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.
Fig. 37.—Drawing by Inigo Jones for the Banqueting House, Whitehall. A preliminary sketch, subsequently modified. The annexes were omitted.
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.