The English Home from Charles I. to George IV. / Its Architecture, Decoration and Garden Design

by J. Alfred Gotch

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.

Fig. 39.—PLAN FOR THE PALACE AT WHITEHALL.

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.