor what work he left behind him. His name has often been attached to different buildings, and he has been confused with John Thorpe, but no evidence has yet been adduced actually connecting him with work that still survives. One of the curious and provoking facts about the early years of the Renaissance manner in England is the way in which Italian names elude pursuit. Work which looks as though it must have been done by a foreigner has no name that can be attached to it. Other work, which is almost as foreign in appearance, is found on investigation to be that of an Englishman.
Henry's rivalry with Francis I., his friendship and his feuds with that monarch, seem to have had some effect on architectural ornament, for much that was executed during Henry's lifetime has a French flavour about it. It is curious, indeed, to observe how little hold actual Italian detail obtained upon the fancy of English workmen. It was not direct from Italy that they would take it. The Italians were not liked by the English people at large; protests were raised by the more thoughtful against the Italianizing of our young nobles. The popular conception of the subtle Italian was embodied by Shakespeare in Iachimo and the more infernal Iago. What Italian detail we find in Henry VIII.'s time is chiefly superficial ornament, and even that is by no means of universal application. It is to be found up and down the country in considerable quantity, but side by side with work which is still thoroughly Gothic in character. Islip, the Abbot of Westminster, who laid the foundation stone of Henry VII.'s chapel, and who saw the erection of that monarch's tomb—the great central feature for which the chapel was built—was not sufficiently enamoured of the new ornament to cause his own tomb to be of the same character. On the contrary, the screen which encloses his chapel is free from any touch of actual Renaissance detail, although erected some fifteen years after Henry VII.'s tomb.
It was through Dutch and German channels that the Italian manner came to stay. This was the result partly of ties of race and religion, partly of commercial intercourse, and partly of the general imitation of Dutch methods which prevailed in England during the latter half of the sixteenth century. In commercial and political as well as naval and military matters this imitation is well known to students of that period. The character of Renaissance work in England during Henry VIII.'s time inclined to Italian and the French version of Italian. After his death it inclined towards the Dutch version. In both cases it was strongly infused with English feeling; but there is this difference, that whereas the earlier phase ended abruptly, no merging of it into the latter being traceable, the second phase can be followed step by step into the pronounced Italian of Inigo Jones's mature manner. We can see how some features were dropped and others acquired, until, by the double process of shedding and assimilation, the style of Burghley House glides imperceptibly into that of the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall.